A Brief Note on Leaving AdeptPlay

This post will be of little to no interest to anyone who doesn’t know me personally, or who hasn’t interacted with me on Adeptplay or the related Discord server. I’m writing it mainly as an explanation to those friends I’ve made on those venues about why I’ll no longer be participating there. Everyone else should probably keep scrolling.

So the AdeptPlay website is Ron Edwards’ project. I respect him because he did have a lot of interesting things to say on the subject of roleplaying, and through dialogue with him and other members of the site I did learn a lot, which helped to improve my gameplay and overall enjoyment of roleplaying.

In the end, though, I had to leave the group behind. Here’s why.

I found Ron’s writing very difficult to understand in general, not just on the website but in his published games as well. Part of that is my fault, at least initially – I brought assumptions based on earlier play to his writing, and misinterpreted his work because of that; that’s on me, and not the author’s fault.

But the other 50% of the problem really was (and is) his writing. Once I eventually understood what he was trying to say, it made sense, but was very difficult to get out of the texts alone.

It seemed like some of the time he spent a lot of effort talking about non-essential things, while giving short shrift to the most critical elements. The text of the game Trollbabe (a great game I have enjoyed, once I understood how to play it) is a good example.

My theory is, this is at least partly because when he writes (this is also true of his spoken presentations as well) he tends to assume a certain specific framework of premises that no one else does. They might seem obvious to him, or he doesn’t think he needs to mention them because he has talked about them a lot before. Either way, in general this framework of assumptions was not obvious to me or most of the people he was talking to.

The same was true even with his responses to questions, which were often vague, somewhat weird, and difficult to follow. I speak as someone with two Master’s degrees who’s used to reading technical and often obscure material.

Now when I took the time to unpack exactly what he had in mind, usually he had something useful and interesting to say at the end of it, but this unpacking involved asking a lot of follow-up questions to figure out just what he meant. That’s fine. We all assume certain things when we try to communicate, or conversation would be impossible. Sometimes there are misunderstandings and we have to ask questions to clear things up. That’s just being human. So far, so good.

The problem was, Ron started to see my attempts to get an understanding of what he was saying as challenging or hostile attacks against him. So my asking questions with the intent of gaining understanding were perceived as somehow aggressive and unkind.

Now I know what my intent was. But it’s important in general to objectively assess whether your actions competently convey your intent, and to correct yourself if not.

So I reviewed what I wrote on the entirety of the website carefully, and except for my very last comment on the site, neither the tone nor the content of anything I wrote could be reasonably construed as aggressive or challenging in a hostile way towards Ron.

I have tried to see things from Ron’s point of view. Most people who didn’t understand Ron were content to stay silent, for one reason or another, so I did ask more questions than average, which might have given the impression of being aggressive. The normal adult thing to do in that case, if Ron thought that, would be to have a dialogue to clarify intent, but this is not something he tried: he basically gaslighted me and just asserted that I was being hostile, with no discussion. However, objectively speaking, there was nothing in the content of what I wrote on the site that was hostile; my questions were what they putatively appeared to be: I asked many questions because I was really interested in comprehending what he was saying and what his position was. I had no evil, hidden intent or nefarious motives.

In the end, Ron insisted on interpreting my questions as my attacking him, and there was nothing I could do to disabuse him of this notion. In our last interaction he concluded he was not able to help me and no longer wanted to answer any of my questions, or accept any of my money in future. Any reasonable person who examines the totality of our interactions on the site would be very hard-pressed to find any evidence for these conclusions. Frankly, I find his behavior here childish and silly. But such is life, no one has to interact with anyone they don’t want to on the internet.

Edwards didn’t ban me from the Adeptplay site, although I guess he might do so now (it doesn’t matter, as I’ll never post on it again, or read it again). I’m choosing to leave it voluntarily. In general the site, and the Discord server, became stressful places to take part in. His treatment of me wasn’t unique (and actually better than what he did to many others); he would often become upset at someone for an innocuous comment, or ban someone immediately for an imagined transgression. It became very difficult to predict what would set Ron off. So every time I would write something, I had to wonder whether it was somehow the wrong thing and would get me banned. And this is coming from me, someone who (as Ron knows) actively promoted and encouraged others to check out his work.

Upon leaving the Discord, I immediately felt a sense of relief and relaxation. It surprises me to realize the amount of stress of “not wanting to upset Ron” I was unconsciously carrying around with me. I feel considerably happier already.

I wish everyone else participating at Adeptplay well, in their gaming and other creative endeavors. Hopefully they will be able to safely tiptoe around that venue without somehow offending Ron. For me though, Ron’s volatility, combined with his paranoid tendency to think I was attacking him, made it too uncomfortable a place to be. My time is better spent in other activities than in vainly trying to persuade someone that I’m not an evil bastard out to get them.

I look forward to continuing to discuss games with anyone interested, on this blog or in other venues. No person is an island, and we need to keep talking to and working with each other to achieve worthwhile things.

Edit: So as I was discussing this situation with a friend, he raised the following thoughts: 

“I hate to say it, but it sounds like you were taken in by a narcissist. The behavior you describe sounds typical, including the explosions over minor comments or criticisms, or in your case just asking questions. Was everything in this group you were in about how his theories are unique and better than anything else out there? Was he like a guru whose wisdom could not be questioned? 

“It sounds a bit like a cult, to be honest. Let me guess: was there a unique vocabulary, or special code words that no outsider would understand? Special ‘wisdom’ that was only available to those inside the group? Would they laugh and demean others outside it, considering themselves superior? Initial friendliness to recruit, followed by strict rules afterward? There you go – us vs. them mentality, authoritarian leadership, emotional abuse, etc.

“Sometimes narcissistic cult leaders will make vague, cryptic statements to make themselves look profound, but when you dig into it there isn’t much there. That’s why they can get upset over innocent questions – they don’t want to be understood, at least not fully, because it would show they’re a fraud, or just not that special. And also they just don’t want to put in the work – they’d rather sit back and be worshipped for their profundity.

“And forget about trying to dialogue with someone like that – everything will always come back to you being the problem and your being deficient in some way. They will never apologize. Be thankful you got out when you did.”

This hit me like a splash of cold water in the face; I’ve had issues with narcissists before, but I simply hadn’t considered this could be what was going on. Whether my friend’s assessment is entirely accurate I don’t know, but clearly I’ll have to think deeply about this for some time. 

Edit 2: Interestingly, shortly after I got that feedback, my sister (who knew nothing about the situation or anyone involved) contacted me to say she had a dream where I was taken in by a pig, that pretended to be nice and would be a valued member on the farm, but then killed and ate me when my back was turned. I am taking this as confirmation that my friend was correct.

What a world…