Let's take a pleasant stroll down memory lane, shall we? Or at least this is MY memory lane, because I've only played in a few games (relatively).
Nilp started his whole "Lynch me!" campaign in WW VII. An enormously surprising strategy to all players, I'm sure, and he got what he wanted first Day. After the game, no one personally attacked him for that (perhaps because he was just an ordo, anyway); on the contrary, a lot of people found it hilarious. In much later games, though, it suddenly became an issue - perhaps because he was something other than an ordo then. But it's his style of play. Should we care if he gets lynched or not, whichever side he might be playing for?
Not to be self-promoting or something, I played a Lhunatic in WW VI, and a far worse one in WW VII. It was funny, or so people told me. Logically I should have earned an early lynching for it, but I stayed alive longer than most (Eomer's strategy at fault here
). A reprise was done in WW XVI, and while that single Day of Lhunacy had somehow affected the game, I wasn't reprimanded for changing styles within the game. Because that's how I wanted to play, and no one really cares.
morm was a crabby wolf in WW XV, and when I tell you he was insulting, I mean he was REALLY insulting. But that was his chosen role - he had to live up to it. He apologized to all players for his in-character insulting comments, which I don't think he really had to do since I doubt anyone was offended by his being in-character.
A few wolves in the past won the game for their side thanks to, as I see it, their style of going unnoticed, whether deliberately or not. malkatoj was busy in real life, she claimed, when she was a wolf in XVI, and she survived because we could, or would, not interrogate her further to find out if she really was a wolf. Some (or perhaps just I) choose to be silent (read: post as little as possible) when lupine for fear of saying something that would incriminate themselves, and there's nothing others can do about that. The game really involves deception, and that kind of gameplay, while quite unfair, falls under it.
Okay, I think I'm straying from my point. It's just this: we've had more than twenty games, counting the Junior ones as well, and we've had a variety of characters to play, some of which required styles that could somehow affect the outcome of the game for ill, particularly - causing confusion, being offensive, etc. But why were odd playing styles tolerated in earlier games, while now they come under heavy scrutiny? Why are things getting more and more serious as the games pass? Why does there seem to be an increasing obsession to win, leading to uncomfortable post-game discussions when one side loses - as should really happen? Come on, we've been at this for over a year now. Perhaps that's the problem: we've been playing this for too long, and as we run out of new things gamewise to fiddle with, we start going after the players themselves. I am not pleased with this, but I'm beginning to think that it might be better to temporarily put the games on hold, hoping that the fires will die down if there's nothing to fuel them for some time.
I don't know if I'm helping at all with this, but I thought maybe it would be nice to remind you how pleasant, however outrageous, the games used to be.