Roles without Play (from Loafstation Archive)

Many of you only got to know me earlier this year, but I’ve been playing Goon since around the start of the pandemic, when I got invited by some close friends of mine while playing Minecraft and talking about Dwarf Fortress. I had just gotten banned from a very stressful community and was trying to relax with some friends for once.

Early on, I played an unhealthy amount. Pretty much every day, for hours a day. I didn’t interact out-of-game until I tried to contribute to the codebase. Then, when I did, I had strong opinions on every sort of powergamey thing imaginable and had scummy tricks to win a game you aren’t meant to win. I eventually started to adjust, and I realized just how much of a jerk I really was to people. Dammit, you goons softened my shriveled channer heart, and made me care again.

Before that, I was always jumping between games and communities with few consistent online friends. I only cared for one game then, another roleplaying community called After The Flash. It was a wonderful, dynamic, and awesome place, until it changed beyond recognition. From out-of-touch admins to literal cybercrime, it was unbearable. So, I left, and wandered.

When I found the roleplay server, it filled that hole in my heart where I could tell stories, go on wild adventures, and be someone else for an hour, even if that someone else got blown to bits and chucked into a meat locker. So, It starts to hurt when I see the same things I saw 5 years ago playing After The Flash.

Some of you probably know where I’m going, and already have some strong opinions about it. If you do, I especially want you to keep reading. For everyone else though, many people have felt that the Roleplay servers have been getting thick and stale. I’ve heard many metaphors for how it feels, but the bottom line is, playing the roleplay server can be a little stressful, even if you only show up every once in a while, and this feeling is making people leave. Heck, I guess even I left because of it, but not in the usual way.

Loafstation started for many reasons, but the main reason was I needed my own space. Over a month or so, a longer-form story I’ve always wanted to tell started to show through my characters. The story started to last longer than a round, and while I could’ve continued it on Goonstation, I felt like it wasn’t a good fit. The story I wanted to tell needed a good control on what could happen, and Goonstation couldn’t provide that.

So, I got a copy of the Goonstation code, put it on my laptop and invited a small group of friends to hop on every weekend to continue the story in our own time. Slowly, they invited their friends, and they invited theirs too. We had a small group of around 11 people. It was nice, but it felt quiet.

That’s when I upgraded the server a bit, spent more time on production and started posting the events directly in the Goonstation discord. We got tons of people that week, and that round really is where most of the content on this archive begins. But, it’s also when I started hearing about and noticing some strange things.

People were starting to play my server. exclusively, even though I only ran it for an hour, once a week. This really felt wrong, like I was stealing Goon’s players when all I really wanted to do was to have a place I could tell my story without bothering anyone on the main servers. I asked them why, and I got many answers, but there was always something in common: They felt uncomfortable on Goonstation.

When I heard the detailed reasons why, it got a little emotional. My heart, that these goons had softened a year before, started to shrivel back up again, but I didn’t want that to happen. So, I let it sit. I realized it doesn’t help much to stoke anger or add wood fuel to a burning flame war.

No matter who you think may be responsible for everything that’s going on, adding more wood doesn’t help anyone. People can change, just like I did, and so can the way in which people play the game. It can change from good to bad- but also back to good.

In the end, I love this game, and I want you all to love it as well…
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…but some of you love it too much, and maybe, you’re a little like me when I started.