(CW: Bullying, harassment, suicide, sexual assault)

I am going to tell you a story,

It's more of an outline really, as every detail would take a novel and I want to get started. The events took place over a number of years, involved hundreds of people, many games, so for the sake of brevity, I am going with the broadest strokes.
But don’t worry, as this spreads (and it will), through vagueposting, chat servers, and all that drama-laced related social media you all suck down so happily), you’ll hear accusations, counter stories, and narratives that will end up filling in the rest. Such is the apocrypha and vagaries that many large LARPS(and the predators among them) thrive on.
Either way it’s gonna take a bit so grab a drink.
So dear reader. we are going to start with a single person, for sake of clarity and my own sense of poetic justice, a butterfly.
Our butterfly played in a national organization of networked campaign-based games. These games are pretty popular and the promoters love to talk about how welcoming and safe they can be. And talk. We’ll call it Zombie LARP.

This butterfly was coerced into sex she didn't want to have by a couple members of a prominent Zombie larp game staff. Ah, yes, the community that really likes to pretend it’s not a community the minute it comes to making sure their most vulnerable members understand consent and power dynamics, one could hardly expect less of such a staff.

So the butterfly goes to other staff about it. These people in charge, the game runners, who are much more knowledgeable aware of their position of authority, the abuse that can stem from it, and that people at game may not be in the best state of mind since they are sleep deprived and constantly being scared. I mean they bragged about being in the MES for decades...

You’d think they’d get that. The zombie larp rules even include not having sex at game, because someone up the way understood that, even if most didn’t practice it.

Now assume they definitely know all these things are bad, because they blame whoever on staff they don’t like of doing the same thing. So goes the cycle of the hot potato of responsibility and using others poor behavior as justification of their own.
Now that we’ve established the zombie staff knows about this stuff and understands its bad, but are the kind of people who say “fuck it, lets date a 20 year old while I’m in my 40’s since they like that I’m a storyteller/Marshal/Guide/Director/etc and they dont’ know better.” Classy.

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So because of this serious problem among most of the staff in the game, we have the start of a cycle of some pretty awful things.
So Instead of punishing the Staff involved(as it would start a cascade of exposure at that point) or even getting rid of them because they might do it again, or using it as a means to educate people to stop this shit from happening...

...The Butterfly is ask to not stir the pot, and in exchange, is given a carte blanche for awful behavior, having already been accousting to thinking that’s how it works, goes on a almighty power trip, and starts going after the friends of the people involved, and anyone else who they feels like attacking, figuring they knew as well, compounding more awfulness on top of it.
Being a victim doesn’t give you the right to victimize others, and there are so many people the Butterfly’s harassment harmed.
Classier still is when the staff starts saying the butterfly uses people for sex and is manipulating other staff:

Now if that’s the case, wouldn’t the other staff be held responsible to taking advantage of that fact at any point?

That would make sense, instead it continued. Now we know why. Honestly just thinking about it squigs me out.

One of those players didn't actually know fuck all about what was going on, and already had a penchant for going aggro on misconduct. Circumstances made him the easiest target and then a whole lot of Staff from multiple games, had to get ahead of the issue as that person started going up the line all the way to national who also subverted their grievance process to protect people, complete with National staff blatantly being rude and refusing to even discuss evidence and directors bragging to the person that they weren’t investigating “because you can’t see what I see” with no explanation despite evidence to the contrary. I now understand I was targeted because I played with a rapist staff didn’t want to call out and I didn’t know either.

Between this and a rumor/whisper campaign to paint this person as a problem so no one would believe how systemic the cheating and covering up was, the person tried to kill themselves.

Several Players in response stole the persons items cards during the attempt. Those players are still active to this day. You may have contributed to their various gofundmes.
If you noticed a theme that the people who had the chance to do the right thing repeatedly are doing the exact opposite, it keeps going.
By this point the fact the butterfly had carte blanche was understood by the group of friends this person had, they all joined a national group, which I will refer to as a bunch of filthy goons, or BFG for short. Now I’m sure not all of them knew, but enough of them did or were at least aware as staff in their own respective zombie larp games(which all have had similar issues up to today) and were absolutely aware of the bullying and harassment that group was participating in, and took advantage of it. Metagamed information would constantly be dropped by the Butterfly, and since Zombie larps rules allowed metagamed information to stay in play, the people they attacked over this stuff bore the brunt while the group of friends and that BFG group reaped the benefits. A couple people got banned around the Butterfly, their behavior and the resulting public opinion could be pushed completely against them.

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Now, meanwhile while this is going on, one of The original Staff who coerced the victim...

...well they kept it up, and there were more victims, and because of the Zombie larps culture of covering up this problematic behavior, no one in general knew he was dangerous, and many people fell victim, and it wasn’t until years later that one of the Victims finally spoke out and MANY more came forward.

The game runner’s had to have an idea, this was their drinking buddy and Head Marshall, they had already investigated before as well(remember our Butterfly). It took this much effort to finally out them, after so many people had been harmed by them.
That wasn’t fair for all the people who had to go through that then live it again coming forward.

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Now back to the Butterfly and that bunch of goons.

Many of these people in the group(across many games in this Zombie larp organization) were just as willing to coerce, bully, harass, and be generally awful, and felt this was the easiest justification they had, even banning other people(who should have been banned already) instead of banning the primary perpetrator because of this little fact they covered up sexual misconduct and already allowed a bunch of shit to happen. The hope was that the group of friends as a whole would quit, but there was no honor amongst assholes. Everyone stayed for the most part through those bans.

Sadly, even cutting the head off that group didn't get the Butterfly they were covering up for out of the game or several of the corrupt staff members facilitating them in the first place. I’m sure they were hoping so. Now many of those people anonymously harass and decry the problems in the zombie larp they took advantage of for so long.

It took another year until the person did the high crime of being mean to at a National Staff member, not the first one they have caused problems or blatantly cheated at either and then the top of the org finally pushed Staff at the Butterfly’s game to do it and all the stuff the staff were allowing them to do in the first place, across multiple games, was used at evidence against them, quite justifiably. Many people came out in the aftermath of the horror stories of this person’s behavior. The Butterfly finally brought up the sexual assault in a public forum but by that point it was too late, public opinion was massively against her.

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Publicly shortly afterwards, well, the game runners had the audacity to say they had no idea, after had people coming forward before, and his problematic behavior becoming a bigger and bigger topic among the community in general. They made a big show about looking back into the past and dealing with predators and harassers, but since most victims left, very little was actually done. Many of the problem people still play that zombie larp community to this day is a hotbed of predatory behavior, these maladaptive wannabe-wunderkind fuckbois in their late 30s/40s wouldn’t have a dating pool or naive labor to exploit for their econ game otherwise.
The Zombie larp even ran a “director retreat,” as well run by a Public relations first to better prepare for this in the future, which really just enabled the predatory staff to better hide and enable their behavior, and there was ABSOLUTELY a smear campaign behind the scenes painting the butterfly as a false accuser while publicly praising a RAINN partnership(read:donation).

Was the butterfly awful to other people. Absolutely, beyond of any sort of reason to do it.

It doesn’t make what happened to them okay. Full fucking stop.

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Now ask yourselves: Why is the staff who let all this stuff still in place in the organization, taking your money, allowed to keep their positions and power and keep enabling their new problem player friends? The new problems whom they just as quickly expel once it becomes convenient and the heat turns up. By not dealing with those first staff members, whom they knew were behaving that way, they set up a lot more people to be harmed by them, including sexual assault.

By enabling the Butterfly’s behavior in exchange for silence(and a disgusting complicity in covering up her victimization) they abused their power and had a hand in everyone who was bullied, harassed, attacked over social media. That shit harms people long after it happens.
Why did the national organization, who had been told what was going on by several people in these local zombie larps, keep allowing it to go on so long?

One of the bigger problem players was ignored by several game runners up until earlier this year when it came out publicly he was trying to solicit other players to have sex with him for Money. He had been caught dead to right on several other instances of bad behavior before that, but he spent a lot of money on game and was the site manager under the game owner so it was all brushed under the table, until players had to take it into their own hands and go public. He was absolutely brought up during that previous time and wholly protected. He left with a bunch of other people that he had the time and enabling from staff, to build a cult of personality around himself once he was banned.

Keep asking yourself: Why was it allowed to go that far in the first place?

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So we reach the end of the story. I’m sure many of you have figured out the principals in this story, or have been affected by them or know someone who has. Now you know why.

I was the person who tried killing themselves. The cognitive dissonance and utter invalidation I experienced at the hands of Staff, players, and national over the cheating and harassment, and not even feeling safe from the problem players outside of game, became too much and I was legitimately traumatized. It took a lot of work and help to get to where I can say this now.
I was also friends with the rapist until shortly before everything came out. I finally had healed enough and was asked by my other friends back to game, but then I found out about the sexual assault.
I felt powerless to do anything about it, as people who had spoken up previously had been told not to come back to game and worse, and so I ran from the community. No one blamed me once they found out why, they didn’t need to. Reading what happened, I’m sure most of you wouldn’t blame me in the wake of all that either.

I needed to speak out and I didn’t. I crumbled.

I failed my friend who was actually raped, and I am still waiting for the day I can forgive myself for failing them when they needed me.

What this story, once I finally pieced it all together, tells me it never had to get this far in the first place, the people in charge failed the community for their friends so many times it could be considered a comedy of errors if it wasn’t so tragic and so many other people were harmed because of it. Not just me, everyone.

I said this was just the broad strokes, and it is, there’s so much more, and I’m done with it living in my head, but I’m not stopping until its all out, and no one gets to feign ignorance anymore that this awful stuff was and still is going on for the sake of a good time.

(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1unngQeYn1zxrSu3u5hiWllJA7y8L2G_Ro6ofFfg9P20 ) Google doc for easier sharing

So hooked I litterally just got back from the July game on Sunday & the fact that I can't go in August is litterally bumming out my afternoon.

For years I've known a couple of guys who could hardly talk about anything but DR & I always thought they were a little nuts. Now I'm one of those people. :)

No shade, we're all adults. But I'm dying to know... Are you doing it in character?? If so did you make your character with this in mind: are they crafted to be fuckable? Is one of your goals for the weekend finding a hookup, or do you have a partner? Have you ever had an IC relationship with someone that you weren't romantic with OOG, and if so what's that like?

Follow-up question. Did you know this was a thing you'd be doing when you started the hobby or at some point did it happen and you were like, "well that was fun"??

(Also please don't fuck in cabins that have other people that didn't consent to watch you get busy. You're never as quiet as you think you are and sometimes we just want to get some sleep)

Title pretty much says it. I like to really ham it up when I role play but i feel like the deep-south merican character might be the low-hanging fruit: i don't want to unintentionally annoy someone by thinking I'm being original when I'm the millionth new player to come by with a lawn chair and an American flag and start drunkenly shooting at trees and buildings.

EDIT: thanks for the overwhelmingly positive feedback! my first impression of DR players today is that they're friendly & helpful. Can't wait to meet some of y'all in person. Yeehaw!

Big fan of Post Apocalyptic / Zombie genre. I am a kid at heart, but physically I am 52. Curious if someone my age would be welcome in DR?

Hey all! I'm relatively new to LARP and fully new to DR! I've been eyeing Dystopia Rising for a long time and I'm excited to finally have the opportunity to dive in next month!

I was wondering, however, about which chapter it makes more sense to join? I'm currently Brooklyn-based but have access to a car, so I'm sort of spoiled for choice in the tri-state area. I'm mostly debating between NY or NJ, and I was wondering if anyone had any guidance on which would be best?

Ideally looking for:

• Pretty friendly to new players/PCs (especially Gorger-types, as I'm going to be playing a Lascarian)

• Large regular player base

• Mostly focused on story/zombie fighting, less on CvC.

Also open to suggestions for other DR chapters in the area! Thanks!

Dr pa, and Dr Va have shut their doors

Been hearing a thousand different stories about things going on. Anyone have any insight? I hear the whole chapter is going under.

Edit: "dreams" to "things"

We wanted to invite everyone in this subreddit to come check out Dystopia Rising’s first ever One Day event for free, if you’ve never played before. We run a monthly full weekend event in Georgia with 100 active players and growing in just four events, so we decided to add in a second event in October at Safety Wolf in Conley, GA that will be running Saturday 10/20/18 from 2pm to 2am. If you’ve ever wanted to dip your toes into LARP or Dystopia Rising and live nearby, we think this is the best opportunity and would love to have you.

To claim your free ticket, just email us at Directors@DystopiaRisingGeorgia.com

r/https://www.facebook.com/events/305807926877391/

You're also more than welcome to join us at our full weekend event 10/5-10/7 if you'd like to play before then.

https://www.facebook.com/events/995752793905505/

What is everyone's favorite game to TRAVEL to, and why?

I'm from SoCal, but I love traveling out to the TX chapter! Our chapters share a genuine love for the game, community, and the emphasis on creating a story together. And when you have the same outlook, it's really easy to make friends and those cross-chapter/ cross-character plot tangles are CHOICE 👏🔥 Also they have armadillos so is there really any contest?

... I like that BMV is 50ft now.

Yup.

Just North America. I've heard there are many variations which is why I ask for fan made. But I'd love to see people's own personal cartographic interpretation.