I am talking about someone who was found out from doing it repetitively to multiple people, but since most of it happened through lying, flattery and manipulating OOC and IC, and through multiple channels, it was difficult to prove aside from words against words.
For me, personally, this was a few months long process of them romancing my character and inviting me into the guild the person was in. Lots of both IC and OOC favors being asked of me, from which I didn’t expect much in return but also communicated my wishes for what I want to do, and which I’ll only do under certain terms, which should be give-and-take. Rather than my character being put into a position of a servant and ending up receiving nothing in return.
Sometimes you can’t just be strictly like “okay now that we’ve RPd this and that for a week, can we do my thing now?” as we were also locked into commitments with the guild and schedules for campaigns. But nothing that should be impossible to arrange with a little of OOC discussing. Which the person showed capacity to do, but apparently only as long as it served their ends.
The thing is, the person was first very agreeable, positive, well-liked by peers and guild mates, as well as showed capacity to talk things out and be flexible. But most of the time it was still me having my character going out of their way for this other person’s char, with an expectation the person would later let’s say travel with mine, or help my character with a situation X and Y. Nothing cringe, but something you could do with a friend too, but it was meant to be special between our chars. There was a lot of OOC influencing, flattery and button pushing from their part, which created a roller-coaster of all being well and insecurity and worry.
The RP with this person did fall apart, mostly because I started asking more about “when we will RP things I wanted”? and started holding this person accountable for their words. That moment when I asked, the person started holding very petty things over my head, out of nowhere and acting like it’s either their way or highway. And I took the highway out of the guild, for my own good. Mostly because I felt I had been used and it would be difficult to RP around this person afterwards and could react badly if they kept pushing my buttons. I don’t have anything against the guild as they were most inclusive people! And some reached out to me and told this wasn’t the only time the person had done this.
It turned out the person had done this to another person whom she tried to pit my character against, and create even OOC jealousy and insecurity between us two. The other guy was always mature though, so we were able to keep it chill OOC, even though IC we had a few tense situations - which we both were cool with from OOC perspective.
At the time the manipulative person did break up with my character and dropped all plans with rather petty excuses, I learnt they had lured another person in and created an alt to romance theirs. But I learnt this from a third party rather than the person who had first romanced my character. Both of these guys were part of same guild we were in, but only after people reached out to me and started talking, the full picture became clear for us all. Each person had been given a different version of truth, which is why the manipulative person kept this hidden so well.
Why this was concerning and hurtful is that the person put our characters into situations we wouldn’t necessarily have invested in if we had known what we are getting into, or even if there hadn’t been much OOC flattery and promises. There were no real IC hints or OOC mentions that this could happen until the breaking point. And that after we were discarded, we all had been called “obsessive”/“possessive”/“jealous” and such for being confused or holding this person accountable for their words, and wanting clarity. And the new people were used as “meatshields” against those who were chasing the manipulative person for answers.
Someone had, according to what I have heard vaguely, bought this person expensive mounts from AH and then getting labeled “obsessed with her” → the labeled person had left the guild. Whether it was a false accusation or not, after this pattern was revealed, it sounded concerning.
The person was reported to their guild leadership, but ultimately was given very mild consequences and the leadership wants to sweep it under the rugs, as the manipulative character’s person is still useful for their agendas. Once I heard of this, I cut contact with the whole guild, even though objectively speaking, I still don’t have anything against them but I don’t want to deal with people who tolerate this kind of behavior and allow their members to break their “no OOC” rules repetitively and in a way which is harmful for unsuspecting person.
I should have been more careful admittably, and I even thought I had taken most precautions I could do without being too negative or overly critical.
In short, the whole situation left me feeling that my character was used to further their plot with zero regard for how it would affect my RP or my image as a roleplayer, as the others had gotten labeled as well. And that their narrative was also forced on my character more or less through how things went. I’m not willing to sweep it under a rug or let this person repeat this behavior as a consequence - even if it would be wise for me, silence of the lambs is why abusive people just get to continue their behavior.
It’s easy to say “move on and ignore this person and all the flying monkeys” but knowing how largely it can impact, if your main characters are in same community and the person is well-liked, it’s difficult to get your voice heard without being labeled as the one who is witch-hunting or causing conflict.
I hope the reply isn’t too confusing, as there are lots of details I’d like to include for a full picture, but also don’t want to write a TL;DR in order to communicate what happened and why I feel it was abusive and why these things shouldn’t be swept under a rug.
I can also see why naming people in such circumstances can be controversial as a platform to report manipulative and indirect abusive behavior can be misused. But what solutions can be created to maintain -relatively- safe RP community where people can connect without worrying about getting targeted by manipulators, who will slander and label you for things you only reacted humanely to?
