Thank you for this thread, I was looking for a place to confess.
IRL I am often affected by my class and my IRL experience also influences the way I play in return. Since my work has a lot to do with saving people from some excrements they get themselves into, I sometimes do some extremely wicked things in-game to calm down after a stressful day.
I’ve always been playing mostly tanks and sometimes healers. As a tank, when I see a DPS in a group who either tries to speed run, or to pull the mobs himself, I just stand back and watch him die.
As a healer, when such thing happens, I usually ask the tank to hold back for a few moments and then we watch together, as the arrogant DPS helplessly flaps his hands around, while burning alive, his confidence evaporating, his light fading… and he then either leaves the group or remains silent till the very end of the dungeon.
Sometimes, if group-members try to act authoritarian and order people around without explaining their point, I begin opposing them even if they’re right. I actually have this problem irl too, when I see someone trying to be bossy, I automatically make it my goal to strip the person of all the authority.
Both IRL and in-game, when the stakes are really high, I am quite often falling prey to the “means to an end” approach. While trying to be calm, kind, not-judging and generally trying to unify people, I can still make some pretty drastic steps when it comes to things like saving the guild from disbanding or persuading a person from doing something horrible irl. There was a moment once when, in order to save my own guild in TBC, I had to completely disband our alt guild and kick around 80% of the active guild members to preserve the core. I didn’t feel sorry for those we had to throw overboard.
In Vanilla we had a guild member who tried to commit suicide and I basically lied and threatened my way through his relatives to get his phone number. I never told him how I got it. He survived, though.
There was a moment once in WOTLK when we invited a rogue to our ongoing raid in Naxx25, because our guild mate got DCd. That rogue came in, got the lock-timer on… and then our guild member came back online. I kicked the rogue from the group telling him that his “3v3 rating is too low to raid Naxx25”. Yes. I told him his PVP game was too low to go PVE. I felt horrible about this.
By the end of the WOTLK I stopped being a GM, because every other drama that happened, I resolved by kicking both parties. As I stood down, transferred and entered a new guild – another deep dark corner of my soul opened. I generally like other tank players, since we share a lot in common, but… I was a prot warrior and the off-tank in the new guild was a prot paladin. He always tried to nag me about how horrible warriors are at tanking, which I just parried with “warrior is the class that was made for tanking, paladin is NOT”. Eventually, as he tried to question my skill, I jokingly offered him a duel. The loser quits the guild. Arms vs Retri, I somehow won and then I DEMANDED he keeps his end of the bargain and leaves the guild. He objected, but got kicked by the GM anyway… after a while, when the heat of our discussion wore off, I realized just what I had done. I am sorry, Phain.
As a holy paladin, I sometimes use the cooking knife toy on the players that train me for a long time in PVP… when they die, that is.
I once killed both brides during a wedding ceremony in Ashenvale. I kept running around and “/moo-ing” at the guests before I bubble-HSd. Somehow I am not too sorry about this, which makes it all even worse.
I once put 1000 gold in the trade window with a lvl 1 undead beggar in Orgrimmar and went afk without accepting or cancelling it.
I have once kicked a couple from our group because they didn’t say “Hi” upon joining. I waited for 5 mins.
I took the candle.
I used Divine Intervention in most unexpected cases and then jokingly blamed the healer for not keeping me alive. It felt rather innocent for the most part, until one day the healer in our group just left without saying a word.
You know, I’ve always been thinking that I was somewhat okay on the moral part. I strive to help people as a paladin. I always heal others, I use my CDs on them, I almost never focus on myself, when excrements hit the fan. Now that I’ve read all these things that I’ve committed… damn… Next time I ask “What’s wrong with the community here?”, I’ll find the answer in the mirror.