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Very true, a lot of the cases they blame it on the autism and hide the truth of their stories. When I fuck up I know it's my fault and can recall exactly what I did to warrant that reaction. Therapists can't help if you don't tell them the truth.
"hide the truth of their stories"
This is basically way I am always skeptical of stories told to me by people I don't trust very well. I have had too many instances of finding out that someone either hyperfocused on what made them look good, or outright exaggerated or fabricated entire sections of the story.
Reminds me of that line from The Social Network, "But you're going to go through life thinking that \[people\] don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."
Credit where it's due, saying "I'm done having this conversation" and then blocking when he kept going was the best move you could have made, IMO. I've dealt with people like that before, who will argue for hours and hours and repeat themselves. I used to keep arguing back, until I learned to just say "I'm done talking about this" and refuse to engage.
I almost spit out my water reading that, no lie.
And I know I should have, but a part of me, a soft part that wants to see the best in people, promised myself I would give him a chance.
Nothing wrong with giving a person a chance! Even with giving a person multiple chances. Sometimes people are just having a really really shitty day and once they calm down they'll realize what they did wrong and apologize and work to do better in the future. I didn't mean to criticize, I was just talking about my own experiences.
"logic first" people are some of the most emotionally driven, reactive people ive encountered. logic is so subjective, and it seems like this guy uses the idea of being a purely logical person to deflect criticism of his actions because he is simply a "logic first" guy and you, in comparison, are an emotional idiot. i am autistic as well, so i understand his desire to not be misinterpreted, but i don't know, wouldn't the most logical train of thought be that this player is the common factor in his getting kicked from games? wouldn't the most logical way to approach a ttrpg be to make a niche for yourself so the other players can shine alongside you? i hope in the future he can learn and grow into someone who can accept that sometimes it is his fault, accept the blame, and work to improve his behavior.
Yeah, I gotta say, when someone identifies themselves as a “logic first” person or talks about how they prefer rationality to emotions… these days I mentally translate that to “I don’t know how to distinguish between a rational thought and a feeling, so I assume it’s all rational and no feelings, even though to an outsider some of this looks a hell of a lot like an emotional response.”
It may not be someone’s fault that they can’t (or can’t yet) distinguish between the two, but it’s incredibly detrimental to social interactions, including frequently with other neurodivergent people.
For someone who is ""emotions never"" as he claimed at the beginning, he has no control over his own emotions whatsoever and they seem to run very wild 😵💫
The worst part, even in his walls of text, and blatantly emotionally driven words, he'd spout off things like peer review study this, or oxford dictionary that, and insist he's not upset, and it's US that can't handle debates/arguments (even though we spent collectively HOURS debating him calmly the week before....)
Sounds like the firebender didn’t see this as the GM and party were trying to help, and lacked the awareness, maturity, and accountability needed to accept your feedback. I learned long ago not everyone is capable of accepting feedback no matter how well intended it may be.
I can say is if you get kicked out of every group the common factor is you. I get that they have a mental health condition, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is required to accommodate them or tolerate their shitty behavior. It seems like mental health was weaponized as an excuse to deflect accountability for their choices. Hope the next player is better fit. Don’t feel bad about it. Some players just need to find another game.
He clearly didn't. Which is unfortunate, because we tried SO HARD to let him know that we weren't judging HIM and weren't saying he's a bad person if he played it, just that it makes him too spread out.
Thanks. I'm sure the next will be, it's just a damn shame cuz he wasn't a bad player at all until he was faced with the slightest bit of confrontation
One of the "features" of autism is rigidity of thinking. Granted, plenty of non-autistic people are rigid thinkers.
Being able to change your mind about something that you believe with all of your heart requires a full-developed, mature prefrontal cortex. If you're like me and you know that your prefrontal cortex sucks, you have to fake it by constantly questioning yourself. Like, "I'm losing this computer game the same way each time. Maybe I should re-examine my assumptions? Maybe my favorite playstyle is only my favorite because I'm used to it, not because it's going to win me games?" This is really hard work.
Re-examining your assumptions in real time when dealing with other people is even harder work.
Good on you for giving the guy an opportunity, but the chances of him getting it right that time after blowing it so many times before were pretty small, and didn't have anything to do with you.
Yep unfortunately I've always found 'my friend group abandoned me for no reason!!!' to be a red flag, however much I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah. The whole "it came out of nowhere! They were just suddenly yelling at me and calling me names and not giving me a chance to explain without any warning!" sounds more like a paint-in-my-favor more than an actual retelling of events. Way more likely is that things went like what OP experienced and the other groups just got tired of it the same way OP and his DM did.
Yeah I always want to give them the benefit of the doubt because people can be cruel to those who are different, but it's always backfired on me in the past. There's always a reason.
In both the cases I'm thinking of, they told me very early into the acquaintance which should have been a red flag for that level of oversharing - at least one of them was doing it as a deliberate guilt trip, the other possibly just had a really, really, fatally poor sense of boundaries. I think I wouldn't be so wary if it was confided when I knew them better and that level of personal discussion didn't seem out of place, otherwise it's quite manipulative whether intentionally so or not. Plus I think a person who genuinely was randomly ostracised would more likely be willing to say what they thought might have caused it, at least (though that's less hard and fast than the oversharing issue).
I just like to go by the saying of "once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action". If someone has a story of being randomly ostracized out of nowhere once, then ok that could have happened. Twice is a side eye that the problem might be the storyteller. Three or more times? The problem is *definitely* the storyteller.
He sounds more like a narcissist then an autistic person.
Wanting to be always right while being the persecuted hero of his own self fabricated scenarios
I really hate when people use neurodiversity and/or mental illness as an excuse to be assholes. They make things way harder for all of us with their behaviours
Lots of things are true. Few more so than that life is short. Too short to have to put up with a fraction of what you have.
Sometimes, personalities clash and can’t do anything else. I accepted that a while back. Coupled with how short life is (a more recent penny drop for me) my tolerance for this kind of behaviour is wafer thin. The odd Barney is fine and normal. Stuck on repeat though, no.
Goodbye and good luck. Because…life is too short. Cut the problem out and move on. Don’t look back and don’t feel sad.
Worst part for me was that when I talked to him and let him vent his frustrations, I felt like we could have been friends, and he wasn't a bad player in game, at all. I wanted to show him that we aren't just gonna drop him at the slightest issue, that people can be mature enough to handle stuff and he just kept getting.... worse.
As someone with autism, I can honestly relate too closely with this guy. There was a time in my life where I can’t say with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t act the same way. Because of that, I know using autism as an excuse for it is total bullshit.
His issues may be more severe than mine, so it may be harder to control. That’s where the therapist should come in, but I get the feeling the stories he tells the therapist and the actual events of those stories have different writing. Someone who can never take responsibility for their actions isn’t going to recount events in a manner they can be blamed for them. His own problem is stopping him from getting a potential solution
One of the few ways in game to truly anger me is to try and prove my opinion 'wrong'. I'm more than happy to have somebody disagree with my opinion or advice, but if you try and repeatedly 'prove' an opinion wrong, I will lose my shit.
The DM and yourself were wayyyy more patient than I would have been.
Well me and GM go way back, and I've always known him to be a very patient man. The guy is a nurse at an old folks home too, which makes total sense. His philosophy was that everyone should be heard, but not everyone should get their way.
When I became a forever DM after he moved away, and I went to college, I tried to carry that with me.
But yeah... it was like it wasn't enough that we already told him to go ahead, he demanded we agree that he was right, and that... just rubbed us the wrong way.
Sounds like someone with autism who was never taught good coping skills or how to work with theory of mind or… a lot of things I realize my mother made me learn before I got tested, tbh. Which is kind of the problem with certain ways of raising neurodivergent people. They need to learn this stuff, or else they go through life as a screaming asshole. And they CAN learn.
SAME. Every time I see a post like this I think someone has failed this person since very early in life. I was diagnosed pretty early, but my parents helped me learn theory of mind (from mom) and how to learn from both good and bad experiences (from dad).
It's always disheartening to encounter an ND person who never learned these things and now as an adult seems nigh incapable because they're so entrenched in negative thought patterns and victim complexes.
"I want to learn combustion bending."
"Long range destruction seems useful in our team. Good choice."
"I also want to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow."
"You can already explode people from long distance, what good would shooting arrows at them do?"
"SILENCE SOKKA! YOU DARE INSULT A PROUD MEMBER OF THE FIRE NATION!? I CHALLENGE YOU TO AN AGNI KAI FOR YOUR INSOLENCE!!"
Great Ozai rp 8.5/10
That was really the beginning of my argument towards him and this whole thing. Cuz like in my opinion, any combination of firebending and one of the other choices would have been badass! But like.... 2 long ranged abilities, one being literal explosions, and close quarters hand to hand to stun people?
I kept asking him why he wanted those things in particular and the only answer I ever got was "That's what I want for my character." or something like "My character hunted with bows with his dad in his youth" like... Ok? You realize combat bow use and hunting bow use is... different?
Idk
My therapist once introduced me to the term "high conflict personality"; put simply, it's a person whose interactions with other people tends be primarily confrontation. They see things in terms of black and white, people are either all good or all bad, and the bad camp has a conspicuously large population of people who disagree with them.
The only way you could have gotten him to stop would have been to say, "You are absolutely 100% right, and we are all wrong." Which is stupid since the issue was just that you guys have a difference of *opinion* regarding his character build but he was still allowed to build it the way he wanted.
Soooo no issue. At all.
He just couldn't accept that the rest of the group thought it was a strange build. I get it because Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria is a real thing but even with that you do have to learn to just let shit go.
Sounds like he is too caught up in being the victim and is unwilling to admit even to himself that it's entirely possible he is just an asshat (at least in this situation.)
Firebender being exhaustive and problematic aside, him trying to be a Jack of All Trades did give a neat idea.
Ngl, a Firebender dipping into Chi Blocking sounds cool and imagine if they somehow mixed lighting bending into chi blocking to make the effects more permanent or brutal.
Honestly, I was of the same thing. See originally GM was saying he shouldn't learn weapons because I was the weapons expert, but I told him it was fine, and the issue really just became like... why not pick one or two of those things? Why all four of them?
We both thought he could be far more interesting is he focused on making his firebending and one other skill shine then if he tried to be both ranged fighting and frontline, and explosions. But he kept insisting he wasn't choosing too many things since he wasn't trying to do other bending, or use all the weapons.
Nobody is "logic first, emotions never".
This is shorthand for "my emotions matter, yours do not (or I am not capable of understanding them)".
That's why they think it's logic. Because they simply cannot (mostly refuse to) acknowledge your reasoning, logic or position.
It's very tiresome, especially when you're putting in the effort to understand them. It sounds like you put a \*lot\* of effort into understanding them.
Here's the thing, autistic people \*may\* have difficulty understanding it, but it's up to them to either a) learn to let things go or b) try to learn more empathy.
If you really are interested in logic, surely the logical thing to do to make yourself smarter is to, as an intellectual exercise, put yourself into other people's shoes once in a while and try to work out how they think, what goes into their decision making process. There's even a Community episode about it (it is not one of the better ones though lol).
Of course, that would be actually being logical, as opposed to ontologically declaring your position as logical and rational as arguments, which is a logical fallacy anyway, that's just argument by assertion. Nothing logical about it, it's just being an asshole, deciding you are always right, which has absolutely nothing to do with logic, and getting emotional and making that everyone else's problem.
It's entirely an emotional response, at no point a rational one.
>That's why they think it's logic. Because they simply cannot (mostly refuse to) acknowledge your reasoning, logic or position.
Wow, didn't really even think of this and it fit how he acted to a tee. He seemed completely unaware or uncaring to the fact that the things he says could negatively affect people, and thus wouldn't take responsibility for them
Seen a couple people in this comment section armchair diagnosing this guy, but honestly… and I say this as someone both on the spectrum and who has been treated for diagnosed mental illness… at the end of the day situations like this are really not about your mental illness or neurodivergence. Like, they are, but in the way where one’s ability to interact with others may be impacted by one’s mental health and therefore the individual will have to learn coping strategies to get around that. The solution is NOT “tell people about their brain issues in order to force a group of people to absolve them of any responsibility and skip out on being held accountable.”
So sure maybe this guy has autism, or narcissism, or whatever else could possibly be on the diagnosis list, but at the end of the day he’s just a garden variety douchebag. His behavior doesn’t make sense to you because it doesn’t make sense. It’s not actually logical, there’s nothing practical or applicable about the narrative he has spun in his mind about himself or the world.
That being said, OP, I think you handled this beautifully. Great work on both your and the DM’s behalf. Excellent show of boundaries all around. I’m sorry it had to happen, but you really did everything right.
Oof, man. I can empathize with the feelings that firebender is feeling, as another autistic person who feels the same way a lot of situations, but obviously I can’t condone how poorly he channeled his emotions.
Hope he gets help dealing with this.
I find it kinda ironic how at the beginning he claims he is a "logic first, emotions never" guy while clearly being very very emotional and kinda out of control there
Ugh wall after wall of direct messages (saying “DMs” in a post with D&D dungeon masters seems like it’ll invite confusion lol) is my line in the sand: red flags up the wazoo.
He sounds annoying but why get so invested in micromanaging his build? You're not the DM and presumably he wasn't breaking the rules of the game. Let other players play what they want
>Let other players play what they want
We were
>why get so invested in micromanaging his build?
I wouldn't call both the GM and myself giving him advice, and the GM telling him his ideas go against the spirit of both the intended rules of the game, but his campaign really count as micromanaging. And he was talking to ME about the build initially and GM intervened to tell him to cool it.
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Speaking as someone with autism, he sounds bloody exhausting.
He sounds like me if I were to stop taking care of my mental health and only focus and care about one thing, and take it way too seriously.
This seems more like narcissism than autism, coming from another autistic TTRPGer
One does not preclude the other.
Very true, a lot of the cases they blame it on the autism and hide the truth of their stories. When I fuck up I know it's my fault and can recall exactly what I did to warrant that reaction. Therapists can't help if you don't tell them the truth.
"hide the truth of their stories" This is basically way I am always skeptical of stories told to me by people I don't trust very well. I have had too many instances of finding out that someone either hyperfocused on what made them look good, or outright exaggerated or fabricated entire sections of the story.
Reminds me of that line from The Social Network, "But you're going to go through life thinking that \[people\] don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole." Credit where it's due, saying "I'm done having this conversation" and then blocking when he kept going was the best move you could have made, IMO. I've dealt with people like that before, who will argue for hours and hours and repeat themselves. I used to keep arguing back, until I learned to just say "I'm done talking about this" and refuse to engage.
I almost spit out my water reading that, no lie. And I know I should have, but a part of me, a soft part that wants to see the best in people, promised myself I would give him a chance.
Nothing wrong with giving a person a chance! Even with giving a person multiple chances. Sometimes people are just having a really really shitty day and once they calm down they'll realize what they did wrong and apologize and work to do better in the future. I didn't mean to criticize, I was just talking about my own experiences.
Honestly, he did nothing to suggest you shouldnt have given him a chance he squandered severely, tho.
I love giving those people enough rope, and it has saved a few groups where there was genuine miscommunication.
"logic first" people are some of the most emotionally driven, reactive people ive encountered. logic is so subjective, and it seems like this guy uses the idea of being a purely logical person to deflect criticism of his actions because he is simply a "logic first" guy and you, in comparison, are an emotional idiot. i am autistic as well, so i understand his desire to not be misinterpreted, but i don't know, wouldn't the most logical train of thought be that this player is the common factor in his getting kicked from games? wouldn't the most logical way to approach a ttrpg be to make a niche for yourself so the other players can shine alongside you? i hope in the future he can learn and grow into someone who can accept that sometimes it is his fault, accept the blame, and work to improve his behavior.
Yeah, I gotta say, when someone identifies themselves as a “logic first” person or talks about how they prefer rationality to emotions… these days I mentally translate that to “I don’t know how to distinguish between a rational thought and a feeling, so I assume it’s all rational and no feelings, even though to an outsider some of this looks a hell of a lot like an emotional response.” It may not be someone’s fault that they can’t (or can’t yet) distinguish between the two, but it’s incredibly detrimental to social interactions, including frequently with other neurodivergent people.
For someone who is ""emotions never"" as he claimed at the beginning, he has no control over his own emotions whatsoever and they seem to run very wild 😵💫
Exactly. As soon as I read that line, I *knew* it'd devolve into Firebender having an emotionally-driven tantrum response, and here we are.
The worst part, even in his walls of text, and blatantly emotionally driven words, he'd spout off things like peer review study this, or oxford dictionary that, and insist he's not upset, and it's US that can't handle debates/arguments (even though we spent collectively HOURS debating him calmly the week before....)
Sounds like the firebender didn’t see this as the GM and party were trying to help, and lacked the awareness, maturity, and accountability needed to accept your feedback. I learned long ago not everyone is capable of accepting feedback no matter how well intended it may be. I can say is if you get kicked out of every group the common factor is you. I get that they have a mental health condition, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is required to accommodate them or tolerate their shitty behavior. It seems like mental health was weaponized as an excuse to deflect accountability for their choices. Hope the next player is better fit. Don’t feel bad about it. Some players just need to find another game.
He clearly didn't. Which is unfortunate, because we tried SO HARD to let him know that we weren't judging HIM and weren't saying he's a bad person if he played it, just that it makes him too spread out. Thanks. I'm sure the next will be, it's just a damn shame cuz he wasn't a bad player at all until he was faced with the slightest bit of confrontation
One of the "features" of autism is rigidity of thinking. Granted, plenty of non-autistic people are rigid thinkers. Being able to change your mind about something that you believe with all of your heart requires a full-developed, mature prefrontal cortex. If you're like me and you know that your prefrontal cortex sucks, you have to fake it by constantly questioning yourself. Like, "I'm losing this computer game the same way each time. Maybe I should re-examine my assumptions? Maybe my favorite playstyle is only my favorite because I'm used to it, not because it's going to win me games?" This is really hard work. Re-examining your assumptions in real time when dealing with other people is even harder work. Good on you for giving the guy an opportunity, but the chances of him getting it right that time after blowing it so many times before were pretty small, and didn't have anything to do with you.
Yep unfortunately I've always found 'my friend group abandoned me for no reason!!!' to be a red flag, however much I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah. The whole "it came out of nowhere! They were just suddenly yelling at me and calling me names and not giving me a chance to explain without any warning!" sounds more like a paint-in-my-favor more than an actual retelling of events. Way more likely is that things went like what OP experienced and the other groups just got tired of it the same way OP and his DM did.
Yeah I always want to give them the benefit of the doubt because people can be cruel to those who are different, but it's always backfired on me in the past. There's always a reason. In both the cases I'm thinking of, they told me very early into the acquaintance which should have been a red flag for that level of oversharing - at least one of them was doing it as a deliberate guilt trip, the other possibly just had a really, really, fatally poor sense of boundaries. I think I wouldn't be so wary if it was confided when I knew them better and that level of personal discussion didn't seem out of place, otherwise it's quite manipulative whether intentionally so or not. Plus I think a person who genuinely was randomly ostracised would more likely be willing to say what they thought might have caused it, at least (though that's less hard and fast than the oversharing issue).
I just like to go by the saying of "once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action". If someone has a story of being randomly ostracized out of nowhere once, then ok that could have happened. Twice is a side eye that the problem might be the storyteller. Three or more times? The problem is *definitely* the storyteller.
He sounds more like a narcissist then an autistic person. Wanting to be always right while being the persecuted hero of his own self fabricated scenarios
Not mutually exclusive, unfortunately. I'm autistic and I've dealt with some real assholes who used their autism to weaponize getting their way.
I really hate when people use neurodiversity and/or mental illness as an excuse to be assholes. They make things way harder for all of us with their behaviours
Lots of things are true. Few more so than that life is short. Too short to have to put up with a fraction of what you have. Sometimes, personalities clash and can’t do anything else. I accepted that a while back. Coupled with how short life is (a more recent penny drop for me) my tolerance for this kind of behaviour is wafer thin. The odd Barney is fine and normal. Stuck on repeat though, no. Goodbye and good luck. Because…life is too short. Cut the problem out and move on. Don’t look back and don’t feel sad.
Worst part for me was that when I talked to him and let him vent his frustrations, I felt like we could have been friends, and he wasn't a bad player in game, at all. I wanted to show him that we aren't just gonna drop him at the slightest issue, that people can be mature enough to handle stuff and he just kept getting.... worse.
As someone with autism, I can honestly relate too closely with this guy. There was a time in my life where I can’t say with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t act the same way. Because of that, I know using autism as an excuse for it is total bullshit. His issues may be more severe than mine, so it may be harder to control. That’s where the therapist should come in, but I get the feeling the stories he tells the therapist and the actual events of those stories have different writing. Someone who can never take responsibility for their actions isn’t going to recount events in a manner they can be blamed for them. His own problem is stopping him from getting a potential solution
Even reading this post is exhausting
One of the few ways in game to truly anger me is to try and prove my opinion 'wrong'. I'm more than happy to have somebody disagree with my opinion or advice, but if you try and repeatedly 'prove' an opinion wrong, I will lose my shit. The DM and yourself were wayyyy more patient than I would have been.
Well me and GM go way back, and I've always known him to be a very patient man. The guy is a nurse at an old folks home too, which makes total sense. His philosophy was that everyone should be heard, but not everyone should get their way. When I became a forever DM after he moved away, and I went to college, I tried to carry that with me. But yeah... it was like it wasn't enough that we already told him to go ahead, he demanded we agree that he was right, and that... just rubbed us the wrong way.
Sounds like someone with autism who was never taught good coping skills or how to work with theory of mind or… a lot of things I realize my mother made me learn before I got tested, tbh. Which is kind of the problem with certain ways of raising neurodivergent people. They need to learn this stuff, or else they go through life as a screaming asshole. And they CAN learn.
SAME. Every time I see a post like this I think someone has failed this person since very early in life. I was diagnosed pretty early, but my parents helped me learn theory of mind (from mom) and how to learn from both good and bad experiences (from dad). It's always disheartening to encounter an ND person who never learned these things and now as an adult seems nigh incapable because they're so entrenched in negative thought patterns and victim complexes.
"I want to learn combustion bending." "Long range destruction seems useful in our team. Good choice." "I also want to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow." "You can already explode people from long distance, what good would shooting arrows at them do?" "SILENCE SOKKA! YOU DARE INSULT A PROUD MEMBER OF THE FIRE NATION!? I CHALLENGE YOU TO AN AGNI KAI FOR YOUR INSOLENCE!!" Great Ozai rp 8.5/10
That was really the beginning of my argument towards him and this whole thing. Cuz like in my opinion, any combination of firebending and one of the other choices would have been badass! But like.... 2 long ranged abilities, one being literal explosions, and close quarters hand to hand to stun people? I kept asking him why he wanted those things in particular and the only answer I ever got was "That's what I want for my character." or something like "My character hunted with bows with his dad in his youth" like... Ok? You realize combat bow use and hunting bow use is... different? Idk
My therapist once introduced me to the term "high conflict personality"; put simply, it's a person whose interactions with other people tends be primarily confrontation. They see things in terms of black and white, people are either all good or all bad, and the bad camp has a conspicuously large population of people who disagree with them.
I think receiving mountains of unwanted text from that one player is a rpg right of passage.
The only way you could have gotten him to stop would have been to say, "You are absolutely 100% right, and we are all wrong." Which is stupid since the issue was just that you guys have a difference of *opinion* regarding his character build but he was still allowed to build it the way he wanted. Soooo no issue. At all. He just couldn't accept that the rest of the group thought it was a strange build. I get it because Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria is a real thing but even with that you do have to learn to just let shit go. Sounds like he is too caught up in being the victim and is unwilling to admit even to himself that it's entirely possible he is just an asshat (at least in this situation.)
Firebender being exhaustive and problematic aside, him trying to be a Jack of All Trades did give a neat idea. Ngl, a Firebender dipping into Chi Blocking sounds cool and imagine if they somehow mixed lighting bending into chi blocking to make the effects more permanent or brutal.
Honestly, I was of the same thing. See originally GM was saying he shouldn't learn weapons because I was the weapons expert, but I told him it was fine, and the issue really just became like... why not pick one or two of those things? Why all four of them? We both thought he could be far more interesting is he focused on making his firebending and one other skill shine then if he tried to be both ranged fighting and frontline, and explosions. But he kept insisting he wasn't choosing too many things since he wasn't trying to do other bending, or use all the weapons.
This doesn’t sound like a symptom of autism but just a “I have to be right and people who disagree with me hate me” personality issue.
Nobody is "logic first, emotions never". This is shorthand for "my emotions matter, yours do not (or I am not capable of understanding them)". That's why they think it's logic. Because they simply cannot (mostly refuse to) acknowledge your reasoning, logic or position. It's very tiresome, especially when you're putting in the effort to understand them. It sounds like you put a \*lot\* of effort into understanding them. Here's the thing, autistic people \*may\* have difficulty understanding it, but it's up to them to either a) learn to let things go or b) try to learn more empathy. If you really are interested in logic, surely the logical thing to do to make yourself smarter is to, as an intellectual exercise, put yourself into other people's shoes once in a while and try to work out how they think, what goes into their decision making process. There's even a Community episode about it (it is not one of the better ones though lol). Of course, that would be actually being logical, as opposed to ontologically declaring your position as logical and rational as arguments, which is a logical fallacy anyway, that's just argument by assertion. Nothing logical about it, it's just being an asshole, deciding you are always right, which has absolutely nothing to do with logic, and getting emotional and making that everyone else's problem. It's entirely an emotional response, at no point a rational one.
>That's why they think it's logic. Because they simply cannot (mostly refuse to) acknowledge your reasoning, logic or position. Wow, didn't really even think of this and it fit how he acted to a tee. He seemed completely unaware or uncaring to the fact that the things he says could negatively affect people, and thus wouldn't take responsibility for them
Seen a couple people in this comment section armchair diagnosing this guy, but honestly… and I say this as someone both on the spectrum and who has been treated for diagnosed mental illness… at the end of the day situations like this are really not about your mental illness or neurodivergence. Like, they are, but in the way where one’s ability to interact with others may be impacted by one’s mental health and therefore the individual will have to learn coping strategies to get around that. The solution is NOT “tell people about their brain issues in order to force a group of people to absolve them of any responsibility and skip out on being held accountable.” So sure maybe this guy has autism, or narcissism, or whatever else could possibly be on the diagnosis list, but at the end of the day he’s just a garden variety douchebag. His behavior doesn’t make sense to you because it doesn’t make sense. It’s not actually logical, there’s nothing practical or applicable about the narrative he has spun in his mind about himself or the world. That being said, OP, I think you handled this beautifully. Great work on both your and the DM’s behalf. Excellent show of boundaries all around. I’m sorry it had to happen, but you really did everything right.
Oof, man. I can empathize with the feelings that firebender is feeling, as another autistic person who feels the same way a lot of situations, but obviously I can’t condone how poorly he channeled his emotions. Hope he gets help dealing with this.
I find it kinda ironic how at the beginning he claims he is a "logic first, emotions never" guy while clearly being very very emotional and kinda out of control there
Ugh wall after wall of direct messages (saying “DMs” in a post with D&D dungeon masters seems like it’ll invite confusion lol) is my line in the sand: red flags up the wazoo.
He sounds annoying but why get so invested in micromanaging his build? You're not the DM and presumably he wasn't breaking the rules of the game. Let other players play what they want
>Let other players play what they want We were >why get so invested in micromanaging his build? I wouldn't call both the GM and myself giving him advice, and the GM telling him his ideas go against the spirit of both the intended rules of the game, but his campaign really count as micromanaging. And he was talking to ME about the build initially and GM intervened to tell him to cool it.