It sounds cheesy, but we firmly believe in the idea of 'be the change you want to see'. We tell people it all the time in various ways. It comes back to the idea of leading by example.
"Krista/Dave, how do we make players more strainist?"
"Be more strainist, compliment people afterwards on their hate of X strain. Be what you want to see and then show others how much you appreciate it when they do it."
Recently some new players in Arkansas experienced something we would have said wasn't a part of our community. Their characters were attacked and had all their starter gear stolen. We don't know who was involved and honestly, at this point, We're not sure we care to know - so please don't use this to start a witch hunt. (Note: We're not giving a lot of details on purpose.)
We were a little confused when new players in August talked about the blue armbands/glow being used to target new players and we reassured them that such a thing wouldn't happen and explained how the marshals could actually better scale threats in the dark to account for new players if they wore the glow. We still firmly believe the blue system is amazing and we're going to continue to promote the heck out of it.
We've got a few other new-player friendly things in the works that we plan to bring into play for Season 3, but the blue armband system is the key. We know we all like being able to identify new players so we can encourage them and give them good deals and really make sure they have fun. That way they'll come back and get stuck in our nerd-family forever!
So what's the point of letting everyone know about this? Let's be a little more pro-active in watching out for our new players. Let's make sure they know people they can come to if there's a problem. Sometimes the official team is intimidating (cause we're official!) - so offer to be there if they need something and make our community that much better.
Now, let us put on this Official Director Hat....
New Player is an Out-of-Character status, so if someone (in the future) attacks a new player character, depending on the circumstances it could result in Out-of-Character consequences.
Engaging in ANY Character versus Character action without a Marshal will likely result in Out-of-Character consequences.
To refresh your memory on what those are please see pg. 29 of the Survivor's Guide 2.02
As always, feel free to reach out if you're confused on any of this.
I am because you are. <3