Inspiration for this writing came from my husband, who was musing over this general topic in a random conversation one day for the Leather & Kink communities.  Because it aligned with prior work in this area, we expanded upon this together.

​

Some toxic individuals demonstrate amazing skill in using this Playbook.  I am in awe of their abilities – able to implement manipulative and political strategies I had never imagined, making me feel remedial in their presence.  I don’t like that feeling, so I worked for some time to create the class “Tools for Reducing Internal Community Conflict” as a partial means to address such concerns.  Development of that class and the unfortunate position of being surrounded by too many of these high-conflict people led me to create this writing and a more focused tool - The Playbook.

​

Sports and military leaders often quote, “The best defense is a good offense.”  In this case, my saying for this writing is,  “A great defense is knowing the adversary’s offensive tactics,” the purpose of this writing.

​

Other Content

​

I also tried to explore and somewhat validate this tool by scoring 22 individuals through common experience with input from a few others that have experience with them.  This is an unvalidated, non-scientific study, a first glance at summary data.  This has been very useful in refining this writing.

​

Summary Conclusions Up Front

 

• I was surprised at the large number of tactics (34) in the Playbook.  How can you remember them, the combinations that come into play, the subtlety with which each is implemented?  This is why we added seven categories to organize them a bit.  No wonder we are constantly impacted by difficult individuals using the Playbook.  It's time to brush up on the Playbook yourself as a defense!

• About 13 of the 34 tactics have "Dual Purpose" use for valid reasons, depending on intent.  We shouldn't use the Playbook to mistakenly mis-label positive or normal behaviors in these tactics as toxic. Intent matters.  Repetition matters when evidence is unclear.

• The Playbook is useful to recognize and understand what is happening through behaviors many would find unacceptable or inconceivable.

• The table study at the end of this writing is not a scientific study, although we tried to use some scientific attributes.  It was useful to dry-run the Playbook to check on accuracy and completeness.  It allowed further refinement of the Playbook itself.

 

About the Title: Leather & Kink Narcissist Playbook

 

I originally used “The Narcissist Playbook” as a title for this writing because it’s catchy.  I also use it as a bucket for all those with narcissistic, manipulative, high-conflict, or antisocial tactics.  In a way, the self-centered nature of these manipulative individuals to harm others and community is quite often a narcissistic behavior.

​

It’s suggested that one avoid using a particular label like “Narcissist,” “Sociopath,” and others unless there is a clinical diagnosis.  I believe that excessive caution in using such labels to discuss this topic in general (without a specific person) is overly limiting and limits our understanding to defend against high-conflict individuals that are harming our community.  When we consider a specific person, I very much agree that putting a label on someone inappropriately can cause unnecessary harm.  One needs to be very careful in using such words with a person, but it can be useful shorthand.  Saying, “John Doe has narcissistic behavior” is better than saying “John Doe is a narcissist.”  For instance, a person may temporarily display a toxic behavior because they are traumatized, shocked, in altered headspace, etc.  A single observation should not result in immediate and final conclusions.  I cover this more in the class “Tools for Reducing Internal Community Conflict.”  There are other related writings about the weaponization of accountability and a structure and approach toward ethical accountability.  Other writings in this area are also in writings at Leather Heart.

​

Seven years of observations across leather and kink communities in the United States formed the foundation of this Playbook.  A large amount of notes and data sets were collected to try to unravel this behavior and develop a significant class on the topic of community conflict mentioned above.  This writing may eventually become a focused tool in that class.

​

After we created this writing from our own experience, we looked on the Internet and found that there are multiple publications, even a pending documentary movie titled, "Narcissist Playbook" or something similar.  So we renamed our writing "The Leather & Kink Narcissist Playbook" because that is the community from which it is derived.  No doubt there is large overlap with any human society, but there are specific differences. See notes at the end of this writing for other references.

The Leather & Kink Playbook

This is the Playbook we have so far.  It consists of tactics that have been grouped into categories, each with a description.  If you see something missing, please write us!

​

Categories

In order to add some structure to the many tactics, they were grouped into seven categories.  These categories and the tactics involved are not orthogonal.  There is a lot of overlap.  I chose categories for each tactic based upon where I thought it fit best.  You may disagree.

 

This writing now has 34 tactics in 7 categories.

​

The seven tactic categories are:

• Narrative Control

  • Manipulating the story people believe.

• Social Control

  • Manipulating relationships, loyalties, and alliances.

• Moral Control

  • Manipulating ethics, harm, safety, or accountability language.

• Institutional Control

  • Manipulating rules, roles, status, and processes.

• Emotional Control

  • Manipulating feelings, attachment, fear, guilt, or dependency.

• Direct Coercion

  • Using threats, exposure, intimidation, or force to compel compliance.

• Predatory Targeting

  • Exploiting vulnerability, isolation, inexperience, need, or dependency.

​

Additionally, please note that under the category "Predatory Targeting," I have an overview tactic that describes them all, with a focus tactic on each of the sub-elements.  I thought this useful because of the nuance of each approach and wanted to distinguish them in a table for later analysis to understand which tactic might be used more frequently than another.

​

Dual-Purpose Caveat

Some tactics are dual-purpose, often distinguished by intention, sometimes distinguished by viewpoint.  A particular tactic may be very valid when used with positive intent toward a person or the community.  Yet when the intention of the tactic is deceptive for manipulation and control, it may be toxic.  This is important to recognize for these reasons:

​

• Persons who are manipulative, high-conflict, or antisocial will claim valid use of a tactic as toxic to confuse the situation.  For instance, flattery and mentorship are quite valid positive behaviors.  Yet, when they are used to manipulate, they become toxic tactics.

• Persons who exhibit valid use of a tactic, such as mentorship for an altruistic reason, may be falsely accused of being manipulative by those who are mistaken or do so purposefully to cause harm.

​

We claim that some tactics are never dual-purpose -- those that are inherently malevolent.  Others are on the borderline as cautionary for dual-purpose use.  Therefore you'll find these three listings:

• Dual Purpose: Yes.

• Dual Purpose: Caution.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Let us know if you see other dual-purpose value in some of these tactics.

​

How to use the Playbook

This writing offers no specific approach to using this Playbook as a defense against manipulative actors.  Some ideas are here:

​

• Review and be familiar with the tactics.

• Note the tactics shown by suspected individuals.  Take notes!  Collect information.

• Your initial observations may be wrong for many reasons.  Quite a few of the tactics here might be seen in behaviors of community members with positive intent.  For instance, “Love Bombing & Charm” type behaviors may be used at one level to get to know others in a community or expressed with true admiration.  It’s only when you see the larger picture that you know that this tactic is being used in a toxic manner.  Be mindful of the "Dual Purpose Caveat" regarding tactics in this Playbook.

• Be careful binning all bad behavior into the worst possible category.  Some people will make a mistake behaving impactfully to others, and can change after openly admitting their mistake.  On the other hand, most persons with narcissistic, manipulative, high-conflict, or antisocial tactics will not easily change.  That's the trick -- being open to forgive (not overlook) some impactful behavior initially, but not succumbing to manipulation.

• Once you’re familiar with the Playbook, consider pointing out the tactics that you notice.

• Avoid labeling the behavior as certain (unless it is absolutely clear).  Doing so, without being clear, can lead to drama and you may be wrong.

• Rather, ask a genuine question about the behavior that seeks clarification of your observation.   The response should be illuminating.

• You might also speak to the impact that an action or statement had and convey how it affected you or others.  The response should be illuminating.

​

Category: Narrative Control

 

This category is about social debate and manipulation in the community.  Control of the broader community is an objective for a manipulative person because they want to be recognized or be able to hide harmful behaviors from view.

​

Gaslighting, Reality Distortion

• Rewriting events, denying clear facts, changing timelines, claiming others “misremember,” or making people doubt their own judgment.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

DARVO

• Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender: “I didn’t do that; you’re abusive for accusing me; actually I’m the harmed one.”  This is often "Playing the Victim" by reframing their abusive behavior as a reaction to being wronged.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Smear Campaigns

• Quietly or publicly damaging reputations through selective stories, exaggerated harm, moral accusations, innuendo, or “concerned” gossip.

• Dual Purpose: Yes.

  • Protecting individuals and community from a known, documented, harmful individual will require disclosure of that behavior to some extent.  Doing so is not a smear campaign.  Community-level reasons to do this may include protecting a group, facility, or event from harmful people through banning and Do-Not-Invite lists.

​

Selective Information

• Withholding facts, leaking partial information, selectively quoting private conversations, or controlling who hears which version.

• Dual Purpose:  Yes.

  • There are valid reasons to not provide all facts, all the time, to everyone.  For instance, personal privacy information and keeping valid confidences.  Selective information used to deceive and unethically bias outcomes is not valid.

​

Category: Social Control

 

Very close to Narrative Control, this category was created as a way to focus on tactics that are seemingly more personal.

​

Triangulation

• Pitting people against each other, carrying messages, comparing loyalties, or using one person’s words to manipulate another.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Flying Monkeys / Proxy Attacks

• Recruiting supporters to pressure, shame, isolate, or attack the target while the manipulator stays partly hidden.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Splitting

• Dividing people into loyal allies and evil enemies; idealizing people while useful, then devaluing them when they resist.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Loyalty Tests

• Creating situations where people must prove allegiance by agreeing, taking sides, sharing private information, attacking others, staying silent, or accepting unreasonable demands.

• Dual Purpose: None.

  • There is no valid dual-use as defined.  Loyalty is an attribute used throughout society including our chosen families, M/s and D/s relationships, houses, and organizations.  It is not valid when used as a control mechanism.  It is particularly harmful when it is implemented against a person's internal values.

 

Attention Capture

• Creating drama, crises, public scenes, emotional emergencies, or constant needs so the group’s focus returns to them.

• Dual Purpose: Caution.

  • Valid (or expected human behavior) attention-seeking can occur during real crisis, injury, grief, distress, accessibility need, or safety concern. It becomes toxic when crises are manufactured, exaggerated, repeated, or used to redirect focus, avoid accountability, or control the group.

​

Chaos Creation

• Generating confusion, emotional escalation, conflicting stories, urgent crises, or interpersonal messes so leaders spend energy managing fallout instead of recognizing the larger pattern.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Exit Sabotage

• When they lose influence, they damage the group on the way out: accusations, faction-building, revenge narratives, or attempts to collapse trust.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Category: Moral Control

 

This category groups tactics that manipulate the community’s view of moral and ethical behavior.  They may be used to manipulate groups of people or individuals.

​

Weaponized Accountability

• Using the language or process of accountability not to establish truth, repair harm, improve behavior, or protect safety, but to control others, punish enemies, gain status, redirect scrutiny, or rally supporters.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Moral Coercion

• Pressuring others to agree by implying that disagreement means they are unsafe, abusive, bigoted, uncaring, or not part of the “real” community.

• Dual Purpose:  Caution.

  • Ethical warnings, values-based disagreement, and protective disclosures can be valid. Moral Coercion occurs when moral language is used to force agreement, silence disagreement, or frame dissent as harm without sufficient evidence or proportionality.

​

Victim Positioning

• Framing themselves as persecuted, misunderstood, excluded, unsafe, or “targeted” whenever challenged.

• Dual Purpose:  Caution.

  • Make sure to not use this approach to criticize true victims.  Ensure enough evidence to make an assertion of Victim Positioning. True victims may accurately describe harm, exclusion, targeting, or unsafe behavior. This tactic should only be asserted when evidence shows repeated use of victim framing to avoid accountability, redirect scrutiny, or manipulate others.

 

Category: Institutional Control

 

This tactic category is focused upon manipulating rules and processes in organizations and communities whether formal or informal.  An informal tactic here is “Status Capture,” used by toxic individuals to gain status themselves or through proximity to others with status.

 

Rule Exploitation

• Using community values like consent, inclusion, trauma awareness, accountability, or restorative justice as weapons rather than principles.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

False Accountability

• Offering polished apologies, therapy language, or performative remorse without changed behavior, repair, or accountability.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Status Capture

• Seeking titles, proximity to leaders (event producers, venue owners, title owners, organizational leaders, organizational members, etc.), teaching roles, social visibility, gatekeeping power, or symbolic authority for self-serving purposes.  (Symbolic authority  is the legitimacy an institution or leader holds because people believe in their right to rule, internalize their symbols, and accept their expertise.)  Simply being seen talking in public or on social media to a perceived or actual leader can give credibility to a high-conflict person seeking status.  Self-serving purposes include: to gain credibility, access targets, borrow legitimacy from respected people or organizations, shape community narratives, collect defenders, retaliation leverage that makes accusations against them harder to believe, masking other exploitations, and access to additional targets.

• Dual Purpose: Yes.

  • Engagement with leaders, having teaching roles, and being socially visible is part of engaging community - not Status Capture by itself.  Doing so for negative intention is the concern.  Gatekeeping "power" is not acceptable unless it is desired by the "power," such as a secretary managing access to their boss as part of their job.

​

Process Abuse

• Misusing investigations, grievance systems, mediation, restorative processes, bylaws, appeals, or community procedures to delay consequences, exhaust leaders, intimidate targets, or keep conflict active.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Boundary Testing

• Pushing small limits first, then escalating; treating every boundary as negotiable, cruel, unfair, or proof of rejection.

• Dual Purpose: Yes.

  • Some boundary testing is part of our society and some people's personality.  Boundary testing can avoid undue authoritarian rule.  The intention, validity, degree, and frequency of boundary testing is important.   Those with narcissistic, manipulative, high-conflict, or antisocial tactics are often very aggressive at repeatedly testing boundaries, exhausting opposition to their objectives.

 

Entitlement & Exceptionalism

• Expecting special access, special forgiveness, special authority, special exceptions, or exemption from normal standards.  May be expected through a power dynamic, family/house, organization, or leadership role.

• Dual Purpose:  Yes.

  • Society will usually set standards that need to be stretched to meet positive objectives, such as access to events by those with some type of disability.  This will be interpreted by some as exceptionalism - and it is, for a positive purpose.  Persons viewed as being in leadership, well-connected, etc., will be viewed by others as entitled and receiving exceptions.  They probably are - but for positive reasons of putting in the work and giving to community.

 

Category: Emotional Control

 

These are typically extreme coercive tactics rather than everyday manipulative tactics. They may be less common than softer manipulation tactics, but they are higher-risk and often indicate escalation from manipulation into coercive abuse.

 

Threats, Intimidation, Retaliation

• Threatening reputational, social, legal, organizational, or emotional consequences if challenged with the purpose of manipulation.

• Dual Purpose: Caution.

  • Valid warnings, boundaries, and consequences may be perceived as threats by someone being held accountable. This tactic becomes coercive when fear, retaliation, reputational harm, legal pressure, or social punishment is used to compel silence, compliance, or avoidance of accountability.

 

Physical Intimidation, Coercion, Abuse

• Using physical presence, threats, rough handling, blocking exits, invading space, unsafe play, “accidental” injury, or actual violence to dominate, frighten, punish, or control others. In kink/leather spaces, this can be especially dangerous because abusive behavior may be disguised as dominance, protocol, edge play, “miscommunication,” or scene intensity.

• Dual Purpose: None.

 

Blackmail

• Threatening to reveal private, damaging, embarrassing, sexual, financial, professional, or community-sensitive information unless the target complies, remains silent, provides resources, withdraws a complaint, supports the manipulator, or avoids exposing harmful behavior.

• Dual Purpose: None.

 

Outing / Doxxing / Spotting

• Outing and Doxxing involve revealing someone’s legal name, workplace, address, family connections, kink involvement, private relationships, messages, images, or other identifying/private information to punish, silence, intimidate, discredit, isolate, or control them.  Spotting is calling out someone on the social media platform, by handle, in a conflict, particularly on Fetlife (which is disallowed by policy).  For the purpose of this writing, threat of outing, doxxing, or spotting is considered blackmail.

• Dual Purpose: None.

 

Category: Predatory Targeting

 

One of the most egregious categories is the purposeful, malicious manipulation of people who are disadvantaged in the community, temporarily or for longer periods.

​

The "General" tactics is intended to include all the "Focus" tactics for simplify.  Focus tactics are included to better describe the nuance of techniques involved.

 

General: Exploiting Mental, Emotional, Social, or Financial Fragility

• Targeting people who are isolated, grieving, anxious, neurodivergent, traumatized, new to the community, conflict-avoidant, approval-seeking, desperate for belonging, or financially disadvantaged. The manipulator may become their “rescuer,” confidant, mentor, protector, Dom, advocate, or crisis manager, then use that dependency for loyalty, sex, labor, money, status, silence, or proxy attacks.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Focus: Preying Upon Newcomers

Targeting people who do not yet know community norms, history, red flags, event structures, or who is trustworthy, with the purpose of using or manipulating them.

Dual Purpose: None.

​

Focus: Weaponizing Trauma

• Using someone’s trauma history, triggers, fear responses, shame, or need for validation as leverage to manipulate them.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Focus: Preying Upon the Isolated

• Targeting people who lack strong friendships, community anchors, partners, mentors, or outside reality-checks, with the purpose to manipulate them.

• Dual Purpose: None.

​

Focus: Need for Belonging

• Offering acceptance, family, identity, mentorship, protection, status, or “chosen family” — then making that belonging conditional on loyalty, silence, sex, labor, money, obedience, or participation in conflict.

• Dual Purpose: None.

 

Focus: Financial Manipulation

• A financially resourced person uses money, gifts, access, housing, event support, travel, status, or financial rescue to create dependency, loyalty, silence, obligation, or control over someone with fewer resources.

  • Note: This can also occur in reverse, where someone with fewer resources targets a financially stable person. In those cases, the financial exploitation is often enabled through other tactics first, such as love-bombing, victim positioning, crisis creation, manufactured dependency, guilt, or even blackmail.

• Dual Purpose: None.

 

Leather & Kink Community Tactic Focus

Much of the Playbook are expressed broadly in the society in which our community lives.  But our community provides special leverage points associated with our way of life in privacy, sexuality, identity, trust, hierarchy, consent norms, event access, and chosen-family belonging.

​

Understanding these leverage points may help you better apply the Playbook as a defensive strategy.

​

Specific Tactic Focus toward Leather & Kink Communities

• Kink identity as private leverage

  • A person’s participation may be hidden from family, employers, custody situations, professional networks, religious communities, or vanilla friends. That makes outing, doxxing, blackmail, and reputation threats more powerful.

• Consent language as a community currency

  • Consent is important, but that also means accusations framed in consent/safety language can move fast, carry strong moral force, and be difficult to question without looking unsafe or dismissive.

• D/s, M/s, protocol, and authority ambiguity

  • Power exchange creates consensual authority structures that can be confused with social authority. A manipulative person may exploit titles, honorifics, collars, houses, protocols, or “elder” roles to appear more legitimate than they are.

• Scene privacy and limited witnesses

  • Many important interactions happen in private negotiations, scenes, and aftercare in places like hotel rooms, homes, private chats, travel, or small house gatherings. This makes truth-finding harder and narrative control easier.

• Edge play and plausible deniability

  • Abusive behavior may be disguised as intensity, dominance, sadism, protocol, “rough play,” miscommunication, or pushing limits. This is a uniquely dangerous overlap between consensual risk and coercive harm.

• Newcomer vulnerability to norms and language

  • New people may not know what is normal, what is unsafe, who is credible, what “community standards” actually are, or when someone is using jargon to manipulate them.

• Community status through visibility and service

  • Teaching, producing events, being a titleholder, being in a leather family/house, knowing venue owners, or being seen with respected people can create credibility quickly, particularly to new members of the community. That makes Status Capture especially potent.

• Negotiation culture as a manipulation approach

  • Negotiation is healthy, but someone can use endless negotiation, technical consent language, loopholes, or selective memory to blur boundaries and confuse responsibility.

​

Tactic Enhancement in the Leather & Kink Communities

 

• Pursuit of Chosen-family

  • Need for belonging exists everywhere, but it is intensified when people feel rejected by family, religion, mainstream sexuality, gender norms, or prior communities. Predators can offer “family” and then make that belonging conditional.

• Reputation dependence

  • Every community has reputation systems. Leather/kink communities often rely heavily on informal reputation because formal institutions are limited. That makes gossip, whisper networks, vouching, and smear campaigns more powerful.

• Small-world overlap

  • People often share events, venues, classes, partners, play partners, exes, houses, title systems, and social circles. This magnifies Triangulation, Splitting, Exit Sabotage, and Proxy Attacks.

• Informal governance

  • Many spaces operate through volunteers, producers, house leaders, DMs, boards, or venue owners rather than mature institutions. That can make process inconsistent and easier to exploit.

• Trauma prevalence and trauma language

  • Alternative communities may include more people than vanilla society that are healing from shame, rejection, abuse, repression, or identity conflict. Trauma language can help people heal, but it can also be weaponized to avoid accountability or control others.

• Sexual and romantic entanglement

  • Many communities have dating drama. Leather/kink spaces add play dynamics, power exchange, poly networks, title relationships, mentorship, and intimacy. That gives emotional leverage more paths to operate.

• High value placed on tolerance and inclusion

  • Inclusion is a virtue. But harmful people may exploit it by framing boundaries as exclusion, accountability as abuse, or refusal of access as bigotry or gatekeeping.

• Fear of “dividing the community”

  • Because the community may feel fragile or marginalized, people may avoid confronting harmful behavior to prevent drama. Manipulative people benefit from that reluctance.

• Volunteer burnout

  • Community leaders often have limited time, incomplete information, and no formal investigative support. Chaos creation and process abuse can exhaust them.

• Social proof through association

  • This is intensified in our community when people lack formal credentials for safety and rely on “who knows whom.” Being photographed with leaders, teaching at events, or being vouched for can create a false safety signal.

 

Concluding Thoughts

This Playbook is not meant to turn suspicion into certainty. It is meant to help people recognize repeated patterns, slow down confusion, ask better questions, protect vulnerable people, and reduce the damage caused by manipulation before it becomes community-wide conflict.

​

Reference: List of Tactics

A succinct list of the tactics and their categories here as a reference tool.

 

• Narrative Control

  • Gaslighting, Reality Distortion

  • DARVO

  • Smear Campaigns

  • Selective Information

• Social Control

  • Triangulation

  • Flying Monkeys / Proxy Attacks

  • Splitting

  • Loyalty Tests

  • Attention Capture

  • Chaos Creation

  • Exit Sabotage

• Moral Control

  • Weaponized Accountability

  • Moral Coercion

  • Victim Positioning

• Institutional Control

  • Rule Exploitation

  • False Accountability

  • Status Capture

  • Process Abuse

  • Boundary Testing

  • Entitlement & Exceptionalism

• Emotional Control

  • Love-bombing & Charm

  • Weaponized Fragility

  • Manufactured Dependency

  • Emotional Leverage

• Direct Coercion

  • Threats, Intimidation, Retaliation

  • Physical Intimidation, Coercion, Abuse

  • Blackmail

  • Outing / Doxxing / Spotting

• Predatory Targeting

  • General: Exploiting Mental, Emotional, Social, or Financial Fragility

  • Focus: Preying Upon Newcomers

  • Focus: Weaponizing Trauma

  • Focus: Preying Upon the Isolated

  • Focus: Need for Belonging

  • Focus: Financial Manipulation

​

Tactics of 22 Individuals

Using a tool is a great way to improve your skill implementing the tool.  It’s also a good way to see if it is complete, effective, etc.  In that spirit, our House applied this tool as objectively as we could to 22 individuals (“A” through “V”) from across the country that we believe had various degrees of exhibiting these behaviors.  This is an initial study, upon which we are expanding.

​

To be clear, this table is illustrative, not diagnostic, and not proof of narcissism or any other behavior.

 

This is a small sample size both in number of people included and an even smaller sample size in evaluating each of the 22 people in each of the tactics.  Therefore, we are claiming no scientific validity in this process.  We tried to be as objective and consistent as possible, using data and written documentation when available.  We acknowledge that there is no doubt that many people in the community would not agree that all these individuals are toxic.  However, note that is often a goal of toxic individuals, to treat some individuals well as anchors into the community.

 

One bias in this table is that interaction time with each individual is different.  Therefore, a person with these behaviors that was observed for a long period may have a higher score than those with which we have less data.  However, it should be noted that some people for whom we have a large amount of data have lower scores.  So, we believe the data to be relatively objective, but it is not adjusted for amount of data collected.

 

One clear bias in this table is that we did not list people who are generally viewed as positive contributors in the community - somewhat of a scientific "control."  This is important because all of us, even those with great intent, may be viewed as exhibiting some of these attributes at times by some people.  This serves as a warning, repeated from earlier in this writing, that one should not jump to conclusions when using this Playbook.  One needs repeated observations in subtle cases to be sure about one’s conclusions.  Egregious situations may be clearer with fewer observations.

​

Table Description

 

Table Scores

For each attribute in the Playbook, each individual was scored based on observed exhibition of that attribute toward ourselves or others in the community.

• Zero (blank) = no clear observation of this behavior.

• 1 = Low level of observed problematic behavior, seen once. For tool-testing purposes, a valid “dual-purpose” behavior may also receive a 1 if others could plausibly perceive it negatively, even if the intent was positive.

• 2 = Medium level of bad behavior, including repeated or more intense examples.

• 3 = High level of bad behavior, often demonstrated, extreme examples.

• If you wish, score yourself!

​

Table Sums

The table includes a tactic-use intensity sum on the left, the sum of all the scores for each tactic.  These range from 86 percent intensity for “Smear Campaigns” to a low of 8 percent for “Threats, Intimidation, Retaliation.”

​

The table has a sum of combined tactic use at the bottom for each of the 22 individuals.  High score was 88 percent for one individual, while the low score was 7 percent.  Note that, in our approach, even angelic humans should have a non-zero score because others may interpret their Dual Use actions as negative.

 

Predatory Targeting includes a general summary line, often reflecting the highest value among the four focused observations.  These four are highlighted yellow to note that they are individual attributes.

 

Are You in the Table?

You're probably not in the table.  I am in the table.  I don't mean to exclude you.  If you'd like to add to the data, you can send me your self-assessment (honest as you can - it can include others' likely view of you for the Dual-Purpose items), and I may (or may not) put you in the table.  Remember, the purpose of this table is not calling people out, it's trying to validate the tactics set completeness, description, and use of the Playbook.

​

Table Summary

We provide no deep analysis of this table but will offer some observations.  Note that this information was expanded on 29Jun26 with a larger sample.

• How the scores are determined is evolving as we learn to use this list as a validation tool.  Until we stop working this as a draft, things will change.

• We are trying to include more "upstanding" individuals in the list as a control because they could easily be seen to demonstrate some "Dual Purpose" use of some of these tactics.  Some, particularly difficult people in the community, may interpret the Dual Purpose use of a tactic as impactful to them.

• Some individuals are well-versed in most of these tactics, for instance with scores over 60 percent.  Yet even these individuals have not clearly demonstrated every single tactic.  Manipulative persons have their own preferred style, modus operandi, and may avoid some approaches not consistent with their personality.

• Some tactics are rarely used, perhaps because they are too observable or counter to the individual’s objective.  For instance, tactics within the category of Direct Coercion  are rarely used.

• There is a wide spectrum of individuals shown.  Some have mostly Low (1) scores.  Others are extremely intense with mostly High (3) scores.

• The top tactics demonstrated, with scores of 56 percent or higher are:

  • 86% - Smear Campaigns

  • 63% - Boundary Testing

  • 63% - Victim Positioning

  • 63% - Selective Information

  • 62% - Gaslighting, Realty Distortion

  • 60% - Flying Monkeys / Proxy

  • 59% - DARVO

  • 57% - Weaponized Accountability

  • 57% - Exit Sabotage

  • 57% - Moral Coercion

  • 57% - Status Capture

  • 56% - Splitting

​