Consent in Gaming - Free Guidebook

[DEFCON 1]

Of course there is the contrary effect over on an anti-PC RPG site where Monte Cook gets called an 'RPG Maoist' by the board owner, and the discussion tends to push views down from a 5 towards a 4 or 3. So I think that process can work both ways.

The overall effect may tend to radicalisation, even while the great majority of commenters here are pretty reasonable, or at least try to be reasonable.

Oh sure... even when a societal norm is a '5', there are people who would find themselves at a '3' or '2' or '1'. And more often than not, any discussion at a '10' level will be so antithetical to their feelings or beliefs that they will push back so greatly as to drop themselves further down. But the numbers of those people who drop down I think tends to be just as small as the number of people for whom the '10' is not only the expected or necessary level of societal norm, but is actually kind of low. I mean we have the identifiers Far Left and Far Right for a reason.

But for the most part I think those who would consider themselves a '1' or a '10' on a societal norm of '5' are people for whom just conversation or basic instruction or "just use common sense!" wouldn't really work for them anyway. There is something more ingrained in their psyche at play that the basics of societal discourse won't actually have an affect. Not that they're necessarily wrong for that... but it just just changes how they will interact with us and how we interact with them.

 

[Arnwolf666]

I think almost everyone agrees about the sexual content in public places and with strangers. I think it’s the other things like drowning, hypothermia and natural disasters not be allowed. And trying to guess if a players has a fear of spiders or something like that. Although this may be a good thing if it stops WotC for having all these cataclysms in their settings.

 

[S'mon]

Oh sure... even when a societal norm is a '5', there are people who would find themselves at a '3' or '2' or '1'. And more often than not, any discussion at a '10' level will be so antithetical to their feelings or beliefs that they will push back so greatly as to drop themselves further down. But the numbers of those people who drop down I think tends to be just as small as the number of people for whom the '10' is not only the expected or necessary level of societal norm, but is actually kind of low. I mean we have the identifiers Far Left and Far Right for a reason.

I was thinking how over there on the anti-PC site my initial response was "Well this pamphlet seems to make some good points... maybe overstated ....hmm, especially later on" (let's call that a 5), but many of the posters there are saying how appalling it is, a sign of SJW infiltrators taking over the hobby etc, which discussion then tends to push my own view down to a 4 or 3 as I consider if they have a point. Whereas here it's more the opposite, debate tending to push me up towards a 6 or 7, at least until someone comes along and starts casting personal aspersions at me, which provokes a more negative reaction.

 

[S'mon]

But for the most part I think those who would consider themselves a '1' or a '10' on a societal norm of '5' are people for whom just conversation or basic instruction or "just use common sense!" wouldn't really work for them anyway.

That sounds like an RPG ...place... of a very different hue.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I was thinking how over there on the anti-PC site my initial response was "Well this pamphlet seems to make some good points... maybe overstated ....hmm, especially later on" (let's call that a 5), but many of the posters there are saying how appalling it is, a sign of SJW infiltrators taking over the hobby etc, which discussion then tends to push my own view down to a 4 or 3 as I consider if they have a point. Whereas here it's more the opposite, debate tending to push me up towards a 6 or 7, at least until someone comes along and starts casting personal aspersions at me, which provokes a more negative reaction.

Well, I don't think any single question or incident can really necessary change anyone's personal overall outlook or mores at the drop of a hat. It's going to end up being many ideas and many discussions and many reflections over the years that may or may not change our own personal feelings and opinions. So any specific thing that makes us think one side has some good points and then the other side also has some good points basically ends up defaulting us to how our societal norm is at a '5' in the first place.

But the fact that this document has actually made you take a few moments to actually think about what you believe in, and make you think about how other people might see things... that lovely term of 'empathy'... means that you are in good stead to continue analyzing your beliefs in the future. And for the most part, I think we as people tend to actually move forward and past what we would consider the 'status quo' when there are enough people out there commenting that the status quo kinda sucks.

 

[S'mon]

Well, I don't think any single question or incident can really necessary change anyone's personal overall outlook or mores at the drop of a hat. It's going to end up being many ideas and many discussions and many reflections over the years that may or may not change our own personal feelings and opinions. So any specific thing that makes us think one side has some good points and then the other side also has some good points basically ends up defaulting us to how our societal norm is at a '5' in the first place.

But the fact that this document has actually made you take a few moments to actually think about what you believe in, and make you think about how other people might see things... that lovely term of 'empathy'... means that you are in good stead to continue analyzing your beliefs in the future. And for the most part, I think we as people tend to actually move forward and past what we would consider the 'status quo' when there are enough people out there commenting that the status quo kinda sucks.

Yeah, the status quo isn't always the best place to be.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Gradine]

Wow, this thread started slow and then exploded over the weekend, didn't it. I do have a few points to add though:

1. "Consent" is not synonymous with "S&M". It is, or at least should be, synonymous with "sex".
2. A lot of pushback seems to come from folks of the "I've played with the same group for 70 years" type, which, you know, I don't think this document is for you or tables like yours? You see this a lot whenever gaming horror stories come out; they seem completely inconcgruous to "gaming as I understand it" when "gaming as I understand it" mostly, if not exclusively, involves the same group or groups of good friends who have had many, many years of learning to understand one another. As if those experiences were universal and all-inclusive of gaming as whole.
   The horror stories, meanwhile, far more often than not develop out of scenes of gaming with strangers, which I imagine is a foreign experience for a large portion of gamers. You mostly hear these out of conventions, or gaming store games, or otherwise less organic gaming groups (looking-for-group type situations); situations where laying out some very clear ground rules or at the very least giving out a content warning for content that might exacerbate someone's trauma would avoid a lot of heartache.
3. I think a tool such as this is a little overwrought for a con game (where specific content warnings are likely to be best practice; a simple "R" rating alone doesn't actually communicate much) or one-shot, but might be a great tool for folks who don't know each other that well at first but plan on making gaming as a group a long-term prospect. Again, those "looking-for-group" type situations seem to be the best fit for a product like this.
4. It's been pointed out A LOT, but there's a lot of hand-wringing and clutching over pearls over nothing regarding this or similar efforts like this (possibly the X-card excepting, but I'm not a huge fan of that one, albeit for different reasons than you usually hear). This is a communication tool. Nothing more or less. Nobody is breaking down anyone's door to tell them what they can or cannot do in their games. One of the best possible outcomes of a tool like this is that the players don't disclose any concerns over anything the DM was planning to include in their games in the first place. Another best possible outcome is one in which a player makes a concern about something the DM was planning to include, but this causes the DM to reconsider or avoid the subject. Yet another best possible outcome is similar to the last, but the DM and the player come to an understand that that particular game isn't for that player. And all of this, ideally, takes place before a single die is rolled or character sheet started. Each and every one of those outcomes is the tool working as designed. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Case in point... I'm in my late 40s, and as a result I grew up in the 80s during the boom of stand-up comedy. And quite a number of comedians of the day would satirize the racist attitudes of their forebears by going extremely over the top with racist language-- inspiring us to hopefully come to the conclusion just how ridiculous those racist attitude are. I was a teenage during the 80s and I certainly internalized all of that. Our societal norm at the time was a '5', and these comedians were pushing '8s' and '9s'. And it shaped my attitudes on race as I became an adult.

And I would say it worked. Their efforts at mocking racism has helped turn their '8s' and '9s' into our new default of '5'. They aren't the sole reason of course... but they were a part of the change. But now guess what? We are now at the point where our younger folks are making the case that these now-older comedians who are still doing what they did before 30 years ago are no longer helping. Because it is their belief that using racist language to satirize racism is still being racist. It doesn't matter that they're trying to help make change... our younger folk are telling us that they are no longer willing to accept racism to combat racism.

And the thing is... this shouldn't be any big surprise! That was the whole point into doing those routines in the first place-- to get society to change! And now that it has, we shouldn't get all defensive that we are now looked upon by our children the way we looked at the older generations we were making fun of. Yes, indeed... we have become that which we mocked. And for a lot of people it can be hard to look in the mirror and accept that as true.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*