How to Tell if Your Fun is Wrong

[FrogReaver]

Although you raise an important point on what is "tasteful" or offensive, this is not actually what we are talking about. There is a big difference between "in bad taste" and "causing real hurt to others" which is what we are discussing as the unacceptable limit of fun in a game.

What is "real hurt"?

Queer as Folk is an excellent talking point. I believe it first aired at the end of the 90's rather than the mid, but that's beside then point. As far as I can see from reviews and commentary from the time, the average person actually quite liked it, but again, the question of "taste" is not relevant to this discussion. What is relevant is "did it cause hurt?" and, since it portrayed the gay community, it's interesting to see that the reactions from them were mixed. Some felt it was great to see their culture portrayed that way, others that it showed "ridiculous and dangerous stereotypes". I can't speak to what the average gay UK person would have felt as I'm not a member of that community, but it doesn't appear from my reading that they were definitively hurt by it. But I'm quite willing to believe I'm totally wrong, and if they were hurt by it, then yeah, its would have been better to have done it differently.

I'm steering clear of the non-D&D landmines as I can't really discuss topics like that here.

I understand that you are trying to frame "badness" in roleplaying games as purely a matter of taste, but I'm not aligned with that way of thinking. I agree with you that judging taste by a "reasonable man" criterion would be quite dodgy, and maybe I am an optimist, but I think most people are capable of saying "that is awful, in bad taste and I hate it, but it doesn't actually hurt anyone so I guess ... go ahead", and so I'm good with a group consensus on what can cause hurt. Yeah, it can fail, and I'm sure people can bring up examples, but it seems a better plan than saying that we're not even going to try.

IMO. Hurt is at an individual level and not group level. A group cannot tell an individual if something hurt them (outside logical inconsistencies). At best the group can say whether something 'should' have hurt the individual.

 

[FrogReaver]

With your clarification in mind, I'd say your your distinction between "real" and "imagined" harm is close enough to my statement that a "a reasonable person would be harmed". If only unreasonable people would be harmed, the harm would not seem real; and vice versa, so I think we're in good agreement.

For what it's worth I think your definition of unreasonable people being harmed is much more accurate than talking about imagined harm.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

What is "real hurt"?

I'm going to guess "harm/hurt that is real" (as in not imagined or falsely claimed).

IMO. Hurt is at an individual level and not group level. A group cannot tell an individual if something hurt them (outside logical inconsistencies). At best the group can say whether something 'should' have hurt the individual.

For what it's worth I think your definition of unreasonable people being harmed is much more accurate than talking about imagined harm.

I don't think @GrahamWills ever suggested that harm was a group experience (though certain groups are more inclined to be offended by different things than other groups). Harm is an individual experience, but there is true harm and false harm (most often red herrings meant to distract others/draw attention). Like I said earlier in this thread, if someone was offended by the inclusion/lack of the Tortle race in anyone else's D&D campaign that they have no connection to, that would be imagined harm, and so on. It is a matter of reasonable reactions being "true harm" and unreasonable reactions being "false/imagined harm".

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm going to guess "harm/hurt that is real" (as in not imagined or falsely claimed).

Then your definitions are tautological which isn't really a meaningful response to my question IMO.

I don't think @GrahamWills ever suggested that harm was a group experience (though certain groups are more inclined to be offended by different things than other groups).

Great!

Harm is an individual experience, but there is true harm and false harm (most often red herrings meant to distract others/draw attention).

What is true harm? What is false harm? Please no tautologies.

Like I said earlier in this thread, if someone was offended by the inclusion/lack of the Tortle race in anyone else's D&D campaign that they have no connection to, that would be imagined harm, and so on.

How can you make that claim absent any other context? The Tortle race could have been included or excluded from any campaign for any reason. IMO something otherwise innocuous might be done with evil intent and if so then could proceed to cause harm. When people want to do something wrong they often look for such loopholes to create reasonable justification for their actions.

It is a matter of reasonable reactions being "true harm" and unreasonable reactions being "false/imagined harm".

That's a definition I strongly disagree with. An extreme example: PTSD. A reasonable reaction to fireworks isn't the reaction of someone with severe PTSD. That situation is harming said individual and possibly even those around them even though that harm is entirely due to innermost workings of their mind.

I think there is a real psychological aspect to harm that cannot simply be chalked up to being false or imagined even though it can cause 'unreasonable reactions'

 

[MGibster]

There are games that deal with some pretty uncomfortable subjects. In Vampire 5th edition, the PCs are predators and their prey are humans. And no matter how "nice" they are, there's always a risk that they will emotionally or physically harm the mortals that mean the most to them. One of the viable hunting methods for a PC is to put the magical whammy on someone and sleep with them while draining a bit of the blood for yourself. i.e. The character is essentially a serial rapist.

Obviously if someone at the table is uncomfortable with abusive relationships or that kind of character then you don't include it at the table. (Though abusive relationships are a core part of the mechanics so I'd suggest the group finds a different game to play.) But if such things are within the comfort zone of all players is there any real harm being done?

 

[FrogReaver]

There are games that deal with some pretty uncomfortable subjects. In Vampire 5th edition, the PCs are predators and their prey are humans. And no matter how "nice" they are, there's always a risk that they will emotionally or physically harm the mortals that mean the most to them. One of the viable hunting methods for a PC is to put the magical whammy on someone and sleep with them while draining a bit of the blood for yourself. i.e. The character is essentially a serial rapist.

Obviously if someone at the table is uncomfortable with abusive relationships or that kind of character then you don't include it at the table. (Though abusive relationships are a core part of the mechanics so I'd suggest the group finds a different game to play.) But if such things are within the comfort zone of all players is there any real harm being done?

Can something we are all 'comfortable' with harm us? IMO Maybe. It's hard to say the psychological toll a thing takes on someone.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Whether something is offensive or not, is exactly what taste is about. Let’s be clear, talking about what WOC publishes, or what happens in a game store or convention is easy. Those are public affairs... what happens at someone’s kitchen table isn’t so easy.

You may notice, I never used the word "offensive" or "offense." Neither in the post you quoted, nor in any previous post in this thread. There's a reason for that.

And yes, I certainly agree that behavior in different spaces has different standards. That's why you use a "reasonable person" standard. Because a reasonable person knows that things you can say to your lover are not completely the same as things you can say to your boss, neither of which is completely the same as what you can say to your grandmother, all three of which are not the same as what you can say on national television. Reasonable people understand that community standards depend on which community you look at.

There are many comedians that push boundaries along taste and decency. If you go to a three comedian billed comedy club with a MC in any given city in England, I guarantee at least one of them will tell a joke that you wouldn’t repeat. There are many jokes that I would find distasteful. Then again I recognize that I shouldn’t be the person who decides if they get told or not.

Completely agreed! That's why we use this abstracted "reasonable person," not the specific interests of specific people. Because specific people don't necessarily fit in all places. But even your own examples now work against you; did you not just say that "public affairs" pretty clearly hew to a higher standard than private ones? Isn't a comedy show at a public venue--one where the comedians intend to make money--a public affair?

The problem with the average man on the clapham omnibus being the person who decides what is acceptable taste or not is that if that were the case Queer as Folk wouldn’t have been scheduled on TV in the mid 90’s and Graham Norton wouldn’t have been allowed to present a major TV show then. Because the average man on the bus in the 90’s thought open homosexuality was distasteful.

Again you focus on "distasteful" and "offensive." I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about what a reasonable person would think causes harm. The two are different. And there's also a reason I didn't use a "man on the street" either; I completely agree that the average person might be insensitive where a reasonable person would not. You shouldn't assume the average person is reasonable. And, again, you may note that I did not use the word "average." There is a reason I chose not to.

I’m not saying there aren’t things that I would horrified to see presented in a game. I just don’t think deciding what they are is as simple as some people on here suggest. The price of free speech, is that you sometimes have to put up with some things you don’t like.

At that point we’re back to consent, and choosing who you play with.

So....I'm really not sure where we've gone with this digression, then. You agree that intentionally causing harm--which I specifically called "insulting," "belittling," "shaming," and "demeaning," with the hope that that would clearly specify the kinds of harm I'm talking about--to your players is Obviously Bad. It frankly sounds like you just want to have a fight over whether "don't say things a reasonable person would find harmful" means censorship of gaming opportunities.

Don't tell people what kinds of roleplaying are okay for them. If they're having fun, it is presumptively okay, UNLESS it's exploitative, coercive, or insulting to the participants themselves. Is that good enough? Have I cleared your hurdles yet?

Not at my table.

I mean, fair, but I hope you agree that "a stand-up comedian telling jokes to an audience" and "my gaming group talking just amongst ourselves" can, should, and do have different standards for good reasons. There are things you can say in one of those that you should never say in the other, assuming of course that the people involved are reasonable.

What is "real hurt"?

What's a "line"? What's a "point"?

You're asking for definitions of fundamental concepts. There won't be a non-circular definition. The best you can do is provide examples, which is what I tried to do.

Real hurt is when you say something insulting, belittling, shaming, or demeaning to the actual participants, peripheral participants (e.g. making a crack about "queers" in the presence of the DM's gay brother), or living persons

But of course, again, this is you forcing a sterile, formal, nailed-down-to-the-letter definition, which defeats the purpose of the test. "Real harm" is what we recognize real harm to be.

IMO. Hurt is at an individual level and not group level. A group cannot tell an individual if something hurt them (outside logical inconsistencies). At best the group can say whether something 'should' have hurt the individual.

And when you have hurts repeated, across an enormous variety of circumstances, with victims of a clearly definable class, such as an ethnic group, sexual orientation, or religious/philosophical affiliation?

Harm directed like a firehose at anyone who might be nearby is still harm. It's just not totally the same as personal harm. It's the difference between a bullet and a grenade; the former has a name on it, the latter is addressed "to whom it may concern." That's what "group harm" almost always cashes out as, casual attacks on whole classes of people, some of whom will (almost without fail) end up hurt. Addressing these systematic and pervasive things is extremely difficult, especially while also respecting fundamental rights, as you have well demonstrated.

Can something we are all 'comfortable' with harm us? IMO Maybe. It's hard to say the psychological toll a thing takes on someone.

This is fair, and gets to the heart of a difficult question: is there such a thing as coercion sufficiently subtle that it is not noticed, but is still coercive? If the answer is "yes," then even so-called "enthusiastic consent" may not be reliable, at which point we seem to have no ability to have confidence in interpersonal relations of any kind. If we say the answer is "no" when it is really "yes," then we are blindly ignoring a serious and insidious problem. If we say it's "yes" when it's actually "no," we have marooned ourselves for no reason.

But, at least for the time being, the most useful answer is to say "no, it's not possible for something every participant is 'comfortable' with to cause harm, as long as you confirm that status reasonably often." As with all relationships, this depends on shared trust, forthright (and frequent) communication, and mutual respect.

 

[TheSword]

Don't tell people what kinds of roleplaying are okay for them. If they're having fun, it is presumptively okay, UNLESS it's exploitative, coercive, or insulting to the participants themselves. Is that good enough? Have I cleared your hurdles yet?

I wasn’t trying to put hurdles. I was just commenting in the context that some posters believe there are topics that are badwrongfun irrespective of table consent.

It sounds like we agree. Though I would have thought it was obvious that exploitating, coercing or insulting your table was a bad idea.

Edit: My comments were in context from this thought from @GrahamWills

Overall, I’d just drop any qualifiers and say that you if your game was viewed by any reasonable person, and it would cause them pain, it‘s bad/wrong. I understand that “reasonable” is very much left up to debate, but there’s no way to get around that issue. Precedence and sound judgement need to be your guide.”

 

[Umbran]

Way of the wicked wasn’t 50 years ago. It was six or seven years ago.

It also wasn't critically acclaimed in nearly the same way as Gone With The Wind. Or, at all, really. Way of the WIcked was generally panned as a film when it came out, much less today.

Oh, you mean as a game product? Never even heard of it... so not nearly as acclaimed as Gone With the Wind, which is at least a household name

 

[DemoMonkey]

Nothing done at a roleplaying gaming table should be judged by any other standards or criteria than "Do all the players in that game agree to it."