D&D General Ravenloft, horror, & safety tools...

[Bedrockgames]

I don't see much nuance in "Safety tools do more harm than good". I see a strawman claim about a nonexistent issue and rejecting the idea of writing down your "unspoken common sense tools" (which are exactly what you're protesting against; safety tools). There's no nuance there. It's just either blatant mischaracterization and misunderstanding of the other side's point and refusing to give up any ground when multiple people try to correct you or point out flaws in your argument, or it's trolling a thread for 8 pages to make sure that it doesn't end up being constructive for some not-so-secret motivation (see "consequence of the culture of safety tools being normalized in the hobby"), or a bit of both.

I don't have to agree with you just because you make a point in a post. I personally found those posts unpersuasive. That doesn't mean I am trolling. It means I disagree with you about something and have reached different conclusions about it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

And that isn't to minimize the importance of mental health.

Again; whether or not you mean to, you are doing a FANTASTIC job of doing so.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Just cause someone likes some horror doesn't mean they like all horror. Have a good mate who I watch scary movies with all the time. But he's vetoed The Fly cause he don't do body horror. Why would I push him or sneak it into the player when I know he don't like?

And this stuff is fine. If a friend wants to one thing, and another friend is like "I don't do that thing". That is reasonable, and you get to sort it out like adults. But the problem with things like these checklists, is it goes from someone raising a rare objection to something because its a serious issue for them, to, at least in my view, lowering that bar to where people just check off a box and it could mean anything from they just don't like it to it triggers serious psychological episodes (and we treat both of those things with the same level of gravity in terms of removing the thing that was checked).

 

[Faolyn]

Just cause someone likes some horror doesn't mean they like all horror. Have a good mate who I watch scary movies with all the time. But he's vetoed The Fly cause he don't do body horror. Why would I push him or sneak it into the player when I know he don't like?

Exactly. Likewise, I have a friend who counts The Thing as among his favorite movies, but who got far too upset watching Get Out so we stopped midway through. I was really enjoying it, but I wouldn't force him to continue watching it just because I liked it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Again; whether or not you mean to, you are doing a FANTASTIC job of doing so.

I am being as clear as I can. And I am qualifying as much as I possibly can. If people want to ignore my qualifying remarks, or read meaning into my posts that isn't there, that is up to them. This is mild criticism of safety tools. To equate mild criticism of safety tools with minimizing mental health concerns, I think demonstrates people haven't been exposed to enough contrarian viewpoints on the topic (which is one of the reasons I am forcing myself to engage in threads like this: because I feel too many people who feel the way I do are not saying anything because they are afraid their statements will be misintreperted by people in exactly the way you are misinterpreting me).

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

And this stuff is fine. If a friend wants to one thing, and another friend is like "I don't do that thing". That is reasonable, and you get to sort it out like adults. But the problem with things like these checklists, is it goes from someone raising a rare objection to something because its a serious issue for them, to, at least in my view, lowering that bar to where people just check off a box and it could mean anything from they just don't like it to it triggers serious psychological episodes (and we treat both of those things with the same level of gravity in terms of removing the thing that was checked).

The checklist is a tool. It's so you don't forget something or make assumptions. It covers all the bases
This friend I'm talking about? Known him for eight years. Countless hours. And I didn't know he had a thing for body horror until a month ago because it never occurred to me to ask. It never came up. And he never thought to mention the fact
Had I done a checklist when I started gaming with him I might have learned that years ago. Because the tool would have prompted me to ask

And how the flip does it matter if they don't like it or it triggers a serious psychological episode? If you KNOW they don't like it, why on Earth would you bring it up for the former and not the latter? They've noped out either way
How much they hate it is just semantics

 

[Vaalingrade]

I am being as clear as I can. And I am qualifying as much as I possibly can. If people want to ignore my qualifying remarks, or read meaning into my posts that isn't there, that is up to them. This is mild criticism of safety tools. To equate mild criticism of safety tools with minimizing mental health concerns, I think demonstrates people haven't been exposed to enough contrarian viewpoints on the topic (which is one of the reasons I am forcing myself to engage in threads like this: because I feel too many people who feel the way I do are not saying anything because they are afraid their statements will be misintreperted by people in exactly the way you are misinterpreting me).

Here's the thing though.

When act suspicious of the motives of people making use of safety tools, when you when you minimize the experience of people with aversions less than PTSD or who share a relation to you less than a friend, when you accuse people of 'weaponizing their feelings' for being so audacious as to ask for elements that make them uncomfortable to be removed from a game they're trying to enjoy, when you try and play the culture card against people trying to make things better, when you agree with someone playing the 'but ack-tu-ally' or 'the dic-tion-ary sez' cards to minimize the idea of mental and emotional safety...

Then yes, you are absolutely minimizing mental health. No ifs, ands or buts.

Maybe you don't realize it, but a lot of the things you've said here are actually pretty terrible and insulting to people dealing with real issues. Just because those issues aren't as intense or pervasive as PTSD doesn't mean they're fake or performative or whatever other insulting terms you want to apply to them.

 

[overgeeked]

Back to safety tools, here’s a video about safety tools as used in Critical Role. The video has a huge list of resources in the doo-blee-doo.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Then yes, you are absolutely minimizing mental health. No ifs, ands or buts.

Maybe you don't realize it, but a lot of the things you've said here are actually pretty terrible and insulting to people dealing with real issues. Just because those issues aren't as intense or pervasive as PTSD doesn't mean they're fake or performative or whatever other insulting terms you want to apply to them.

I am not saying anything about anyone specific. I am speaking in general terms about instances I have seen online. Me saying I have seen lots of posts or examples that appear performative, isn’t me dismissing genuine mental health issues: it is me saying I take mental health issues seriously and am concerned when it appears to be something people are adopting for other reasons (because they are trying to fit in, because they have sensitized themselves to minor dislikes, because they are following a social script). But two things can be true here: mental health problems can be real and mental health problems can be exaggerated or even lied about. And keep in mind, I am not saying if someone reports mental health issues you should ignore them: you shouldn’t because you never know what is going on with someone. I am saying this explosion of concern for safety tools and that it suddenly seems like almost everyone has sone kind of mental health trigger, suggests to be strongly there is a performative and faddish element to much of it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't have to agree with you just because you make a point in a post. I personally found those posts unpersuasive. That doesn't mean I am trolling. It means I disagree with you about something and have reached different conclusions about it.

If a post makes a correct point, and you disagree with it, you are trolling (just like Flat Earthers are trolling by disagreeing with someone that says the Earth is an oblate spheroid). If you disagree with a post that's point is subjective, that's not trolling, that's just having an opinion.

It is not an opinion that including triggers in your campaign can be damaging to your players. It is not an opinion that humans cannot read minds, and thus are incapable of knowing any/all triggers of anyone else without them telling you so. It is not an opinion that providing a resource to make sure that you and the rest of the table know the triggers early on in order to prevent their occurrence can help prevent harm. Therefore, if there is a resource to help prevent this issue before it becomes an issue at the table, that is objectively a good thing in these circumstances (which seems to be most, from my experience, and most of the other posters in this thread).

Listing down possible problems to prevent them from becoming problems cannot be a bad thing. That's like saying NASA should build and launch a rocket to Mars without considering anything that could go wrong on the mission. At the worst, it will be useless, at the best, it can have a tremendous positive effect.

If your table all perfectly knows each other and are basically telepaths, and thus incapable of ever including any trigger (no matter how big or small) in your table on accident, great for you. However, that will not be the case 9 times out of 10, so in every other circumstance this can be (and will probably be) helpful.

Your complaint about people possibly somehow abusing this to get attention or . . . I have no idea what possible bad thing could come from listing down triggers even if a trigger is completely fake . . . is like arguing against inventing phones because spam-calls exist, or music because sometimes people who can't sing become famous. Not only that, but you have not provided any cases where this has been detrimental in any way, besides you disliking the idea of it. Stop giving hypothetheories and back up your concerns with real evidence if you want to seem like you're arguing in good faith.

Not only that, but actually respond to posts, instead of giving short descriptions of "that's not what I said" or "you're mischaracterizing my position". If people are using faulty logic to come to conclusions about your posts, go through their responses thoroughly and refute them. That's arguing in good-faith. Simply refusing to give up any ground or acknowledge any possible mistakes on your part and telling people "you're wrong, I'm Ignoring you" is not arguing in good faith.