D&D 5E Content Warning Labels? Yeah or Nay?

[Dire Bare]

Unfortunately, of that list you just created, I can see at least 4 that are socially acceptable in parts of the world, some of them across almost the entire planet.

I will respond with an example of my own. Here is my trigger warning. Don't read this if you have phobias:

You and a friend are hunting a deer down a game trail.
Suddenly, the ground at your feet erupts with giant insect head, half-ant, half preying mantis, pushing through, knocking you both off your feet. .
From its mouth, a stream of acid spurts forth, hitting your friend full in the face.
He dies screaming.
You are not that lucky.
Before you can escape, its mandibles clamp down on your ankle, almost severing your foot.
It drags you back under the earth, into its lair of tunnels.
Finally, you reach a chamber, but you have no idea what the size is, as there is no light.
You feel a sharp sting in your abdomen, then nothing else, realizing you are paralyzed.
You lose track of time, drifting in and out of consciousness.
Then you begin to get feeling back, though you still cannot move.
You sense movement in your abdomen.
That movement quickly becomes discomfort, then agony.
The Ankheg's eggs have hatched, and the larvae are eating their way out of you.

Now, no sane person would ever tell that kind of story to a child. The game is marketed to kids. But what I just described is a perfectly reasonable depiction of a char dying horribly in a game of D&D. And NO, I don't play the game with kids, for obvious reasons.

That is just one of hundreds of monsters in the D&D universe, some that have far worse outcomes.
The game has ALWAYS been dark. How exactly do you propose sanitizing it, unless you put trigger warnings on everything?

The use of warnings is again, the authorial/editorial decision of the creator . . . . but when deciding whether to use them or not, you have to know your audience.

Most official, and unofficial, D&D products don't describe graphic scenes of violence as you do. If you are creating your own product, that probably will include themes of violence, but you stick to the normal level of violence depicted in D&D . . . then you probably don't need warnings. If you want to develop a product that does get super bloody and graphic, with detailed gory scenes of violence . . . . it's still up to you whether you include any type of warning, but it just might be a good idea.

If you are developing a product that contains what you feel are some troubling elements, as @Sacrosanct is doing . . . . you might feel that very few folks in your audience will be troubled or offended by your work, but perhaps they might be unaware of WHY certain aspects are troubling or offensive. And you want to address that.

As the creator . . . do you have concerns that some of your intended audience might find aspects of your product offensive or troubling? Do you have concerns that industry critics, professional and amateur, might call you out on certain aspects? Do you want your audience to understand the distinction between problematic source material and your own artistic choices? If the answer to any of that is yes, or even maybe . . . . you might want to include some sort of warnings.

The flip side of that is . . . . will your some of your intended audience sneer at trigger warnings and avoid your product because you used them? Is that even an audience you want to cater to?

Authorial decision, knowing your audience, knowing the times . . . . the argument that EVERYTHING or NOTHING deserves warning labels is patently ridiculous. It's hard to take you seriously on that.

 

[Sacrosanct]

So here's where I'm at so far. These will be the only places where the warning will be noted, rather than each individual stat block (obviously not final version, nor edited, so ignore spelling errors).

 

[embee]

The current project I'm working on is a folklore book based on original folklore (creatures will be depicted as how they were in original mythology rather than in modern RPGs and media). There's a lot of great stuff from those stories, but because they are often very dark, and in time that was....not very progressive, many of the creatures have a lore that includes things like ableism, sexism, assault, violation of consent, abduction, torture, and child abuse.

For those creatures, I have a "CONTENT WARNING" label next to the creature name, and in the Introduction section, I have this part:

Author's Note: Because the purpose of this book is to capture the original stories and portrayals of the creatures of folklore, there may be issues that are considered problematic by modern standards. Most of these myths and fables were created in a time or culture where issues such as misogyny, ethnic stereotyping, and ableism were part of the story, whether directly or indirectly. This book does not endorse any of these beliefs, and it is encouraged that any aspect you may find problematic for your game be modified or ignored. There are a lot of potential great stories to be told using original myths, but we must also be willing to acknowledge problematic aspects of those stories. Take what you want from this book, and ignore the rest.
Many of the core themes about fairies resonate in nearly every culture and may be triggering. These themes focus heavily on abduction, violating consent, sexual assault, child abuse, and mild torture. I feel it is my responsibility to call out references to these themes and have them labeled. This will be in the creature entry as “CONTENT WARNING” next to the creature’s name. Whenever possible, we have tried to tone down the references to those themes. Make no mistake, because they exist in folklore (and thus in this book), they are not to be celebrated, but viewed with caution. The inclusion of the “CONTENT WARNING” is to alert you ahead of time, so you can skip past them if you choose.

So my question to the community is, is something like that worth it? Is it off-putting? Not needed? Do you appreciate it, or would it turn you away?

Put a content warning on at the beginning.

The worst case scenario is someone tries to make a stink, saying "why'd you put a content warning on there?! I didn't find it all that disturbing."

To which the response is "I'm glad you didn't need the content warning. Others may have. Thank you for your feedback."

 

[jmartkdr2]

@Sacrosanct

I appreciate accurate descriptions of difficult content. For example, in a movie, it can list: profanity, nudity, sex, graphic violence, etcetera. Sex is fine, profanity is hopefully artistically intentional, but I avoid gory violence, especially if based on a true story.

For me a vague warning is unhelpful.

Maybe the end of each monster statblock has a section to list one-word descriptors for difficult content. Define each descriptor at the beginning along with the general nonendorsement warning for folklore era assumptions.

Heterocentrism and gender stereotypes are among the most pervasive problems in the lore of various cultures.

I am glad the Norwegian lore tends to be slightly more egalitarian, so where there is a sexually seductive female hulder, there is also a male one.

The other extreme to avoid is warnings so specific that they don't help you avoid the thing: "trigger warning: graphic depictions of cupcakes including swirled frosting, multicolored sprinkles, balloon-print wrapper and details about how moist and fluffy the cake is" might as well be a sign warning that you entered a minefield a hundred yards back.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The flip side of that is . . . . will your some of your intended audience sneer at trigger warnings and avoid your product because you used them? Is that even an audience you want to cater to?

Indeed. I certainly have encountered that today on this topic (not necessarily here, but in other places). I'm open to other opinions (obviously, as I've already shifted my position just in this thread), but I'm not all that open to someone deriding me for even considering such a thing, often including comments about how our current culture is weak and too sensitive, especially when it appears that type of person also makes comments celebrating and reveling in vigilante murder (not to get into that topic [please don't go down that road], but simply bringing it up to say, "yeah, I really don't care about them being my target audience in the first place if that's where they are at.")

 

[Yaarel]

Re Norwegian folkbelief, a female hulder abducting a male human for a mate is a common trope. If using magic to sexually charm counts as rape (maybe analogous to daterape drugs), then the stories include women raping men. The sexual encounter is often the prelude to the abduction.

 

[ad_hoc]

It is worthwhile to do but I think it is only actually useful if you indicate what the actual content is about rather than just 'content warning'.

As far as the product itself I would love something like this but also with ideas on how to reclaim these themes into something positive.

For example, instead of just having hags are ugly therefore also evil have ideas on how to turn it into a theme of beauty standards and/or ageism.

There is so much good gameplay within these old fairytales if we explore why they exist and what they represent.

 

[Deset Gled]

So as far as I am concerned, it is trigger warning all canon sources, or trigger warning nothing. I simply cannot fathom people with serious phobias would play a game as dark and inherently violent as D&D in the first place. It was DESIGNED to delve into the nasty things that go bump in the night.

The point of any warning system is to try. We try to explain age appropriate movies with a letter rating. We try to explain appropriate TV with a system that shows suggested age and reasons for that rating. Even board games try to suggest an age on the box. No system is perfect; there are always edge cases and controversial ratings. But we try, and people do their best.

If the best warning system you can manage is completely binary (with a trigger warning on everything or nothing), then that's the best you can do. But it says a lot more about your abilities than it does about the content or the warning system. Others have managed to do a lot better with minimal effort and without censorship.

 

[Yaarel]

The other extreme to avoid is warnings so specific that they don't help you avoid the thing: "trigger warning: graphic depictions of cupcakes including swirled frosting, multicolored sprinkles, balloon-print wrapper and details about how moist and fluffy the cake is" might as well be a sign warning that you entered a minefield a hundred yards back.

That is why a one-word descriptor seems most helpful. The place that defines each descriptor can cover its related tropes.



@Sacrosanct

Maybe "implied" versus "graphic" work as separate descriptors.

For example "implied" "violence against children" is different from "graphic" descriptions of "violence against children", even if many want neither.

And so on with other difficult tropes.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Much of the lore doesn't ever give the reasons. Why does it target young women? Because that's how the lore goes, with no other reasoning. Why do so many creatures eat or torture children? No other reason, just that's what was told. If I were a guessing man, I'd guess it was a way to keep children scared and to show how "naughty" children get punished. Or because ideas back then were heavily misogynistic so women get punished for no reason other than that. There are two creatures I didn't include because one of them was extremely skinny while the other monster was really fat. Why? Because the fat monster ate good husbands so it had plenty of food available, and the skinny one only ate good wives, and since those are hard to fine, it starved.

Ah, well that's a shame. Those people who made those myths and fairy tales were slacking then if you ask me! I think getting really in-depth details on all of these creatures would have been really cool had they been fleshed out by the mythmakers who passed the stories on.