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

[Vince_Snetterton]

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.

My little vignette there does indeed have violence.
But what about other things in there?
Paralysis.
Being trapped in the dark.

These are very very common effects in the game. Are writers, DM's, whoever, REALLY supposed to act like psychologists and analyze every potential creature/situation/effect before presenting it in a book or a game? I can state with confidence that within the "intended audience" of the D&D community that Hypnotic Pattern or Hold Person or Darkness will indeed trigger someone. Are we to remove these things from the game? Perhaps the members of the audience should use some common sense and think, "I know D&D is a pretty violent game, with all kinds of weird stuff happening in it. Maybe it is not the game for me."

 

[tomBitonti]

For example, here is what would appear for the Myling (ignore the formatting). It's...pretty grim and can be quite triggering for survivors of child abuse.

Myling CR 4

While (I presume) historically accurate, the gender specificity could be removed without destroying the essential creature. Then you could add a sidebar that provides a historical note. I think that would remove most of the problems with this writeup, while still providing historical accuracy. The monster becomes more usable without perpetuating an unnecessary detail. If there is a historical or cultural reason for having gender specific targets, that can be explained in the sidebar.
TomB

 

[ReshiIRE]

I'll take away my "laugh" response to your post. But, at this point at least, I don't think I'll be putting that list under hidden spoiler tags.

Why not? It was a reasonable request on the part of Scribe.

This is literally the point of the thread.

This is why, while I respect what Sacro is doing now, I would have included some symbol or warning beside the 20 (out of 200!) monsters that are pretty heavy. It's just one of those just in case sort of things.

Still.

Thank you Sacro for working on this and taking account of user feedback. It's pretty refreshing.

 

[CleverNickName]

Bring 'em on!
I've never been annoyed by content warning labels.

 

[J.Quondam]

Are writers, DM's, whoever, REALLY supposed to act like psychologists and analyze every potential creature/situation/effect before presenting it in a book or a game?

No. But it's not unreasonable to expect DMs and writers to be decent human beings, and make some effort to provide an enjoyable game; and be aware that it's possible someone might be troubled for whatever reason. If a content creator feels a warning is the way to go, good on them.

How, specifically, is offering such a heads-up wrong?
How, specifically, is encouraging greater awareness of others a bad thing?
What damage, specifically, does having a content warning on a book do to your game?

 

[Sacrosanct]

I created a poll option over here. I think that might better capture a more accurate range of opinions.

 

[Yaarel]

While (I presume) historically accurate, the gender specificity could be removed without destroying the essential creature. Then you could add a sidebar that provides a historical note. I think that would remove most of the problems with this writeup, while still providing historical accuracy. The monster becomes more usable without perpetuating an unnecessary detail. If there is a historical or cultural reason for having gender specific targets, that can be explained in the sidebar.
TomB

I have mixed feelings, but I think I agree.

Deleting gender specificity solves much of the troublesome content.

For some concepts the update might distance the description from the original cultural connotations. But the description would be accurate enough and probably more playable for a game today.

An upfront warning can state that the descriptions intentionally make any references to gender, neutral.

Then the other warnings mainly concern violence.

 

[Charlaquin]

If I show the picture of an Ankheg to a group of 100 people on the street (OK, maybe a 1000, maybe 10000), someone is going to lose it. Someone will be triggered. I can go through just about any source of canon and find pictures and descriptions that based on the levels of trigger discussions in this thread will indeed set someone off.

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.

Your logic seems to be “if you can’t do everything, you should do nothing.”

Obviously anything can potentially be a trauma trigger (that’s what this is about by the way, not phobias) to someone. But some things are pretty common triggers and some things are not. It is courteous to include warnings for things that you anticipate are likely to be triggering for a significant portion of your target audience.

 

[Dire Bare]

I have mixed feelings, but I think I agree.

Deleting gender specificity solves much of the troublesome content.

For some concepts the update might distance the description from the original cultural connotations. But the description would be accurate enough and probably more playable for a game today.

An upfront warning can state that the descriptions intentionally make any references to gender, neutral.

Then the other warnings mainly concern violence.

I've had similar thoughts about various D&D monsters.

Take the hag . . . . a monster based on negative stereotypes about women, the elderly, and ugliness. That's before we get into the trope of child abduction. If we leave hags largely the same, but make it so that they can be of either gender, aren't necessarily old, and not necessarily ugly . . . . I don't know, how far do we go before it's not really a hag anymore? What are the defining characteristics of this beastie that need to stay? The answer, of course, is subjective and we all won't agree on where to draw lines.

Maybe . . . . hags ARE incredibly ugly and incredibly old (centuries old), but can be of either gender. Perhaps hags (in universe) deliberately play into the stereotypes of age and gender as a way to mess with adventurer's expectations. Perhaps most importantly, hags are not evil creatures, at least not inherently or automatically evil. And it's the evil ones who use illusion to appear young and beautiful, the good ones don't bother with that nonsense . . . . find a way to keep the beastie recognizable, but either eliminate some tropes or subvert them.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I have mixed feelings, but I think I agree.

Deleting gender specificity solves much of the troublesome content.

For some concepts the update might distance the description from the original cultural connotations. But the description would be accurate enough and probably more playable for a game today.

An upfront warning can state that the descriptions intentionally make any references to gender, neutral.

Then the other warnings mainly concern violence.

I'd much prefer a content warning rather than deviating from the stated intent of "bring back the mythology and folklore closer to the original myths". It would defeat the point of the book. If for some reason I want to read the version of Little Red Riding Hood where the hunter and the heroine sew open the wolf, load his stomach with stones and have a laughter seeing him drown later on, which I can understand isn't what is told to children nowadays, I expect to find that in a "closer to the original" version. I can understand the content warning for those only knowing the Disney version, but I'd expect the content to be unaltered. Sure, it might not be for everyone, but that's why the content warning is for: so the GM can think about it when he pitches his campaign (and so people can choose to avoid it if they are not comfortable with the themes).