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

[tomBitonti]

So something more like this? I think I like this better than the "CONTENT WARNING" text. (Also, the icon would appear in the Author's Note paragraph, so it would be defined there. Also ignore the CR4 and CR2 disparity; this was a quick mock-up)

View attachment 146812

The Glashtyn:

A text consistency problem: Are the preferred targets “young beautiful”. “young lonely”, or simply “young” women? Each descriptions suggests different motivations: Targeting beauty because of jealousy. Targeting the lonely suggests an opportunistic but cowardly predator.

The different texts draw the reader’s attention, which highlights the gender specificity. That young woman specifically are targeted is amplified.

The creature has two very different goals: To seduce, or to abduct, torture, and eat the target. Which is is? This again suggests different motivations.

A side note: If you are using specific source materials, reference these! Be specific. That avoids problems of regional generalization.

To answer questions about warning labels, consider that most games very deliberately avoid either any non-consensual intimacy, or descriptions of torture. I think the idea of preserving these particular detail in the game block should be reconsidered. I’m OK to see them in a historical discussion, but don’t think they have a place in the basic monster block. A game master can add in details if more historically accurate details are needed.
TomB

 

[Vince_Snetterton]

No one is saying these things. Where are you getting this?

Please stop.

Who is saying this? You are.
Logic states it.

You agree that warning labels are needed for Sacrosanct's work. So be it.
You state that triggers need warning labels. So be it.
You state that WOTC has already put warning labels on legacy products, and is in the process of going through their 5e products. Your words, not mine: "On WotC's current titles, they are working hard to ensure these products don't need warning labels at all. They haven't been fully successful at that, and have gone back and edited products after publication to remove problematic elements."

So, if conditions like being unable to move, to consent, being trapped in small dark places, being attacked by scary monsters, are all accepted as potential triggers, are "problematic elements", then WOTC has two choices: Warning labels, or as you stated "edited products after publication to remove problematic elements".

There are no other choices. And if WOTC is not going to put warning labels on their material, that means removing the items I listed, which is a tiny sample.

You can call it trolling.
I call it following this to the logical conclusion, based on your and others' position in this thread.

But there is a 3rd option. WOTC does nothing to mess with the legacy of the game, does not sanitize the material, and continues to sell a bajillion dollars of product. Maybe that option was discussed. Then again, maybe people inside of Hasbro and WOTC have done some market studies and discovered that a game re-designed around the idea of removing anything that would give a 4 year old child nightmares will sell more copies than the existing themed game.

 

[J.Quondam]

Who is saying this? You are.
Logic states it.

You agree that warning labels are needed for Sacrosanct's work. So be it.
You state that triggers need warning labels. So be it.
You state that WOTC has already put warning labels on legacy products, and is in the process of going through their 5e products. Your words, not mine: "On WotC's current titles, they are working hard to ensure these products don't need warning labels at all. They haven't been fully successful at that, and have gone back and edited products after publication to remove problematic elements."

So, if conditions like being unable to move, to consent, being trapped in small dark places, being attacked by scary monsters, are all accepted as potential triggers, are "problematic elements", then WOTC has two choices: Warning labels, or as you stated "edited products after publication to remove problematic elements".

There are no other choices. And if WOTC is not going to put warning labels on their material, that means removing the items I listed, which is a tiny sample.

You can call it trolling.
I call it following this to the logical conclusion, based on your and others' position in this thread.

But there is a 3rd option. WOTC does nothing to mess with the legacy of the game, does not sanitize the material, and continues to sell a bajillion dollars of product. Maybe that option was discussed. Then again, maybe people inside of Hasbro and WOTC have done some market studies and discovered that a game re-designed around the idea of removing anything that would give a 4 year old child nightmares will sell more copies than the existing themed game.

Just FYI, WotC actually has put a content warning on every official D&D publication from previous editions in the DMs Guild. Moreover, afaik, most of their newer books go beyond a mere content warning, and include an entire section on sensitivity in gaming. So yeah, WotC is already on the road to doing this sort of thing... and it's not hurting their bottom line in the least. (I'd wager it's the opposite, in fact!)

This nonsensical, pseudological, all-or-nothingism of yours is a strawman. A content warnings is just a considerate gesture by a creator who feels the need to provide it for their readers. Indeed, as horrific a concept as that must surely be to edgelords, they're simply a kindness afforded to others. A content warning is no more "necessary" than politeness itself.

So, not to put too fine a point on it, but... You are, in fact, full of horse$#@t, and it's clear now that you are just trolling.
Cheers!

 

[Umbran]

You can call it trolling.
I call it following this to the logical conclusion, based on your and others' position in this thread.

You are not on the planet Vulcan, where everything is black and white, and lines of pure logic always continue to valid conclusions.

Specifically, you use the word "need" several times. That word can be used in absolute logical terms, or it can be used conversationally. If one person uses it conversationally, as in "This sandwich needs mustard," and you take it to be a logical absolute, like, "The sandwich cannot be consumed (or perhaps literally cannot exist) without mustard," you have committed the "Fallacy of Equivocation" (also known as the "fallacy of lexical ambiguity"), swapping out the meaning of a word while nobody is looking. This renders your logical result invalid.

Work out what "need" actually means before you base a drive to logical conclusion on it. I daresay it is not as absolute as you paint it.

 

[Dire Bare]

I have not bought a WOTC product since my hard copy XGTE. I have never purchased a digital product from them. But the gaming cafe I patronize has a complete set of hard copies, which I read, and use, at my leisure. So, no, I have no idea they have warning labels on anything.

And now you are saying they are indeed sanitizing all 5e material to avoid such warning labels. I look forward to the new and improved PHB without the Darkness spell, Hold Person, Sickening Radiance, Scrying, Forcecage, etc etc etc, as well as the removal of scary monsters from D&D, let alone violence, or anything else that may trigger a person, whether it is one in 10, or one in 10,000.

Sigh. "Sanitizing" is your word, not mine.

Who is saying this? You are.
Logic states it.

You agree that warning labels are needed for Sacrosanct's work. So be it.
You state that triggers need warning labels. So be it.
You state that WOTC has already put warning labels on legacy products, and is in the process of going through their 5e products. Your words, not mine: "On WotC's current titles, they are working hard to ensure these products don't need warning labels at all. They haven't been fully successful at that, and have gone back and edited products after publication to remove problematic elements."

So, if conditions like being unable to move, to consent, being trapped in small dark places, being attacked by scary monsters, are all accepted as potential triggers, are "problematic elements", then WOTC has two choices: Warning labels, or as you stated "edited products after publication to remove problematic elements".

There are no other choices. And if WOTC is not going to put warning labels on their material, that means removing the items I listed, which is a tiny sample.

You can call it trolling.
I call it following this to the logical conclusion, based on your and others' position in this thread.

But there is a 3rd option. WOTC does nothing to mess with the legacy of the game, does not sanitize the material, and continues to sell a bajillion dollars of product. Maybe that option was discussed. Then again, maybe people inside of Hasbro and WOTC have done some market studies and discovered that a game re-designed around the idea of removing anything that would give a 4 year old child nightmares will sell more copies than the existing themed game.

"Logic states"? Heh, alright. Should've done this pages ago, but I think I'm done sparring with you.

Let's just agree to disagree . . . we clearly don't see this issue from remotely the same perspective.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Who is saying this? You are.

Nope.

Logic states it.

What follows is not logic.

You agree that warning labels are needed for Sacrosanct's work. So be it.

Sacrosanct wants to add warnings and wants to know how best to do that. I support that. I'm not forcing them to do that or even telling thme to.

You state that triggers need warning labels. So be it.

I state it's a good thing to provide them.

You state that WOTC has already put warning labels on legacy products, and is in the process of going through their 5e products. Your words, not mine: "On WotC's current titles, they are working hard to ensure these products don't need warning labels at all. They haven't been fully successful at that, and have gone back and edited products after publication to remove problematic elements."

My own words? Mine? Not some monolithic conglomeration of everyone who disagrees with the hyperbole and misinformation you've been putting into this thread?

So, if conditions like being unable to move, to consent, being trapped in small dark places, being attacked by scary monsters, are all accepted as potential triggers, are "problematic elements", then WOTC has two choices: Warning labels, or as you stated "edited products after publication to remove problematic elements".

As I stated? Also, they can still just not. Or they can use best judgement and pick and choose what best to warn about.

There are no other choices.

There's literally as many choices as there are design and lore elements.

You can call it trolling.
I call it following this to the logical conclusion, based on your and others' position in this thread.

This... this is not logic. I'm not saying it's trolling, but it sounds and acts a lot like it. Especially the parts where you keep ignoring what people are actually saying.

But there is a 3rd option. WOTC does nothing to mess with the legacy of the game, does not sanitize the material, and continues to sell a bajillion dollars of product. Maybe that option was discussed. Then again, maybe people inside of Hasbro and WOTC have done some market studies and discovered that a game re-designed around the idea of removing anything that would give a 4 year old child nightmares will sell more copies than the existing themed game.

You just said there were no other choices, but now you're advocating the worst of the actual many choices. Make up your mind please.

Or stop. Stopping would be nice.

 

[Sacrosanct]

To answer questions about warning labels, consider that most games very deliberately avoid either any non-consensual intimacy, or descriptions of torture. I think the idea of preserving these particular detail in the game block should be reconsidered.

It's sort of the entire mission statement of this book lol. There are countless numbers of RPG supplements for D&D around folklore and fae. WoTC just released one in fact. So the entire purpose of this book is to depict monsters and creatures of folklore as they originally were represented--something that isn't really being done, and thus is a new product rather than a variation of something already been done to death. There's a lot of good stories there. The challenge is that many of those stories heavily focused on sexual assault, violating consent, sacrifice, and child violence. Many of the creatures of folklore can't get around that without eliminating everything about them that makes them a creature, rendering the entire book moot. so for those creatures (like the myling, or the faun), you can't really separate the lore from the creature, and thus the desire/need for a content warning for those who would rather skip/add/or change those portions.

*Edit But most importantly, I suppose the purpose of the content warning is to let people know beforehand that they should expect Grimm, and not Disney before diving in. That is a pretty important thing, and I feel is my responsibility to at least provide that. No one wants to open a book thinking it's gonna be all cute and bunnies like a WoTC fey product, and end up reading an entry like the lindwurm and its lore. That is what I want to avoid, because it's not fair to do that to someone.

 

[HammerMan]

and again, what rule in any wotc book (maybe heroes of horror in 3.5?) has ever had graphic non cartoony violance?

 

[Vaalingrade]

and again, what rule in any wotc book (maybe heroes of horror in 3.5?) has ever had graphic non cartoony violance?

The BoXDs, but they were labeled as mature (for immature writing).

But really, the graphic stuff mostly comes from Pathfinder's edgelord teenager days.

 

[tomBitonti]

It's sort of the entire mission statement of this book lol. There are countless numbers of RPG supplements for D&D around folklore and fae. WoTC just released one in fact. So the entire purpose of this book is to depict monsters and creatures of folklore as they originally were represented--something that isn't really being done, and thus is a new product rather than a variation of something already been done to death. There's a lot of good stories there. The challenge is that many of those stories heavily focused on sexual assault, violating consent, sacrifice, and child violence. Many of the creatures of folklore can't get around that without eliminating everything about them that makes them a creature, rendering the entire book moot. so for those creatures (like the myling, or the faun), you can't really separate the lore from the creature, and thus the desire/need for a content warning for those who would rather skip/add/or change those portions.

*Edit But most importantly, I suppose the purpose of the content warning is to let people know beforehand that they should expect Grimm, and not Disney before diving in. That is a pretty important thing, and I feel is my responsibility to at least provide that. No one wants to open a book thinking it's gonna be all cute and bunnies like a WoTC fey product, and end up reading an entry like the lindwurm and its lore. That is what I want to avoid, because it's not fair to do that to someone.

In which case, say that in the prefix. If the point of the entire book is to present the folklore in it's historical form, explain that, and include in the explanation a statement that the historical form includes a level of detail not typically present. Tell people the value of including the additional detail. Make a note of the categories of detail which are included.

In the monster blocks, instead of simply saying "XXX attempts to seduce its target", say "XXX are cruel, taking perverse pleasure in seducing the young and beautiful". Add historical notes: "XXX are used in stories to highlight the dangers that apparently friendly strangers pose to the young and naive," or, "XXX are used as a caution to those who are lonely that they are more easily taken advantage of", or, "XXX are used as a warning to the beautiful and vain."

TomB