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

[Dire Bare]

Well you selectively quoted me there. I said a warning label at the start and end of the book was a sensible idea.

I said creating problematic pieces of work and the labeling them such is silly when there are non-problematic elements in the book. It comes off as lecturing and judgemental. Just my opinion.

Didn't mean to quote you out-of-context, if that's how I came across, sorry. Also don't mean to diminish your opinion . . . I just disagree is all.

Is @Sacrosanct's monster book, as a work, problematic? Or is it a product that contains potentially problematic elements, but does so for a reason . . . a non-problematic reason? The first, yeah, probably shouldn't be published. The second, I think, is what @Sacrosanct is going for.

European folklore is extremely problematic by today's standards, yet not everyone is aware because so much of it has been watered down to "safe" children's stories (most famously by Disney, but not exclusively so). A book that gives you the folklore creatures you want to learn about and perhaps include in your game, deliberately gives you the problematic source details AND explains why they are problematic AND gives you tools to modify them for your own game . . . that sounds like an awesome, non-problematic product with problematic elements that should probably include some content warnings and that I definitely want! Whew!

 

[Dire Bare]

Sure. But when I said the bulk of the audience didn't care I didn't mean to single out my favorite bulky fuzzy animal poster as someone who didn't. When you look at movies and music with explicit warnings, how much of a real difference does it make to their success or failure? There's an argument to be made that if you were a rap album in 1992 without a Parental Advisory Label nobody would take you seriously, but for the most part they didn't seem to help or hurt album sales all that much.

Most of the audience isn't made up of teachers looking for something to put in their classroom. I doubt such a group is a statistically significant audience for most music, television, and movies. Again, I'm not going to argue that nobody cares. You say you care and explained why and have no reason to doubt you. But I don't think most of the audience really cares one way or the other. The success of Sacrosanct's project will be almost entirely due to the strength of the content rather than any warning about it.

Sorry, what I was pushing back against was the claim that the bulk of the audience won't care. I disagree. I gave my own story as an example, if but anecdotal.

I'll also push back a little on the idea that content warnings have little effect on success. So, how much do content warnings contribute to the success of a product? Well, I think that highly depends on the product . . . . X-Rated movies are not necessarily pornographic, but the rating isn't used anymore due to the association. NC-17 movies won't be shown in most theaters. You can't get your music sold in Wal-Mart unless it does have a warning label, if there is "explicit lyrics" involved. The use of a content warning can be a requirement for publication, or to avoid bad press, but can also be limiting.

Back to RPG books, I think there is a growing segment of RPG fans that appreciate creators who acknowledge the problematic elements of our favorite games and the source material they spring from. Including content warnings can be a part of reaching that audience. For success, know your audience (the best you can, anyways). But even if using or not using content warnings won't budge sales much, it can still be the right call . . . . if the author simply feels that it is, it's part of the creative choices behind the product. And sales or not, content warnings can help insulate creators from folks who might conflate the potentially problematic elements of their work with the creator's personal views and behavior.

EDIT: Oh, and teachers . . . bigger audience than you might think. But an even bigger audience? Parents with school-age children.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I hate to say it, but the cold hard truth about content warning labels is that they are there as lawyer-repellent.

Some people that use the warnings do truly care about triggering the people who buy their products, but a bunch just don't want to be sued for emotional trauma or some such thing. But since you do care, that needs to show in your warnings too.

As for where to place it, and how often, if a tenth of your book, 20 out of 200?, will need a warning, why not just separate the entries into two sections: the main section with the entries not needing a warning and a second section after that for the triggering entries, with a big page in between the two that is nothing but the content warning. That way the table of contents will have an obvious short note on the difference and the dividing page will have the full warning.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The book needs to let the reader know, "fey" is wrong.

It's not your book, dude.

 

[MGibster]

Sorry, what I was pushing back against was the claim that the bulk of the audience won't care. I disagree. I gave my own story as an example, if but anecdotal.

This is one of those things that's difficult to prove one way or the other. But I don't think I've ever heard someone telling me about a good movie, song, book, or game they played tell me that they really appreciated the content warning.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This is one of those things that's difficult to prove one way or the other. But I don't think I've ever heard someone telling me about a good movie, song, book, or game they played tell me that they really appreciated the content warning.

Most of the people who appreciate the content warning won't go on the watch, listen to, read or play that thing because it did it's job.

 

[Cadence]

Most of the people who appreciate the content warning won't go on the watch, listen to, read or play that thing because it did it's job.

As a father of a now-pre-teen, I've appreciated web-sites that give reviews of various products in terms of violence/sex/language/etc... to help decide when to watch them myself first, or to double check if I was remembering things I hadn't seen for years correctly. And in terms of warnings on things like Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry, it reminds me to mention things to him if I think I should.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

This is one of those things that's difficult to prove one way or the other. But I don't think I've ever heard someone telling me about a good movie, song, book, or game they played tell me that they really appreciated the content warning.

That really depends on the content being warned about. A song on an album having a warning because it contains a swear word or two is one thing and does not bother me. But an album where every song is full of that kind of language and I will be glad the label let me know, so that I can avoid wasting money on it. Or take the Mortal Kombat games. The gore did not bother me when I was younger, but I have a lot less tolerance for gratuitous gore now, so if I had never seen Mortal Kombat before, I would be very happy about the warning label, so that I could avoid playing it.

 

[Hussar]

@Sacrosanct

By the way, here is a link to an online Middle English dictionary, listing the medieval meanings for "fairie".

And, if we were speaking Middle English, you'd be 100% correct. However, since Middle English is a largely dead language that virtually no one actually uses, and "Fey" is the Modern English equivalent then, it is absolutely not wrong to use the Modern English term.

What is it lately with all these bizarre arguments trying to force dead languages back into use? If a use hasn't been used in FIVE HUNDRED years, it's time to let it go.

 

[MGibster]

Most of the people who appreciate the content warning won't go on the watch, listen to, read or play that thing because it did it's job.

That's likely true. But I feel as though this supports my argument that the bulk of the audience doesn't care about content warnings one way or the other.