Consent in Gaming - Free Guidebook

[Celebrim]

No, that isn’t what happened. That’s what the GM claimed happened after the fact, which turned out to be very much not the case. The players had no reasonable expectation that their teenage characters were going to be drugged and gang-raped. It was totally out of the blue, and totally inappropriate for the game they were playing.

Then, as there seems to be a disagreement over what the facts in that case are, I'll refrain from further comment until such time as I'm able to verify the facts for myself - which seems highly unlikely given my distance from the events. My perceptions of who is at fault here and to what degree depend variously on what actually happened.

And again, this happens in games in which there is no warning, no hint of this coming up. It comes up in regular games of DnD. And while you may feel confident that it won’t happen in a game you’re running, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, ruining other player’s gaming experiences.

There are too many pronouns in those sentences for me to understand what you are saying. I don't know what "this" and "it" are in the context of this discussion.

But in the broader sense, the approach here seems like a case of those who have good intent would be better off without the guidelines, and those without good intent will either not use them or abuse them to their advantage. My problems have less to do with the stated goals than they do with the fact that I don't think they are practical advice for dealing with real world situations. If for example you are right about this scenario being obviously inappropriate for the genre of game they were playing, then disclosures wouldn't do anything to prevent the scenario while being themselves things that a convention ought to hesitate to ask participants to disclose. And if in fact the GM had made some sort of disclosure about the content, then the fact that this different prevent ruining the game shows how limited value such prior agreements really have. These are techniques designed to solve a particular problem that are being applied to very different situations than they were originally conceived and designed to handle.

 

[Celebrim]

I can’t see any reason why a GM being more aware about what upsets his players could possibly be a bad thing.

Can you not imagine how that could go wrong? Or do you not understand why these consent forms don't preface any and all interactions between friends or strangers?

 

[macd21]

I think people have been a bit reluctant to talk about this aspect clearly. It's not very easy to do so. I'll try briefly:

Raising the issue focuses attention on it. It makes players think "Will I be triggered?" "Will there be traumatic material?" It changes the play dynamic in a way that will IMO often be harmful, especially if the session is a typical light D&D type game. Instead of putting people at ease, they start the session tense and expectant of Nasty Stuff happening. It may actually deter nervous players from ever playing D&D in the first place.

Why would they expect Nasty Stuff to happen, if they’ve just told the GM what not to include in the game?

And I think a nervous player is s lot more likely to play DnD if he’s reassured that his personal trauma isn’t going to come up.

 

[S'mon]

Why would they expect Nasty Stuff to happen, if they’ve just told the GM what not to include in the game?

Because they've just filled in a Consent Form that anything they didn't X - or think to list - CAN be included.

 

[macd21]

Can you not imagine how that could go wrong? Or do you not understand why these consent forms don't preface any and all interactions between friends or strangers?

No, I can’t see how it could go wrong. And most interactions between friends and strangers aren’t role playing games. It’s not generally applicable.

 

[macd21]

Because they've just filled in a Consent Form that anything they didn't X - or think to list - CAN be included.

So? The alternative is that everything is included, including what they hate.

 

[S'mon]

So? The alternative is that everything is included, including what they hate.

No, the alternative is behaving like a normal human being and acting appropriately to the social situation.

 

[DEFCON 1]

No, the alternative is behaving like a normal human being and acting appropriately to the social situation.

Heh... well there's the problem. You seem to think everybody is capable of doing that.

 

[macd21]

No, the alternative is behaving like a normal human being and acting appropriately to the social situation.

So you’re saying the trauma victim should man up? Not worry that the GM, through simple, understandable ignorance, will spring something on him?

This isn’t complicated, and it shouldn’t be controversial. A GM getting a heads up about this stuff is never a bad thing. Understanding that just because something doesn’t bother you, doesn’t mean others won’t find it horribly offensive or traumatic.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Here is why I think documents such as this are a good and useful thing:

They are taking and illustrating things to such an extreme distance past what many people will think is necessary that when some people push back against the document... comment that X, Y, and Z aren't necessary, you just need to do A, B, and C... invariably their points of A, B, and C tend to be further and more towards safety than they would have been had nothing ever been brought up. And people don't even realize that their decisions and choices have progressed in the direction the document was pointing out.

This is how progressiveness works.

We as a society have a default "thing" that is set at a '5' (for example). Something that is good, but maybe not great. As a result, many people start discussing it and give us all examples of where they think we should be as a society, say at a '10'. Some people who perhaps never even thought about it say "Oh, yeah, we probably should be at a 10", and their feelings and actions are moved and changed to match. But obviously there is then push-back by many people who say "'10'? That's ridiculous! We don't need a '10'! That's going overboard! I'm never going to go to a '10'! We can do fine with just A, B, and C!" And guess what? Because the illustrated '10' was so far afield, the A, B, and C they were willing to do actually turns out to be a '6' or a '7'. Further along than the '5' we started at. And thus they have progressed past what the societal norm was and they didn't even realize it.

And then once most of the society follows along, that '6' or '7' is now the new default and becomes our average '5' again. And thus the process starts over.

Basically I think that in this specific instance... even those of us here on the boards who might think this document is useless at a minimum and deliberately harmful at worst, is actually having their thoughts and opinions moved ever so slightly in the direction that the document points out anyway. At the very minimum because they don't want to waste their time dealing with being be called out as "monsters" or some such nonsense and to avoid unnecessary PITA conversations. Because at the end of the day... for the 95% of players for whom this document is not actually necessary because we all act with a modicum of societal common sense... it really isn't worth our time and energy to argue or fight back on it. Thus we go along with it and we end up gliding in the direction we were asked to go in the first place.