D&D General Ravenloft, horror, & safety tools...

[Guest 85555]

It's really weird to me that you keep providing examples of you using safety tools effectively yet you cannot help but rail against safety tools. Again, try reading Consent in Gaming. It's free.

I did read it. I commented on it here and elsewhere when it came out. I thought it was a terrible idea at the time, and still do. I love Monte Cook, I think Shanna Germain is a great writer and designer, but on the point about safety tools, and the ideas behind consent in gaming, I disagree. Not everyone who reads consent in gaming thinks it is correct

 

[Vaalingrade]

If someone at the table is having a problem you should treat them with empathy and find a solution that works best for the group.

But here's the unspoken part that's the issue: "But make absolutely no attempt to prevent a problem before it happens."

 

[Guest 85555]

A little more than half the people I GM for were strangers to me when the campaign/s started. I knew them not-well enough that I kinda wish I'd clarified both my own tendencies as a GM and their own limits/preferences as far as material. More than a year in, it feels a little late. Mostly, I just don't hammer on specific things, and I try to pay attention to their responses.

I don't think anyone is saying safety tools protect anyone's basic humanity. I think people are saying using safety tools is a basic-humanity level of caring for other people.

I think if you are gaming with strangers then you need to have conversations about expectations probably. I know I have met some strange folks I wouldn't want to game with. That is a weeding people out process. And to be honest, most of the real problem players and GMs I have met, are the kinds of people who are not going to set off any red flags if they can avoid it.

I think what you are pointing to here though is again compatibility more than anything else. Like I said, I am not saying safety tools are bad so therefore people can and should be jerks, nor am I saying we don't have social dynamics to navigate here.

In terms of caring for other people, I am not arguing against that. I am arguing that the tools don't help us do that. That they probably cause more disruption and harm than people are realizing. If you want to care for someone and suffer with them, by all means do that. Being compassionate is a good thing. But isn't something a game book can require of you. That is something you should be doing without the designers telling you you have to do. And that is far too complicated and personal for any kind of one size fits all "here's a checklist and a consent in gaming manifesto"-go at it, to resolve IMO. I think formalizing something that really ought to be more organic is asking for problems.

 

[Steampunkette]

Because you are walking on eggshells for players who don't need to be walked on eggshells for. And it isn't helping them, and it isn't helping you. It is creating emotional distance between you. I think most games people don't want sexual assault, but spiders, halflings, gnomes and orphans are all viable subject matter for plot purposes and playing purposes in an RPG. And some of these games end up with really ridiculous lists of things to exclude. Which isn't just a matter of making the game worse because content isn't allowed, but it is also a tracking issue for the GM if you need to keep referring to a list of triggers for different people.

No. It's not creating any kind of emotional distance between us. Because I do not -care- about avoiding certain topics or situations. There's a massive amount of other stuff to explore.

Also, I'm not walking on eggshells. I'm just walking past the area CLEARLY MARKED as minefield instead of walking through it in the hopes that all the mines are fake and/or broken.

"Walking on Eggshells" is what I did when I lived with an abusive boyfriend for 5 years. Walking on eggshells is a thing that you do when literally any topic is looked at as a potential source of an argument or an attack by a person eager to get into a fight. Because every step risks breaking the eggshell and drawing attention/aggression.

Walking on Eggshells isn't "Avoiding a sensitive subject". It's "Being unable to do anything without risking confrontation"

And I -desperately- wish people would stop using it to describe the former.

 

[Guest 85555]

But here's the unspoken part that's the issue: "But make absolutely no attempt to prevent a problem before it happens."

Like I said earlier, if I have a friend at the table who was just divorced, I am going to be more conscious of that fact when prepping material for the game. At the same time, I can't say what is the right answer for a group who has 1 person who is a afraid of spiders and 5 people who want to play Ravenloft and wouldn't mind some spiders. That is for them to hash out. But what I am not advocating is to just throw spiders at that person or allow them to reach a point where they have a panic attack.

 

[overgeeked]

I did read it.

At this point I have to say I don't believe you. And even if you did, it doesn't mean you understood it. Clearly you did not.

Not everyone who reads consent in gaming thinks it is correct

No, of course not. But your repetitive attacks on what you think safety tools are shows you fundamentally misunderstand what they are. If you simply disagreed with the idea of safety tools you'd be making completely different arguments. The "arguments" you're making show you don't actually understand what safety tools are. And I suspect you didn't actually read Consent in Gaming, because if you had you'd know that at no point do they suggest anything like what you perceive safety tools to be. You keep saying they're not a replacement therapist. Great, they're not meant to be. That you think they are shows you don't understand what they are.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Like I said earlier, if I have a friend at the table who was just divorced, I am going to be more conscious of that fact when prepping material for the game.

What if you're not in a group with friends? Or people you don't know at all?

At the same time, I can't say what is the right answer for a group who has 1 person who is a afraid of spiders and 5 people who want to play Ravenloft and wouldn't mind some spiders.

Not have spiders out of basic decency like normal, well-adjusted people?

That is for them to hash out. But what I am not advocating is to just throw spiders at that person or allow them to reach a point where they have a panic attack.

Except how do you know they have a problem with spiders in the first place unless you ask?

 

[Guest 85555]

Walking on Eggshells isn't "Avoiding a sensitive subject". It's "Being unable to do anything without risking confrontation"

This is all very case by case. But there is a reality to mental illness, where you have to be very careful about allowing someone who has that kind of condition from controlling the terms of the conversation (because they can make everyone else around them crazy with demands about what is and is not allowed to be spoken of). Like I said I have experienced mental illness from both sides. And I have been around family members with very serious mental illness where this is a problem. If someone is at a point where the mere mention of something on that list is enough to set them off, I don't think the gaming table or a safety tool checklist is the the place to resolve the issue. It is not something that an RPG book can tell you how to resolve. You need to hash that out with the person based on the kind of relationship you have with them.

 

[Guest 85555]

At this point I have to say I don't believe you. And even if you did, it doesn't mean you understood it. Clearly you did not.

I did read it. I commented on it. I read it twice actually. I could certainly review it if you'd like. But I assure you I have read it

 

[prabe]

In terms of caring for other people, I am not arguing against that. I am arguing that the tools don't help us do that. That they probably cause more disruption and harm than people are realizing. If you want to care for someone and suffer with them, by all means do that. Being compassionate is a good thing. But isn't something a game book can require of you. That is something you should be doing without the designers telling you you have to do. And that is far too complicated and personal for any kind of one size fits all "here's a checklist and a consent in gaming manifesto"-go at it, to resolve IMO. I think formalizing something that really ought to be more organic is asking for problems.

If it were really reliably happening organically (ye gawds the adverbs) I don't think people would be asking for safety tools or suggesting people use them. The fact people are asking for them--the fact there are people who (I gather) do not feel safe gaming in their absence--strongly indicates their necessity.

I am not going to pass out safety tools for the campaigns I'm running now--as I said, after more than a year that ship seems to have sailed--but I fully intend to do some reading and thinking, and then to use/define some, before I start my next campaign.