Mod note:
Making personal jabs like this is a great way to get yourself removed from the discussion. Treat people well, or walk away, please.
D&D General Ravenloft, horror, & safety tools...
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Mod note:
Making personal jabs like this is a great way to get yourself removed from the discussion. Treat people well, or walk away, please.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
I don't see much nuance in "Safety tools do more harm than good". I see a strawman claim about a nonexistent issue and rejecting the idea of writing down your "unspoken common sense tools" (which are exactly what you're protesting against; safety tools). There's no nuance there. It's just either blatant mischaracterization and misunderstanding of the other side's point and refusing to give up any ground when multiple people try to correct you or point out flaws in your argument, or it's trolling a thread for 8 pages to make sure that it doesn't end up being constructive for some not-so-secret motivation (see "consequence of the culture of safety tools being normalized in the hobby"), or a bit of both.
You keep saying that you're putting other people on Ignore instead of just doing the sensible thing that anyone arguing from a good-faith perspective would do if their argument was actually repeatedly being mischaracterized, which is just walking away in order to avoid further derailing of the discussion.
Disgruntled Hobbit
Adventurer
This thread amuses me
Suggesting you should talk with your players and ask what types of adventure they want and what they find fun, and everyone is completely onboard
Suggesting you should talk with your players and ask what types of content makes them uncomfortable and disrupts their fun, and half the posters flip out and question if its necessary
It's the same question. "What can I do to help you have fun?"
More puzzles? Easy. Fewer spiders. Sure. Challenging tactical combats? I'll do my best. No sexual assault of minors? Done
Why the flip would anyone be willing to accommodate their players with one but not the other???
Suggesting you should talk with your players and ask what types of adventure they want and what they find fun, and everyone is completely onboard
Suggesting you should talk with your players and ask what types of content makes them uncomfortable and disrupts their fun, and half the posters flip out and question if its necessary
It's the same question. "What can I do to help you have fun?"
More puzzles? Easy. Fewer spiders. Sure. Challenging tactical combats? I'll do my best. No sexual assault of minors? Done
Why the flip would anyone be willing to accommodate their players with one but not the other???
A "safety checklist" is a list of things you run through to make sure you don't blow yourself up before turning on certain types of electrical/gas/etc equipment, you can hear a rather famous one before most any NASA launch countdown. Please stop calling a consent checklist/consent form a misleading term like a "safety checklist." The d&d community's sudden shock & awe surge on this matter has been a horrible job of handling the messaging on this & while I may not agree with everything @Bedrockgames has to say on the topic he's spot on about a lot of things. People watch horror movies of various sorts because they want the experience of having those stress hormone producing buttons pressed but to hear some of the messaging on safe play & such you'd think theaters showing those kinda movies should be giving classes on consensual fun in case someone is just a reluctant +1 with a fan & similar before people buy a ticket.
@AcererakTriple6 bad tools & poor practices do more harm than good
Vaalingrade
Legend
No term has ever meant two separate things!
Or in this case, the same thing. As if mental harm wasn't a thing. Ugh.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
I absolutely cannot fathom how writing down "I don't want spiders/sexual assault/abuse of minors in this campaign" could ever be considered a "bad tool" or "a poor practice". At my tables, I keep it anonymous if the player wants, so the other players won't know who asked if the player is uncomfortable with them knowing. In my experience, and in every situation I can think of, this tool would either do no harm at the worst and do a ton of good at the best. A "bad tool" would be to just expect everyone to know everyone else's triggers and buttons to avoid them. I have ASD and ADHD, so not only am I horrible at reading body language and inference with stuff like this, but if someone were trying to be subtle and have me pick up with clues, I would never get it and could possibly harm them because of it not being blatant and written down.
At the least, this tool is useless. At the most, it is a game-saver and preventer of unnecessary harm.
Faolyn
(she/her)
Look at the title of the thread, and remember that words can have more than one usage.
If there's been a "sudden shock and awe surge," it's most likely because there are a lot of people who either don't want to have to change the way they've done things, or don't care a lot about other peoples' mental health. You'll notice that both are unfortunately common throughout society as a whole.
A movie is made to be shown to a general audience. They are also rated, so that people under the age of 13 or 17 or whatever aren't allowed in.
A DM is making a game to be played by a small handful of people whom they likely know on some personal level.
To quote Jonny Sims, I'm doing horror, not trauma. Horror is fun. "The experience of having those stress hormone producing buttons pressed" with the knowledge that you can turn it off when you want with no side effects and that it can't actually hurt you because no, there isn't an axe-wielding werewolf lurking in behind your shower curtain. Trauma is not fun. That's something that you can't turn off, and it's the result of something that actually has hurt you in some way. It literally doesn't matter if the hurt is entirely emotional, like from a phobia of something that can't actually cause physical harm, or if it's because of an event you went through.
These checklists and other safety measures--yes, I'm using that phrase, deal with it--are designed to help prevent an occurrence of needless trauma. They're not supposed to stop the horror.
Bedrockgames
Legend
one of my primary issues is the language. I think when you use a term like 'consent' that has strong connotation of sexual consent in today's use, and when you use a term like safety, that strongly implies physical safety. Not consenting to a goblin showing up in an RPG is not what most people have in mind if they hear "This person did something to me without my consent". It is a powerful word and using it in this sense, I think weakens its use elsewhere. The same with safety. If people want to call these comfort tools or group compatibility tools, I would be much less critical. And it isn't that I oppose all safety tools. When people started using the X card, I barely cared. I even asked my own group if they wanted to use it (which was soundly ridiculed----not saying ridicule is the appropriate response but I think people often fail to understand how much cultural difference matters when it comes to things like safety tools, and how it simply doesn't fly the same in a lot of social circles). It was mainly when people really started pushing the need for tools like X cards as a requirement, when the consent in gaming thing with its checklist came out, and when this stuff starting becoming more ubiquitous that I felt the need to express my opinion on the matter. But I should say, people can always ignore my opinion. I just think it is important since we are all part of the same gaming community for people to speak honestly when they disagree with something or think it is an exaggerated reaction.
Bedrockgames
Legend
But there is a reason we make a distinction between someone saying something that makes a person uncomfortable and someone physically harming them. No one is saying its good to have a thing show up in a game that sends someone into a panic. But that is different from kicking them in the shin or hitting them in the head with a crow bar, because these things can directly lead to permanent physical injuries and death (and directly is a very important word here). So when people hear a term like safety, they associate it with physical safety. And I think this is where the exaggeration iI am talking about begins: with the language itself. And that isn't to minimize the importance of mental health. Its just there is a difference between getting a call that your relative was just in a serious car accident, and a call that your relative just had a serious panic attack. Maybe it is a generational thing. I just find this language really misleading.
Disgruntled Hobbit
Adventurer
When you go to a movie, you're choosing to buy the ticket. You're opting in and know what you're purchasing
When that same film is shown on TV there IS often a message at the front. "The following program contains violence and graphic subject matter..."
Just cause someone likes some horror doesn't mean they like all horror. Have a good mate who I watch scary movies with all the time. But he's vetoed The Fly cause he don't do body horror. Why would I push him or sneak it into the player when I know he don't like?
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