OT: It seems the culture wars are beginning to spill over to RPGs?

[Jason Weiser]

I was hoping the hobby would manage to stay out of this mess...but it seems the penny is beginning to drop with regards to trying to make gaming more "progressive", whatever the hell that really means?

http://mythcreants.com/blog/five-des...playing-games/

I almost want to say "Lighten up, Francis" to the author of the article....

[Draq]

It's not what you play, but how. I don't think there's anything wrong with role playing as it is.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

The author's opinions are shit, and I wish he would leave gaming forever.

[kato13]

I follow the video game scene pretty closely and some of these complaints mirror what progressives have been saying about video games for at least a decade. (Though I admit some points are well written, calling concepts in gaming he does not agree with "flaws" really annoys me)

Generally though the pendulum is turning back away from giving in to these types of rants. Small, reasonable, incremental changes are occurring, but video game makers realize that for the highend stuff that the market wants what the market wants and that a quality story and/or quality gameplay will allow you to be successful even in the face of a loud, generally non-purchasing, vocal minority of complainers.

I would not worry about a major effect on RPGs. In general the progressive change movement is dependent on constant success, and as the easy and proper targets have fallen, and they have widened their scope and begun to pounce on more and more trivial complaints, they are being ignored to a greater degree from what I have seen.

[Raellus]

Some of the author's points are valid, but he's taking what are essentially escapist games way too seriously. I can't imagine that gaming with him would be any sort of fun.

[Jason Weiser]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Some of the author's points are valid, but he's taking what are essentially escapist games way too seriously. I can't imagine that gaming with him would be any sort of fun.

Heaven forbid that crowd ever find their way here, IMO. I play Twilight 2000 to have fun, be it writing fictional apocalypses for a "dead game" or playing a sort of radioactive "have gun, will travel" (tends to be the tenor of most of my games).

Honestly, when we are engaged in a firefight with a bunch of Soviet NPCs in our games, do we give a damn one of them promised his mother he'd come home, or another is a drunk and a scoundrel? Nope. Sounds cold, but honestly, RPGs, like life make us the hero of our own story. I really don't want folks getting in the way of that to assuage guilt over outside political issues.

Hell, I am a real troll to them anyhow, I am an unreconstructed miniature wargamer.....

[Schone23666]

WTF ??? Really?

I try to avoid politics and airing my own political views for a reason on forums, any forum. But this BS the "author" wrote? It seems you can't escape this drivel even during gaming now. Does he honestly think gamers take RPG's and whatever "views" they may espouse seriously?

In case you heard a loud THUMP, that was my head slamming my desk...

[raketenjagdpanzer]

You guys haven't seen anything. Some ... person is out there promoting the idea that RPGs should include "x-cards" to "prevent triggering"; literally that someone at your table can hold up this card with an X on it and say I'M NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THIS SUBJECT, IT TRIGGERS ME SO YOU CAN'T HAVE IT IN YOUR GAME.

If anyone has any doubt about what "triggers" Millennials, oh the things I've seen. "'Teeth' triggers me, please don't describe the teeth on the monster." "I'm triggered by rampant firearms use, please don't have guns in your game." "I get very triggered by eating disorder discussion please don't have fat people as villains in your game" and on and on.

The Social Justice Warriors are invading pen and paper RPGs and shitting the whole hobby up.

[kato13]

I researched the concept of "X-Cards" a bit and did not find many Google hits. Most were from 2013 and I did not see much traction after that point.

I can see a small amount of use in "pick-up" games, but if you have a core gaming group with good communication between gamers and a GM it would seem unnecessary, but if a group wants to do it more power to them.

IMO The use of such a card could be totally disruptive. If a player had an X-Card for "rape" and you introduced Molly Warren in T2k, her entire backstory and motivation would need to be changed on the fly. Of course anyone who might be that traumatized by the fictional representation of rape, should probably stay out of any realm which is not socially progressive, peaceful, and lawful.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Personally, I don't believe the author's views will ever get much traction.
Many of the comments on the article page are in agreement with us, specifically that rpg's are a hobby and Oren Ashkenazi (the author) should "lighten up Francis".
I recently joined a gaming club and the majority of the gamers are between the ages of mid-teens to mid-thirties. Many of them got introduced to gaming via D&D 3rd or 4th editions and they don't appear to have any concerns with the "problems" that Ashkenazi claims and they are pretty normal, stable human beings despite what Ashkenazi seems to believe.

Ashkenazi seems to me to be reactionary, read his article on the following link
http://mythcreants.com/blog/five-mec...ur-game-worse/
and specifically direct your attention to his point number 1, paragraph 1. His comment about being upset shows that he too likes bashing badguys just as much as the people he targets in the original article who he claims are in danger from these "Five Destructive Myths".
His article seems to me to be driven by the same personal problems/internal issues that I believe Allen Varney suffers in his commentary "Do the Right Thing" were he complained that T2k was a moral vacuum and the game designers should have put an ethical system in place to let players know right and wrong (because apparently in his view, GMs and Players are incapable of knowing right from wrong unless it's forced upon them by the rules).
Varney's views didn't get much long term attention, I don't think that Ashkenazi's will either.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

You guys haven't seen anything. Some ... person is out there promoting the idea that RPGs should include "x-cards" to "prevent triggering"; literally that someone at your table can hold up this card with an X on it and say I'M NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THIS SUBJECT, IT TRIGGERS ME SO YOU CAN'T HAVE IT IN YOUR GAME.

If anyone has any doubt about what "triggers" Millennials, oh the things I've seen. "'Teeth' triggers me, please don't describe the teeth on the monster." "I'm triggered by rampant firearms use, please don't have guns in your game." "I get very triggered by eating disorder discussion please don't have fat people as villains in your game" and on and on.

The Social Justice Warriors are invading pen and paper RPGs and shitting the whole hobby up.

Hmmm....... I just never invited the people that screw up my games back.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

By the way, here's the two main articles dealing with Varney, the second one I included because in my opinion, it shows that Varney wants to take some sort of moral high ground in what is essentially a form of escapist play time.

http://allenvarney.com/av_morality.html
http://grognardia.blogspot.com.au/20...ight-2000.html

And yes, that is yours truly being reactive to Varney's commentary/comments.

And as something of a follow up
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?...e-amp-Morality

Why is this important? Look at the dates.
ALL these webpages are about half a decade old. Consider that Varney's original article was written in 1991 and how he believes T2k deserves blame for not having a "code of conduct" in the rules and then consider how he jumps out of nowhere 19 years later to direct people to his article.

In my opinion, he was pushing a personal agenda but his agenda has made little to no impact over the years or at least no impact that I can see.
I do believe that Ashkenazi's article will end up with the same lack of impact.

[Panther Al]

Oh no... not the SJW and the whole 'gate' thing.

I was desperately hoping that this would pass the tabletop RPG scene completely.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

You guys haven't seen anything. Some ... person is out there promoting the idea that RPGs should include "x-cards" to "prevent triggering"; literally that someone at your table can hold up this card with an X on it and say I'M NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THIS SUBJECT, IT TRIGGERS ME SO YOU CAN'T HAVE IT IN YOUR GAME.

If anyone has any doubt about what "triggers" Millennials, oh the things I've seen. "'Teeth' triggers me, please don't describe the teeth on the monster." "I'm triggered by rampant firearms use, please don't have guns in your game." "I get very triggered by eating disorder discussion please don't have fat people as villains in your game" and on and on.

The Social Justice Warriors are invading pen and paper RPGs and shitting the whole hobby up.

As a GM I'd be responding with "Oh, that's unfortunate that you feel that way, we'll just take a five minute pause in the game so you can pack up your stuff and remove yourself to a nice, safe, non-triggering environment. See ya".

Edit: I guess I should make it clear to you all that I deliberately insert confronting scenes and scenarios into the games I run. I want my players to be confronted with themes and scenarios that make them question their decisions and assumptions. If my players aren't mature enough to handle that, I'm not stopping them from finding the door.

[kato13]

While I think we generally agree that the concept of triggers is WAY overused in the younger generations, I can see a few situations where a "timeout" or "this is more than I can handle" concept is totally valid.

My first thought was if RPGs were being used to within the scope of treatment of PTSDs. A novel concept which I was not sure existed, but of course the GREAT GOOGLE provided

http://rpgresearch.com/blog/rpg-for-...ya-interview-1

As with everything in life the concept of a timeout in an RPG is a tool which can be used in many different ways. It might be used by someone with genuine psychological issues to feel safer in exploring their own "danger zones", or it could be used to impose a minority opinion onto a larger group by allowing one person to dictate what is acceptable speech.

The choice on if the tool has merit and how it should be used should be left to each gaming group. My hope is that most groups would like to push their own boundaries and try to be uncomfortable in a way that makes them think, but to each their own.

[Targan]

I understand the concept of triggering and I agree it seems to be over-used in the younger generations. Let me give you all a little glimpse into my own psyche and potential triggers.

When I was a kid (I'm not sure of the exact age, probably between 10 and 12 years old) I went through an incident of torture. I'm not talking about generalized physical and psychological abuse (although I did go through 10 years of that due to a sadistic and sometimes brutal stepfather) or typical childhood bullying (which I also suffered through at school until I was 16 when I fractured someone's skull with a solid Tae Kwon Do punch and was left alone after that).

This incident was when a family friend aged in his mid to late 20s turned up at our house one day. He was wearing nothing but a damp pair of jeans, no shoes or shirt, was acting really strange and said he'd just swum across a nearby river. In hindsight I think he was having a psychotic episode, whether it was drug-induced or not I'll never know. My parents brought him inside, sat him at the dining room table and gave him a meal, then they retired to the lounge room to watch TV. Previous to this he'd been a lovely bloke, never gave my family any cause for concern.

I made the mistake of walking past our guest to get a drink from the kitchen. He stopped me on the way back to my room and accused me of watching him. He then dragged me to a room right at the back of the house and told me not to speak, then spent the next 25 minutes alternating between asking me bizarre questions and beating me whether I answered him or not. It got pretty nasty. I guess I'm lucky he didn't have any implements to hand but he did sufficient damage with his hands. My stepfather eventually found us and dragged the guy outside, but he ran off when it was suggested maybe he needed to go with the police to hospital for a mental health assessment.

Anyway, ever since then (and to a lesser extent the two times I was stabbed by my stepfather) I've been against the idea of torture. I can understand why people might think it's necessary, but I can't condone it personally. The computer game GTA V has a torture scene where you as the player have to choose various implements and have your in-game character torture a victim. It doesn't matter which implements you choose but the game won't progress unless you brutalise the poor bastard chained to the chair. I found that whole scene to be triggering for me. I had the choice to just walk away from the game. I chose to continue, despite it making be feel profoundly uncomfortable.

Thing is, I don't blame the creators of the game for inserting that scene. It fit the plot and the character. I had a choice, I chose to engage. Pretty simple.

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Targan

Thing is, I don't blame the creators of the game for inserting that scene. It fit the plot and the character. I had a choice, I chose to engage. Pretty simple.

Bravery all around. Admitting your discomfort (to yourself and to us), facing it, and not blaming the game devs for "making" you feel it in the first place.

Kudos to you man.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Geez Targan, that's bloody harsh and like Kato said, all credit to you for growing past those episodes in your life.
But what you said about GTA V I think also leads to a very important point - personal responsibility.
Personal responsibility works both ways, for example, if you were hosting a dinner and some of your guests didn't like spicy food, then the onus is on you to serve something that is compatible... however, the onus is also on them to tell you that spicy food is not good for them.

What I see with this current idea of "blaming the game" is a case of laying responsibility on one side (the game developers) but not the other (the people who decide to play the game).
You can't just blame a game company for making a game that talks about sanity and its loss (i.e. Call of Cthulhu) and demand a change because you don't like that in the game - your responsibility is to decide whether to play the game or not and if you DO decide to play it, you can't justify bitching about it afterwards because it was always your choice to walk away or to continue to play.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by Targan

As a GM I'd be responding with "Oh, that's unfortunate that you feel that way, we'll just take a five minute pause in the game so you can pack up your stuff and remove yourself to a nice, safe, non-triggering environment. See ya".

Edit: I guess I should make it clear to you all that I deliberately insert confronting scenes and scenarios into the games I run. I want my players to be confronted with themes and scenarios that make them question their decisions and assumptions. If my players aren't mature enough to handle that, I'm not stopping them from finding the door.

Like that stress card nonsense they had in the 90's for basic training? Why can't a simple discussion before a game about boundries suffice. Soon people will be flinging the "isms" and "ists" insults. What's next, BDSM safewords? Imagine the "Seriously" thread with such people?

[Tegyrius]

Heh. Where was this guy when I was playing Vampire: The Masquerade in 1993? These issues aren't new, nor are designer attempts to confront them.

- C.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Targan

I understand the concept of triggering and I agree it seems to be over-used in the younger generations. Let me give you all a little glimpse into my own psyche and potential triggers.

When I was a kid (I'm not sure of the exact age, probably between 10 and 12 years old) I went through an incident of torture. I'm not talking about generalized physical and psychological abuse (although I did go through 10 years of that due to a sadistic and sometimes brutal stepfather) or typical childhood bullying (which I also suffered through at school until I was 16 when I fractured someone's skull with a solid Tae Kwon Do punch and was left alone after that).

This incident was when a family friend aged in his mid to late 20s turned up at our house one day. He was wearing nothing but a damp pair of jeans, no shoes or shirt, was acting really strange and said he'd just swum across a nearby river. In hindsight I think he was having a psychotic episode, whether it was drug-induced or not I'll never know. My parents brought him inside, sat him at the dining room table and gave him a meal, then they retired to the lounge room to watch TV. Previous to this he'd been a lovely bloke, never gave my family any cause for concern.

I made the mistake of walking past our guest to get a drink from the kitchen. He stopped me on the way back to my room and accused me of watching him. He then dragged me to a room right at the back of the house and told me not to speak, then spent the next 25 minutes alternating between asking me bizarre questions and beating me whether I answered him or not. It got pretty nasty. I guess I'm lucky he didn't have any implements to hand but he did sufficient damage with his hands. My stepfather eventually found us and dragged the guy outside, but he ran off when it was suggested maybe he needed to go with the police to hospital for a mental health assessment.

Anyway, ever since then (and to a lesser extent the two times I was stabbed by my stepfather) I've been against the idea of torture. I can understand why people might think it's necessary, but I can't condone it personally. The computer game GTA V has a torture scene where you as the player have to choose various implements and have your in-game character torture a victim. It doesn't matter which implements you choose but the game won't progress unless you brutalise the poor bastard chained to the chair. I found that whole scene to be triggering for me. I had the choice to just walk away from the game. I chose to continue, despite it making be feel profoundly uncomfortable.

Thing is, I don't blame the creators of the game for inserting that scene. It fit the plot and the character. I had a choice, I chose to engage. Pretty simple.

Makes my stepmonster, mother, and sister look like angels!

[WallShadow]

"X-Card"? That would be a cue card saying "Laugh at the foolish mortal and make him/her cringe, then drive them out into the outer darkness" to me.

[Ancestor]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

Heh. Where was this guy when I was playing Vampire: The Masquerade in 1993? These issues aren't new, nor are designer attempts to confront them.

- C.

AMEN!! After playing one session of that game with a GM that I would politely describe as "affected" a friend and I who were the PCs walked away and never looked back. I'm still troubled by the experience...

[Anna Elizabeth]

I wouldn't want something like X-cards or anything in my games. I have PTSD myself, but I'm aware of what triggers me, and I just do my best to protect myself.

I do give content warnings about games, anime, and things like that, but really - don't we all? My female friends aren't into "Anna's War Stuff" anyway, but *if* one of them wanted to join in on T2K, I would say "Just realize, this is the Aftermath of a world war with nuclear weapons, and the stories have mature themes."

Movies have content warnings "PG-13, R" ect. I warned one of my Girls that liked an anime figurine that I have - "oh, Revy is an awesome character, but I gotta tell you, Black Lagoon makes Pulp Fiction look like a Tinkerbell cartoon". I don't think that was Political Correctness gone mad.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Another of the good points of this forum is that we have people from a range of different backgrounds and so we can get to hear the points of view of people who know about mental health issues from first hand experience.
I know of some of them from second hand experience - one of my relatives is bipolar, one of my friends has severe OCD and another friend committed suicide due to depression - but to get to the point... I think it's incredibly helpful to hear from members here who know about these things from personal experience, I think it gives us a more balanced view of such things as the "trigger" issue.
I know that people are sometimes reluctant to talk about such things but it is helping some of us understand so thanks for sharing your insight and experiences.

[Anna Elizabeth]

Your welcome.

A lot of things in life are like that, when we learn how it is for someone else, it makes more sense. I have a neighbor in the apartments where we live, he has PTSD from combat experience, mine is from childhood trauma, but we have some triggers in common.

[Jason Weiser]

Anna,
This is frankly, the way to handle it. I applaud your comments. I guess the dividing line is..."Are you getting in the way of other people's fun"? If you are, then perhaps it is time to reevaluate one's own issues.

I was part of a Battletech group that had the social graces of a gaggle of pigs in a trough. After a while, it stopped being fun when I was the constant butt of the jokes. I said as much, it failed to stop, so, I picked up and left. Been much happier since. Lesson is, we are a big enough hobby to cater to everyone's tastes, if you are not finding your flavor of fun at one table, go to another, but for god's sake, don't make your fun the law of the land, so to speak.

[Anna Elizabeth]

I totally agree with that, Jason. I'm not about censorship, I just don't want to ambush anyone with content.

And I don't like abusive attitudes in a group. Good-natured razzing is one thing, harassing new players is something else entirely.

[rcaf_777]

I think this gose back to know your players and you be find

[Schone23666]

Well, some things to cover...

First off...damn Targan, sheesh. I can't add much more than what stainlesssteelcynic and kato13 already said, much kudos for facing what you've had to deal with in life and soldiering on. I think you stated it pretty well that in spite that it was a game, it still presented you with a harsh, uncomfortable decision but you took it and went on anyway.

I see no reason why games shouldn't have the players face difficult ethical or moral decisions, as long as it makes sense in the context of the game. What if you're faced with a decision where NPC A or NPC B must stay behind to safeguard and trigger an incendiary bomb that'll wipe out a biological or chemical weapons facility? How do you choose? If so, why? What do you tell the family and friends of the one who died and how do you justify your actions?
Also, what if there's a nearby town or city that might be affected by the explosion or release of chemicals...but if you try to alert them you also potentially alert the nearby hostile military force. Do you try to send some sort of warning to the civilian populace and risk jeopardizing the mission, or go through the op as planned and possibly endanger more civilian lives, though another civilian populace may be at risk elsewhere if the biological/chemical site isn't destroyed?

My point is that games can, and IMO depending on the flavor of the game (of course, YMMV very much plays here) should be willing to put the players in uncomfortable situations, but it shouldn't come at the risk of alienating your players or getting in the way of the fun of the game. As Jason said in his own rebuttal to Oren Ashkenazi, (though I won't quote word for word), it doesn't make sense to act like Picard and attempt to come to some sort of "harmonious understanding" with an NPC group that's trying to empty their AR and SAW mags into your own PC group...

As for gaming groups...I think I mentioned it once that a while ago I RP'd in another gaming group that was based around the RPG video game series Mass Effect, it was called Cerberus Daily News. Sadly, from what Jason told me about the Battletech group he was with it seems the majority of players in the group I was in had the same social graces, about zero. That said, I just joined in for fun and soon was making up encounters and adventures for my PC's (two in particular, Solitary Man and Jessica Six among others) and other players that wanted to join in and were far more civil did so and we had a blast, we had a continuous story arc with evolving player characters while they were involved in all sorts of hijinks...exploring an alien temple, getting into running gun battles and space battles with assorted bad guys from different factions, raiding a hostile space station that was being used to brainwash civilians into soldiers, making deals with various assorted underworld figures on different planets, etc. We kept it inclusive, not exclusive, and tried to balance out the overall gameplay and how everyone who was involved felt about it as much as possible.

That is, until some other players and GM's decided to let their ego get ahead of them and began dictating what was "acceptable". This had gone on for a while, but apparently it went out of control and they basically blasted and banished anyone who wouldn't hew to "their" storylines and how scenarios should play out. Yes, I was the butt of quite a few mean-spirited rants and it was painful to read and watch. But it wasn't just me, quite a few other players, especially new ones who wanted to join were subject to the same treatment. Whoever considered themselves the grand masters of this group decided to behave like bullies and thugs, and lo and behold the rest of the group followed, and soon, players just dropped off like flies. No surprise, sadly. But still depressing when you see creative people (and there were plenty of them) involved in a project with so much talent and great ideas get squashed like bugs on a windshield by petty, despicable thugs.

Ugh, didn't mean to go into a long-winded spiel like this. I basically agree with Rcaf77, it's always important to know your players and that they have at least a basic understanding of what they're RP'ing or gaming.