@Arkandel said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):
I'm not sure what solutions exist here and how many provisions games in general ought to offer their players to protect them from seeing things that trigger their particular sensibilities.
I'm going to be super clear on this and while I do not intend to be harsh, it may come across that way.
The statistics on rape in the US alone are fucking horrifying. I, personally, am a survivor of violent rape. My PTSD gives precisely zero fucks about how deeply integral to their master story plan someone thinks surprising everyone with rape is.
RL is more important than RP, and if somebody cannot respect their fellow players enough to provide minor information to allow them to make informed choices about the content they're going to engage with if it's reasonable to believe it could be problematic, that somebody needs to grow up more than a little. This does not apply to just rape, either. If you're including torture, gore, feeding babies to Zuul, etc., advise the players in the space provided for an advisory notice and allow them to decide how much they want to stretch their comfort zones by choosing to participate or not.
@skew did a great job of this on BITN, with warnings that 'X will occur and will happen to a random person at this event, if you're not down with that, do not come' and similar. (Seriously, he deserves kudos for this.)
(Generic) your surprise plot twist is not worth somebody's emotional well-being or therapy bill, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
People will have prefs set. People should use them to note things they have issues with; it's hard to justify complaining about how somebody tripped on a well-buried and unexpected landmine if you don't put up a sign that says: yo, there are landmines in this field, tread with caution, please. GMs should, ideally, glance over that info and tap people on the shoulder if they spot something that might be an issue via page before kicking something off to give the player a chance to opt out.
We've had this discussion before, and I grok your stance on it, @Arkandel. It is a fascinating philosophical argument to have; it's also completely irrelevant when compared to the practical truth that human beings are more important than any 'surprise plot twist' somebody has in mind on a pretendy fun time game. That reality is where policy needs to come from, because that's the reality where we, the players, actually have to live our real lives, sometimes dealing with some very real and very ugly things we would rather not have to think about in the time we want to spend relaxing, having fun, and enjoying telling stories together.