Emotional separation from fictional content
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I will go one step further.
If someone has ADD and cannot focus for long enough periods of time to run a plot scene and associated paperwork that Wizzbang MUSH states are requirements for their plot staff, then they should not be allowed to be plotstaff if they fall behind on what they are signing up to do.
If someone enters into a major depressive episode, as I did before my last exit from mushing, and they cannot log in or participate in a manner that is expected of the position they've taken or the group they are trying to be part of--then they should withdraw from that position and inform their group that through no fault of that groups other members, they need to pull a l and take a break.
Etc. If your illness or life circumstance makes it so that you are incapable or minimally capable of doing things in a timely manner, or in a respectful manner because you are so up and down with your emotions...
Then yes. You should not disrespect the rest of the community by forcing others to deal with your problems that they can't really help with. You should not clutter a game and make everyone's time there less pleasant with your outbursts; nor assume that people who are not acting out don't have some serious stuff they are dealing with as well.
I do not think we should not expect in an interactive collaborative hobby some semblance of emotional and mental hygine. And honestly? People while they may be initially disappointed DO understand or respect that, if you are upfront and do not drag them unwilling or unwarned into your business.
Or if they don't, then that is valuable info to have for the future.
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You're both right.
Patience and understanding. Both directions. Nobody in this hobby has the right to make any personal demands of you, but you should respect their efforts every bit as much as you're asking them to respect yours.
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@surreality said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
That separation going !!!KABOOM!!! and causing a flashback or panic attack is the actual thing that occurs when an actually real trigger gets tripped. As such, if it possibly might happen? Then, yeah, the way you initially put this... they are simply not welcome.
There is a huge difference between saying: "This game has mature themes. If that has the potential to stress you out, then you should take steps to protect yourself." and "You're not welcome here."
I have immense sympathy for anyone who has to police their own entertainment for the sake of their emotional well-being. I can only imagine what it might be like to walk into a movie and not know if you're going to half a flashback in the middle of it. That's horrible.
But I still don't feel that anyone has a right to foist the responsibility for their well-being onto someone else. Be proactive. Communicate with plot runners. Communicate with staff. Make your needs known. Most people, I think, will be reasonably accommodating.
Expecting people to fill out a "what might bother you" questionnaire or expecting people running an improv scene to try and forsee all possible triggers in advance just seems unreasonable to me.
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@surreality So, on a reasonable level, how would it be my responsibility to mitigate (on behalf of another player), potentially triggering themes related to sex, violence, crime, and dark imagery, when said person with triggers has chosen to find entertainment on an online role-playing space with complete strangers, where the central theme (WoD, example) is horror, crime, violence, sex, and fear?
So if a player with PTSD chooses to enter the funhouse with the sign that reads DANGER: THE THEME OF THIS FUNHOUSE INCLUDES THEMES OR VIOLENCE, SEX, HORROR, FEAR, DEATH, EVISCERATION, RELATIONSHIP DRAMA, LOSS, AND YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER WHO COMES AND GOES, how are the other people in the Funhouse in any way responsible for their choice to enter a potentially triggering environment?
Tennis doesn't have these themes.
Maybe the people with massive relationship triggers, fear triggers, abuse triggers, winning/losing triggers shouldn't be relying on online games with complete strangers, games with triggering themes no less, for fun in search of horror or relationship rp.
It is the responsibility of each player to determine their ability to remain objective on these playspaces, and it is their responsibility to determine, given whatever diseases, issues, or triggers they may have, if the funhouse is a proper environment for them.
It's not my fault if I trip a trigger on accident, and while I sympathize with people's personal bullshit (because we all have some), it's not their responsibility to cater to mine, either.
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I don't have a problem with requiring people to fill out a form so much as I have very real doubts that it will solve the issue that's supposed to be solved, and is more likely to get hung up on letter of the law or loopholes or just...I don't know, people forgetting or just not thinking something will bug them.
Nothing is going to stop outright all incidences of triggers. There must be communication. I don't see a +system as facilitating communication for most people I have met in games. But that is what's needed, IMO.
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I would like to clarify:
I am not at all suggesting anyone list all possible triggers. I am suggesting to list intended generalized themes that could be major triggers.
If you know, in advance, that you are using a monster which is going to try to utilize mind control to force someone to rape someone else (I have seen this)... that is something that you can place up front as a warning for players.
Rape, body/victim horror, child abuse... These are major triggers for some people and I think it might potentially be polite to toss out a warning to go 'This is an intended part of this story.' You're not listing out every little nitpicky detail, but a major aspect of your plot that also happens to b a major theme. You are offering up a measure of communication.
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I have never played on a game that did not ban child rape or molestation play, nor on any that did not have explicitly a no-rape without explicit content consent for both ways parties policy.
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@Auspice It is TOOOOTALLY reasonable to warn, disclaim, or outright avoid themes of rape, domestic violence, torture, etc.
I think when striving for an "R" rating, everyone knows what it takes to avoid making hardcore xxx porn or Human Centipede
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@faraday said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
@surreality said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
That separation going !!!KABOOM!!! and causing a flashback or panic attack is the actual thing that occurs when an actually real trigger gets tripped. As such, if it possibly might happen? Then, yeah, the way you initially put this... they are simply not welcome.
There is a huge difference between saying: "This game has mature themes. If that has the potential to stress you out, then you should take steps to protect yourself." and "You're not welcome here."
I have immense sympathy for anyone who has to police their own entertainment for the sake of their emotional well-being. I can only imagine what it might be like to walk into a movie and not know if you're going to half a flashback in the middle of it. That's horrible.
But I still don't feel that anyone has a right to foist the responsibility for their well-being onto someone else. Be proactive. Communicate with plot runners. Communicate with staff. Make your needs known. Most people, I think, will be reasonably accommodating.
Expecting people to fill out a "what might bother you" questionnaire or expecting people running an improv scene to try and forsee all possible triggers in advance just seems unreasonable to me.
I wish you were my spirit animal.
I think you worded this very eloquently and appropriately, and I think this approach is very reasonable.
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@faraday "This game has mature themes" gives someone no information.
Everyone needs to play their part, in my view, to create a positive environment. This is about the fifth time I'm saying it: there's a part for the players, a part for GMs, and a part for the game creators/staff. Nobody gets a pass. Everyone should be proactive.
You can consider it unreasonable all you want -- I don't. I don't because I have seen it work on one of the longest running games in the hobby, and that game has more controversial content inside a week than any year on the average game that isn't it. That's because this notion of everyone working cooperatively and proactively to create a positive experience actually works, but it takes cooperation. You do not put the onus for cooperation on one party and force them to chase people down to ask awkward and uncomfortable questions about something they may not want to be talking about in the first place that, by simply seeing a checked box, they would know to avoid without the kind of personal, one on one disclosure that a lot of the very self-conscious and avoidant people in this hobby can find especially uncomfortable.
That's the other reason for a space for people to express what they feel they need to in their own time, and outside of any potential 'conflict' conversational space. That's actually relevant.
If someone thinks it is too much stress and hassle and thus cannot be assed to check off a few boxes on a web form if they want to include common subjects of trauma if they want to use them in a plot, I don't think they have the emotional maturity to handle that content in a responsible manner and shouldn't be running plots. Re: @Ghost, I similar do not consider this to be 'catering to someone's disease', I consider it to be demonstrating respect for fellow participants on a game and allowing them to make decisions for themselves about their participation.
Again: rape may emerge in 1% of scenes on a game. If a game permits it to occur, even with strict regulation, you're saying they should go play tennis instead, and screw that other 99% of the game they would very much enjoy and contribute to, probably never actually encountering a single rape plot.
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The number of people who whine about using MPAA ratings are mighty. I don't know what they expect, but call it "useless". I suggested using ESRB, but am usually met with silence. The nitpickery over tags, here, is mainly why we can't have nice things.
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@surreality said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
You can consider it unreasonable all you want -- I don't. I don't because I have seen it work on one of the longest running games in the hobby, and that game has more controversial content inside a week than any year on the average game that it's it.
I've also seen it work for close to two decades now without any policy or code whatsoever. Mostly by running and playing on games where cooperation was expected and slaying puppies and assaulting each other simply wasn't a thing. But if you want to have an elaborate preferences system on your game, go for it.
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Okay, I'm getting on the bandwagon now. Please note that I agree with you in theory.
In practice, I don't think you're discussing, and I think I know why. You seem afraid that if you don't get the things you think are important to protect yourself then you won't be protected. You and I have been on many games where getting information from staff is like getting blood from a stone, and what you feel is necessary they feel is unreasonable. This is why I won't play Arx. Been there. Done that.
Almost nobody is telling you to not play on a game because there's a 1% chance for you getting triggered. They--and I am joining them--are saying that there is no way to reasonably expect adequate coverage. The best we can do is try, and if that's not good enough for you then I don't know what else anyone can say.
There is a certain point that only you can prevent problems with you. Asking people to cater to this is asking a lot of them. If they say "no", then you can't reasonably get angry at them. They have a whole game to run, a life to lead. I sympathize and, as I've been closer to these situations than I ever care to be, I even empathize, but there's only so much any one human being can ask of another. The best one can do is hope, or change their situation.
It sucks, but we're all just human.
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@Thenomain said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
Almost nobody is telling you to not play on a game because there's a 1% chance for you getting triggered. They--and I am joining them--are saying that there is no way to reasonably expect adequate coverage. The best we can do is try, and if that's not good enough for you then I don't know what else anyone can say.
This. If @surreality came on my game and said: "Look, I'm triggered by people clubbing baby seals..." I would bend over backwards to accommodate. I would make sure not to bring them within ten feet of any plots involving harm to baby seals. If I knew of someone else plotting a baby seal plot I would warn them away. What I would not do is expect anyone to implement an elaborate system of warnings or preferences - the help file for which is longer than all the other policies on my game combined - just on the off chance that .01% of the scenes on the game might involve clubbing a baby seal.
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@surreality said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
Re: @Ghost, I similar do not consider this to be 'catering to someone's disease', I consider it to be demonstrating respect for fellow participants on a game and allowing them to make decisions for themselves about their participation.
@faraday nailed my emotional feel of it personally by saying that it must be horrible to have to nitpick forms of entertainment based on anxieties. That can't be fun.
Personally? I stopped watching The Walking Dead after the Negan finale because I decided that it didn't make me feel good. I chose to stop watching for my own health, rather than watch and get mad at the script for making me feel bad.
You wrote:
I consider it to be demonstrating respect for fellow participants on a game and allowing them to make decisions for themselves about their participation.
However, my counterpoint to that sentiment is this:
On online games with mature themes (troubled relationship to, horror, violence, etc), when a player triggered by these very themes chooses to join, despite, the other players do not get the option of deciding whether or not they are participant to said player's difficulty with emotional investment and/or triggering. It becomes their problem, like it or not. On a respect level, they didn't ask to be made to feel guilty for someone's OOC RL triggers.
There has GOT to be a responsibility placed on behalf of the sensitive player to understand that they chose this arena. These people, these strangers, are a constant x-factor on a playspace that the player has already identified as having themes that trigger them. I sympathize and many others do as well, but at the end of the day, it is my responsibility as a player to behave reasonably on a game with mature themes without forcing my RL issues on other players, too. They came for the game and accepted the themes involved.
If someone is playing with a toy box of things that trigger me, or knock me off of my emotional equilibrium, and I decide to go and play with them with things that tend to make me feel that way, it is not their fault when I end up distraught.
I chose that toy box.
It's wholly reasonable for that other kid playing with the toy box to not be reaponsible for my reaction in that scenario.
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@faraday The truth of the matter though is that most of the people being triggered aren't from baby seals. It's not rare exceptions that get players' buttons pushed the vast majority of the time; it's specific themes. Specific things.
Now, I don't want to be a hypocrite here. I've discussed and supported even that it's unethical to have a hierarchy of sins where some grievous crimes are worse than others, and if we allow murder but we don't allow slapping then it seems hypocritical to me.
But having said... the world is what it is. Murder is on the menu. You can barely play a cellphone game where you don't see someone getting exploded or shot in the head, hah-hah. We're as a society desensitized to this, something which I dislike but I need to accept, and since that means many plots will include killing the bad guys it doesn't also have to mean other acts need to be equally on the menu.
In other words I'd be willing to accept locking certain specific major themes away from public areas of the game. If you want them you should only be able to do it in private with other players whose OOC consent you've had in advance. That would include rape, torture, domestic abuse, etc... the hard stuff.
I'd also be willing to see those same themes being mandatory as a warning label for PrPs; so not only can you not actually roleplay these in general, but if you are going to refer to them as a major theme of your plot (say, it's a spirit who took over a loving husband who ended up abusing his wife) and not actually show it there would need to be some advanced warning.
However if you'd only make mention in passing to something as part of a larger RP ("the band of outlaws you're looking for was here, they pillaged the village and raped two women then they went this way!") it should be fine. There's no focus on the act, it might just be an improvised pose, and STs can't be reasonably expected to scrub every plot they run completely clean.
Does that work better?
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If someone is so avoidant they must be shielded by code from discussing anything that might come up pre scene much less unexpectedly scene in progress....
I will be honest. I don't think that type of person is safe for me to trust/include in scenes without me getting to know them better first. That is a level of trauma and loss of function that has been the first flag of major warning that I wish I had attended to in a player a few very memorable times in my mushing career and frankly in RL too.
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Yanno. I think I've gotten my point across and I heart @surreality to pieces. So I'm gonna do something here.
I'm going to say " @Thenomain , @faraday, and @Arkandel tend to be more eloquent and less blue-collar offensive in delivery than myself. Some of them are extrapolating on points that I agree with, so I'm gonna step back and let their views keep things civil while avoiding my delivery causing issues or misconceptions."
I respect people as individuals and people with personal stuff. We've all got it, myself included.
I'll chime in later if the dialogue results in something that wouldn't be me repeating myself.
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@Arkandel said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
@faraday The truth of the matter though is that most of the people being triggered aren't from baby seals. It's not rare exceptions that get players' buttons pushed the vast majority of the time; it's specific themes. Specific things.
Yes, I understand that. Baby seals was a silly example since someone mentioned animal abuse a few pages back. But I would argue that if those specific things are not rare exceptions on the game, then maybe that's not a game they should be playing. It's one thing if 99% of the RP is okay and you want to defend against the 1% trigger. But if you're triggered by war stuff, maybe don't play on a war MUSH?
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One thing that I think all games should do is have a concise and accurate description of the game's theme, and another one for setting.
I've been advocating this for years. "Just read the history files" is never enough to introduce someone to a game, and in @Surreality's defense it could be the very first step of discovering if a game is for you, or if you can put up with potential issues.
It just makes sense for me to have a good descriptive standard about the game. "This game is about this." Businesses have Mission Statements. So should your game.
"BSG: Humanity fights for survival against a nearly impossible to defeat enemy, sometimes with them. Will they have the hope and will to continue on in the uncaring void of space?"
Okay, I went straight to the depressing, but damn what they did to Cally, Dualla, and Six (on Pegasus), it wasn't a cheery show. If I didn't know the show already, I might not be ready for this level of holy-shit.
If I did know the show, I'd expect this level of pressing hopelessness, people suffering PTSD in the middle of the war. A Mission Statement helps keep the staff aware about their goal as much as inform the player.
There are many better examples in the RPG Primetime Adventures. Many RPGs have a section about how to decide what your table is going to play, but none are as concise, and do far better than any other source I've seen.