Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.

[TNP]

Settting. SETTING! Why the hell did I keep saying theme? I totally meant setting.

Carry on.

[Thenomain]

@Pyrephox said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

It's important for a roleplaying setting (yes, even a fantasy setting set in a non-Earth world) to have some sense of cultural realism and weight to it

This. A million times this. I've also seen it referred to in the writing circles as "internal consistency" as why you can't just say "because magic", for example. You can find a way around these things without addressing them, but as has been said a few times before then maybe you shouldn't be hanging them on the 17th Century or perhaps make an entirely new universe that's kind of 17th Century-ish.

• Victoriana: The players are the exception and are constantly fighting not to be outcast from society.
• Castle Falkenstein: The USA is complete jerkwad Illuminiati-ville, but the Empire of California was inspired by self-proclaimed Emperor Norton and is modernized in gender and race issues, making a place for several but not all modern ideologies.
• 7th Sea: Entirely new universe that's kind of 17th Century-ish manages to open up quite a few ideals, but not all.
• Ponyfinder: Our very own WORA escapee Nuku creates a fantasy landscape where you're all My Little Pony-like characters. What, were we removing Bronies and/or Otherkin from "sensitive aspects of game themes"?

Because "sensitive" is personal. It's very, very personal. I personally don't think it's okay to tell someone that they're not allowed to be "sensitive" about something, which has made dealing with rust-belt unemployed voters both more stressful and more open.

This is why I believe it's up to your audience to accept your world-building and maybe offer a little of their own. If people are not invested in the game, it doesn't matter how good or open or fair the theme is, they're not going to play it.

The lucky haven't ever failed making a game, but only the intelligent will learn from their success, and "theme" is only one part of it.

I have gone off on a tangent a little bit, so I'm stopping here.

[surreality]

@Thenomain said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

This. A million times this. I've also seen it referred to in the writing circles as "internal consistency" as why you can't just say "because magic", for example. You can find a way around these things without addressing them, but as has been said a few times before then maybe you shouldn't be hanging them on the 17th Century or perhaps make an entirely new universe that's kind of 17th Century-ish.

<facerubs> I may be reading too much into this in my painkiller haze (2016 just haaaad to get one more kick to my ass in there), but I've already stated I'm not going to make a full fantasy earth replacement. That is a non-option and it's remaining that way.

I do not think, "These things exist in the world, and you will encounter these attitudes, but you should not be forced to have your roleplay focus on them at all times to the exclusion of anything else," is an unreasonable attitude at all. It is also grossly unrealistic to expect that the sum total of someone's experience is going to focus on their gender, religion, or race to the extent that nothing else should be permitted to matter about the character.

This is miles from 'pretend the issue does not exist through the magic of handwavium'; they are not in any way the same thing, and people really do need to not equate the two.

Pretending the issues don't exist has another very important downside: some players wish to explore those challenges IC. Some players may want to make a character who adheres rigidly to those social expectations -- which is a challenge, too. Handwavium makes both of those things difficult if not impossible.

Much of what @faraday describes is, I feel, spot on. Exceptions have existed throughout history. Yes, the play experience is shifted if the PCs on grid are predominantly exceptions -- but I'm with @ThatGuyThere on PCs typically being exceptions in some form or another in almost any game out there. Quite a few of them in exist in the specific setting I'm looking at, in fact; what @meitze describes about the realities of a 'frontier society' and the manner in which necessity often drastically alters how strictly -- or not -- these things are adhered to. It's also a fairly multi-cultural setting for the era, which also has a noteworthy impact. (Read: it is diverse enough that not everyone is going to have those same cultural norms or expectations; it would be crazy moon logic to force Eurocentric cultural expectations from a Maori character, a Chinese one, etc.)

Because "sensitive" is personal. It's very, very personal. I personally don't think it's okay to tell someone that they're not allowed to be "sensitive" about something, which has made dealing with rust-belt unemployed voters both more stressful and more open.

Which is why I feel allowing players to explore these things if they wish, but state so clearly they don't want their entire play experience to revolve around them or be reduced to them exclusively if that's how they feel about it, is not an unreasonable choice.

[Kanye Qwest]

@surreality said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

Which is why I feel allowing players to explore these things if they wish, but state so clearly they don't want their entire play experience to revolve around them or be reduced to them exclusively if that's how they feel about it, is not an unreasonable choice.

Okay, and how do you design a game to make that happen?

[surreality]

@Kanye-Qwest The game has a preferences system accessible on game and on wiki that players can fill out re: this and various other subjects, stating their interest or lack thereof in that subject matter.

In other words, if someone wants to play a character who is very racist or sexist, they can say so there, in a completely non-confrontational• context. This provides a warning to others if that's something they don't want to deal with, but also means that a character who wants to explore those challenges knows there's someone they can reasonably expect to encounter them with IC. This is actually not uncommon already; I have seen endless wiki pages on games that make note of this, and do so to make fellow players aware in advance.

It also means that if someone is playing an exceptional character in some fashion, they can say, "I'm interested in exploring the difficulties of being a woman running a business in this setting," and players who might be uncertain about going there know it's safe territory.

This specific setup isn't so much about the design of the game world as it is a tool to enable communication amongst players surrounding topics of interest (or complete lack thereof), because these things are relevant on any game.

Despite all the horror stories here, people generally do not go looking to offend or upset their fellow players; more often than not, they have no idea that whatever it was they did would/could do so, and they feel like crap for having done it just like the person who had their comfort zone kicked in the shins does. This is a 'mutual fun' principle. Enabling people to explain what is or isn't fun for them in a comfortable, easily referenced, and non-confrontational fashion means they're much more likely to avoid the things they don't want, and are better able to find the ones they do.

• By 'non-confrontational', I mean: they are not in the heat of the moment when the explanation is made. These notes are things that can be set up at any time, and it's a lot more comfortable to express one's interests or lack thereof in a neutral space/frame of mind before 'oh, shit, danger, Will Robinson! LANDMINE!'

[Thenomain]

@surreality said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

<facerubs> I may be reading too much into this in my painkiller haze (2016 just haaaad to get one more kick to my ass in there), but I've already stated I'm not going to make a full fantasy earth replacement. That is a non-option and it's remaining that way.

My apologies for the tangent, tho I was thinking about talking to a wider audience.

If you're not going to change history, then you are, as the back and forth between @Pyrephox and @Ominous concluded, allowing the hand-waving the RP of certain things. The only thing I can see that you can do is approach them with respect and I'd imagine that you'll say what is not okay for your game.

Pretending the issues don't exist has another very important downside: some players wish to explore those challenges IC.

I'm sticking to my guns on this one:

@Thenomain said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@surreality

I would know the kind of game that I want to make and make it.

I would enforce that game.

I would learn from my mistakes.

I would ask the question: Is it a compromise to change theme or setting to make it more approachable by a wider audience?

There's no wrong answer. Don't be ashamed of making a smaller game. Make the game you want to see played by the people you want to see playing it.

Emphasis mine. You don't have to disallow certain things to allow people to not play them through—that's what Fade to Black is for. We're not disagreeing.

[surreality]

@Thenomain said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

If you're not going to change history, then you are, as the back and forth between @Pyrephox and @Ominous concluded, allowing the hand-waving the RP of certain things. The only thing I can see that you can do is approach them with respect and I'd imagine that you'll say what is not okay for your game.

Here's the thing, though: I'm not saying 'those things don't exist, and people will not encounter them'.

Are all of my life experiences in some way influenced by the fact that I'm a caucasian female? Sure. But in any given circumstance, this is to a greater or lesser degree.

Insisting that someone's RP must focus exclusively on their cultural disadvantages in any given time or place is, you're essentially saying: "If you want to play a woman, a person of color, someone gay, you accept that the only RP you're going to do involves those subjects being front and center at all times, and those are the only character choices that will or can matter."

We ask this of precisely no one to that extreme in any other context, and ultimately, that's unrealistic -- see the 'to a greater or lesser degree' above. It strips out the 'to a lesser degree' possibility in its entirely.

It also essentially says that no, exceptions that actually existed shouldn't exist in play, because they're statistical anomalies for the era (even if they are substantially less so in the chosen setting).

I'm not down with limiting people in that fashion. To me, that forces people into far too small a box, essentially reducing their options to 'cookie cutter generic woman of the era' or similar.

[Roz]

@surreality said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@Thenomain said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

If you're not going to change history, then you are, as the back and forth between @Pyrephox and @Ominous concluded, allowing the hand-waving the RP of certain things. The only thing I can see that you can do is approach them with respect and I'd imagine that you'll say what is not okay for your game.

Here's the thing, though: I'm not saying 'those things don't exist, and people will not encounter them'.

Other people on the thread are, though. Both of these options have come up, so I think that Theno has just been responding to both and not just your system that you've decided on. (Which I think is cool!)

[Thenomain]

@surreality

Hand-waving, not having them not exist. To take the modern WoD game example: Do not RP rape. NOT: Rape does not exist. A lot of this is because players have shown themselves time and again to be themselves incapable of treating the topic with the respect that playing the topic on a Mu* demands.

I see you asking how to keep respect in the topics, while keeping the topics as-was. That's up to the leadership team working with the player-base. I've said what I think would keep this the way that you want it. I'm not sure what you're objecting to.

(edit, because internet here is lagging me like whoa): Also what @Roz said.

[surreality]

@Thenomain I see where we're getting our wires crossed. I don't consider 'don't RP this' as handwavium, personally. I see it as 'edit the setting so it doesn't exist'.

[Ominous]

@surreality said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@Kanye-Qwest The game has a preferences system accessible on game and on wiki that players can fill out re: this and various other subjects, stating their interest or lack thereof in that subject matter.

In other words, if someone wants to play a character who is very racist or sexist, they can say so there, in a completely non-confrontational• context. This provides a warning to others if that's something they don't want to deal with, but also means that a character who wants to explore those challenges knows there's someone they can reasonably expect to encounter them with IC. This is actually not uncommon already; I have seen endless wiki pages on games that make note of this, and do so to make fellow players aware in advance.

While that does address some of the issue, the offending material is still present on the server and threatens to loom in on an unrelated scene. Let's say Jane avoids anything involving rape (I am using that for the example, because it seems to be the most common area people avoid), so she avoids people who are OK RPing that. Everything is hunky dory, until John rapes Jill. While Jane isn't involved in the initial scene, talk spreads through town "Did you hear about Jane getting attacked and raped!". Then the manhunt begins, and the catch the bastard. "John did it and they got him.". Now there is a trial scheduled and that's put on the +event schedule as well as the subsequent hanging. Jane wanted to avoid the topic of rape, by rape is what everyone is talking about.

For another example, a black player, Bob, wants to avoid any racism on the game. He doesn't RP with people with the rascist flag set and he even plays a white character just to be safe. He's in a random scene in a tavern, enjoying himself with RP that doesn't have a whiff of rascist in them, when Bureaugard the plantation owner, McReedy the fugitive slave hunter, and Billy Bob the KKK member (It's a very eclectic setting) walk in and start throwing the slurs immediately. What is Bob to do? He has done everything to avoid such topics but it's come to him. Is he expected to leave since he can't handle the RP? That sounds like a recipe for easy trolling. Does he ask the other players to leave? It's a public room and that's rather rude. Is Bob stuck just RPing in private rooms where he can control who comes in?

[surreality]

@Ominous That's not quite what's set up, though. That's not the setup for rape at all, in fact. That's a full consent subject. There's a preference, too, where someone can state 'OK with it' or 'not OK with it' in advance, but it's a full consent subject that cannot be brought up around people who are explicitly not OK with it.

re: Pref trollng: People who troll that way we will simply show the door without much ceremony.

Mutual respect is key on any game. Both sides are expected to give a little. If one person keeps strongarming their crap on others, they will simply be gone. Most players will understand that everyone's fun matters, and everyone's sensitivities -- if they are aware of them, which this does ensure -- should not be trod on in a cavalier fashion. If someone can't behave like an adult in this fashion, and takes an 'all about me' approach, they won't likely last very long.

[Kanye Qwest]

@surreality said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@Ominous That's not quite what's set up, though. That's not the setup for rape at all, in fact. That's a full consent subject. There's a preference, too, where someone can state 'OK with it' or 'not OK with it' in advance, but it's a full consent subject that cannot be brought up around people who are explicitly not OK with it.

How is this ensured/enforced? Because I can foresee a lot of issues if, mid scene, Jane is suddenly put on the spot to say "Oh I don't want to see this or rp about it, check my +preferences".

How do you keep your game consistent if you are going to have stories that some undefined portion of your PC population just gets to say "nah, I'm going to pretend that's not going on" to? How does that actually protect people who don't want to rp those themes, if they are still going to be exposed to them and are going to have to bow out of storylines? How does it free up people who DO want to pursue those themes if they have to check with every PC that might eventually be drawn in to make sure they are ok with the subject matter?

For a sandboxy game? Sure, whatever. For a game where you are trying to tell a story and keep players from all 'spheres' involved in it, I don't think that's going to play out anywhere as cleanly as you'd hope.
ETA: perhaps I'm a cynic, but to me this seems a bit like the worst of both worlds.

[GangOfDolls]

@Ominous

I don't see these situations as equal, either.

In the first scenario, unless the game has some kind of no consent, never ever situation - the player avoiding the situation around sexual assault just has to say 'I don't want to RP about this and that includes hearing about it, reacting to it, etc.' and those around her just need to amend their RP but not bringing it up. This allows Jane to have plausible deniability about all of it and the people who want to RP about it, can RP about it and not include other people about it. The +event is actually doing Jane and players like her a favor. She doesn't need to come to that +event now that she knows about it and she can just not read the log.

I think TR set up a policy that basically was like this. That you could RP about this forever and ever if you wanted to but if someone OOCly asked you to not bringing it in any form to their doorstep, you were obligated to find any reason not to bring it up. And that doesn't require a lot of RP gymnastics, just don't talk about it with them and it's fine.

With the second, this is a very strange situation and I don't think I've ever seen something so completely on the nose in games but hey, maybe its happened like this. Most players who have uber racist PCs are not generally given to showing up in a public space on the grid and start dropping crazy racist talk without the slightest hesitation or effort to edit for public consumption. Who does that? Maybe the point is that they are trolling for OOC reasons but this scenario is predicated on: some PCs walk into a bar and act like moron racists to no particular IC end.

At least with the rape scenario, it fits sorta loosely under the premise of "plot" but this is just some PC dudes being a garbage fire in character for no apparent reason. Unless their goal is to be marginalised IC to give other people to a thing do, then I'm not sure how this is anything but just being disruptive in game.

There's a lot of things PCs could do that pretty much boils down to disruptiveness. You could, for example, decide your PC snaps one day for no good or supportable IC reason, grabs a gun, and decides to shoot up a public grid space. I mean, sure, that could maybe happen but a game staff with two nickles of sense to rub together is probably not going to allow that happen because its such a can of worms to no appreciable end that there's zero upside to allowing it.

[Kanye Qwest]

@GangOfDolls said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

At least with the rape scenario, it fits sorta loosely under the premise of "plot" but this is just some PC dudes being a garbage fire in character for no apparent reason.

Wow.

[GangOfDolls]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@GangOfDolls said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

At least with the rape scenario, it fits sorta loosely under the premise of "plot" but this is just some PC dudes being a garbage fire in character for no apparent reason.

Wow.

Go on?

Edit To Add: You're having a reaction to this, which I get but I'm asking what's bugging you about this.

[surreality]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@surreality said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@Ominous That's not quite what's set up, though. That's not the setup for rape at all, in fact. That's a full consent subject. There's a preference, too, where someone can state 'OK with it' or 'not OK with it' in advance, but it's a full consent subject that cannot be brought up around people who are explicitly not OK with it.

How is this ensured/enforced? Because I can foresee a lot of issues if, mid scene, Jane is suddenly put on the spot to say "Oh I don't want to see this or rp about it, check my +preferences".

That's back to the rape question, I gather? That never goes public. Ever. If people want to play it privately, they can. This is not about the rape question, however.

Beyond that, it's not like it's hard to +prefs <name> or skim a wiki page before initiating a scene with someone. Years on Shang have shown people absolutely do skim preference information (in their form, +kinks) before initiating a scene with someone almost by rote; it is exceedingly rare when they don't do so when that information is available.

How do you keep your game consistent if you are going to have stories that some undefined portion of your PC population just gets to say "nah, I'm going to pretend that's not going on" to?

Other than consent-required subjects, it's going on. Theme/setting elements do not get ignored. How much one chooses to interact with those aspects of the game is what that preference is for. It is not a sweeping declaration that historical prejudices simply don't exist in their world, but that they do not want all of their roleplay to be unrealistically wedged into being only that in their play experience.

How does that actually protect people who don't want to rp those themes, if they are still going to be exposed to them and are going to have to bow out of storylines? How does it free up people who DO want to pursue those themes if they have to check with every PC that might eventually be drawn in to make sure they are ok with the subject matter?

Because we are adults, in the end. Yes, it exists in the world. No, you shouldn't be forced to make it the sole or primary focus of your roleplay. This is really not remotely hard. If someone is forcing these things down someone's throat repeatedly, and we hear about it, they will be warned to stop, then shown the door if they don't, or if they behave like a screeching howler monkey when told to knock it off.

For a sandboxy game? Sure, whatever. For a game where you are trying to tell a story and keep players from all 'spheres' involved in it, I don't think that's going to play out anywhere as cleanly as you'd hope.

This is not WoD, and there are no spheres.

Over the past 20 years, I have seen no end of drama emerge from 'I've been triggered! ASSHOLE!' and 'I had no idea that was a trigger, shit, I am so sorry!' -- which is shit for all involved, and is, to put it bluntly, a giant drama factory. If this reduces that kind of drama by so much as 20% because people are made aware, I'll consider it to be a roaring success.

[Kanye Qwest]

@GangOfDolls said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@Kanye-Qwest said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@GangOfDolls said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

At least with the rape scenario, it fits sorta loosely under the premise of "plot" but this is just some PC dudes being a garbage fire in character for no apparent reason.

Wow.

Go on?

Edit To Add: You're having a reaction to this, which I get but I'm asking what's bugging you about this.

I don't think "John decided to rape Jill because John is a rapist" is any more valid of a 'plot' than "Bob is a racist dickwad so he's out in public trying to make black people feel bad about themselves", and I found it kind of shocking that you'd assert it is.

[surreality]

<raises a hand> I am a little testy because painkillers and, well, pain. Just want to note this because I may be coming off snarlier than I intend, since it's kinda hard to see straight at the moment and I'm keeping things a bit short (for me anyway).

[GangOfDolls]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@GangOfDolls said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@Kanye-Qwest said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@GangOfDolls said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

At least with the rape scenario, it fits sorta loosely under the premise of "plot" but this is just some PC dudes being a garbage fire in character for no apparent reason.

Wow.

Go on?

Edit To Add: You're having a reaction to this, which I get but I'm asking what's bugging you about this.

I don't think "John decided to rape Jill because John is a rapist" is any more valid of a 'plot' than "Bob is a racist dickwad so he's out in public trying to make black people feel bad about themselves", and I found it kind of shocking that you'd assert it is.

Okay, I see and this is a fair point. Hopefully you'll allow me to expound a little?

My statement was owing to what the OP set up the scenario as. That this happened in game, there was a lot of RP around it, including people going on a man hunt, and there was an +event that resolved it (i.e. the trial). The presented format: A then B than C and finally D happens could be constituted as a plot only because its a series of public, serial events open to participation.

This versus some PCs walk into a bar for no reason and get their hellish asshole on.

I don't think this constitutes plot either and were I staff, its not something I would label as such or even allow in my game for public consumption and also hope that this is not a thing that's privately circulating in a play group on the game (I've seen this happen in games with no public plots of this nature policies). So yeah, I don't think its plot either but I was responding to the OP and how based on the presented information, I didn't see these situations as nearing equal based on various elements.