Posts made by Arkandel

@Paris said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

Just leave an option to specify 'negotiable' and not just 'yes' or 'no' to a +prefs system, because me setting my prefs to allowing 'dark themes' on WoD games led to me getting rapey (physical and mental) stuff sprung on me by players AND staff, and then backlash when I expressed reservations ooc.

Apparently negotiating this so both parties are ok with it is a novel concept.

How binding would this 'negotiation' be? Because it can go wrong, fast.

You found out one of those ways yourself when someone asked you to do something then they took it back and blamed you for it. It can go wrong the other way, where someone gives a permission to do something and the other person takes it to the far, far extreme. Both have been known to happen. Some people change their minds; others are just assholes!

I think what it comes down to is... if you don't know someone really well you probably shouldn't be running controversial stuff with them from either end of the DM screen, and even if you are it can still go bad. Ultimately you may find yourself in front of a tired, cranky staff member with their own preconceptions on the matter and be labeled - unfairly or not - in a way you'd rather not be.

@Ganymede How come? (Non-rhetorical question - IANAL).

@faraday said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

I think there are plenty of ways to show, as staff, that you give a shit. If you disagree, that's fine. I respect a difference of opinion. I've said my peace though and won't belabor the issue since I don't want to upset anyone further.

Of course I don't disagree - it'd be pretty arrogant to suggest only what we've discussed in this thread works. Different games have tried different approaches, some of which I have disagreed with (Arx...) and some which have seemed promising (Reno has a 'preferences' system which is a definite step in the right direction).

But I don't have skin in this game. I've ran risque scenes before with controversial material, but always with people I knew well, and I'd be a hard target to trigger.

I think debating these things out in the open matters, perhaps even a great deal. What's the better alternative, not talking about them?

@faraday That's true, but how many adult games can you think of where domestic abuse or rape aren't plausible IC? That doesn't mean they need to be right there on the grid though.

The issue here isn't having a reasonable discussion about systems or somehow converting it to games, although I really believe we can cover a lot of ground using some the suggestions we've thrown into this thread already - communication, tagging PrPs, auto-matching squicks... if there's a little consideration from every side it's doable. We know it is because Shang has been doing it, and if they can so can everyone else.

The problem starts with assholes - as usual. Folks who strut this stuff - who show up with their NPC ghoul sporting a black eye, or run PrPs based on surprise-buttsex because it's IC. And the core of it is the idea that somehow this is in any form acceptable or even tolerable by game-runners - because in the past it has been.

You know what the major effect of implementing things like we've been talking about is? It shows that the game gives a shit. That it's an actual, honest, actionable goal staff has to make sure their players are protected from assholes - maybe if that checkbox is covered then folks who can be triggered might be able to afford to be more trusting.

Because as it stands historically on nWoD games at least players - unless they have OOC friends to intervene - have been on their own.

@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?

@Rook said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

You know, this sounds very much like the +kinks system from Shangrila, only adapted simply to list triggers/themes/squicks and whatever-else-have-you that you want called out. It could be easily adapted, code-wise, if someone had something like this lying around. It's essentially a managed list with comments.

I mean, seriously. The functionality is there, a display screen, a like/dislike command, a comment field.

The problem with the +kinks system is that, by definition, you need to make it public and people other than yourself need to respect your preferences.

This implementation has neither of those drawbacks; your squicks are yours alone, and as long as the ST lists the themes they'll use for their +event it's easy for you to know if you'd be triggered by it.

Then it also becomes trivial for staff to regulate the system without violating anyone's privacy; if a ST didn't list things properly for their event they simply don't get XP for it. Any problems should sort themselves out pretty fast after that.

Btw @Ganymede, this is what I meant about automation in the legal profession.

@Auspice Yes, I like this one better.

Edit: Or leave the "YES"-part's implementation as before, to let the ST know what the consensus is for themes their participants so far like. But I still like your "NO" handling better.

@surreality said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

Shang (sigh, again... ) manages more controversial content on a daily basis than almost any WoD game I've ever seen does in a year and it does so with considerable maturity by comparison. A huge part of why is that people are able to list the specific things they do and do not want in RP, and people are expected to take reasonable measures respect that. It's a worthwhile example to learn from.

Hmm.

So far we've spoken about posting tags as warnings in PrPs. What if we borrow a page from Shang's book (no, not the one with the tentacles) and make into being more than sex?

This might be a case @Thenomain might want to chip in about code solving social problems, but what if we allowed players to privately or publicly list general categories of things they are into or squicked by?

So for example I list:

YES:

• Puzzle-solving
• Social scenes
• Generic violence
• Strong language

NO:

• Domestic abuse
• Addictions and drug use
• Illness

Let's say no one can see the 'no' list because some people might not want to announce their blindspots for the whole world to see. So how it'd work is I spot an +event I like and I /signup for it. The ST then (perhaps after a delay so they can't deduce who is who) gets to get a list of all the participants' YES and NO lists, without knowing who's who, and can plan accordingly.

Would that work?

@faraday said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

When you see a movie trailer, it's considered poor form to put in too many spoilers, but you'd never expect to see a disclaimer (beyond the general movie rating) about there being particular themes that might upset people. Even on TV, an episode has to be pretty freaking graphic to warrant a special "Viewer discretion is advised* notice on HBO because the general bar for content is "mature".

Spoilers aside, trailers are also based on either fully developed or scripted products; a director knows the exact script, full dialogue and all the actors in the advertised work ahead of time.

Storytelling entails a lot of improvisation - maybe @Ganymede will have thoughts about improvisation on stage I don't, but my general process for MU involves designing the general framework of a story - the major NPCs, a potential structure for the arc barring PC interference and a lot of spontaneous work in each scene itself.

Note this still doesn't excuse throwing dead babies into the plot out of the blue without warning.

@TimmyZ If we look at any gaming mechanics as a RL simulation it won't check out. They're just not meant for that, systems are by their nature simplifications and the results can only make sense if taken with a grain of salt. It's gameplay that's important, not realism; the latter a ship that's sailed.

Now to the sports analogies in particular, even those are really specific. A gymnast has to rely on mobility and athleticism to rote execute specific movies, so their peak is very early; in basketball peak is between 28 and 32 (just look at what LeBron is doing in the 2017 playoffs) when the learning curve of mastering the fundamentals and refining certain technical aspects of their games meets their physical abilities - for instance 2012 LeBron was a beast but he didn't have nearly as good a three-point shot or post game as he does today.

To get back to MU* though... I don't know if I'd play a game using stat degradation with age. RL is enough, I don't need to worry about losing my PC's gains if I don't work at them full time.

@mietze said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

It did work a lot better than me trying to outline every possible thing and then warn in advance. Plus, knowing boundaries also helped me guide things when other players would insert ideas into play. Which is something awesome, that should be encouraged, that isn't going to get labeled in a summary warning.

How would you apply the approach in open (public) PrPs? Same approach? I.e. if I'm running something for friends I've known for a while it's a solved problem since I usually know if they have any such boundaries and they trust me more than average.

Also, and asking in general here, should MU* staff take a preemptive stance about this? It was mentioned earlier in the thread but although there are often stringent guidelines about what needs to be included in a plot (risk level, location, sometimes even time) I don't remember ever seen even a suggestion about rating content. Ought it be mandatory, even if it's "PG13" by default?

I'm sorry this thread went from heartfelt apologies to sarcastic 'sorries'.

We have too many of the latter and too few of the former as it is.

@mietze touched on several interesting issues so I'll go over some of them real quick:

@mietze said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

Back when I was an active scene runner/prp person for vampire and werewolf and law, I just asked for the people signed up (or who'd requested I run a story for them) to privately disclose any "no go" areas/themes for them. Then I could privately advise them to either not participate or if possible alter some details that I knew about in advance.

Did it work? In my experience asking players in general to do any amount of 'work' in preparation for an +event doesn't unless I know them well and feel free to poke them.

To be honest, I think a lot of players like to be surprised/to feel unscripted/have to think on their feet. Unlike a published prewritten article, a plot is something that can change/move due to the dynamics of the people in it (in theory anyway).

Two things about it:

• My experience has been ... well a mixed bag. Players - again, in general, not specific ones who're very good in general so of course they're better at plot participation as well - tend to want something formulaic, and taking them out of their comfort zone usually doesn't go well. I've had incidents where they weren't actually reading what I had typed either in posts or even in poses within the scene. And I've definitely had players ask me what 'medium risk' means and tried to make me explicitly reassure them it didn't really mean any danger. But on the other hand you are 100% right that if the scene feels like it's on rails they will - rightfully, that's valid criticism - complain.

• Similarly I like to think on my feet. In fact I always felt that was one of my strengths as a ST - I can come up with shit on the fly and it makes sense within the story's narrative. No matter what I'd very much like to retain that freedom; it doesn't mean "throw dead babies at the players for shock value" but it does mean not having to walk on eggshells either. Surely there must be a middle ground where failing to put in that "#animalsacrifice" tag still lets me slay a virtual goat's throat over an altar if the situation calls for it.

Yes, that is cold to some extent. But a) I no longer tolerated people using MUSHing as their therapy/other players as their whipping boys/girls due to other issues and b) got sick of the squeaky wheel/needy player in the scene in progress slowing things down/wasting the time of other players that were GGG (Good, Giving, and Game). I'm a nice, considerate person in RL and most of the time in game. But when it comes to running a scene or plot, I prefer to protect the experience of the quiet people too, and respect everyone's time by avoiding derailing ooc behavior.

Again I must +1 this. I am not a trained therapist; I'm just here to play a game. I don't want to be an asshole and hurt people, but I also don't know what's good for them. There's no question I'd try to accommodate someone who pages me and says "hey, sorry, but I'm feeling kinda icky about this goat thing, can you tone it down please?" and will bust my ass to accommodate them but there's a limit to how far I'm willing to go in that direction preemptively. That goes twice as much for my friends (or players I know are sensitive about something in general) but having some stranger slap me with their RL trauma out of nowhere is too much. Being considerate goes both ways.

That's why one of the main questions for this thread was "if shit goes wrong what's the best way to go about it?". It's bound to happen; we all have buttons that can be pressed, but where do we go from there?

I think one of the responses to that question is having an open, honest conversation. But for instance @Paris' mention of that incident earlier in the thread really irked me - someone has to play the bad guys, yet the fact doesn't mean their players are assholes. So if a player played that card with me despite efforts on my part to be accommodative I'd lose any willingness to work with them; at that point, frankly, I won't be dealing with them any more.

For starters! I agree the TV show thing isn't necessarily relevant to what I posted, it just happened to be what got me thinking. And I suppose I drew a parallel between 'producer who stopped interacting with the audience after being flamed hard' and MU* staff/STs facing a similar treatment.

3. How do we achieve both (1) and (2) without discouraging people from running things which aren't either inoffensive or completely black and white? Or is it better in certain games that controversial themes are never ran, and staff plots/public PrPs are always 'safe'? If so, when?

If someone is discouraged by having to clearly label their content, I question whether they have the emotional maturity to run a plot, and I am reasonably certain they don't have the emotional maturity to run a game. Mutual trust and respect is not an easy thing, but some measure of it is required for these game environments to work at all.

See, the issue here is that labeling can only get us so far. Nevermind for a moment that this can be a code limitation (not all games have customizable/tag'able +event code) or even the fact no games as of now that I can remember actually require or even recommend the practice - which means we might be holding STs accountable for not doing things staff itself didn't prioritize enough to mention, it's still not that easy to pigeon-hole these things.

Now, let's assume an adult game and a ST here who's not an asshole - they're trying to run a plot, not to use shock value to cater to their own kinks or whatever.

Is "mature content, caution is advised" enough? What if we start with good ol' fashioned murder of adults by the bad guys but at some point there's a dead kid as well? Or how about unintended consequences - we hit the PCs with some hostages they need to rescue from a gang, and one of them is a woman who had a bruise on her cheek - was she beaten? Or the plot I already mentioned I ran which included abused animals.

What I'm saying is these things... they're a sort of minefield. You can try to be a good sport and warn players but you can't have laundry lists of everything that might be encountered in a plot ahead of time, including things posed spontaneously or without necessarily giving them a lot of thought - I can see myself posing the aforementioned woman's bruise along with other evidence of rough treatment for the hostages (they're dirty, dehydrated, one guy has a broken ankle, one girl has a black eye - shit!) and not think too hard someone might fixate on that.

Speaking of this though, one thing I've noticed is the insistence some STs have to go all-out on gore, substituting it for horror. Some plots feel like there's barely a step without stepping into someone's entrails or walking by to see gutted, brained carcasses rotting nailed on walls - I suppose there may be a separation between super-intense overemphasized grossness and signs of real world abuse but again, what's the solution? Because I've never seen anyone offering FTB for those segments in PrPs.

Would a "graphic violence" label suffice here? Does it need to be specific? Should it be?

@Gilette To give you an idea, I was running an arc on SHH where animals were being mutated/abused by a Mage... and I did get the occasional upset page about it. Now, I toned down the descriptiveness and shifted the focus a bit after that, but when I started out I wanted people to hate the villains - I thought it'd be a good way to tie them to the story. However there are limits.

That's reasonable. If a player seems genuinely upset at something I'm running I'll take steps to make it easier for them. The story doesn't take precedence over people's emotions... up to a certain degree of course.

However the limits are just not always very clear. For instance I had ran into a disagreement once about whether or not a story someone else proposed based on IC abortions should be allowed at all (that was on a CoD MUSH, so an adult environment) because it might trigger someone. It's hard for me to decide where the lines are, but not allowing it at all seemed too drastic.

No matter how this is settled it's hard to imagine Steven Rogers will be Captain America after the conclusion... which annoys me.

Look, I get it. Some people want to write (and let's be fair, read about) new characters; that's great. Write some new characters! If they are good their titles will get picked up - awesome!

But dammit, I won't read a non-Bruce Wayne Batman title. I want Spider-Man to be Peter Parker even if there's a second Spider-Man (and Mike Morales is an awesome comic book on its own right, btw). I want Iron-Man to be Tony Stark. That's what I'll buy.

If you stick anyone else in the Iron Man suit I won't buy a title called "Iron Man". Simple as that.

To understand what prompted this thread I'll give a very brief rundown on Agents of SHIELD's latest story arc. There'll be as few spoilers as possible, and you don't need to be familiar with the show to keep up.

So there's an dystopian alternate reality plot arc going on. Characters had their pasts changed to 'grant them a wish' each which led to an evil organization taking over the world as a result, and several of them were working for that organization. One in particular, who had a long romantic story with another character in the show, ended up leading the evil faction and he's paired up with the arch-villain of the season.

So there was a Q&A on twitter with one of the show's runners today which... didn't go well. Fans of the canon romance were complaining that they're not being rewarded for their loyalty, and the show runner was being attacked and confronted with complaints the show was traumatizing them with rape/abuse/domestic abuse apologism. In the end he stopped doing the Q&A.

It's not the first time this sort of thing has happened, either. Only last year Arrow's fan base was downright toxic about a similar shipping and some cast members had to quit being on social media for a while.

Anyway, back to the thread (there's a reason I put it in a MUSH forum). Most of us have seen the barrier between fiction and real-life be crossed before in our little corner of fandom, and it happens with other flavors of gaming - and of course the entertainment industry.

So onto some actual questions as it relates to MU*!

1. Where is the correct balance point between the players' responsibility to maintain the separation between the fictional content and their real life trigger points, and the game/plot runners' responsibility to flag such material?

2. What is the correct response by the latter to the former after such a triggered response? Even assuming the best of intentions such things are bound to happen, so how should staff handle an upset player?

3. How do we achieve both (1) and (2) without discouraging people from running things which aren't either inoffensive or completely black and white? Or is it better in certain games that controversial themes are never ran, and staff plots/public PrPs are always 'safe'? If so, when?

If you think this is an interesting topic feel free to chip in but please remember this is supposed to be constructive. Attack ideas, not people.

@Thenomain said in The Apology Thread:

Unless you are already part of that sphere, never deal with (WoD/CofD) Mages.

Ever.

For anything.

I think I've mentioned this before but on HM I was running a Vampire plot which involved a dead body found in the sewers, so I posted on a public board about that part. A Mage approached me (in retrospect it was Juerg but the name meant nothing to me at the time) and asked to join.

Without even knowing who it was when I mentioned the possibility to the Vampire players (expecting they'd just shrug and not care) they rejected the idea violently, and said they'd rather be out of the story than play with Mages.

It still seems like an overreaction to me.

@TimmyZ said in Fifth Kingdom:

No one plays a pirate to have halitosis and die of liver malfunction at the age of 32.

Well, there goes my fucking concept.