Posts made by Derp

@tinuviel

Ok, so, with some clarification on terms and conditions I think we're in a similar place, lol.

@nyctophiliac said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@rinel He was running, like pacing back and forth in a panic. I managed to get him over by pulling up a lawn chair from the inside and as soon as he was on top of the planter (about hip height) he wrapped his arms around my neck and I carried him down the other side.

My English wasn't good there, I was pretty exhausted. Sorry! Still probably not great.

I think the 'what' from @Rinel was more directed at:

'And then he immediately got into the pool while fully dressed.'

Which I second. Lol, you had a day.

@tinuviel said in Sensitivity in gaming:

ETA: That said, I think more games should have a 'news rating' or something, to explicitly state what sorts of things (violence, drug use, etc) are thematically anticipated to be common. That way people will know what sort of things they should be expected to disclose regarding triggers in their +finger. So we both win.

I mean, this is what I thought already normally happened, so I'm all for this. I think it makes more sense, anyway.

I mean, I get it, people should be more sensitive, but ffs, we're all adults, and we're capable of addressing our own needs. Which is easier and less likely to end in disaster?

Player, to me: Hey, does this scene involve any spiders? because that could be an issue.
Me: Wasn't planning on spiders, no, so I think we're good, but if they come up I'll steer us clear or give you an escape!

or me trying to compare my scene to an arbitrary list that may or may not include something you think it should include?

You say this is not that heavy a lift(1):

"This plot will involve violence/scenes of a sexual nature/excessive drug use/eldrich horror/etc"

I say that a much lighter and more directed lift is:

Player: Hey. No sharks, right?

And I know which direction I prefer that communication come from.

I don't think we're disagreeing about the end result. Just the methodology to get there.

(1) With the understanding that the content warning in question there should really just be a game default if those kinds of scenes are allowed.

@roz said in Sensitivity in gaming:

and the game's theme wouldn't necessarily be a warning across the board.

I mean, sure. I don't come across many instances in which scenes are run that are wildly out of a game's theme already, but I suppose that if such a case came up that'd be fine if you're jumping from PG-13 to NC-17 or whatever. But that isn't really what I was talking about, and seems like a pretty edge case, in my experience, when most games will pretty explicitly tell you what sorts of scenes are common and most scenes tend to stick to that kind of a theme.

Going outside of those into darker, more dangerous territory is often in and of itself a violation of a game's rules, and at that point I think content warnings are probably the least of your concerns.

@tinuviel said in Sensitivity in gaming:

Then yet again we have a fundamental disagreement about reasonable expectations and common decency.

I mean -- yeah. That was kind of my point? What you consider reasonable I consider a pretty ballsy imposition and kind of entitled. So. Agree?

I mean, for what it's worth, on your broader point, I actually agree. But I also think that 'Cinema Ratings' sort of disclaimers are pretty well handled by the theme of the game itself, and the files that typically go into them. Anything extra needs to be communicated, and that burden of communication falls on the player with the need outside the scope of what has already been communicated.

@greenflashlight said in Sensitivity in gaming:

You don't get to tell me what is and is not relevant to my process of trying to extrapolate an answer to a personal question which is not directly addressed by your statements but only prompted by it.

And likewise, you don't get to set up a false dichotomy in which you tell me that my motivation must have been one of two things that only further your ability to start a fight on the matter, when in fact it was neither of those things and the context in which it was delivered matters, rather than your broad generalizations about what my intention must have been.

@tinuviel said in Sensitivity in gaming:

For the record, I wasn't implying that GM's should be mindreaders or that they should go out of their way to cater to every single person.

I mean, you didn't imply anything. You stated it pretty directly, here:

@tinuviel said in Sensitivity in gaming:

Like a film. It's not my responsibility to tell the cinema that I'm triggered by X, it's the cinema's job (by law or regulation in most places) to tell me what I can expect. The same should go for plots and events.

And I disagree that the burden is on your GM in this case. It absolutely is your repsonsibility to tell your GM that you are triggered by X.

@greenflashlight said in Sensitivity in gaming:

That's not the question, though. The question is whether you have ever in your life seen or heard of a person being upset that a trigger warning was not given for the example you provided.

And it's an irrelevant question, because the point was that everyone has different limits, and using an example that would be considered broadly ridiculous except for people that have that issue illustrated that there is not an objective line, and people are treating something wholly subjective as if it were some sort of objective social obligation. It's not.

So no, I'm not going to entertain that line of thought, because it isn't relevant to the purpose of the example in the context in which it was given.

@greenflashlight said in Sensitivity in gaming:

Especially in light of previous comments you've made, it sounds very much as if you're constructing a world where it's okay to hurt people because they aren't legitimately asking you to respect their own pain, they're all maliciously out to get you personally by tricking you into thinking they're actually in distress.

Ask is the keyword here. If someone asks me, specifically, to accommodate a thing for them, I am perfectly happy to do so. Go look at pretty much any of my staff +fingers or wiki profiles and you'll see that I give plenty of examples of what kinds of stories you can expect from me, and if you ask any of the players that I actually run for, if you ask me for something? I am perfectly fine with working with you, with the default option being to give you a graceful out if it's too large to just gloss over.

Others in this thread suggested that it is not the responsibility of the people with the issues to make those issues known, and that GMs should simply anticipate their needs.

I flatly reject that theory.

That is not how the world works, and I don't think it's how the world should work. Like any other condition that significantly impacts your life but throws you to the small parts of the bell curve of 'typical reactions', it is up to you to ensure that the people around you know your limitations and to request reasonable accommodations.

It is not my affirmative duty to proactively make sure that your needs are attended to outside of the steps that I already take: I give a broad overview of what to expect, and an escape hatch if we run into something unexpected.

My ability to empathize ends when I get the impression that someone feels I am obligated to cater to them. I am not. Entitlement is the quickest and surest way to find that nobody is feeling particularly charitable.

@rinel said in Sensitivity in gaming:

ETA: gotta say @Derp I was surprised at your response, because
@greenflashlight said in Sensitivity in gaming:

because compassion is a resource you limit to immediate friends and family.

is definitely how I also took it. I hope I'm wrong.

I guess, as in all things, it comes down to a question of how we're defining 'compassion'?

Like, if you're having a bad day, I'm happy to give you a pat on the shoulder and a 'that sucks, buddy, I hope you get it figured out', with increasing levels of concern the closer you are to my friend circle.

But for 99.95% of the population? You're not in that circle. I'm not in your support network, and I'm not interested in joining. I'm not your therapist, I'm not your confessor, and I am certainly not obliged to do any emotional labor on your part, pretty-much-complete-stranger. I can feel bad that you're going through some shit, but I've got enough shit of my own, and that is where any obligation to take up another's cross ends for me.

You get more from me if we're closer than 'that dude that sits a few seats away from you in science class'. Which is a pretty good analogy for how I view the vast majority of MUSHers.

We don't really talk. We only know each other, at best, in passing, and we got assigned to this project together. We're not buds, and if you're having a bad day, then that sucks, but. That's a you thing. Not a me thing. I'm not obligated to drop what I'm doing and ask what you need. If you need something, ask, and we'll chat about it, but otherwise we are here for a specific reason and I'd like to maybe get to the end of it staying focused on the task at hand and not talking about what a terrible life you have had, random stranger whose name I only know because I heard the professor call it that one time.

So does that make me dangerous? Fuck, man, I don't know. But I also don't think it's an unreasonable position to take, either, and I do think that the idea that people are obligated to do any more than that is unreasonable. I don't owe anyone anything beyond what I choose to.

I have basic compassion, and can show common courtesy. But I feel that there are wildly different views on precisely where those lines are, and mine tend to be pretty damn conservative.

@rinel said in Sensitivity in gaming:

You can't look at life like a courtroom or an operating theater. You just can't. It will wither your soul.

Agreed. But I don't look at MU like home. It's only barely life. It's a pastime that I share with strangers, only a handful of whom are actually in what I would consider a friend circle, and therefore they get the same distance as every other stranger.

@greenflashlight said in Sensitivity in gaming:

Do you actually know/know of a single person who has ever asked for this trigger warning or been angry that this trigger warning wasn't included; or are you just crafting ridiculous examples for the sake of being dismissive?

Fine. Substitute Canadian Geese, then. Or Spiders. Or the one I started with, the actual example given earlier, Underwater Horrors. I didn't make that shit up.

It doesn't matter what you put in here, people are going to take some things more seriously than others. You've already decided it's dismissive and ridiculous. I think that the expectation that people do this in the first place is kind of ridiculous, especially in the context where people were saying 'it is not my responsibility to let you know what my triggers are, it is your job to just deal with them'.

@saosmash said in Sensitivity in gaming:

Mostly in my experience this just means we have to tell people not to use warnings for stupid jokes.

It's not exactly easy to know the difference sometimes.

Is Content Warning: Underwater Horrors just a throwaway cheesy way to comment on scene content or an actual warning? What warnings should be included?

I disagree with @Tinuviel. If something is a strong trigger for you it absolutely is your job to let people know that, not the GM's job to read your mind.

Content Warning: Penguins might be great for that guy with that traumatic zoo experience, but to everyone else it just sounds stupid.

@ominous said in Sensitivity in gaming:

@insomniac7809 said in Sensitivity in gaming:

@derp said in Sensitivity in gaming:

I mean, I get that in a sort-of general principle way? But like -- I'm not sure that that's a great idea either. That would be like saying 'an American' gets to decide whether Squidbillies is a fantasy comedy based on specific tropes/stereotypes or a horrible slander against Appalachian persons.

I mean, there is something to be said about how lower-income white people are the last acceptable target of mockery, and one would hope that someone writing about Appalachian characters would have more knowledge or experience of their subject to draw on than having heard jokes about toothless cousin-fuckers.

As a proud Appalachian who is related to the McCoys of the Hatfields and McCoys, I take offense at the stereotype that we are toothless and can proudly state that I have all of my teeth aside from my wisdom teeth.

ISWYDT and I love it.

@insomniac7809 said in Sensitivity in gaming:

A first step kind of has to be "someone Arabic," which is why the people being mocked in the bad video are talking about sensitivity readers. Not that every Arab is going to have the same answer. But, I mean, it's 2020; you can probably find someone on the internet who's actually a part of the culture you're depicting to tell you if you're doing a fucky.

Eh.

I mean, I get that in a sort-of general principle way? But like -- I'm not sure that that's a great idea either. That would be like saying 'an American' gets to decide whether Squidbillies is a fantasy comedy based on specific tropes/stereotypes or a horrible slander against Appalachian persons.

Which American? Which culture? Which age range? Which geographical locale?

What sort of education? What are their political leanings?

Ultimately, the people who get to decide what is 'too much' are the consumers of the media, based on their own tastes and preferences as social mores change. People can certainly be advocates for change, but I'm not sure that anyone gets to be "the arbiter of how much is too much" when it comes to things built on, ultimately, stereotypes, whether accurate or not.

Accuracy certainly isn't the point most of the time, and the offensive nature of something is so subjective as to be almost a not-helpful metric.

It's something that gets thrown around a lot: Who decides. But I just have never once in the entire history of reading those conversations found them to amount to anything useful outside of a chance to air any grievances and let the wider audience decide for themselves.

@saosmash said in Sensitivity in gaming:

What exactly requires "gushing empathy" here?

It was hyperbole. But a lot of this reads as though there is a considerable amount of hand-wringing going on about making sure that everyone is perfectly accommodated.

And that person is not me.

I have flat-out told people that entire game lines are not for them because they complain about the content that is very clearly portrayed in said game line, and I always have disclaimers in multiple places. The effort that I will put into ensuring everyone is cozy above and beyond that is absolutely minimal, and I'm not gonna get all tangled up in knots and fidgety about whether I've given people sufficient warning about whatever.

Opting out is always an option. I leave you an escape hatch and post the expectations in the handbook. Past that, you're responsible for you, and I don't care if people think that's not enough.

@ganymede said in Sensitivity in gaming:

In my line of work, I have become mostly callous to: (1) others' opinions; and (2) always being in the wrong.

This. All of this.

ETA: I had a friend who wanted to do legal work shadow me and my attorney for a day. After all the client meetings and various research and writing work was done, his response was:

"Jesus, now I get why you're so fucking soulless."

Which was kind of endearing, believe it or not.

This thread comes from a place of like -- gushing empathy, but there is an entire other side of the population that learn to professionally disconnect from emotional reactions and making decisions based on how people feel.

@greenflashlight said in Sensitivity in gaming:

@derp Thank you for stating it so baldly.

I'm a big believer in honest communication.

@greenflashlight said in Sensitivity in gaming:

I am hard-pressed to think of a single circumstance in which one person can say, "Please don't hurt me," and a second can reply, "That places an undue burden on my ability to play make-believe," without that second person deeply sucking as a human being.

You've never played with Spider?

People use claims of traumas to try and tip the story away from situations that would disadvantage their characters. I think being skeptical is perfectly reasonable, and my general reaction to that is to give players a 'graceful out' to the story if they do not wanna participate.

I do not change the story unless there is a group consensus about it. I, and I'm sure a few others in this thread given some of the previous answers, have been burned by this as a manipulation tactic too many times now.

It might sound cold, ultimately I agree with @Warma-Sheen that it's ultimately up to the player with the issue to avoid the thing they have issues with, and like @Lotherio, the theme and genre of the thing you're playing should be telling about what content you should expect to see come up. (Naturally, anything that would be outside the norm should get a content warning, but I am not going to put a 'extreme violence and gore' warning on every Werewolf scene I run. That is pretty much just the default.)

So like -- yeah. Being aware of what limits others have expressed is good, but I don't think it's the GM's responsibility to try and keep track of everyone's preferences and try to create something that fits within all of those -- especially not if you're going to go into the level of detail that @Carma suggests with that sheet. That's a good tool for introspection on what you are and are not good with, not something that I would ever suggest you expect someone else to keep track of.

@kdraygo said in MSB's new management:

All hail the new catbot overlord.

Actual candid of Ganymede:

@ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

A friend of mine posed the following retort:

The true metric is not with the person who used the cart, but the person who sees the cart in the parking lot. Who left the cart there? Why did they not return it? These are pointless questions: the real question is whether you will return it for them.

I would remind your friend that the free rider problem and the tragedy of the commons continue to be relevant. If worldwide voter turnout is anything to judge by, people don't take affirmative duties very seriously even when their are consequences beyond 'socially taboo'.

Ok so this was TECHNICALLY 2020 but I somehow missed this:

Michael Alig, famous club kid and later portrayed by McCauley Culkin in Party Monster. Dec 25, 2020. Heroin.

@warma-sheen said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

@Testament @Carma I don't think a player cap would be necessary on a game of suddenly self aware appliance PCs striving for independence. The playerbase size issue takes care of itself there.

Never seen a Transformers game, huh?

Razer is making masks and I want one.