@squirreltalk That is a game-configurable option. Some folks like the pose breaks; others prefer the unbroken flow and find the breaks distracting.
Most games, I've found, leave it off. I don't know if that's a conscious mirror of the old wiki style, a widespread preference, or simply an unawareness that the feature even exists.
It's absolutely reasonable to clarify expectations, and that sort of thing is the intended purpose of the scene notes field.
I've played Storium a bit, which is entirely async, and i've noticed that the most successful games are ones where they post and enforce expectations of regular activity. (By enforce I mean moving the scene on without them if someone doesn't make a move.)
@too-old-for-this Oh believe me, I sympathize. I work full-time too, and I'm a single mom. It's insane. But I don't know what else to do when my kid is just spacing out for the entire zoom call. They're not getting any of the material or doing any of the assignments.
@too-old-for-this Yeah, exactly. I send emails to the teachers like: "Look, my kid just can't pay attention in class. Help?" And I just get crickets chirping. I sympathize that they don't know what to do either, but it still sucks not to be getting any support.
I've basically taken to just teaching my kids everything myself, just following the school's curriculum.
@too-old-for-this said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
I have literally emailed that strip to teachers and gone 'Look at this. LOOK. The kid on the right is your average child.
I feel this.
My kids are both struggling with virtual/home school and it sucks so much. I mean, all kids are of course, but I think it's extra hard for ones that have added challenges.
Music (at least, the right music) has been proven by research to help people concentrate. It’s not exclusively an ADHD thing. But since ADHD folks have extra trouble concentrating to begin with, it’s common to find it as a coping strategy.
I haven’t heard about the inner soundtrack being particularly associated with ADHD but it’s an interesting potential connection. I constantly have songs going in my head.
@coin said in Developing a WoD Codebase for Ares:
more common vision
It hasn't been the "common" experience I've had with people asking for help with WoD code for Ares, which is why I always bring it up as a caveat.
@coin said in Developing a WoD Codebase for Ares:
Really, I could see a CoD game working find on Ares; those things aren't necessary, they're actually usually just artifacts from the way MUs have been doing those games for so long, people think that if a new game lacks them, it's wrong. It's not.
Sure, but it all comes down to expectations. You can play WoD on Discord or a forum with no code whatsoever. There's been at least one Ares game that used WoD just with hand-crafted PDF sheets and the generic die roller.
Like I said - if all you want is a sheet and some roll commands or whatnot, it'll work just fine. It's only the immersive and PVP aspects that potentially are an obstacle, depending on what vision you have for the game.
@derp said in Developing a WoD Codebase for Ares:
Or something like that. I forget the exact details because it's been a minute and I'm rusty but there is a way to put your custom stuff in a place where the base Ares stuff won't cry but also tie it into base Ares stuff.
That doesn't work quite the way you're describing here. It can be done, but it requires modifying the base 'desc' plugin because that's where the 'look' command and its other switches already live.
Adding new commands can be done without affecting core code. Changing existing commands is where you run into the issues that @Rucket was describing.
Now someone could make a WoD plugin complete with a WoD desc plugin (to replace the core one) and a WoD rooms plugin and a WoD scenes plugin and... it just gets unwieldy at some point.
So in summary: doing chargen and rolls? Easy. Doing the immersive stuff? Use Evennia or Rhost and save yourself a lot of trouble.
My advice, copied/pasted from the Ares forums when someone asked "how much work would it be to do cofd/wod rules in Ares".
A couple of folks have looked into this before, and it really comes down to what you mean by “CoD Ruleset” and what your vision is.
Ares is designed to accept skill systems as plugins. By this I mean the ability to have a character sheet, to set stuff in chargen, and to roll dice within the context of scenes. This is a big job (especially for a pen and paper RPG system) but it’s certainly feasible to do that for CoD.
However, CoD games have traditionally included a lot more code than just the skills system. Immersive code like that “reality level” stuff or real-time “blood tracking” systems don’t mesh well with the scene system, web portal, and asynchronous RP. And they would be impossible to build as a plugin because they affect multiple core systems.
Also, Ares systems are built with OOC cooperation in mind. For example - profiles are public, plots are public, there aren’t advanced faction permission controls and stuff. I’ve never really played on CoD games, but I’ve been told that they tend to involve more OOC obfuscation or antagonism. A game like that would not be a good fit for the Ares platform.
@mietze said in Sensitivity in gaming:
There is a difference between "Private Jass takes a bullet to the head and falls, obviously dead" and describing who gets splattered, flailing, gore, ect. I know when I ask about graphic preferences, it is fleshed out detail that I am referencing, not the basic stuff with the rest left up to the player's imagination.
For sure. Just like there's a difference between Star Wars stormtrooper violence and Saving Private Ryan. But even Hollywood isn't consistent about its ratings, and it's arguably easier to objectify gore when it's on-screen versus when it's being described in text. It's highly subjective.
My main point, though, was that if I say "warning: graphic violence and grim post-apocalyptic themes" on the door, I don't feel the need to have that content warning duplicated on every scene where someone's writhing in pain with their leg blown off, or where a village is getting wiped out by a disaster. I think you get into warning fatigue when 90% of your scenes are being warned about just by the nature of the overall game theme. Whereas on some other game with different expectations, those scenes may very well warrant warnings.
Context matters.
@seraphim73 said in Sensitivity in gaming:
Like @faraday and others have said, in a war game you can expect violence, but that doesn’t mean there will be graphic descriptions of wounds or gore. If there are, probably a good thing to mention. Similarly, I don’t have a problem if there are spiders in a scene, but I don’t want detailed descriptions of them. If there’s a mention of a slaughtered village population, sure, but I don’t need descriptions of any of the details.
But what is your definition of "graphic descriptions of wounds or gore"? Everyone's going to be different there, which is why I think it's helpful to establish baseline expectations. Here's what I had on BSGU for instance:
This game can be thought of as having a TV-MA rating, intended for mature audiences. You must be over 18 to play here. RP may include crude indecent language, sexual situations, or graphic violence. The game, like the show, deals with heavy themes including genocide, war and various other traumas.
There was more to it about boundaries, but it's not relevant here. With that expectation, though, I think descriptions of slaughtered villages or limbs getting blown off is perfectly fair game without needing any particular content warning. It's right there on the tin.
If it's something that is commonly regarded as a potential trigger (rape, for instance) and outside the expectations of the game's theme/rating/boundaries, then yes, absolutely, slap a content warning on that thing. But beyond that? It's not fair to place responsibility for your own mental health on the entire game.
@derp said in Sensitivity in gaming:
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.
Just to be clear though, the underwater horrors was NOT given as an example of a content warning that anyone was seriously asking for. It was a humorous anecdote about how you never know what someone's hangups could be... but if you do know about them, why cause unnecessary drama?
Literally nobody is seriously suggesting that you should put things like "spiders" or "canadian geese" or whatever into a content warning field.
The site/list that @Sunny cited is a good serious accounting of potential triggers, but again highlights some of the complexities involved.
It would be ludicrous to include tags for "death", "blood", or "violence" in a Battlestar Galactica plot. That's just a base part of the theme, and it should be made clear to expect that sort of thing when you walk through the door of the game.
But just because it doesn't fit every situation doesn't mean it has no value. It's a good starting point for consideration.
@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.
I agree in principle that providing content warnings like films is a good idea - I said so too. But there are several important limitations to it, which is why I feel it's more of a courtesy than a safety net.
So yes - if you know something is liable to potentially trigger somebody, give them a freaking head's up first. That's just being a decent human being. But I think the film analogy only goes so far, and I don't think it's fair or reasonable to subject GMs/game-runners to the degree of content warning rigor that even professional film industries can't get right.
@derp said in Sensitivity in gaming:
This thread comes from a place of like -- gushing empathy
I have tons of empathy. But I also believe in personal responsibility. That's why I argue for a middle of the road approach.
There are certain topics where I think there's widespread acceptance that it's a sensitive subject you should warn people about - e.g., suicide and sexual assault. That's just common courtesy.
But for the rest, it's largely dependent on context. When I'm watching Chicago PD for instance, I don't expect to be warned about the inevitable murders. For Gray's Anatomy, I don't expect them to warn me if a child is going to be hurt or die. For Battlestar, I don't need warnings about general post-apocalyptic misery or war violence. There is a certain base level of expectations that comes along with the theme and the overall content rating (TV-14 vs. TV-MA).
I think games can operate in a similar way - establish base expectations, and then communicate like reasonable people if there's a special situation beyond that.
@derp said in Sensitivity in gaming:
I don't think it's the GM's responsibility to try and keep track of everyone's preferences
That's where I fall on the matter. As a GM, that is frankly not a responsibility I'm comfortable taking on, and I don't think it's fair to try to make other people responsible for your mental health.
That said, I think that there's a middle ground between "any player can red card an entire scene at any time for their own comfort" and "too bad if you're uncomfortable, suck it up or leave".
Players should cooperate to find the best solution on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes that might mean I bow out of a scene I'm uncomfortable with so that the others can keep playing. Sometimes that might mean we collectively agree to FTB or gloss over some squicky bits so I can keep playing. It just depends.
I do think it's a good idea for games to provide some general guidance on what sort of content can be expected, and what sort you might want to provide a content warning for. But those are just structures to guide people, not a replacement for good communication.
Holderness Family: ADHD - "Under The Sea" Parody
@wildbaboons I was briefly hopeful when my son got into the measurement-based sizes that I would actually be able to buy clothes more easily because STANDARDS!
Yeah. No.
@nyctophiliac Yes. Sensory processing issues commonly occur alongside ADHD. There's some debate as to whether it's a separate condition (SPD) or just another facet of ADHD itself, but nevertheless, it is common to have both.