@roz said in Sensitivity in gaming:
This is an entitled, ballsy imposition?
@tinuviel said in Sensitivity in gaming:
"This plot will involve violence/scenes of a sexual nature/excessive drug use/eldrich horror/etc"
It's literally 16 words. Plenty of games have a variety of potential plot themes with varying levels of darkness and horror. There are games that aren't horror games, but may have horror plots, and the game's theme wouldn't necessarily be a warning across the board.
I get that the idea of this is that it is something simple and everyone should make the little bit of effort to do it because it could help. I get that 100%. I also think that it could hurt. Those of us who have run their fair share of scenes know that running scenes are unpredictable and sometimes players can be delicate.
I'm not arguing that this is all good in principle. I disagree with the practical application and/or execution.
I dislike the idea of the onus being put on the storyteller to make a declaration of what is reasonable and/or common enough of a trigger to include in a warning. I can already see people taking offense that their trigger wasn't included because it wasn't common enough to list, sparking a rant on why it actually is very common and the person who omitted it was just ignorant/racist/biased/uneducated/etc. I can already see people taking offense that the warning wasn't specific enough (i.e. "You said there would be violence but you didn't say it would be THAT kind of violence and if I had known...")
So no, it isn't an entitled or ballsy imposition to give a general warning. But I do think it is entitled or ballsy to assume that giving a general warning will solve more problems than it creates. And I do think it is an imposition to expect a storyteller to be responsible for correctly identifying any and all offending triggers that could come up and everyone else involved would all assume to be reasonable and common. This is where issues of creativity come into play. Being in a scene is not a straight line (at least not in my opinion, not when it is good). There are twists and turns and all sort of interesting elements that fall into it. If you're limited to only the things you've given warnings about, it does hem you in. Player X did A which would normally result in B, but since I didn't give a warning about it I should stay away from that. Or if player Y brings trigger C into the scene, I now have to have the scene respond to that possible trigger in the scene of FTB it. The other option is to check each random trigger that arises with each of the players privately. Cause if you do it as a group then the person is feeling pressured, etc... Now you're stopping the scene to check with each person, waiting on everyone to respond before things move forward, hoping they didn't toss out their pose and then go afk or switch tabs elsemu until they think they need to check back for their turn...
I understand that there are ways for the plot runner to handle those situations and everything. I understand why it is important to handle triggers in the appropriate way. All of that is good for certain areas of life. But at a certain point it just stops being fun. Maybe that sounds insensitive. I certainly don't mean to be, but especially as a plot runner, having the responsibility for everyone else's triggers is a heavy burden I wouldn't want to have.
If a game wants plot runners to toss down a headstaff-generated boilerplate warning before a scene, that's no big deal. But don't put the responsibility of what that means on the plot runner. Some people will have the expectation that the scene will be limited to the triggers listed. Or the other players are also limited to the listed triggers. Players may not think the trigger warnings apply to them - or they limit themselves because of it (e.g. I would love to have my familiar help me in this fight, but violence to animals wasn't warned against so now I can't use it or I might trigger someone and I don't want that risk - oh look, I died.)
I also think the fallout from someone triggered after joining a scene where they believed they would be emotionally safe because their triggers should have been identified beforehand will be much worse than someone who joins a scene knowing it is their responsibility to step away if something comes up.
And in practical regards, there are enough barriers to people running plots that adding the responsibility (implied or perceived) for every other player's mental/emotional wellbeing should not be added to the heap.
TLDR: Trigger warnings definitely have merit, but I think it is more productive, safer, and responsible for people to be responsible for themselves and their mental/emotional well-being. Also, plot runners don't need more burdens.
