I have but one trigger warning to offer: "No one gives a damn what triggers you--nor should they."

This is straight-up nonsense. Dealing with your personal issues (and I have plenty myself) are your responsibility and no one else's. This is just people trying to insert their ideology into the hobby through a back door, disguising their authoritarianism as manners. This and "Safety Tools" should be met with nothing but scorn and mockery.

Quote from: pawsplay on February 03, 2024, 03:54:29 PM
I don't think most of the posters here would assume r*pe is a normal part of the D&D experience. Nor do I think most of you would continue if, during an RPG session where someone starting describing r*pe or attempted r*pe, someone else said, "Hey, I'm a victim, I don't want to talk about that stuff during the game, ever."

On the contrary! Rope is very much a normal part of a D&D experience. It is an essential element of every adventurer's gear, and woe to those who forget to pack a coil of rope! We've used it in our games to scale and descend sheer surfaces, to navigate labyrinths, and to lash together logs to make signal towers in the wilderness, among other things.

Describing rope happens often in our games. We've had lengthy discussions about the virtues, qualities, and care of different types of rope, be it hemp, linen, cotton, coir, jute, straw, or sisal. But anyone who dares to bring up synthetic fibers in our group-- polypropylene, nylon, polyesters, polyethylene, or God-forbid the "acrylics" that Storygamers love so much-- we show them the door. We had an incident last week when Dave threw down his card and said "Acrylic rope is an anachronism that triggers mah sense a-disbelief and ruins mah immershun!" (Dave's characters often sound like Foghorn Leghorn.)

Here's the Use Rope skill form 3.5 edition, in case you forgot:

QuoteSecure a Grappling Hook: Securing a grappling hook requires a Use Rope check (DC 10, +2 for every 10 feet of distance the grappling hook is thrown, to a maximum DC of 20 at 50 feet). Failure by 4 or less indicates that the hook fails to catch and falls, allowing you to try again. Failure by 5 or more indicates that the grappling hook initially holds, but comes loose after 1d4 rounds of supporting weight. This check is made secretly, so that you don't know whether the rope will hold your weight.

Bind a Character: When you bind another character with a rope, any Escape Artist check that the bound character makes is opposed by your Use Rope check.

Quote from: Aglondir on February 03, 2024, 11:06:09 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on February 03, 2024, 03:54:29 PM
I don't think most of the posters here would assume r*pe is a normal part of the D&D experience. Nor do I think most of you would continue if, during an RPG session where someone starting describing r*pe or attempted r*pe, someone else said, "Hey, I'm a victim, I don't want to talk about that stuff during the game, ever."

On the contrary! Rope is very much a normal part of a D&D experience. It is an essential element of every adventurer's gear, and woe to those who forget to pack a coil of rope! We've used it in our games to scale and descend sheer surfaces, to navigate labyrinths, and to lash together logs to make signal towers in the wilderness, among other things.

Describing rope happens often in our games. We've had lengthy discussions about the virtues, qualities, and care of different types of rope, be it hemp, linen, cotton, coir, jute, straw, or sisal. But anyone who dares to bring up synthetic fibers in our group-- polypropylene, nylon, polyesters, polyethylene, or God-forbid the "acrylics" that Storygamers love so much-- we show them the door. We had an incident last week when Dave threw down his card and said "Acrylic rope is an anachronism that triggers mah sense a-disbelief and ruins mah immershun!" (Dave's characters often sound like Foghorn Leghorn.)

Here's the Use Rope skill form 3.5 edition, in case you forgot:

QuoteSecure a Grappling Hook: Securing a grappling hook requires a Use Rope check (DC 10, +2 for every 10 feet of distance the grappling hook is thrown, to a maximum DC of 20 at 50 feet). Failure by 4 or less indicates that the hook fails to catch and falls, allowing you to try again. Failure by 5 or more indicates that the grappling hook initially holds, but comes loose after 1d4 rounds of supporting weight. This check is made secretly, so that you don't know whether the rope will hold your weight.

Bind a Character: When you bind another character with a rope, any Escape Artist check that the bound character makes is opposed by your Use Rope check.

Indeed, Aglondir!

Rope is a very handy item that should be in every Adventurer's backpack that its worth its salt. Extremely sound advice!

Quote from: pawsplay on February 03, 2024, 04:14:18 PM

Quote from: Brad on February 03, 2024, 04:12:28 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on February 03, 2024, 03:54:29 PM
There are plenty of healthy, capable people out there, who, nonetheless, when encountering certain material in a role-playing context, can go from "this is a fun activity I find personally enriching" to "this is an upsetting situation where I am no longer having the fun I wanted to, and continuing to deal with this situation is going to evoke real-world re-traumatizations, instead of the fun experience of an imaginary set of experiences."

Yeah, and they either say something about it, or don't play with that group anymore. No "healthy, capable people" need an X-card, it's a crutch for the mentally deficient who should probably be spending their time doing something more valuable with their time like getting counseling.

I just hope, if you're ever in a bad place, someone is kind to you.

If they are, it certainly won't be you or your ilk. The people that spend all day pontificating about inclusivity and kindness are the most spiteful, damaged creatures it is one's misfortune to encounter.

Quote from: Aglondir on February 03, 2024, 11:06:09 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on February 03, 2024, 03:54:29 PM
I don't think most of the posters here would assume r*pe is a normal part of the D&D experience. Nor do I think most of you would continue if, during an RPG session where someone starting describing r*pe or attempted r*pe, someone else said, "Hey, I'm a victim, I don't want to talk about that stuff during the game, ever."

On the contrary! Rope is very much a normal part of a D&D experience. It is an essential element of every adventurer's gear, and woe to those who forget to pack a coil of rope! We've used it in our games to scale and descend sheer surfaces, to navigate labyrinths, and to lash together logs to make signal towers in the wilderness, among other things.

Describing rope happens often in our games. We've had lengthy discussions about the virtues, qualities, and care of different types of rope, be it hemp, linen, cotton, coir, jute, straw, or sisal. But anyone who dares to bring up synthetic fibers in our group-- polypropylene, nylon, polyesters, polyethylene, or God-forbid the "acrylics" that Storygamers love so much-- we show them the door. We had an incident last week when Dave threw down his card and said "Acrylic rope is an anachronism that triggers mah sense a-disbelief and ruins mah immershun!" (Dave's characters often sound like Foghorn Leghorn.)

Here's the Use Rope skill form 3.5 edition, in case you forgot:

QuoteSecure a Grappling Hook: Securing a grappling hook requires a Use Rope check (DC 10, +2 for every 10 feet of distance the grappling hook is thrown, to a maximum DC of 20 at 50 feet). Failure by 4 or less indicates that the hook fails to catch and falls, allowing you to try again. Failure by 5 or more indicates that the grappling hook initially holds, but comes loose after 1d4 rounds of supporting weight. This check is made secretly, so that you don't know whether the rope will hold your weight.

Bind a Character: When you bind another character with a rope, any Escape Artist check that the bound character makes is opposed by your Use Rope check.

And don't forget that rope can also be used to tie up a potential victim for...  well, let's not get into THAT.

Wait, did I post that, or just think it?

Quote from: pawsplay on February 03, 2024, 03:54:29 PM


I don't think most of the posters here would assume r*pe is a normal part of the D&D experience. Nor do I think most of you would continue if, during an RPG session where someone starting describing r*pe or attempted r*pe, someone else said, "Hey, I'm a victim, I don't want to talk about that stuff during the game, ever." Most of you would recognize the topic could be over the line for a lot of people. Most of you would be willing to acknowledge legitimate trauma. It might seem to you this kind of behavior is unusual. But I have seen it. And I've heard about it plenty of times. I think it's worth noting that, sooner or later, a lot of end up being traumatized. Rates of sexual assault are disturbingly, staggeringly high. Many of us will get physically attacked. A lot of us will end up getting cancer. Half of us will be "mentally ill" in our lifetimes; about 20% of us will get mental health treatment this year.

We KNOW, it's pretty common among the circles YOU travel with, the woke are sex pests. The more they claim "safety" tools are needed the more I'm convinced other wokeists need them to protect them from the one saying it's a must.

But it's pretty rare among normal non-leftard people, we don't like to play in degenerate games or with degenerates.

So we don't see it nor do we ever hear about it EXCEPT when yet another wokist is outed as a sex pest caught in video during a live play stream.

It's funny how this things work.

So, given how much you insist everybody needs "safety" tools, my educated guess is that YOU are the sex pest.

Quote from: pawsplay on February 02, 2024, 01:50:09 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on February 01, 2024, 02:32:09 AM

It's a retarted example. No one consents to hitting people over the head with a chair when playing D&D for any reason. The point of the X-Card is that everyone agrees to use it, and in the manner intended, can be used for abuse.

In fact, I am not aware of any game being played anywhere where the X-card has been used like some people seem to think it is, like some kind of red-light-green-light sub-game. If that ever happened, that game would be over pretty quickly. It's an oops button. It means, dump the warp core.

This has been my sole experience using X-Cards every bloody time.  What's worst is that sometimes the people using it don't even mean to be dickwads and genuinely just don't like what's going on in the game because it's not living up to their expectations.  Thus, becoming a tool to ensure the game doesn't enter areas they dislike. Functionally,  this kills the game.

In other cases I've seen it maliciously abused, several cons in my area that used it and a few larger one's outside my area as well. What's funny about it, is it kinda relates to someone's story about a vegan friend being a control freak. When I first noticed X cards at some cons nothing really happened besides annoying trolls here and there and maybe one snowflake. But as the years went by, more and more snowflakes would abuse these cards and worsr, some people would basically hold games hostage and shame GMs and other players if they dared to question them. Using the X-Cards.  This only worked at cons that bought into all the hate speech and other woke dog whistles which on paper where meant to prevent people from being turbo dicks. Instead, they protected the turbo dicks and basically killed the gaming scene whenever they showed up to "play".

I've even been seeing this behavior in my local game stores. But the worst of it is online, where all it takes is ome bad actor to abuse these "saftey tools". A long time ago, I thought they where harmless and would make that one in a million shy, anxious and unsocical person more comfortable. But after way to many bad experiences, I disagree with them. Its to the point where I'm starting to believe the rhetoric where saftey tools where always about control with how often theu are used to exert control, either subtley or maliciously.

Wouldn't a paladin who DOES NOT kill an undead be an oath breaker?
As far as "trigger warnings" go, only thing I say is no unnecessary violence towards children or animals.

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on February 04, 2024, 01:19:49 AM
Wouldn't a paladin who DOES NOT kill an undead be an oath breaker?
As far as "trigger warnings" go, only thing I say is no unnecessary violence towards children or animals.

I assure you, whenever I have the PCs watch starving children fight ravenous dogs, it's necessary for them to make GP with betting.

In regards to the topic of trigger warnings. Not a fan of what they are now, they are a social crutch and disrupt the game in my experience. Doing a scene, pausing to establish a trigger warning then carrying on just kills it for me. Content warnings for the game so people know what to expext? That's all fine and dandy as its presenting what the game is so people can avoid it as needed.

Now, something I'm on the fence about are those "content sheets" which cover all the stuff a player dislike or is okay with. A part of me likes them because information is good, but the part of me that's been burned to many times or put into annoying positions because of them dislikes them. So I'm on the fence about them.

Personally, I prefer to just say "this game has x themes" and move on. If something during the game mqkes someone really uncomfortable they can message me discreetly and I'll fade to black, move along or switch focus. But i expect an explanation because this might be a deal breaker or it might allow me to ensure the situation doesn't crop up again. Since I now run for a heavily curated group of players, this hasn't happened in a hot minute. Unfortunately, when I'm a player, I'm not nearly as lucky.

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 04, 2024, 01:32:41 AM

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on February 04, 2024, 01:19:49 AM
Wouldn't a paladin who DOES NOT kill an undead be an oath breaker?
As far as "trigger warnings" go, only thing I say is no unnecessary violence towards children or animals.

I assure you, whenever I have the PCs watch starving children fight ravenous dogs, it's necessary for them to make GP with betting.

I said no unnecessary If my players were to portray the above with a good reason, I might allow that.

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on February 04, 2024, 01:19:49 AM
Wouldn't a paladin who DOES NOT kill an undead be an oath breaker?

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The reasoning was that the vampire spawn is a person, since they have intelligence, feel emotions, cannot go against their Master's orders and suffer if slain. I maintained that they are undead monsters. A mockery of life and that it was actually a mercy to release this poor soul of its grotesque existence.

When it was ruled that if I went through it I would lose my powers as a Paladin of Lathander, I decided to leave the game.

I still maintain that I acted 100% in line with my character's alignment, backstory and religion.

Honestly, after reading some responses here, I am very happy I actually left that game before wasting more of my time. It seems that kind of crowd was not going to be a fun time sooner or later.

Quote from: Kahoona on February 04, 2024, 01:47:53 AM
In regards to the topic of trigger warnings. Not a fan of what they are now, they are a social crutch and disrupt the game in my experience. Doing a scene, pausing to establish a trigger warning then carrying on just kills it for me. Content warnings for the game so people know what to expext? That's all fine and dandy as its presenting what the game is so people can avoid it as needed.

Now, something I'm on the fence about are those "content sheets" which cover all the stuff a player dislike or is okay with. A part of me likes them because information is good, but the part of me that's been burned to many times or put into annoying positions because of them dislikes them. So I'm on the fence about them.

Personally, I prefer to just say "this game has x themes" and move on. If something during the game mqkes someone really uncomfortable they can message me discreetly and I'll fade to black, move along or switch focus. But i expect an explanation because this might be a deal breaker or it might allow me to ensure the situation doesn't crop up again. Since I now run for a heavily curated group of players, this hasn't happened in a hot minute. Unfortunately, when I'm a player, I'm not nearly as lucky.

We did have those, but I turned mine blank with the comment of "I have no trigger warnings. Everything is fair game for me". Then, on Session 0 we discussed the trigger warnings for the group, and as far as I can understand, the agreement was: "No sexual stuff. No racism. No bullying. No bigotry."

Then, it somehow turns out that calling the vampire spawn a "filthy bloodsucker" before drawing my sword was somehow some form of bigotry and/or bullying and thus, I was found to be in breach of the trigger warning agreement. This halted the game and lead to the lengthy discussion about the situation and eventually to the ruling about my character losing breaking his Paladin oath if I went through with the attack. Which ultimately lead to me leaving the game.


Before this experience, I was neutral to the idea of trigger warnings, safety tools or X-Cards, only actually being somewhat familiar with a very loose idea of the term "trigger warnings" and not with the other two. After this experience and the discussion on this thread, my mind has been changed and now I do believe its invention and enforcement is malicious and a net negative to the roleplaying experience.

Quote from: Kahoona on February 04, 2024, 01:13:21 AM

Quote from: pawsplay on February 02, 2024, 01:50:09 PM
In fact, I am not aware of any game being played anywhere where the X-card has been used like some people seem to think it is, like some kind of red-light-green-light sub-game. If that ever happened, that game would be over pretty quickly. It's an oops button. It means, dump the warp core.

This has been my sole experience using X-Cards every bloody time.  What's worst is that sometimes the people using it don't even mean to be dickwads and genuinely just don't like what's going on in the game because it's not living up to their expectations.  Thus, becoming a tool to ensure the game doesn't enter areas they dislike. Functionally,  this kills the game.

and then

Quote from: Kahoona on February 04, 2024, 01:13:21 AM
When I first noticed X cards at some cons nothing really happened besides annoying trolls here and there and maybe one snowflake. But as the years went by, more and more snowflakes would abuse these cards and worsr, some people would basically hold games hostage and shame GMs and other players if they dared to question them.

Kahoona - these two statements seem contradictory, as I note with my bolding. According to your latter statement, when X-cards first turned up, nothing really happened - and frequent abuse only came later. But your first statement is that they have been abused every time.

How many games do you think you've played with the X-card? I don't use it in games I run, with the rare exception of a game where it's written into the rules. So I've GMed with it available three times, and played in convention games that used it maybe ten times, and played in five or six home games where the GM used it.

Again, I can imagine the X-card being abused, but I've never seen it happen. Actually, I've almost never seen it used. The one time I saw it invoked was when a player was taking a bunch of called shots to the groin on enemies, and the GM invoked the X-card, then explained that it as too close to sexual violence (which we had previous said was out of bounds).

I can believe that there are communities where it is being abused, but it's also clearly possible for it to be used in a non-abusive way. Notably, I don't play online except occasionally with people I already know face-to-face, so I have no experience with online communities.

Quote from: Cipher on February 04, 2024, 02:08:12 AM

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on February 04, 2024, 01:19:49 AM
Wouldn't a paladin who DOES NOT kill an undead be an oath breaker?

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The reasoning was that the vampire spawn is a person, since they have intelligence, feel emotions, cannot go against their Master's orders and suffer if slain. I maintained that they are undead monsters. A mockery of life and that it was actually a mercy to release this poor soul of its grotesque existence.

It seems more like a difference in what the undead actually are, which can vary from GM to GM, campaign to campaign, and even creature to creature.

Something the players and GM should discuss when it comes up.