Quote from: Svenhelgrim on January 29, 2024, 01:47:40 PM
Trigger warnings seem like a great marketing gimmick to make your game seem edgy and cool.  Just like the Parental Avisory stickers on heavy metal and rap albums in the '80's.

It's more of a 90s thing to me.  Those labels were out really late in the 80s, but really took prominence through the 90s.

Quote from: Cipher on January 29, 2024, 03:33:35 PM

Quote from: I on January 29, 2024, 11:44:09 AM
GM at the start of a game:  OK, you set out into the wilderness.  It's going to be about a 3-day journey to the Dungeons of Doom, so...

Player 1:  NO!  *taps X card*  I'm agoraphobic!  *Starts shaking; tears well up*  Don't mention the outdoors!

GM:  OK, sorry.  We'll just say you're at the dungeon already.  The entrance is narrow, and steep steps lead down into pitch black darkness.  You can...

Player 2:  NOOOO!  I'm claustrophobic.  I'm not going in there.  I'll wait outside.

GM:  Alright, you can wait outside under the trees.  Meanwhile -

Player 3:  "TREES?  You didn't say anything about trees being in this game!  I'm dendrophobic.  No trees!"

GM:  *sigh*  Fine.  You're on the open steppe then, and -

Player 1:  You mean there's nothing but open sky above us?  Well that doesn't help me!  I'm agoraphobic, remember!

GM:  OK, let me rethink this.... Right then, you're all aboard ship, sailing for the, uh, Place of Doom.  You claustrophobes can stay on deck, and you agoraphobes can stay below deck.  There's no trees anywhere in sight."

Player 4:  *pounds X card furiously*  I'm thalassophobic!  I'm not gonna play unless you swear not to mention large bodies of water!"

GM:  You know, maybe I should just scrap this adventure and we'll play something else.  I have this one I found on the internet, set in a sort of a fantasy Starbuck's called "No Tears Over Spilled Coffee."  How does that sound"

This almost made me spill my coffee!

Indeed. I see it now as a very slippery slope. When does the line end? I understand this was hyperbolic for comedic effect but it does point out the problem. How much is too much? I like that your example uses different trigger warnings voiced by different players. As unlikely as this 'perfect storm' could be, its still a situation where the creativity of the game as a medium is being shackled by the idea of making sure no one gets triggered.

After reading the comments on this thread, I am leaning more and more towards thinking there is more harm than good and that, even though some people do find content warnings in game books useful, it seems trigger warnings never provide value to a game and have too many downsides to justify their existence, inclusion and usage.

I thought this is amusing, because in my RPG system, you can assign various phobias to your characters, including many of the ones in this post: thallasophobia, claustrophobia, acrophobia, etc.!

Quote from: jhkim on January 29, 2024, 02:50:34 PM
I'm sure that abuse has happened - but I've played in maybe 20 or so games - mostly at Bay Area conventions - where the X-card was introduced. In practice, no one ever touched it - and this includes in horror games with sexual content. It came across like pointing out the fire extinguisher. Maybe someone was reassured by it being there, but it wasn't something invoked. The one time I saw it invoked was at a home game where a friend of mine was GMing, and they (the GM) touched it and reined in a player's behavior.

I'm sure there are players who would abuse the X-card, but they seem rare even in conventions in the most liberal area of the country.

I'm not convinced about the benefits of it, but it's not like it instantly turns any game into My Little Pony or players constantly abuse it.

Summary of argument:

• disagree with ancillary statement (x-cards in a thread about triggers)
• uses personal anecdotes as if they preclude the general statement from being true
• ends with a rejection of dichotomy (it's not this or that; it's both!)

Who let the jhkim AIbot in the thread?

Quote from: Grognard GM on January 29, 2024, 10:24:23 AM
I've been playing for over 30 years. Where have these people who piss their pants at fictional spiders or water been for the first 25 years of it? Certainly not fucking playing at any table I've been at.

Correct.  We've gone from "Sticks and stones..." to "Words are violence!"  It's cultural.  The idea that words are harmful is ridiculous on its face.  Words can affect your emotions (they can make you sad, angry, disappointed, etc.).  They can affect your relationship with others.  They cannot hurt you.  Ever.  No one has ever bled out from words.  PTSD and triggers don't work like these self-diagnosed mentally "ill" people say they do.

This all stems from immature soyboys and dangerhairs whose personal internal self-image is centered around their sense that they are victims, and that they do not have to hear anything that attacks their world-view.  And for them not to hear it, you must be prevented from saying it.  Hence trigger warnings and "safety" tools...

@Cipher
Sorry to hear about your bad experience.  The bright side is that you found out what jackasses those guys are just a few sessions into the game.  It probably would've been much worse to invest half a year than have this experience.  Perhaps the lesson to learn is to push a bit from the git-go, and if folks freak out you know not to waste any more time with them

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 29, 2024, 09:41:52 PM

• uses personal anecdotes as if they preclude the general statement from being true

There's a tendency among the emotionally immature to treat every statement evar as if it's an absolute universal, and therefore even a single counter-example serves to completely destroy the statement.  Grown-ups recognize that in the real world there are no absolutes and everything is about greater or lesser probabilities, and black swan events or local clusters don't really mean anything.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 29, 2024, 08:44:55 PM
My pet theory about why the 5e player base is so bad is that a lot of the problem trickles down from bad DMs. From buzz around the internet I get the impression that the average caliber of the DMs who started with 5e is substantially lower than for any previous edition.

Man, TTRPGs have been the haven of malsocialized, conflict-phobic, passive-aggressive wankers since day one.

Quote from: daniel_ream on January 29, 2024, 10:14:19 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 29, 2024, 08:44:55 PM
My pet theory about why the 5e player base is so bad is that a lot of the problem trickles down from bad DMs. From buzz around the internet I get the impression that the average caliber of the DMs who started with 5e is substantially lower than for any previous edition.

Man, TTRPGs have been the haven of malsocialized, conflict-phobic, passive-aggressive wankers since day one.

True. If you imagine a bell-curve of maladjustedness, RPGs have always attracted the top standard deviation. The impression that I get is that with the zoomer/5e generation of gamers, the entire bell curve is shifted farther towards the maladjusted end of the scale. 

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 29, 2024, 08:44:55 PM
My pet theory about why the 5e player base is so bad is that a lot of the problem trickles down from bad DMs. From buzz around the internet I get the impression that the average caliber of the DMs who started with 5e is substantially lower than for any previous edition. This, I suspect, is down to several causes. Part of it is the ole RPG Pundit "They taught you to play D&D wrong on purpose", but I also think it's caused by the sudden glut of players in the 5e years. That means more groups of entirely new players, where in earlier years, most new players learned the game from a veteran. And then there's just the fact that zoomers are, on the whole, extraordinarily poorly socialized as a generation.

For better or worse, DMs have a leadership role at the RPG table, so if a scene is dominated by bad DMs, that changes the player base. I think 5e players are...well I won't say "traumatized", but let's say "made paranoid". As a generation, they've had proportionally more experience with bad DMs (and players), combine that with the generally sensitive nature of zoomer culture, and they're on a hair-trigger. They're expecting abuses of power at the table, and so they act out pre-emptively, making them the same kind of problem players they're probably afraid of. New Schoolers will talk constantly about the RPG Social Contract, but they ironically have zero faith in their fellow hobbyists.

I think you've got an interesting idea here. To that point, something I noticed reading the AD&D DM's guide was that it specifically noted how as the Dungeon Master you're expected to have a keen understanding of the rules a good base of experience to work off of. Sure, you could pick up the guide and start DMing from there, but it's pretty much implied that you have played at least a little bit before picking up the DM mantle.

However, like you mentioned, I think it comes from being taught how the game runs wrong. A lot of newer DMs are picking up the mantle with the mindset that the game is a thespian's game with grandiose stories. Most of them are mediocre story tellers, and when you combine that with little experience running the game you get a high school creative writer's take on Lord of the Rings.

It's like wanting to learn how to draw anime characters, and not learning the basics first: you end up skipping a lot of important drawing fundamentals to jump ahead and it ends up stunting your abilities in the long run. Then consider most will go on to teach others what they know and you get crappier results as that knowledge base propagates.

Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on January 29, 2024, 10:42:18 PM

However, like you mentioned, I think it comes from being taught how the game runs wrong. A lot of newer DMs are picking up the mantle with the mindset that the game is a thespian's game with grandiose stories. Most of them are mediocre story tellers, and when you combine that with little experience running the game you get a high school creative writer's take on Lord of the Rings Flies.

Fixed it for you, except it's the cartoon version, with none of the participants the least bit aware of the irony.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 29, 2024, 08:02:31 PM

Quote from: S'mon on January 29, 2024, 02:37:31 PM

Quote from: daft on January 29, 2024, 02:33:48 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on January 29, 2024, 02:08:36 PM
Maybe 5e is the problem. I live in one of the most left-leaning cities in North America and I've never had the problems you're describing. I only run old school games so it does take a bit to get a group together.

D&D went kinda mainstream. Great for WotC:s bank account, less so for the traditional fans of the game and those of us that never really liked it and want to play other systems.

I actually managed to find a sane group online for WFRP one-shot that we are likely making into a campaign or at least more sessions, but looking for games online today is a bit like shopping for a struggle session with all the [5E] and [LGBTQIA+] tags 😂 .

It's all going to hell I tell ya'.

Another one that worked well for me on Roll20 was running Mini Six. I think anything except 5e D&D and niche SJW games is probably safe enough. Honestly though I've not really seen SJWs even in my 5e Roll20 recruitment, it's more the maladjusted munchkin types you need to look out for.

Yup. I've been playing on Roll 20 and Foundry for almost 3 years now, and have not had a single bit of SJW related trouble. All you have to do is avoid the most mainstream games (5e, Pathfinder 2, PBTA and WOD for the most part), and exercise a little common sense and reading between the lines before you join a game.

I followed this advise and found a GURPs game and a Mutants and Masterminds game. Well see of those pan out but, I am going to keep my hopes up. Thanks for the suggestions.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 29, 2024, 08:44:55 PM
the entire bell curve is shifted farther towards the maladjusted end of the scale.

I can believe that.

Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on January 29, 2024, 10:42:18 PM
A lot of newer DMs are picking up the mantle with the mindset that the game is a thespian's game with grandiose stories. Most of them are mediocre story tellers, and when you combine that with little experience running the game you get a high school creative writer's take on Lord of the Rings.

My experience with the local zoomers is that's much more likely to be a high school creative's take on My Hero Academia, One Piece, or That Time I Ran an RPG In A Dungeon[1].

Much as the Powered by the Apocalypse family of games gets flack around here, its Principles for the players and the MC are straight up Old School in terms of refuting that whole "DM as author of grand fantasy epic" nonsense.

Quote
Most of them are mediocre story tellers

A zoomer friend tried to get me to watch Critical Role, and I made it through about fifteen minutes of S02E01 before punching out.  Between the "Welcome to the continent of Generica" opener and the awkward, halting improv, I remember thinking "Shouldn't they be better at this?"

[1] Not a real anime

Quote from: Mishihari on January 29, 2024, 10:11:22 PM
@Cipher
Sorry to hear about your bad experience.  The bright side is that you found out what jackasses those guys are just a few sessions into the game.  It probably would've been much worse to invest half a year than have this experience.  Perhaps the lesson to learn is to push a bit from the git-go, and if folks freak out you know not to waste any more time with them

Indeed, Mishihari!

I think there is wisdom in your words. Perhaps the learning experience here is to push the envelop a little so as to find out sooner, rather than later, what type of strangers I am playing with online.

I'll keep this in mind next time. Thank you so much!

Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on January 29, 2024, 10:42:18 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 29, 2024, 08:44:55 PM
My pet theory about why the 5e player base is so bad is that a lot of the problem trickles down from bad DMs. From buzz around the internet I get the impression that the average caliber of the DMs who started with 5e is substantially lower than for any previous edition. This, I suspect, is down to several causes. Part of it is the ole RPG Pundit "They taught you to play D&D wrong on purpose", but I also think it's caused by the sudden glut of players in the 5e years. That means more groups of entirely new players, where in earlier years, most new players learned the game from a veteran. And then there's just the fact that zoomers are, on the whole, extraordinarily poorly socialized as a generation.

For better or worse, DMs have a leadership role at the RPG table, so if a scene is dominated by bad DMs, that changes the player base. I think 5e players are...well I won't say "traumatized", but let's say "made paranoid". As a generation, they've had proportionally more experience with bad DMs (and players), combine that with the generally sensitive nature of zoomer culture, and they're on a hair-trigger. They're expecting abuses of power at the table, and so they act out pre-emptively, making them the same kind of problem players they're probably afraid of. New Schoolers will talk constantly about the RPG Social Contract, but they ironically have zero faith in their fellow hobbyists.

I think you've got an interesting idea here. To that point, something I noticed reading the AD&D DM's guide was that it specifically noted how as the Dungeon Master you're expected to have a keen understanding of the rules a good base of experience to work off of. Sure, you could pick up the guide and start DMing from there, but it's pretty much implied that you have played at least a little bit before picking up the DM mantle.

However, like you mentioned, I think it comes from being taught how the game runs wrong. A lot of newer DMs are picking up the mantle with the mindset that the game is a thespian's game with grandiose stories. Most of them are mediocre story tellers, and when you combine that with little experience running the game you get a high school creative writer's take on Lord of the Rings.

It's like wanting to learn how to draw anime characters, and not learning the basics first: you end up skipping a lot of important drawing fundamentals to jump ahead and it ends up stunting your abilities in the long run. Then consider most will go on to teach others what they know and you get crappier results as that knowledge base propagates.

I believe the "thespian's game" idea is what is called the "Critical Role effect". They forget critical role is a show. Its produced to the gills to create those moments, much like so called "reality tv". It is not truly representative of how a gaming session will go down.

Although, I would also believe such ideas are juvenile naivete. I remember when I was 14 and I wanted to create a great plot for my Players and they did praise the "story" of our AD&D campaign as something that would make me rich if I wrote it and sold it as a book series. "The Next Tolkien!" they called me.

As I got older, I understood that the medium is at its best when the GM creates situations, not plots. Seeds and hooks, not stories. Create movers and shakers and a setting. Then, let the Players run wild. As a GM now I find much more enjoyment in being an audience. I want to be surprised by their actions. If they get themselves on a jam, I won't save them. I want to see how they get themselves out of that jam or perish.

And people told me how much better the games were then without realizing that its because I grew out of the idea of "creating the greatest story never told!" and started to play to the strengths of the medium.

I believe, as you said, so many of those DMs want to be writers or become rich with "the next Critical Role" show and so they focus on that instead on what makes roleplaying game adventures memorable.

Quote from: Brad on January 28, 2024, 08:13:30 PM
A paladin wanting to kill a vampire is now a bigot?

What the fuck...

Also NOT the PALADIN, the PLAYER. The PLAYER is a bigot because his paladin PC wants to kill a fucking vampire. Sounds like these clowns need a lobotomy.

I was told once on BGG deadly serious, that "Dwarves liking beer was racist." There is no limit on how stupid these nuts can get. NO LIMIT. That exploring Africa in a board game was "Promoting Genocide." and the poor guys game got cancelled. Someone else claiming they would not play any game that had leather in it because they were vegans. NO LIMIT.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 29, 2024, 09:48:52 PMThe idea that words are harmful is ridiculous on its face.

Well, that's not entirely true, as cyberbullying victims can attest. But like everything else about the issue, it's taking a contextual reality and twisting it into an absolute precept that can then be used as a club to morally browbeat anybody who says something one merely dislikes.

Words and speech can inflict real and significant psychological damage, but it takes time, repetition, and personalized malice, usually combined with a prisoning environment which the target is unable to escape for whatever reason. Simple political disagreement or careless personal offence in the context of a casual game almost never meets this threshold; it may evoke pre-existing damage for someone sufficiently fragile, but someone that fragile owes it to themselves and their friends to make the group aware of that before the game, not to simply hope nobody will stumble over their issues during it.

Quote from: Omega on January 30, 2024, 12:20:13 AM

Quote from: Brad on January 28, 2024, 08:13:30 PM
A paladin wanting to kill a vampire is now a bigot?

What the fuck...

Also NOT the PALADIN, the PLAYER. The PLAYER is a bigot because his paladin PC wants to kill a fucking vampire. Sounds like these clowns need a lobotomy.

I was told once on BGG deadly serious, that "Dwarves liking beer was racist." There is no limit on how stupid these nuts can get. NO LIMIT. That exploring Africa in a board game was "Promoting Genocide." and the poor guys game got cancelled. Someone else claiming they would not play any game that had leather in it because they were vegans. NO LIMIT.

Wow... and I thought I had it bad.

I am not sure which one baffles me the most.

Either "Dwarves liking beer = racist" or "no leather because vegan".