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So, a couple of days I purchase a scenario for a game this weekend with my family, and pass it on to our GM for the weekend. This afternoon she gets in touch and says that there is NO WAY she can run this for the children, and explains why.
Turns out the
Now, I've got no problem at all with mature themes in play, in fact it is important that they are covered in my opinion, but for heaven's sake Paizo, PUT SOME FORM OF WARNING ON THEM!
Thank God this was a home game, and the GM was able to contact me and ask to change the game. If I had sat down at a convention with, say, my 10 year old son and these encounters had occurred, well...
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There are a number of scenarios (and other adventures) Paizo has released that arent necessarily kid friendly.
I cant speak for Paizo on whether your message will actually get them to put a notice on the product page for each one, so until someone addresses this formally, might I suggest we use this thread to list other 'mature' scenarios/adventures so this might be avoided in the future for you and anyone else...
Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment
Murder on the Throaty Mermaid
In Wrath's Shadow
Hook Mountain Massacre (Rise of the Runelords AP, book 3)
Anyone want to add?
Now, to be fair, some of these I have seen run for kids, and some of the GMs are able to spin the stuff to be not as gruesome or adult sounding, to help appease worried parents, but that isnt everyones cup of tea, and some of these would be harder than others to do that with.
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Venture-Captain, Massachusetts—Central & West
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Confused. Could you be more detailed about these "triggers"?
Your kinda vague here?
Don't recall anything weird with that scenario.
Secane,
Seth, you may also want to add
First Steps, pt 1 (Oh, Zarta...)
Severing Ties
Cairn of Shadows (for the "decorations" in some rooms)
Haunting of Hinojai
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*headscratch*
The temple of empyreal enlightenment?
Look, ANYTHING anyone publishes is going to have a reaction from someone. If something in that one would set off more people than an ugly holiday sweater I have NO idea what it is.
Yes, there are some things that the DM either has to tone down for the kids or toss the ball over their heads so that their parents are laughing while the kid goes "huh?" but I've got no idea what it could be in that scenario and without spelling it out there's nothing anyone can do for you.
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And some people wonder why Paizo put a "dance hall" instead of a brothel in one of their books.
Developer
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Hey Darrell, I'm traveling to a convention now, but I can at least get a start in this conversation. i have a few questions for you and anyone else who wants to chime in--primarily to get a sense of scope:
- What are the necessary triggers to be called out? Are suicide and sexual crime enough, or does this extend all the way to "Hey, this scenario might have a scene with alcohol?"
- Is a note on the product page enough, or is it essential that there be a Bonekeep-esque pre-game announcement? Sidebar territory in the first four pages is already really tight, and I can't promise the latter option is possible.
- Do trigger alerts inadvertently open the door to more such scenarios, now that they can be safely advertised (more a philosophical quandary that's less likely to happen when everything must go through a developer)?
Might be a few days before I can get back to this thread, sorry.
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Well, every Pathfinder Society scenario features the willful and violent slaying of living (or, okay, once-living) creatures, most-often sentient.
I must say that I'm sympathetic to the original poster's concerns, but the solution is to do exactly what he and the GM did. Review the material in advance and either make adjustments or switch scenarios (which will entail another review and perhaps other adjustments).
To my way of thinking, there are simply too many potential triggers (legitimately!) to enact some sort of warning or ratings system. In fact, I would venture to say that all Paizo products contain something that could cause some player somewhere unease. I believe that the onus of protecting oneself from such things lies on the consumer (or, in the case of children, on the consumer's legal guardians), and while good information is absolutely required to enact that protection, the good information for fantasy rpgs is this: there is death, violence, and evil in this fantasy world.
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Firstly, thanks for responding so quickly, and taking this seriously.
As I wasn't going to be the GM for this one I haven't read the specific scenario myself, I'm working on the basis of her comments and I trust her implicitly. (Hell, we've been married for 12 years, so I bl**dy well should. :-) ) I will go through it fully before I say anything more specifically about that one,
Generally though, anything that would need to be reworded dependent on those playing it, but can't be because it is too central to the story needs to be flagged in my opinion. To give a for instance that I know of; playing
Where to flag it? Well, most places that I see use the blurb from the front page/product page as the "advert" for the adventure, usually I imagine a straight copy & paste, so I would think that there is the most appropriate place.
I don't think that it need be "inadvertent". An issue that can be a trigger for some can still produce a great story, and need not be a block to it being produced. Think of Law & Order: Special Victims for instance. As long as it is made clear that a product is "mature", and consumers know that they can trust the product's producers to handle what ever the particular issue is intelligently, then that's fine.
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Just as an information point I have played
The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment
(and also the Throaty Mermaid) with my (then aged) 12 year old son without any issues... people are different and people do bring up their kids exposed to different things
While I think there are a few scenarios that could have some issues, I think we should assume that PFS is at a minimum PG13 and anyone who wants to play with kids younger then that do so at their own recognizance. Perhaps a statement in the guide along the lines that it is ok to change the theme or content of a scenario to reflect the sensibilities of younger players when necessary.
IMO covering scenarios with trigger warning and the like hopefully should not be necessary and GMs should act upon their on initiative as to what they are comfortable GMing in their own communities
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I think that what happened in the OP's case is exactly what *should* happen - when a GM preps and knows what audience they are prepping for, they make the call at that point. I do think that there is no easy way to "flag" scenarios for various issues, because the definition of what issues should be flagged is a quagmire. For example, in my group the posted scenario has been no problem, since seeing one more dead body when every scenario includes creating dead bodies yourself has not been an issue. But I see how it can be - I just don't think that Paizo can adequately deal with that at their end.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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@David Foley - It's not just a matter of kids. I used to work with a guy in like his 40s(?) whose sister...
It's very likely that suddenly getting blindsided by such a scene in a game would be deeply troubling. People deserve to have warnings for things like that. Simply acknowledging that the game as a whole is PG-13 does not address that.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I think that what happened in the OP's case is exactly what *should* happen - when a GM preps and knows what audience they are prepping for, they make the call at that point.
Does your signup mechanism of choice include a space for listing any traumas the player or their loved ones may have experienced?
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How about a sign on the outside?
Having a code with some letters, A like Alcohol, D like Drugs, Ad for adult content, etc would be an easy way to mark things without spoilering too much and costs no place, since you could do it on the cover and a guide on the back.
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While I would clearly feel sorry for the person in question if that was to happen to me and perhaps avoid that scene should I know in advance that there was to be a player with such a life history, I am not sure what I would do if I was not to know the players life history in advance.. are we to announce to all players that a given Scenario has triggers X,Y and Z before each time we play? and exactly what are the issues that we should be labeling as triggers? I once played a scenario with a player where they started really freaking out when giant spiders were introduced.. I just thought it good role-playing but it turned out they really did have arachnophobia. I am afraid that if we do that the creating of these trigger label would be in itself a form of censorship, as writer would become reluctant to add too many such trigger labels to their scenarios so as not to be seen to reduce the potential audience and that in turn would lead IMO to blander scenarios.
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Does your signup mechanism of choice include a space for listing any traumas the player or their loved ones may have experienced?
Fair enough, Jiggy, but what exactly do you suggest? A detailed review of every scenario by a qualified person (I have no idea what those qualifications would be) who writes a list of potential triggers in the front matter?
That seems impossible to me. Every scenario would have to include the likelihood of physical violence and the likelihood of death and then expand by volumes from there. Would scenarios in which the PCs are likely to face animals in combat include warnings that animal cruelty is involved (I stopped watching a famous zombie television show during the first episode because it looked like a horse was about to be killed)? Would scenarios which include ghostly children (or creatures disguised as children) include a warning that the appearance of child abuse is involved (I stopped reading a certain famous science fiction author because I realized almost all of his plots were dependent on the psychological or physical abuse of children)?
What do you think about how the comic books industry handled this, with their Comic Codes Authority (established in the wake of Congressional testimony by the now largely discredited Fredric Wertham)?
I'm a man in my forties who has a problem with hyper-realistic hand-to-hand combat, beatings, and torture scenes in movies and on television owing to having been badly beaten by muggers a few years ago. But I don't think PFS scenarios should have warning labels, and if they do, nothing beyond a general one applied to all Paizo products.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Fair enough, Jiggy, but what exactly do you suggest? A detailed review of every scenario by a qualified person (I have no idea what those qualifications would be) who writes a list of potential triggers in the front matter?Does your signup mechanism of choice include a space for listing any traumas the player or their loved ones may have experienced?
Even just including (as John already suggested) categories of suicide and sexual crime would cover most of it. It wouldn't take a lot of qualifications to recognize those.
That seems impossible to me. Every scenario would have to include the likelihood of physical violence and the likelihood of death and then expand by volumes from there. Would scenarios in which the PCs are likely to face animals in combat include warnings that animal cruelty is involved (I stopped watching a famous zombie television show during the first episode because it looked like a horse was about to be killed)?
My wife doesn't like seeing animal cruelty either, but it doesn't trigger PTSD or panic attacks.
I think the main issue when this type of topic comes up is that most people can't fathom the immensity of the gulf between "squicky" and "traumatic".
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We all go along to these games knowing there there will be deaths, but "fantasy" deaths rather than anything. I know that this is poorly described, but consider it the difference between the battles in the Lord of the Rings movies and those in the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan. It's when it becomes integral to the plot that the details are relevant, e.g. it can't just be described as "a body" that problems start.
Jiggy, that's the exact sort of convention circumstance that I was worrying about.
David, I'm not sure what to do about the spider situation (and similar). I used to play 'Greyhawk with a severely arachnaphobic friend, I always madeva point of mentioning it to DMs we didn't know, and we often got attacked by monsters that weren't in the midule but had poisonous bites and could climb really well. Driders decame known locally as centaurs (it happened so ofter), which led to some interesting situations.
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I think the main issue when this type of topic comes up is that most people can't fathom the immensity of the gulf between "squicky" and "traumatic".
At the same time, there aren't any clear lines to indicate where you've crossed over to traumatic, in no small part because everyone is different and so the level at which a trigger activates is different.
The concerns are legitimate because some people do have triggers. It's best for the GM to review the scenario ahead of time, but it's not a panacea itself because a GM doesn't always know who's at her table. Labeling isn't a panacea either, though. There's not an easy, one-size-fits-all answer.
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I think that what happened in the OP's case is exactly what *should* happen - when a GM preps and knows what audience they are prepping for, they make the call at that point.Does your signup mechanism of choice include a space for listing any traumas the player or their loved ones may have experienced?
Of course it doesn't. Please explain your idea for how this can be implemented for PFS as a whole. I look forward to your draft listing of every possible trigger in every scenario, and your rationale for excluding every item not on the list. :P
Seriously - I agree that this can be a problem, but there is no feasible solution which can fix it, other than maybe having someone read the scenario first and evaluate whether it is appropriate for their group. Which is exactly what the OP did, and exactly what I suggest as a solution.
EDIT: Missed the initial list of a couple of themes... just picking one or two doesn't work. We have a player who has an incredibly strong fear of mushrooms. If I put a shrieker mini on the table, he will have a panic attack. Why is that less important to "solve" than triggers involving suicide or sex?
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I think the main issue when this type of topic comes up is that most people can't fathom the immensity of the gulf between "squicky" and "traumatic".
Another good point, though I assure you that while I'm not qualified to make such a judgement about others I'm certainly qualified to make the judgement for myself. I have PTSD, and am vastly sympathetic to the idea of helping others who have extremely stressed reactions to certain triggers. But I also live in a large and complicated world, and feel that it's my responsibility to manage my own condition. Adult players of fantasy RPGs should know what they're in for, as should the guardians of children playing those games.
The big question is how does one know what one is in for? How much information is required of a responsible and sympathetic content provider (something I believe Paizo to be)?
My opinion is that nothing needs to be done, but that if anything should be done, it should be a simple catch-all warning. "Some adult themes," or some such. Micromanaging warning labels responsibly and completely would require an enormous effort on behalf of highly trained (and no doubt newly hired) professionals who were simultaneously able to recognize every potential trigger and effectively communicate about them in the context of a piece of intellectual property intended for sale to the public. There are, no doubt, legal implications. What if they listed every possible trigger on a scenario but missed arachnophobia and someone had a panic attack at a table? Does the fact that other triggers were listed mean that the company has been negligent? I obviously don't think so, but ours is a litigious society, and such a thing would have to be considered. There's also, as someone upthread mentioned, the potential for a chilling or dampening effect on the creativity of designers worried about a whole new set of parameters for which they probably don't have any specific training.
No, the best solution is the simplest one, I think.
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If anything is done on this topic, paizo should check with their lawyers first. Sometimes not having a program is better for a company than having a program and not following through with their own guidelines consistently.
Unless you narrow your focus carefully, you can also tread on cultural differences with ratings that imply impropriety.
Adult themes doesn't really help anything, as there are plenty adult themes (such as killing people because you don't like their race or religion or because it is inconvenient to take prisoners) that could cover many games, and a lot of those can be found video games not rated M that plenty of youngsters play all the time.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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Thanks for posting this. It's something that gets mentioned from time to time but tends to fall to the backburner of my mind.
I think that some people who have some phobias that are more socially acceptable, like arachnaphobia, can definitely preface the scenario by informing the table of their fears and asking that they be offered special consideration should themes regarding them arise.
However, with something like the situation described by the OP, or someone suffering from severe emotional trauma, as the kind mentioned by Jiggy, it's likely that the person won't want to make that information table knowledge.
While we pseudo-spoilerific tags could be included in the product page of a scenario (contains themes of sexual content/suicide/etc), in the meantime I think the best thing we have is our decency as fellow humans.
If you know that someone playing in your area has a trauma or stigma, or know that a scenario being run has potentially emotionally charged themes, mention it to the player or table GM in confidence. If you are running a table and something comes up and a player becomes uncomfortable, change the topic or theme being discussed. We don't have to be clinical professionals to know how to behave to one another, or how to react when someone is dealing with emotional trauma. Just treat everyone involved with respect and move on.
Personally, I have only run a couple of tables where this has come up. One was a medical issue that caused our game end early, and the other was an emotional one similar to the ones being discussed here. In both, everyone else at the table made the realization that this is a game and that the person having issues is a person, and we prioritized their welfare over the scenario being run.
Directly to the OP and that scenario, here are some options I would consider
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Where are you guys getting this whole "if we mention specific triggers at all, we have to mention every possible trigger imaginable" idea? There are more options than "list so exhaustive it can't be done" and "do nothing".
Among people with "triggers", the population affected by sex crimes or suicide are not even in the same ballpark as people affected by mushrooms.
You guys are correct that you can't put specific warnings to every trigger imaginable. But among triggers, there are some that are vastly more common than others. (That's another gulf that I don't think most of us really grasp.)
And frankly, those of you who think that the impossibility of protecting every "trigger-victim" means that we shouldn't bother with the easily protected majority of them, ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
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Where are you guys getting this whole "if we mention specific triggers at all, we have to mention every possible trigger imaginable" idea? There are more options than "list so exhaustive it can't be done" and "do nothing".
Legally sound options? Morally and ethically unquestionable options? Does being dismissive about mushrooms mean that people with what you might consider minority concerns should be overlooked in any solution? Is it fair, just, or legal to privilege the majority and ignore the minority for convenience's sake, in other words?
And frankly, those of you who think that the impossibility of protecting every "trigger-victim" means that we shouldn't bother with the easily protected majority of them, ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
Oh, I don't think so.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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Personally, I have ran Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment 5-6 times, for young and old, strangers and friends. I've never had an issue with it, and I generally turn the creep factor up to 11. I don't think that this is a terribly common issue, to be frank. While yes, there are individuals who have experienced severe trauma in these areas, and while my heart goes out to them, it's difficult to run an RPG without occasionally stepping on things like that. People have traumas which aren't always logical or reasonable, nor are they always foreseeable. Most gamers don't have any of these issues at all. Yet, by putting a trigger warning on every more...disturbing scenario, you run the risk of spoiling the adventure for the vast majority of players who will enjoy those topics.
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I ran the drowning stones for 2 parents and 3 kids, and I radically changed the module, due to the content. (I looked at the parents and told them I am changing this module on the fly due to its content. No one had a problem during or after.)
There are numerous scenarios with adult themes that either are played up or down based on who is at my table. Be proactive as a dm and you won't need permission for good judgement.
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Bruno, a handsome and beautiful Tetori, already come with warning label.
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I just read a post where someone referred to the use of trigger warnings as "privileging the majority".
That was mine, to be clear, and obviously earlier I wasn't being clear if it's so easily lifted out of context as a cause of concern. My intention, possibly ill-realized, was to riff on your identification of broad groups of people who should be served by warning labels and to ask you if those groups deserve better service than smaller groups. So I'll ask you that again, more directly. Does a short, sensible-seeming list like that proposed by The Fox immediately above your most recent post serve? Why should people who are legitimately traumatized by things not on the list (such as other forms of violence besides sexual violence) not be served?
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Why should people who are legitimately traumatized by things not on the list (such as other forms of violence besides sexual violence) not be served?
Why don't you answer the same question? You're just as willing to let them go un-served as I am.
You and GM Lamplighter and I (and, I'm sure, others) are all advocating not putting out trigger warnings for mushrooms.
So on that point, we're on the same level. It's not like you were advocating that they should be protected and I'm trying to fight against that. You agreed that they shouldn't be protected.
The only difference between our stances is that I want to protect more people than you do. Between two parties who BOTH intend not to protect mushroom-trigger-victims, somehow the only party you want to call to account for it is the one that DOES want to help SOMEONE.
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I assure you, Jiggy, I want everyone to be protected. I just don't think it's wise to seek that protection in the form of warning labels applied by Paizo.
Or, to directly answer the question you turned back on me: people on that list should not be served by warning labels because such labels are insufficient, creating as they do the impossible-to-meet expectation that anyone potentially traumatized by any content has been sufficiently warned.
Maybe a good project for interested members of the community would be to do something akin to the GM Prep website, where concerned players could list potential trigger warnings, if such a thing could be done without creating liability for Paizo or the volunteers. But for Paizo to apply labels with specifics—again, it strikes me as unwise and even potentially disastrous.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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Here is a free GM tool that can help you deal with triggering situations in games.
There is at least one game store in New York that I've heard implements it often with their public games.
If you don't understand what trigger warnings are, or what their purpose is, maybe look it up before commenting on them. Essentially they exist to help people avoid or prepare themselves for subjects that will cause trauma due to PTSD or panic attacks.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Or, to directly answer the question you turned back on me: people on that list should not be served by warning labels because such labels are insufficient, creating as they do the impossible-to-meet expectation that anyone potentially traumatized by any content has been sufficiently warned.
If the inclusion of trigger warnings from Paizo would suddenly make them liable if an unlisted trigger caused an issue, that would indeed be a problem. Is there reason to believe this would actually be the case? I suspect not, because if incomplete trigger lists were really such an issue, would John Compton have made the post he did?
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Here is a free GM tool that can help you deal with triggering situations in games.Interesting. Thanks!
Very.
I believe I have a new GMing tool.
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Just for the record, I have seen some adults cringe when reading/hearing some of the text in "In Wrath's Shadow.
Personally, I consider PFS games to be PG-13 and if someone at the table is under the age of 13 I will either talk to their parents about the content or selectively edit it. It doesn't hurt, if you are parent, to remind GMs of this when you sit your kid at a table. Our local game store tries very hard to be family friendly, so we always try to consider this when kids are at the table. Though if you are one of those parents that likes to use the local game store as a free baby sitting service...well...you get what you pay for.
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Alcohol.
Drugs.
Sexual Violence.
Sexuality.
Suicide.That seems like a reasonable list of things to warn parents and sensitive players about.
I wanted to expand on the one I bolded.
I figured someone would mention it eventually.
Is this thread meant to address traumas only? Adult themes in general? A mix of both? And how far should we go?
Do scenarios with Miss Feathers need to include a warning? What would that warning be, and who would that warning be aimed at?
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Contributor
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If the inclusion of trigger warnings from Paizo would suddenly make them liable if an unlisted trigger caused an issue, that would indeed be a problem. Is there reason to believe this would actually be the case? I suspect not, because if incomplete trigger lists were really such an issue, would John Compton have made the post he did?
Speaking to your first sentence, we're in agreement, yes, it would indeed be a problem. Is there a reason to believe it would be the case? See below. (I obviously can't speak for John Compton.)
On this question of liability, I can't speak with any authority or training. I know that certain industries apply warning labels because they are required to do so (some states require restaurants to include warnings about consuming undercooked eggs or meat on their menus, for example). As I said earlier, ours is a litigious society, and my very strong impression is that if a company voluntarily admits that some product of theirs might cause trauma to their customers, well, yes, I think there is reason to believe it's a potential source of trouble.
So there's that.
Switching gears.
Speaking to this issue of voluntary labeling from the "chilling/dampening creativity" side, I'll point again to the Comics Code Authority and to the Motion Picture Association of America's movie rating system, both of which have had significant unforeseen and negative consequences for the artforms they're concerned with. Fearing action by the Senate's Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency (can you believe there was such a thing?) after that body fell under the sway of some bad psychology, the comics industry self-regulated themselves to the point they set the artform back by decades, retarding its maturation into a potentially complex form in favor of telling and retelling superhero stories to safely-coddled children.
The MPAA, of course, has famously made the decision (supported by theater chain owners) that violence is A-OK for pretty much anybody, but that human sexuality is a subject best left to seedy video stores on the edge of town.
In both cases, artists and patrons suffered from diminished storytelling.
Now, that's obviously not as important as psychological trauma, but it is a factor.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown
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IMO treat this game like any other fantasy RPG you would play on a console. The game developers put these situations in the story for a reason. I would rather not deivate because I actually like the stories in the game and I would feel cheated if iI didn't get the full story. Another POV, if i wrote some of these scenarios I would feel bad because you spend a lot of time writing the actual story and then just because some one has a problem with a part of it they up and change it. Hence they are no longer playing the scenario you wrote.
With the kid situation. I believe what th OP and the OPs GM did was the right thing. Doing research and scratching it off the list. Or at least letting the kids and the parents know it is graphic or considered mature.
I beleive a rating system like the ESRB or a warning should be placed. After all it works for movies, cds and video games.(to an extent. Kids will be kids)
And finally, it is a game. Seperate real life and fantasy and try not to take it too personal. Im pretty sure when the writer put in The swinging body hanging by a neck is it was not directed towards you or any real life situation that happened to you or your own.
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Alcohol.
Drugs.
Sexual Violence.
Sexuality.
Suicide.That seems like a reasonable list of things to warn parents and sensitive players about.
I wanted to expand on the one I bolded.
I figured someone would mention it eventually.
Is this thread meant to address traumas only? Adult themes in general? A mix of both? And how far should we go?
Do scenarios with Miss Feathers need to include a warning? What would that warning be, and who would that warning be aimed at?