"The designers' choice was to deliberately shy away from anything sticky or messy or painful. The first page is devoted to 'setting boundaries;' it is, in fact the first true part of play ... and while I'm a fan of Ron Edwards ... for a game of this type I find it all ... well, inappropriate. A game of this type should be pushing boundaries, not setting them."
A part of me reads this and wants to go on a tear about the infantilisation of human interaction and why none of us are ever supposed to let the big bad world invade our comfort zones when we get together with our friends to play a game. Supportive of that, I could probably pull together some films or books, aimed at either children or adults, where those subjects are brought up and dealt with, whereas in games we're still looking an interpretation of reality as close to the bone as Carcasonne's management of land in 14th century France. Say it with me now: not at all.
But I have to grant that games in our culture are definitely not treated as art, or made to constructively address issues. Artworks can afford to be unpopular. A film can be seen by a few hundred or a few thousand people and still be a meaningful work. Artworks only need attention. Games need a culture ... without that, they are unsuited for anything but the trashbin. Is it any wonder that a game company will do anything to avoid risking that culture by drumming up a subject that will make players uncomfortable?
That was not a problem in pre-PC culture D&D, which despite the efforts to flag game situations and discourage squicky subjects like sex (which is only a participation sport for everyone on the planet) possesses a legacy that won't be entirely quashed. Naturally, we expect to see things like this turn up, where the game play culture being created contains expectations that as a DM you will "lead by example" and "model the behavior" of your game players:
“I’d like your help. Your help to make this game fun for everyone. If anything makes anyone uncomfortable in any way… [ draw X on an index card ] …just lift this card up, or simply tap it [ place card at the center of the table ]. You don’t have to explain why. It doesn't matter why. When we lift or tap this card, we simply edit out anything X-Carded. And if there is ever an issue, anyone can call for a break and we can talk privately. I know it sounds funny but it will help us play amazing games together and usually I’m the one who uses the X card to protect myself from all of you! Please help make this game fun for everyone. Thank you!"
It's easy to laugh at this because the roots of D&D were firmly established long before "the organizers" arrived. The original game ideal and context was established in thousands of articles and hundreds of games ~ any kid, anywhere, raised in an environment with x-cards, can one day stumble across a Dragon magazine or a copy of Tomb of Horrors and realize suddenly that randomly killing everything and anything, including murdering prostitutes, was a socially functional experience for tens of thousands of players. It didn't bother us. It wasn't any more real than the massacre of whole armies in RISK or Axis and Allies.
For a modern game manufacturer, however, faced with a strike force of helicopter parents descending on game stores to help little Billy and Jody play D&D ~ or any other game ~ not having some standard in place is a terrifying prospect. When we played in the 70s and early 80s, we were ignored by our parents; they didn't give a shit what we did in the kitchen Friday night as long as we were quiet enough we didn't spoil their Friday night TV line-up. Hell, they'd go out to see a movie and leave a bunch of us 15-year-old prostitute slayers the run of the house. Gamestore owners were trolls who rented storefronts that no one else would rent, badly lit and heated buildings with brick facing in rundown neighborhoods. No parent ever entered a place like that. If a gamestore ran a game night, no parent ever knew about it. My friends Asif and Scott and John sure as hell weren't going to tell them. Come 13, our goal in life was to find places to escape our parents ... we did not invite them to come along.
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| What here needs an x-card? |
Inventors of this nonsense are seizing opportunities to impose themselves in the place that religious nutjobs held in the 80s; the chance to spread fear that the game will damage the fragile little brains of children and that the children ~ and adults who are just as fragile ~ from these ideas that need not to exist in what some imagine game culture should be. Games, if you'll excuse the expression, are meant to be fun. Fun, clearly, as defined by teletubbies, rainbow brite, elmo and the care bears. Oops, sorry, the satanic panic vid I posted clearly defined rainbow brite as Satanic. You just never know.
This sensitivity of games, and game culture, is a serious reflection on my own arguments of games as artworks. Artworks don't have to deal with any of this shit. Of course, the fuckwits always try to get in the way, but they endlessly lose ground. And history judges them harshly.
Games, on the other hand, continuously lose ground. Where the Satanic Panic failed to restrain the course of rock music and literature, D&D did not recover. It's still losing ground. The game space is a political battleground where fun is imposed, not inspired.
You know, there's been a lot of ink spilled over the years discussing the differences in generations, but not nearly as much about the parents of those generations and how they contributed to their childhoods. You're absolutely right: our parents ("the Boomers") were very 'hands-off' ...whether or not this was due to a certain degree of narcissism, who knows (or cares)? But the kids these days, being born of "GenXers" and "Millennials" are getting a very different upbringing...probably due to our own hang-ups and whatever-whatever.
ReplyDeleteIt all hurts my head when I start thinking about it. For multiple reasons.
Something like the X-card has its value at a convention game; people who have been through legitimate trauma shouldn't be forced to relive that trauma at the game table, and having an "out" is absolutely fine if there ultimately won't be any long-term consequences for anything. (It's one of a dozen games they'll be playing with strangers in a strange city - hardly a meaningful campaign.)
ReplyDeleteBut it's completely unnecessary if the players know each other even slightly, and if the referee knows the players even slightly (which they should, if they're inviting them to a campaign). I don't run RPGs as pickup games anymore; as you so eloquently put it a while back, I want a relationship with my players instead of a one-night stand. Being with players I trust, boundaries can be pushed slightly due to the understanding that we have - an understanding that comes from having played together many times before, that can't be replicated by any amount of "DM Codes of Conduct" or "X-Cards".
The whole thing still seems to me like an attempt to combine the thrill of risk and unfamiliarity, with comfort and safety. Seems a bit pointless to me; most people who enjoy bungee jumping will do so from more than a two-foot drop over an air cushion.
I don't want to belabor the point, Fuzzy, except Socratically.
ReplyDeleteIn which parts of human experience do you feel that people with legitimate trauma "should" be forced to relive that trauma? Or, to put it another way ...
In what moments of human existence are people with legitimate trauma able to not relive their trauma?
What is "legitimate?"
and what about just getting up and leaving? to me, this option is always available; I presume it's available to anyone except in the direst of circumstances
ReplyDeleteFor many people, particularly the generation after me, there is a deep shame associated with taking a strong stand againt public discourse. To get up and walk out is tantamount to wearing a sign, "I am a anti-social asshole." Even if the person never sees any of these people at the table again, they can't bear the idea that someone somewhere in the world views them with distaste.
ReplyDeleteMuch of the vilification of my ideas that I hear from people younger than me comes from this. Whereas my generation will confront me and describe why my ACTIONS are reprehensible, the next generation usually argues that my NEEDS are reprehensible ~ for example, my need for attention, my shameful expectations of others, how I humiliate myself by speaking, etc.
Shame is a real thing to these younger people; they use it as a weapon against each other.