PG-13 and what it actually means based on definition

[monkeywithstick]

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Your post may simply be inspired by a desire to play with your friend, but here are some issues.

Tyranny of the majority. The only efficient way to build a system is so that it pleases the most amount of people. You dont build on the outliers. Also, your post comes off vaguely manipulative because just as you dont know their triggers, you dont know if arelith would trigger them at all. That's a conversation for you and them. Not for us here on the forum. Your fear and uncertainty isnt a tool to be used so that you can avoid uncomfortable conversations via server policy changes. Talk to your friend. Figure out what works. If arelith isnt one of those things, so be it. The server is maintained with the goal of pleasing the most people at once, within a sphere of immersive story telling. Some people wont be in that sphere. Your friend might be among those. You wont know without some communication.

I made some illustrative points regarding the PG-13 rating. They stand.
It is, based on my limited understanding, not a sphere in which my friend would wish to be. I think that is unfortunate, however I am not expecting that to change. It is also, not really my business to go digging around inside his thoughts asking "would this upset you?" that is a job for a therapist. It is certainly not a subject I would wade into with anyone without some reasonable expectation that it might result in anything other than a "no that sounds like a terrible idea."

I dislike your accusation. I also dislike the inferrence that being more inclusive will please less people. That has not been my experience in large scale RP environs.
Suffice to say I disagree, but I will leave it there, I have no desire to derail the thread with an argument.

[Subutai]

I've noticed that a lot of the the reasoning for Arelith's PG-13 rule, and the reasoning of many of the people who want it more strictly enforced, seems to be due to a very in loco parentis outlook on how the server should be.

While I agree that if stuff like sexy elven fun times (or whatever kids are calling it nowadays) was allowed, Arelith would almost certainly turn into one of those weird "adult" servers, and that it's probably fine to draw some kind of line at how much torture-porn we allow, I really disagree with the idea that we need to be strict on these things because we have to protect players from words that might hypothetically make them uncomfortable, or that their parents might hypothetically be opposed to.

I'm going to call out a few things in monkeywithstick's post, not because I think they're the only one saying these things, but because they provided several good examples of where I disagree, and the post is conveniently not too far above this one.

[Couple of examples of people]

I think both examples here are leaning very heavily on the in loco parentis that I mentioned. It's assuming that these people wouldn't be able to handle what's going on in the game, and that they need to be protected from it. Instead of being able to make their own choice on whether or not to play, or whether or not to proceed with a certain roleplay, it's assumed that they can't handle it and therefore that the roleplay should never occur.

Again, this isn't targeting this example in particular, but the general sentiment that many players seem to have that agrees with it. The sentiment that we should assume that people are unable to handle specific RP, and that we need to save them from it. If someone is playing this game, making characters and roleplaying, can't we at least give them the dignity of allowing them to decide what roleplay is right for them, instead of acting like they can't handle it?

And much as yes, asking someone to please not on an OOC level is fine for some people, it isn’t for everyone.

Why isn't it for everyone? It's easy enough to say, "I'm not comfortable with this kind of RP" or "Can we fade to black?" or any number of things. If the torturer says "No", that's bad, obviously, and can't be allowed, but as above, why do we have to protect these hypothetical people so much that we have to insist that every roleplay that happens on the server be censored because a player might, for some reason, not want to OOCly request a fade to black? This seems to remove a huge amount of agency from that hypothetical player, and cast them purely as a helpless victim who has no ability to act of their own accord.

But some consideration given you do not really know the age, gender, circumstances, mental health or otherwise of the player on the other end of our exchange is never going to be a bad thing.

I think this is a good place to reiterate my points from above. Overall, the people we're talking about here are people. They're not agentless victims being tossed about, at the mercy of the server. If someone feels that their circumstances or mental health aren't conducive to certain types of RP, that doesn't mean they're so fragile that they can't handle the fact that it's occurring at all, nor does it mean that they can't call for an end to a specific instance if it's happening to or around their character.

If someone is playing this game, I think it's safe to assume that they're capable of either handling this kind of roleplay, or in stepping away from it when it arises. i think it's fine to assume they'll be able to handle that level of simple responsibility, rather than to say that every other player on the server needs to constantly monitor their own RP to make sure they don't do anything that could, hypothetically, make another player uncomfortable.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

A fair point with the F bomb thing. But I ask you a question.
So in the MPAA rating - you say the F bomb may be used once. Ok, cool.
Once per how often?

Once per character per swear word? After that, follow the rule of numbers, and simply imply with emotes like "curses vehemently." (In writing, you're supposed to write out the word for the first number in any sentence, and then it becomes okay to switch to writing the numbers as numbers, formatting-wise). No limit on the number of IC curses (Orc-kisser, son-of-a-hobgoblin, etc).

Personally, I'm not offended by language. I understand we have "children" who play here, but my argument is that the context and content of the world is more damaging than any foul language that might be used in a non-gratuitous method meant to enhance a narrative. No, I don't think it's clever to sling the F-word around left and right. I do think that dropping it early on in your association with a new character, and then switching over to a [curses] emote can drive home the point of a character lacking eloquence quite handily - but moderation and tastefulness should be the rule of the day, I think.

Am I wrong to think this is one of those things that probably wind up getting taken on a case-by-case basis, kind of like the PG-13 vs. R rating in a movies due to swear words? Context matters a lot.

Obviously, we should err on the side of caution and remember, there are a lot of characters, and if all of them drop 1 f-bomb per year per character that's more than 10x/day across the server. It adds up really quickly, and because of that it's all the more reason to look for a reason not to do it.


On a philosophical note, however-

I firmly believe if a child is old enough to be subjected to the concept of slavery, murder, and a history of attempted genocides that come with playing on our server, their guardian is also implicitly supporting the notion that they can handle a curse word or two done as part of the story. If those words aren't okay, the content of the server certainly isn't, either, and it's hypocritical to foist responsibility for that onto the staff and server rather than the parent for not parsing the content.

My single mother kept me out of dark corners of the internet while working 50+ hours a week until she decided I was ready to go exploring dark places with a flashlight and a rope, so I don't buy the idea that it's impossible to keep track of what your kids are doing on the computer you purchased for them.

[Durvayas]

Long wordy post about oversensitive people seeing things that might trigger them, because apparently arelith isn't kid friendly enough and stuff is 'problematic'.

Neither you nor your friends should play here then. The solution is staring you in the face; Find a social server, because clearly Arelith is not what you're looking for.


I'm going to revisit this particular point of yours, because I agree entirely with CosmicOrderV.

Torture RP may be fine for you, it would be in poor taste for others, it would be actively harmful for others, and the solution we have from some people is essentially “they probably shouldn’t play this server.” Or “They should speak out.” That is very much putting the onus on the afflicted rather than creating an environment they might like to play in.

You're damned right its putting the onus on the afflicted, because we're not mind readers. Frankly, if people cannot handle certain types of RP due to some mental issues, thats entirely on them. This server is not a hugbox, its not a safe space. We're not here to give you and your friends therapy for your issues. Nothing done on the game should be "Actively harmful" for any of the players. If it is, that player needs to leave for their own sake and seek professional help for their own personal issues.
We slaughter eachother wholesale in game. We enslave eachother. We rob eachother. War, genocide, disease. The server and setting contain a plethora of triggers, and its 1000% unreasonable to expect us all to put on kid gloves(on top of kid gloves) and change the server to handle someone because their mind is made of glass and something someone says or does is the mental equivalent of stepping on a landmine.

Your post comes across as quite manipulative, and I'm going to be entirely blunt.
Arelith is not a safespace, because forgotten realms is not a safe space. If you and your friends cannot handle the concepts of slavery, violence, characters being creeps, etc... you lot are playing in entirely the wrong setting. The forgotten realms is a dark place, full of dark concepts. Your problem isn't that there is a missing stair. We aren't working around a 'problematic' step; The staircase is working as intended. Your problem is that for various reasons, you and your friends can't handle the staircase at all, and should go elsewhere where there is a ramp to handle your handicap.

IC creeps are definitely a thing, and yes, they can cross the line between fine and totally not okay every so often(and thats where DMs come in), but there is nothing wrong with characters, especially evil ones, that are creepy. The phantom of the opera is a great example, his creepyness is done tastefully. He's aggressively romantic towards Christine, but at no point does he cross the line into sexual assault. He kidnaps her, demands she profess her love to him, and holds her true lover hostage. She agrees, he realizes he doesn't want her because its not the same if she doesn't mean it, and he releases her as the peasants with torches and pitchforks close in. Its literally a classic, and one of the most famous operettas in history.

And while that particular theme is dark, its a beacon of light compared to the vast majority of the forgotten realms itself, of which Arelith is already a very toned down version of it.


And I'm going to come back to this once more, because the logic here bothers the hell out of me.

Torture RP may be fine for you, it would be in poor taste for others, it would be actively harmful for others, and the solution we have from some people is essentially “they probably shouldn’t play this server.” Or “They should speak out.” That is very much putting the onus on the afflicted rather than creating an environment they might like to play in.

I'm part of the kink community, and your arguement that some people might not want to, or be able to, voice their concern regarding content is a concept we hear a lot about people who, for whatever dysfunctional reason, can't seem to voice a safeword. I'm going to tell you what we tell people like that, because you should really take it to heart.

"If you can't voice a safeword, you need to have a conversation with those you're playing with so that they'll know to check on you, figure out a workaround, or not play at all. Your partner is not responsible for you. You are."

[Lady Astray]

While I whole heartedly agreed with one of Durvayas' previous posts, I must say I completely disagree with the latest one. Players shouldn't be obligated to satisfy your "kink" with their role play. I'm not here to satisfy your personal fetish. Things like "murderporn" should really be kept to servers like Sinfar where consent is necessary.

[CosmicOrderV]

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Your ability to misread intended points is once again, so absurd, it can only be taken as intentional bait and manipulation.

At no point did Durvayas suggest anyone play along with anything they don't want to. Much less 'kinks'. That was purely an example.

The point that (Durvayas) and so many others have made is that no one knows what isn't said. Like the wondrous quote in my description by Aodh Lazuli, we don't know what we haven't read. If someone doesn't have the basic mental capacity to just opt out of something they don't like, speak up and let others know? Then that's their own fault for enabling what ever occurs. Opting out is always entirely within their power here on Arelith. And as so many others have stated, most folks are pretty happy to accommodate.

This thread should probably just be locked. If the concept hasn't settled in by now, it's a fair guess further discourse won't help.

[DM Axis]

Having strayed off from the OP's inquiry and explored the PG 13 status it's time for a lock.