Hi folx,
There's been some discussion over on Twitter this morning around the "rules as an unreliable narrator" aspect of The Wretched and W&A games, and what this means in terms of player safety - particularly with regard to those from marginalized backgrounds. It was pointed out to me - correctly - that this mechanic comes uncomfortably close to the very real experience of being gaslighted, not believed, and given false hope that you can make it if you play by the rules.
This was an oversight in the design of The Wretched - and, by extension, the SRD - caused by my own privilege and failure to critically assess what I was building (and, by extension, encouraging you to build).
Let me start by saying that if The Wretched has caused you harm in any way, I want to unequivocally apologize. I'm sorry. It's my fault, and I'm going to do better.
The next step is to talk about how I'm going to do better. Matt and I are currently speaking to a consultant on these issues, with an aim to working out how we can incorporate what we've learned here into The Wretched and the SRD. I don't know what form that will take yet - that's the nature of, and reason for, consulting with people more qualified to talk about safety concerns than we are. But as soon as we reach a point where we understand how to best mitigate any potential harm these games could cause, and properly prepare players for what they are going to experience in the game, there will be an update to both the SRD and The Wretched that reflects this consultation.
While this work goes on, I want to encourage you all to make use of safety tools and content warnings in your games. Cat Evans included an excellent content warning in Final Girl that served as the template for my warning in Go Alone. It reads like this:
Many of the roleplaying prompts in Final Girl are pretty dark. Most are standard for the slasher horror genre on which the game is based, but it's hard to cover them all. Generally, if you're ok with these films you'll probably be ok with Final Girl.
Some specific content to be aware of: confined spaces, injury, panic attacks, stalking, suicidal thoughts.
Remember: if a particular prompt messes with you, don't use it. Move o the previous or the next prompt, or just make a pull from the tumbling block tower.
This obviously does not speak to the issue of the false hope created by the mechanics of the game (and that's not a criticism of Cat; this is on me) but it's an excellent start to ensure that player safety is put first.
I encourage you to make use of safety tools in your games, and as soon as I have a solution to the issue of the block tower and the unreliable narration of the game rules I'll make another post discussing that. In the mean time if you have any questions regarding this, please feel free to reach out to Matt and myself here or on Twitter (where I'm @pangalactic and Matt is @iammattsanders).