Consideration of Disorders and Conditions

[Harmonic]

I'd like to assume Reigen meant if a player is portraying a character with a disorder and the reporter finds it offensive, Flammos.

That makes much more sense, aye.

But... don't we have that in the rules already? I kinda' thought we did... It's about portraying anything offensively, IIRC. From orientations to stereotypes and other such. If we don't, it should be an intrinsic part of Respect.

That's the sense I got from this all---that is was already so much akin to the rules that I didn't understand why suddenly it was like, such a big thing. But I don't know, I feel kinda foolish right now and just... sad.

Really, I'm not feeling too great about any of this at the moment, if I'm being honest. :\

[TwilightDisciple]

[CappnRob]

You know, I don't see why there's a problem here. People seem to be agreeing on the general idea of "if you're going to RP out a special condition then do your homework and do it right". Honestly, this is a two way road here people.

If you're going to RP a disorder, you're obligated to be respectful about it.

If you're someone with a disorder IRL, then you should be accepting of those who want to RP these disorders within reasonable error.

If you're RPing a disorder, you should know better than to play it for shiggles.

So on.

So forth.

Compromise, you know?

[JTJP770]

Hiya, I've been on CotH for a good year now. Some of you know me, but a lot of you don't. I'm not an active forums poster, more of a lurker. I usually just sit back and watch the shit storms brew, but this one? I just.. am amazed at.

I thought this server was supposed to be mature? As Clovis said, "The internet doesn't exist to protect feelings" and he's right. Wuvvums also said, "We're more then the internet, we're a community." And she's also right. So when it comes to mature topics like this, why doesn't one do the mature thing and -leave- if they're bothered by it.

"Oh, but Jake that would mean it's restricting my rp." Why would you want to rp if it's bothering you? And if you're bothered by what is happening IC to a point where it's affecting your state of happiness? Then you may want to take a step back, and do what Xigo said and just chill out for a while.

I feel like if I share my views on this, we're just gonna keep going back and forth in a circle. These disorders happen, they have names to classify them for what they are. Why get offended by the name of it, but allow the actual effects? I just don't see the.. logic in that I suppose. If it's portrayed well, let it go. If it's offensive, why not try talking to the person about it instead of going. ''HAY. UR OFFENDING ME I GONNA TELL A GM."

"Hey, I have this <Insert thing here> in real life, or I know someone that does. The way its' being portrayed is a bit offensive, can I tell you what bothers me about it, and possibly help you fix it?"

tl;dr Jake goes on about how being constructive and helping people learn about these things are better then just saying you can't say it's this but you can have the effects.

I'm out, no more comments from me.

[Geoni]

I have a feeling that this thread could be locked at any given moment.

My opinion is this:

Disorder in RP should be treated as anything else in RP: if it's executed well and sensibly, then it will be taken as such. If it isn't, then it won't be. And it's usually a clear distinction between sensible and insensible. Just as any RPing flaw, the player should seek to fix it, and other players should suggest it in feedback.

Unless it's either ICly or OOCly clear that a player is mocking an ailment, disease, disfigurement, impairment, etc., such things should be permissible in a RP environment.

And this is World of Warcraft RP we do here. There's this word in that title, war, and it causes a number of psychological or physiological issues for the people involved and should be expected to pop up in RP. But again, I have no say in things and this is just my opinion.

tl;dr: Think 'viewer discretion advised'.

[Sol]

I'm just gonna throw myself back into this. Why grab at real-world conditions that affect the human mind and apply them to a fictional world and to minds that, frequently, are not human? Do people feel as though by assigning their character's mental state an acronym, it somehow affords their woes additional gravitas through the notion that there's real-world research going into the condition, or that it's something real people suffer from?

That's the same logic that goes through the heads of soap opera writers when they're drawing up the outline of the latest 'topical' plotline. And I think it can be degrading to grab a real-world condition and turn it into an RP experiment, a spectacle for people to enjoy. That's entirely apart from the obvious fallacy of trying to apply real-world psychology and psychiatry to a world that is fundamentally fantastical.

Honestly? If you want to depict mental illness of any sort in a medium like this, then utilising that ambiguously defined blanket term of 'insanity' -- the one that frequently recurs as a general trope in fictional media -- is infinitely more flexible and a whole lot less insensitive than trying to assign modern psychological classifications onto fictional characters of your own design in a fantasy world of Blizzard's. It's obvious that characters like Arthas and Illidan weren't entirely right in the head, but I'm so thankful that the writers of this series never tried to diagnose them. If they did it'd just be odd. I look at people 'diagnosing' their characters in a similar light. Depicting 'insanity', at least, is hard to construe as needlessly offensive.

I have plenty of characters who have heaps of flaws and issues. Some of these issues are intensely cerebral. They have suffered, and often their very states of mind can be defined by ongoing, internal suffering. Perhaps the most 'noblebright' of all my characters, Castor, is still struggling with the guilt of having committed what he views as murders in a time of war. These are characters with whom a psychiatrist would probably have a field day if they were real people, but they're not.

They're not, and I'm not trying to make some bold and provocative statement with these characters, like a filmmaker making a movie about schizophrenia might be. I'm just playing characters whose mindsets interest me. So I depict their respective mental states as seems reasonable based on what makes them who they are, without trying to fit them into modern psychiatric moulds that I honestly know nothing about. (And yeah, I have tried researching into pertinent psychiatrical fields when trying to figure out how to depict certain characters of mine, but that's no substitute for an actual education in it.)

Personally, I think it seems fair to avoid labellng a character as 'Oh, they have PTSD' or 'Oh, he has schizophrenia' unless you have a strong medical background in the relevant psychiatry, because otherwise you don't . . . really know what you're talking about. And I suspect that someone with a proper background in the relevant psychiatry might take a more tactful approach to issues like these.

Those are just my personal feelings on the matter. I'm not trying to criticise anyone's style or police people's roleplaying, but those are the reasons I wouldn't try something like that myself.

[Duraza]

So you know, I just wanted to bring another option to the table. Because, from what I've read I'm hearing a lot of "read up on what you want to rp to rp it properly." And that's all fine and good. I mean, reading up should probably happen regardless but I just wanted to offer another tact.

Just think back to that awesome example of Durnholde Syndrome provided earlier (an analog for Stockholm Syndrome). Now I'm not trying to say you should just make up your own name (.... in fact, I'm sure that might open its own bag of worms. Please don't). However, you could attempt to create an analog suitable for the WoW universe. It's the same way you can look at arcane (or fel) addiction as an analog for drug addiction. Both have heavy similarities but there are pieces that makes one more suitable for a fantasy setting. The analog also 'softens' the topic in general by creating some distance from real life issues. At the same time, fel addiction doesn't lose any of its seriousness in a rp context.

So yeah, one way everyone could go about being happy is by taking away the names of certain disorders and focusing on portraying these disorders as accurately as possible. Or you could try and make a sort of analog to them in the WoW Universe. I think this too is a viable option that should be considered if you're interested in roleplaying a person with a unique condition.

[Cressy]

I have to ask, how does the sensitivity of this subject differ from any of the others in the past? Genuinely asking.

[Hexproof]

... Seriously people... I'm actually surprised at the sheer childishness of some of the people on both sides of this discussion, though I earnestly worry it devolved into an argument with the amount of vitriol that can be noted in some of the posts. Regardless, is it really, really that difficult to agree that mental disorders, real or fictional, need to be shown a level of respect?

And at the same time, is it that difficult to understand that telling people not to ever touch a subject with their writing is disrespectful, insulting and childish? Note that I do mean that in terms of absolutes. Telling someone not to touch a subject that they are not portraying correctly or are unable to portray is much more reasonable, but I'm not a massive fan of the comparisons being made in some parts, and I'm going out of my way to not name names, hence my lack of quotes. I agree with a lot of the viewpoints mentioned, but only to extents in a lot of cases.

As someone who does have several disorders and various mental issues, it does bother me when people portray them inappropriately, fetishize them or outright misuse them to make their character more "unique" or "special", but at the end of the day I make sure that rather than tell them they can't do it, I try to talk to them first. I make sure to express my opinion to -them- in a polite and understanding way, because a lot of the time, when feelings are trampled in this sort of thing, it's not intentional and people are more than capable of being accommodating without being offended, provided I've approached them maturely.

Sensitive subjects should be handled sensitively. Not avoided or abused.

Now if this is going to remain a discussion, I've no more to say here.

If this is turning into a bare-knuckle brawl where we shout social justice buzzwords and call each other "ableist" and "cis scum" or what have you without any real justification or intent to further the server as a whole toward a solution to this issue we can all work with, please give me a moment to get some popcorn.

[Clovis]

[Rigley]

If this is turning into a bare-knuckle brawl where we shout social justice buzzwords and call each other "ableist" and "cis scum" or what have you without any real justification or intent to further the server as a whole toward a solution to this issue we can all work with, please give me a moment to get some popcorn.

This isn't appreciated.

Spoiler:

But seriously.

[Grakor456]

Alright. Since it seems that all attempts to have this not break from immaturity have failed, seems I will be forced to lock this topic before I go to bed.

Good evening.