Sensitive Topics and Themes
Anarchy is about a brutal time, and we are telling sometimes-harrowing stories, intentionally. We are also exploring themes of relationships, families, and dynasty, which are, by their nature, timelessly close to our hearts. All of us can (and should) find themes in Anarchy upsetting, but we want to find a balance where the wellbeing of our participants is preserved.
For this reason the GM team want to clarify types of themes which may come up, and others which we want to avoid. We also want to provide participants tools to mitigate and avoid distress.
Topics to avoid
The following topics are outside the scope of the stories we are telling, and should not be mentioned at all - in uptime, downtime, or as part of backgrounds:
- Rape
- Sexual Assault
- Sex with minors
Themes to soft-pedal
The following themes are ones which we recognise can commonly be distressing, and which are not core themes of our game. People shouldn't expect to come into contact with them. They can form an invisible part of your character's background, but we won't put these elements into plot (though they may be possible to infer) and you should not bring them up or discuss them at an event. They are “under the abstraction layer”.
- Pregnancy loss (intentional or not)
- Child death
- Death of a pregnant person or death in childbed
- Violence against children
- Genital mutilation, castration and circumcision
Themes to expect
Anarchy explores bad times for good people, and bad people alike. This is a (non exhaustive) list of things which might come up at any time in play, introduced by GMs, NPCs or another player; themes which we are actively exploring and stories we want to tell. We recognise, however, that these are emotive (often desirably so!). We’ll present below some ways for you to control your engagement with these (and anything else).
- Sex (as a topic)
- Pregnancy
- Infertility
- Infidelity
- Illegitimacy
- Self-harm
- Suicide
- Violence against adults
- Torture
- Partner abuse
- Incest (consenting adults)
- Religious discrimination - in particular, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia
- Simulated religious ceremonies
- Disability including (what we now call) physical and mental illness and sensory impairment
- Child kidnap
- Child betrothal
How to control unwanted themes
You can still call “Stop the Game” at any time that your own or someone else's wellbeing is at risk, and we would encourage you to do so, but we also recognise that it is a blunt instrument. There may also be times you wish to remove yourself whilst allowing the story to continue for others.
If you want to take yourself away from an interaction for any reason you are always free to use what we call the “eyeshading” gesture.
Raise your hand, as though shading your eyes. Turn away from the interaction, and move away unobtrusively so that you are no longer part of the scene. This can also be used to get quickly out of character.
Demonstrating the gesture:
You should not engage with someone who is eyeshading, and should divert your attention from them, allowing them to get out of the way.
You can also tell the GMs if something is likely to be particularly challenging for you and we can try to keep you out of the path of it. Sometimes this is easy; other times it may prove impossible, but we are open to the conversation.
A Biblical scene of Noah's shame exposed to his sons. Two of them are eyeshading.