Consent in Gaming - Free Guidebook

[Sacrosanct]

This product has been setting fire all over the Internet it seems. I guess my thoughts can be summarized as such:

It strikes me odd why we need a product like this to begin with because this seems like a topic that would have been addressed without the need of a book to point it out, but I realize in my years of gaming, I may have not noticed situations that may have caused discomfort in others.

Some of the analogies make me question what kind of games people are playing because I guess mine have been super vanilla. I mean, it’s a game, we’re not actually torturing each other.

At the very least, if this prompts the conversation about being more sensitive to others at the table and expand session zero ground rules, that’s a good thing, right?

 

[Zardnaar]

I did something like it once. It was an Aftermath game loosely based on the comic adaptation of the War of the Worlds. The players were sold the campaign idea of PCs working toward the overthrow of the aliens.

An early session had the PCs working for an alien overlord and being sent on a collection/retrieval mission to collect culinary delicacies. I fully expected the PCs to see the targets and rebel. I didn't expect them to dutifully complete the mission. I casually asked what they were thinking in an after session debrief and found the players were afraid of the alien master, hesitant to start something without a plan, and hadn't found a good base for further operations yet.

Personally I deal with most bad stuff off camera.

The villains torture, kill murder maybe genocide but the PCs only really need to know it's happening they don't need me to describe it in any great detail.

 

[Nagol]

Personally I deal with mist bad stuff off camera.

The villains torture, kill murder maybe genocide but the PCs only really need to know it's happening they don't need me to describe it in any great detail.

Oh, I quite agree! Most, maybe all my sessions in all the rpgs I run would be PG-13 with the possibility of mature themes occasionally. I was upfront about the cargo and its purpose, but the PCs brought the women back to HQ anyway. All the terrible stuff happened off camera later.

 

[Nagol]

This product has been setting fire all over the Internet it seems. I guess my thoughts can be summarized as such:

It strikes me odd why we need a product like this to begin with because this seems like a topic that would have been addressed without the need of a book to point it out, but I realize in my years of gaming, I may have not noticed situations that may have caused discomfort in others.

Some of the analogies make me question what kind of games people are playing because I guess mine have been super vanilla. I mean, it’s a game, we’re not actually torturing each other.

At the very least, if this prompts the conversation about being more sensitive to others at the table and expand session zero ground rules, that’s a good thing, right?

In my decades of running, I've been approached maybe 2-3 times with requests that some facet of personal life was overwhelming and it'd be best if the forthcoming adventures didn't touch on it even inadvertently. Maybe twice people have confessed to neuroses and asked to avoid specific cosmetic situations. Once or twice I've noticed one or more players getting particularly uncomfortable with a situation -- either presented by me or developed by other players and helped glide play away from the trouble.

I've left a couple of tables because I didn't want to participate in gore-porn or generating erotic fiction.

I can see some base value especially in situations where you are expecting to run people you don't know through situations designed to make people uncomfortable -- especially horror, sexuality, or both. It becomes even more important when a GM decides to shock/surprise the players by not disclosing potentially problematic material upfront so as to not ruin the surprise. Personally, I see little value in trying to surprise/shock players, but GMs keep doing it.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's common sense for me, keep it pg13 in public or with people you don't know.

R or R18 is more close friends and even then it's more language (swearing) and alcohol related.

Gore porn and pick your own erotica don't appeal.

 

[ParanoydStyle]

I find it vaguely insulting that people thought that this was necessary? But I guess there must be a helluva lot of really, really bad DMs and players out there, generating all of these nightmare stories. So maybe it was necessary.

Then again my feelings overall on "the X Card and friends" are probably unpopular and definitely controversial. I don't want to get into it because I get WAY too anxious that people will misunderstand me and/or get mad at me whenever I say anything online about a sensitive topic. I used to be super opinionated--okay, I still AM super opinionated--but nowadays I try to keep my more controversial opinions to myself. It's just not worth the stress of worrying about (EVEN MORE) strangers on the internet not liking me. (If for some reason you're dying to know what I think, the super short version is that I think meta-mechanics like the X Card are infantilizing, but I think I've already talked to death the fact that I'm not really looking to engage on this topic. I think it just comes down to that I think some things are common sense that might not be and/or I really want to give gamers the benefit of the doubt by assuming they'll behave like responsible, mature adults without special rules or resources telling them how to.)

There are some games where I feel like just by playing that game you have opted in to a lot of intense, potentially objectionable, potentially upsetting content. Specifically, I'm thinking of Delta Green and to a lesser degree Call of Cthulhu in general (I just personally find Delta Green to be the most intelligent, mature, serious/grown-up iteration of CoC on the market right now). Like if I am running Delta Green for you, you have at least flipped through the DG rulebook, and you know that I'm going to try my best within reason to mess you up, emotionally, through the events of the game and the experiences of your character, and again, within reason, I'm not going to hold back or pull any punches in my efforts to scare. If a player at the table legitimately has PTSD (like, ironically, I do) and could be triggered by something in the game, I expect them to do their part as an adult human to tell me, and then I'll do my part as an adult human to not include that thing in my game.

(Personally, for instance, once owned a tiny, sweet little dog that was murdered inches in front of me. I had to rush poor little ruined, already-dead-but-we-didn't-know-it-body to the vet, and then clean his blood up off of the kitchen floor because my ex, very understandably, could not deal. He was her dog for many years before he was our dog. It was definitely in the top three most F'd up experiences I've had in my life.

Since then I have definitely been a bit triggered by cruelty or violence against animals in fiction/games/television/movies, but I can deal with it as long as it's not both totally unexpected AND super graphic. That particular combination will cause me to switch off things I might previously have enjoyed before I have a panic attack or worse. Like, I was able to sit through and enjoy the entire movie White God, even though that movie is pretty explicitly about cruelty to animals and nothing else. But when I tried to rewatch the Takashi Miike film Gozu, the thing that happens in the first five minutes of the film Gozu happened, and I immediately turned it off and have not looked back.

I've even made creative works since then in which dogs were murdered (once again this was within a Lovecraftian millieu) but when you're the creator of something it's much easier to maintain detachment because you are 100% in control of the self-upsetting stimuli you're working with.)

Fun terror, not actual terror, is the goal emotion I want to induce but the two are really, really closely linked for humans as a species. (If you think objectively about going on a roller coaster, it's actually pretty terrifying, not to mention risking your life (even if the odds of dying are infitessimally small) for no good reason, but roller coasters are super fun, at least I think so.)

All that said I really don't get the second post in this thread. Don't get me wrong, I agree, Nazis are bad. I just ran a nice little Kickstarter to fund a game to that very effect. The entire game is inseparable from the enormous dump it takes on the so-called alt right. But I don't see what this topic or MCG's product has to do with inclusivity per se?

 

[Campbell]

This product has been setting fire all over the Internet it seems. I guess my thoughts can be summarized as such:

It strikes me odd why we need a product like this to begin with because this seems like a topic that would have been addressed without the need of a book to point it out, but I realize in my years of gaming, I may have not noticed situations that may have caused discomfort in others.

Some of the analogies make me question what kind of games people are playing because I guess mine have been super vanilla. I mean, it’s a game, we’re not actually torturing each other.

At the very least, if this prompts the conversation about being more sensitive to others at the table and expand session zero ground rules, that’s a good thing, right?

These sorts of techniques originally came from the indie roleplaying community. Many indie games like Dogs in the Vineyard, Monsterhearts, Sorcerer and My Life With Master intentionally explore some pretty emotionally charged situations. In that context emotional safety, consent and checking in with each other is pretty important. In the context of adventure gaming it is less likely to come up, but when it does its not like a bad thing to show empathy and value the people more than the game.

As to walking away I think it is the case that not every game is for everyone, but at least in the moment of play being empathetic and understanding is the least we can do. I know this is not universal, but I only play games with people I like. Even if the game is not for them I still want to maintain our friendship. A little understanding goes a long way.

 

[S'mon]

But I don't see what this topic or MCG's product has to do with inclusivity per se?

Well the pamphlet includes references to the gaming table being a Safe Space, especially in the quotes. Personally I don't find that sort of language at all appropriate - some tables may be set up as Safe Spaces by the GM & players, but by default they are no more a Safe Space than any other form of social interaction between friends, acquaintances or strangers. GMing in a pub, like many London RPGers, I aim to keep the norms appropriate to southern English pub culture - except I ask for no RL political conversation during the game, since players are going to have widely varying political views. Is a pub a Safe Space? That will depend on what your triggers are, if any.

Conversely I did run a different game (high fantasy BECM Karameikos/Mystara) with a specific request to keep it Family Friendly since my 8 year old was playing his first D&D campaign, and I felt pretty annoyed with the player who thought it appropriate to bring in highly adult themes like her PC brutally murdering another PC's parents in their bedroom (after they had adopted her PC), then her plotting to abduct and do horrible things to the husband of a third PC (whose player is her RL boyfriend). I definitely felt she had violated the table social contract (at the least), but I was stuck since I always prioritise letting PCs act, then following through with the natural consequences. If there had been an X-card, well, I very much doubt I would have reached for it in the moment. I guess the best solution would have been calling a time out & discussing it once her intentions became clear.
I think good faith is always necessary. In the case of this problem player, in a different game her behaviour might not have been inappropriate but I got the impression it was the 'happy shiny' nature of the high fantasy setting that attracted her to want to enact her dark fantasies there.

 

[Zardnaar]

Well the pamphlet includes references to the gaming table being a Safe Space, especially in the quotes. Personally I don't find that sort of language at all appropriate - some tables may be set up as Safe Spaces by the GM & players, but by default they are no more a Safe Space than any other form of social interaction between friends, acquaintances or strangers. GMing in a pub, like many London RPGers, I aim to keep the norms appropriate to southern English pub culture - except I ask for no RL political conversation during the game, since players are going to have widely varying political views. Is a pub a Safe Space? That will depend on what your triggers are, if any.

Conversely I did run a different game (high fantasy BECM Karameikos/Mystara) with a specific request to keep it Family Friendly since my 8 year old was playing his first D&D campaign, and I felt pretty annoyed with the player who thought it appropriate to bring in highly adult themes like her PC brutally murdering another PC's parents in their bedroom (after they had adopted her PC), then her plotting to abduct and do horrible things to the husband of a third PC (whose player is her RL boyfriend). I definitely felt she had violated the table social contract (at the least), but I was stuck since I always prioritise letting PCs act, then following through with the natural consequences. If there had been an X-card, well, I very much doubt I would have reached for it in the moment. I guess the best solution would have been calling a time out & discussing it once her intentions became clear.
I think good faith is always necessary. In the case of this problem player, in a different game her behaviour might not have been inappropriate but I got the impression it was the 'happy shiny' nature of the high fantasy setting that attracted her to want to enact her dark fantasies there.

Doesn't sound that bad but yeah 8 year old.
I wouldn't run for children outside of family ideally with either their parents in the game or same house.

Adding an 8 year old to an adult game I kind of expect things to go wrong.

I think I saw Aliens when I was 8 so go figure. My niece is 10 and she wants to play so I'll figure that out somehow.

 

[S'mon]

Doesn't sound that bad but yeah 8 year old.

(a) I didn't go into detail there, but f on m rape & castration was involved in her plan.
(b) Didn't bother my 8 year old, but bothered me the social contract was being violated.