RPG Evolution: When Gaming Bleeds

Monte Cook Games recently released Consent in Gaming, a sensitive topic that addresses subjects that make some players uncomfortable. Central to the understanding of why there's a debate at all involves the concept of "bleed" in role-play.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

Bleed Basics​

Courtney Kraft explains bleed:

It’s a phenomenon where the emotions from a character affect the player out of the game and vice versa. Part of the joy of roleplay comes from diving into the fantasy of being something we’re not. When we play a character for a long time, it’s easy to get swept up in the highs of victorious battle and the lows of character death. When these feelings persist after the game is over, that’s when bleed occurs.

Bleed isn't inherently bad. Like actors in a movie, players sometimes draw on experiences to fuel their role-playing, consciously or subconsciously, and this bleed can happen organically. What's of concern in gaming is when bleed has detrimental consequences to the player.

Consent in Gaming explains the risks of negative bleed:

There’s nothing wrong with bleed—in fact, it’s part of the reason we play games. We want to be excited when our character is excited, to feel the loss when our characters do. However, bleed can cause negative experiences if not handled carefully. For example, maybe a character acted in a way that your character didn’t like, and it made you angry at the player too. Or maybe your character is flirting with another character, and you’re worried that it’s also making you have feelings for the player. It’s important to talk about these distinctions between characters and players early and often, before things take an unexpected turn.

There are several aspects that create bleed, and it's central to understanding why someone would need consent in a game at all. Bleed is a result of immersion, and the level of immersion dictates the social contract of how the game is played. This isn't limited to rules alone, but rests as much on the other players as it is on the subject matter.

One of the experiences that create bleed is a player's association with the game's subject matter. For some players, less realistic games (like Dungeons & Dragons) have a lower chance of the game's experiences bleeding into real life, because it's fantasy and not analogous to real life. Modern games might have the opposite effect, mirroring real life situations a player has experience with. There are plenty of players who feel otherwise of course, particularly those deeply involved in role-playing their characters for some time -- I've experienced bleed role-playing a character on a spaceship just as easily as a modern game.

The other element that can affect bleed is how the game is played. Storytelling games often encourage deeper emotional involvement from a player, while more gamist tabletop games create a situational remove from the character by their nature -- miniatures, tactical combat, and other logistics that are less about role-playing and more about tactics. Live Action Role-Playing games (LARPs) have the player physically inhabit their role and are thus provide more opportunities for bleed. Conversely, Massive Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) might seem like they make bleed unlikely because the player is at a computer, experiencing the game through a virtual avatar -- and yet it can still happen. Players who play a game for a long time can experience more bleed than someone who just joined a game.

Dungeons & Dragons is a particular flashpoint for discussions of bleed, because while it is a fantasy game that can easily be played with disposable characters navigating a dungeon, it can also have surprisingly emotional depth and complexity -- as many live streams of tabletop play have demonstrated.

These two factors determine the "magic circle," where the reality of the world is replaced by the structure of another reality. The magic circle is not a magic wall -- it's porous, and players can easily have discussions about what's happening in the real world, make jokes derived from popular culture their characters would never know, or even just be influenced by their real life surroundings.

The deeper a player engages in the magic circle, the more immersed that player becomes. Governing the player's social contract within the magic circle is something Nordic LARP calls this "the alibi," in which the player accepts the premise that their actions don't reflect on them but rather their character:

Rather than playing a character who is very much like you (“close to home”), deliberately make character choices that separates the character from you and provides some differentiation. If your character has a very similar job to your ideal or actual job, find a reason for your character to change jobs. If your character has a very similar personality to you, find aspects of their personality that are different from yours to play up and focus on. Or play an alternate character that is deliberately “further from home”.

Bleeding Out​

Where things get sticky is when real life circumstances apply to imaginary concepts. Bleed exists within the mind of each player but is influenced by the other players. It is fungible and can be highly personal. Additionally, what constitutes bleed can be an unconscious process. This isn't necessarily a problem -- after all, the rush of playing an awesome superhero can be a positive influence for someone who doesn't feel empowered in real life -- unless the bleed touches on negative subjects that makes the player uncomfortable. These psychological triggers are a form of "bleed-in," in which the player's psychology affects the character experience. Not all bleed moments are triggers, but they can be significantly distressing for players who have suffered some form of abuse or trauma.

Consent in Gaming attempts to address these issues by using a variety of tools to define the social contract. For players who are friends, those social contracts have likely been established over years through both in- and out-of-game experiences. But for players who are new to each other, social contracts can be difficult to determine up front, and tools like x-cards can go a long way in preventing misunderstandings and hurt feelings.

Thanks to the increasing popularity of tabletop role-playing games, players are coming from more diverse backgrounds with a wide range of experiences. An influx of new players means those experiences will not always be compatible with established social contracts. The recent incident at the UK Gaming Expo, as reported by Darryl is an egregious example of what happens when a game master's expectations of what's appropriate for a "mature" game doesn't match the assumed social contract of players at the table.

This sort of social contract reinforcement can seem intrusive to gamers who have long-suffered from suspicion that they are out of touch with reality, or that if they play an evil character, they are evil (an allegation propagated during the Satanic Panic). This need to perform under a "cover" in their "real" life has made the entire concept of bleed and its associated risks a particularly sensitive topic of discussion.

X-cards and consent discussions may not be for everyone, but as we welcome new players with new experiences into the hobby, those tools will help us all negotiate the social contract that makes every game's magic circle a magical experience.

 

[jasper]

Then they are the asshats who should be shown the door because they are the ones intending to be unnecessarily disruptive. They are the bad actors in this scenario, not the X-card or the people who may occasionally need to invoke it.

But I did not give you their names, addresses, bank account numbers, or pc names. So, how would you know the person tapping the x card is a bad actor. (Insert evil Vincent Price laugh)

 

[Celebrim]

this is disingenuous.

No it isn't.

1) a gaming convention isn't just a single table with one adventure being played. there are other things going on at the convention. unless your entire experience is ruined you don't deserve a full refund.

Playing at my table is a premium experience. It requires an extra fee. Also, extra fees for particular games aren't that uncommon.

2) you don't deserve a refund simply because someone tapped an x-card at your game. your game isn't ruined because an element was removed.

You don't get to decide that do you? Isn't that something for the person to decide? Are you saying that someone can unilaterally decide that there own experience is ruined to the point that I have to stop a 3 hour session for 20 minutes to replace it with a less well thought out improvised scenario that wasn't the one they paid for, but that those people have no say in whether their play experienced was ruined? You have unidirectional compassion. As a GM I have a duty to all the players. Always. I have to decide what is good for the group and the game as a whole. That means tossing the player who is hardest for the rest of the group to accommodate, whether that person is a jerk and deserves to get tossed, or that player just got triggered and it's a tragedy that they have to leave.

3) other people will be running games and if you feel compelled to leave one game there's gonna be at least a few others desperate for players.

True. And in some cases it will have to be the person who touched the X card who will have to go looking. I would in this case endorse them receiving a refund if they were forced to leave the table.

 

[macd21]

No, I don't. Or, I really don't see that it is a simple question.

If I'm running a public game and someone X cards me, I have to do a mental calculation. Is there a cost associated with this? If the answer is, "No.", great things are easy. I breathe a sigh of relief and try to keep things on track.

But if there is a cost, then now I'm being asked to trade the enjoyment of one player against that of everyone else at the table, some of whom may be legitimately annoyed to have their experience altered - an experience that in some cases that they paid for. And there will be times that there is a cost.

As a trivial example, this could be what I have prepared to play when they X card spiders:

Iintesting ideas/monsters found in a Giant Spider Lair?

In my hex-crawl campaign, the party ran across a Giant Black Widow Lair. Next game, They're delving down in there to hopefully save someone who was cocooned and dragged in (and come across some fantastic treasure). I'm trying to create an interesting and multi-layered battle, but can't think of...

www.enworld.org

If a Con thinks that X cards are a good thing and universally X card usage should always be respected without negotiation, then they should put their money where their mouth is and refund the money of everyone else at the table as a show of good faith in the system. The person using the X card can still pay for the experience they want, but refund everyone else. Since we are assured no one will ever abuse this system, what do they have to lose?

If everyone else at the table has a problem with the outcome, then yeah, they should refund everyone at the table. But the X-card isn't the problem in that situation. The problem there is either with the scenario, the player, or the GM.

But to be quite frank, what you're presenting is a ridiculous situation. Yes, sometimes the GM is going to have to adapt on the fly due to the X-card. And the game will move on, and the rest of the players will be fine with it, and nobody will even remember it by the end of the session.

 

[macd21]

You don't get to decide that do you? Isn't that something for the person to decide? Are you saying that someone can unilaterally decide that there own experience is ruined to the point that I have to stop a 3 hour session for 20 minutes to replace it with a less well thought out improvised scenario that wasn't the one they paid for, but that those people have no say in whether their play experienced was ruined? You have unidirectional compassion. As a GM I have a duty to all the players. Always. I have to decide what is good for the group and the game as a whole. That means tossing the player who is hardest for the rest of the group to accommodate, whether that person is a jerk and deserves to get tossed, or that player just got triggered and it's a tragedy that they have to leave.

Yeah, the problem here is definitely the GM.

 

[Celebrim]

If everyone else at the table has a problem with the outcome, then yeah, they should refund everyone at the table. But the X-card isn't the problem in that situation. The problem there is either with the scenario, the player, or the GM.

You might be surprised that I agree with you in pretty much every particular. The problem is that the X card isn't the solution either. If the X card is too weak to create regular negative situations, it's too weak to create regular positive situations as well. At best (and at worst) most of the time it is just a replacement for verbal communication. It doesn't harm much but it doesn't help much either.

But to be quite frank, what you're presenting is a ridiculous situation.

I'm not sure it is ridiculous. I'm 100% certain it will happen. But if by 'ridiculous' you mean it's an extreme example that will rarely occur, then I fully agree with you. But equally, all the justifications for the X card are at least as ridiculous and involve at least as rare of situations. (And notably, the less rare the situations justifying the X card are, the less rare the disruptions will be as well.) I mean multiple people advocating for the utility of the X card admit that in 100's of games they've played with it they've never once seen it touched. They just feel good about it being there even though no one ever uses it.

That was the essay (or video or whatever it was) that really raised my eyebrow and started me thinking hard about what was actually going on from a psychological perspective.

Yes, sometimes the GM is going to have to adapt on the fly due to the X-card. And the game will move on, and the rest of the players will be fine with it, and nobody will even remember it by the end of the session.

Maybe. Maybe not.

 

[Panda-s1]

@Panda-s1
(sorry only got access to phone so detail not going to be so great from here)

I did note that the scenario would be very extreme to derail a campaign HOWEVER its very possible that the change could a) effect the session b) cause a change in story element that dilutes the experience for everyone else at the table with half baked solutions

again, how is removing something "diluting the experience" for other players? considering all the elements that go into making an enjoyable gaming session I don't understand how removing something in an adventure can so impinge a player's overall experience.

I grow tired of the point of view that some of you (Hussar) feel the need to point out that their stance somehow makes them a better person than me. My professional life involves the risk of bodily excrement being thrown/smeared at me, bites, thrown objects, taking said individuals out in the community to improve their quality of life, helping to learn their form of communication as many are none verbal and thats just a small tip of the iceberg without even going into my voluntary work. So have a bit more tac please.

excuse me, where did I say in my post that I'm a better person than you? people in this thread just love projecting, it seems. honestly I consider you one of the better people in the thread since you aren't trying to push weird ideas and at least agree on some points.

you don't need to talk about what you do you in your personal life either. if anything you should understand that the issues people face in your line of work might also show up in your gaming sessions and you should take that into consideration.

also re: Hussar and others, it's not just this thread. there's a number of people in these forums who seem to take issue with anything that might "ruin" their game because they might need to change something in their campaign for X reason. apparently for some player input isn't as important as seeing their game run exactly how they want it, so of course they're gonna be riled up by something like this. I've seen Hussar argue with these sorts of people in other threads.

 

[Voadam]

For folks who admit that maybe, just maybe, the card might be called for - do you run games where your climatic scenes are not at all thematically linked to the previous elements of the game? Like, if your boss fight at the end is a huge gorram spider... you'd have been putting in loads of spidery stuff beforehand, right? There would have been little spiders, and egg sacs, and webs all over the place, right? And the player would have carded out earlier, not at the climax scene.

Surprise carding out at the climax scene is just as likely as surprise spider as the climax scene. You are unlikely to hit the issue only at the end. You'll have the ability to adjust, or let the player know that if the spider-stuff is an issue, this won't be a game for them, and the thing goes on without that player.

You never have surprise twist elements in a climax scene? No reveal that an NPC or BBEG is actually something different than everyone had been led to believe all along?

I can see doing a werewolf hunt but it turns out in the climax fight to actually be a vampire who made her kills look like a werewolf did it to cover her own tracks.

Ravenloft had the red widow, a beautiful woman who turns out to be a shapeshifting spider monster, the aranea from the core 3e MM can do the same thing. Surprise climax spider.

 

[Panda-s1]

You never have surprise twist elements in a climax scene? No reveal that an NPC or BBEG is actually something different than everyone had been led to believe all along?

I can see doing a werewolf hunt but it turns out in the climax fight to actually be a vampire who made her kills look like a werewolf did it to cover her own tracks.

you never drop hints about twist elements? twists are generally considered good when there's some sort of buildup to them, especially when you either a) hint at it so when the twist does come it clicks in people's heads or (more rarely) b) set up a twist in a way that it makes perfect sense in retrospect. otherwise it just feels like a non-sequitur for no reason other than shock value—man, I brought this up in an earlier comment, too.

in your werewolf scenario, there would probably be clues that would lead players to believe it was actually a vampire, like why is every victim's neck horribly mangled or how come the murders only happen at night or a witness saw a bunch of bats after they heard screaming, what's up with that? otherwise the BBEG might as well be a mind flayer or rust monster at that point—WAIT hold up isn't this the entire premise of the adventure zone: dust? really?

in any case, without ANY clues, it turning out to be a single kobold the entire time is WAY more entertaining than it being a vampire

Ravenloft had the red widow, a beautiful woman who turns out to be a shapeshifting spider monster, the aranea from the core 3e MM can do the same thing. Surprise climax spider.

yes, the red widow, a monster entirely themed around spiders, no one would ever realize she's actually a spider the entire time lol

 

[macd21]

Ravenloft had the red widow, a beautiful woman who turns out to be a shapeshifting spider monster, the aranea from the core 3e MM can do the same thing. Surprise climax spider.

And if a player is somehow naive enough not to see that coming, you change the surprise climax spider into a surprise climax octopus/bear/bunny rabbit, so that you can continue your game. Trust me, it won’t be the end of the world. Everyone will still have fun, everyone will laugh about it later.

 

[Voadam]

you never drop hints about twist elements? twists are generally considered good when there's some sort of buildup to them, especially when you either a) hint at it so when the twist does come it clicks in people's heads or (more rarely) b) set up a twist in a way that it makes perfect sense in retrospect. otherwise it just feels like a non-sequitur for no reason other than shock value—man, I brought this up in an earlier comment, too.

in your werewolf scenario, there would probably be clues that would lead players to believe it was actually a vampire, like why is every victim's neck horribly mangled or how come the murders only happen at night or a witness saw a bunch of bats after they heard screaming, what's up with that? otherwise the BBEG might as well be a mind flayer or rust monster at that point—WAIT hold up isn't this the entire premise of the adventure zone: dust? really?

in any case, without ANY clues, it turning out to be a single kobold the entire time is WAY more entertaining than it being a vampire

I've done it both ways and played in games both ways.

It is completely reasonable as a story element to have the bait and switch where the clever villain successfully covers their tracks for most of the time and it is only the reveal where you can look back and see what they have done in context to set it up and how there was no contrary clue at the time. This makes the reveal startling and a shock, not a bad thing in an RPG story.

It is also completely reasonable to have a scenario lay thematic clues throughout so the deception is revealed as you go and the PCs are Sherlocks who figure things out more and more before the big climax and the climax is not as shocking but is in thematic keeping with what has been built up over the investigation.

For the clever vampire with the shock reveal climax intent, she could deliberately be throwing off monster hunters by using her command of wolves and shapeshifting into a wolf herself, and timing her predations to a full moon so that people try and poison her with belladonna and use silver instead of garlic and holy water.

If storywise I wanted the climax confrontation to be the shocking reveal I would leave it at that and let the reveal be when she flashes fangs in the fight.

If RPG storywise I wanted it to be more open ended there might be vampire clues that PCs could pick up on or not so the campaign play and the PCs are more in the driver seat on the end result.

If RPG storywise I wanted the reveal to actually happen beforehand so they can appropriately prepare for a tough vampire fight, I might have the townspeople think it is a werewolf, but emphasize multiple clues about it actually being a vampire attack.