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.

 

[Hussar]

As a possible negative in this, though, the presence of the safety valve X-card may actually increase the odds of things going darker than they otherwise would. The x-card represents an unspoken consent to delve darker because it exists as a safe out, meaning play might actually become more toxic than it would absent such a valve. This isn't a given, clearly there's lots of confounders, but it's a known part of human psychology that if you have a safety valve you can push the limits harder. Something to be aware of.

Kind of like in the NFL, players are hitting much, much harder today than they were in the past because the padding is so much better. Which results in more serious injuries even though the players are technically "safer". I can see that.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So, I see a lot of arguing for the X-card that follows a certain pattern. There are the following assumptions:

a) there are people that will suffer distress in some gaming situations that is harmful to their psyche
b) it is proper to prevent harm to these people

And this fact:

c) The X-card is a mechanic that is intended to help people in distress in gaming from suffering harm to their psyche.

These form the set of premises for the following conclusions:

1. The X-card should be used to prevent harm.


I think this is a bit flawed, in that there's a bit of ignoring that there are also other methods to prevent harm (assuming the premises are valid), and there's no examination of any harms that the X-card does. Further, I think there's a lot of fuzziness in c), as far as how the X-card mechanic is employed and works. If you read the pamphlet, the results are a bit different from many of the arguments in this thread about how the X-card should work. There's also the bit where there's no cost/benefit evaluation in the employment of the X-card with regard to other players -- this seems to be a large point of contention, with sides either dismissing it as a useful consideration or coming up with doomsday scenarios where employment of the X-card ruins entire campaigns. Absent hyperbole on both sides, though, there is a good question of the cost/benefit to the other players in some situations such that I think the all-or-nothing nature of the X-card is a poor fit for the rare times it will be used.

I also see a second conclusion that roughly follows the above:

2. Anyone that doesn't agree with 1. must also disagree with premises a or b or both.

I, personally, find this to be the most toxic conclusion in the thread. I'm sure I'll be told that people really do disagree with a or b, but I've seen little evidence aside from a general disagreement with conclusion 1. There've been recent exhortations to treat those that would use the X-card as rational humans not unaware or looking to disrupt but in genuine distress and need of consideration, but this same argument is denied to anyone disagreeing with the X-card as a mechanic.

 

[Panda-s1]

As far as I understand what used to be considered the unspoken social contract in gaming and such matters it kinda worked similar to the employer<>employee contract: leave your personal problems at the door. Otherwise, in the context of the gaming , the social contract would be for all parties to recognize that they are gathering to have fun and play games. It is fluid, flowing amongst themselves as a group; and thus if one felt triggered by something happening, or for some reason related to an external circumstance which boiled over during play, perhaps, would not the social contract--which involves all forms of understood responsibility as shared by and among the group as individuals--also extend to the person, then, to just say, "Hey, I have X issues that I don't feel will allow me to play" without interrupting the understood reason for the gathering and thus facing his or her own social responsibility in kind? No sympathy or empathy is lost here with this scenario, all contracts and dignities are maintained through the shared responsibility of each individual.

so okay, having the expectation that someone should just quit because they might have a panic attack is the best scenario? let's think about this for a second.
the scenario you describe would go like this:
one player feels like they might have a panic attack. since it is something expected of them, they tell the DM (who, while we're on the subject of social responsibilities, has the main responsibility of ensuring the players have a good time) they can't play anymore then leave. suddenly the game is down a player. the group is going to have to wait for another player to show up (which can be a long time depending what time of day it is). in the end one player got half an adventure, and 3(-ish) players and the DM had to wait a while between losing a player and having to get a new one situated (this also implies time doesn't run out or players get impatient and leave anyway).

scenario 2 is like scenario 1 except the DM takes time to adjust things for 3 players, which takes up time (even more so if it started like the first scenario and the DM got impatient). you get 3 supposedly satisfied players and one DM who had to spend extra time changing the adventure so he doesn't tpk the party.

so somehow, these both are better scenarios than one player indicating they aren't okay with something, the DM takes a minute or two to change something in the game (or gloss over a scene because it wasn't an actual challenge to the players thereby actually saving precious time???), and ending with all 4 players having gotten a full adventure and one DM who did a little extra work?

inb4 someone says "the other players got a diminished experience", how? how did they get a lesser experience? they got a game that had a minor alteration.

 

[evileeyore]

@evileeyore - I gave an example of how to move on. If you actually want to talk about the practicalities, and possible strategies, of how this works at the table, let's do that.

My problem is with your blithely moving on. Are really saying you're fine continuing, knowing you're going to cause someone more discomfort because you actually have no idea what caused them discomfort in the first place?

It might not have been you. It might not have been the scene. It might have been another player at the table, but absent your cherry picked "and I know exactly what caused this" examples, you have no idea.

This is what I object to with the X Card as presented in Consent to Gaming. And I will never allow that version at my table when I running a game. If someone asks to bring in the X Card and presents it as the prior variants? Where they (all the players) understand that invoking brings the responsibility of, at the minimum (and no other questions asked), responding to "What is causing the distress/What needs to glossed over", then absolutely fine. Bring it.

 

[Panda-s1]

My problem is with your blithely moving on. Are really saying you're fine continuing, knowing your going to cause someone more discomfort because you actually have no idea what caused them discomfort in the first place?

It might not have been you. It might not have been the scene. It might have been another player at the table, but absent your cherry picked "and I know exactly what caused this" examples, you have no idea.

This is what I object to with the X Card as presented in Consent to Gaming. And I will never allow that version at my table when I running a game. If someone asks to bring in the X Card and presents it as the prior variants? Where they (all the players) understand that invoking brings the responsibility of, at the minimum (and no other questions asked), responding to "What is causing the distress/What needs to glossed over", then absolutely fine. Bring it.

so like, do you question the motivations and feelings of every person you meet? I'm really not sure why you're presenting this as some sort of puzzle when the x-card is usually going to be used in an obvious scenario. it's also possible to use deduction, like "okay, it can't be the orc I already talked about orcs" or "it can't be another player, they all already interacted with this one player".

and as I and others have said before, one bad hypothetical example does not mean the entire system is a failure.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

so okay, having the expectation that someone should just quit because they might have a panic attack is the best scenario? let's think about this for a second.
the scenario you describe would go like this:
one player feels like they might have a panic attack. since it is something expected of them, they tell the DM (who, while we're on the subject of social responsibilities, has the main responsibility of ensuring the players have a good time) they can't play anymore then leave. suddenly the game is down a player. the group is going to have to wait for another player to show up (which can be a long time depending what time of day it is). in the end one player got half an adventure, and 3(-ish) players and the DM had to wait a while between losing a player and having to get a new one situated (this also implies time doesn't run out or players get impatient and leave anyway).

scenario 2 is like scenario 1 except the DM takes time to adjust things for 3 players, which takes up time (even more so if it started like the first scenario and the DM got impatient). you get 3 supposedly satisfied players and one DM who had to spend extra time changing the adventure so he doesn't tpk the party.

so somehow, these both are better scenarios than one player indicating they aren't okay with something, the DM takes a minute or two to change something in the game (or gloss over a scene because it wasn't an actual challenge to the players thereby actually saving precious time???), and ending with all 4 players having gotten a full adventure and one DM who did a little extra work?

inb4 someone says "the other players got a diminished experience", how? how did they get a lesser experience? they got a game that had a minor alteration.

I was of course posing a general rather than specific instance. It is up to the player/person to decide upon the extremes of such and as warranted, which includes them making their own responsible decisions and personal assessment regarding forthcoming actions in relation to their thoughts and in concert with the responsibility of the shared contract.

 

[Ovinomancer]

so like, do you question the motivations and feelings of every person you meet? I'm really not sure why you're presenting this as some sort of puzzle when the x-card is usually going to be used in an obvious scenario. it's also possible to use deduction, like "okay, it can't be the orc I already talked about orcs" or "it can't be another player, they all already interacted with this one player".

and as I and others have said before, one bad hypothetical example does not mean the entire system is a failure.

I'm actually a bit taken aback that the suggestion is that guessing is sufficient or that GMs should be trusted to just know. It seems that the purpose of the X-card to begin with is because the GM can't know, but now we're okay leaving it up to the GM to guess what the specific problem is and push on with that assumption? I don't know about you, but that sounds like a perfect recipe for actual harm continuing to occur. If the person in distress has no duty to identify the source of the distress, then my best move to protect them from harm is to ask them to leave the table. It's the only 100% method of preventing further harm.

Now, are there cases where a GM will be able to adequately gleen information without any other communication -- yes, of course. I don't think that perfect executions of a mechanic meant to deal with messy situations is a useful metric, though. If you tap the card, you have the duty to identify the vector of harm. You don't have to explain, you don't have to talk about it, but you have to identify the problem. And, even if I could guess accurately, I'm going to want that confirmation so that I do not accidentally continue to cause harm.

 

[evileeyore]

so like, do you question the motivations and feelings of every person you meet?

Since I didn't mention motivations or feelings, no.

I'm really not sure why you're presenting this as some sort of puzzle when the x-card is usually going to be used in an obvious scenario. it's also possible to use deduction, like "okay, it can't be the orc I already talked about orcs" or "it can't be another player, they all already interacted with this one player".

It absolutely could be something that has been present for the entire game, but the Player has simply reached the end of their rope with it.

It can be anything. And absent them telling you, you have no actual way of knowing. It can even be something that hasn't happened, but they suspect is about to happen, so they are stopping it before the scenario is presented.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm sorry, did I offend some people's sensibilities?

I honestly don't really care at this point.

I love it when people are finally getting honest. Let's take a look again at what you are actually saying to see if it holds together.

Look at what's being argued - one person is so distraught and upset that they, in front of five other people (or thereabouts), reach out and touch the X card, in order to stop whatever it is that is triggering their responses because their personal trauma is bleeding over into the events of the game.

Ok, sure. I've been in this situation. I had a typical mysterious parentage plotline requested via a player back story that I was playing out, when one night the player central to that whose backstory it was said to me, "Can we just not play through this? My dad just died and I'm having a hard time processing this right now."

So I said....????

(You seem happy to insert speech on behalf of others. So go ahead now and project on to me what you think I said. Done?)

Ok, what I actually said was, "I'm sorry to hear that. Of course we can lay off this. Not a problem. Take your time. And if you ever want to pick it up again, just talk to me, but for now it's on indefinite hold."

Easy. No X cards were required. Someone just respected me by communicating and I respected him, but I would have still respected him had he blown up or broke down into tears or anything else, because my treatment of other people doesn't really depend on how they treat me.

Now, I can imagine theoretical requests in different situations that would not have been so easy to accommodate. Fortunately, a long running multiplot campaign that I'm authoring myself is the easiest to accommodate any vetos on play. If someone vetos me in a long running multiplot self-authored campaign I can pretty much always recover in the long run. So in a game among friends, an X card or any other sort of veto is not particularly disruptive. And naturally it is also the situation where the tool is the least necessary, because it's a game among friends.

But let's take a big notice of the bait and switch you pull here, and think about that for while in depth.

So, when those other players sexually harass that one player off the table, that's perfectly acceptable because the majority is having a good time? Someone who has sat down at a table has signaled consent but is not allowed to remove that consent later? :wow

Think about this a second. You ask us to imagine now a situation were 5 people are sexually harassing someone. But you didn't. If you had thought through you example instead of having a good cathartic rant where you accuse everyone else of being subhuman and you vent your outrage, you would realize that a situation where 5 people are sexually harassing another one is not a situation where an X card will do any good. Because the sort of people that would adhere to an X card aren't the sort of people who would sexually harass someone in the first place. If you ever find that you are surrounded by 5 people sexually harassing you, get out of there for your own safety immediately. Because tapping an X card is not going to see to your safety in that situation. So situations of actual danger, the X card is useless. It does nothing.

What we have here is what's called a "toy solution". It pretends to be a solution. But it only helps in easy situations where it isn't needed, like someone who doesn't want to experience rapture weed. The more serious the situation, the less helpful the thing actually is. Which is of course the point. The point is to create an illusion of safety so that people can be gradually manipulated out of their comfort zones for the gratification of the manipulator. Don't tell date rapists about the X card, or they'll start putting them in their cars. Every sociopathic SOB is going to want one.

We can go through all the hypotheticals you want, but this pattern of being a "toy solution" will occur in all of them. The more you might want an X card, the less it actually helps.

The whole "well, the one person not having a good time should leave" is horrifying.

If there is five people sexually harassing someone that is horrifying. But if that person leaves, the angels rejoice that the harm didn't get worse. Leaving that situation is exactly the right thing to do.

Do you really not see the parallels of your arguments? Seriously?

I'm being offensive and judgmental? Good! Anyone who thinks that their game of pretend elf is more important than the real life suffering of a fellow human being deserves to be negatively judged.

I see perfectly clearly thank you. You are the one that doesn't see anything. You don't even see your own words. The rest of us can see perfectly clearly that the X card doesn't stop sexual harassment from happening and isn't a solution to that.

Now what I think isn't something anyone else is seeing, is If anything, it enables it, because it gives the harasser a negotiation methodology by which he can apologize, reset, and work a different angle while give the mark a sense of security. But it doesn't make anyone safe. But it does make them feel safer. It's lets an manipulative person get people to ignore red flags. That's the purpose. You see having an X card out there indicates a desire to be transgressive by whomever put it out there. Normal social conventions might cause people to hesitate to breach certain subjects, but with an X card they can trial those waters safely. With a list of affirmative consents, they have been given an attack plan. You see, I'm the sort of person who runs PG games maybe PG-13 games because I believe I have a moral obligation to do so. I'm not interested in transgressing into "unsafe" spaces. I have nothing to lose here. I'm never going to run an X rated game. I'm never going to need to try to push into anyone's trauma or get some sort of thrill by getting someone to bleed all over the place. I don't run games to sexually titillate myself or others, and I left several RPG scenes when I realized that 80% of what was going on was elaborate flirtation and social dominance games and that for better or worse that was the main attraction - the main aesthetic of play - for most gamers in that scene. Maybe you ought to stop and think about who does want to do that, because they sure as heck need an X card. The need it to not scare people away, and to deescalate when things start getting creepy.

You didn't think before you posted Hussar. Or you might have realized just how much you were really revealing. You see there is a huge jump between someone not wanting to deal with a normal element of game play and someone being sexually harassed. And you crossed that bridge without hesitation, conflating the two willfully and with malice.

Your acting like I'm the one that isn't safe to game with. By why would anyone reading this thread think you were safe to game with?

 

[Panda-s1]

You didn't think before you posted Hussar. Or you might have realized just how much you were really revealing. You see there is a huge jump between someone not wanting to deal with a normal element of game play and someone being sexually harassed. And you crossed that bridge without hesitation, conflating the two willfully and with malice.

Your acting like I'm the one that isn't safe to game with. By why would anyone reading this thread think you were safe to game with?

okay, you know someone's gone completely off the rails when their tone of voice reminds you of Bubble Bass from goddamn Spongebob Squarepants. I think I've ignored everyone that isn't actually interested in discussing the subject, so good luck, and I hope you find people for your con table that aren't the same 4 friends you have every time.