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.

 

[macd21]

You really think you need an X-Card to notice when that is the case?

Yes.

Years ago I was running a game in which one aspect of the play was making one player miserable. She didn’t feel she could talk about it, mostly because she felt she’d get exactly the kind of reaction some people here are insisting on - that they’d demand a ‘conversation,’ that they’d try to convince her she was wrong, that they’d tell her that the gaming table wasn’t a therapy session, that they’d tell her to leave.

Eventually it made her so miserable that she left anyway. I didn’t find out until years later why. I had no idea that aspect of the game made her uncomfortable. And had there been an X-card at the table, I would have easily excised that part of the game and moved on.

You can’t always tell what is going on with the people at your table. People don’t like admitting that they’re not happy with that scene of torture, or murder, or the beating, or the one where the child is trapped in a box, or standing in the sun for hours wondering if you’re going to die, or rape, or... do I go on? And one of the reasons they don’t like bringing it up is because they know that almost without fail, the immediate response is a question that they really don’t want to answer at a table with their friends (or worse, strangers). The X-card gives them a safe way to let raise the issue. And s vital part of it is the fact that they can do so without the fear of that follow up question.

And when you get down to it, the GM’s desire to have a spider-monster attack the PCs just isn’t that important.

 

[Phion]

Aw well. I tried to get folks to actually engage specifics instead of hypotheticals. I did actually try.

But unfortunately it’s easier to win arguments when you don’t ever bother actually discussing.

Is there academic studies on the use of x card? Is there unbiased quantative or qualitative surveys? From what I know the answer is no. Someone came up with the x card because it would hypothetically help to prevent "bleed" (a understandable cause) with a list of guidelines and explanations as to why they think it would help. Detractors of this method have provided hypothetical reasons to the short comings and impacts this will have for EVERYONE at the table through an attempt of mixing personal experience while cross referencing real world scenarios that have similar features. The detractors of the detractors have gone on to say that detractors of x card are wrong because hypothetically their hypothetics would never happen hypothetically they must just be bad people or atleast ignorant.

EVERYONE is going off hypothetics here, because thats what happens when you try to norm a model that is not scientifically measured. If we decide to develop a new rule were if you write something in a forum causing someone distress and they can type "x" in response to you meaning you would have to change the way you are writing or just stop with the failure of doing so leading to a possible ban, based off your thousands of posts hypothetically you might be against this? You dismiss issues with nothing but hypothetics with no intention of adapting your world view.

 

[Hussar]

@Phion - I'd point out that this isn't new to gaming. I heard about this four years ago from the Fear the Boot Podcast and when they talked about it, they certainly weren't all that surprised about it, as if it had sprung out of nowhere. This isn't just being pulled out of someone's posterior. This is an ongoing practice that has been used in con's and in games for some time.

Is it "scientifically studied"? Probably not. But, again, I'm arguing against endless hypothesizing. Let's actually use some real examples here. Pull out a module, look for something that you think might run into an X card situation and let's discuss possible strategies for how to make this work.

Dueling made up scenarios where everyone simply creates a situation that best fits their argument in order to "prove" their points is useless.

I'd point out that there is a pretty lengthy list of behavior that is verbotten on the site. Keep it grandma friendly, no swearing, no politics or religion (although that one gets bent a few times), that sort of thing. I could just imagine the ENORMOUS outcry from the free speech folks if a con tried to be even half as controlling over your speech as this site is.

We don't have an "x-button" because we have active moderators, anonymity, and a shopping list of bannable offenses.

But, hey, why not just toss yet another side bar conversation on the fire instead of actually discussing the issue. Keep it up and eventually it will go away right? No need to actually engage, we can just bafflegab our way around, just like every freaking time anything like this comes up.

I'm so bloody sick of it.

 

[generic]

I'll probably be lambasted for this. But, to make an argument from statistics, how many people are suffering panic attacks during the middle of a session on average? Is this actually a problem? Have you seen it happen? This entire argument is a pointless hypothetical, and one side thinks that the opposing side is made up of emotionless sociopaths. I can deal with being called an asshat, even when I, for the most part, agree with users like @Panda-s1 and @Hussar, but what I can't abide the poisonous vitriol being thrown. No one knows if this is a problem or not, and no one knows if these debated hypotheticals actually make sense in context. At least be civil.

Once again, this may be an immense problem in gaming that I simply haven't seen happen, but you can't pretend that your ideological foes are equivalent to misanthropic sociopaths simply because they don't agree with you.

 

[generic]

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.

That doesn't seem to be my or @Celebrim 's argument. Instead, we have both expressed the belief that the X card is inhuman (me) or that it isn't necessary, and causes more harm than good (both of us). I never said that my game of Elves and Dwarves is more important than someone's mental breakdown.

 

[Hussar]

Again, I'll point out, when confronted with someone having a panic attack, and your (not you specifically, but, the general your) first reaction is "oh, no, how is this going to impact my game?" then, yes, misanthropic I think really does apply.

 

[generic]

Again, I'll point out, when confronted with someone having a panic attack, and your (not you specifically, but, the general your) first reaction is "oh, no, how is this going to impact my game?" then, yes, misanthropic I think really does apply.

You seem to be utterly incapable of understanding my argument that the X card doesn't seem like a good way to help people feel safe at the table. Good day, and stop name-calling. Calling people misanthropic doesn't accomplish anything. In fact, do you know where I think misanthropic applies? Perhaps, it applies to people incapable of looking at others as human beings, only able to rage against them with righteous anger, as if they were nazis.

 

[Phion]

@Hussar

100% agree that in the end all a dueling of scenarios is cause an endless discussion and people more keen on percieved winning than reaching an actual truth. I guess the reality of the game is that unless you take an interest in podcasts and staying up to date with regional/ global events it would be very easy to conclude that topics such as "bleed" or the x card model as nonsense if such topics are not relevant (at face value) in there own sphere of play. I can appreciate that you feel that you are just going in circles after years of experience on similar matters. But for what its worth I am leaving this subject from an attitude of complete dismissal of the topic to a attitude of at best a way to avoid bad feelings for some who need the support to at worst a tool that is not needed for a portion of the gaming population; so perhaps these discussions have worth.

On the matter of the x button, its not very far fetched if you think about it.A moderator can not identify my feelings for me, site rules can not possibly make rules that follows everyones emotional needs or act out on them consistently and lastly regardless of the language or intended meaning used by a user they have no control on how I will recieve their message. If I am so upset by a forum, the expectation would be I would be able to stop/ remove myself from the discussion; but then why should I be excluded when all they have to do is adapt to my needs? And why should you be deprived of your preferred means to communicate to suit mine, you have feelings and preferences as well. I think the basis of the detractors comments is simply wanting to know where we end up following the change and how the future looks with the ever changing position markers, when something is introduced to them with no hard evidence all they are left to work with is the hypotheticals.

It would be nice if in a few years time there was research conducted to give us some kind of way to identify if such methods are actually working; but of course this would be insanly hard to pull off and would be questioned regardless.

 

[Voadam]

Ok, let's see if I can practice what I preach. Let's use a scene from an actual adventure and see if we can find some resolution strategies when someone uses an X card.

Presumption: There are 6 people at the table, DM +5 players. For the sake of argument, let's put it at a con and everyone is a stranger. ((feel free to post your own example if you don't like this one))

Scene: Ghosts of Saltmarsh - The Final Enemy

In the module, there is a drug known as Rapture Weed:



((Note, any typos are mine))

Now, here's something that might trigger someone. It's a drug with a pretty wild negative effect. I can see how this might be an issue and I'm sure you can too. So, PC takes the drug (maybe unwillingly) and rolls the 1%. DM begins describing the horrifying visions.

Player taps the X card.

Now, what do you do? Me, I just go, oh, ok, and say, "Ok, after x hours of nightmares, you wake up". And then move on with the rest of the adventure.

It needs to be a bit more specific on context than that though to actually judge or discuss meaningfully.

Did the PC just unwillingly take a drug in downtime so skipping forward has no big effect on the story? Did they think it was a combat potion and unwittingly incapacitate themselves in the middle of a fight and you short circuited everyone from the rest of the fight and fast forwarded to a future time later? Did this interrupt an important scene of the con game such as a climax?

Is it the lurid nightmare description that disturbs them or the fact that they were unwillingly drugged? Would you alter how you handled it knowing it was one or the other?

 

[Plissken]

Wow, just found this crazy thread. What happened to just killing monsters and taking their treasure?