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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 5364512">I admit to be neither good at expressing discomfort as a player, or catching it as a GM.  As a player, I tend to simply "close up", ya know, blank expression, crossed arms, leaning away from the gaming table, and not saying much.  These are my signs, though even if someone else did them exactly, I probably wouldn't catch it.  Even though from my psycology reading, I know these are common signs, but I would still undoubtedly miss them in others. I do however, try my best to explain what players are getting into in the beginning of any campaign.  How I like to tell a story, how I describe things, what I like to avoid, and I try to get player feedback THEN, so I can prepare ahead of time.  Of course, best laid plans and all that.   As a player, I try to talk to the DM when they make it clear that talking to them is OK, I don't like to make my upsetness public, so I generally wait for the smoke/bathroom/food break or after the game.   Generally, I try to avoid symbolism.  Yes, it's good writing, but good symbolism is often wasted on a tabletop game, which leaves only bad symbolism.  If I write a character named "Sally Parlin and she stands up to the beloved king Omanka, and thus gets hung...."  well that's gonna open a kettle of fish I just don't want to get into.   Though it's hardly a squeemish point, religion and politics probably makes me the most uncomfortable in any game.  Political intrigue is hella fun when it's clearly limited to the game world.  The occassional political/religious joke is usually acceptable, as long as it's in good taste.  But when people start going off on X politician or Y religion, well, that's what makes me uncomfortable the most.   Both as a GM, since it's my job to ensure everyone doesn't throttle each other, and as a player since being very politically educated makes me prone to engaging in heated debate at the slightest hint of these things.  In response to Oryan77: It's the nature of people, we shy away from things that upset us.  Most of the violence in any tabletop game is pretty mundane compared to just about any show on daytime television these days.   And lets take your rape example.  What if we have an evil-aligned character(which is not uncommon in most games) who in IRL would gut anyone they saw trying to rape someone else.  Unless everyone understands that they're playing their character full-hilt, then it comes off as weird when they say, let the rape happen, or even defend the rapist!  Then someone comes out with that they had a friend who was raped, and even if it's in-game, now hates player X for playing their character full-tilt.  Pretty soon there's a rift between the people who take role-playing really serious and the people who think some actions, be they IRL or in-game are just inexcuable.   Not everyone excells at keeping game-life and IRL seperate. So keeping role-playing a fun hobby usually involves avoiding certain subjects to make sure everything stays fun.</blockquote>

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