D&D General Of Consent, Session 0 and Hard Decisions.

[MarkB]

I use BG3 and GoT as they're the most prominent recent fantasy examples.

Peoples' experience of BG3 is going to vary significantly. Like, if you always play the good-aligned character you're going to skip past a lot of darker themes. I bowed out of playing a Dark Urge run because it just wasn't for me.

And, of course, there will be plenty of people who haven't played it at all, and some who haven't seen GoT either.

 

[Zardnaar]

Most RPG horror stories you hear on the internet are made up. I can assure you, forms like this do get used in real life (I’ve used one myself, for a Curse of Strahd game). Just because you haven’t experienced it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I’m not surprised you haven’t experienced one being used, since it sounds like you typically DM, and they are a tool DMs use. I’ve certainly never heard of a player bringing one to their DM before today, though personally if I had a player bring one to me, I would take it as a sign that they have some subject matter they are particularly sensitive to, and this is their attempt to bring it up to me.

If I ran curse of strahd I would mention things.

I played it with inexperienced DM (first game they ran). I knew roughly what to expect going in but sone of the things in it were a bit of a shock. I didn't expect them to go that far either in the book (I owned it but didn't read it throughly).

 

[TiQuinn]

What is a seafood pizza player?

I don’t know but there’s something fishy about it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If a person has enough social anxiety issues related to communicating preferences with an authority figure... I personally don't see any major harm with someone coming in with a short list of items that they would ordinarily hit their "X card" on and give it to the DM to read through, rather than having to speak to the DM personally and try and explain the items on the list verbally (as oftentimes that may trigger the DM to attempt a conversation about them, something the person was possibly hoping to avoid.)

Instead, the person could hand their list to the DM that says something like "Here are a few things I have difficulty with. If you expect your game to possibly include any of them, please let me know and I will be happy to not join this table so as to not cause a disruption in the game." The ball then falls into the DM's court to either let the player know that yes, there's no guarantee something from the list won't come up and they may not want to join... or that no, nothing on the list should be a issue (and indeed the DM now have a list of things they can make sure to avoid to keep this player comfortable.)

Now I'm sure there may be some people who would question why a player would be okay with sitting at a table and playing an RPG but wouldn't be okay with talking with the DM privately... but really, does that matter? Anxiety is anxiety in whatever forms or methods it takes... so can't we just help our fellow humans out if it's not that big a deal? If a short list to read is easier and faster than a full conversation? Then just go with it. At least that's how I look at it.

 

[Charlaquin]

If I ran curse of strahd I woukd mention things.

I played it with inexperienced DM (first game they ran). I knew roughly what to expect going in but sone of the things in it were a bit of a shock. I didn't expect them to go that far either in the book (I owned it but didn't read it throughly).

Usually I do just have a talk about such things in session zero. The reason I chose to use a form in the Curse of Strahd game was because I wanted to preserve some mystery about what sensitive content might come up. I didn’t want to risk blindsiding anyone with some of the content in the module (in particular the violence against children and the potential cannibalism), but I also didn’t want to spoil those moments if everyone was ok with their inclusion (which it turned out they all were). So, I put together a form and framed in terms of, “none of these things are necessarily guaranteed to come up in the game, but any of them might. Please use this form to indicate your comfort level with all of them, as well as anything else you would specifically like me to be aware of, so that I can make adjustments if any of these are hard lines for anyone, or if there’s a general preference among the group to avoid anything in particular.”

 

[Zardnaar]

I guess I’m curious about these “horror stories.” What exactly are these drama queen seafood Americans getting up to?

Heh.

In online gaming spaces generally Americans outnumber everyone else.

Cultural differences do exist between the various ex British empire parts of the world. And a lot of the those differences are unspoken.

If you join an Australian lobby for example expect more swearing. Back when we played Call of Duty for example we ended up with a heap of Americans in our private lobbies. They kinda liked the ANZAC lobbies.

To us they were all Americans but to other Americans there was unspoken drama over where you came from, accents etc.

If I go into an Australian game unspoken rule is I'm getting mocked because of my accent. But it's acceptable to give it back to them both barrels.

Basically differences in experiences, mores, game genre etc.

 

[Zardnaar]

Usually I do just have a talk about such things in session zero. The reason I chose to use a form in the Curse of Strahd game was because I wanted to preserve some mystery about what sensitive content might come up. I didn’t want to risk blindsiding anyone with some of the content in the module (in particular the violence against children and the potential cannibalism), but I also didn’t want to spoil those moments if everyone was ok with their inclusion (which it turned out they all were). So, I put together a form and framed in terms of, “none of these things are necessarily guaranteed to come up in the game, but any of them might. Please use this form to indicate your comfort level with all of them, as well as anything else you would specifically like me to be aware of, so that I can make adjustments if any of these are hard lines for anyone, or if there’s a general preference among the group to avoid anything in particular.”

Gotcha.

I would be more likely to phrase it as sonething like R16 or R18 horror.

I do mention general D&Disns these days with spells that over ride free wil.

Don't role play a jerk or be a jerk, no isms, no phobia and where I draw tge line is impact on other players.

Everyone has a different definition of jerk so I include basic examples of fireballing the party, stealing from other PCs, sniffling coward or lone Wolf types.

 

[Zardnaar]

Peoples' experience of BG3 is going to vary significantly. Like, if you always play the good-aligned character you're going to skip past a lot of darker themes. I bowed out of playing a Dark Urge run because it just wasn't for me.

And, of course, there will be plenty of people who haven't played it at all, and some who haven't seen GoT either.

Evil wasn't fun in BG3 I played it once.

Even in good aligned games though there's slavery, sexual assault, sexy party time, free will etc.

My games don't remotely go tha

t far but if BG3 or GoT don't offend you nothing in my games will content wise.

They're a good canary.

 

[Charlaquin]

Gotcha.

I would be more likely to phrase it as sonething like R16 or R18 horror.

The problem with that is, some things (like cannibalism and violence against children) can be a specific “ick” for some people who are otherwise comfortable with content you might expect to see at whatever general rating you want to aim for. And if I rely on the players to say “I’m fine with R18 generally, but please don’t have my character unknowingly eat the flesh of human children” there’s a good chance they won’t think of that, even if it would be very upsetting to them if it happened. And, if I ask them about that specifically, they’re going to expect it to come up. But, if I present a brief questionnaire about how comfortable they are with a number of subjects, including cannibalism, violence against children, starvation, sexual conduct, sexual violenice/assault, graphic descriptions of violence, unwilling bodily transformation, etc., I can get a sense of if I should just cut that content from the adventure, without spoiling the moment if nobody objects to the first two.

 

[Zardnaar]

The problem with that is, some things (like cannibalism and violence against children) can be a specific “ick” for some people who are otherwise comfortable with content you might expect to see at whatever general rating you want to aim for. And if I rely on the players to say “I’m fine with R18 generally, but please don’t have my character unknowingly eat the flesh of human children” there’s a good chance they won’t think of that, even if it would be very upsetting to them if it happened. And, if I ask them about that specifically, they’re going to expect it to come up. But, if I present a brief questionnaire about how comfortable they are with a number of subjects, including cannibalism, violence against children, starvation, sexual conduct, sexual violenice/assault, graphic descriptions of violence, unwilling bodily transformation, etc., I can get a sense of if I should just cut that content from the adventure, without spoiling the moment if nobody objects to the first two.

Point.

When we played it caused an ick moment or two. But we all knew each other.

I wouldn't run CoS myself with unknown people. I probably wouldn't run it full stop tbh. I've never liked Ravenloft that much.