D&D 5E Player consent required -spoilers for new adv book

[MonsterEnvy]

That’s a clear sign of a missed opportunity.

Well a character dies if they become a mind flayer 99.9 % of the time

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Cosmic horror and existential horror are MUCH more complex than body horror, and frankly I don't think WotC is either willing or able to actually include those things in their games.

Not sure why you are talking about this, it’s not relevant to the topic.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Not sure why you are talking about this, it’s not relevant to the topic.

Welcome to the Internet.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, session 0 it, its a body horror aspect, not a 'excuse me, are you ok if I stab you right now?'

There needs to be some buy in to the fact that if you are playing a cosmic horror game, that some bad things are within the scope of the story.

Hopefully more people play BG3 and understand that there is room for players to be feel some angst and discomfort and they will actually be fine because its not real.

It’s weird to me that y’all are acting like the adventure requires consent for literally any consequences, rather than the actual case.

It requires player consent to have the PC have a physical transformation into a monster just for being in an area. If a player says no to it, the adventure continues and the remaining consequences of danger remain, and the DM can either only have transformations selectively, or just put that aside altogether.

It’s not a purely session 0 issue, it’s one part of an adventure that has elements of body horror that the designers don’t feel that players should have to be okay with in order to play the whole adventure.

 

[Scribe]

It’s weird to me that y’all are acting like the adventure requires consent for literally any consequences, rather than the actual case.

It requires player consent to have the PC have a physical transformation into a monster just for being in an area. If a player says no to it, the adventure continues and the remaining consequences of danger remain, and the DM can either only have transformations selectively, or just put that aside altogether.

It’s not a purely session 0 issue, it’s one part of an adventure that has elements of body horror that the designers don’t feel that players should have to be okay with in order to play the whole adventure.

Would you not handle this at a session 0 though? Like cover the potential at that point without spoiling any details?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Like it says the player must consent to the increasing effects of the Far Realm as the ritual continues, and does not miss out on any game benefits if they choose not to deal with that.

It’s a simple rule that the player can opt out of dealing with “changes” from Far Realm magic/influence, and the adventure doesn’t punish them for doing so.

Genuinely, how is that an issue?

 

[Steampunkette]

So... from the start of this thread all the way through the dissent has basically amounted to:

"Don't tell me how to run my game!"

Which. Y'know... Fine. But throw out the rest of the book that defines LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THE ENTIRE ADVENTURE.

The whole book is telling you how to run this adventure. Holy crap. "Within the temple is a high elven priest of Lathander named Eloreth Niannodanel" NO THERE ISN'T. It's a goofolk homebrew Paladin of The Oozelord and her name is SQUISHY. Don't tell me how to name my NPCs! punches the book

The fact they toss on a "Consent Required" label should not be this big of a deal or cause this much dissent. And who cares if there's a reminder this late in the book? If you had a Sesh 0 discussion about it having a little flag in the book that goes "Yoo hooo! I'm the thing you had a Sesh 0 over!" is not a big deal. It does no harm to anyone.

Sincerely, this feels like a tempest in a teacup 'cause someone got angry over there being a warning in a book from WotC and not liking the tone of it. And we've -never- seen that before, right..? glances to the NuTSR Saga

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Would you not handle this at a session 0 though? Like cover the potential at that point without spoiling any details?

Probably not, unless it’s a bigger chunk of the adventure then I’d guess from reading the pic in the OP.

Like I’d let them know the basic premise of the adventure and that it’s got Far Realm stuff, but the body horror conversation would come up before that part of the adventure begins, and if the players are enjoying things but as a group don’t want to deal with that sort of thing I’ll just take that element out and carry on.

 

[overgeeked]

Well a character dies if they become a mind flayer 99.9 % of the time

I’ll repeat, clearly a missed opportunity.

 

[darjr]

I ran far realm adventures at Gameholecon that included very similar things. Consent and a bit of session zero before the events was extremely important. I had no idea how important before doing so. I had one player exempt themselves, no harm no foul, and another at another time explicitly ask not to have their character have to go through it.

Another asked that I cover it in only generalizations and innuendo instead of any detail.

Another table looked at me and asked “wait, like really gross and gory? Yes please?”