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

[Fifth Element]

Where is the line?

DM: “Steve, the evil Wizard is going to cast polymorph on you and turn you into a Newt. Are you okay with that?”

The line is wherever you want to draw it. WotC can't send thugs to your house to enforce their "requirements." They can only print what they think is best, on the whole.

 

[Fifth Element]

I know of it, but it's not a preference I'll ever really understand for D&D, and I don't really want to be a part of it on either side of the screen.

That's cool. But the only thing that matters is that you understand that other people do like to play that way, and that they're in Hasbro's target market too.

 

[Hussar]

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.

Because those slopes don’t grease themselves?

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, I'm pointing out that you suggest the text can only be read in the way you read it. I inferred that you were not acknowledging your reading of it is filtered through your own particular biases.

I didn't mention my bias, and I apologize for that, but show me one poster who doesn't filter everything they write through one.

And there was no inference about them not mentioning session 0.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's cool. But the only thing that matters is that you understand that other people do like to play that way, and that they're in Hasbro's target market too.

Are they? Again, where does it say in the game that consent is needed for character death?

 

[Micah Sweet]

To you, sure. But you understand that the things you find fun in the game are not universal, that other people enjoy different things, right?

...Right?

So other people don't want challenge in the game, and we should all be sensitive to that?

...Right?

 

[Jahydin]

Avoiding another PR incident is more important to WotC than good design IMO. I'm pleasantly surprised the idea of PC transformation is in the adventure at all. Laying down the law must be the only way they'd let them do it.

Agreed. I think it's a fair compromise. Just wish there was a better way to go about it.

Like others have said, the sentiment should really go without saying. I guess to me that's what makes it eye-rolling.

Just like we don't need a "This CD requires you ask for everyone's consent around you before you play" blurb on explicit CDs.

 

[Jahydin]

Also, lots of posts of players walking out of games just because of something happening they didn't like.

Seems more of a maturity issue to me...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

When I play chess with my friend I usually ask for his consent to beat him.

Then he soundly beats me and I am mad because he did not ask for my consent. Wait, bad example.

All kidding aside, times have changed. If you played wargames with your bearded wargame pals smoking camels in the basement some yesteryear, this contract or agreement would seem pretty absurd.

But culture and times change. Expectations differ. The player base has gotten younger and more sensitive to certain things. You market to your audience.

Though I do remember whining a fair bit when my DM cursed my dwarven fighter with lyncanthropy of some odd sort. I would turn into a moon dog and did not want to roleplay it. Maybe I should have had a contract with him probably would have been better than my whining.

Now? I would roll with it. But people have different preferences.

Yeah I’m nearly 40 and when I was a kid I was perfectly comfortable telling my friends to stop a thing that made me uncomfortable, or was doing so for someone with less ability to speak up (being a kid sucks).

Only when it gets to the point of abrogating people's own responsibility to sort themselves out.

It's more that I expect people to, as far as possible in the knowledge it isn't always, leave their baggage at the door when they show up to the game. And if they don't happen to pick that baggage up on the way out because the game has made them forget about it, so much the better.

Also, IMO a benefit of roleplaying games is that if someone has a fear of something they can play a character who specifically doesn't have that fear. I mean, I've got a pretty good fear of heights unless there's a guardrail, but I can still play characters who make their living by scaling sheer walls at risk of falling very long distances.

I had a nightmare several nights ago, after months free of the stupid thing, of mushrooms growing from under my skin, all over my body. Because of watching some slips from The Last of Us. Earlier this year, I had nightmares about something growing in my brain as I dealt with intracranial hypertension and hadn’t had it figured out yet.

Which sucks, because I love everything I’ve seen about that show.

But that can’t really be left at the door, so when I do weird far realm stuff, I don’t get into people growing bits that don’t belong on them, and if the DM told me to save vs tentacles from my face, I’d tell them no.

Telling people to leave their “baggage” at the door rather than being willing to have a conversation is just weak condescension that serves no purpose other than to avoid a reasonable expectation of basic decency.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

of all the things in D&D why would turning into a tentacle monster need discussion?

Being turns to stone by a Medusa, dying, being fried by a dragons breath are not good outcomes.

I am not trying to be silly when I ask: will consent for character death be explicit in the new dmg?