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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 8261784" data-attributes="member: 93670">It depends  because there are (at least) two ways of using these kind of tools (or better developed better targeted ones). <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The first type is the type they were built for that several people are strongly advocating for in a way that seems to suggest that sort of blacklist/whitelist checklist is the only valid way given the pushback and nobad directed at other approaches like the current discussion on sometimes needing more than just saying X is a limit.(at least it was current when I started writing this) This style of play has very little to do with most of this post & the post is not saying people interested in this style must accept tools & practices designed for the other style being used in this one.  Lets call it a Type1 game</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The second type is that everyone involved agrees they want to engage in  a different kind of game that might be a lot darker & even  though it can't be 100% safe we can responsibly consent to responsibly  using tools that allow everyone involved to provide their consent to everyone else involved.  It is just as valid as the first but needs to be dramatically more serious about how consent is handled  & needs consent tools designed for that style of play. Most of this post is about this style of play.  Lets call it a Type2 game</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They need better names with good backronyms or acronyms that convey the serious difference, but these are good for now</li> </ul>Others have talked about how consent tools must not be allowed to exist as cheat code type things or just a wall with no information that can be thrown out like a middle finger while still expecting to participate.  There are absolutely cases where someone doesn't get to say "you get nothing & will like it" with a simple no & expect the other people involved continue consenting to playing the type of campaign being played with the person calling something a hard limit.  Even if someone does have a hard limit, people will need to ask questions so they can avoid crossing it or discretely work around it & there is a responsibility to provide enough detail  for them to do so.  If this responsibility is too much for someone to handle, the rest of the group may or may not care why but we can not consent to playing this kind of with them if it is.  Take this example from a very dark eberron game I ran that gives a good chance to talk about using those very serious tools & gives examples of why we as a community need to move past this disconnect over when it's ok to need more & why it's sometimes not ok to not give more.  It's not specifically about using these kinds of tools in CoS but Dark fantasy is one of the ravenloft horror types & war is hell can absolutely be horror. I don't think the distinction significantly changes things for the purpose of how I would apply a toolkit to a type2 adventure or campaign.[spoiler="it's a bit long"]I have gone in some very dark directions with a few eberron campaigns that were very much able to unsettle players whoenthusiastically  consented to be there enthusiastically jut as I enthusiastically consented to GM that type of campaign for them. (both type1 & type2).  A combination of color codes among other stuff like checkins.  Players checking on & supporting each other proactively during the game is great irplayer support thatworks geven better in d&d since it kinda builds group cohesion.  <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/ravenloft-horror-safety-tools.679714/page-3" target="_blank">The game </a>deliberately went into  the horrors of war and caused more than one consenting person involved caused a consenting player some difficulties even while he was enthusiastically involved. During the pitch I told the players it was going to be a mix of <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WarIsHell" target="_blank">war is hell</a> with eberron's magic as a science twisted deeply towards <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarkFantasy" target="_blank">dark fantasy</a><a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WarIsHell" target="_blank"> </a> before  giving a list with a few vague nonexhaustive examples of each that might happen to them or happen around them so we were all on the same page.  Knowing the kinds of things they might be thrust into & need to solve there was enthusiastic buy in complete with lots of stuff written into the provided spaces that I could use to deliberately build a campaign targeting a good mix of wants & soft limits that were explained to me while avoiding hard limits.When a player like Bob was unsettled he could say things like "that gnoll's fur is really yellow, do I see any of the zombies that might have killed her husband?" it communicated to me the gm and the rest of the group that this her " is a page to dark to read in depth (good, it was intended to be) so he wants to go find a way to avenge it.  The gm can make bob do a perception check & hear the zombies nearby where there are people  muffled screaming for help in a nearby building.  If bob flubbed the check the GM could say something like "you don't see anything immediately but your walking down the steet and... [insert stuff]" or something.    Everything was fine & we didn't need to know why Bob used yellow because he told us what was yellow & gave us a direction we could move  to pull back that fit within the story & events of the moment.  If bob just said "that gnoll is yellow".. "um ok?.. we need more bob"& I'll give an example of an unclear yellowNearly a year later when the group is investigating an illegal vadalis/jorasco joint supersoldier magebreeding program & Alice is deliberately sneaking in the gm can talk about how the research notes are in yellow folders describing humanoid magebreeding & a chair sized dragonmark focus device that allows "volunteers" to be  programmed for the needs of a client using a process called mindrape thump, I dropped BoVD  turned to page 99 on the table.   While I was doing that I raised my hand to signify that I was talking as myself not the gm & made it clear that they are yellow because very bad things will happen if anyone of them goes blundering in stupid since I'm not willing to provide plot armor or force that on someone.  That clarification  was important because these were long missing pieces of a slowly assembled puzzle & the rest of the group needs to know how to proceed  for an unclear yellow or we can't continue playing. I didn't mind when alice reached out mid week to say that she has an awesome idea for the mindrape chair to let her switch into one of the new archetypes & go through a difficult discovery of learning that she's not who she thought she was as the process breaks down over a long period of gametime.  It was yellow not red & Alice had an idea that would be sufficiently deep into the war is hell/dark fantasy themes of the campaign.  That gave us a chance to work out some basic details of how things would go in a frank discussion  so the next session ended with Alice getting separated from the group during their escape.  The players were nervous as hell because the researchers with the yellow hats cast web on alice  & the gm said "and that's where we will leave off, me & alice talked"... Alice had a huge grin. The week after  I set the tone of things by simply saying "you guys got out & are safe in your hotel pacing back & forth" before  describing everything happening to Alice over weeks of game time  letting her give the occasional reaction or input  like "so I'm bound in this wheelchair with green restraints while they talk about X?">"yes the restraints are loose & the hall they are moving you down is yellow with only one door, they intend to push you through that yellow door ".  Eventually they made it to a yellow chair made of rare materials in a yellow room covered in complicated glyphs & sigils... The players have spent the entire session silent.  Then alice is knocking on he door to the hideout saying she lost her key & found a paying job.  The players didn't know how to react but knowing what was going on & having seen it play out over the last few minutes everyone had a blast nervously doing the job while unsure how much of alice is still alice given the seemingly new personality  & abilities playing out.[/spoiler]Consent is a two way street.  When one person(lets call them the target) is consenting to have something that might be considered edgeplay done to them  a second person is consenting to do it for them & a third or whatever is consenting  to be thereat the table beside them.  It doesn't matter who is enjoying what & how much they are enjoying it, the target needs to respect the consent all of those other people are giving them. The target needs to respect that consent all of those people are giving them because it was needed in order for the target to even have this chance at experiencing the thing they are enjoying.  Often that requires being responsible by giving information needed for them to progress comfortably  rather than just saying well.. I got no idea what to do, I kept saying yellow so I guess I'm done until the target saying yellow while diving into a  tunnel I see no other ways out of fixes things for the rest of us" Here is how we  used those safewords at the table.[spoiler="safewords"]Someone mentioned a variant of  these earlier<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Green: Oh I think this is awesome!  my character may or may not obviously  hate it , but this is just what I want or need. I'm saying green because I want more of it, need more of it, or just feel like this is a good time to let everyone know that I'm ok because the situation might not look like it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Yellow: This is ok I'm fine.  I don't want to go further or would like to pull away & will provide more either immediately after or as soon as I finish this thing if I've not already made clear what is yellow in doing so.  If someone really can't give any detail about the yellow so everyone else knows ow to proceed they need to call red, you can't use a yellow in place of a red to keep playing like that.  If this responsibility is too much for someone to handle, the rest of the group may or may not care why but we can not consent to playing this kind of with them if it is.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Check ins: Anyone can check in on someone (player or gm) at any time and  the person being checked on is required to provide some kind of signal ranging from throwing the word green in your reaction  to a thumbs up & grin or most anything else as long as everyone is satisfied.  If this responsibility is too much for someone to handle, the rest of the group may or may not care why but we can not consent to playing this kind of with them if it is.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Red: If there is any doubt was it a deliberate red or accidental like red haired kid or something?  If accidental someone gets scolded & we move on.  If deliberate that's it, session over.... We pack up &  go get pizza or something someplace other than here, no alcohol is involved no exceptions.  We don't get delivery or come back  with pizza & today's session is over.  While there we as a group discuss what happened.  Work out how to avoid repeats.  Talk about ways we as a group can do better going if &  when we pick things up. Possibly if  this is something we should pick back up or not.  Given some of the stuff mentioned in the ravenloft book about types of horror this might include a need to go over consent sheets again or more often as well.</li> </ul>[/spoiler]When the researchers were interacting with the captive alice there was about 15 minutes where three players never said a word, never looked at a screen, nobody tried to jump in.  They were scared because from their PoV Alice was forcing me to do something I might be unwilling to do & it was only the regular injection of green/yellow that let them know this is still ok. If we weren't doing that enough for them or they didn't trust our consent mechanisms enough   me & alice don't get to ignore that they are consenting to let us do this thing in their presence just as much as we are consenting to run/play the campaign with them.I don't think I could in good conscience use  most of <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/ravenloft-horror-safety-tools.679760/post-8259414" target="_blank">these</a> tools  in the OP as is for horror without a lot of (re)building but can talk about some relevant stuff.   One of the recent ravenloft videos mentions how the book goes into a bunch of different areas that will provide a good foundation  towards fixing things by giving everyone involved a chance to provide consent from an informed position while deliberately providing the GM areas they should target & areas they can  tread lightly inThere's a bit of guesswork involved because e only have descriptions rather than the actual text for some of the best ones I've seen.  Here are some of the horror safety ravenloft tools I've seen & will talk what I can about using them[spoiler="The list is long"]<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><a href="https://youtu.be/q9YUNwoJ1WY?t=428" target="_blank">~7:10-*:30Ish</a> d &d does horror , did you like strahd & want more?  how do you do that how to you run it, what's world you can set it in.  How you can create your own nghtmares & horror stories that are right for you & your players, monsters/settings/characters etc ... here are many different types of horror but also many different levels of horror so you don't have to have a campaign that's just 100% steeped in horror you can add a little here & there</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><a href="https://youtu.be/q9YUNwoJ1WY?t=587" target="_blank">9:47</a> Horror is all about tension & suspense so when your introducing those elements in any sort of form that is what starts the game on the track to becoming a horror game ... The way to do that is to ramp up that suspense  the unknown & weird implications of things they don't understand in the slow reveal that ... </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><a href="https://youtu.be/q9YUNwoJ1WY?t=678" target="_blank">11:19</a> so much of horror is he 2 hours leading up to that event, is there stuff within the book about how to kinda create those tension moments using techniques that are usually cinematic but for a ttrpg not just the heroic fantasy tropes a lot of DMs lean on... what are some of those things people can do to take that tension & build it over the course of a session or campaign  we got a whole section in the book that talks about pretty much that.... Wes talks about it & is right that those techniques work great in other types of games too & amanda picks up a bit more before it goes into good back & forth roundtable </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><a href="https://youtu.be/q9YUNwoJ1WY?t=1459" target="_blank">24:19</a> bit of back & forth making clear that consent goes both ways & that the book talks about it </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><a href="https://youtu.be/q9YUNwoJ1WY?t=1577" target="_blank">26:18</a>  even if you asked me, I might not know. some people might not know what's triggering to them until it comes up in the game so there are tools or tips in here that explain how a player might feel comfortable expressing midgame on the fly.  That jumps from Shelly to Wes talking about how there is discussion of parties that might only use one or two & others have them just cause they can't hurt & that you never really know exactly the way things are going to pan out.  everybody has a voice in this.  Everybody can take things in different directions for if something does zig when it should have zagged  you can account for those sort of things </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><a href="https://youtu.be/q9YUNwoJ1WY?t=1810" target="_blank">30:10</a> we're talking about this in a jokey way but your absolutely right.  The whole concept of the elements of your body which is essentially you. but... The horror of the thing that is supposedly us?  That's a whole genre that a lot of folks just sat ok no too real.. that's something we end up talking about in the book about body horror as a genre is a thing, if you want to play with it how do you do that, but also if you don't how do you make sure that that's a part of town we aren't going to how to just veer around </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><a href="https://youtu.be/q9YUNwoJ1WY?t=1881" target="_blank">31:21</a> in the genre section specifically there are tables for generating villains settings plots for these genres where it's thinking critically about what makes these genres, what defines them & it's giving them specific options. </li> </ol>[/spoiler]</blockquote>

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