RPG Evolution: When Gaming Bleeds

Monte Cook Games recently released Consent in Gaming, a sensitive topic that addresses subjects that make some players uncomfortable. Central to the understanding of why there's a debate at all involves the concept of "bleed" in role-play.

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Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

Bleed Basics

Courtney Kraft explains bleed:
It’s a phenomenon where the emotions from a character affect the player out of the game and vice versa. Part of the joy of roleplay comes from diving into the fantasy of being something we’re not. When we play a character for a long time, it’s easy to get swept up in the highs of victorious battle and the lows of character death. When these feelings persist after the game is over, that’s when bleed occurs.
Bleed isn't inherently bad. Like actors in a movie, players sometimes draw on experiences to fuel their role-playing, consciously or subconsciously, and this bleed can happen organically. What's of concern in gaming is when bleed has detrimental consequences to the player.

Consent in Gaming explains the risks of negative bleed:
There’s nothing wrong with bleed—in fact, it’s part of the reason we play games. We want to be excited when our character is excited, to feel the loss when our characters do. However, bleed can cause negative experiences if not handled carefully. For example, maybe a character acted in a way that your character didn’t like, and it made you angry at the player too. Or maybe your character is flirting with another character, and you’re worried that it’s also making you have feelings for the player. It’s important to talk about these distinctions between characters and players early and often, before things take an unexpected turn.
There are several aspects that create bleed, and it's central to understanding why someone would need consent in a game at all. Bleed is a result of immersion, and the level of immersion dictates the social contract of how the game is played. This isn't limited to rules alone, but rests as much on the other players as it is on the subject matter.

One of the experiences that create bleed is a player's association with the game's subject matter. For some players, less realistic games (like Dungeons & Dragons) have a lower chance of the game's experiences bleeding into real life, because it's fantasy and not analogous to real life. Modern games might have the opposite effect, mirroring real life situations a player has experience with. There are plenty of players who feel otherwise of course, particularly those deeply involved in role-playing their characters for some time -- I've experienced bleed role-playing a character on a spaceship just as easily as a modern game.

The other element that can affect bleed is how the game is played. Storytelling games often encourage deeper emotional involvement from a player, while more gamist tabletop games create a situational remove from the character by their nature -- miniatures, tactical combat, and other logistics that are less about role-playing and more about tactics. Live Action Role-Playing games (LARPs) have the player physically inhabit their role and are thus provide more opportunities for bleed. Conversely, Massive Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) might seem like they make bleed unlikely because the player is at a computer, experiencing the game through a virtual avatar -- and yet it can still happen. Players who play a game for a long time can experience more bleed than someone who just joined a game.

Dungeons & Dragons is a particular flashpoint for discussions of bleed, because while it is a fantasy game that can easily be played with disposable characters navigating a dungeon, it can also have surprisingly emotional depth and complexity -- as many live streams of tabletop play have demonstrated.

These two factors determine the "magic circle," where the reality of the world is replaced by the structure of another reality. The magic circle is not a magic wall -- it's porous, and players can easily have discussions about what's happening in the real world, make jokes derived from popular culture their characters would never know, or even just be influenced by their real life surroundings.

The deeper a player engages in the magic circle, the more immersed that player becomes. Governing the player's social contract within the magic circle is something Nordic LARP calls this "the alibi," in which the player accepts the premise that their actions don't reflect on them but rather their character:
Rather than playing a character who is very much like you (“close to home”), deliberately make character choices that separates the character from you and provides some differentiation. If your character has a very similar job to your ideal or actual job, find a reason for your character to change jobs. If your character has a very similar personality to you, find aspects of their personality that are different from yours to play up and focus on. Or play an alternate character that is deliberately “further from home”.

Bleeding Out

Where things get sticky is when real life circumstances apply to imaginary concepts. Bleed exists within the mind of each player but is influenced by the other players. It is fungible and can be highly personal. Additionally, what constitutes bleed can be an unconscious process. This isn't necessarily a problem -- after all, the rush of playing an awesome superhero can be a positive influence for someone who doesn't feel empowered in real life -- unless the bleed touches on negative subjects that makes the player uncomfortable. These psychological triggers are a form of "bleed-in," in which the player's psychology affects the character experience. Not all bleed moments are triggers, but they can be significantly distressing for players who have suffered some form of abuse or trauma.

Consent in Gaming attempts to address these issues by using a variety of tools to define the social contract. For players who are friends, those social contracts have likely been established over years through both in- and out-of-game experiences. But for players who are new to each other, social contracts can be difficult to determine up front, and tools like x-cards can go a long way in preventing misunderstandings and hurt feelings.

Thanks to the increasing popularity of tabletop role-playing games, players are coming from more diverse backgrounds with a wide range of experiences. An influx of new players means those experiences will not always be compatible with established social contracts. The recent incident at the UK Gaming Expo, as reported by Darryl is an egregious example of what happens when a game master's expectations of what's appropriate for a "mature" game doesn't match the assumed social contract of players at the table.

This sort of social contract reinforcement can seem intrusive to gamers who have long-suffered from suspicion that they are out of touch with reality, or that if they play an evil character, they are evil (an allegation propagated during the Satanic Panic). This need to perform under a "cover" in their "real" life has made the entire concept of bleed and its associated risks a particularly sensitive topic of discussion.

X-cards and consent discussions may not be for everyone, but as we welcome new players with new experiences into the hobby, those tools will help us all negotiate the social contract that makes every game's magic circle a magical experience.
 

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Michael Tresca

Michael Tresca

That seems to me much too much of an absolutist statement IME it's not something that happens in a D&D game, but there's certainly no reason why it must always be creepy. It depends on various factors including the table social contract and the player interaction. It's certainly less likely to be a problem if the players are already in a relationship (in my Princes of the Apocalypse game last Saturday, of the 8 players there were 3 couples, the son of one couple, and my son, so 6/8 were couples) but it won't necessarily be a problem even if they're not.

Edit: Conversely it's not necesssarily not a problem if the GM has an NPC hit on a PC - it's much more common IME but depending on various factors that could come across as creepy too. Whereas I think a PC hitting on an NPC is much less likely to seem creepy, because of the power dynamic - in a normal TTRPG the GM has a lot more power than a player, and usually has much less identification with any NPC than the player has with their PC.
I'm not sure if you missed the part where I said "unilaterally" so I'll just assume you missed it.
 

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also are you honestly telling me you've never run into the issue of having to stop something in story and rewinding to do something over again?

Is this something people do? Have do overs? I can't recall this happening in games I've been in. When would you do something like this?
 


OK, you hit the X card and shut down the scene.

With no further explanation, does that mean you don't want romance in the game at all, or just not involving that particular player's PC(s), or just not involving your PC(s), or what?

Because poof, problem doesn't go away. All you've done is called attention to highlight that there's some sort of problem in there somewhere...and quite possibly embarrassed the player of the romantic PC as a side effect.

Actually, no, you are wrong. The problem has gone away. If someone else engages in romance with another PC (as in not me) and I don't hit the X card, then, well, it's pretty obvious that it's only when I'm involved in the romance that it's a problem.

So, would I still be unwelcome at your table? Just because I don't want to play out romance between PC's, even though it's not a problem if other players engage in it?

Like I said, people are making far more out of this than it needs to be. I mean, heck, if this is romance between two PC's, the DM isn't even involved. It has nothing to do with you or your campaign.

On the other hand if it's any romance at all, well, then maybe it's time to look for another table if this table sees a lot of romance. But, again, which is more important? Taking romance off the table for this session and then having a conversation later on after things have cooled down, or insisting that romance stay on the table despite knowing that you are making one of the players very uncomfortable and they are hating the experience?
 



Given the pushback, that seems to be about the temperature of the gaming community... or at least some segments of it.
It's a tragedy that your experience of gaming is bad enough that scaring new players away is preferable to welcoming them. Because Consent in Gaming (the manuscript by SKR and Germaine) is a scare manual, not an "inclusion toolkit".



Funny thing is, the whole X card thing is hardly a new discussion. I mean, I was hearing about this when I used to listen to Fear the Boot. That was back in 2016. This has been around for quite a few years now.
Three whole years? Man... this thing has some real depth of history to it... ;)

I don't listen to/watch/experience 'Fear The Boot', so my first exposure to "X cards" was Consent in Gaming.

If you're not going to use it, and it doesn't apply to you or your group, there are ten thousand other threads on the boards to enjoy. Why does it bother you in the slightest that other people are finding this useful? How is it some sort of thing that you need to "defend" against?
I'm here to fight against it's enforced inclusion in public spaces.

IOW, if it's not applying to you, then why are you here talking about it? What benefit are you getting trying to force the conversation away from how to apply this stuff to "we shouldn't even be talking about this at all"?
No, no, we should definitely be talking about, shouting about it from the mountain. This needs to be discussed to death until the side pushing this realizes it's not normal and it's disruptive to healthy socialized gaming.




Have you ever been in a convention gaming hall? Have you not seen the discussions of harassment?
I haven't been to a con in 10 years, so unless it's turned into a den of rapists in that time... most of this is really unnecessary. Is someone being actively harassed? Then step in, alert the authorities, etc. Is the mere mention of a topic 'harassment'? No. But as you know, that is literally the level this is being hyperbolically inflated to.



One of the players reaches out and touches the X card during a scene. Do you:

A) Respect the feelings of that player, gloss over things and keep the game going so that everyone at the table is having fun, or
Gloss over what? The entire scene? The set piece battle that the last four hours of play has lead up to? Just... "Okay, so... and games over, the characters somehow triumph over evil... yeah..."

Because as you well know, the GM isn't even allowed to ask what the X Card was being thrown for. Was it the monsters? Was it the description of the BBEG? Was it because the cave suddenly got dark? Was it the BBEG's imminent monologue*? Unknown and unknowable.

Just shut it down and 'move on'. Somehow.



* Okay, I agree. Toss a "No Monologue" Card. That's perfectly understandable.

B) Stop the game in the middle and begin questioning the player as to why they are uncomfortable with the scene, spending ten, fifteen, twenty minutes of paid table time tracking down the source of this player's discomfort?
If it means I can get the scene back on track successfully? YES!

But you know we're not allowed to do that.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a table where everyone is enjoying themselves?
Absolutely. And that means no X Cards at my table.

Why would anyone want to continue play knowing that one of your players is hating what you are doing?
I wouldn't. But hopefully they'd either discuss the issue with me as a friend (or as their GM at the very least) so we could find a middle ground to stand on or find another group that is more amicable to their gaming needs.
 

Good to know that people still put their game ahead of the people at the table. Keep fighting the good fight. I'm out. Done. This is the same checklist garbage that gets trotted out every single time anyone says, "Hey, you know what? We should maybe be nicer to each other".

It's boring now.

Like I said before, how does it feel to be on the wrong side of history EVERY single time. Every time anything like this comes up - harrassment of women in the hobby, minorities, treatment of various issues - the same tired old crap gets trotted out to "defend" the hobby from "progressives" (must just chap folk's bottoms to not be able to use the standard epithets that generally get used in these discussions).

Same tired old broken record.
 

1. As a player, does the existence of an X card reduce your enjoyment of the game? Is knowing that there is an outlet for any player at the table, at any time, to veto a particular scene reducing your enjoyment of the game? What if it's never used? Does it's mere existence reduce your enjoyment? Why?

It's mere existence doesn't reduce my enjoyment.


B) Stop the game in the middle and begin questioning the player as to why they are uncomfortable with the scene, spending ten, fifteen, twenty minutes of paid table time tracking down the source of this player's discomfort?

I contend that the player who touches the X card is the one who is stopping the game in the middle not the DM. So that ship has sailed. Nor do I need to spend the next ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes tracking down the source of the player's discomfort. All I need to do is spend a brief few minutes tracking the source of the problem down and moving on from there. The player doesn't need to go into detail about why something is a problem I just need to know what specifically is bothering them so I can make a judgment call. Does the source of this player's anxiety show up later in the adventure? If so, is it something I can easily change?

Wouldn't it make more sense to have a table where everyone is enjoying themselves? I guess I just don't see the issue here. It's not like it's a reflection on you or your skills as a DM. It's simply that the player doesn't want to deal with this scenario because this scenario makes them feel uncomfortable.

Does it make sense for one person at the table to be able to change a scenario everyone else is having fun with?

I guess, at the end of the day, I just don't see how this is a problem. Why would anyone want to continue play knowing that one of your players is hating what you are doing?

Why would a player want to interrupt a game everyone else is having fun playing?
 

It's a tragedy that your experience of gaming is bad enough that scaring new players away is preferable to welcoming them. Because Consent in Gaming (the manuscript by SKR and Germaine) is a scare manual, not an "inclusion toolkit".

You know, it wasn't that bad until the internet came along and revealed just how reactionary a cesspit it can actually be. Consent in Gaming has, at least to me, been revealed as increasing necessary.
 

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