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

@Panda-s1

I agree with you, that neither of the officially published books is something like a in stone chiseled text that has to be followed by the point at all costs. IIRC Gygax once said that the game can be changed in any way you like (more or less quoted from memory). But I hope I made that clear that individual presentations/interpretattions are okay. What I don´t really like is the remark, that is some kind of neglected/forgotten fact and defining a certain presentation of an imagined species as being rasicm. Now it may be true, that not every encounter with "monsters" even back in OD&D had to end in combat (reaction rolls modifiers existed back then already IIRC). But what are we talking about here? The result of somebody's imagination and for me that is rooted in Tolkien. Like said other older and this picture contradicting definitions/descriptions might exist, so it´s fine if you play along that. Even if these don´t exist, then it´s still okay to change the overall evil to a more diversified approach. All fine, your table, your game.
I understand, that it is complicated to label such things properly, but putting the racism hammer on something (a species of humanoids in a fantasy game!) and letting it look like some unfair real life treatment to some real existing beings is for me way over the top. And does it tell anything about a persons actual views and attitudes, if orcs are presented that old fashioned way? Not in my small world of understanding, sorry. So any discussion on that matter is simply nonsense for me.
 

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

If they're in distress, yes. Absolutely.

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

Because they naughty word have to in order to protect themselves. Why is that so hard for you to understand?
 

Because they naughty word have to in order to protect themselves. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

I've modified my games to accommodate another player's fear of spiders in the past. I have no objections to the concept of making reasonable accommodations for players but I specifically object to the way the X card works. Why is that so hard to understand? Someone can dislike the X card and still be fine with accommodations.
 

All I want to say is that I'm happy I never played with people who couldn't talk out if there was a problem.

Also, I can't even remember a time, where there were a "problem" even.

Honestly, I think this whole thing is another facet of the hypersensitivity and infantilism that haunts the culture nowadays. Sure, there are people with serious traumas that could come up during play, but it's not like that 99.9% of the cases. Even then, we could talk it out.

I can see some use for things like the the x-card in situations, like a con, or organized play. Even then, whenever I played with complete strangers, we were, you know, just respectful and polite toward each other and didn't go all-out, like we would in a home game. Also, if someone was a jerk, I just won't play with that person in the future and that's it. I don't see the need fot it in a home game among friends at all. Even if a new person comes into an established group, we'd be just more reserved until we get to know them a bit more.

I have slight suspicion that this whole thing stems from the LARP side, where, with all due respect, the prevalence of drama queens/kings is just a lot bigger and things are lot more visceral and you generally play with a lot of people. Seriously, I couldn't believe some of the stories I've heard about the biggest ongoing VtM LARP around here, it's practically like the bad stereotypes of stupid high-school drama between cliques and individuals.

I just think these tools are largely substitutions and cop-outs instead of just talking to each other and learning to act in a mature way, which is always preferable. Even among these tools, a checklist is among the most inadequate things I've ever seen.
 

I've modified my games to accommodate another player's fear of spiders in the past. I have no objections to the concept of making reasonable accommodations for players but I specifically object to the way the X card works. Why is that so hard to understand? Someone can dislike the X card and still be fine with accommodations.

You may not know you need to make an accommodation until the topic comes up - particularly in a convention or other public space game. The X card allows the player to put on the brakes.
 

Awesome man, for being thoughtful towards your blind player.

However, consider this . . . avoiding including characters or situations in our stories that mirror real life issues can have the opposite effect than intended, it can create a fantasy world where there are no blind people, or folks with limited mobility (crutches, paralyzed, etc), or folks who fit into other categories (cultural, racial, religious, gender/preference). Your blind player might not have been offended in the least with a pirate captain blind in one eye. In fact, he might have been tickled that there are folks in your fantasy world like him to some degree! If I had a blind AL player in one of my games, I wouldn't skip past issues of blindness in the game, but I probably would check in with him afterwards to see how he felt about things. I'd definitely want to have that conversation with a regular player, and hopefully include normal, everyday NPC's who are blind, in addition to some blind villains and heroes too!

EDIT: The word I'm looking for is "representation". If I were blind, I might want to have people like me represented in our shared fantasy world, blind commoners, blind heroes, blind villains. Overdo it and I'll think you're pandering to me, but a reminder every now and then would be awesome.

I had thought of that. But in this case the blind NPC was more of the cartoon-like characterization of a blind person, rather than an NPC who also happened to be blind. The difference is significant. For that reason, I excluded it. I would have had no issues if they had presented the NPC differently.
 

Honestly, I think this whole thing is another facet of the hypersensitivity and infantilism that haunts the culture nowadays. Sure, there are people with serious traumas that could come up during play, but it's not like that 99.9% of the cases. Even then, we could talk it out.

It's easy to call sensitivity "hypersensitivity" when you're not the person who needs the accommodation. It's good to be privileged when you have it, but it sure does exaggerate the cost when it has to extend it.
 

I think there's a thing here where accommodation and being considerate has been reified as the X-card. This results in any disagreement with the X-card being assumed as a rejection of being considerate. This appears to be an increasingly common thing in many discussions lately -- the oversimplification of complex and nuanced interactions into a black and white preferred policy outcome. It does a disservice to everyone.
 

It's easy to call sensitivity "hypersensitivity" when you're not the person who needs the accommodation. It's good to be privileged when you have it, but it sure does exaggerate the cost when it has to extend it.

Nice try. :D

I have issues, I have to deal with panic attacks. Everyone I've ever played showed understanding and good behaviour and I never felt the need for these tools.

You just can't devise tools that could (or, IMO should) replace communication between players, general good behaviour and being a bit more thoughtful and reserved if you play with strangers.

I just think, if someone is in an environment, where these tools are absolutely needed, because they can't handle gaming and the occasional problems otherwise, that's already a sign of things going south on the level of how people handle each other and the game round there.
 

I think there's a thing here where accommodation and being considerate has been reified as the X-card. This results in any disagreement with the X-card being assumed as a rejection of being considerate. This appears to be an increasingly common thing in many discussions lately -- the oversimplification of complex and nuanced interactions into a black and white preferred policy outcome. It does a disservice to everyone.

Wholeheartedly agree. Not being a fan of these tools is no way equals to not wanting to be considerate toward my fellow players.
 

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