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<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7380671" data-attributes="member: 37579">Agreed. As you say, there is some informed consent with D&amp;D. You know there's going to be violence. No one can be surprised by that. But there is a difference between killing a bunch of orcs in a dungeon and being attacked by a thief in a dark alley. Or being asked by a quest giver to assault someone in the street to retrieve documents and make it look like a random assault. It's not as big an issue with 80% of gaming groups, because we play with friends. Most friends would know you had been assaulted and would have supported you taking a break, and ideally stayed away from those kind of stories.But had you been a bit more private, you might have just said you were taking a break without specifying why. Or found a new group when you thought you were in the right headspace to play again. But assuming you're in the right headspace and being 100% sure are different. People might think they're fine until confronted with stress and then realise that they totally weren't. (Especially if the stimulus is a surprise. Hence &quot;trigger warning&quot;.) Some wounds take a long time to heal. I think open communication is really the key. The DM needs to warn if doing anything beyond the basic assumptions of play. The assumed consent of general murder hobo behaviour. And the players also need to give forewarning if particular aspects of the norm might be stressors. And the DM needs to be willing to accommodate. (&quot;Okay. No muggings. How about a haunted house full of undead? Or we can get out of the city and hunt down a hydra in a swamp? Perhaps a dungeon full of traps and puzzles?&quot;)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 7380671, member: 37579"] Agreed. As you say, there is some informed consent with D&D. You [I]know[/I] there's going to be violence. No one can be surprised by that. But there is a difference between killing a bunch of orcs in a dungeon and being attacked by a thief in a dark alley. Or being asked by a quest giver to assault someone in the street to retrieve documents and make it look like a random assault. It's not as big an issue with 80% of gaming groups, because we play with friends. Most friends would know you had been assaulted and would have supported you taking a break, and ideally stayed away from those kind of stories. But had you been a bit more private, you might have just said you were taking a break without specifying why. Or found a new group when you [I]thought[/I] you were in the right headspace to play again. But assuming you're in the right headspace and being 100% sure are different. People might think they're fine until confronted with stress and then realise that they totally weren't. (Especially if the stimulus is a surprise. Hence "trigger warning".) Some wounds take a long time to heal. I think open communication is really the key. The DM needs to warn if doing anything beyond the basic assumptions of play. The assumed consent of general murder hobo behaviour. And the players also need to give forewarning if particular aspects of the norm might be stressors. And the DM needs to be willing to accommodate. ("Okay. No muggings. How about a haunted house full of undead? Or we can get out of the city and hunt down a hydra in a swamp? Perhaps a dungeon full of traps and puzzles?") [/QUOTE]

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