D&D General [+] Ravenloft, horror, & safety tools...

[Richards]

I dislike halflings in games. (No really, I do!) They spoil my enjoyment of the game by making it too explicitly Tolkien derivative.

I'm 100% with you there.

The objectionable stuff is where the DM gets to directly control my character, or forces me to control my character in ways I don't want to, like mind controlled to attack my party.

Sometimes it's what you make of it, though. Case in point: I was running a low-Intelligence human fighter and in one adventure I had a charm person spell cast upon me by a sorceress and I failed my save. She warned me there were devils about and some of them had shapechanged to look just like the other members of my party, and she commanded me to keep her safe from all attacks. Now, obviously, the intention was for me to fight off the other party members if they tried to attack the sorceress. But I took her at her word and tackled her to the ground, covering her with my body to shield her from any possible incoming attacks (and, quite inadvertently, preventing her from casting any spells herself). Seeing I had her dealt with, the rest of the party went chasing after her associate (a wizard), and then she commanded me to help her escape. I responded by helping her steal the paladin's warhorse (which he'd dismounted when approaching the shop where the two enemies were located), then insisted I lead the horse by the reins while she rode on it instead of letting her ride off to safety by herself, because how could I see to her safety if I wasn't there with her? Bottom line: in an encounter with two enemy spellcasters, I prevented one half of our foes from significantly contributing to our defeat, all while charmed. (In fact, I think my only die roll that whole session was the failed Will save that put me under the charm person spell in the first place.) But I managed to have a good time nonetheless.

Johnathan

 

[Marc_C]

I'm for discussing individual limits at session zero and safety tools.

In the mid-90 I discovered one of my players was arachnophobic when I put the pewter model of a giant spider on the table (3" long). He jumped out if his chair. I had to remove the miniature so he could continue playing. We had been playing together for several years and I didn't know.

But even with Safety tools some players are just stupid. My wife specifically stated at the beginning of a campaign she didn't want any romance involving her female character with the male characters of other players. Barely 10 minutes into the first session a player started romancing her character. I told him to stop. He said it's roleplaying I can do what I want. I said you can take you stuff and leave our house right now! We never invited him again.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't think it's cynicism, I think it's honesty. The only thing I get to do at the table as a player is control my one character. Losing control of that means I might as well go for a walk. That's lame and boring.

And to be clear, the list above is one I'm going to present to my players for a game I will run. This is me telling them I will not take agency away from them, but that they are free to take agency away from the NPCs.

And as the DM that's your call to make. For me it is about the imbalance of control at the table. As a player, I get one character to control and that's it. If the DM takes control of that character away from me, I get to do nothing. The DM controls the entire game world. They don't need to take control of the one thing I get to control, too.

Again, that would be your call as a DM to make. Though I'm not sure why you'd make that call. If a player doesn't want their character to lose a limb, for example, would that mean you'd never have any character in the game ever lose a limb? That seems extreme to me. If the player doesn't want anyone to lose a limb, then that would make sense. I see safety tools as a player empowerment tool. They get to explicitly tell me what they're uncomfortable with and as the DM I then avoid that.

It's not about reciprocity. There's no negotiation or give and take about lines and veils. If someone tells me something is a line, I don't cross it. I also won't try to negotiate that line away. That defeats the purpose of safety tools.

No I think he raises good points, that' part of why I tried bringing up the need for these kinds of lists to incorporate questions tat target specific themes and tropes drawn from the various horror types that could get unsettling rather than a few random phobias & such in the last thread. Wotc actually makes that kind of easy for us with the coin/cutout marker things that stamp expected types of horror on the various domains with the handy icons they've been tweeted. So far we have Folk Horror, Body Horror, Dark Fantasy, Cosmic Horror, Gothic Horror, & ghost stories... All of those bring their own tropes themes & potentially squicky twists on things twisted to deliberately unsettling notches on the dial. Those unsettling notches aren't bad on their own because some people will enjoy playing out the unsettling things happening to their PC while others will feel unsettled themselves.

Names make discussion easier so I'll use some. Alice could be fine with mind control like charm person & dominate but get squicked out by the idea of being given false memories, having memories altered, or having core personality memories modified. Bob might think the first couple sound cool but be averse to the third. Cindy however might think all of them sound awesome &even have an idea like "slowly being twisted from a bored dull city guard to a darker more interesting thing like so?". Simply saying "mind control" is too broad for meaning.

 

[Umbran]

Sometimes it's what you make of it, though.

When we are talking about safety tools, no it isn't.

 

[Richards]

Fair enough. In my particular case, having my PC come under the sway of a charm person spell wasn't a trigger event. I can see how that might not be the case for everyone, though.

Johnathan

 

[tetrasodium]

Why? If I presented you with that on a safety checklist would you insist that I go into excruciating personal detail to justify my desire to not have my autonomy forcibly removed? That seems like it defeats the purpose of the safety tools.

I think that split is important. Someone might be fine with spiders in a game but refuse to have direct interaction with spiders themselves. I don't see why this is any different. Adding granularity to things like this can only help.

So do I. It's funny you think that's what I'm after. When I get to play I keep asking the DM to make things harder. When playing 5E it's basically a foregone conclusion that the players just win...all the time. That's really boring. I don't mind losing. After seven years of 5E I'm longing to have something even minorly negative happen to a character of mine.

Well if you are presenting me the safety checklist I'd be going into detail why. Phobias & overt low hanging traumas aren't the big things horror relies on to be unsettling when things like questioning free will/sanity, body horror, the darkness inside everyone, so on & so forth are so much more ripe fruit even if they do touch on those things in some way. If I as a player have such problematic issues with themes & tropes likely to be on a horror safety checklist due to their presence in horror then it's probably a blazing sun sized sign that a horror game is probably not a good choice for me if I can't even write something on a 1ish line "________________________________________________________________" field.

That field where I can fill it in is important because someone ok with some aspects but not others or flat out thrilled by them like my example alice bob & cindy then you as a GM have details on what you should avoid with Alice/Bob & how bob/Cindy is into them being done to their respective characters.

 

[AnotherGuy]

So since I'm prepping a game that will be set in Ravenloft and draw heavily on some more explicitly horror-based tropes and themes, I was working through the lines and veils worksheet from Consent in Gaming. I thought it would be helpful to people to see what it is and what that looks like. The Stay Alive! book has an expanded list so I used that instead.

Lines and veils are basically hard lines (do not include) and soft veils (it's okay if it's not the focus and/or kept to the background). It's a really smart system and easy to use. The answers below are my lines and veils as a DM, there's no player involvement or answers yet. Blank spots or the word "blank" is a green light.

Social and Cultural Issues
✦ Homophobia. Line.
✦ Racism. Line.
✦ Real-world religion. Line.
✦ Sexism. Line.
✦ Specific cultural issues. Depends.

For me, I have to deal with these things directly on a daily basis in my real life. I play RPGs to escape. I don't want to have these topics dragging down my real life and my gaming. So they're all lines, except "specific cultural issues"...which is, ironically, utterly non-specific, so "depends" is the best I could do.

Relationships
Romance...
✦ Explicit. Line.
✦ Between PCs and NPCs. Line.
✦ Between PCs.
Sex...
✦ Explicit. Line.
✦ Between PCs and NPCs. Line.
✦ Between PCs. Veil.

I am absolutely terrible at RPing romance, and sex scenes...forget about it. If two PCs consent to a relationship and want to RP that out, more power to them. But I'm not interested in sitting through any kind of description of their love making, so veil...aka fade to black.

Horror
✦ Blood.
✦ Body horror.
✦ Bugs.
✦ Demons.
✦ Eyeballs.
✦ Gore. Veil.
✦ Harm to animals. Domestic pets, line. Otherwise, blank.
✦ Harm to children. Line.
✦ Mummies.
✦ Occult/witchcraft/Satanism.
✦ Rats.
✦ Spiders.
✦ Spirit boards/Ouija boards.
✦ Tumors.

I'm fine with any of the blanks. But if my players want those veiled or lined, so be it. We'll be playing a horror game, so there's some gore expected, but I prefer a more gothic horror vibe, so it's a veil for me. I will not abide even the hint of child harm or endangerment, so line. Likewise with domestic animals and pets, line. But it's also D&D and a horror game so things like wolves, bats, etc will be a thing...unless the players object. In that case I'd talk through if there's any specific animals that are lines instead of veils and see how much resolution there is on that, i.e. dig into the specifics through conversation to see what's okay.

Mental and Physical Health
✦ Cancer. Line.
✦ Claustrophobia.
✦ Darkness.
✦ Drugs and addiction.
✦ Freezing to death.
✦ Gaslighting. Line.
✦ Genocide.
✦ Heatstroke.
✦ Mind control. Inflicted on the PCs, line. NPCs, blank.
✦ Natural disasters.
✦ Paralysis/physical restraint.
✦ Police, police aggression.
✦ Pregnancy, miscarriage, or abortion.
✦ Self-harm. Line.
✦ Severe weather.
✦ Sexual assault. Line.
✦ Slavery. Committed by the PCs, line. Otherwise, veil.
✦ Starvation.
✦ Terrorism.
✦ Thirst.
✦ Torture. Inflicted by or on the PCs, line. Otherwise, veil.

I have an uncle who is currently dying of cancer, so line. PS: FY cancer. Gaslighting is evil, so line. Likewise I have to draw a line for self-harm. Pure nope. So too with sexual assault, line.

As a player I despise having my character mind controlled, it's literally the only thing I get to do in the game...control my PC, so taking that away means I might as well not even be there, so big fat line. But if the PCs want to mind control NPCs, go for it. I've played in and run a lot of Dark Sun, so slavery is a weird one for me. I tend to make a point of it existing early on in Dark Sun games but let it mostly fade into the background. Then I had some PCs try to become slavers. Nope. Line, line, line. I also take a rather dim view of the players torturing NPCs for information and I will not torture PCs...it's just...line. But as something that exists in the world, absolutely. I just don't want to focus on it.

So that's it.

That's a basic run through of a lines and veils worksheet.

If lines and veils are something you want to use, it's that easy. Just send the checklist to your players and have them fill it out. Collect 'em all. Compile the list. And pass that out to the players so they know what to expect. If anyone lines something, it's lined. If anyone veils something, it's veiled. It's really simple and easy to look out for your fellow players and make sure everyone can have a good time escaping the real world for a minute.

I take it this is a comprehensive list for all RPGs rather than once specific to Ravenloft as per the OP.

EDIT: Why does Genocide get a blank while Racism gets a line?

 

[Sacrosanct]

In general, I am supportive of safety tools, even if I don't really get into any particular one or another. The main reason is because it varies from person to person and table to table. These are complicated issues, and the human brain is a complicated thing. No one person reacts the same to the same thing as another.

So why am I generally supportive of tools despite just saying all of that? Because they are tools. Like any other tool, it's better to have a selection to choose from that works best for you and what you want to accomplish. I'm a woodworker as a hobbyist, and sometimes I want the hand plane. And sometimes I want the planer (thicknesser for my UK friends). Sometimes I use a chisel. And others a saw. You can never have enough clamps (or 10mm sockets for mechanics).

No tool should be mandatory, but they should be available for use. When I was in the military, I was right next to my friend when he suffered a traumatic severe head injury, killing him. I can't do descriptions of head injuries in my games. I'm not asking for a therapist, or counselor, or whatever. I just know what works for me. Every table I've been part of has been accommodating. Just like I'd be accommodating to anyone else, and it doesn't mean I'm trying to be their therapist or anything of the sort. I'm just listening to them. I have not seen any compelling evidence that using safety tools is more harmful than good, and I'm tired of seeing that being used as an excuse to handwave them away because you (general you) don't care for them.

 

[Sithlord]

It’s probably a good idea for game stores and playing with people you don’t know. I really don’t want to waste time having a player in my group get upset when the evil wizard mind controls him to attack an ally. So it’s a good thing. That person will know my game is not for him.

 

[Umbran]

It may honest but if mind control is ok as long as it's not used on your character it starts to look a lot less like a safety tool.

So, if you honestly can't trust your players to not abuse the thing, you probably shouldn't be playing with them anyway.