Hey there fellow kids, let’s rap…
So, every now and then, I do one of these Professor Angry’s Office Hours things. I know that’s a shit name, but it’s the best one I could come up with at the time and now I’m stuck with it. Anyway, these things are basically digressions, expansions, and side deals to my True Whatever Whatevery lessons. They’re shit you don’t really need, but that might help deepen your understanding. Or expand the lesson to cover something else.
Truth be told, though, I always pictured these things kind of like the day your college professor came in, sat on his desk, smiled, and said, “Okay, close your books. I want to talk to y’all about something. I ain’t on the syllabus, but it’s important.”
So, close your books. I want to talk to y’all about something important. Twice. We need to have two important talks about shit that’s come up in True Campaign Managery series and some feedback I’ve received and some conversations I’ve overheard you having outside of class.
Originally, I was going to smash the two talks hamfistedly together — and, briefly, I thought about separating them into three talks hamfistedly smashed together — but I don’t think that’s a good idea. So, you’re getting two different condescending Gen-X — I’m not a Boomer, dumbass; stop it with that shit — two different condescending Gen-X professorial attempts to share hard-earned wisdom with a bunch of dumbasses who haven’t outgrown the belief that they know everything.
Today’s the ugly talk. Tomorrow’s actually kind of uplifting. Sweary, but uplifting.
On This Whole Boundaries Thing
It ain’t a secret that I’m very down on the bullshit trend in modern tabletop roleplaying gaming of Game Masters asking their players to compile lists of upsetting, unsettling, uncomfortable things that shall not be named by the Game Master — or anyone else — during the game to create a safe and inclusive environment. I’ve taken to referring to this crap, collectively, as Lines and Veils Horseshit. I admit I’m editorializing a bit.
Some of you have politely asked me to explain just why I call all this horseshit and why I seem to be opposed to it on general principle. And I’ve answered some of you in various places. Some of you have less politely accused me of being an awful person who cares nothing for the safety and the comfort of the players at his table. And some of you have just called me terrible names and gone away forever. And nothing of value was lost.
Today, I’m going to respond, publicly and finally, on the subject. That is, I’m going to explain exactly why I don’t do this shit, why accusations of my evil are unfounded, and why I recommend that you don’t do it either. And I ain’t interested in opening a debate. If you disagree, do whatever the fuck you want. I don’t care. My job is to give my readers the best advice I can give, whether they agree or not, and to explain my reasoning so they can make an informed choice. And, admittedly, to make fun of everyone who disagrees with me. And to swear.
The point is, you’re welcome to disagree with me. Quietly. In your head. Don’t try to engage me directly. This is my last word on the subject. Except to keep bashing it in little asides in future articles. And if the comment section turns into a dumpster fire, I will eject anyone I have to from the premises and extinguish the blaze however I must. You have been warned.
What I Mean by Lines and Veils Horseshit
Let me take you through this…
I’m speaking collectively today about a variety of tools that amount to asking players, in advance, to call out content and ideas that they — the individual players — find so uncomfortable or upsetting that they’d prefer those ideas not come up in the game at all. The stated goal of all such tools is to create an environment in which the players feel safe. An environment in which the players are assured they will not be blindsided by something that might upset them.
The trend of using such tools has its roots, years ago, in the mania for Content Warnings— colloquially called Trigger Warnings — and the establishment of so-called Safe Spaces on college campuses here in America. Initially, the Trigger Warnings were limited to very serious topics such as self-harm and sexual abuse and represented an effort to protect those who had been traumatized by personal events.
The idea expanded in scope and scale and then spread beyond college campuses to basically everywhere. But I only care about pretend elf gaming tables. You see, at some point, someone suggested that maybe Game Masters should include Content Warnings when they run public games at stores and conventions. But, eventually, Content Warnings were deemed insufficient. After all, it’s basically impossible to know what sort of content might upset anyone. Sure, there are big, obvious, extreme, common traumas, but what about serious phobias? Or less obvious traumas? And must this be limited to truly traumatic content? After all, gaming is a hobby. An escape. One shouldn’t be surprised by anything that makes one upset or uncomfortable. Or anything they just don’t want to deal with in their fun downtime.
So a new idea was proposed: the Veto Card or X-Card. Players in public game spaces had physical cards they could slap down on the table whenever the game veered into a topic that disturbed them for any reason. Once someone dropped their X-Card, the Game Master would stop the scene and move on to something else. No questions asked. No discussion. No disagreement.
This was a less-than-ideal solution. The X-Card communicated nothing and the Game Master was supposed to just respect it and move on without asking questions. So the Game Master could never be sure what caused the objection and so the only option was just to stop the scene and move on to the next. But it worked well enough for public, convention games. It was just a little clumsy.
But, in ongoing games — say, a campaign open to the public at a game store — Game Masters had a unique opportunity to tailor their game content, in advance, to the players. And the same is true for non-public home games. So, if a Game Master could have their players spell out, in advance, what content they objected to, the Game Master could ensure the game never got anywhere close to that shit.
Various game publishers — in an effort to make sure everyone who played their games was creating a properly safe and inclusive environment, regardless of venue — began weighing in. They included discussions and essays in their core rulebooks and published tools for gathering information about content objections. Monte Cook Games, in particular, became the standard bearer here and published what is acknowledged as the best word on the subject in their free, system-agnostic supplement, Consent in Gaming.
Today, the most commonly used tool for all this crap is the so-called Lines and Veils Survey. It comes in various forms but all essentially invite players to rate several potentially upsetting topics and to add their own. Thus, before a campaign starts, the players can establish Lines — topics that cannot be mentioned in the game at all — and Veils — topics that can be mentioned, but not described in detail or explicitly played out.
That’s it. That’s my nice, objective, even-handed, non-sweary, non-editorial explanation of these various tools, why they exist, and where they came from. And I even gave you a link to learn more. Because I respect people’s rights to make up their own minds.
But the real Demon’s Souls begins here…
Everything after this is my advice based on my opinions and my experiences. Take it or leave it.
I Actually Do Respect My Player’s Boundaries… Mostly
Let me start by making one thing absolutely fucking clear as crystal: my criticisms of these tools are just that. I’m criticizing the tools. I’m criticizing the idea of gathering lists of verboten topics from your players in advance. I am not, in any way, criticizing the idea of respecting any human being’s personal boundaries.
Say Beth’s an arachnophobe. Seriously arachnophobic. She has panic attacks at the sight of spiders. Even fake spiders upset her. Even descriptions. And that’s bad because I’m really good at upsetting descriptions. Just ask some of my past players about the Bridge of Spiders. They weren’t arachnophobes, but they all needed a break, a stiff drink, and a shower when that scene was over. It was fucking hilarious.
This probably ain’t helping my case.
The point is, Beth’s got a spider thing. So, she approaches me privately before the game and says, “Angry, I have a spider thing. It’s bad. Even descriptions of spiders cause me serious anxiety. Can you, like, watch out for that? Just don’t do spiders?”
I listen to her and I think of all the wonderful, terrible things I can do with spiders. Like Undead Spider Pinata. See, since spiders are exoskeletal, an animated skeleton spider is basically just a hollow spider. And if the spider died with thousands of eggs waiting to be laid and they all hatched, the skeleton spider would be full of baby spiders. And when it’s killed, it splits open and you can use the phrase, “Literally, a carpet of spiders…”
Sorry. I got distracted again. I really like spiders.
Anyway, I listen to Beth and I think of all the great uses for spiders and how much I like them, but then I remember I’m not a giant douchecanoe. So, I say, “Sure Beth. Thanks for warning me. I don’t want to upset you; I’ll keep spiders out of the game.”
But…
Then I say, “Except, here’s the thing… I’m gonna do my best to respect your request and I definitely won’t build encounters around spiders or whatever. But I do a lot of flavor text and narration on the fly and I often describe things like cobwebs and normal vermin to provide atmosphere. I’ll do my best, but if I ever slip and drop spiders, treat it like an accident. And, meanwhile, if it happens, just give a polite little tap on the table to remind me and I’ll stop. Is that fair?”
Beth says, “Yeah! That’s totally fair. Thanks.” After she leaves, I put my concept art for the spider whose legs are also spiders in a folder and save it for some other game.
Done and done. That’s how I do.
This Shit’s a Favor
There’s a vitally important idea here that always gets lost when discussing this personal boundaries shit. The idea is this: respecting someone’s boundaries is a favor you do for someone else. It’s a good thing to do — most favors are — but it’s still a favor. It’s a gift. Why? Because it requires you to change your behavior. And monitor your behavior. That takes effort. When you make an effort for someone else, that’s a favor. And it must be treated as such.
Why’s that important? Because favors come with agreements, understanding, an assumption of good faith, and, above all, gratitude. I understand Beth’s problem, but she’s got to understand I ain’t perfect and I might slip. She can’t lose her shit over that. She’s got to assume a slip is just that, a slip, and not an insult or an attack.
Of course, I’m a smart guy. I know slips are easy when making behavioral changes — especially when it comes to something awesome like spiders — which is why if I think it’s necessary, I’ll work out a subtle signal to stop a screw-up.
Now, you might think the effort’s small enough that this doesn’t count as a favor. Or that respect for your boundaries is some sort of moral right. An entitlement. Me? I don’t think there’s any effort so small that it makes a favor not a favor. And while I think respecting boundaries like this is the kind, sensitive, polite thing to do, I also don’t think that any human being is entitled to another’s behavioral changes. No one’s entitled to my behavior. My behavior is my choice.
And I assume none of you are big enough dumbasses to try and draw a parallel between respecting someone’s request not to include spiders in a game and some terrible, actual crime like assault, right? No one can possibly be stupid enough to say, “Well, not punching people is also a behavior but you have a God-given right not to be punched don’t you?” Right?
The thing is, there’s a cost here. It might be big, it might be little, but it’s not zero. If I were some other Game Master and didn’t have a thousand and one hilariously terrible uses for spiders, I might not care. I might say, “Sure, Beth. I never use spiders anyway. I kind of hate them myself.” So we have to put aside the specifics of this example and acknowledge that any such request warrants a behavior change. And just as I, the Game Master, never know how serious the issue is that someone’s asking me to respect, they never know how big a behavioral change that respect might demand of me. We have to take that shit on faith.
I assume, thus, that if someone’s bringing me such an issue, it’s serious enough to warrant a behavioral change. And, consequently, they have to assume they’re asking me to make a serious effort on their behalf. That’s the only way to get to mutual understanding and agreement and the only way to afford such agreements the proper sense of gratitude.
I Don’t Respect Every Boundary
I said I respect players’ boundaries most of the time. So, when do I don’t? And what does that look like?
Honestly, I don’t know. This is hypothetical. It’s never come up. Partly because I’m actually a pretty nice frigging guy — and I’ll punch anyone who says otherwise — and partly because I don’t care to include sensitive topics in my games. I mean, sure, there’s violence. These are action-adventure games. Violence is a thing. But most anything that’d earn my game an R- — or Mature — rating just doesn’t happen. And I don’t care to explore sex and romance with my gaming buddies. Those things are between me and my intimate, romantic partners.
But what if Beth, say, did have a boundary I couldn’t skirt. Say she was wholly against violence in any form. She couldn’t stand any description of violence. It was okay to roll dice and deal damage and do combat mechanics, but she couldn’t suffer flavorful combat descriptions and couldn’t stomach the words kill and dead?
I’d have to say, “I understand what you’re saying Beth, and I respect your views — and I’m grateful to you for being open with me about it — but I just can’t run a good game of Dungeons & Dragons under those constraints and I’m not interested in running another kind of game. I think you’d be best off with a different playgroup playing a different game. Combat is central to the game and it’s something I really enjoy.”
Something lots of people forget is that respecting, understanding, and agreement aren’t the same as acquiescing. I understand hypothetical-Beth’s issues and I respect her right to her views, but the only agreement possible is that she’s not a good fit for the game I’m running. And I would probably say that even if she was a good friend. I do have good friends I have discovered I can’t run games for. Beth and I are too different in this to enjoy playing the same game together. The end.
Your Boundaries; Your Problem
Real talk…
Everyone’s got issues. Everyone’s got boundaries. Some are stronger than others. Some are very serious. Some are more like preferences. Some are the result of extreme personal events. Others aren’t. Some are self-inflicted and others are spun out by cruel twists of fate or luck or happenstance. Many are undeserved and unfair. But everyone’s got to find a way to carry to carry their baggage. I will absolutely help a person carry their load if I can — especially if they treat me with respect and courtesy — and I am glad for the people who help me carry mine. That’s part of what being a decent human being is.
But it’s still on me — and no one else — to get through my life with my baggage. As it’s on everyone else to do the same with their own. It doesn’t matter where and how I bought my bags or how heavy they are, if I want to live my life, I have to learn how to carry them.
I ain’t saying this to be cruel. I’m saying this because life is cruel. Sometimes. It’s cruel to each and every one of us in turn. And it’s easy to forget, when we’re weighed down by our own luggage, that we know nothing about anyone else’s burden. That’s why we help each other when we can but also acknowledge anything anyone does for us is a favor. It’s a gift. To be treasured.
Beth’s got the spider thing. That sucks. It makes her life harder for her in ways I can’t fathom. All she needs to do to get my help and understanding is ask. Politely and courteously and with respect.
How Surveys Ruin Everything
So far, I seem totally reasonable, don’t I? Even compassionate? Except, of course, for the parts about personal responsibility and gratitude. I know those are nasty, dirty, evil phrases these days. But I am totally cool with respecting most people’s needs, right? At least, I’m cool with trying to find a place of mutual respect and understanding whenever possible. So what the hell is my deal with surveys? If I’m willing to respect your issues — and I want you to respect mine — what’s wrong with just inviting you to write your issues down on a piece of paper and handing it to me.
It comes down to four things. Yes, four. That’s a lot of things.
Surveys Ain’t Agreements
Above, I said this shit about respecting people’s limits requires mutual agreement, respect, and understanding. And underlying all of that is trust. Without trust, none of this shit works. The thing is, there’s nothing about filling out and collecting surveys that engenders mutual agreement, respect, and understanding. The survey actually — intentionally — replaces the need for a respectful, trust-building conversation to gain understanding and reach a mutual agreement.
As I demonstrated, I’ll respect Beth’s issue — I’ll promise to do my best — but she’s got to promise, in return, to assume good faith on my part and forgive me if I slip up. And if I think such a slip is likely, I’ll actually build a failsafe we can use to deal with a slip. That’s assuming I can honor her wishes and we’re not in a, “We can’t play this game together,” situation. And if we are, Beth deserves to hear that from my own mouth. And to decide whether negotiation and compromise are possible.
You can’t do any of that shit with a survey. A survey is ultimately just a list of demands to be either honored or rejected.
Surveys Lower the Bar
This is going to land me in so much trouble…
When you hand people surveys instead of treating boundaries as discussion-worthy issues, that drastically lowers the bar for what counts as a boundary. It’s a psychology thing. Players will feel compelled to write something on that survey. If they don’t really have any serious issues, they’ll dig deep for something. You’re also asking players to predict how they will react instead of speaking wholly from their experience with their own past reactions. And that’s fraught with uncertainty.
The list of things you can imagine, if I force you to, that you might have a difficult reaction to is much, much longer than the list of things you know from experience you will have a difficult reaction to. That’s how people be. And so, mixed in with the serious traumas and phobias and anxieties and whatnot, you’ll have a bunch of icks and squicks, real and imagined.
But so what? Why isn’t it worth respecting someone’s minor discomfort? Why shouldn’t people avoid their icks and squicks during their playtime?
Well, that ain’t the issue. The issue is when you put the icks and squicks on the same level as legitimate traumas or phobias, you devalue the serious issues. If I can’t tell what’s an ick and what’s a squick and what’s a trauma, I have to treat everything with the gravitas of a trauma.
But… so what? Just assume anything written down is serious enough to respect like a trauma.
Well, that’s easy to say, but if every one of my five players hands me a list of two or three or four or more issues, now I’ve got ten to twenty forbidden topics that may or may not overlap, any one of which may be easy or hard to work around. And I’m just a human fucking being with a human brain. I’ve only got so much processing power and just running a game takes a lot of it. So now, I’m set up for failure. I’m eventually going to screw up.
If I screw up an ick, no one gets broken. But if I screw up a trauma, I could do someone very serious harm.
If I have to power to do very serious harm, I want to treat that as an extremely high priority. Which is why, by the way, I want to work out a failsafe or backup plan for when I do screw up if I think that’s likely. If I have one — or maybe two — issues to worry about, I can do that. But I can’t do the same for twenty issues. No one can.
If you tell me you’ve got an issue that’ll seriously hurt you, I am going to break myself trying to respect it unless I think it’s impossible. And if I think it’s impossible, I’ll tell you so we can just avoid the situation by not gaming together. So I need my players to bring me only truly serious issues.
After all, if something comes up during play that squicks you out, all you have to say is, “Hey, that was squicky. Could you not do that again?” Easy peasy. I’ll respect that too. I did it two weeks ago when I was going overboard with some undead-related flavor text that proved too much for one player.
Surveys Imply a Promise I Can’t Keep
The fact that these surveys lower the bar so that, instead of occasionally having one player bring you a really serious issue, you have five players giving you lists of issues of questionable seriousness? It makes all this shit really unwieldy. And it drastically increases the odds of a slip-up. Replacing a conversation whereby you reach a place of mutual respect and understanding with a pile of surveys basically implies a promise of complete and total compliance while also robbing you of the reassurance that you’ll be treated with an assumption of good faith.
Yeah, I realize that shit’s basically already implied in the above two sections, but it deserves to be set down as a separate issue. Surveys imply a promise of perfect compliance. They promise a completely, totally safe environment. That’s a promise you can’t actually make.
And one that you shouldn’t…
This Shit Ain’t Healthy
I’m not going to harp on this point here. Just as above — where I explained these Lines and Veils tools and gave you a link — I’m gonna spell this out briefly and free of bias and give you a link.
There is strong, documented evidence that giving people an implied promise of safety from discomfort combined with the idea that exposure to discomfort constitutes actual, tangible harm, does deep psychological damage to people. It turns them brittle. It renders them delicate and unable to cope with stressors.
The absolute best work on this subject is The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. It ain’t the only work on the subject, but it’s definitely one of the most comprehensive overviews you’ll ever find. And it’s got hundreds of citations to launch further exploration.
Thus, there’s very strong evidence to suggest that Lines and Veils surveys are psychologically and socially unhealthy and that they actually leave you more likely to hurt people than you would be without them.
Now, I’m just a Game Master and I run pretend elf games. I am not anyone’s doctor. So it’s not my place to decide what’s healthy and what’s not for others. So, is it really my place to refuse to let people hand me a survey if that’s what it takes to help them feel safe? It’s not like I refuse to serve my players pizza if I feel their diets are unhealthy.
Yes. It is my place. And it’s yours too when you’re running games.
Consider first that I’m the guy who typed, “If you tell me there’s an issue, I will break myself helping you if I can.” Obviously, I take this shit seriously. I absolutely do not want to traumatize someone with my game. I’m also the guy who insists on setting reasonable expectations and setting up failsafes to avoid triggering serious issues by accident. The idea of making people more breakable doesn’t sit well with me. It actually kind of scares me.
See, the people who rely on such surveys to feel safe are a powder keg of conflict waiting for a match. The moment they feel unsafe — even if it’s purely by accident — they’re going to have an extreme emotional reaction. And it’ll be aimed either at me or whichever other player made them feel unsafe. That’s what being psychologically brittle means.
I am not okay with that.
Tabletop roleplaying games are social games. I consider myself responsible for the social environment I create. If I set unrealistic expectations and make promises I can’t keep — and to understand how Lines and Veils surveys do that, you’ll need to do the homework and read on the subject — I’m being tremendously irresponsible. And given that we’re talking about people who may be overcoming serious psychological trauma here, I can’t risk being irresponsible.
Honestly, running a game on tenterhooks, trying to keep track of a list of things I’m not to say or do and knowing that if I slip up, I’m not likely to get a courteous and respectful reminder, but instead knowing I’m likely getting screamed at just ain’t my idea of a fun time.
And yes, that’s where this Lines and Veils Horseshit eventually leads.
The End
So that’s it. That’s my response and my defense and my personal reasons for hating this Line and Veils Horseshit. You can disagree if you want — that’s your right — but I ain’t interested in further debate.
So why am I even talking about it if this is just my personal view of things? Why do I keep digging about it?
It’s because I’ve decided — stupidly — to teach tens of thousands of people how to manage a social club. And how to give themselves the best chance to hold a tabletop roleplaying game campaign together for as long as possible. I can’t, in good conscience, tell you to use Lines and Veils surveys and I also can’t ignore the issue given the potential damage they can do. They are the opposite of giving your campaign every chance to succeed.
My point is, I’m not trying to make some cultural, political, or moral point. I could. But if I wanted to do that, I’d have said more — and different — shit than I did. My only goal here is to help you run the least worst game campaign you possibly can.
And for the reasons I’ve outlined above, that comes down to two things… First, ignore anyone telling you to use some kind of Gamer Consent Survey at the start of your game. And second, if a player hands you, unbidden, a completed Gamer Consent Survey to help them feel safe at your table, run.
Just. Fucking. Run.
I agree with this. No way I want to end up with a long list of bushes to beat around. I’ve got enough on my plate as GM.
Moreover, if players don’t trust you to handle this kind of thing seriously, you probably shouldn’t be gaming together.
Tools have to be evaluated in the context of their purpose, which for most of these safety tools originally goes “How can you quickly and succinctly develop and communicate a group common understanding of good taste for a game where the purpose of the campaign is to repeatedly introduce extreme content, given the players either don’t know each other, or don’t know you very well?”
Much as I don’t trust Haidt (and yeah I need to give him a second chance, he does at least back his ideas up with a lot of data) I definitely agree with the rest of this, and that’s more than enough to get me to steer clear of surveys. Plus they just seem so impersonal. I’d rather tell people I’m committed to running a good game that doesn’t hurt them, and that they can come to me with any concerns they have at any time, instead of saying “here fill out this form so I don’t traumatize you”.
As someone who’s had to fill out those consent forms. They don’t even work, I’ve had gms that straight up ignore things on those forms and just had people fill them out as an obligation. Heinous stuff too, not little things like spiders or what have you. Actual upsetting material that that I won’t get into.
End of the day, if the gm actually cares about players comfort they don’t need a signed agreement or contract to convey that.
Yeah… I was being tactful by using “spiders.” But, yeah…
I’ve found value in these tools in like with the quote Angry’s fond of about plans being useless but planning being indispensable. It establishes a tone in terms of how we, as real people outside the game, will talk about the game being inside or outside the barriers of common good taste, given the subject matter that triggered this desire for caution.
It does seem to be that the people who obsess about these type of “content warnings” are also the people who are the most obsessed with that sort of content. They seem to want to use an RPG as a tool to explore their sinister desires etc.
Which can be okay, but I’m not so sure it really is. Do you really need to invite your friends into you weird snuff film sex cult?
Also, I dislike it when people want to remove/include “the current year things” to their games. I think racism is one of the best ways to create tension between the elves and the humans, but I don’t treat it as a way to lash out at any real life groups. Orcs are evil, deal with it.
Slavery exists, and I don’t think it’s something we should shy away from in a fantasy setting – by default that is.
I think as a GM it’s best to consider your games PG or PG13. There’s violence, it’s sometimes a bit bloody, but not over the top. And you are allowed a few swearwords per session. And sex scenes fade to black (if you have to have them.) I try to avoid it because I’m personally not too fond of that anyways.
“Let’s not ever do anything really challenging” is a valid stance that doesn’t really call for utilizing any kind of tools, and “Let’s throw all sense of basic decency out the window” is also a position that doesn’t really require any tools. But literally everything that exists in between those two stances involves some desire for care, and these tools can be a useful way to address that if your goal is to fall somewhere in the middle range. So sure, your elves are racist: does that mean that they’re pushing humans to the brink of starvation with redlining, or does that mean they go around removing human men’s testicles, as real racists were doing in my country about 130 years ago? Do you plan to narrate a thorough description of this, while our characters watch on?
Yeah, um…”Let’s throw all sense of basic decency out the window” does require a lot more work, *unless* the GM and players are all tools. Normal, non-maladjusted people don’t need special tools to behave normally in social situations. RPGs are social situations, and while I capitulate that RPGs do seem to attract more than their fair share of maladjusted people, they are still the exception…at least in my world. Maybe that is just good fortune for me.
No survey will help if your DM thinks it’s fun to feature graphic narration of the kind of brutality you’re discussing.
You’re going to have to have a very adult conversation about it… Or you’re going to have to find a new DM.
And that’s something you’ll need to have a dialogue about rather than use a survey to answer.
I do think it might be helpful to discuss boundaries in a session 0 when your campaign will feature heavily known delicate topics. And that RPG focusing on potentially triggering topics should have a section on how to discuss boundaries.
But I agree that even in this case, the setting of boundaries should be handled as a discussion rather than with surveys and other tools, for the reasons you outline here. And it should only pertain to those specific topics at the heart of your game, so you don’t end up with twenty different boundaries you won’t be able to respect.
I do not expressly disagree here.
I’m not surprised by your stance or your reasons for it. You want to teach us to run the least shitty game we can, and that means not cutting corners. This Line and Veil stuff is all about cutting corners.
Actually… yes.
I run a PG13 game. Within that context, if a player is too fragile to handle the game content, it’s probably better for them to leave the game and go to therapy instead. I’ve certainly had a few players who *needed* therapy, and I’d have had less disruption if I’d said earlier “hey, go get help, take your meds, no dice until you’re less dramatic.”
My own meandering experience (and not as good as sunscreen) was that body horror triggers a vagus nerve issue and I pass out. It’s happened at school and military events when they require we all watch horrific drunk driving aftermath. But all I need is to know I’m allowed to walk out of the room if I need to. Just quietly take a minute to myself as the game keeps going, no big. And knowing that, I generally don’t need to leave the room. I just need to talk to the GM to feel like I can. And if it was just on survey, I wouldn’t really have that warm fuzzy.
So I really like this article.
Funnily enough, I had this exact problem with a player and spiders before, with someone who I knew was arachnophobic, but I didn’t realize would be so upset at a mere mention/passing description. Thankfully she was understanding about it. I did have to scrap my ides about an adventure heavily involving Drows, for obvious reasons.
I think that it’s reasonable to expect GMs to preemptively warn the players about any “rated R” topic they might cover (sex, graphic violence, evocative descriptions of gore/body horror), as they are already considered somewhat taboo. But surveys always felt extremely impersonal and robotic to me. May be adequate for pick up/convention games where you don’t want to waste time having the talk with people who you’re never gonna see again in 3 hours, but for a durable long term game they seem useless if not actively harmful for the reasons you pointed out.
If you’re in a pick up game with random strangers, something like an X-card is better than nothing. But a survey seems like it would take up too much of already limited table time for almost no benefit.
Actually, I could argue strongly that Nothing is better than X-Card. But I think I’ve harped on this long enough. Do as you will.
Thanks for this.
I have it as a note of GM pride that after killing and maiming three of his characters in a row with them I have GIVEN one of my players a “spider thing”. I am going to fill my next undead spider with spiderlings this weekend for his benefit, thanks.
There really is no substitute for actual, mutual human interaction. Any crutch can become an extra leg you forget how to walk without.
*adds Undead Spider Piñata to the list of rad band names*
You actually convinced me, I’ve been a diehard safety tools advocate but you make a lot excellent points here – particularly that the tools can easily serve to make it look like you’re a thoughtful and considerate dm when you’re really, really, not.
This is why I read your shit.
I know the stupid survey is worthless. I refuse to fill one in as a player and absolutely won’t accept one as a GM.
You have elucidated why.
Thank you.
I know you said ask your players about the bridge of spiders, but I want to ask you about the bridge of spiders. What’s that? It sounds cool.
The court sealed the records… I am not allowed to discuss it.
Understandable, but unfortunate. My imagination will have to suffice
Enthusiastic clapping from the where the late kids sit in the classroom. And a hearty verbal agreement! Thank you for spelling out what my gut told me.
This article is incredibly helpful for me as someone who has struggled with their social and conflict resolution skills as a game master.
On this topic, I’ve seen game masters be preoccupied and unnecessarily burden themselves with trying to prevent and cover as many and every possible problem and topic, gameplay and content wise beforehand via lines and veils and more extensive surveys. Then they feel like its their failure of duty when a problem, unforeseen or otherwise, occurs. Instead, they could’ve been dealing with problems as they arise and being okay with the idea that conflict happens and can be resolved healthily.
Reading Angry’s articles I’ve come to realize the stories I’ve heard at GM’s tables, including my own, are issues are due to lack of skills or problems in conflict resolution, assertiveness, and honest self-interest.
Those long safety checklists are misguided and to be avoided, I agree, for reasons you state. However, I think it’s a mistake to conflate “safety checklist” with “lines and veils”. L&V is a useful model that gives us a shared language to describe needs or strong preferences.
For my game with my friends I know well, and who share my tastes in fiction, explicit L&V is unnecessary. We all have roughly the same sense of what should be in a fantasy role playing game. And if someone has an unexpected request, they will approach the GM, just like your Beth. No need for a formal session 0 about it, just talk as needed.
If I’m running for strangers or new players, then it’s worth saying something at the start like “this will be like LOTR, not GoT. Anyone have any content they want me to be mindful of?” If answer is yes, then L&V is a quick way to clarify how big a deal it is and how we’ll handle it. Not with a survey or contract, but rather with a conversation. “Is this a line for you, or a veil?”
The unusual case where I always do a session zero with structured approach to L&V is when I’m running therapeutic games for patients who expect me to act like a doctor. I still wouldn’t use a checklist, though. There are prerequisites to any activity, and this game requires you can verbally and spontaneously share what you need to play safely.
Lines and Veils is a helpful tool, to be deployed flexibly with good judgment. Not by merely executing a safety checklist.
I agree with everything you’ve said except where you praised The Coddling of the American Mind. As someone personally trained in psychology, I cannot in good conscious recommend anyone read Lukianoff or Haidt if their goal is understanding and application. The field is sadly rife with people looking to promote their existing beliefs over questioning them, and each and every one will purport unassailable confidence in things we’ve only barely begun to conceptualize. Unfortunately, this is an issue with most pop-psy people.
I didn’t just recommend “The Coddling of the American Mind.” I pointed out that it is a good starting place to learn about the issue and that the hundreds of citations and references make for good further reading. But thank you for your perspective.
I also recommend that people read, research, and decide for themselves. Which is also why I linked Monte Cook Games’ resource as a definitive work.
Thanks for the reply. Absolutely fair, just a passion point for me.
While I was reading this article I suddenly noticed a spider crawling on my bare foot. Not kidding. Not happy.
I asked Boris to check in on you. You didn’t hurt him, did you…?
“Respecting someone’s boundaries is a favor you do for someone else. It’s a good thing to do — most favors are — but it’s still a favor. It’s a gift. Why? Because it requires you to change your behavior. And monitor your behavior. That takes effort. When you make an effort for someone else, that’s a favor. And it must be treated as such.”
I know you just do pretend elf games, but more people seriously need to hear this in more places.
I agree… but also, I have found that the people who need to hear it the most also reject it by choice. It isn’t that most people don’t know this stuff… sadly. I guess that’s a cynical, pessimistic view and I should be more charitable, but…
Hey, here’s at least one person who needed to hear it. Thanks, this whole article has given me a lot to think about.
Here I had been under the assumption that Lines and Veils simply wasted time when a more productive “how do we handle the table *when* a line is crossed” could be had instead. That the assumption that a list of 20 things could capture every possible concern, and that a problem would never occur were foolish assumptions – but no more than that.
That surveys could actually be harmful, beyond simply losing potential game time – that was a piece of the puzzle I was not aware of.
I think the other big problem with the survey approach is that it is so blunt and massively simplifies things.
If someone has a problem with spiders, what does that mean? Giant spiders? Graphic descriptions? Artwork? Are all drow out too? Other creatures with too many legs? Or does it just mean I need to clear them out of my house before they come over?
If you hand me a survey with “sexual violence” on it, I’d probably circle that as a NO (hypothetically; I’d probably just leave – that would be a helpful session 0 to tell me it’s probably not the type of table I want).
But that doesn’t mean I don’t want any mention of it. I don’t want my character to do or be subjected to it; I don’t want it glorified or in any way celebrated or enjoyed. And I definitely don’t want it described graphically. But I’m very happy to have “goblins stole the farmer’s daughter” as a quest, “all the men of the village are dead, but the women are missing” gives me investment to bring justice to the world, and I’m happy to have it in backstories of PC/NPCs, plot points in politics, whatever.
Point is – surveys are a very blunt tool to a delicate problem, and the appropriate response to them is probably to thwack the person using them with another blunt tool.
But you’ve given me 4 other reasons they’re a bad idea, which I’m very grateful for. And it’s nice for once to get to the end of an article and think “I’m not doing it all wrong!”!
I read Coddling a few years ago – excellent and very interesting book.
I do include a lines/veils question on my initial player questionnaire when filling seats for my online game. Some answers I’d be willing to work with and would warrant a secondary discussion… but if I’m honest, that question is mostly for screening out complicated players.
I’ve literally never run into an issue that a lines/veils survey or player boundaries worksheet would actually help for in well over a decade of GMing.
I’ve had stuff come up that made people uncomfortable, either in-game or been approached by a player about it before a game started, and it’s generally been handled perfectly fine with just … a conversation.
For some sensitive topics i will check in about it out of game with the players on my own – if it is something that I know will actually come up at all – and is something that I think is likely to be a problem for people.
Usually I just… Don’t include most of the major common trauma things anyway because it’s not fun, or doesn’t fit the tone I want for the game, or whatever reason, and it just never becomes an issue at all in the vast majority of games, so having a survey about it most of the time would just be making A Thing of it for no reason anyway.
Most of the time my campaign pitch to start the game in the first place discusses tone and themes, and general genre of the game — which tends to give most people a sense of what to expect anyway.
When you mention arachnophobia, I find it a little amusing. When I was young, I was virulently arachnophobic (mind you, not so much that I couldn’t deal with spiders in a D&D game). But over time, that changed; and it changed partly as a consequence of making myself look at and think about spiders.
Now I think that spiders are absolutely cool.
So sometimes confronting a fear can actually be a healthy thing. Not that it’s the job of a DM to provide psychological counseling, mind you…
So I have to say, the Undead Spider Piñata is just a phenomenally great idea.
I’ve always found it odd that surveys were sometimes recommended as a tool for tabletop rpgs. The riskyness of the experience is low and the groups are small enough where you can actually have discussions. I’ve found “hard limits and preferences” kind of surveys have been useful in some nordic LARPS. There you’re running an event with many people and potentially quite risky stuff (people hiking in winter, questionable meals and maybe even some flogging). The point being that the survey is an compromise to handle that amount of people, since you can’t have a functional personal communication between all participants. A survey is a crude tool and as such the course of actions attached to survey answers were rather mechanical. For example deciding which groups within an event people were put into.
Side note to have more meaningful conversation than asking about spiders, I’ve only seen the last page of Monte’s consent pdf about the survey or whatever. I never knew it had more to it, and I think missing the context of that survey did pretty bad damage to my games when I put them in. There’s some actually good advice about communication in there that many, many haven’t learned.
It’s just also bogged down by the survey, the x-cards (that are used in a game meant for maybe 7 year olds,) and the other tools instead more content of “here’s how you communicate.” I’ve had a lot of players/gms with baggage (and honestly the venn diagram of rpg players and ‘people not well adjusted to society for one reason or another’ is not the quite a circle, but pretty close, like an oval,) and the pdf has things that usually a reasonably well-raised person would know, but almost everyone I met did not. In that context, that’s useful. But all I got was the survey, and that’s a shame.
This is one of those things that the internet amplifies. It’s a myth. The vast majority of gamers, especially those who gather around physical tables, are reasonably well-adjusted socially. Or, if they are young, they’re on their way there.
My take almost certainly won’t work for conventions or game store play, but it works for me: run games for people you know. I have some idea what my player’s traumas are, and what their phobias, icks and squicks are. Moreover, they know me, will tell me if there’s a topic they don’t want me to touch, and know that my slip ups are slip ups. Forms are for people you don’t/can’t trust, imo.
I don’t play D&D. I’m tired of high fantasy and levels and classes. I play games like Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, and Kult. And — ironically, I think — the player base for those games seem to have the most “triggers” of any other type of game. Being essentially homebound, I also play exclusively online.
When I post a game opening, I include trigger warnings, but I have to be honest: most of the stuff I put in the warnings should be implied by the game being played. I mean, seriously, if you’re signing up for a Kult game, you’ve got to have a pretty high threshold for nastiness. But the warnings can’t get too specific without including spoilers; I can’t say “this game will have have clowns in it *” without giving away some of what will make the game awesome.
But the other thing is, I run games for adults. Nothing against kids or running games for them — I was 12 when I started playing RPGs — but allowing a young’n to play in a Kult game, for instance, should be considered child abuse. Seriously, that game is extreme. Point is, I expect adults to behave like adults. And if you literally can’t handle horror or being horrified, you wouldn’t pay to watch an R-rated horror movie (I would hope). and neither should you play Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green or Kult. But if you do have a trauma you’d prefer not to relive, be a grown-up and let me know. Privately, on your own, without turning the opening portion of the game into a therapy session. In that, I completely agree to how you’d handle the situation. But yeah, if a game relies heavily on what That Which Shall Not Be Mentioned, then you should find another game.
Anyway, cheers, and thanks for your thoughts.
* Yes, an actual game currently being run.
As we tell our kids in my house, “You can only control yourself. You can tell other people your needs. You can tell them that what they’re doing hurts you, but it’s up to them to decide to keep going or not.” It’s the same thing I had to learn while dealing with my mom after I had kids of my own.
I’ve been known to at least warn before particularly tense sessions things such as, “Hey guys, this session has the potential to get really intense or upset. I’ll check in and give breaks, but if you need more, please let me know.”
While I agree with you completely on surveys and the reasons behind it, I would then say this is why some little amount of a session zero is great. I have run campaigns which i use the session zero to describe the world and the problems and issues that actually might be horrible to people are brought up. That way they can bring it up to me and we can discuss it.
You may say hey that is what an open document is for and discussions can happen away from the table. Well I have done those also and people like to still ask questions about the world especially as a group.
Do as you will. But I ain’t gonna waste a any time I could spend gaming on that crap.
Wow. Since I have been playing the same campaign with the same players and the same characters(!) weekly for 30 years, and when I play anything else it is with friends who I have known for even longer than that…I had no idea how far this shit has gone in roleplaying.
Everyone is entitled to have quirks, flaws, fears or downright phobias. I happen to be terribly afraid of heights, so much so that even seeing someone on TV, fully safety-harnessed up, anywhere near a drop of more than about 40 feet gives me cold sweats and makes parts of me tingle in a definitely unpleasant way; put lava at the bottom of that and it makes my fear literally no worse. But I would never have dreamed of asking a DM not to put heights in a game, not to have my characters threatened by a fall. Surely people can suspend disbelief in a ‘pretend elf game’ (I wish I had thought of that phrase…) enough to make that fear an element of excitement? At the end of the day, surely jeopardy is the point of any RPG; that’s where you get excitement from, isn’t it, the vicarious exposure to whatever you perceive as danger? The same reason people like crime movies or operation documentaries.
I have never posted a comment on this site before, despite having read it for years (long may it prosper), and I am not trying to belittle anyone’s approach to RPGs, or real life for that matter. But all I can say is that if my fear of heights – or anything else – in a RPG upset me that much, if I couldn’t deal with the effects it had on me…then I would stop playing rather than inflict my issues on someone else’s enjoyment.
Yes, I am old. But the world REALLY changed while I was not paying attention because I was too busy enjoying RPGs.
Thanks for a thought-provoking – and illuminating – article.
You know… not to argue, but I think that’s a shame. From your post, you sound like someone I’d definitely like to have at MY table just based on the idea that you’d rather not burden others with your challenges. So, personally, if it were us, I’d much prefer you told me, “Heights, got a thing,” so I could keep you at my table rather than losing you from the hobby forever.
There’s “too fars” on either side of this. And while everyone is responsible for their own challenges, friends don’t make friends face them alone. … In pretend elf games. This is all just about gaming.
One of the best essays on this topic I’ve ever read! Thank you
One of the most frustrating kinds of players are the ones that join a game where it’s obvious it’s going to center around certain subject matter, and proceed to complain about the subject matter.
I’ve had more than one person complain about my game having “problematic content without a warning”. Every time it’s happened I’ve simply pointed at the basic world notes (or even the goddamn campaign ad) and told them not only is it mentioned there, I was deliberately not subtle about it. One quite ridiculous excuse I got once was “I don’t have time to read all that”, so it’s obvious they just want to complain for the sake of complaining, or are simply trolls who join games just to start fights.
That is when you say, “My game will continue to feature those issues you consider problematic; you might want to seek a different table.”
*Content Warnings* are great. Especially if you don’t slap the words “Content Warning” on them. Describing, in broad strokes, an experience people are about to have and allowing them to self-select accordingly is really, really useful. Pitching a horror game as a light, fun experience because you want to “surprise your players” is a real dick move.
But trigger warnings generally aren’t great, because they tend to focus only on things we think of as “triggers.” And you have no way to know what someone might react to.
Amen.