*Warning* Adding Dark, Horrific Acts in Your Game - #38
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- Warning This episode talks about topics that some will find unwelcome, or unsavory. We talk about the dark elements of society and in cultures, and whether these should or shouldn't exist in your game or world. And listening to the players at your table, and ensuring everyone is comfortable with the topics if they are brought in.
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Slavery in our game.
Monk: I will kill all slavers and free all slaves.
Warlock: ... can I... buy one?
Paladin: "For the Elder Gods, a tribute is required."
Played a game once where I was a slave. A willing one. The other players looked at me strangely and asked me why I'd ever do something like that. My answer was that I was a warrior, and that's all I'd known - my life for my master, against the world. I didn't know how to feed myself, or find critical arms and armor, or for that matter find shelter. To go at it alone and taste freedom didn't make rational sense. It made far more sense to me to offer up a contract: I'll be your warrior-slave, if you'll house me and feed me, and provide me with the things I need. If I'm particularly talented in your eyes, then perhaps you'll also provide me with a few of the things I want.
There was a long silence after that game, and a lot of open minds and respect in subsequent sessions.
One of the other party members bought me, and we continued from there. It was an incredible experience.
Paladin: Slavery’s legal... somewhere.
Monk: glass houses, just saying, glass houses.
@@ericcadwell5193 it's the simple touches that make excellent roleplaying moments happen. Kudos on your character, may the dice favor a compelling tale.
@David Strickland
Barbarian: "What are you doing on the ground because you failed your saving throw?! Stand up!... I have a show to demonstrate, and the people, deserve to rumble!!!"
People who believe that the DM holds the values of the villains they create are stupid in that regard if I'm honest.
Is it any different from people who portray a role on TV or the movies so convincing that their audience have a hard time separating the actor from the role? William Atherton, the actor who played Walter Peck in Ghostbusters stated that for a while he got a lot of hate thrown his way when he was in public because people couldn't disassociate the role from the actor. People wrote letters to Charlton Heston firmly believing he was Moses (and sometimes God) for his portrayal in The Ten Commandments.
So, don't be harsh on someone who has glommed onto something another person deep in a role said, and associates the actor with the role. We've all done it at some point to some extent. I know that Rachel from Friends and Jennifer Aniston are two separate people, but every now and then I find myself reacting to news about Jennifer Aniston as if she were her character.
@@jackielinde7568 though I agree that it is a fairly common and very human thing to do, I can not forgive someone who would accuse their DM for the qualities of a fictional monster, a very human monster perhaps, but a fictional one, which very existence is meant to antagonize the player characters. No it is absurd and stupid and if you're playing d&d you must (perhaps not in the heat of the moment, but eventually) realise that your DM is not your monster.
@@Deniecu I don't know about common or human, exactly... "childish" is the word that comes to mind (even if I'm not entirely sure it's the right technical term either)...
Past the age of around eight or ten, your parents MUST have had some kind of conversation with you about how those are actors and the movies and TV shows aren't real. If not them, a teacher, or an older friend...
As an adult, it's still just as much fun to SEE "John McClain" do all those things, and identify Bruce Willis as him... but that's over as soon as the credits start rolling or the screen (on TV) shuts down... because "enough of fantasy... back to real life"...
I don't mind reassuring some folks that these are literary and theatrical devices, used to make the villains villainous... even ask them "So since your Character is a Swashbuckler, you believe in settling arguments with swords? Do you?" OR "Since you play a Warlock, you're planning on a pact with THE Devil? Right???"
Usually, it's just a bit of a reminder needed, to engage their own antics in-game and remind them that we're here to play a fantasy game... and nobody actually has to get hurt. ;o)
Custodia Imperialis people are also overly sensitive these days also, to the point of ridiculousness.
@@jackielinde7568 Difference: you've actually talked to your GM, presumably out of character, maybe even in "meatspace". While I'm at it, it's understandable to fill in the blanks of an actor's personality through their performances, in all likelihood your brain does that automatically, but you really need to verify your relative location to the "deep end" if you think Morgan Freeman is God, or that Tom Hanks was stranded on an island for years with nothing but a soccer ball for company.
Slavery: terrible! Can't do it! It's bad!
Mass murder of goblins: perfectly fine. Doesn't matter. Hack those little green bois.
Necromancer: Necromancer...
The rape one is pretty damned bad for me... When he said dark, I was pretty amped.
Then he roleplayed the "Have your way with her..."
And I was... Almost immediately uncomfortable.
@@Andrew-ih2gz mass murder is categorically a worse crime than rape.
And dnds whole combat system is based around murdering things. Dont understand why people get so uppety about rape, obviously its a horrible thing, but its all make believe and can be a useful tool to make a villain.
@@whyteshadow57 That's because murder is easier to rationalise. If a demon is torturing and killing people, it's obvious why nobody bats an eye to killing the demon. Self-defence murder is also easy to understand. Slavery had monetary value once. But there is no instance where rape is justified in any reasonable way. That's why rape is way worse in the imagination of everyone. Rape is something going very wrong, generally in the mind of the rapist.
@@whyteshadow57 - I guess, often times rape is a far more... Intimate crime? Murder you see portrayed in media all the time, but you're likely to feel differently if the act is done right in front of you.
Though murder is also finite. It ends when one party or the other is dead. Rape has lingering ramifications.
Idk. Rape just feels worse to me. It's not like I'd say no to having it in a game, as long as it doesn't go into excruciating detail. It's akin to saying, "You hear the sorrowful sobs and of the woman as she is dragged off into the next room, where she is repeatedly violated and skinned alive." As compared to describing the act at length as if your character is actually watching it take place. Like describing the screaming, grunting, and just visceral descriptions.
I guess distancing the players from the actual event makes it easier to stomach.
Massive respect toward the player that came to talk to you wanting understand. It's just heartbreaking when a player or just a person jumps to conclusions without talking it out with you first.
I'm reminded of a story I read in my grade school reader about this woman, a wife and mother, who made the most delicious soup. One day, as she was preparing to make it, her husband said how much he loved her soup, except this one ingredient, then her children came in, nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters, each asking to leave out an ingredient they didn't like. As you might have surmised by now that when dinnertime came and everyone was waiting in anticipation for the big pot of boiling water. The moral of the story is, negated of how much you take out.
Parkour
The greatest most horrific act of all... Having the player's character use the restroom.
Every well to do family's home is equipped with the self-emptying chamber pots.
Anything deposited will be teleported to the community cesspool.
This can be annoying if the toddler decides its funny to drop stuff in to watch it disappear.
(poor kitten)
Since the party had some spicy food this evening role for agility and constitution!
BEST served up with a tentacle monster in the sewer, cesspool, or subterranean chamber(s)... fun times! ;o)
F Huber. Better yet use an item that already exists. A bag of devouring! The build up of feculence will be slowed so the sewers will be less gross and less chance of an Otyugh showing up.
Also you won’t have to worry about unattended toddlers as they will surely be eaten by the bag. (still poor kitten)
Absol StoryofFiction. Ha. I play a monk. Don’t need to eat or drink any more.
in the current campaign im in i play a half orc and in the region we are in fears and hates orcs. my character doesn't get to sleep in the inns or even get a drink. he has been accosted, attacked ect. it puts it into perspective how the world currently is. and for him all he ever does is try and help. playing a feared race makes for very interesting RP moments like when i was denied service at the inn and my party couldn't convince the inn keep to house my character they left and camped out with my character.
The thing to remember is that gaming is a safe space to explore dark topics. We can talk about these things, and even experience them, with the understanding that we're in a safe environment and that we can leave it all behind at the end of the day. That doesn't mean that everyone is ready to, but for folks that need to approach these topics gradually, role-playing might just be the best starting point.
Actually, that "safe space" is exactly what is in question. IF you're gaming with a group who is comfortable exploring these subjects, and a DM who is (like Guy) sensitive to the needs/fears/wants/etc of the players, then go for it. Explore the dark. But if that's not what you signed on for...
@@Lionrhod212 The space is safe, but as I put forward: Not everyone is ready to explore these things. That should always be a consideration.
"Crawling in my... [Counter Magic]."
That's a good point.
Trigger warnings and "safe spaces" seem to have an adverse effect on emotional growth and resilience.
That intro... Was golden! Powerful! Thank you !!!
Brethren!
@@MegaMawileTheNommer a other mawile!! We must chat moree!
@@nanyayoksay1893 indeed we must. This is Destiny... Bond
@@MegaMawileTheNommer huehueheu uwu now what
@@nanyayoksay1893 I do not know where to go from here, ha! Its just nice to see similar taste :)
Excellent vid, Guy. This needs to be brought up. A lot of times players and GMs forget that other people with utterly unique lives are also at their table (not excluding myself here). This game is, by definition and necessity, a team game. If we're not valuing every member of the team we're doing it wrong.
With such a warm soul like yourself I feel like these topics in your game would be quite the learning experience, being uncomfortable with these topics only validates ones own humanity.
Modern social climate makes people think anyone that draws any level of attention to a subject somehow supports that subject, or that *anything* they personally find disagreeable is taboo. Such people should stick to NeoPets.
But there is a basic level of civil decorum and appropriate contexts, as well as proper tone for given subjects that can depend on the maturity of those at the table.
I've experienced significant... distress..., in my life that I still have yet to recover from and only really started to last year. And yet the last character I'm still in the middle of refining was victim of a tragedy that's a mix of Nanking and the Maguindanao Massacre. Because it's good? Well, it CAN be good *writing* if you have half a brain. But no, because it is bad, because it IS horrible.
Conflict drives growth.
If you strip the conflict of risk, stakes, or neuter the enemies you end up with The Last Jedi.
And personally, broken characters that stay or became, or become, strong resonate with me.
The level of detail on the other hand can varied based on the table.
But remember, you aren't SUPPOSED to feel comfortable with these subjects. That's the POINT. Dealing with things that make you uncomfortable helps make you a better person. Though so does the wisdom to recognize when a DM or player are being infantile and just acting out personal fantasy at the expense of others.
I prefer "short and sweet" because making a (ex) r18+ scene too long is time wasted on something the party could be doing together... Unless the party wanted to do that... But nevertheless, keep things rolling in regard to the story. No one wants to be a bystander player. Torment for the sake of torment is never a good scene. Torment to summon an ancient evil God, on the hand, is better. My characters are usually wild cards, so even I don't know what they may or may not do. It depends on how I feel at the time playing. I don't mind dark subjects, but like any, don't drag it around. The atmosphere of the world can be dark, like in Bloodborne (video game), but the acts of performing dark subjects can be a time sink.
I tend to test (as Guy suggested) subjects around the Players at a "New Table" or "New Party"... whether it's new in part or whole... and I let people who voice the belief that I must have some personally deep fondness for horrible sh*t get up and leave. I don't bother defending it...
For Players who only voice a valid and mature level of concern for the subject matters that "bother them" on some personal level, I agree to glass over those kinds of things at most... and we can agree that I don't wish to perpetuate or glorify it, only dabble in using that sort of thing to "color my villainy" as a brand... and we generally just move on.
Just experience and observation, someone willing to accuse you of "glorifying everything" you even bring up in the game is too infantile to understand what "in character" and "out of character" even means. They tend to have deeper personal demons than I'm willing OR equipped to deal with... so best let them run themselves off, and avoid that whole debacle. It's just a matter of time (a When, not and If) they find something else to get offended by and disrupt play on someone's account anyway.
...and frankly... I feel like these people are already pissed off and scouring the universe for the excuse to blame someone and attack... something I do not allow around my table. ;o)
Gaming is a place where we can explore dark topics like this free from lasting consequences however that does not mean we can grow insensitive or complacent with our storytelling. Including dark topics in stories should be because we want to tell a better story and not for shock value or being "dark and edgy". Also it is okay to ask in Session zero before starting if people will be okay with these topics showing up as a story element. If not, then modify the story or the player(s) can find another game, but DO NOT just spring it on them unexpectedly because that is just disrespectful to your players and a sign of poor storytelling.
I'm honestly glad you brought up everything you did in your video. I played an ex-soldier and war criminal once with a group, trying to go for an atonement/redemption arc, and the GM utterly shut me down with no explanation. Come to find out later he just hated me for things I had said a long time ago that he misinterpreted due to bias, but, what can you do? Right now I'm having a lot of fun playing my current character, an Arcanist who was accused of a crime he didn't commit, but because of the nature of the crime and the rabid political climate of the age he lived in, a crowd still gathered and wanted his head, so he and his family had to flee and he became a shut-in.
Now he's an adventurer with a party who has no idea who he is, and he's just keeping quiet about everything and focusing on his one and only passion: Crafting.
Oh God, I felt that student loan joke on a personal level 🤣 too true, man, too true lol
But in all seriousness, great video as always, Guy. I think you handled this content in a very mature and respectful manner. Well done, sir
I saw the list of "dark subjects" and my first thought was, "Well, if a group doesn't want these things in their game, I guess they won't have any campaigns involving *drow.*"
What I did with my players was I handed them each a 3x5 notecard during our session zero and told them to list any “yellow” items that made them uncomfortable, but they could handle it if it showed up in my game and any “Red” items which were a hard nope. I keep those in my binder next to their character backstory and will return it to them once the campaign ends.
Anyone else really, REALLY wondering what "the word" was?
We all know what the word was....especially to a snowflake player. I was in a game with a bunch of them one time. It went horrible.
@@kevynhansyn2902 To be fair, as a DM (also as a player, really) it's your duty to make sure everyone it's having a good time. So if someone gets offended or hurt by the introduction of a real life controversy, maybe you shouldn't keep it up.
Oh i am fully aware of that. When i run games i will mention rules to game by. I like to keep my game PG13 because there are family and kids at the game store where i run it. However i also mention (depending on ages of party members) that battle can become very graphic, least for older audiences.
I don't get offended at games, but if some players are just irritating and wont listen to the other players or the DM, than they have to go and not be a disturbance.
I want people to have fun playing games, board games or ttrpg's, but regardless, there will ALWAYS be that one or 2 people that will be offended regardless of what you do. You can only shift gears so many times to cater the players before you make some harsh decisions. My players now, like my playstyle, and some randoms as well.
@@kevynhansyn2902 Well, In my experience I never had to deal with someone who is one of those almost-professional offended people, at least not for long. To be fair, if I were to play in a more open environment instead of my house, and I did a couple times, I always tone down the dark stuff.
I love to use dark undertones in my games, but it's not worthwhile if you make someone uncomfortable, and in a open space it's obvious that we have to be more cautious.
For the record, I started DMing with Vampire (for years) and my games were full of dark shit, but I never offended anyone ever (that I know off), except a random time where the player (a vampire) fed on a jewish woman and when he found out she was jewish he was full of regret (turn out he was heavily religious, although he was christian, not jewish). Totally impossible to predict, to be fair.
@@kdolo1887 While you're right, I think the first thing to consider is if the thing that offended them was necessary. For example, I use ultra-violence and dark stuff to establish villains, but I can totally get the same reaction with not making them rapists and just them being murderers and torturers if someone is offended by rape. no need to offend there, and that's the point I'm trying to make as well.
Before starting our current campaign, I had one of these discussions with my group. Pretty much every single person at our table has been a victim of something, myself included, but we all also have had a lot of time, and some folks even therapy, so we are pretty well adjusted at this point. None of us pretend these things don't happen, and we agreed that a world where morals of a society can be grey is more realistic. It was agreed that these topics could be breached, but if anyone felt too uncomfortable or though it might be going too far then all of us would respect those concerns without question.
So far, the first topics that have come up are child abuse & racism (a small mob chasing and attempting to stone a tiefling child). Our fighter was so worked up he almost massacred the town on the spot, though a non-mob NPC intervened and was able to talk him down. They have taken in the little tiefling for now, and I plan to have their favorite NPC (a surface-born drow who owns the inn where they stay) offer to adopt the little girl when they return to town. We've also hinted at the existence of rape, via the half-orc shopkeep with the human mother who had been rescued from an orc camp many years ago, though nothing has been explicitly said. I think the act of showing individuals moving forward instead of being trapped in the past (while also not acting in denial) is important.
I am saddened, however, by the number of comments that refer to objecting individuals as "snowflakes". You never know someone's history unless they tell you, and moving forward from trauma is a process that happens differently for different people, and can take a very long time, especially in the absence of a caring and supportive environment. And trauma may stem from acts or situations that happened to someone close to the offended party, not just to that person themself. To waive off or dismiss, or worse, intentionally trigger a person is a disrespectful, cruel, and frankly low move. Communication, kindness and respect are part of being a decent human being. That includes at the game table.
Thank you for doing this video! It makes me a little sad when people are immediately like "darker topics don't belong at the table, we're here to have fun". Asides from just people who want to have fun immersing themselves in dark worlds (which is completly valid), that mentality leaves out the crowd for whom a darker game might be a way to confront and defeat their dark past in a safe enviroment.
I've played a campaign of changeling: the lost that had very dark themes, concerning severe mental illnesses and various forms of abuse, including physical, mental, emotional, and sexual, and the difficulties of recovery afterwards. The players were warned in advance, and despite those themes hitting close to home for most of us, we had a wonderful, thought-provoking, cathartic game that made me genuinely think there might even be a therapeutic potential in tabletop games. (Not at home games, of course, no one wants to put that kind of strain on the GM and other players, but I've heard of DnD being used by therapists to help children with social problems; and I think a darker, more matture setting could genuinely help struggling adults as well.)
I enjoy exploring dark themes, but only to demonstrate that I feel I can allow the characters in the games to then take over and change those ways for the better. With my knack for description and detail, I have turned off players from my games. I clarify that these things can change if the players are willing to go against the odds and rebuild a terrible society, be it small scale goblin/bugbear relationships of slavery, or a state of anarchy that has ensued across a large country.
To summarize, I drop the players in a developing/developed situation, and let them run about and do what they want. I try not to say "No" to a given action, so that the players feel like they can continue freely.
This is a very good video you have put forward. As someone who regularly uses dark themes to varying degrees in my game;I am happy to see you handle these topics with such maturity.
Not enough people handle these properly when talking about them. So thank you for this.
On an unrelated note snazzy scarf and jacket.:)
I appreciate the well thought out and respectful way you discussed a heavy topic. Well done, sir.
Players were sent to rescue some girl from a massive star-carrier filled with smaller ships. They hacked the ship, located the girl, killed the guards and realized, that all the small ships are filled with young girls who are being hauled to the base system of a cult and they were like "holy shit they want them as incubators" and fell silent for a while. In the end they saved all the girls and were almost turned to a cloud of subatomic particles by a ship two classes above theirs. Mission accomplised :)
My group has a safe word. Has used it. We respected it. I am a big fan of emotionally challenging my players, but there only way I can do that and still have players is if I am careful and respectful with the players.
Thank you for this video. I was one of the people to disagree with you on your past video concerning racism, as I very much believe in exploring all aspects of a culture. That includes the practices we would find abhorrent, such as racism. I, as a player, find racism and discrimination as a whole utterly ridiculous, but that doesn't mean my viewpoints extend into the setting my game is set in.
For my part, I am generally open to exploring darker themes in games (only a couple areas excluded). I've experienced really nasty things in several games, but I've been fortunate that they've always been portrayed with a sensitivity to convey that this is a plot device only and not something the DM subscribes to. I mostly play good characters, and darker happenings provide an even starker contrast to my attempts at righting wrongs. On the rare occasion that I play an evil character, I might actually partake of some to emphasize my character's depravity, usually a level of gratuitous violence though I have dipped into racism. Always with the group's consent, of course. Dark themes can be an excellent plot device, but you MUST make sure your table has given consent to bring it in.
I have actually started implementing a "comfort level" sheet for new players. At my table, I frequently explore dark topics. I know my usual party's limits, but a new player may be traumatized after one session (not their first, but eventually one comes up). I use D&D to explore these things, I do not beat around the bush. My table is not for everyone.
But I still want to work with my players. I don't go "here's all the grimdark, deal with it". While I rarely run a sterile game (something dark will creep in at some point), I can grind out some of the dark.
Crank that level from 1 to 10, but I don't want a novel for 50 Real Time Minutes of Darkness.
id like you as a DM as I fucking love grimdark
Insightful as always. Great video.
Earlier this year, I finished up a campaign as GM where I allowed the players to be evil so long as they were willing to work cooperatively and not adversarially. All the players agreed. The setting was centered around a lawful evil city/military base that was full of explicit activities and where slavery was perfectly fine. The main quest was to conquer a series of divided lizardfolk tribes, either through unification and subjugation or through total destruction (they ended up doing half and half as they got more murder-hobo-y as time went on).
In the first session, one of the players even decided to purchase two lizardfolk slaves. Because none of them decided to first check the conditions of the two slaves, one of them soon was soon killed off for being too weak to continue (after the goading by the other slave who was openly discriminatory towards the weaker one for being from a peaceful tribe of nomads instead of a "respectable" warrior tribe like him). What ended up happening is that the player and the remaining lizardfolk slave developed something of a bromance with the slave even getting a class in barbarian after his master, though he usually just referred to him as "warmaster". It ended up being more of an evil Batman and Robin relationship than a stereotypical master and slave relationship.
On the other hand, when it was revealed that their contact (a conniving mad scientist undead mindflayer aka alhoon) within the organization they were working for wanted to do something much more evil to these lizardfolk (turning them into living skin-farms to mass-produce moderate quality, waterproof scrolls), the players openly rebelled against the organization and subsequently got crushed by it because they went in woefully unprepared, uninformed, and were also lured into a trap formulated by their contact after they told her directly though sending stone she had given them that they were going to kill her.
It was interesting to see that even players all playing evil characters had consciences and lines that could be crossed.
On never knowing what your players have gone through in their past: I have a friend who often GMs for strangers, such as at conventions. He always has a little card with an X on it on the table. If at any time a player feels uncomfortable or offended by something going on in the game, they can touch that X, and that scene immediately stops. Seems like a good way to both let players know that it's fine for them to object to something they don't like in the game, and to quickly inform the GM.
I like your less dramatic alternatives. Great video.
I've had a lot of success incorporating these concepts into my games. In addition to being able to build up your villains as truly awful people, if you do it right, you can transform the victims of some of these acts into NPCs that the players really become attached to. Suffering makes these sorts of characters much more real, and can drive players to want to protect them. Even if the acts took place in the characters past and aren't something the players are going to interact with directly, they can still be quite a powerful thing when properly employed.
As Kevin Crawford said in his RPG book, Godbound:"... there is a difference between worthwhile problems & misery porn. Problems and troubles that exist purely to show how awful a place is are largely useless at the table; if it's something the PCs can't possibly fix or at least mitigate then it's just an extra dose of grimdark chrome. The best problems are the ones that the PCs can face directly, even if they might not win." And I agree!
"So, test these out with your players..." *Cosbyness Intensifies*
Yes. Let's *TEST* shall we. *Opens up the House of Horrors* What? I thought we wanted to test out the player's skill.
Very informative video I’m happy you went over on these topics 👍🏼👍🏼💯
I really am at lost. And I start registering some personal tiredness over the years. In my early 40's, I can't get them people who need to be explained the self explanatory. No one but some very few mentally-problematic people, in this time and age will espouse ideas such as slavery, rape, abuse and the sort. To have to explain today why those aforementioned practices and ideas are wrong is just mindboggling. Everyone seems to get triggered today by something. And it the end there's nothing left to say. It's just a matter of statistics.
So, yes. You need to know your players, and in case you don't, you'll have some basic discussion and that's it. In the game we present ideas and challengers to imaginary people, in an imaginary world, with imaginary morals and settings. We explore ideas, re-visit some old ideas, and rediscover or reaffirm ourselves of why those old ideas and practices are well put where they are: in the past!
When you can't talk about some things anymore, even in fiction, you feed oblivion. The rest to me is self explanatory. You can become as graphic as you wish in your representations depending oh how strong a stomach you and your players got. Maybe someone is a bit trippy or has had a bar experience. It's only humane to tune down that particular element. It's not even called politeness; it's called: being a decent human. Why on earth would you like to hurt a human fellow player on purpose, other than that you might have some personal issues that you ought to look out?
All I know, is that as time passes, things that were the norm in my 20s, now need to constantly be reminded. I fear we have done something horribly wrong with the uprising of the next generation, and we've got a huge gap to fill now.
Personally, I like to play as a gamer and as a dm a dark, gritty game, which explores moral issues which trouble us to this day. And then, most of the times, we will engage in out of game long discussions on the topic. It's amazing to talk, exchange and discover the unthinkable variety of the personal opinions that people have on serious issues. It's a game of self discovery, of your own personal values and where you stand in society; or where society has been, where is it going, and if we like where it is going.
But we do that by "playing games in our minds", and sometimes on the board. I woe for those who cannot separate (re-)presented fiction from the real person and his/her real mindset and ideas.
We get hurt in life all too much, and have suffered all too many; no need to suffer and toil under fictional problems and issues...
I dunno if my words make much of sense. I apologize for my bad English.
I do short stories online and I have had numerous people accuse me of holding values of what my darker characters portray. This is usually due to an emotional reaction (not a rational), and is often rooted in trauma that person has experienced in real life that might relate to an event in the story. Leftists snowflakes cause it "triggering" which is a ridiculous over simplification of the human pysche. An emotional reaction will often lead to ad hominem as they strike out at you, as you are conveying the ideas that remind them of said trauma. Ultimately I think this is actaully important for those people to confront it at some point in their lives, and maybe a game table isn't the best place for it.
So yes, it is probably a good idea to talk with your group about the type of game or scenario you are intending to run. Make sure everyone is on the same page. I have a GM I have played with on and off over the years who routinely (without asking, though he knows the players pretty good) throws in dark shit involving abused victims. Now narratively we are never present for those dark events, we're typically cleaning up or dealing with the aftermath. As in when we murder hobo bad guys we find out about these type of actvities as an incentive to kill them or justification of their deaths after the fact.
I think people should be willing to explore the darker elements of the human soul. Reason I liked Game of Thrones. I don't think GRRM endorses incest, but I think these are things people in real life actually have done and will do based on a given situation. From a short story perspective I attempt to capture the mental pressures and mental gymnastics used to commit some pretty henieous crimes. As rare does anyone consider themselves evil, or the actions they take at the time. There is always some form of justification for it, or they maybe just a sociopathe (which doesn't make a very interesting story).
I would recommend avoiding the dark elements as a direct narrative. As in seeing a human baby ripped out of a crying mother's hands and eaten by a goblin. Pretty dark, and some people aren't going to handle that very well. Though if you have a group used to zombie settings, horror, and the like. Then such an element could be okay.
BTW discrimination happens every day by every person. If someone walks up to you and smells bad, you are going to discriminate against them. The type of discrimination we typically condemn is discrimination based on elements we have no control over such as Sex or Race. Or fundmental values such as religion, but in reality nearly everyone will discriminate on some level based on religious affiliation and differences. I'm agnostic and I see that type of bigotry flying around all the time from atheists, christians, jews, or whoever. It happens. Sexual orientation is pretty hard to discriminate against due to it not being apparent. Usually you don't walk around with a sign saying "I have sex with X".
Very well handled video for the darker subject matter. I tend to show some of the darker side of sapience/humanity in my games. In a recent game, a subject was broached that made one of my players uncomfortable. The second it was addressed that this player was uncomfortable, I shifted track. The game was Star Wars themed, and one of the players was a recently freed slave. The freed slave was comfortable with the subject matter, as it was just a game, but another player was incredibly uncomfortable with the implications of what happened to this Twi'lek. It was easily resolved with a 5-10 minute conversation, and going forward the game went smoother.
Goes down to being a respectful GM (great is implied due to the advice you give), but respectful of your players and their characters. Know where their lines are, know what is taboo with them and what is not. If a new subject arises and it's found out to be taboo, then discuss and replot as necessary.
Yay I always find a way to bring up this story. My first time ever playing DnD was at a game shop as a guest character in an ongoing campaign that this group had been holding regularly. This was an evil campaign unbeknownst to me and I made a good aligned character. We were tasked with transporting cargo which my character thought not much of since she was just looking for a quick job to get some money. Slowly she put together the pieces and when they came together she asked the party, "Wait, is the cargo hookers and blow 😦?" And yes, yes it was. It was very awkward and I don't remember how I had my character handle the situation 😂
Always know your players. Ask the limits and be mindful of very taboo subjects. I am very lucky to have a group of players that understand very clearly that this is a game and if I put anything horrible, is mainly to convey particular feelings and emotions. Not long ago my players went to a city across a desert to ask the government for help in their adventure. what they discovered was that the government was running the city as a dictatorship. they had dammed the only river and were selling water to the people and keeping the under their thumb. To make a long story short, the players decided to abandon their quest and help the people of that place, but the only reason they change their objective, was because they had witnessed something horrible.
Another example was an NPC that shared a memory with the players about how her parents were burned by a mob in front of her, and I described how they saw all that cinematic moment from the eyes of this girl. I could tell that the effect I was going for was on point by the silence that engulfed the table after I finished. It was hugely impactful, but the players still remember it as one of the greatest moments in their gaming careers.
I'm really enjoying the Descent into Avernus campaign you are running. Looking forward to the next episode!
For my Curse of Strahd game I gave my players the trigger warning conversation and gave them all anonymous and private opportunity to let me know what they did not want me to allow in game. Sexual assault is always forbidden in my games, of course. We are close friends, and due to their love for my dark fantasy narratives they pooled money and bought the module and said, "Scare us." I decided psychological horror was the way to go. I implemented my own sanity (like h.p.) system influenced by 5e Chthuhlu Mythos book.
we came across a chemical weapons factory in our game, being used by enemies to manufacture, well, chemical weapons. i make the call to blow it to deny the enemy this resource. dont blow up chemical weapons factories, especially when they are in a city, or near a city, or upstream from a city, or upwind from a city.
Either overload it to be frozen with coolant, or overload it to be blown up by fire when the coolant hits overdrive.
PCs are usually walking warcrimes anyway.
Something that is really dark that I thought about implementing was a group that through poison forced a village to forget about different people or even what they did the last day in order to get away with murder or kidnapping.
I use all of these elements. For the characters, it makes the stakes so much higher. They become emotionally affected. It’s not the players responding. The exposure gives them new motivations. There are flavor. Racism exists. Rape exists. Violence is a last resort that nobody wants but it definitely happens. Hatred occurs. These things can be used to enhance the gaming experience. On the other hand, there was an incident that completely shifted the tone and caused character alignment changes. I was a player during this encounter. In short, the very descriptive scene in question involved rape of a young girl by three orcs. One of the PCs and I reacted by murdering the orcs violently and, then, out of mercy, killed the girl to save her from a life of trauma. It was mercy but it made the tone extremely dark.
I introduced a bar maid a few weeks ago that was being held legally as a slave for a debt. While it was technically legal the spirit of the law was not being upheld and the person who held the girl's debt kept finding ways to extend the punishment. My players had an interesting response.
The party split, my only lawful char and his friend went to deal with the local magistrate. They did there best to bully him into following the spirit of the law when that failed they bribed him. Freeing the girl and getting her out of town.
The rest of the party who were less the lawful waited until the bar cleared and took the bar owner for a walk. They decided to leave him in the dungeon they had been hired to clean out before the dungeon had been cleared... Since they hadn't been shown which one it was I made them roll for it. They got it. So he got turned to stone by a gorgon and half eaten while the party slept. (It was fun watching them scramble the next morning when they saw him turned to stone and chewed on. They had know clue what I had pulled)
I was expecting the first response, and maybe some back room justice from part of the party. But that was a step above what I thought would happen. The funny thing is the player that came up with the idea of feeding the bar owner to monster is my partner of 7 years, and one of my mentors in DMing. I can normally get a good read on him but that game he was pulling all sorts of things out of left field.
If people are playing D&D, at least D&D set in the typical canonical milieus, they must realise that there's going to be racism, discrimination, hatred and violence aplenty! Those aspects are pretty much the staple diet of many/most of the dramas in those settings. In many of the settings slavery is going to be present too but doesn't have to be a key feature of the campaign.
Violence against children, rape and torture (which are both specialised aspects of violence), as least the detailed description of such, are (in my view) things that you don't ever bring to the table - though they may be mentioned as off-stage summarised elements if the players (and I'm including the DM in that grouping) are OK with it. I've found that it's usually best to allude to such (e.g. the orcs killed everyone in the camp to the very last person and, by the look of the bodies, took their time doing it) to within a cut-scene narration and let the players mentally fill in the omitted details.
At my table, we also generally try to keep the in-character language clean and narrate around it, and we don't detail sexual acts either - unless absolutely necessary to the story e.g. when that wench the bard seduced turns out to be a doppelganger that chooses to reveal themself at the worst possible moment... ;-) If you're playing in a public place it avoids upsetting any onlookers!
You never know what can trigger a player reaction though, I've had one player, who was quite happy slaughtering pretty much anything that got in their way and would gruesomely narrate their crits, completely freak out when I had an NPC be cruel to their hunting dog (just to demonstrate the type of character that this new NPC was).
Yeah... well, my "usual" Table plays a bit rougher than most. Most of us have been into some pretty dark research and reading materials for years, so... it comes with the territory. We're not actually interested in hurting anyone, but enjoy the discussions... and it gets pretty heinous.
AND then there are the noob's... Met one who was all about Vladimir Tepes, or could talk most of the feasible talk well enough. Now, I'm aware of things like the history channel, Scroogle, and the like... BUT this poor guy had a dubiously over-romanticized ideal in his head about the Impailer... until he ended up asking "What to you mean they've laid the guy down? They have to hoist him up to drop on the stick... right?"
...AND one of my "seasoned" gals explained how the ritual "impailment" worked... running the pointed staff up from anus to grate against the breastbone and eventually come out against the soft pallete... ONLY... she was a bit more specific, since a recent study held that a person could still be alive for more than 80% of the experience... and she was truly gifted at graphic storytelling.
Suddenly, the Anne Rice Vampire hunter... er... wannabe... was tossing his pizza on the way out the door... and we hadn't even started the session... shame too. There were such gruesome nightmares to attend to.
If it's any consolation, he still plays... though we "soften things up a bit" on those occasions. He's not nearly the fan of undead, vampires, or Romanian Princes though... and his "goth" or "emo" phase seems to be drying up a bit too. ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 We have conversations like that too... just not as part of the game. I'd be fascinated to know how that "recent study" was carried out. ;-)
@@FrostSpike To my knowledge, the study on exactly how "ritual impalement" worked in dear old Vlad's day, came about more as a result of forensic technical improvements with ballistic gel' mixtures and pork as a basic equivalent to human flesh, and there are a fair list of materials roughly capable of acting as bone...
What was probably most astounding was a "forensic robot" (which has also been used to test theories of poisoning and tolerance for Court) was run through trauma and damage numbers and a person of "reasonable health and average build" could survive (according to the computers) an average of three days or so of being impaled in such a manner.
SO more or less, they tested the activity on ballistic equivalent dummies and then ran the trauma quantifiers through a computerized robotic model to actually complete the study... so it's recent stuff. I can't recall exactly if it was for a doctoral thesis on forensics, or some other college/post grad' work for history buffs and museums... BUT it's as good as we have short of actually "practicing on this one for real" just to see what happens.
...and no, I'd rather not, if we're honest. I'm interested in an "academic" or "intellectual" sense... though it makes for some great storytelling and theatrical license on Players "with a stomach for the grim".
OUT of game is where we tend to keep "shop talk" on that sort of subject... SO this is just one of the odd uncommon examples of how a Player can "invite his own disaster" when we're prepared to "glass over" it... Had he not asked or pursued the point (and admittedly I assumed he understood the thing prior... oops) nobody would've gone through more than a passing glimpse of "the forest of impaled" and a group wrestling a guy into prone position while another group approached with a staff... and then the cart would've passed... (that was the intention)...
20/20 Hindsight... sometimes, you laugh because if you didn't you'd cry. ;o)
Slavery does still happen in certain parts of the world it's just not mentioned. And I ALWAYS up front before the game ever begins that thses things can happen. Though never in large scale. I use them to sometimes save the player from death if they wish to continue playing the character. If everyone is uncomfortable with this I take it out obviously but then theres no saving grace for character death.
@Nipha Ahtlantashah or in the factory of a nike production line
@Nipha Ahtlantashah Or Africa. The Africans have been trading each other like Pokemon since before the first white settlers colonised the continent.
@@Raffinari And Saudi Arabia
Fascinating subject, and I think the most important part of this is "Consensual Darkness." What subjects are out of bounds for your players and what are okay? AND what is acceptable vs a PC as opposed to an NPC.
For example, let's take on the subject of rape. While in a dark game it might be okay to have an NPC be raped to show how horrible the Big Bad is, raping a player character is pretty much out of bounds unless the player decides they want to go on that journey.
If, as part of their background, a PC is a rape victim, and the player is cool with exploring that, then go for it.
What is NOT cool is the DM concluding the battle with the PCs being overpowered and raped. (Without previous buy-in from the player.)
Back in the bad old days when girl gamers like me were pretty much unicorns, it was astounding how often our wanting to "just game" was interpreted as a come-on line by hopeful geeks.(Not that I dislike geeks - I'm one and so is the hubby!)
But then...if I had a dime for post and pre pubescent DMs who thought it would be "cool" to start the campaign by raping my PC...
It got so bad that I had a 20 point checklist JUST against rape and other attacks, which I'd fold and put on the table. One of the stipulations was that in case of rape, my character had a very pointy knife stowed inside her vagina. Yes - we had DMs that creepy that we had to stipulate that.
Hey guy I like your channel I appreciate your work. I'm a college professor and I take particular interest in the social Justice movement currently in effect in Western culture. It's fascinating how more and more it seems evident that trigger warnings and safe spaces are finding their way into the stories of dungeon masters. More and more it seems like players simply aren't capable of wrestling with the more challenging and gruesome realities of human existence. Though to be fair sometimes you just wanna roll some dice drink some soda and have a few laughs. I'd love to hear your thoughts, though I realize this channel isnt about politics.
I appreciate this and definitely think that you need to dive into more of the darker side. I think it would be cool if you even had a few shows that addressed this. Also love the show continue thru patron
Nice way to handle the dark and gritty stuff. Incorporating stuff like that into games is tricky, which is why I let people know what type of world they're in, and depending on their answer I may time it down
Excellent video. A lot of this is definitely Session Zero stuff. But afterwards, players should feel comfortable enough to talk with their DM when they get squicked out. And a DM should be considerate to their players feelings.
As for the player thinking a DM having the same moral compass as their villains is bit absurd. However, considering the number of Craigs out there who DM just so they can play out their... fantasies. I understand where your player is coming from.
A serious comment... The question is how do we define evil in a game? To what extent do we delve into the base natures? With out these acts how do we generate a conflict? Much of what TTRPG is is the conflict of good vs. evil. What is the challenge is in not glorifying evil or horrendous acts or handling them in a manner that is to graphic. The game is where the players can confront the horrible things and resolve them, much unlike the real world.
We witnessed a planetary governor publicly execute a young child, a son of a slightly rebellious family who was dragged into the street and shot.
Our marines were unable to intervene because he out ranked us at the time.
The child then exploded, killing several marines and civilians.
My primary Pathfinder character is an Elf that knows nothing about Elves or who his parents were, since he was born and raised as a slave. Eventually he was freed from being a slave and stayed with that circus till it was destroyed.
I played in an all Orc campaign and my character had names for all the other Evil races, like i called Dwarves diggers, and called halflings furry footed freaks.
My setting has a bit about slavery. So, there are two sorts of "Night Elves," the infamous Drow (although, the way I approach them, they're more like "Drukhari Lite") and the ones I presently call Night Elves (though I intend to rename them at some point), which are about halfling-size, and while they're even more adapted to darkness and stealth than the Drow, they've also lost most of their Fey nature.
Night Elves have a bit of an inferiority complex, not unlike kobolds or goblins, but they take this to an extreme with other elves whom they feel nature has played favorites with. Of course, they're not cruel like kobolds or especially goblins can be, but they are very wild, and tend to put freedom over all else.
Drow, of course, are prolific slavers, and the areas where Night Elves live tend to be close to the places you can access the Underdark. And, any despise the Night Elves feel for Drow is reflected twofold in the disgust Drow feel towards them, often using the ones taken as slaves for some of the most hellish and depraved purposes available, if not killing them outright.
Similarly, night elves will kill drow on-sight unless provided with a damn good reason not to.
Great video, and it's not something I've really considered beyond making sure that what I'm saying is appropriate for the group I'm gamesmastering (so since I run a game for teenagers, I seriously tone things down).
But generally I'm running a heroic style of game, so these things exist and are done by the bad guys, and are what are to be defeated. Defeat the slaver and free the slaves, capture the murderer, punish the rapist, and at least be disgusted by the racist barkeeper.
I find this video extremely helpfull, I did not think to much of it when I included some of these things, and I will now be more thoughtfull of them. So thanks mate I guess.
It's all about setting expectations and curating your players before session 0.
I run with very dark themes surrounding necromantic and enchantment magics. About cosmic injustices, racism, colonialism, slavery, and authoritarian government structure. I do not go into graphic detail unless requested, but if a player assumed for a moment that the events I was describing were something I considered positive or desirable I would show them the door.
My other players want verisimilitude, they want to see the effect of their actions. They want to see the slave state, and then do what they can to bring it and its corrupt ways down. If your villain can't be a horrible person your players are missing out on being those that ended that evil. If the lizardfolk aren't racist your players can't be the ones that convince them such practices are harmful to their own person, let alone their society.
Doctor Who addressed slavery with the Ood. At first, these aliens seemed willing to serve. In later episodes, it was revealed they have part of their brains removed to make them docile.
FYI Some people will pretend offense at things to meta the DM and exert control-- I had this happen to me-- expanding to things like birth and children and innocuous things like some of my feelies (table deco)-- before I had to ask the person to leave. Some people are traumatized and some rare birds are just being jerks.
A great fantasy example of these themes being explored powerfully but maturely is the fantasy manga Berserk. Its is deeply disturbing but the most powerful fantasy I've ever read. Highly recommended.
"Really?! Take the bitch." *laughs maniacally * Now, if you are a squeamish player, to begin with. You have no business in being a dark campaign period. If you find your self in one. Leave right away, or if you want to test your constitution and stick around. Then keep your mouth shut and try to be the hero that can invoke change within the game's setting. You think Heroism is just finding the big bad guy and kill him and that's it? You have blinders to the world. "Imitation is a form of flattery" For those that Fear the big bad guy they try to appeal to him/her to gain favor to survive and to benefit themselves under their rule and that behavior spreads like wildfire and the longer it exists out there for generations the more it becomes the norm and people start to forget that it doesn't have to be this way. (like in warhammer 40k setting). If your character witnesses the lighter atrocities and is motivated to set out to stop them. A dark campaign would not only put your humanity to the test. You would also know what it truly means to be a heroic character and survive to the end. Keep that in mind even if you have to remind your self that it's just a game and the Die rolls will disappoint you along the way even in critical moments. You have to balance to make something out of a bad situation. Your character has only one life, do what you got to do and try not to get your self killed. If you did die. Well, hope you learned from your mistakes with your party members. As you make a new character.
If you're comfortable with slavery, rape, torture, what have you, I'm uncomfortable with you. You're not supposed to be comfortable with it.
That said, you can't point out that something is bad if you're not allowed to talk about it, and you can't empathize with someone else's suffering if you've led an easy, sheltered life.
Personally, I've more than once designed characters with racism in mind, with the intent that my characters would be discriminated against, only for a GM to then ignore the racial tensions that were part of a game's established lore - so yes, sometimes adding more "inappropriate" content is exactly what you should do.
In the interest of treating subject matter with respect, the "soldiers" who rob, torture, rape, murder civilians, are usually mercenaries whose only vested interest in a conflict is money. It's not "what soldiers do", it's what amoral opportunists do when given an opportunity, an excuse, and a 'scapegoat.
The one thing I avoid like the plague as a DM is sexual violence. Unlike a lot of the other taboo issues in this episode, it is a deeply personal act that, in my opinion, doesn't have as much systemic weight in building the culture of your world.
Working on a campaign for 5e; since the BBEG is a crime lord with ambitions, it will contain chattel slavery and, ah, flesh trade, assorted chemicals that exploit addiction, and so forth and so on, and as a precaution, there'll be ample footnotes for the DM to gloss over details as far as necessary to accommodate their players. But it nevertheless all boils down to this: Mature themes NEED mature players and DMs. If the DM can't handle the topic respectfully, the DM shouldn't touch it at all. If the players can't handle the topic respectfully, the DM should take a few minutes to discuss it one-on-one, and circumvent the issue. And if the DM doesn't check with the players in advance whether some subjects are Too Much, there's been a monumental blunder already.
Honestly it depends upon how long I've known the players. The group I've been playing with for ten years were fairly open when it comes to the darkness of man because we're know each other for so long personally. The other groups I've dmed is a lot more of a feeling out period in the first few sessions to see how people respond to stuffed
In my game (Warhammer 40k Rouge Trader) the group commands a Spaceship and lost all crew in the lower Decks due to an horrific battle outcome. A few Sessions forward, the ship gets repaired and the crew gets replaced, but with crew from a different cultural background.
So i felt it was appropriate, that the still grieving rest of the crew had some resentments against the new comers. The group first didn't notice what was going on (Some brawls Graffitis etc.), but then made it clear that the behavior wasn't tolerated at all. They didn't increase the Guards or anything so, so the whole conflict move more towards the Back alleys.
A few more sessions later, after a raid of one of the fighting background parties on one of the Weapon chambers, they cracked down, but to late, all 4 parties (I had done some background simulation play for that) were armed and well organized, so the group was unable to uproot any of them.
Even a few more sessions later (in real time about half a year) the group unexpectedly left the ship for one and a half month and the conflict escalated into more of a civil war overtime (I Also simulated that and even showed the players afterwards what had happened, good thing to keep them from feeling punished) and when the players rearrived the felt obliged to personally execute some of the leaders.
In that session the group nearly split for good, because the players where forced do deal with a choice no one (me included) felt comfortable to deal with. So if you ever consider running some npc companion unrest, make sure you know what you are getting your group into, because I wasn't aware how far things could escalate.
Conflict is actually settled by now (the NPC's altogether held an Military Parade to honor their Captain, which was a great moment because the relief of the players and I think some even shed some tears about it) but i took us about a whole year of weekly play to get there.
I once played a character in a Spelljammer Campaign, high level, who was a former dark lord type character but for a very Saturday Day Morning Cartoon type world so he was much more evil in aesthetic with skull pauldrons and all of that and the actual villains were real evil.
The purpose of outlining a real terrible concept in a fictional context IS TO MAKE YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE. That's the point. It's basically the premise the Warhammer universe is based on. Taking the worst parts of the human condition and running with it.
Tbh I was horrified with the intro. Although when I hear it in a movie it would always sound cheesy and predictable but hearing it at the table, fully immersed in character, I would get horrified and sick to my stomach. Not because I'm squeamish of the scenario but because I feel that it's going to happen to me for real. That to me would be a great experience at the table.
Oh, sure; Elves, Dwarves, Goblins and Orcs can hate each other all the living long day and nobody has a problem with it. But the second that humans get discriminatory, suddenly it's 'Racism!'
Yes, fictional people enslaving others is literally the same as actual humans doing it in the real world.
@@oz_jones No, it isn't, and you are a fool if you believe otherwise. Your argument carries about the same weight with me, as those parents who think playing violent video games turns their children into mass murderers.
Perfect, I needed this!
Our GM hosted a oneshot build on gaslighting for us after asking everyone personally, if we're comfortable with it. It was a very intense experience
That sounds... something. Not sure if actual gaslight or just... meta.
Interesting nonetheless.
@@oz_jones The adventure was "I am your World", you can look it up on DMs Guild. So it's basically your Characters beeing manipulated etc. but you should make sure that nobody in the Group has been abused in this way in real life.
I really like putting madness and horrible things in my adventures. It sets a nice contrast to the sessions where they walk through the fluffy puffy unicorn woods.
Nothing like the kind of truly awesome dark sh*t that sends some of the PC's off into insanity(ies) to set a tone of "gritty" and "dark" in-game. Not every mystical magical place out there has to be all bright and beautiful. ;o)
With my next session being Dark Heresy, things are probably going to get pretty dark pretty soon.
Go full exterminatus :D
@@Melantrist Compared to the Warp and what is does, Exterminatus is pretty mild.
@@MrKa_Rate As someone running Deathwatch, I can only say this. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
If you know who you're playing with you'll know what they're comfortable with.
Just know your audience
I have to be honest, it's not a GM's job to teach their friends how to adult. It sound REALLY nice, very warm and fuzzy, to say that it is. But that doesn't change the fact that it isn't.
Ages of the players should be taken in account as well. I have a 12year old who plays with a table of adults...his parents play in the game as well...I may mention things, but details and things of that nature are not appropriate for him. That's our biggest thing right now, just so he can be aware of it, but not necessarily anything more.
I once ran a super hero home brew in a setting that was basically a far future post dystopian world war setting. I had the first big bad they were facing collecting people with powers to extract the energy that gave them their abilities and put that energy into a weapon of mass destruction. As people with powers were not terribly uncommon they would go through cities rounding up anyone with powers to be converted into energy for the weapon.
Now it should be noted that I was a much younger man then and hadn't really thought about the implication of this concept. Being a world war setting and people being rounded up and processed in large devices was all too close to the suffering of jewish people in concentration camps. It should also be noted that half of my players were long time and dear friends who happened to be Jewish.
I realised exactly at the same time as they did how horrific my setting had become. It was the final boss fight and they were surrounded by the machines that would effectively break down powered people and convert their energy.... I watched the shock wash over their faces, and it clicked... but I didnt retcon, I knew where to take it next. then one gave me a look like "really?!" Another brushed it off knowing me and knowing there was a good payoff coming, and another had rage wash over his face. I think he was a little mad at me but mostly focused it on the big bad.
They fought a challenging battle, emerging victorious and destroying the machines. They tore the place apart ensuring it could never be used again and I let them have all the catharsis they wanted. In the end they were cheering and smiling and laughing because they had faced a horrible monster with a deep personal motivation and ripped it apart.
My lessons from that were: be more fucking careful about my subject matter, but never be afraid to offer carefully planned catharsis. What may border on triggering someone in one moment, could potentially be therapeutic if handled well.
Though it should always be discussed with your players to be sure that they will be okay if theres difficult topics in your games and never ever pushed on people if they say they aren't okay. Remember this hobby is for all of us to explore our imaginations to share in a fiction we all tell together, and should leave us elated and happy, even in the darkest of times and settings.
I generally play with close friends and I know all of us regularly watch/read etc, darker fiction where stuff like this occurs with relative frequency.
Sexual acts, especially non-consensual, are the ones we generally don't DEPICT in game. It may be referenced or discussed, but I'm just not going to describe anyone physically penetrating anything in a room full of my close friends.
My group has some really screwed up things at times mostly cause we have had some interesting lives. The main one is the Turkish Boat instance where in a Dresden game we discounted the threat from a non supernatural human. We ended up having to lie to some officials to clean up after the mess that one guy left to the point of us wearing waders cause there was that much blood and viscera in the bottom of the ship.
We have had racism, rape, and more in our group which is fine with us, and once in awhile we get new people who think they want these things in but they didn't like the dead pan way our group responded to these things. Most people who like to bring these up like the response from others not the thing itself and can't stand it when people treat it like another days event.
Some systems and lores are grim, dark and disturbing by tenet. If somebody is not comfortable with the depictions of gruesome acts of any sort, be it explicit violance, sexual offences, racism or anything else, then I would ask such person why they wanted to parcitipate in dark fantasy setting in the first place. I'm not a kind of Gatekeeper GM, but Imo the best way to keep things right is to simply group up the players with matching expectations and taboos (and especially lack thereof). Otherwise you will end up with people complaining either about hurting their sensitivity or being hold back and censored.
Funny how murder is just regular activity that offends nobody
This is important. Thank you.
I notice some people in the comments confused about people assuming the beliefs or positions that the GM PRESENTS in the game are ones they PERSONALLY hold. Which I agree for the most part probably isn't the case with most DMs. I like quite fleshed out villains that have understandable motivations and that often involves drawing from themes of our own world. Which can cross some uneasy territory. But my players know that me and my villains are entirely separate entities. So that's good, that's nice. Sorted.
I think a way of understanding when sometimes this isn't the case I think a certain trope of DM can help explain this: You know those tabletop horror stories of DMs inserting their fetishes into the games? Like they just have some weird kink that they basically force their players to enact out and it's obviously personal gratification. HOWEVER, it is all dressed up as just what is happening in game. The Orcs were created by Bal'fordunt and he's the god of depravity and that's why they're fondling the Elf Ranger's feet. Then when you call this out they get all offended and you're probably better off leaving and we all agree this is pretty shit?
Well, I think there is a political equivalent of this. If someone has extremist political views, much like weird ass fetishes, they just can't help pushing them onto other people. Whether it's talking about how certain human races are just inferior, must be destroyed and are evil and corrupt master manipulators and 'rats' but only in the game only in the fantasy world... totally. Or how every single authority figure is corrupt and the players can only really be heroes if they commit to liberating the peasants by just slaughtering all the merchants and nobles and creating a peasant dictatorship.
You get to a point where it feels less like you're interacting with a weave of different characters with varying different emotions, motivations, ideologies and pathways... and you're just being spoonfed a specific ideology directly. It's kinda as uncomfortable as being in the fetish game.
Just to be clear I'm not saying you should ASSUME that every DM's characters are reflections of themselves. But just that it is reasonable that sometimes... they can be. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut if talking it out doesn't work. Try not to make a scene and leave the game is my advice to anyone in that position.
I was in the audience of a Dragoncon panel about making good villains and asked a question to the effect of “These have been some great tips on making deep and sympathetic villains. How do we make someone interesting who is not sympathetic? Say I have a villain who is just Jeffrey Epstein...”.
A higher up at Paizo just told me to never have that because it does not belong at the table. Someone else said unravel the story piece by piece through the environment and why a bunch of girls are missing.
"A higher up at Paizo just told me to never have that because it does not belong at the table."
... And yet Paizo themselves created the Gray Maidens...
What "belongs at the table" depends on the table. I've ran, and played in, many games that involve racism, sexism, slavery, rape, etc. They were dark, complicated, emotional games. And those characters are some of my favorites because they grew and became stronger, not just in stats, but in personality.
I think it is one thing to have a villain who does those things, and another to have dnd associated with a pedophile ring. Absolutely and categorically denying is a standard, “we are not associated in any shape and form” kinda response.
They absolutely have to deny that for public perception, remember that time where DND was associated with satanism? XD it’s exactly the same.
@@lordbiscuitthetossable5352 Yeah, but everyone with half a brain cell to rub together knew that that was stupid.
so Racism is a touchy one depending on the group. in my group, so long as it is rooted firmly in the world, it is generally acceptable. for instance, in a forgotten realms campaign, if i play a Drow, i expect some degree of racism to be directed at my character, and it has been in the past (though we don't delve too deep into it, its not outright aggression from NPCs for the most part). if it becomes something where the group is sensing maybe its not all from the world, we stop and have a chat to make sure everyone is okay moving forward, and addressing the potential issue to make sure it doesn't sour the game as a whole. My group has generally avoided Slavery, Rape, and all-out Hatred. Racism is something we don't core much of anything on, but certain races within specific worlds will get a bit of flak for being a member of their race (this is almost always drow, if it occurs, and is a result of a vast majority of them being hostile)
Very based take on student loans.
o7 Comrade Guy!
On dark, horrific acts in game...have you ever read the Apocalypse Stone? 2nd ed module, it has an archfiend decide he's going to make the PCs SUFFER before he kills them, and he does some rather horrific stuff (and attempts to make the PCs do the same).
Elves aren't people.
On another note, classes and focus can be a sensitive issue for npcs, or pcs. A friend pointed out some rare dialogue in a game, where a human ranger with favoured enemy human could truly trigger a human cleric by killing SO many humans and continuing to focus upon killing them better. Choices matter too.
i run a game were they play monsters , and yes its heavey AF but they like it , my trick is i only go as far as the first persons limit or do darker things in solo mission that i do on the side, most of the background theams are on the list of dark side things
I personally always go over with my players that my games include rather dark themes and events that are, by design, meant to not be liked to make sure they can handle said content. Makes the world realistic and sometimes all too real.
Sensitively and maturely handled, this could have been a really uncomfortable video and it definitely wasn't. I think your approach is totally on the nose - making sure the table are all comfortable with the level of darkness being alluded to and detailed. Personally, I am deeply uncomfortable even touching upon rape or sexual assault and I'd never bring that to or want it at the table - but within the confines of the game, I am quite relaxed about themes of slavery and I think they make my world a lot more personal. With racism and prejudice, I think I would struggle to play in a world which had none of it but I try to avoid it being too closely aligned to real-world prejudices - e.g. I am relaxed about racist views based on people being elves, orcs, or humans but I'd steer away from racism based on darker or lighter skin, especially in humans, because it has analogies in real life I don't feel comfortable taking on or handling. As you've identified in the video, it's so personal.
You also touched upon an interesting point regarding whether or not you need to have been personally affected by something horrific to include it or work with it. I think the answer is probably no, but I think you owe it a lot more caution and research if you've never been personally affected.
Thank you friend!
Great Content as always!
I have an off topic question. Coming from a wargame background, I would like to incorporate mass battles into the narrative. I was wondering your approach?
There are several types of approach, depending on exactly what you want to accomplish in the game... They usually come in four basic flavors, while other "examples" tend to be variations.
1. The Party has it's own army, too... SO you split units under the charge of the Players, letting THEM try to value everyone's strengths and compliment everyone's weaknesses, so your Ranger would be better with the Archery units, than your Monk, who's probably suited well for the trenches and a lot of close-quarters and ambush types (infantry grunts)...
Assign your own NPC-units and just try to give rough numerical values for the HP "collectively" to the units, both the NPC units and the Players' units... The Combat system of D8D can then be approximately run as normal, only attacks, AC, and HP values are used in collective losses as the battle rages on...
You can consider move values to be somewhat shorter (on average) since trying to move in formation and en-masse is generally going to slow down the average walking speed... something like a 25 instead of 30 (ish... lots of ish)...
2. Checkpoints and Goals... Here the idea is to approach a Mass Battle as the backdrop, with some direct consequences entirely because of the PC's. The "standard" (as I was taught) for this runs on "the rule of 3's"... SO three waves of enemies in an interim, then a goal set with three sets of enemies/obstacles between PC's and goal, and three more sets of enemies in the interim again... repeat three times... develop some final goal (like attack or kidnap enemy general/prince/king/etc...) and win or lose the battle.
Some variations on this one include a "Tide of battle" mechanic... when the PC's succeed a "stage", the enemies start visibly losing at some part of the ongoing front... bringing the "end game" closer. When the PC's fail a "stage" the enemies seem to gain strength or even start winning at some part of the ongoing front... It gives a gestalt effect of ebb and flow to the battle, especially when each stage (interim or goal) actually gives the PC's trouble, and you don't have to advance so clearly that there's no hope until they've reached the end of their list of goals for the battle all together... AND you can still employ the "final win-lose goal" segment (like kidnapping or attacking the king/general/prince/etc...) anyway... only as a last ditch long shot if the PC's have failed more than succeeded...
3. Battle atmosphere and "playing through"... This is more descriptive than actually a mechanic. Spend some time and effort building up the whole tension around the oncoming battle, and then use it as atmosphere... Don't ever let the PC's know that you've already decided who wins this thing, and they're on their own "mini-quest story" anyway... They'll usually get really pissed...
BUT the advantage is you get whatever narrative or twist you want. The whole thing is they can still fight enemies in waves (basically encounters of manageable size, adjusted as you understand they can handle it) AND/OR have goals of their own... It's a bit more "sandboxy", so you can even let them have some agency on what those goals might be... and not toss the battle out all together for your own narrative.
If you need their side to lose, you need a worthy "decoy enemy general" for them to target, and a flanking maneuver to "backdoor" their side at the last minute...
If you need their side to win, you simply need to keep them facing waves until you've taxed their tactical and physical efforts well enough to know their capabilities to the inch... stopping short of actually killing any of the PC's outright... usually. {okay, accidents happen and dice aren't anyone's friends} A few realistic goals later... and the enemy is either pulling out, or being over-run... Good storytelling techniques are a must for this to be done well (especially more than once) BUT the relative freedom to let about anything go is some bonus at some tables...
4. Minions-mechanic... This is a relic from 4e (I think?)... Basically you only roll up a few "Bosses" to be officers of the enemy army, and everything else on the board is a "minion"... Minions basically drop at the first damaging attack, no matter big or small, if a PC injures it, Pfft... dead... Bosses, have a crude stat-block (don't waste a lot of effort) and a couple decent skills and abilities... Swarms of minions can certainly run the PC's ragged, even if there's a similar army on their side to take up the front-line wherever the PC's aren't at work...
You can also set a "General" somewhere on the board, and add a few "elite guard" with their own stat-blocks and abilities (whatever) to make life more interesting if the PC's decide on an end-run for assassination. Don't forget something surprising for your general... He shouldn't be "just another mook with a head dress"... It's a little like "1." up there, except you're not putting any PC directly in charge of units of their own... so not quite "The PC's have an army" kind of theme.
In any case, while I'm not Guy... These are the four popular approaches for a mass-combat I've seen and played. They all have benefits and weaknesses... BUT any of them done well, can serve the purpose intended... and let's be honest. Mass battles can be a lot of fun. A little practice and you'll find your comfort zone, a specialty you like, and enough confidence to be competent with the others on a reasonable "plot device" kind of basis. ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464Those are excellent examples thank you, and thank you for taking the time to respond with such an in depth answer! I'll have to save it so I can review it again when I finally plan that encounter. I'm blown away by the support in this community...
@@christopherknight6414 One immutable fact about folks with a "real" passion. We LIKE to talk "shop". Anyways, you're welcome... I hope it really helps...
...and not in just this one adventure. I hope you find uses for each one of those approaches to bend and affix the game for your purposes, making the Players' experiences that much more interesting for your Table. ;o)
If one can stand up to racism, homofobia or other outright bad things, maybe he learns something for his or her real life. I consider this to be a good thing.
Maybe I'm just thick skinned, but I have no issue with any of these taboos in-game That said, I have been GM-ing for 40 years. Of course, I use them to inspire the players to acts of heroism, or make them regret their cowardice or inaction. Bigotry, sexual violence, torture and ritual sacrifice are all useful tools when you're trying to define just how evil your protagonist is. That said, I expect the player characters to be heroes.