Comment by kayodelycaon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kayodelycaon | Hacker News Reader

I absolutely love D&D, but it's important to consider who your players are.

This is dangerous advice:

> Stories can become a way of learning how to face situations we can't control, grapple with loss, and become resilient.

This is true of books, but you can put a book down and walk away. D&D has the potential for social and emotion investment that is far more difficult to walk away from.

Your players need to know what kind of game you are running and aware of what bad things are possible. And you need to be open to ret-conning mistakes that ruined the game for someone because of mis-matched expectations in this regard.

An example from my experiences:

I ended up joining late in an online game that had vampires. I was completely unaware they could take over player characters using mind control. As a result, I got blindsided in the middle of a very emotional point in combat. My character's agency was completely removed by a failed saving throw. There was no recourse, no way out.

The rest of the party knew vampires were dangerous, but no one explicitly told me why. The DM forgot I didn't know what everyone else did.

This was more than just a dick move for me because I had some past traumatic events where the same thing happened to me. Most of the DMs I've encountered were hardliners when it came to rules and events. They'd rather kick a player than ret-con anything. Since I was new to the group, I was worried I'd never be invited to play with them again if I dropped out or said anything.

Fortunately in the next session, the DM realized something had happened and privately asked why I wasn't engaged as much as I was. Ret-conned who got mind-controlled to a player who would have fun with it.

Posting this here: Monte Cook's Consent in Gaming is really helpful [0] as a useful guide for creating the kind of game your players want, and is a free resource.

As an aside... I usually house rule that Mind Control and Time Travel _do not exist_ because it removes player agency, so removing those options from the story seems like a Good Idea.

[0] https://www.montecookgames.com/store/product/consent-in-gami...

But... isnt this the exact point of that line? You went into a situation you couldnt control and grappled with the issue.

It sounds like you wanted pre warning that x could happen in the game which is fair but baring some NSFW stuff it's it assumed that anything can happen in a typical dnd game? You failed a roll. It impacted the story. That is the game.

I feel like I'm missing something. The become resilient part feels like it didnt happen because the DM ret conned the moment. I'm not saying you would have been stronger if not for the ret conning but you would have likely been less impacted by the same event happening in a future dnd game. Even with the ret con you're likely to be less impacted by the same event.

> It sounds like you wanted pre warning that x could happen in the game which is fair but baring some NSFW stuff it's it assumed that anything can happen in a typical dnd game?

Very common advice for TTRPGs, especially with a group that isn't established with implicit boundaries, is, and has been for w couple of decades, to have a pre-session in which this stuff is discussed openly, with both the GM raising anything they expect to be an issue and players putting forward anything else that is an issue for them, to mitigate this. You can't anticipate everything this way, but “everything goes” is recognized as potentially problematic.

It's a bit more challenging to handle mid-campaign additions non-disruptively, and I expect that even at tables that are otherwise good at this that is somewhat more often a problem, though.

>> That is the game.

Where does it say that? "The game" is whatever the people at the table agree they want to play.

This is one way to see "rule 0" or sometimes "the most important rule" in other games, that the players are not slaves to the rulebook and that the point of the game is to enjoy the time playing it, not to slavishly follow a set of rules and who cares if some players hate it.

Sure. The game is whatever the group decides it is. But the core mechanics of the game are make a roll and pass/fail causes something to happen.

That is what rule 0 is about. It allows the GM to overrule everything, including a clear, boolean die roll.

I really don't think there is any excuse to allow something to pass in the game that will make the game a miserable experience for any of the players, and that the rules say so is the weakest excuse I can think of, given that the rules are executed by humans, not machines, and most of the rules are violated or forgotten, or hacked, or simply left unused, anyway.

Okay. Let me be more specific.

I didn’t “grapple with the issue”. I had a panic attack and flashbacks. I dreaded the next session for two weeks.

Vampires are unique in having a single failed throw causing a character to permanently lose their agency and be under the direct mental control of a NPC. In this case, I was told to attack the rest of the party.

I had a psychotic break where this exact thing happened to me. I got to watch myself hurt people I cared about. There are very close relationships that were destroyed. Some I will never be able to repair.

Should I have said something? Yes. But I didn’t want to kicked out of the game.

As far as being more resilient, I’m not. If I had known vampires could do that, I would have been fine. Now? If this happens to a character in another game, I will have to leave the game. Retconning wouldn’t help.

I’ll heal in time. Might take a few months, but it may take years before I handle the situation again.

That seems like a really terrible situation. I'm sorry you went through that.

Yeah. It can be hard to explain.

Most of the time, building resilience is the correct way to look at it. Life is filled with challenges and we don't grow if we don't face them.

Trauma (psychological definition) does not work this way. It's like tearing a muscle. Immediately going back to lifting the same weight you did before just causes more damage. You have to work on healing the muscle, but you need to do it carefully.

I'm really glad you are taking care of yourself and found a way to navigate this (game) situation amicably. I've had this happen in both gaming and career context (didn't know what it was at the time) and boy did that set me off skelter for a few months. I hope you have a supportive non-judgmental network of people you trust to lean on.

More resilience is common advice, but agree that its not a panacea for actual trauma. Love that it strikes in interviews for me...

Be well friend!

>I feel like I’m missing something

It’s just one of those things where a little more explanation is needed, but rest assured they’re very right.

It’s one thing to surprise your player(s), it’s another to let one player seduce the wife of another player without any consideration for how they’d feel about it just because someone rolled a nat 20 (actual situation I read about from another player. Also related PSA: a nat 20 does not mean automatic success, let alone that a player gets to do whatever they want).

> but baring some NSFW stuff

Covered that right? That is the most common issue with dnd that I've seen. Some people want to include nsfw stuff, to varying degrees, and others dont.

Sure but I can see why “NSFW” doesn’t necessarily mean “things that can upset people” or “everything undesirable.”

For instance, it’s a perfectly reasonable thing for a table to go “we don’t want romance in this campaign.” I’m not saying that’s a game I want to play, I for one enjoy a good love story and I’m always rooting for my character to fall in love, but if that’s the story the group wants to tell…well, they don’t have to! It’s all about communicating that at the top and everybody agreeing, or identifying something during the game and having an open discussion. Odds are unless you’re truly with a group of random people that you’ll find a game that works for everyone.

Hey, I'm sorry this happened.

This is an issue that can crop up often in games. For future reference you might want to check out safety tools like the X card:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SB0jsx34bWHZWbnNIVVuMjhD...

Although to be honest, I've never played with something like that and I tend to think of such tools as unnecessary, provided that there is good communication between playes (including the GM).

I do something similar. I ask my players to privately inform me of topics or phobias to avoid. It goes on a list I keep handy.

Still to be honest, I never do, but that's mainly because I have a tightly knit group of players and I know what they want.

Although in the past I have one a few occasions, maximised "bleed", for the purpose of emotionally engaging my players. I believe this is probably a no-no nowadays.

Is the onus not also on the player with past trauma, to inform the DM about it? That way they can work around it, to avoid triggering any PTSD?

In my opinion, the onus is on everyone playing the game.

Not every person with PTSD knows what will trigger them. If a game goes long enough, someone will not recognize they have stepped on a trigger they have been warned about.

If everyone assumes good faith and treats accidents as accidents, there isn't really a need for anything dramatic.

The DM's responsibility is to foster an environment where this can happen.

A DM should always host a “session 0” to communicate the tone, intent, and play style of the campaign.

In addition, it is the DM’s responsibility to know who is at their table. Every single DM I have ever played with has sent out a questionnaire that makes people flesh out their character a bit, as well as communicate anything they feel is necessary. I have never started a table without doing it as well.

While it does behoove a player to tell their DM if they have PTSD or something, the DM also is expected to make basic overtures requesting that kind of information. Especially if there any new players at the table. Ultimately the energy and comfort level at the table is set by them.

Of course you can’t always predict everything, and not every player always knows what is going to upset them or bother them at a table. But that is why constant communication and respect is important. If your table can’t do that then it is not a table you want to play at.

At the end of the day, D&D is about telling a story together and respecting consent. Also, shoot/loot/scoot lol

Very well said. I always tell people that D&D is one giant lesson in consent.

I hope that’s not your whole pitch

Not sure how what I said made it sound like that’s my whole pitch, that would be absurd. It’s just an important aspect of D&D I tell people to be mindful of. It’s a cooperative experience, it doesn’t work if you play at other people’s expense.

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