Safewords in Gaming

[Marco]

In a thread from Actual Play Ron wrote:

1. No one hoses the bejesus out of a character like his own player.

I was thinking about this. Although from some perspectives, what follows is a fairly obvious thought, I hadn't see it before so I'm posting.

Under many social contracts for gaming the player's control over the consequences of actions is limited directly to his or her player's input. If my character behaves like a drunken fool at the Duke's ball, anything from execution to exile to becoming one of the Duke's drinking buddies could possibly happen.

Sure, I, as a player, may have an idea of how much risky behavior I can get away with before things really go badly--but if I have my character make a pass at the Duke's daughter and both my player and my character legitimately don't know how the Duke will react--I'm taking a big chance.

So I don't do it. My character doesn't do it for obvious reasons; my player because I like playing in the game and don't want an imprisoned character (or whatever).

But--if I have, say, Directoral Power and can dictate how the Duke responds then I might do it as an opening to some interesting avenues (the Duke is upset and imprisons me but his daughter was impressed and gets me out!).

Now--both points of play have their merrits. The level of immersion is usually considered to be higher in the first case. Some people dig on the creative exercise authorship in the second case. There are probably many other aspects of each sort of play too.

But there's a third concept. In adult sexual role-play there's the concept of the "safeword" which means that things have gone too far in the (shared, consensual) fantasy and it's time to stop--or reduce the intensity--or something.

When I was in a military intelligence interrorgation exercise (which was in no way sex-related, thanks) we had a command "Admin!" which would suspend the roles and halt the game for discussion.

I think that in table-top RPG's a similar concept could be (has been?) employed.  The concept of an 'ease off on the character' command the players could employ would sort of be a middle ground.

The player takes a potentially highly hosing action and the GM has whatever he or she thinks is appropriate/interessting/likely/whatever occur in the game.

But if it goes too far, the player can call an "Administrative time out" and the table will discuss the play and move back towards the player's liking but with the GM still more or less as the prime deployer of Directoral power. This could possibly include ret-conning the reality (setting the clock back).

Having thought about this, I have two questions and a comment.

1. Question: has anyone done anything like this in a functional, more or less formalized fashion with a table-top RPG?

2. Comment: In some forms of highly dramatic play the players would simply trust that the GM is working creatively to see that they don't get hosed out of the game (i.e. "I can make the pass at the Duke's daughter because even if the Duke is homicidally mad at them the GM will find a way to make that interesting and keep the game going.")

Is this a common social contract in people's experience?

-Marco

[Ben Lehman]

I ran a small room LARP (which I think Forge theorists would consider more like a tabletop than a LARP) which had a safeword: "Chlorine."

Actually, two of the players refused to accept that the game was actually over until I had said the safeword, followed by "the game is actually over."

Although (other than that), the safeword didn't come up in the game, I think we were all pretty glad it was there.  Since the theme of the game was betrayal, there was a lot of viciousness in terms of trust issues, which are central to RPGs, and so the tension was there.  It didn't snap.  But I'm glad we had a net for if it did.

It was an interesting experience.  I have it on my list of actual play reports to write when I get the time.

yrs--
--Ben

[xiombarg]

I think a safeword is a good idea, and probably could be incorporated into "mainstream" non-sexual gaming more often, particularly with a group experimenting with adult themes like betrayal and/or torture.

[lumpley]

A safe word is so you can say "no!" "stop!" "don't!" "what are you doing to me please stop I'm begging you, stop it goddamn it!" or "I'm going to call the police!" and not mean it, because that's part of the fun.

Who on earth are you guys roleplaying with, where if you say "Doug, jesus, knock it off and I'm not talking in character," they'll think you're still playing?

-Vincent
who intends no offense to people named Doug.

[xiombarg]

Who on earth are you guys roleplaying with, where if you say "Doug, jesus, knock it off and I'm not talking in character," they'll think you're still playing?

Well, this happens in LARPs, a lot, where people sometimes get overzealous about staying IC during the entire game.

That said, I think it's less that no one will pay attention when you're like "Doug, jesus, knock it off and I'm not talking in character" as it's faster to say "Admin!" and there's a formal rule wrapped around it that drops people out of character immediately and stops what's going on as quickly as possible. This is the same reason safewords are used in S&M play -- it just prevents misunderstanding, and it's no different in that way than making any other element of the Social Contract explicit.

[Marco]

A safe word is so you can say "no!" "stop!" "don't!" "what are you doing to me please stop I'm begging you, stop it goddamn it!" or "I'm going to call the police!" and not mean it, because that's part of the fun.

Who on earth are you guys roleplaying with, where if you say "Doug, jesus, knock it off and I'm not talking in character," they'll think you're still playing?

-Vincent
who intends no offense to people named Doug.

Actually, I was talking more about formalizing objection to consequences of actions--not, specifically, about addressing disturbing content.

The idea is that if the GM is handling consequences of actions and goes further than the player wanted. Not "more disturbing" just "worse."

Note: under many, many (common? I think so) social contracts a player who says "hey, you hosed my character!" will get (and, IMO, perhaps legitimately deserve) "well, yeah: you were responsible for the actions that led to that."

In this sense a safeword, IMO, is apporpriate since the group is stopping the usual flow of the game to ret-con or reconsider consequences even if no one at the table is disturbed in a visceral sense.

-Marco

[Ben Lehman]

A safe word is so you can say "no!" "stop!" "don't!" "what are you doing to me please stop I'm begging you, stop it goddamn it!" or "I'm going to call the police!" and not mean it, because that's part of the fun.

Who on earth are you guys roleplaying with, where if you say "Doug, jesus, knock it off and I'm not talking in character," they'll think you're still playing?

BL>  In the case of my LARP, there was one player who was playing herself, but with the difference that she had been killing the other player's pets through slow poisoning.

So, yeah, there really was a need for "no, no really out of game."

yrs--
--Ben

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I figure there are a whole lot of different things to be able to say stop about. Marco, you emphasize the potential for character death or incapacitation (and hence player inability-to-play), but others are emphasizing knowing whether the group or person is playing.

So let's make a list of what to say stop about.

1. Stop! If you do this, you won't be able to play further. So this is about continuing to play.

2. Stop! We are not playing at this time. Obviously, this is make the person stop playing.

3. Stop! I am not comfortable with explicitly imagining what is happening in our SIS. This is my "Veil" term

4. Stop! I am not comfortable with this stuff happening at all in our SIS. This is my "Line" term

Both #3-4 are actually threats or notifications that the speaking person might not continue to play, as the implied "or else."

5. Stop! I am aggravated with your character's actions (or any announced event during play, actually); please re-consider them. This one is interesting because it often calls for a "do over" during play, which as a sub-issue can be jarring to many people.

Any others that I'm missing?

Best,
Ron

[Blankshield]

The only thing that I can think of not on that list is

6: Stop! We don't both have the same picture of what's going on here!

Another that's sort-of-but-not-really related is

Stop! We need to resolve X before going farther.    Technically this one happens all the time, as in "roll to hit." and "How much damage?"  An extreme of this that was done locally as part of a Star Wars LARP was a literal "STOP!" when combat started in the room.  Theory being that a) combat involving lasers could involve anyone in line of sight and b) would be "really" over so fast that it should be a stop time, from a sim perspective, even for people not in the fight.

This last one typically slips under the radar in tabletop, as it's not so much a play stoppage as it is System in action, but in high immersion games or in games with heavy system, having it as a stop condition can be useful.

James

[John Kim]

A while ago, Brian Gleichman came up with an excellent model for comfort ratings in RPGs, termed an "Interaction Model" because it separated what was allowed PC-vs-PC, PC-vs-Game, Game-vs-PC, and Game-vs-Game.  I still have it on my site, as http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/models/interaction_model.html">"Interaction Model of RPGs".  For example, it may be acceptable for PCs to torture NPCs, but not acceptable for NPCs to torture PCs.  

I think that in many games fortune points serve a safeword-like function.  They are activated by the player to protect the PC from things that might otherwise happen.  However, I am wary of relying on such things because they often come too late.  It's better to head off trouble before it reaches totally unacceptable levels rather than waiting for that to hit.

[Callan S.]

A safe word is so you can say "no!" "stop!" "don't!" "what are you doing to me please stop I'm begging you, stop it goddamn it!" or "I'm going to call the police!" and not mean it, because that's part of the fun.

Who on earth are you guys roleplaying with, where if you say "Doug, jesus, knock it off and I'm not talking in character," they'll think you're still playing?

-Vincent
who intends no offense to people named Doug.

It's a method of focusing concentration. Imagine if you had to listen to the radio while watching the TV, waiting for an entire particular sentence to be said on the radio, at which time you have to immediately stop watching the TV.

Now imagine if only one word needed to be said on the radio and it would be said firmly. Think how much more you could concentrate on the TV now...you don't have to worry about missing your cue.

It's not so much that Doug wont stop, but why burden him with complex method of stopping when he's trying to concentrate?

[Callan S.]

But--if I have, say, Directoral Power and can dictate how the Duke responds then I might do it as an opening to some interesting avenues (the Duke is upset and imprisons me but his daughter was impressed and gets me out!).

Now--both points of play have their merrits. The level of immersion is usually considered to be higher in the first case. Some people dig on the creative exercise authorship in the second case. There are probably many other aspects of each sort of play too.

I think one of those aspects is 'I don't give a crap about charming the Duke. I want to deal with X in relation to him'.

This is sort of where PC and player politics intertwine in warped ways. Say I'm interested in seeing what it's like to face execution because a blustering duke didn't like my antics. Okay, I play the drunk at his party...and the GM makes me his drinking buddy. WTF?

Ya see, it's like making a choice from a menu a performanced based exercise. Instead of just being able to see the menu and choose from it, you have to guess whats on the menu then flex your muscles (creatively) to try and get there.

I think people dig on the creative authorship exercise not for its own merits, but because they've actually been allowed to not only see the menu and choose, but see the menu is blank and they can make a super customised choice. Then go and immerse in that.

I thought it was interesting to describe how they may not want to immerse in the first thing the GM suggests. Yep, your loosing immersion, but its not a problem because its not the immersion the player wants. I really like the safeword idea, but it basically only facilitates going full bore into the immersion the GM chose as described before.

[clehrich]

One place I can see a direct answer to Vincent's very reasonable objection is in the LARP example of "chlorine."  In that example, the safeword wasn't used for its theoretically primary purpose -- to say, "No, wait, this isn't fun any more, stop it" -- or at least not very much.

But I do think that there can be value in knowing it's there.  It's like knowing there's a net.  You don't want to use it, because it's much cooler to do high-wire games without falling, but it's nice to know, in the back of your head, that if you do fall you won't die.

Here's what I'm thinking concretely.  As I continue slowly struggling toward a revision of Shadows in the Fog, and as I start tinkering with a Dogs in the Vineyard supplement on the Inquisition, one thing that keeps arising is the question of just how far is too far.  I think this is a bigger issue in Shadows, but I don't know for sure.  If you state from the outset that there will be a safeword, you're also saying very powerfully that there might be a need for one, which is really saying that some things in the game are intended to go very far toward your limits of comfort.  Rape, torture, serious horror---not CoC heebie-jeebies but serious scariness.  Knowing that the game-writer takes this so seriously that he or she puts in a safeword might in effect say, "Okay, I'm really really not fooling around here.  I want you to push scary, scary far.  That will create the type of intensity I have in mind for this game.  Don't worry, you've got a net."  And then people push to their limits and don't use the net.

Does that make sense?  It also follows up some of the ideas I tinkered with in the Ritual essay, I guess, but I'm not sure exactly how it fits in.

[Madeline]

Marco's post brings back some truly horrible gaming experiences I've had...  Say you hit on the Duke's daughter, and the Duke puts a price on your head large enough that every rogue in the land is gunning for you, and you say "Wait, that's a bit much, couldn't he just throw me out of the feast, or have me caned or something?"  And the GM says, "The kind of character the Duke is, you should be greatful that I didn't have him kill you right there."

The safeword, I think, is a really neat idea because it has at its foundation the belief that every person in the game has a right to be happy with the direction the game is going, and contribute to what happens (even if only by veto).

I'm not sure if it's the best way to present that social contract, though.  People will feel silly saying "Chlorine" or something.  They probably won't want to admit that gaming is as important to them as sex, where the safeword is required.  So they'll probably rely on the usual words for this kind of situation, "Hold up a bit..."  "Wait..."  "You can't be serious..."  And with the safeword as an option, these traditional methods of communication will be made even more murky.  "If he was really bothered, why didn't he say Chlorine?"

With a codified "game comes screeching to a halt" effect, too, the safeword comes with a lot of fear-of-use.  Bringing the game to a screeching halt is a major effect, and I suspect people would rather not have something like that so obviously on their heads.

If there's a discussion and group-settling-upon of a safeword, it will introduce to everyone the concept that everyone's approval has some value; but I imagine it'd mostly be the GM saying, "If you've got a problem, say this" which strikes me as roughly the equivalent of a suggestion box in the boss's office.

[Ben Lehman]

Does that make sense?  It also follows up some of the ideas I tinkered with in the Ritual essay, I guess, but I'm not sure exactly how it fits in.

BL>  While I don't have the theoretical background that you do in ritual, let me take a stab at this.

The existence of a safeword (any of Ron's types) creates a "ritual space" which does not only allow for edge-behavior and limit-pushing but, in fact, requires them.

yrs--
--Ben