Safewords in Gaming

[clehrich]

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.

Hell, I didn't mean that.  I'll try to work out some implications for ritual and whatnot.  All I meant was that I'm not sure exactly how it fits into what I said about gender-role discomfort and so forth.

Thanks, though.  I don't want to derail the conversation; I was just suggesting that having a safeword around might make it possible to intensify certain kinds of "dangerous" roleplay.

[WiredNavi]

My girlfriend and I were discussing this in the contest of LARPing, especially boffer LARPing where the object is in great part to have great verisimilitude and not go out-of-character.  What's more, part of what both of us enjoy about boffer LARPs is the sense of immersion and intensity of characterization; it's jarring when someone says something out-of-character or calls a game break (which is as it should be, as most of the game breaks are for things like 'Hey, I just tripped over a log and I may have hurt myself).  It's not the kind of thing that you want to do without good reason, but it makes it hard to steer scenes without feeling like you're coming close to disrupting not just your own, but everyone else's good time.

At the same time, the intensity of emotion and perspective can lead to actions which would be easily dismissed over a gaming table (betrayal, physical attacking, truly harsh words) seem very personal and immediate.  I've seen people leave the game with hard feelings because of those events, which is bad - but it's not something you want to avoid, because when those emotional scenes work, they're great.

It's hard to come up with a safeword, or safeword-like response, that can be used for things like 'Please don't go there, I'm not comfortable roleplaying this particular scene/emotion/confrontation' without breaking the game.  I had thought for a while of, perhaps, a 'curse word' which could be construed at an IC level of being a simple curse but which was only to be said when it was meant on an OOC level as 'Please tone it down and/or back off'.

A better idea that we came up with was the simple expedient of talking with the other people you're playing with about things that you wouldn't want coming up in game.  If you don't want a particular button pushed, tell the people most likely to push it, and let them know how you feel or how an enjoyable way to push it would be.

The people I roleplay with a lot are very into verisimilitude of character motivations and action, and that kind of OOC collaboration is not something that I think they'd find easy to accept.  But as you've been saying, the very existence of that safety net means that people will feel better - in this case, they'll feel more confident pushing all the other buttons, making for an even more intense and realistic game.

[Marco]

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.

Hi Madeline,

I agree with this--which is why I think  safe-word is different from a "man, I *really* don't like this."

I've seen, during gaming:
1. A player bow out because the game got too disturbing. He sat and watched.
2. A player who was in an alternate dimension say "I hate this alternate dimension stuff. We'd better get out of here quickly" (as notice to the GM that he'd quit if the game didn't change)
3. A player say "This game has gotten to the point where it's not fun for me any more. Can we go back and make another decision at point X."

In our mode of play, which is a general dice-on-the-table, 'virtualist-leaning' social contract these were, in fact, a big deal. In the final case, one player (me) was *enjoying* having his character hosed while the other player *wasn't.* But due to a decision I'd made we were getting hosed as the result of our actions.

Now, we all recognize that any player can, at any time, make his needs or wants known--and I give the guy props for that. But--if we'd put the safeword social contract in place then the player would:

a) be within his rights to request a modification of the outcomes at every stage--not just as a big deal (yes, it's a disruption--but if the player provides some input "Maybe the Duke is really upset--but sees some value in keeping me around for some nefarious political reason?" then this can reduce the load on the GM).

b) More importantly, the player wouldn't have to worry about getting stuck in a no-win situation. No matter how grim things looked the player would still have a pretty extant sense of control and would know that it wouldn't upset the GM.

In other words, with the social contract it shouldn't be as big a deal.

-Marco

[Walt Freitag]

This discussion reminds me of my brief but intense immersion in theater tech (at amateur, semi-professional, and professional venues) in the mid-80s. The bit of culture I'm describing may have been localized in that time and/or region, but I'd be surprised if it weren't more or less universal.

The specific "safeword" action in this culture is threatening to walk. In any given production, it was more likely than not that any given techie, especially the Technical Director, would threaten to walk at some point. Threatening to walk more than once in the same production was rare, though. And actually walking was so rare as to be long-remembered and retold when it happened. (As in, "Remember when Jones walked on the opening week of Salesman in 82 at the Repertory? What a clusterfuck that was.")

This bit of culture or whatever you want to call it struck me, after some reflection, as quite functional and adaptive, given circumstances where those in charge -- to wit, Directors -- (1) have big egos, (2) are accustomed to asking for and receiving miracles from their crews, and (3) cannot always tell, from where they're sitting, when their own demands cross the line into the grossly unreasonable -- and where the real ultimate recourse to having the line crossed, which is walking out on the production, would have drastic consequences for all concerned. ("You'll never work in this town again!" is a cliche for a reason.) On first witnessing the TD threaten to walk as the culmination of a screaming-in-each-other's-faces argument with the Director, it's understandable that the inexperienced young lighting assistant (that's me) would think "we're (meaning the production is) doomed," but with some experience he learns that this is all as ritualistic as a baseball team's manager kicking dirt on the umpire's shoes and being ejected from the game.

A second threat to walk in the same production is rarer, and more serious. The reason it's more serious is that a third threat cannot be made (on pain of the threatener being seen forevermore as a mere perpetual whiner) so the only subsequent recourse is Actually Walking. (It also appeared to me, though this is more speculative, that the second threat is not always an option depending on the reputations involved, in which case the first threat carries the weight of the second.)

And all these rules are understood by all (except perhaps the inexperienced lighting assistant), but never discussed or acknowledged explicitly.

The reason I brink this up is to build on Madeline's point about fear-of-use:

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 the consequences of the safeword are seen as too severe relative to the seriousness of the player's problem, then what I'd expect to happen would be the use of some signal -- a code phrase, or perhaps a gesture -- that represents threatening to use the safeword without actually using it. And I imagine that signal will always be "informal," never explicitly discussed.

Something changes when a signal is formalized like a safeword. Look at it this way: a line-crossed player's ultimate inalienable recourse is to leave the game. The penultimate and equally inalienable recourse short of that is to bring play to a screeching halt by threatening to leave the game. The safeword is supposed to be another layer of recourse short of that, but once it's formalized it becomes more or less equivalent to it instead. If you were to formalize yet another layer, an explicitly agreed upon "I'm going to have to use the safeword if this goes any further" signal, it again collapses into equivalence with the safeword. It appears there's always a use if not an absolute need for a layer of warning that's understood but deliberately veiled.

Perhaps that's why then the manager kicks dirt on the umpire's shoes, the commentators always go on about how enraged he must be to show such appalling disrespect to the umpire, as if they've never seen a manager do such a terrible thing before. If everyone involved acknowledged it was rote procedure, then it would lose its expressiveness, and then the manager, to get the same meaning across, would have to actually shove the guy or something.

- Walt

[Erling Rognli]

In the Scandinavian larping community there are two words used for this purpose; "Brems" and "Kutt" meaning respectively "Brake/Slow Down" and "Cut". The former is used to signal that whatever play is going on at the moment should not become more intensive, and that focus should gradually be changed. The latter is used to stop play at once. Most of the community agrees that use of these words should never require explanation, and that organizing a larp without these is highly irresponsible. Few rules are used, but these have become nearly universal.

-E

[lumpley]

This is the opposite side of the threatening to threaten prob:

There's a word they use in the SCA, which is "hold!" It's supposed to mean "stop! Someone's in danger!" What it really means is "stop! Someone's in danger or you're not paying enough attention to meeee!" I can't imagine that "admin!" in LARPing is any different - necessary, yes, but also fully exploitable as a way to bully others and get what you want.

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.

Let's talk System and where the buck stops.

Formalizing this "stop! I'm aggravated!" conversation of Ron's into a safeword takes buck stoppage away from whomever and gives buck stoppage to the person most willing to invoke the safeword. Over time, it bumps the social negotiation off of the aggravating contributions to the game and on to the use of the safeword itself.

Here's me exaggerating the case. The rules of my RPG are:
1. Whoever rolls the highest single die gets final say over what happens.
2. Unless someone pees on someone else's shoe. Then that person gets final say what happens.
2a. How often rule 2 is invoked depends on how your group deals with people who pee on your shoes.

The social pressures and on-the-fly negotiations that'll inevitably bear on a safeword (or shoe-peeing) would be far more productively brought to bear on the actual content and actual procedures of the game, instead.

In LARPing or reenactment we put up with exploitable safewords, because otherwise someone might get hurt. They're serious and good and the game can't really work without 'em. In sex the safewords aren't exploitable that way, they're so we can say stop and not mean it. In tabletop roleplaying, everybody's physically safe, nobody's in restraints or playing submission games, and we always have time to explain what we mean.

If nothing else - even if otherwise this whole post is full of shit - safewords exist right there in your System, same as IIEE and Currency and all. Before adding a safeword to your System, consider carefully that you're adding it to your game's resolution rules. It'll have an effect on your group's arrangement of authority and credibility in play, beyond just "if you need to call a break, call a break."

-Vincent

edit: A small note about "hold," on account of someone asked: I was mostly in the kitchen, where (as from antiquity) petty politics reigned and nobody was really going to get hurt. The fighting reenactors used "hold" with great integrity.

[clehrich]

Vincent,

What do you think about my suggestion that saying there might be a need for a safeword could help everyone focus on pushing their limits?  I may have missed something, but I didn't see that in your post.

[lumpley]

Chris,

The safeword that no one ever invokes is a clever bit of sleight-of-hand. It doesn't enter procedurally into play, but instead serves up front to reassure the group that the door is open.

I mean that: it reassures the group that the door is open, not that there's a guard rail. That group doesn't need a guard rail, that's why they never invoke the safeword. They need permission from one another to push their limits, not protection when it happens. Establishing the safeword is granting permission.

That group will, inevitably, find a way to grant itself permission. The faux-safeword is as good a way as any.

edit: I'm sounding kind of authoritarian today, aren't I? I should end this post with:

Anyhow, don't you think? That's how it seems to me.

-Vincent

[M. J. Young]

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

I'm with Vincent on this one. Think about it. What's going to be harder? If you're the one who is offending, you have to remember that when someone says "Jabberwocky" they want you to stop, or if you're the one who has just been hit with something completely unexpected and unacceptable you have to remember to say "Jabberwocky", because "Oh, no, don't go there, don't even go there, don't think of going there, stop it right this instant, I can't do this" isn't going to work?

When my eldest was a kid, he was a good swimmer, and he liked to play games in which he pretended he needed someone to save him. We made it very clear that when he was in the pool he was never to cry "help" unless he was really in trouble. He got to pick the other word--when he was pretending to be in trouble, he would shout, "oil", and we all knew that this was a game, and we were supposed to rescue him because it was fun. Seriously, would it have been better to let him shout "help" in fun, but have to remember to shout "oil" if he was drowning? I don't think so.

Chris makes a good point concerning designing games to be intense; in tabletop, though, I'd think that it would be better to have a physical sign--walk away from the table, or cover your ears with your hands. A safeword requires that we all remember the word and react to it appropriately, and that we remember not to use it when we didn't want to stop the game. Chlorine? That would come up if you faced a green dragon in D&D, or if you were talking about swimming pools or water purification, or in any of a number of discussions of chemistry, even in discussing chemical warfare. O.K., apparently none of those subjects were likely to be part of whatever game was using that word, but the problem arises because it's going to be more difficult to remember any word that you're less likely to use anyway, and we're talking about remembering the word at the moment when we are most flustered and upset, and so least likely to be able to remember anything that isn't second nature to us.

--M. J. Young

[Callan S.]

Your trying to argue the more intuitive/common way of expressing something is better, but you might want to try some else as example as that one doesn't apply or atleast isn't meshing with me.

Anyway, I get your point. And the idea is that it is awkward. It's not supposed to fluidly fit play since its a deliberate interuptor to play. That's why 'Okay, I think I'd like to stop for awhile' isn't great because it fits right in to normal play. It looks like the rest of play.

It's sort of like ending a movie with 'and then after that not much else happend of note'. If your going to end or interupt something, it needs to be sharp...not sort of drift off aimlessly. 'THE END' is preferable...you can't work in the same text medium as the movie when your ending that medium.

Personally I'm just in favour of a short, sharp 'TIME OUT'

[John Kim]

Chris makes a good point concerning designing games to be intense; in tabletop, though, I'd think that it would be better to have a physical sign--walk away from the table, or cover your ears with your hands. A safeword requires that we all remember the word and react to it appropriately, and that we remember not to use it when we didn't want to stop the game.  

Even in tabletop, it is pretty common for people to make in-character vocal inflection, facial expression, and hand gestures.  The point, I think, is that you want to allow players to play out a scene of emotional torture for a character, where, for example, she might cover her ears and cry and scream out "Stop!  Stop!" with heated emotion in response to an NPC telling her PC some horrible news, say.  In a non-safeworded game, this behavior will normally grind play to a halt, as everyone asks "Hey, are you OK?  Is that in-character or out-of-character?"  

The problem arises because it's going to be more difficult to remember any word that you're less likely to use anyway, and we're talking about remembering the word at the moment when we are most flustered and upset, and so least likely to be able to remember anything that isn't second nature to us.  

Intuitive gestures and/or voice don't work here, because those are going to be exactly the things which you are liable to act out as a character under extreme emotion.  By not having a safeword, it makes it difficult or impossible to play out emotionally intense scenes without constantly breaking to ask "Wait, do you mean 'Stop' as player or 'Stop' as character?"

[Jonathan Walton]

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.

Word.

People seem to have started debating what the best way to implement Safewords is, but I think that's mostly a group-specific and even game-specific task, depending on the potentially dangerous territory you're planning on covering and what exactly objecting to it might entail.

I think it's more important, however, to examine what exactly you're wanting the Safewords to do in the social contract.  Vincent's right that including Safewords doesn't just say "we're going to try some scary stuff, look out!" (I mean, with a premise like Puppies, you know that already), it makes huge changes to the way people think about and implement system and player/character choices.  And, even more, the way you chose to implement Safewords effects the way the game will play.

For example, Vespertine seeks to combine the horrific elements of Little Fears, Vampire, Puppies, and Dogs to create an descending spiral of Sin that goes like "She does that!  What are you going to do, huh?  Oh, man, you're doing THAT?!  No way!  Well, she does THIS!!"  So the game eggs players on to do more and more uncomfortable things, trying to recreate the feeling of a kid/teenager's first introduction to the "bad" things of the world.  But since play takes place as a kind of Call-and-Response whenever bad things go down, it's easy to incorperate an objection into the system.  When she does that, all you have to say is "Um, I don't think I really want to go there.  Can you have her do something else instead?"

But in games where turn-taking isn't built into things, this might not work as well.  Sometimes, when things get furious, the loudest players are able to have the most effect on the events that occur, which can end up browbeating other players and overriding potential objections (or even drowning out Safewords or intimidating people into not using them).  So I don't think people can use the excuse "well, we had a Safeword" as a way of defending possible abuses.  If you're really going to go there, you better make damn sure that everyone's at least mostly okay with coming with you, Safewords or no.

[Callan S.]

But in games where turn-taking isn't built into things, this might not work as well. Sometimes, when things get furious, the loudest players are able to have the most effect on the events that occur, which can end up browbeating other players and overriding potential objections (or even drowning out Safewords or intimidating people into not using them). So I don't think people can use the excuse "well, we had a Safeword" as a way of defending possible abuses. If you're really going to go there, you better make damn sure that everyone's at least mostly okay with coming with you, Safewords or no.

Someone is going to bellow over others or intimidate them into not using the word? This type of person would bellow over a 'Hey, can we just stop for a moment and talk about X' or intimidate people into not using it. The person who would do this is not a design concern because quite frankly their stepping all over social contract...if they can do that, they're out of control. Why does introducing an out of control player nulify the idea as presented?

What it can do is the removal of double meanings in speach. Without a safeword, words like 'Stop it!' said emotionally can have two different meanings. One is that the player does want to stop play. The other is that they just mean that in character...and possibly even as a player they dislike the activity and find it repugnant, and that will show in their speach, but that doesn't mean they want to stop as they are exploring what they dislike.

Think of a rollercoaster. People want to be able to scream, yell and shout 'ooh fuuuu...' etc without the rollercoaster attendant stopping the thing every second time they do because 'I wasn't sure if you wanted to get off'. But really, barring extrodinary circumstances they are safe on the coaster and the general culture there is that all screaming means naught.

In roleplay it's different...the rollercoaster can come off the rails. But the instant someone says 'Oh god no!' or 'This...its wrong, just wrong' doesn't automatically mean it has come off. I get that you can just say 'Okay, its time to stop now and talk about this and I'm not talking in character'. But the idea of establishing a safeword is also to establishing that it's okay to stop play. Intellectually it might just seem a matter of saying 'Okay, time to stop'. But in the heat of the moment, it's not quite so easy for one person to establish that even though everyone else is into it, they want to stop and that it should stop just because of them. Doing that takes charge of the whole game and everyones current momentum. Taking charge is not something to expect lightly from someone, especially when they are intimidated by events. I expect this is a debatable point, so I'll wait to see what is said rather than just keep harping on it.

Anyway, I think there two strong benefits to a safe word.
* It's clear and resounding, so players don't need to listen for a second meaning in everything everyone says.
* It establishes that its okay to stop the game, and since everyone agreed to the word your not grabbing control by doing so.

[xiombarg]

Callan, I think that's a succinct understanding of the value of a safeword, and there isn't much I can add to it.

Let's face it. Even well-meaning people can miss signals. It isn't always obvious in the heat of the moment where the IC/OOC line is. When you say the agreed-upon "kumquat" safeword, everyone knows what's up.

[List]

Regarding working the objection method into system--

Disadvantages for using a safeword have been brought up, such as confusion of context, disruption of gameplay, etc.  I want to bring up the Legend Role / You Should Be Dead systems in Softlands as examples of ways to achieve the effect within system.

The premise is that frequently a player wants to be able to try interesting things (like flirting with the Duke's daughter) without the possible OOC penalty of being taken out of the game.  This happens most frequently with getting killed, but can also come up with such events that cut one out of plot like getting imprisoned for a long time, or even that change a character's personality beyond what a player wants to play, like getting tortured.  

In the YSBD system, instead of having the bad thing happen, the player can instead chose to take YSBD point and some other negative consequence as a result of managing to get out of the situation (eg, the Duke orders you imprisoned and executed, but the royal wizard secretly releases you in exchange for a huge unknown favor, or you lose your arm escaping, or something).  Then, at a point in the game when it's all right for your character to die or get removed from the game (generally climax), you "spend" your saved up YSBD points, which manifest as dice that contribute to the possibility of your death.

The Legend Roles are a less formal system that solve one possible safeword problem-- that of character integrity.  Every character has a legend role ("deceiver", "unrequited lover", "blacksmith") which is a summary of the essence of who they are, that cannot be violated by game plot.  At any point the player can interrupt the game and say "I don't want to be sold into slavery, because then I wouldn't be a blacksmith anymore and that violates my legend role", or even "I'm supposed to be a deceiver, but I've failed to successfully trick the last seven people I tried it on-- I need it to succeed this time, so can you just give it to me without rolling?"  It's essentially a specific pre-agreed grounds on which that type of objection is allowed without awkwardness or need for argument.

I imagine that either of these can be exported to the general case-- is this more what you had in mind, Marco?