Then you ask them to leave. You don't shame them over your boundary. The goal isn't to harm the player in retribution and shame them for wanting to do something you're uncomfortable regarding. You just say: I'm sorry, this is something I am uncomfortable with, and if it comes up again I'll have to ask you to find another table to play with.
That's it. State the boundary, accept that the boundary is your requirement and for your benefit, and state that you will need to distance if the boundary isn't honored. No shaming. No implication that you find the person gross. No attack or even discussion about its "appropriateness". Just know and respectful engagement about what it is that you need.
Precisely! Especially things like graphic violence, gross out scenes, and sexual trauma, it is important that everyone is on the same page about what is ok. If someone establishes a boundary, the table either honors it or that person leaves. Boundaries are for our own protection, not to control others.
That is unnecessarily harsh. It is ok to have and impose boundaries, it is not ok to shame someone. There can be any number of reasons for wanting to play out a scenario like this that have nothing to do with fetishes. The boundary is that the person running the game (and possibly other players), are uncomfortable with it. You set the boundary, and if someone continues to press the boundary you ask them to leave. Going on the offensive like this though is simply unkind.
This is what a session 0 is all about. The point is to understand what individual group members are and are not comfortable with, and for you as a game master to make clear what your intention for the campaign is. The point here isn't to judge one another.
A lot of people here want to argue about whether or not this is a "healthy" way to play. We aren't health care professionals, and that's not really our role. If you as a game master have a group of players who want to run sting operations against child predators and that's something everyone is ok with, I'm not going to tell you not to. But any kind of sexual predator is something you want to tread lightly on unless everyone involved is ok with it.
I had individual conversations with my players in the curse of Strahd campaign I am running. The way Strahd is depicted in the book is relationally manipulative in a way that can be traumatic from someone who has experienced an abusive relationship. I know another GM who modified the character significantly because they knew they had a player who would not handle it well. Strahd will make you love him (literally using magic), and gaslight you into thinking you're the villain. Everyone needs to be ok with that.
If you are not ok running sexual predators as NPCs, you can and should tell the player. Maybe they need a different group if this is something important to them. It could even be therapeutic for them, or help them process trauma. But you don't have to be that person.
Yes, and clearly means "higher CR" combats, which can be made to feel difficult while still ensuring the players feel successful. I don't get the impression that you have much variety of experience as a game master, and that's fine. The job of a good game master though is always to observe what it is that their players need to have a good experience, and then deliver that. This will vary by group and sometimes by play session. So we can talk about things we like to do as players and GMs, but there is never just one right way to play Dungeons and Dragons.
They don't have to be. Some groups just want a fun story telling experience. Some want to do cool shit and feel invincible. In my experience, few actually want a challenging tactical war game. As a GM, it's my responsibility to understand what the players want and try to provide that.
Yeah, having kids together is the "risk", not marriage. Things like child support and custody get super messy if your coparent decides to make them messy. Dissolving a marriage is relatively easy in comparison, especially if both people want to treat each other fairly.
Seriously. A baby is MUCH more of an entanglement than marriage. I just got out of a marriage of 16 years. We split assets, went to court. Done. Get a child in the mix, and you are talking about a lifetime of having to get court approval for movement and travel, child support, custody determination, etc. If he's not willing to make the relatively smaller commitment of marriage, having a child together shouldn't be remotely considered.
Getting to know ourselves and others better is not a waste of time. Learning better what we want and need in a relationship is not a waste of time. It only becomes a waste when we don't learn from the experience. And after 7 years, if he doesn't want to marry you it's because he doesn't want to marry you. He's learned what he wants, and that is a fun time without real commitment. If that's what you want too, that's great. If not, you probably need to move on. The time you spent together won't have been wasted, but it will have allowed you to have some fun times and better understand what you want from future relationships. It's only a "waste" if you don't learn from it.
A full time job is 40 hours a week. Taking care of a child for 40 hours a week is a full time job that people can make a living wage doing. So maybe his job demands 60 hours a week from him, and he wants you to do 60 hours a week of child care. But unless you are contracting child care, that’s still the hours he’s WORKING. You are BOTH working those hours. He can investigate what a dedicated nanny costs to see the market value of the service you are providing to the family. That still leaves a LOT of work left to be split equally between partners. He isn’t asking you to be an equal partner here, he’s asking you to be his mommy. An adult man owns the responsibilities he has taken on and does his part. That means you split childcare and household chores after you have both worked your shifts. And if he isn’t willing to be an adult, you have to decide if you can manage two children in your household.
I definitely put my cats away when the board games are out. Because you're right, it isn't accidental! They actively SEEK to swat pieces across the room!
Agreed. Especially about it being about 20% too long.
I have a friend that has been trying to get Firefly to the table. She tried hosting a board game night a couple months back and it sputtered. :(
Yeah, I mean, you already gave it to the bot last week!
It was alright. We didn't finish, but I would rate it 7 or 8 out of ten based on my experience so far. Down around where I put Dice Forge! ;)
As a man, someone who doesn't want to have sex shouldn't be convinced or coerced to do so.
Your partner is threatening to cheat on you (get his satisfaction elsewhere) if you don't give him what he wants. He's threatening to leave you, because marriage is a commitment to NOT leave and he won't give you that unless you give him daily sex.
Daily sex is not normal. Most men CAN'T do daily sex on a consistent basis. Once or twice a week is extremely reasonable in most relationships. If you were refusing to have sex for weeks or months at a time, I would think that might be something to talk about. But what he is asking is abnormal, and how he is asking is relationally abusive.
No. Pushing them away would be spurning their invites to often (more than 3 in a row), or being brusque when she tries to talk to you at group activities, or blatantly excluding them when you invite everyone else to something. You are not obligated to initiate efforts to invite them over, or reach out via phone or social media, or even cross the room to talk.
Manners exist to tell us how to treat others we don't have a relationship with, so look to manners to understand your obligations. Polite greeting with a smile if you can manage it. Ask how she has been doing, and listen politely. But you definitely don't have to do all the work to build a relationship.
She might want one, and try to reach out, and if so set up some group activities to reduce your obligation to engage if you don't want to. Be nice, be polite, but you don't have to do more.
My dead of winter set could definitely use some organizers...
Exactly. A lead signals to change what is happening. Once something has been prompted the follow can do that until given a new prompt. You maintain contact throughout not to "force" anything, but just the assurance this is still what we are doing!
The way to handle this is to ask the teacher "what should I feel to prompt me to do step X?" Because I'm a social dance, you won't know what to respond to if the lead doesn't give an appropriate prompt. You don't need to call out the lead for not doing that publicly, but you can let them know if you aren't able to feel a prompt. Bachata sensual is supposed to be about non-verbal communication on the floor. If you are memorizing a routine for an exhibition, whatever.
But I am always asking for differentiation between what kind of pressure communicates a half turn or fast turn, and at what point as a lead I should be communicating what comes next and with what firmness. Some level of "tension" is needed to be able to change things up, and compliance with a signal is appropriate even if not what is expected.
If I miss a step in the choreography as a lead, it is my responsibility to decide what to do next, whether throw in a cycle of basic, then get back on count, an alternate move, or something else. I actually tend to panic, because I'm not very good at this yet. But part of what we are trying to learn is to correctly make and respond to signals.
Yup. 100%. Players HATE being stolen from. Stealing something they depend on in combat will make you enemy #1. Even if the dread god is days from destroying the prime material plane, most players will take the time out to go atomize whoever took their stuff! Fun hook, if done right!
This is why good communication with your DM is so important. I have had characters killed and felt great about it, you would rage quit if you lost your spell book. Different play styles, and a good DM will try to run things in a way that is fun for the players at their table. As you mentioned, "temporarily de-buffed" is a trope that is often done. You might hate it, and if so it makes sense that you would hate this (since it is a form of temporary de-buff) .
I think this kind of thing can be done in a way that explores other play options, but I agree that it depends a lot on how it is done. Knowing your table, honest communication, and trust are key. I is similar to character conflict. With the right group of players (and good communication), it can be hilarious and fun for all. With the wrong players and a misunderstanding, it can cause fights among the players. But I love a well done character conflict.
One of my favorite campaigns had a character stealing from the party the whole time, but since the rest of our characters were naive we just trusted them. We had a new player join a couple years in, and express confusion at our low wealth by level. As players, we told him that one of the characters had been skimming everything for himself the whole game, but not spending it because he felt guilty about it. The new character then guided the rest of us to see the truth, and we had a really cool moment where the other characters figured out what had been happening and forgave the embezzler.
Is that something most tables would enjoy as much as ours did? Not a chance. We spent 2 years fighting with nerfed weapons and equipment laughing each time about how nice it would have been to have had a little better sword in that fight, or how beat up our armor was getting. But every group has their own dynamic and this was fun for us! So if losing (and later replacing) your spell book would not be fun for you, that's just something to communicate to the DM. He can have the police return it next session or something. It is all about respect and trust though. No need to preemptively quit a situation that hasn't even happened!
I mean, that is true about equipment for EVERY class other than monk, which is nerfed in comparison to any properly equipped character from any other class.
"live out your secret fetishes" is not the same as "I am not comfortable with this". If that's how you want to treat people in your life, do so. But it is not a healthy or fair way to treat people. The fact that you need to "get harsh" means you set poor boundaries. It is possible to say "this is my boundary, observe it or I need to step back from you" without being unkind. If you feel the need to be unkind to people who are different from you, you're going to cause a lot of pain in the world.
Am I wrong for shooting down a player's request
DnD