Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop roleplaying games are full of unexpected situations. This is part of what makes the game fun! No matter which side of the DM’s screen you’re on, you’re never completely in control of the game. What happens is up to a combination of chance and the players at the table.

So, it’s important for everyone to be comfortable and enjoy themselves at the table.

Monte Cook Games, a company known for the Cypher System and games like Numenera, has released a free PDF called Consent in Gaming by Sean K. Reynolds and Shanna Germain. It’s available at DriveThruRPG.

With the “Tackle mature content with confidence!” tagline, Consent in Gaming aims to give players and DMs/GMs “the strategies you need to make sure everyone at the table has a great experience, even when the game goes in a challenging direction.”

What is this?

This PDF gives tools for handling mature content plus resources for further reading. It’s around thirteen pages, including evocative illustrations throughout and a Consent Checklist at the end.

I saw the Consent Checklist floating around the internet before learning about Consent in Gaming. One of our players found it and showed it to the group. This was after our SBotLL DM clarified some game expectations that we’d left unstated when the campaign began around three years ago. Now, we’re trying to keep up clear communication as the game continues!

Consent in Gaming defines some strategies we can use to ensure everyone is comfortable with the game. It emphasizes that topics that may cause discomfort should be handled on an “opt-in” basis—meaning, don’t assume that someone is comfortable with a topic unless they clearly opt-in to it.

To facilitate this, the Consent Checklist is a single page form that players can look over and fill out before starting a campaign. It lists topics such as “spiders,” “romance,” or “claustrophobia” that players can mark as green, yellow, or red (the colors, like a traffic light, indicating a specific level of comfort with the topic). You can also fill in your own topics.

Why would I use this?

TTRPGs are collaborative! Even as the Dungeon Master or Game Master, you don’t have control of every aspect that arises during play. Events may go differently than planned, and conversations may veer into unexpected territory. Everyone’s here to have fun, but no one is a mind reader, so it’s possible to bring up a topic that’s a sore spot for another player.

I enjoy a good combat scene where I can show off my character’s power and support my party. I don’t have a problem with fantasy violence, but I am a wimp when it comes to blood and guts. My line between okay and not-okay descriptions of violence is different than other people’s. It’s just like how my dad loves horror movies, but I can’t handle most of them.

My impulse, though, is to try to avoid getting in the way of other players’ fun. I’m working on being more direct, but that doesn’t come easily to me. The Consent Checklist and other strategies from Consent in Gaming allow the whole group to participate in facilitating a healthy and comfortable gaming environment. So, even for people who are more conflict-averse, the group can communicate and be on the same page.

Highlights

For me, the most helpful parts of Consent in Gaming are:

  • Consent checklist

As I mentioned before, this is a tool DMs can use to gauge people’s boundaries on certain topics. I like the green/yellow/red indicators and the spaces that allow DMs or players to specify topics not already included in the checklist.

The PDF includes a form fillable version, too, making it easy for online groups to use it (that’s what we used!)

When I sent my filled-out checklist to our SBotLL DM, though, some of my entries were lost. I’m not sure if that’s a problem with the PDF itself or something on my end.

  • Recovering from consent mistakes

One of the later headings in Consent in Gaming deals with what happens when a consent mistake happens. What do you do when slip-ups happen, and someone brings up a topic another player has marked red on the checklist or a topic that wasn’t included at all in the checklist (that makes someone uncomfortable)?

Consent in Gaming gives a good step-by-step way to hit pause on the situation, address the problem, and then recover and move on without singling out anyone.

  • Important Things About Consent box

This note box summarizes some of what the PDF discusses. The PDF is a really manageable length on its own, which I really appreciate! TTRPG rulebooks are long and can be difficult to parse through, so if I incorporate Consent in Gaming into a campaign that I run, I can feel confident that this isn’t too much extra reading for the players.

I’m excited to try using the Consent Checklist and other strategies in this resource!