RPG Errata: Safety and Immersion

I’ve avoided writing this post for some time. Ever since my first post on the X-card.

Immersion, as I said in my last few posts, is fragile. I blew past several opportunities to discuss how immersion is affected by safety tools, but I always thought it was too big a subject to just slot in. The few times I even tried, it always came across like I was suggesting Safety Tools weren’t mandatory, and should be weighed against the corresponding loss in immersion.

That’s nonsense. You should always feel safe.

But I can’t avoid it any longer; safety tools are necessary, but they’re not inert. Adding safety tools to your game affects it, and we need to explore how. Much like Patriarchy and Toxic Masculinity, we only make our job harder if we do not understand precisely what we are asking others to sacrifice, even if it appears ridiculous to us.

“Wait, I’m not sacrificing anything, it’s the overly-sensitive types who can’t handle discomfort in their RPGs. These are people who’d rather sit all cozy and warm in their delusions about how they’re so great and won’t ever challenge their pre-conceived notions; unwilling to grow.”

The obvious clever rejoinder is “unlike you, who is very willing to challenge their pre-conceived notions, such as the notion that safety-tools are a necessity in good RPG practice,” but I want to be a Better Socrates, so let’s look at the core of this argument, perhaps rephrased to be less antagonistic and more productive:

“I worry that people who use safety tools in RPGs are missing a vital component of the process. You’ve written how discomfort and ‘suffering’ can be a significant part of gaming — some times you miss the goal, sometimes your opponent wins, and sometimes your character dies. — and getting rid of that aspect turns RPGs into a toothless and childish fantasy, where nothing ever goes wrong and no one is ever challenged.”

There is no way to progress the conversation without first acknowledging that there is no “One Right Way” to play an RPG. You can say that you would find the game toothless and childish, but others might still find it emotionally significant. If that makes you think of them as childish…well, okay, I’m not going to be able to logic you into respect. Thanks for reading this far.

Secondly, we have to recognize that if we were talking about a football game, where someone could hold up the whole game and say “the opposing team isn’t allowed to score against us because it triggers me,” you might have a point. Heck, even if we were talking about Warhammer 40k, I’d probably agree with you. But we’re not; we’re talking about RPGs as a whole, and that story-system spectrum goes all the way to the other side. Safety-tools aren’t about rules, they’re about story.

And they aren’t always exclusionary. Consider character-death: some people might prefer other kinds of punishment instead of having their character die. Imagine you’ve spent weeks painting your miniatures for Warhammer, and you have to throw each one away if they die in-game. You’d be less likely to play, right? Some people put as much effort into creating a character as others do painting miniatures, so it’s easily understandable that they might say “hey, let’s handle death a little differently in this game, yeah?”

But this goes deeper than that, doesn’t it? because you¹ may think you’re being compassionate and altruistic demanding others confront their triggers without a safety-net, but you don’t keep pressuring people if they say they don’t want tea when they come over to your house, right? Why don’t you shrug and say “well, different goats for different folks?”

Because Safety-tools do affect the game in one possibly negative way.

Immersion, for all its fragility, is powerful. Remember, the entire goal of RPGs is to share in the creation of a fantasy; that same illusory place that books and movies take us to. It’s not a real place but for an all too brief period of time, we all share in the mutual desire to believe it’s real. A place where we can adventure, explore, and be heroes or villains. I’m sure there’s a lot that goes into this — psychologically, socially, and anthropologically — but one of the major factors is immersion. In the confines of creating a shared phantasm, immersion is the end-goal; a world that is so real it isn’t bound by our imagination.

One of the lovely things about shared illusions like RPGs is that the desire for a kind of “reality” is eminently achievable. A foundational point of fantasy versus reality is that fantasies operate on your own personal rules. Reality has rules that you are subjected to, from gravity to the whims of other people. A personal fantasy only has the rules that we apply to ourselves.

An RPG world is real enough to have rules of its own. Certainly we abide by some rules through personal choice, but even those we cannot break without the say-so of our fellow creators. The fantasy changes not only via our own imagination, but also through the suggestions of other players and the results of the dice. The RPG world lives and breathes without us, fueled by shared imaginations and the profound laws of die rolling.

It’s all a game, yes, but it also kinda isn’t.

And the more we can forget that fact, the more we can become consumed by the fiction, the fantasy, the shared reality, the more powerful it is. We stop “creating” imaginary characters exploring a fake world, and start discovering people who adventure in a world as real as our own. There is a kind of magic in that, and the chance for someone to devote themselves wholly to this shared illusion is intoxicating. Exhilarating. The flow of play can become a quiet hum as the improvisational actions of the players feel seamless and natural.

Okay, I’ll admit I’m getting overly poetic here. It’s not always that “divine-inspiration,” sometimes it’s just strong focus. It’s trains of thought that mesh and a bunch of people all on the same page,

And then someone asks “wait, what’s my stat bonus again?”

In an instant, the immersion shatters. Suddenly we’re not adventurers hunting for lost artifacts, we’re not observers of some other plane of existence, we’re just a bunch of people playing a game. People with real lives, pressures, stresses, and issues that we’ve been trying to forget about for the past hour. We wanted to be taken out of ourselves, and instead we’re spending our time thinking about the game.

And I don’t mean to forget the system-forward folks: You’re invested in the flow of play too, every bit as deeply as those who prefer story and character. You’re invested in practicing a skill, indulging your competitive spirit, or playing within a defined rule-set. Ease of play can be every bit as meditative and exciting as sharing a fake world, and most players will find their flow is a mix of both system and story.

Is it any wonder some people chafe at the idea of Safety Tools?

Because Safety Tools stop the game. They slam on the brakes. They crush the very fragile immersion that has been nurtured over a whole game. That can be frustrating to even the most patient players; suddenly we have to back out of the shared fiction to deal with reality.

Now first off, let me say that I to some extent sympathize with this mindset. Even when it comes to safety, there are times when it can feel like Safety Tools are going too far for a such a minor benefit. After all, it’s all just a game, right? Even uncomfortable stuff isn’t life-or-death.

First off, to not leave it unsaid, triggers aren’t “this makes me uncomfortable,” its “I’m having a panic attack and can’t control my body.” A little more than “spiders are gross, let’s not include them.” Nevertheless, there are people who still make the same arguments. “Okay, but, it’s not like I’m stabbing you, right? Can’t you just have your panic attack and get over it? Isn’t that how you get over it? It’s not that bad.”

In his video on Didoing,² Ian Danskin explains what this sentiment usually is. It’s not an denial that safety tools might be sometimes necessary, or that RPGs are a powerfully emotive medium. Instead, it’s an admission that someone who has triggers or is emotionally sensitive should not have complete power over their own experience. “Yes,” says the stubborn player, “I can say something out of ignorance that will set your anxiety spiking or your traumas churning in your gut, but my immersion in this fake reality we are creating is more important to me than your mental and physical health.” To quote Ian, they are saying “I do have power over you, and you should let me have it.”

So no, I in no way shape or form believe that “immersion” or “game flow” is a good excuse for not including Safety Tools in your game. Perhaps the best argument for safety tools is that they can help a lot of people have an easier time immersing themselves in the game; when you’re not on edge, waiting for a trigger that might never come, you can more easily and comfortably put yourself in a mindset of discovery, exploring dark corners and shadowy basements instead of hiding from them.

Besides, just like any other rule-set, once you learn a set of safety tools well enough that they become second nature, then tapping an X-card or Rewinding is no more immersion breaking than having to go to the bathroom.

Let’s make this personal: when I read a new rulebook, I generally skip over the “what is an RPG” section, if it’s there. I sometimes catch out of the corner of my eye sentences like: “dice are represented by the letter ’d’. The number after the d is the number of sides the die has. For example, If you see d6, we are talking about a six-sided die. The number in front of the d is the number of dice. For example, if we tell you to roll 3d6, we are asking you to roll three six-sided dice.”

I don’t pay attention to these sections. I flip right past them without a second thought. I’ve been playing for decades, and these intro-to-RPG sections aren’t for me.

But I still hitch when I see a section talking about “Safety-tools.” I feel a little sense of gratitude, a feeling of satisfaction that the creators of this system want to be inclusive. Perhaps they honestly recognize how powerful RP can be, and want to make sure that their game is a place for people of all kinds. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

What’s my ideal world? One in which I skip past these sections as well, where safety-tools are just as much a part of RPG culture as 2d6 and character sheets. Where a force as powerful as role-play is treated with respect, and not thought of as “just a game.”

How do we get there? By going through. It’s not a bad thing that people hitch or chafe against safety-tools; it’s the natural process of growth. It’s the itch that comes from growth spurts and hair in new places. It’s growing up and navigating the power that comes from age, as well as the responsibilities. It’s the pain of maturity.

And according to some, we don’t have to respect those who want to avoid the pain by staying in their own comfort zones.

But I disagree. I hope this post has at least partially helped you understand at least some of the people who dislike safety-tools in their RPGs. I believe the best way forward is to give them the same respect we wish they’d give others.

However — and let me be unequivocally clear about this — we don’t have to let them in our games. Respect their beliefs and their choices, then disagree with them, and then show them the door. It is no one’s responsibility to educate another about unsafe environments.

Whew! Okay, shake it off. That’s enough for now, I think. Hope to see you here next time, when I hopefully talk about something a little less serious.