Never heard of them before I saw this thread. Never needed them and don't expect to need them. In general, there's kind of an unspoken rule in my games: "don't be an asshole (which includes don't be creepy)." Normally I don't need to explain this to anyone. If I do, then there's a big question about them remaining in the game in the future. I don't game with people unless I enjoy their company.

I've never used them and I never will. If I join a gaming group and they want to use them, I'll politely excuse myself and tell them the group isn't for me. My reasons aren't any different from whats already been elucidated here. It's a game played in your imagination, nothing can actually hurt you.  If someone needs safety tools for the imagination, I don't want to spend even a few hours creating an imaginary experience with that person. Maybe if I had more free time or less people to game with I would feel differently, but I doubt it.

I generally just game with my friends and I don't enjoy gaming with strangers that much, so safety tools don't come up. But if they did, that would be my response. I've played Little Fears multiple times and enjoyed it, so there's not much that you could throw at me in game that would cause me to think "this is too much".

And I second that Shark's gaming group sounds awesome. But everyone else should stop using the word soldier to refer to United States Marines. Marines are not soldiers, they're marines. I assume he's been too polite to correct everyone, or he just hears it so often that he ignores it.

The only time I have had to implement the use of what would be called safety tools was in a game of The End of The World I was GMing. Ironically this was with a very experienced group of married men with families, all of them at least 15 years older than me, and none what you'd call snow flakes or woke.

In End of the World you play a rpg version of yourself trying to survive the apocalypse (Zombies, Aliens whatever) though you don't actually know the scenario. The bit which freaked the players out was the slightest hint that their children could be in danger. I'd already established thst anyone could die and it became pretty obvious that this wasn't really the escapism they had signed up to. So we had a bit of a discussion and I dialled the horror side of things down a bit and made sure families at least were off screen.

Taught me a valuable lesson that everyone has some line or other that will freak them out. So no I don't generally use safety tools but I don't scoff at them like I used to.

I thought we all had the basic skill of differentiating fiction from reality.

Quote from: Hellfire on June 07, 2022, 08:29:04 PM
I thought we all had the basic skill of differentiating fiction from reality.

Not quite everyone sadly...

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on June 01, 2022, 01:42:04 PM
I know my opinion on RPG safety tools. I want yours!

I want to see what people have to say on the topic.

What in the hell are you talking about?

Do people suddenly need pads or safety helmets to roll dice at a table?

- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar on June 07, 2022, 11:31:22 PM

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on June 01, 2022, 01:42:04 PM
I know my opinion on RPG safety tools. I want yours!

I want to see what people have to say on the topic.

What in the hell are you talking about?

Do people suddenly need pads or safety helmets to roll dice at a table?

- Ed C.

Didn't you get the memo?  We now let everyone play TTRPGs including people who are unable to process a distinction between reality and fantasy.  Scenarios that elicit negative emotions cause grave physical harm.  Etc.... 

Pardon me if I don't follow every strange trend, but what are these safety tool you speak of? I'm getting a TBP vibe, which is making me feel antipathy towards the idea.

Quote from: Battlemaster on June 08, 2022, 08:19:09 AM
Pardon me if I don't follow every strange trend, but what are these safety tool you speak of? I'm getting a TBP vibe, which is making me feel antipathy towards the idea.

It's a solution in search of a problem and really took off when MCG published this garbage:  https://www.montecookgames.com/store/product/consent-in-gaming/

The only thing anyone needs to know from that document is this common sense item.

Quote• Anyone is allowed to leave an uncomfortable situation at any time.

If you can't handle the scenario, you are free to leave the table.

Well, a real safety tool wouldn't scratch the itch that the proponents of the typical safety tools want scratched, which is the pretense of virtue instead of actually doing something useful. 

Here's a "safety tool" that would be meaningful that you could put in your game if you thought your audience was too dense to figure it out for themselves:  "An RPG session is a terrible place to practice amateur therapy.  It should not be so practiced under any circumstances, period.  If you find yourself starting down that road, stop immediately.  If a participant is determined to engage in the session in that way, stop them. If they will not stop, end the session, get whatever help is deemed appropriate, and then resume at a later time.  Note that what is usually appropriate is to eject the offender--with whatever caveats you would use in any other social situation--taking into account the relationship with the one acting out, their age, controlled substances affecting their behavior, etc."

In that way, it's really no different than handling a disturbance at a party.  Some person a little more "relaxed" than is exactly acceptable is likely to be handled by asking them to tone it down.  As it escalates, so does the response.  Someone showing up "off their meds" is not likely to go well.

If a person really needs help, and you really want to help them, do that.  Don't hand them a token and act like you did anything useful. 

Thanks for the answers. It was what I was kind of guessing.

Quote from: Palleon on June 08, 2022, 08:26:35 AM

Quote from: Battlemaster on June 08, 2022, 08:19:09 AM
Pardon me if I don't follow every strange trend, but what are these safety tool you speak of? I'm getting a TBP vibe, which is making me feel antipathy towards the idea.

It's a solution in search of a problem and really took off when MCG published this garbage:  https://www.montecookgames.com/store/product/consent-in-gaming/

The only thing anyone needs to know from that document is this common sense item.

Quote• Anyone is allowed to leave an uncomfortable situation at any time.

If you can't handle the scenario, you are free to leave the table.

Greetings!

Yeah, Palleon!

I'm also reminded how the concept of "Safety Tools" is largely inspired by customs embraced by those that engage in BDSM lifestyles. For them, using various "safe words" and codes and tools and whatever in their search for sexual fulfillment is typical.

Safety Tools are more pycho-linguistic bullshit embraced by the Liberals.

As many have mentioned, "Safety Tools"--if such a person sincerely believes that they are so psychologically fragile, emotionally damaged, and mentally weak, that they need such safety tools as stipulated for gaming--then they really should not be playing TTRPG's. They need to be in a straight jacket and confined to an insane asylum, or at least enrolling in regular, strict, medical and psychological care.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Safety tools allow adults with the maturity of children to remain so. Made worse with Social Media where when dad adult children are told no they go on a rant because (gasp) they took a race that has an evil reputation. With evil DM enforcing negative penalties about their race (the evil bastard!) and unlike Twitter won't give them what they want.

It's almost as bad as the player who drew a bugbear in a dress in braids with a sad and perpetually depressed look on its face.

Again - what the effing Hell??

Just play the damn game!

- Ed C.

It's kind of sad how many Re-tweets appear in my feed where " I took an evil race/race with a certain reputation and the DM refuses to remove any penalties. What an evil (insert word)ist person they are". Followed the masturbatory circle jerk of people agreeing. Its like no self awareness imo. If you insist on playing certain races with negative reputation or penalties don't join the damn game.

Apparently the DM game their rules does not apply anymore. They dared to get told no or find a DM who cater to every whim so by default the DM is a bad person. Usually followed by myself blocking or muting that persons tweet. Nothing of an actual true value is lost.