Players characters evading direct questions

[Mordar]

No plans for a betrayal. Worst case scenario they would have had to promise someone a favor as a future scenario hooks.

I can’t say what i would have improvised if they had rolled a botch on a social check with them though, or how they would have reacted to belligerent PCs.

Unsolicited advice: Don't do that. Just make it be an attractive ask when the time comes...builds networks, gives some immersion, builds some trust. I don't think you're in a position (from what I've read only, obviously) to get much positive traction out of a leveraged deal at this point.

- M

[KorvinStarmast]

I have a recurring problem. So I post a thread about it.

Perhaps that is your recurring problem. Let me offer you a different approach or methodology.

1. I have a recurring problem.
2. I sit down with all of my players, explain to them my, or the, problem, and we discuss as a group how we can resolve that problem so that the table has a better climate. Our goal is to reach common ground.

I have mentioned this to you before. When I look at the body of work that you have presented, it's a non-trivial amount of time that you have invested arguing about whatever advice you have been offered. I feel that a lot of that time would be better spent in a good faith session, or three, of brainstorming, consensus building, and problem solving with your play group. That is where your actual solutions lie.

Have you noticed that I don't post about the problems I am having with my players? (Though I occasionally voice some frustration here and there). That's because if I have a problem I try to sort it out with them, either in person, or over the VTT or via email, or on Discord. (Depends on which group).

And in a few cases I just left the group. (me = player).
I realize that this last action isn't going to satisfy you since your game group has been together, putting the fun into dysfunctional, for some years and you all will likely keep gaming together. Team building is a never ending effort. That's RL talking, right there. (See also Small Group Dynamics, 101).

Specifically right now, I think the value of "talk to your players" varies widely--from close to 100% to 0%--depending on whether the person saying it, hearing it, or replying "I do talk to my players" means something closer to "I exchange information with my players pursuant to understanding each others' equally-likely-to-be-valid viewpoints" or "I try to explain to my players why they're wrong."

Marriage counsellors like to illustrate the usual differences in outcome of those two approaches.

So actually it's the third thing, "remind the players of things they've forgotten, or call to their attention things they have missed".

Yes. I got that advice a few years ago in re the "we have different mental maps" discussion I had with one of my excellent players, and that has been helpful.

[Telok]

I'm not on board with pushing illithid even more in the direction of being one-dimensional mooks with a genius intellect as an informed attribute than they already are.

(Not that I know why illithid suddenly got brought in, so hey.)

Its a "player expectation of NPC actions" thing. Tak's players may feel the sidhe are going to screw them over for reasons including any/all/none of; Taks' previous actions, other media, other games, and thecway one of the players is running their sidhe-adjacent PC. I have to keep hitting my players over the head with how illithid aren't some unified hive mind with clone bodies and one mind or something. Its similar issues although it might be different causes.

Thing is, my players have gone about fourty ****ing sessions in this second campaign in a game where you can play a (WoD) werewolf (D&D) treant (WK40k) tech-priest piloting an (Batteltech) Atlas mecha leading a company of (StarWars) AT-ATs against Godzilla on the planet (Aliens) Hadley's Hope where cultists are awakening (CoC) Cthulhu. And I just got told that I'm doing it wrong with my version of illithids not being absolutely exactly the same as WotC D&D illithids* which is "confusing" the players. By that logic I can't have a lazy fat red dragon ruling a country because it would "confuse" the players since all WotC dragons are monotone color-coded with a predetermined chaotic stupid greedy personality.

That's following the same line of thinking that Tak's players don't trust the sidhe not to screw them must absolutely be because of Tak, and not because they might be influenced by other games & GM & media. This is an assumption by people that things with same/similar names must be absolutely the same no matter what. I'm surprised they aren't throwing fits about the differences between D&D orcs, Tolkien orcs, and WoW orcs.

* see also the Alternity game that WotC also published, also had illithids, and they weren't the same as D&D ones. Also the ones appearing in different TSR products that don't map to WotC version beyond the overall appearance, mind blast, smarts, and brain eating.

[Keltest]

The problem isn't thst you're running them "wrong", the problem is you aren't running them at all. You're running a homebrew race of individualists who aren't enslaved to the will of psychic magelomaniacs bent on conquering reality, who also happen to have tentacle mustaches. When you call them illithids what you're telling folks is "these are not people" when you want them to understand the opposite.

[icefractal]

Even within the domain of an Elder Brain, I wouldn't call Illithids a hive mind. The Elder Brain is *in charge*, yes, and they're telepathically linked. But would you call a squad of soldiers a "hive mind" because they're in constant communication (built in helmet radio) and follow the orders of the commanding officer?

And ISTR that Illithids don't particularly like being under the control of an Elder Brain, and often split off to live "solo" (with their own thralls) when they get the chance.

Also, those domains aren't huge, so even if it was a true hive-mind, it would be a bunch of individual village/town hive-minds (which may be antagonistic to each-other), not a species-wide one.

[Jason]

Thing is, my players have gone about fourty ****ing sessions in this second campaign in a game where you can play a (WoD) werewolf (D&D) treant (WK40k) tech-priest piloting an (Batteltech) Atlas mecha leading a company of (StarWars) AT-ATs against Godzilla on the planet (Aliens) Hadley's Hope where cultists are awakening (CoC) Cthulhu.

So you're playing Rifts.

[gbaji]

I think that, at the end of the day, speculating why the players don't do something they should, or make incorrect assumptions, or otherwise do something that the GM does not expect, or does not seem to make sense, is kinda irrelevant. I mean, it's actually quite relevant, but not in the sense of "who's fault is it?".

It's relevant in that, regardless of who's to blame or why it happened, the very very very first thing the GM needs to do is determine why they are doing what they are doing (stop wondering. Find out!). Good table communication is probably the most important thing for a successful game. Your players may have any of a wide variety of different reasons for doing what they are doing, and it's entirely possible that these reasons are completely bewildering, or strange, or nonsensical. They could also be because of previous assumptions about game concepts/tropes/stereotypes, or previous miscommuications about the game session, or game setting, or game system. Or something else none of us are even considering.

Sitting there, wondering "why" (or worse, speculating why and then trying to determine a course of action based on that speculation) is not a terribly great approach. Find out why. Asking them is generally a great first start. And even if their answers don't make sense to you, take them at face value. If you don't understand their reasoning, don't just assume they are wrong, or stupid, or incompetant. Spend time to try to figure out their thinking. Because there are good odds that if there's such a dramatic different gameview between the GM and the players to cause this sort of disconnect one time, it'll happen again. And again. And again.

Sometimes, this can be managed in a post session discussion, and used to adjust future game sessions. But, as pointed out in this thread, when the disconnect is actutally directly affecting the flow of the session as it's being run? You need to get this information now, and not later. Someone mentioned the concept of a "mental map" of the game, and how sometimes the player's map is just somehow different than the GMs. It's not important how (at least not in the immediate moment), but that it happened and needs to be corrected. Later on, you can try to figure out the how and why, but for right now? Just fix the problem.


I also think that some GMs, having heard that "railroads are bad", are so hesitant to step in to help guide/direct a game session, that they allow the players to (dare I say it?) "go off the rails". Obviously, this is always a balance between "PCs can do whatever they want" and "I kinda want the players to feel like they are succeding, but they are stuck" factors. There is a dramatic difference between forcing the PCs to go to particular locations and have particular encounters, and otherwise take over their choices for them, versus merely laying out a "thing to be done", allowing them to decide to do that thing, and then helping to facilitate that objective.

If the players have already decided "we're going to go off on an adventure seeking a means to defeat the bbeg", the GM needs to be willing to facilitate that. And the first part of that is writing "here's how they can find the means to defeat the bbeg" down on paper somewhere. Additionally, that's sometimes going to mean realizing that the players have forgotten some significant detail, or are making a really terrible mistake, and then giving them additional information or options so as to get them (again) "back on track" (or sometimes, realizing that their crazy new direction presents another possible route, and facilitating *that* instead). Rails are bad when it's "No matter what you choose to do, you will end up here, doing this, because that's what I wrote in my adventure notes". Rails are not bad when it's "My players are floundering around trying to figure out how to get <insert required adventure step here>, so I'll kinda keep tossing more and more obvious stuff at them until they figure it out". The former frustrates the players because they realize that they aren't actually making any decisions at all, but just following the GMs script. The latter does not, because while the players would absolutely love to have "figured it out" at the very first clue, they will be vastly more frustrated if they can't get past the step (or even figure out what the step is), than they ever will be even if you are somewhat obviously handing them clues or hints, or even just outright saying at the table "Did you guys think to try this?".

Think of it like you are trying to solve a puzzle. No one likes someone walking up, picking up a piece and solving the puzzle for them. However, when you are stuck? Someone walking up, looking at the puzzle and making a suggestion is generally very appreciated. And yeah. The trick is knowing which of those you are doing. Again though, I see the GMs role in a TTRPG not as an antagonistic role (though you certainly play them in the game!), but one of facilitating the in-game objectives that the players have decided to do. Often that means that they've chosen to go off on some adventure you wrote. Sometimes, it's player/PC initiated. But in either case, it's the GMs job to figure out if the objective can be achieved (which should always be the case in a GM initiated adventure btw), and if so, how. Then interpret the PC choices within that construct, always erring on the side of "helping the players succceed" (when it's at all reasonable), and always avoiding "gotcha" outcomes (if the players can't succeed at something they are trying, loop back to step one, and either come up with one, or make sure they know this before they waste a ton of table time). Also, and this is possibly the most important one: Always being willing to change and adjust it as things develop.

That does not mean that they cannot experience obstacles and setbacks along the way (otherwise... boring). And they can even fail. But that last bit should not happen because of some structural game-flow type problem. If they need to put the orb on the pedestal to activate the magic whatever that saves the world, they'd darn well better know this before they enter the final room in the dungeon, are standing in front of said pedestal, and the worlds about to be destroyed if they don't do the right thing. And this is where you have to accept the fact that, having created the "world will end if they don't do X in location Y" situation, you've already laid down that track. It may be a very short length of track, but it's there already, so you need to not put them on it without making sure they've got their darn ticket.

Having created the doomsday device, and set it to trigger when they enter the room, and having created the turn off object (put the orb on the pedestal), you cannot just sit back and watch them as they decide to go directly into that room without having first found the orb (or worse, don't even know such a thing exists in the first place). Literally no player on the planet will be happy with: "well, I don't railroad, so I allowed you to turn left to the room with the doomsday device before turning right to the room with the orb, so that's what you chose, so now the world has been destroyed. Ok. Roll new characters and we'll start a new game". Could the layout and flow of the game world be such that this is possible? Certainly. Should you do that as a GM? Absolutely not! Yes. Extreme example, but hopefully it illustrates the point.

[Kish]

Its a "player expectation of NPC actions" thing. Tak's players may feel the sidhe are going to screw them over for reasons including any/all/none of; Taks' previous actions, other media, other games, and thecway one of the players is running their sidhe-adjacent PC.

How does Talakeal become Tak, anyway? I could see Tal or Talak, but Tak?

[GeoffWatson]

That's following the same line of thinking that Tak's players don't trust the sidhe not to screw them must absolutely be because of Tak,

Their party includes a half-fey that does the "magically screw people who deal with them" trick. They are absolutely right to distrust fey.

[KorvinStarmast]

How does Talakeal become Tak, anyway?

The "l" and "k" keys are adjacent to each other on the normal QWERTY keyboard.

[Vahnavoi]

But would you call a squad of soldiers a "hive mind" because they're in constant communication (built in helmet radio) and follow the orders of the commanding officer?

Provided these soldiers have a worldview equivalent to classic Illithids - yes, yes I would.

You might as well ask "but would you call an emotionally abusive and needy partner a "soul-sucking parasite" "? Yes, yes I would. Because underneath the literalist spe-fi nonsense interpretation, there is a core metaphor and meaning behind the words that's applicable to real people.

It genuinely is possible to get these wrong, in the sense of inviting semantic confusion and misunderstanding. Whether it was Telok or Telok's players who were the guilty party, I'll leave up in the air. Telok is right different authors have made very different Illithids across the years, but that's just an observation, not a defense. It's possible those authors got something wrong too either on accident or on purpose. It's not possible to keep giving an old symbol new meanings without somebody, at some point, tripping on equivocation.

This may seem like a tangent, but it is related to the topic in a way I already described on page 1 of this thread.

[Telok]

So you're playing Rifts.

Rifts Earth is in fact a place in the setting. But its pretty minor because the locals are too busy screwing each other over to assemble an spelljammer fleet and bother anyone. Plus the Elven Imperial Navy has a "shoot anything that tries to leave" quarantine on the planet because of the 100km wide mutant flesh space stations inhabited by Chaos Marines. Tis a silly place.

[Kardwill]

Yes. I absolutely have told all my players. I addition to telling them verbally, I also give it to them in writing along with my house rules at the start of every campaign. I make it very clear that I can't read body language and they need to speak up if something is wrong.

It doesn't help though.

My last major drama story involved Bob speaking for Brian and getting his character killed and Brian just sitting there silently and not objecting, but then blowing up at me two days later for not realizing he wasn't giving consent.

And then I have a similar, but much more dramatic story about a former player who was playing the only male in the group, and the rest of the party came up with a plan to have him seduce a female NPC. He went along with the plan, continuing to describe his characters actions as normal, going through with the plan and initiating seduction before we faded to black, but he was apparently uncomfortable with the plan, and expected me to jump in and put a stop to it. But, because I didn't do that, he now tells potential new players to avoid my game because I "raped his character" and might do the same to them.

We talked about it when it happened, but if you have a condition that prevents you from reading the mood of your players (or if you're simply unsure about it), you absolutely should ask for their direct, explicit consent when they get pushed into what could be an unconfortable/dangerous situation.
As players, we tend to go along with some stuff because of table pressure, because we don't want to be the guy who drags the game. Silence is NOT a sign of consent. Nor is "yeah, I guess I'll do it". In fact, sometimes, silence is rather a sign of strong disconfort.
Any player should be made aware that they can demand a pause to ask "wait a second. Are we really doing this?", but since the GM is an "outsider" in this players-dynamic, they're in the best place to do it.

" Brian, that plan will put your character in a deadly situation if the vampires wake up. Do you want to do it anyway?"

" That could succeed, but Dave, are you actually Okay with the whole seduction thing? No, not your character, I'm asking about you. Your character is the one that would carry out the plan. How do you want to proceed?"


Assuming that my players were okay with a social dynamic around the table led to several nasty arguments around my table. And those were mature players I knew for 20+ years, and that I thought I could "read".
Asking questions, asking for direct input and consent, is important.

- When in doubt about the way a player understands the situation, ask.
- When you don't understand why a player is doing something weird, ask.
- When you don't know if a player is having fun, ask.

And don't fear addressing the players OOC. If you talk OOC, they will know it's you, the GM, talking, not some sneaky NPC trying to manipulate them.

[KorvinStarmast]

Assuming that my players were okay with a social dynamic around the table led to several nasty arguments around my table. And those were mature players I knew for 20+ years, and that I thought I could "read".
Asking questions, asking for direct input and consent, is important.

- When in doubt about the way a player understands the situation, ask.
- When you don't understand why a player is doing something weird, ask.
- When you don't know if a player is having fun, ask.

And don't fear addressing the players OOC. If you talk OOC, they will know it's you, the GM, talking, not some sneaky NPC trying to manipulate them.

That's some fine GM/DM advice, right there, learned at the table.

[Jason]

Assuming that my players were okay with a social dynamic around the table led to several nasty arguments around my table. And those were mature players I knew for 20+ years, and that I thought I could "read".
Asking questions, asking for direct input and consent, is important.

- When in doubt about the way a player understands the situation, ask.
- When you don't understand why a player is doing something weird, ask.
- When you don't know if a player is having fun, ask.

And don't fear addressing the players OOC. If you talk OOC, they will know it's you, the GM, talking, not some sneaky NPC trying to manipulate them.

I wouldn't go anywhere not "PG-13 Rated" at my table anyway, but that's good advice.

[Talakeal]

I wouldn't go anywhere not "PG-13 Rated" at my table anyway, but that's good advice.

I have heard this a lot, but I never quite got what people meant by it.

Like, film is a visual medium, so it is totally different, as the level of detail between telling and showing is pretty severe. For example, you can say "they had sex" or "he was ripped to shreds by wild dogs" in a PG-13 movie, but you can't generally show it.

I have never described a sex scene in my game more graphic than what you would see in a PG-13 James Bond movie.

I have had lots of violence that would warrant an R rating, gruesome or horrifying monsters that would warrant an R rating, and non-sexual nudity that would warrant an R rating, but never explicit sex.

But that doesn't seem to be the issue?

When people say they want things "PG-13" are they saying they want a world without sex? Where people get married and then spend their wedding night staring at the ceiling and then nine months later a stork drops a baby down the chimney?

Or are they saying they expect all the PCs to be playing asexual characters who exist in a world with sex but never partake in it themselves?

Or are they saying that the innuendo is too much? Like, you can take the princess' hand in marriage or spent the night carousing in the bad part of town, but can never make any mention of what actually happened next?

I play a lot of western games, and the idea that there are whore houses is pretty ubiquitous as set dressing, and an occasional plot point. Is this crossing the line into R territory? I remember one time I had a super religious player and he got really bent out of shape that one of the other PCs visited a whorehouse for information; but as usual didn't say anything until well after the game was over.

[KorvinStarmast]

I have heard this a lot, but I never quite got what people meant by it.

Where did you grow up?

When people say they want things "PG-13" are they saying they want a world without sex?

No, it means that for sex they want the players to "fade to black" and I suggest you look up the concept of Lines and Veils as the pertain to Role Playing Games. You've been at this long enough to be aware of them.

I play a lot of western games, and the idea that there are whore houses is pretty ubiquitous as set dressing, and an occasional plot point. Is this crossing the line into R territory? I remember one time I had a super religious player and he got really bent out of shape that one of the other PCs visited a whorehouse for information; but as usual didn't say anything until well after the game was over.

There were dance hall girls (a bowdlerization of the actual profession) in the John Wayne movies, 50s and 60s, but the way it was handled was roughly G to PG, not even PG-13.

The point is in how you handle it, not its presence or absence.

[Talakeal]

When people say they want things "PG-13" are they saying they want a world without sex?
No, it means that for sex they want the players to "fade to black" and I suggest you look up the concept of Lines and Veils as the pertain to Role Playing Games. You've been at this long enough to be aware of them.

I am familiar with fade to black and lines and veils.

Indeed, I do fade to black when sex comes up in the games*; I explicitly said I faded to black in the bit Jason quoted.

I still get told to "keep it PG-13" whenever drama comes up as a result of said fade to black.


(Unless everyone at the table is a close enough friend that we have talked about IRL sex before and I know they won't be uncomfortable, pretty much just Brian and Richard).

[Keltest]

I am familiar with fade to black and lines and veils.

Indeed, I do fade to black when sex comes up in the games*; I explicitly said I faded to black in the bit Jason quoted.

I still get told to "keep it PG-13" whenever drama comes up as a result of said fade to black.


(Unless everyone at the table is a close enough friend that we have talked about IRL sex before and I know they won't be uncomfortable, pretty much just Brian and Richard).

I am unclear as to what drama can unfold from a fade to black unless youre doing something wrong.

[KorvinStarmast]

I am familiar with fade to black and lines and veils.

Indeed, I do fade to black when sex comes up in the games*; I explicitly said I faded to black in the bit Jason quoted.

I still get told to "keep it PG-13" whenever drama comes up as a result of said fade to black.


(Unless everyone at the table is a close enough friend that we have talked about IRL sex before and I know they won't be uncomfortable, pretty much just Brian and Richard).

You said "I don't get it"
Now you tell me you understand it.

Problem solved, I guess.
My work is done here.

[Talakeal]

I am unclear as to what drama can unfold from a fade to black unless youre doing something wrong.

The two in question are:



"I remember one time I had a super religious player and he got really bent out of shape that one of the other PCs visited a whorehouse for information; but as usual didn't say anything until well after the game was over."

"And then I have a similar, but much more dramatic story about a former player who was playing the only male in the group, and the rest of the party came up with a plan to have him seduce a female NPC. He went along with the plan, continuing to describe his characters actions as normal, going through with the plan and initiating seduction before we faded to black, but he was apparently uncomfortable with the plan, and expected me to jump in and put a stop to it. But, because I didn't do that, he now tells potential new players to avoid my game because I "raped his character" and might do the same to them."

You said "I don't get it"
Now you tell me you understand it.

Problem solved, I guess.
My work is done here.

I get what "fade to black is".

People tell me that I need to "keep it PG-13" when I am already using "fade to black;" to me that implies there is some distinction between the two; what I don't understand is what this distinction is.

[Cygnia]

How descriptive is the violence in your games? Some folks have issues with gore and graphic violence (even in games).

[Vahnavoi]

@Talakeal: have you considered the actual problem is that "PG-13" is phrase from a rating system that has been justly criticized lack of transparency, placing economic concerns over consistency and overemphasizing sexual content over violence?

In short: it's a fairly useless rating and applying it to tabletop games is a poor substitute for explaining what a person's genuine issues are. Even PEGI is better.

[icefractal]

So this appears to be the situation:
Talakeal: "A player got upset about sexual content in my game"
Replies: "You should have faded to black"
Talakeal: "I did fade to black"

My answer? Three parts:
1) There is no "correct" level of sexual content in a game that everyone will be happy with - it's a matter where people have different preferences. Something to get on the same page about ahead of time.
2) In T-World, communication seems lacking and people get angry after the fact instead.
3) Nobody wants to post "yeah IDK, hard to say without more info" so only the people who're sure they see the problem post.

[Kish]

If the description of events is complete, it sounds more like the player went, "wait, sex? Sex isn't a thing that can happen in this game, surely." Like he was upset that it wasn't G-rated as far as sexual content went, not PG-13 rated.

[Kardwill]

[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't go anywhere not "PG-13 Rated" at my table anyway, but that's good advice.

Consent doesn't have to be something about "going beyond pg 13". It could be :

- about control of a character (some players react very badly to having their PC charmed, influenced, or ordered around, while others don't care or even enjoy it in some circunstances),

- about being the butt of a joke (one of the arguments I mentioned was about a player that felt disrespected because a bit of ye olde playful "elf-dwarf fantasy racism" dragged on for too long),

- about fearsome descriptions (I avoid anything snake-centric when one of my players is present, because she has a very strong revulsion to any graphic description of a snake showing its fangs),

- about creepy stuff in the backstory (say, a ghost story about children who died from mistreatment... I wasn't confortable GMing that module to young parents without asking them first),

- about killing or twisting a PC's background NPCs (again, I will ask first what I can do with a PC's loved ones, because some players put them there just to "give a life" to their PC and do some lighthearted RP, while others expect me to use those characters in the story in any kind of unfortunate ways. Knowing which is which - and when an NPC changes "status" from "do with them as you will" to "actually, it would be kinda creepy if anything horrible happened to my PC's kid sister" - is best done by asking directly)

- "roughing up" a prisonner (actually, it happened to me as a GM. I was creeped out when two of my "heroic" players decided, out of the blue, to torture a pirate NPC for information. As the GM, I had every power to shut that scene down, but didn't do it because... reasons? Maybe I was distressed and didn't think straight? Maybe I didn't want to "wimp out" in front of my players? Dunno. Anyway, a character I was playing unexpectedly got tortured offscreen, and it soured that game for me)

- A lot of other stuff...

- And, of course, anything sex related

Lots of stuff can create disconfort. Asking the players if they're okay can defuse those situations. It can also kill the mood of the game or the surprise I planned, so as a GM, I often hesitate to ask those out loud. But an upset player will shatter the mood far more thoroughly than a simple OOC question. And my friends' are more important than my game, anyway :)

People tell me that I need to "keep it PG-13"

Not really, though. It was mentioned in a discussion about consent, not as an istruction for your games. You already "fade to black", which is what is done in a lot of other tables.

I have a question, though : You say you know about "line and veils", but you keep triggering your players. Do you apply them? More specifically, did you discuss with you players where those lines and veils should be applied? For example, if the religious player had asked for a veil on anything sex-related, and a firm line on prostitution and illicit sex, it would have prevented the brothel situation (and the town's "saloon dancing girls" would have been actually dancing girls and not an euphemism for something else, I guess ^^)

[Jason]

By "PG-13" (and yes, I am aware that the movie rating system is at best inconsistent, it can still be a useful shorthand) yes I mean what kinds of things occur, to some degree, but it's mostly how things are described at my table:

• Violence occurs, and can be fairly graphic (certainly blood spatters, occasional decapitations), but we don't dwell on it at length. Sentences instead of paragraphs.
• Torture usually is implied and inferred rather than described. It certainly happens sometimes in the game, but the main thing that gets narrated is aftermaths. The player characters do not generally torture other characters.
• Nudity occasionally appears, but doesn't generally go beyond "the character isn't wearing anything."
• Sex happens, but as soon as it's clear that two characters are about to get it on we shift the narration elsewhere. It's assumed that everything proceeded as you would expect and was satisfactory to both parties (no rolls necessary), and the next time we see the characters involved they are ready to go out in public again. "Like how it happens in a James Bond movie" is a good summary.
• Horrific body horror sometimes occurs when dealing with particularly nasty monsters, but again it's sentences instead of paragraphs of description.
• Slavery sometimes appears in game, but usually just before the players free the slaves.
• Racism appears, but it's almost always between different species (I guess that means it's really "speciesism") and any racial slurs used are fictional ones ("Oh no, there's a peck here with an acorn pointing at me!").
• Children are sometimes harmed, but again it's not dwelt on to any extent. Aftermaths.
• Real world profanity generally isn't used much at all at my table. Sometimes fictional swears are used.
• My players play the good guys. Usually we don't allow players to play evil characters. Evil adversary characters sometimes escape, and evil sometimes wins victories, but usually good triumphs in the end.

I've never had to avoid using a monster or hazard, like giant spiders or a house fire or something, because some player was phobic. If my players start to become uncomfortable with some description they stop me at the time. But really we've gamed together long enough (approaching 30 years with some of them) to basically know what everyone is comfortable with, and having to stop a description would be rather unusual.

Hearing the stories traded around here, it seems like there are some players out there that I would consider very fragile when compared to mine, but on the other hand my players would never want their characters to visit a brothel (at least, not to do what you are normally expected to do in a brothel). I don't think you have to be "super religious" to have moral problems with visiting a medieval brothel.

All of this is perhaps a topic for another thread, though.

[kyoryu]

Yes. I got that advice a few years ago in re the "we have different mental maps" discussion I had with one of my excellent players, and that has been helpful.

I think that the understanding that different people have different mental maps is one of the key skills to GMing, and probably one of the key social skills overall.

Making sure your mental maps are aligned is one of the best things you can do to make your game run smoothly. And it's not entirely on the GM, but it's heavily on the GM as they are the ones that know when actions are incongruent with their mental map, and it's their mental map that is authoritative.

Hearing the stories traded around here, it seems like there are some players out there that I would consider very fragile when compared to mine, but on the other hand my players would never want their characters to visit a brothel (at least, not to do what you are normally expected to do in a brothel). I don't think you have to be "super religious" to have moral problems with visiting a medieval brothel.

All of this is perhaps a topic for another thread, though.

Your characters may be "fragile" in ways that you simply know about and know to avoid. Most games I've been in wouldn't think twice about a brothel.

That's not saying that your table is wrong in any way - just that because you've played together for so long, you know where their landmines are, and so it's easy to avoid them.

That's a lot harder with people you don't know, especially if they have different moral backgrounds.

[Jason]

Your characters may be "fragile" in ways that you simply know about and know to avoid. Most games I've been in wouldn't think twice about a brothel.

Players, not characters, but yeah. I can't think of anything I consciously avoid because my players would be offended, but there probably is some subconscious mine-dodging going on.

My players wouldn't have their characters visit a brothel not because they have a prudish objection to their characters having sex, but because they would have moral problems with how medieval brothels and societies in general exploited their prostitutes.

[Kish]

Despite our earlier agreement on alignments we seemingly have a disagreement on whether any D&D world ever published would more accurately be described as "medieval" or "with some medieval trappings, none in areas which affect morality, morality being laid out in this section on alignment," but I'm confused regardless. If rape houses are common in cities your PCs find themselves in, I would think going to them--to shut them down--would be a more urgent priority than many common plot hooks.