Quote:
Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b
I'm sorry -- that reminded me of a hideous flashback my mother had a few years ago. To keep her privacy, I'll just say it involved being loaded into rail cars on the way to the Camps by the Nazis. Jeeeezzz -- I know you didn't mean to do so, but -- ehzzzzh! I'm sure it's worse in her head, and I'm thankful that she can't remember her childhood and teens most of the time.
|
However Paul, this is a perfect example of why GM's need to "know" their Players. Simply because most people are decent human beings, we have a desire to
not cause harm to other people.
So when it comes to gaming, if I had a Player who had been traumatised by say a vicious dog attack and it still haunted them, then my responsibilities are pretty clear - I won't have detailed descriptions of a dog attack in the game because I don't want to cause them unnecessary emotional pain.
Which is exactly why that GM at the convention mentioned in the article that CraigD6er linked, had a responsibility to know what was unacceptable for the Players. To go to the extreme, what if one of the Players had a friend or relative that had suffered the same experience that the GM forced upon the Players? What if that had happened to one of the Players themselves?
It was a dumb, unthinking ploy to cause shock during the game but that GM is just damned lucky that they did not cause serious emotional harm to the Players.