{"id":171,"date":"2026-02-24T13:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T18:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?p=171"},"modified":"2026-09-08T13:27:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T17:27:37","slug":"why-i-dont-trust-people-who-wont-roleplay-sex-scenes-on-attitudes-toward-safety-tools-consent-and-predation-in-the-rpg-hobby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?p=171","title":{"rendered":"Why I Don’t Trust People Who Won’t Roleplay Sex Scenes: On Attitudes Toward Safety Tools, Consent, and Predation in the RPG Hobby"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alright, first of all, let\u2019s get this out of the way: the title is glib and exaggerated. This is intentional though, because I want to weed out people who will be scandalized by a line like that that. It\u2019s not literally true as a blanket statement, but the sentiment has validity buried within, and that will be the subject of this essay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Being a kinky, fat trans woman who does not think or experience sensation how \u201cneurotypical\u201d\/\u201dnormal\u201d society wants me to, I have a lot of thoughts on content\/trigger warnings, safe spaces, and related conversations. I have never felt at home in kink spaces or most queer spaces. The more informed my opinions become, the less this surprises me. It shocks me in hindsight that I could ever let my guard down in game stores full of nerd bros, even when I thought I was one of them.

I\u2019ve heard it said that RPG players\u2019 conversations on consent and safety are light years behind those in kink. That is true, from what I\u2019ve seen, but I also think kink communities\u2019 conversations are light years away from anything I find relatable or safe to engage with. This is also true of queer and leftist spaces I have been a part of or observed from without. 

Pretty much the only cases I see my inner concerns and experiences reflected accurately come from the most marginalized people who might want to be allowed into these groups. Almost always these are BIPOC people, trans or genderqueer people, disabled people, and people with lived experience full of poverty and trauma and systemic discrimination. The people whose voices go unheard, if not actively silenced, in the places ostensibly most welcoming to them.

This is all background information, and what I\u2019m getting at so far has been abstract. Let me start being more concrete.

I think that it is certainly good that things like session zero, the X card, and lines and veils have begun to be socially acceptable to discuss in the RPG hobby, and indeed included in the text of many games. But, like reformist derailing of workers\u2019 movements, this being the extent of the progress for at least a decade and a half is a problem. It\u2019s not enough. Not even close. And in the mobbish cesspool that social media discourse and echo chambers are, it\u2019s a problem that the narrative is not continuing to progress.

As a side note, I assume that readers of this essay have already familiarized themselves with those safety tools. If not, google still works just barely well enough that you can find them and then read on.

In my personal experiences playing RPGs with various people, from my own queer friends and fellow leftist organizers to \u201capolitical\u201d white male nerds, to uninvested teens at game stores, I have seen general acceptance of the specific safety tools mentioned above. There\u2019s also a consent checklist of common lines and veils that uses a \u201cred\/yellow\/green light\u201d system familiar from kink (albeit much less useful, as I will get into), and a couple other things in the same vein. These all appear to be understood the same way across players, excepting those who simply haven\u2019t come across them yet. This is also true in what I have seen in actual play fandoms, discord servers, Bluesky, Tumblr, and other online spaces.

What\u2019s wrong with this? 

First of all, there is commonly an assumption that if you get through explaining all these things in session zero, assemble a list of lines and veils and share it with the whole group, that you\u2019ve done your job and triggering or hurt feelings should be easily avoided unless there is a Bad Actor (TM) in the group. 

This strikes me as extremely shortsighted and also built on insidious assumptions that will cause harm to the most vulnerable people present. 

One assumption is that this conversation happens in its entirety at the formation of a group or the start of a new campaign. There\u2019s a maxim from either kink or LARP (I forget which) that, if examined critically, debunks this assumption: \u201cI need to hear your No before I trust your Yes.\u201d Basically, people will say they are or aren\u2019t comfortable with certain subject matter or triggering content when considering it in the abstract and act as though that\u2019s going to usefully reflect how they feel and act when it actually happens. 

The only commonly used safety tool in RPGs that is explicitly intended to address this issue is the X card (or occasionally, the \u201cred light\/yellow light\/green light\u201d from kink), but there are a lot of questions left unanswered when this is your sole recourse. 

What happens when someone X cards the death of their character when death is the only meaningful consequence offered for failure by the game system being used, and the other players are interested in their characters\u2019 actions having consequences?

What happens when someone X cards something that triggers them, but that they didn\u2019t think to add to the list of lines and veils three months ago, but the triggering content is the main thematic motif of the adventure the GM has prepped, or the key clue that the mystery hinges on?

I think most of the time, either someone has to pretend they\u2019re comfortable with something they\u2019re not, or the game falls apart entirely. And there are ways to play that don\u2019t make either of those necessary. They just require people to actually think and talk honestly about their feelings, rather than grab something that looks helpful off the internet that purports to make their game safe.

These kinds of problem commonly come up in session zero, too, and it\u2019s rare that it\u2019s addressed well. I\u2019ve seen groups fall apart because someone stayed quiet when a line or veil was made, or not made, that they weren\u2019t okay with. I\u2019ve been that person. Who wants to jeopardize this social activity that requires several people\u2019s committed attention and compatible schedules, before they even get to start playing the game?

What happens when someone says a line for them is any kind of sexual content (one I\u2019ve seen very often), but another player at the table is trans, and wants to play a trans character that draws on their lived experience, and we exist in a society in which trans people are sexualized whether we like it or not?

What happens when someone says a line for them is racism or discrimination of any kind, and the group is playing a Western-themed game or campaign, or a 1920s U.S. Call of Cthulhu game, and one player is queer or a woman or Jewish or Latino or any other identity that was defined first and foremost in those times and places by the ways they were systemically oppressed?

In my experience, people get bitter or feel alienated from the rest of the group, and they try to swallow it until they can\u2019t, and then they leave or blow up with all their restrained hurt. Often this is a deathknell for the game, the group, or even long-term friendships.

Another reason this status quo for such content and conversations is harmful is the way it propagates and reflects a common and dire problem in \u201cwoke\u201d spaces: that when these heavily flawed safeguards fail, individuals are blamed for it, and there is no pause to reflect on the safeguards or the norms that led to them being agreed upon.

This is exacerbated by the widely accepted idea that the worst thing one can be is an abuser, a predator, a transgressor, a Bad Actor in whatever way it can be explained to justify a mob mentality. Kai Cheng Thom has written a very compelling case<\/a> against this accepted \u201cwisdom.\u201d 

Abusers and bullies are usually abused and bullied themselves. Addressing harmful behavior with punishment and judgment cements \u201cBad Actor\u201d as an identity and self-fulfilling prophecy. The types of people that are most often vilified for transgressing are typically more marginalized. The types of people that are given sympathy or a more nuanced response are typically less marginalized. 

People and communities nominally committed to social justice and acceptance, or even abolitionism or anti-racism, regularly overlook these facts when it would shake the status quo to take a closer look.

One last reason I feel this essay is necessary is that it\u2019s far from the first time in the hobby this argument has been made. We\u2019ve had games for and by marginalized people for a long time, that explicitly ask us to talk about this issue, often through the vehicle of game mechanics designed to facilitate conversation and critical thought. But these games are either erased or appropriated and derailed. 

I cannot tell you how many times I see Monsterhearts recommended to queer players because it\u2019s a game by a queer and about queer characters. It happens on social media, it happens in books (plural) by therapists on how to run RPGs for therapy groups. I have to assume a lot of the time, this recommendation comes from people who know of maybe five to ten RPGs that aren\u2019t 5th edition D&D, and who have played maybe one or two of them. There are shitloads<\/em> of queer RPGs out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, to be clear, I fucking love Monsterhearts. I think it\u2019s probably the best game about queerness I\u2019ve ever read. Many have read or played it (or vaguely heard of it) and tried and failed to cash in on its excellence. I think the reason we get games like Thirsty Sword Lesbians, that want to be part of the lineage borne from Monsterhearts, but that ring so hollow to me and people like me they almost feel like they weren\u2019t written by actual queers, is that the imitators fail to understand what\u2019s great about the OG. And if they did understand, I think many would no longer like it.

The real genius of Monsterhearts, as much as I love the way the themes are deployed and cute details like the seating chart, is the way the mechanics put you in the shoes of your problematic queer teen character, who is also a literal monster. You cannot<\/em> control who or what Turns Them On (which is the name of the move that is the centerpiece of the game). 

If you try to play Monsterhearts to tell stories of untraumatized, well-adjusted queers, the game will fight you every step of the way. If you try to play it and retain full authorial control of any aspect of the game, including your own PC, it will fight you. This applies to the GM as much as anyone else. This is beautiful, and what makes it a great game, but also something that is hardly ever mentioned when it\u2019s recommended. Usually, I just see it touted as a \u201cqueer game\u201d or \u201cqueer romance game.\u201d 

Admittedly, I think at this point the majority of the RPG \u201ccommunity\u201d is adept at fighting and ignoring the explicit rules and intent of the game they play, if they even play at all themselves. We can thank actual plays and their fandom cultures for that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Whose ideal “UWU queer found family” system DOESN’T have extremely <\/em>detailed mechanics for when you can and can’t move in five foot increments?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incidentally, my critical read of Monsterhearts is heavily informed by the RTFM podcast episode on it<\/a>, although I am not unequivocally positive on that show as a whole. It\u2019s also very interesting to me how Monsterhearts became, years ago, a \u201cqueer game\u201d with a \u201cqueer author,\u201d not a game with a \u201ctransfeminine author.\u201d Both are true, but it bears consideration which term is more popular, and why.

The only other thing to talk about here is solutions. The obvious and least helpful thing I can say is, don\u2019t engage in an activity like RPGs with the potential for extreme emotional vulnerability with people you don\u2019t trust. This does no good for people who don\u2019t have anyone they trust a lot (who also wants to play tabletop games with them), and it also creates the potential to damage that trust by not giving any more concrete support frameworks \u2013 the thing I\u2019m criticizing in the first place.

I do have a bit more to add, but it\u2019s still not super concrete. That\u2019s partly because these kind of meaningful human interactions don\u2019t have a quick fix. You have to engage with them thoughtfully and honestly, as best as you\u2019re able.

So, here\u2019s my advice: do not assume safety tools and session zero are all you need. Do not expect this conversation to happen once and be finished. Keep having it. It\u2019s going to be part of the game as long as the group continues to exist. And accept that there will be times when you fail to use the safety tools when you should, or you misuse them, or you cause each other harm despite them. 

People aren\u2019t perfect. We all fuck up and hurt each other. It\u2019s vital to accept that will happen to you and that you will do it, too. This does not erase the harm itself, and it does not excuse a refusal to apologize, reflect, and do better. 

I often see people try to avoid \u201cheavy\u201d or taboo subjects in their RPGs to try and avoid this. It\u2019s certainly understandable, and defensible to a degree, to want a gaming table to be a safe place where you can let your guard down. That\u2019s perfectly fine to want and strive for. But this is the motivation that leads to people banning racism or sex or sexual assault wholecloth as subject matter that can be addressed in any way. And that will alienate and possibly even harm people who experience, or have experienced, those things. It\u2019s erasure, even if well-intentioned. And it doesn\u2019t actually prevent players from triggering each other. 

So yeah. I guess it boils down to saying you can\u2019t control everything, and loosening your chokehold on life is necessary, even though risk is scary, and that\u2019s something that applies in every context, not just RPGs. I have an extremely hard time living that truth myself. But we need to have grace for ourselves, not judgment. Respect, not hatred, and informed by acknowledgment of power dynamics and systemic oppression. It\u2019s necessarily a work in progress, but one we should be honest about, rather than afraid to admit.\u00ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alright, first of all, let\u2019s get this out of the way: the title is glib and exaggerated. This is intentional though, because I want to weed out people who will be scandalized by a line like that that. It\u2019s not literally true as a blanket statement, but the sentiment has validity buried within, and that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":277085423,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8518,156081],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction","category-rpgs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phmf02-2L","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":103,"url":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?p=103","url_meta":{"origin":171,"position":0},"title":"Bloodlust But Good – Design Diary 1: A Starting Point","author":"Moonglummer","date":"February 10, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I learned from a recent episode of the podcast Ludonarrative Dissidents about an RPG that interested me quite a bit. 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It pains me to say it, but, as you might have guessed, Escape from All-Mart is dead, as are some of its players (dead to me, anyway). The session writeups will haunt this blog forevermore. If you're especially lucky, there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Non-RPG Game Dev"","block_context":{"text":"Non-RPG Game Dev","link":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?cat=791468698"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":351,"url":"https:\/\/moonglummedia.com\/?p=351","url_meta":{"origin":171,"position":3},"title":"Essay in Playtest Material Issue 1","author":"Moonglummer","date":"October 1, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"As I mentioned back in August, I had a pitch accepted in a new RPG journal called Playtest Material. Well, now it's out! I encourage you to read the whole issue, but my piece, \"Modeling Trauma in Unknown Armies\", starts on page 46. 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