In 2019 Sean K. Reynolds and Shanna Germain released the book Consent in Gaming through Monte Cook Games. The book itself is 13 pages (it’s actually smaller than that because the first page is the cover and the last page is a worksheet) and it explains the reason why the concept of consent is really important for RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons.
You can download the book here, it's free:
You can watch my review of this book here:
What is it?
Consent in gaming is an introduction to the ideas of consent and self respect, and how they’re both applied to RPGs. The book is organized into several sections. It opens with a description of what consent is, just in general, things like why players should have the default framework of opting in to certain parts of the story and why anyone can change their mind about what they’re comfortable with at any time. The next section moves on how to have conversations with your players or your DM and operationalize consent at the table. The authors provide some suggestions for using ideas like go and no go words, the X card and utilizing a consent checklist. Following that, the authors share a few ideas on how to have conversations with your players or DM when someone crosses a consent boundary. Then the book ends with some resources for GMs to use at their table to discuss the ideas for consent. Including a very useful worksheet that can help players to start their own conversations with their DMs about what may and may not be okay at their tables.
What this book does, in less than twelve pages, is distill down all of the excellent reasons why understanding and using informed consent can be helpful to you as a GM. When I’m a DM I want to know what my players are looking for in a game. I also want to know what my players DON’T want. So when I’m running D&D for a new group I’ve never met, I really do want to know where those lines are. The authors do a really good job of explaining how to find those lines and recognize when to use them in the creation of a story or when running a game. They include several examples of how consent is already utilized in games like No Thank you Evil and how GMs can help to resolve any accidental inclusion of topics that were deemed off limits. Personally, I feel like this book should be required reading for anyone who is thinking about getting into the RPG hobby.
But there’s one really big chunk of goodness in this book on the very last page. The RPG consent Checklist. To me, this sheet is really valuable and I’ve started using it in almost all my games. The sheet itself asks four questions and then has 6 categories of topics. The top of the sheet asks the GM and the player to put their name down. The player actually doesn’t even have to if they feel like they want to remain anonymous. The theme of the game is also requested, so this is where the DM would put down something like “Swashbuckling Trash Truck Drivers” or “Gritty noir mystery”. Then there’s a section where the GM can put down a perspective rating for the game like PG,PG-13 or R.
The real goodness of the sheet lies in the columned categories. These categories are Horror, Relationships, Social and Cultural issues, Mental and Physical Health and some blank spaces for additional topics. Each of these categories have a small but comprehensive list of several different things that players may be okay with or not okay with. The players can fill in one of several different colored boxes. The green squares represent enthusiastic consent, Bring on the Goblins! The yellow triangles represent a tentative consent, so something like a character getting kidnapped could happen off screen. The red circles represent a lack of consent or a hard no.
Each category has several examples that players can choose to consent or not consent to. They also have some blank spots at the bottom of each category so that players can add their own things that may not be listed. Having these lines of what is and is not okay for players is really helpful. Knowing where my players will start to feel uncomfortable is a great asset for me because I can really focus on the areas my players want to spend time.
What is it not?
This book is not the downfall of the RPG hobby as we know it. When it was released back in 2019 these authors caught a lot of heat. There was a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth about how thin skinned that people have become. I really don’t like the idea of labeling the RPG hobby as full of misogynistic reactionaries. Especially when most of the reactions to this book were on places like reddit (not here on DM Academy) where posts are anonymous. I also know that not everybody has the same reasons for objecting to why consent in gaming may be a worthwhile book. All people are different people.
Consent in gaming is not a way to learn about what your players don’t like only to use against them in the future. If you do choose to use the consent checklist and you intentionally choose to include a topic that one of your players has marked in the red. That’s not just including some fear in your game to raise the stakes, that’s being intentionally cruel to your players. Don’t do that.
This book is also not censorship. The authors are not saying that GMs should no longer include any specific theme in their games. The idea of consent that they are promoting is only that DMs and players be sensitive to what each other are comfortable with.
This book is also not just for people who are using RPGs in an educational or therapeutic setting. The ideas in Consent in Gaming are applicable to all tables.
Lastly, This book is not required. It doesn’t need to be used in all games and you are not a bad person if you choose not to use it. Because you have every right as a GM or a player to not use this.
Should I buy it?
I think this book is worth reading. Even if you don’t plan to include the consent checklist in your game the book still has a lot of very good points that I think all DMs should be aware of. Even if you don’t like the idea of this book I think you should still go read it, if only to better understand what makes you uncomfortable about it.
Other than it just being good manners to not make people feel creeped out, the book helps GMs, new and experienced, to think about the idea of consent. This book is free. Literally. It costs you nothing but time to go and read it. The authors did a really good job of breaking down the idea of consent into something applicable to RPGs and they gave it to the world. Because understanding consent isn’t something that should be behind a paywall.