phobia's and Gaming (Rpgs side of house)

[garhkal]

Over on one of my ADND sites, someone mentioned in his longish running ADND game, his players keep hearing how 'drow are the stuff of myths and legends, and has slowly been buildng up to a big reveal that they DO exist to his PCs. BUT one of the players (which happens to be his wife) suffers from a severe case of Arachnophobia, and even the mere mention of spiders can set her off in a panic attack, let alone all the descriptions and such he would be giving to set the atmosphere of the Demon queen Lolth's spider web realm.
It reminded me of a group back in the lat 90s down in Mayport Fl where one of my 'stand by groups' had a brother of the DM who was rather claustrophobic, and supposedly even describing the enclossed spaces of a dungeon's rooms would be enough to set HIM off.

So that makes me wonder, who else has had to deal with real life phobia's in game?

For a SW game, perhaps some of the more "Monsterous races' cant get used, and the like?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Zarn]

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[CRMcNeill]

A while back, I proposed an idea for psychological effects, in that they had mandatory consequences on the character. For instance, a character with a phobia would suffer a Fear effect and would be unable to approach the object of his fear, and/or would have to pass a Willpower roll to overcome the phobia. Another possibility could be requiring a character to spend a FP to overcome his phobia, as for him, it most certainly would be a heroic action...

Phobias and other mental issues could easily be incorporated into Advantage / Disadvantage systems as well...
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Whill]

[DougRed4]

Yeah, I don't think I've had to deal with this with any of my players before, either.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[garhkal]

If you did, and what that phobia was against, was a critical part of the module/adventure (like say spiders are to Lolths demon web pit in the D series for ADND), how would you go about resolving the issue?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Zarn]

In the same vein, I tend to not dwell on themes such as domestic abuse or molestation in my games. It's not fun, and a significant percentage of men and women both have been the target of unwanted, sexual advances. In some cases, it went further than just advances as well.

I think it cheapens the art of storytelling to use a player's phobias against them - if you know about them. That's also why that particular issue is usually a topic in my Session Zero, the session where we discuss what tone is acceptable in the game, and establishes the social contract that we'll play after.

[Whill]

[atgxtg]

I think it's okay to touch on a phobia if it is a mild one. I think it's okay to make the players a little uncomfortable. Much like the way a horror film can make viewers uncomfortable. But you don't want to go over "the line" (or even get anywhere near it), and actually upset anyone.



I think the same holds true for just about any other thing that someone might find disturbing.

However, there are also certain practical limits to this, a sort of minimum level of fear and annoyance that kinda goes with the territory. For instance, people do get killed, tortured, betrayed, and corrupted in Star Wars, and anyone who finds those topics too disturbing probably shouldn't be playing Star Wars, or most other RPGs for that matter.

[Whill]

[garhkal]

Yup. On one other site we are chatting about this, someone does things similar to Zarn, in where as part of his "Zero game session" meeting, he gets people to explain any phobias to him.
BUT he had to find ot the hard way that one of the gamers was s*** scared of snakes, DURING a game, when as part of the game, he had a projector displaying dozens of snakes, wrapping themselves around some humans (from a documentary iirc)..
That dude freaked out so bad, the table got flipped, some mugs on it got broke, drinks went flying etc..

Apparently the dude never 'felt comfortable' even with people knowing he HAD a phobia, let alone explaining it to others. So even asking it ahead of time, might NOT get a truthful answer.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[atgxtg]

It's hard to avoid something that the player doesn't mention.

Frankly, I think if something bothers a player, it is the player's responsibility to mention that it bother him. If not before hand, then when it accidentally pops up in play.


But I think they would have to be pretty severe phobias if standard RPGing triggers an extreme response. They should probably be getting psychological help if just mentioning spiders causes them to come unhinged.