Safety

Just like real-life families, the drama of your fictional Rookwood family can be intense. Danger, horror, and family conflict are exciting and integral to the fun of the game, but might broach real life issues such as addiction, mental health, or abuse.

Be aware that your friends at the table may have different thresholds for horror and drama, both realistic and fantastic.

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If there are any subjects that you want to leave out of the game you can use this google sheet to let everyone know. Feel free to add your own subjects if missing.

If there is a subject you want to be completely left out of the game, that will be a Line not to cross.

On the other hand, if you are uncomfortable to play out something in detail but don't object to it happening, we can use a Veils to fade to black and move on.

Lines and Veils can help set expectations, keeping everyone comfortable at the game. However, it is difficult to predict every topic that may come up in-game, so we have one more tool to help out -- the X-Card.

If you feel uncomfortable with the direction of the game, simply draw a card from the available deck using X as the descriptions. This should stop the action immediately and the next player should look for another way to move the story forward. No explanation is required.

O-card (like)

These are not so much about safety, but, if instead of being uncomfortable with something, you really like what is happening in the game and would like more of the same in the future, you can draw a card with the description O. If it was a player, I'll award them a Bonus Reserve (think D&D Inspiration). While the X-card means "avoid that path", the O-card means "go down that road".

M-card (move on)

When you are playing the game, there may be times when the action begins to stall. Negotiation is necessary when setting stakes, but the back-and-forth can drag on. The Rookwoods are a family with toxic issues; if you portray this with enthusiasm and accuracy, it can lead to heated exchanges in vicious circles (or downward spirals). All of this can be fun, but the drama has diminishing returns.

To avoid getting bogged down in one spotlight-hogging scene, anyone (including me) can also play an M-card. This signals that you think the current argument or scene has gone on long enough and those actively involved need to wrap it up and the current scene should be resolved one way or another: agree to disagree, storm off in a huff, make an opposed Trait check to settle it, or maybe a man with a gun bursts in to forcibly change the subject!

Even though we can use the M-card to move on, the problem with dragging the game is even worse in PbP. So remember to let us know you are done with "your turn" as well. I will try to stick to at least 2 posts per week (recommended 3-4) so the action keeps moving, but we can flip one of these tokens to let the others know you are done and waiting.

Players Waiting: