Empathy and Game Mastering

"I'm not here to coddle my players."

"I'm not here to protect their feelings."

"I'm not here to be their therapist."

To me, that's shorthand for I don't have empathy, and don't care about my players. A good game master wants their players to have fun. Which means being acutely aware of what a player can and can't handle.

Which means listening to the players, listening to the tone of their voice, and watching their body language. The goal is to make sure the players are enjoying themselves, and that means being acutely aware of your table.

Does that mean the game master has a bit more work? That they need to put a bit more effort into the game? Yes, it does. But those steps should be automatic for the game master - it should be second nature to be aware of your players and how they are feeling at the table.

And it means knowing your player's triggers. There's a reason there's a lot of talk about safety and lines and veils and X-cards and such these days. Because these days it isn't shameful to talk about the problems a person might have - not like it was in the 70s and 80s. So yes, you hear about it a lot more. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with warning a game master. And it's the game master's duty to keep these in mind. To ensure that triggers are avoided - that the player's emotional well-being is kept in mind during the game.

Case in Point.
We ran Kult. If you don't know what Kult is, it's perhaps the most serious, adult-themed RPG we've ever seen. And it isn't played for laughs, it deals with serious, mature subject matter in a serious, mature fashion. It's a horror game, and it doesn't blink at presenting this horror to the audience.

You wouldn't think a survivor of sexual assault would be playing such a game, but there you have it. They were interested, it was a genre they enjoyed, and they wanted to play. So, before we even got to the first session, the players gave me a list of the things that are red-cards for them, and what's yellow-cards. It was an all-girl table.

So, the survivor? She walks right into her trigger. In normal circumstances, the character gets dragged off and bad things happen, and maybe the character doesn't ever come back. However, the moment I saw this coming, I changed tactics.

1) Change my language on how I present the scene, choosing my words carefully.
2) Instead of saying 'this happens', describe the scene and put the player in control - what are they doing, how are they reacting, what are they trying to accomplish?
3) The player empowered her character.  Bad things happened, but the character was in control, becoming a willing participant, empowering herself.

And we came out the other side of the scene okay. However, through the entire thing, I was acutely aware of her body language, her voice, how she was acting and reacting to the scene.

It was draining for me - but my player's well being was my first priority. Her health was important, my players having fun was important. Even with a game as serious as Kult - even with the players knowing what they were getting into, I made sure that the group was having fun. And being careful with the players took nothing away from the game.

The table should be a safe space for your players. But I've seen game masters out there who don't care, and don't want to care. Their fun is more important than that of the players, and some even go so far as to flat-out say they won't allow anyone at their table with 'issues'. No trauma survivors, no neurodivergent types, no autistic people, nobody with hang-ups. They want to exclude these people from their tables.

In my opinion? These people shouldn't be game masters. Because the game master should not be putting their fun before the well-being of the people at their table. And there's a word for that exclusionary attitude.

It's called discrimination. And yes, it's discrimination. If you won't accept someone who is autistic, or neurodivergent, that's being discriminatory. It's just as bad as if you said 'no blacks' or 'no women' or 'no trans' at your table.

That might sound harsh, but it's true. These game masters are excluding people from their table based on a preconceived notion of who these people are. Because they don't want to have to pay attention, to care about the feelings of others. And I am quite sure that they feel superior to these players as well.

"There's nothing wrong with me - and I want normal people at my table."

And seriously, if someone's like that? If they don't care about their players, and they're going to cut out an entire section of people just because the game master's got to do a little more work?

They've no business being game masters at all.