High Level Games
High Level Games
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures

Welcome to the High Level Games Blog, News, and other stuff to take your games to the next level!

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

3 Ways To Help Create An Inclusive Gaming Space As A GM or Storyteller

7/6/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
What do I mean by an inclusive gaming space? An inclusive gaming space is one where your players feel comfortable being there, engaging in the game, and having fun. This doesn’t mean the characters your players are playing always have to be happy. Hell, if we are playing mature higher level deep role-playing games we know that sometimes our characters misery helps to drive a good story. A good story should not harm or hurt your players though and creating an atmosphere of inclusion at your table means finding ways to embrace diversity and be sensitive to the needs of your players. In the end, it comes down to this: know your players and be respectful to them as human beings. If a joke or a storyline goes too far, stop it, apologize, and debrief as soon as possible. This line will be in different places for different players and we’ll discuss some ways to keep on top of this below.

Set ground rules and follow them:
Rules are essential to gaming, right? Every great rules lawyer can fight for hours over obscure rules in the books. Well, setting table rules is no different. These rules should be focused on player actions, words, and feelings, not character actions, words, or feelings.  What are some examples of good ground rules? No sex jokes, no out of character comments on race or racism, talk about out of character conflicts as soon as they start, to help work through them, if something occurs in-character that you are uncomfortable with tell everyone (or just the GM) and the scene should end immediately. These rules should be discussed by the players and the storyteller before the game starts. They should be agreed on and added to if needed as well. A good storyteller checks-in with his players constantly to see what their characters are doing and how action is impacting them, a great and inclusive storyteller does the same with the players themselves.

Be Respectful of Everyone’s Background and Identity:
Even when you are running a game at a convention or another public forum, you should try and have some understanding of who your players are. Take the time to ask questions, even 2-3 every session about the lives of your players. You aren’t doing this to interrogate them, but to be welcoming and helpful. If you know a player has had a bad week at work, give them a chance to work through some frustrations. If you know a player has experienced something traumatic in their background, be sensitive to stories that might remind them of that trauma and make their experience unpleasant. Again, I’m not saying you need to avoid difficult subjects in your game if that is what works for you and your players. I’m saying know them, be sensitive to them and make sure that the game you are running is the game that they want to play. This can include those that might not be playing, but hanging out around the table as well. You want to make your table a location to encourage the suspension of disbelief and to invigorate the imagination, being disrespectful has the opposite effect to that goal.

Make Your Characters and NPC’s Real:
I don’t mean 3D print a model for all of your NPC’s… though if you are inclined in that direction I don’t see anything wrong with it. No, I’m saying make your characters real people; make them multi-dimensional with faults and goals and different identities. If you have an antagonist that is a woman, do not make her a stereotype. If you have an NPC that is trans, make them real, give them hopes and dreams and avoid the obvious jokes you think you might evoke at the table. The more you make your characters real, the more you respect the diversity at your table in every way. If you want to delve into issues of racism, sexism, and prejudice of all kinds in your game and your players are interested in doing so as well, do it, but do it with the goal of humanizing all creatures/people/monsters in the game.

Making your gaming table inclusive should not be a chore; it should be something that comes naturally to us. If we can empathize and imagine being magical beings and science fiction heroes, we should be able to imagine how it might be to be treated poorly for our identity in real life. Taking the time to respect and know your players and run the game that they love to play will drive more and more people into this hobby. If you have other suggestions on how to make your gaming table inclusive, please feel free to share them in the comments.

With 17 years of playing rpgs, Josh started with Mind's Eye Theater LARPs and loves the World of Darkness. Josh is the administrator of the Inclusive Gaming Network on Facebook, is running both a Mage game and a Dark Ages: Vampire game at the moment, and is an advocate for inclusive gaming spaces. He's also a father and a recent graduate from the International Peace and Conflict Resolution graduate program at American University in Washington, D.C.

Savage Worlds: Fast, Furious, and Fun! - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
2 Comments
Kathy link
5/11/2016 05:05:08 pm

This is a good share. Thank you so much

Reply
Wired Reach link
17/11/2016 11:46:33 am

There are so many gaming gadgets available, but what do you really need? I went to my experts.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    All blog materials created and developed by the staff here at High Level Games 

    ​

    Picture
    Click here to support our community for as a little as $1.00 for exclusive content, free downloadable stuff, and even discounts on role-playing game items.

    Archives

    February 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All
    13th Age
    2d20
    2nd Edition
    3.5 Edition
    3Deep
    4th Edition
    5th Edition
    7th Sea
    Acquisitions Inc
    Actual Play
    AD&D
    AdventureLookUp.com
    Adventurers!
    Aether Sea
    A+ Fantasy
    After Collapse
    Alignment
    Amazing Tales
    Amazon
    Anima: Beyond Fantasy
    Anime
    Apocalypse World
    Atomic Robo
    Australian
    Award Winning
    Basic Fantasy
    Belly Of The Beast
    Big Eyes Small Mouth
    Black Lives Matter
    Black Void
    Blades In The Dark
    Blood Pangea
    Board Games
    Book Of Exalted Darkness
    BrigadeCon
    Burning Wheel RPG
    Call Of Cthulhu
    Capers RPG
    Casual Roleplaying
    Changeling: The Dreaming
    Chaosium
    Character Arcs
    Character Creation
    Chris Spivey
    Cinematic RP
    Classics
    Comic-books
    Conventions
    Corvus Belli: Infinity
    Crawl
    Creators
    Critical Role
    Cthulhutech
    D100 Dungeon
    D20
    D&D
    D&D Beyond
    Deadlands
    Defenders Of Tokyo
    Degenesis
    Detako Saga
    Discord
    DMsGuild.com
    Dnd
    Dndbeyond
    Doctor-who
    Double-cross
    Dread
    Dresden-files
    DriveThruRPG.com
    Dr. Who
    Dungeon Crawl Classics
    Dungeons
    Dungeons And Dragons
    Dungeon Slayers
    Dungeon World
    Dystopia Rising
    Encounters
    Era: The Consortium
    Era: The Empowered
    Esper Genesis
    Evil Hat
    Exalted
    Faith RPG
    Fandom
    Fantasy-age
    Fantasy-flight
    Fantasy Grounds
    FATE
    Fate Accelerated Edition
    Fate Core
    Fate Rpg
    Fate-rpg
    Final Fantasy
    Forgotten Realms
    Fragged Empire
    Free League Publishing
    Furries
    Game Design
    Game Lore
    Gencon
    Ghosts Of NPCs Past
    GMTips
    Golden-sky-stories
    GoodmanGames.com
    Grognards
    GUMSHOE
    GURPS
    GURPS Lite
    Halloween
    Harlem Unbound
    Harry-potter
    Hero Builder
    Heroes Against Darkness
    Heroes-unlimited
    HERO System
    High Level Games
    Historical Fantasy
    HLG Con 2018
    HLG Reviews
    Homebrew
    Humble Bundle
    Indie
    Interface Zero 2.0
    Interview
    Invisible Suns
    Japanese RPGs
    JRR Tolkien
    Kickstarter
    KoboldPress.com
    KULT
    L5R
    Lankhmar
    LARP
    Lasers And Feelings
    Legendlore
    Legend Of The Five Rings
    LexOccultum
    LOTR
    Low Magic
    Mage
    Mage: The Awakening
    Magic And Steel
    MAID
    Mayhem
    Mazes And Minotaurs
    Meikyuu Kingdom
    Mekton Zero
    Mental Health
    Middle Earth
    Mighty Narwhal
    Mini Six
    Modern Adventures RPG
    Modiphius
    Monarchies Of Mau
    Monsterhearts
    Monte Cook Games
    Morra
    Mummy: The Curse
    Mutants And Masterminds
    Mythender
    Narrative Games
    Nechronica
    Night's Black Agents
    Novel
    NPC
    Numenara
    Odyssey Of The Dragonlords
    One Shot
    Online Gaming
    Orun
    OSCRIC
    Osr
    OVA
    Palladium
    Pathfinder
    Pathfinder 2.0
    PbtA
    PDQ
    Pire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
    Play By Post
    Player Tips
    Podcast
    Powered By Apocalypse
    Power Outage RPG
    Preview
    Promethean: The Created
    Pugmire
    Pulp
    Puzzles
    Questlings
    Ravenloft
    Ravnica
    Red Markets: A Game Of Economic Horror
    Research
    Review
    Review Article
    Rifts
    Risus
    Role Play
    Roll20
    Romance Of The Perilous Land
    Ryuutama
    Satanic Panic
    Savage Rifts
    Savage Tokusatsu
    Savage Worlds
    Seeds Of Wars
    Setting
    Settings
    Settlement Building
    Shadowrun
    SIGMATA
    Snowhaven
    Social Combat
    Social Systems
    Solo Play
    Standard Roleplay System
    Star Trek Adventures
    Star Wars
    Storytellers Vault
    Suited RPG
    Summerland
    Supplements
    System Design
    Table Top
    Tabletop Simulator
    Tales From The Loop
    Tales Of Equestria
    Talislanta
    Tariffs
    Teenagers From Outerspace
    Ten Candles
    Tenra Bansho Zero
    The Dark Eye
    The End Of The World RPG
    The Great Long Dark
    The One Ring
    The Very Important Task
    Titan Effect
    To The Temple Of Doom
    Trial Of Cthulhu
    Trinity Continuum
    TSR Marvel Super Heroes
    Ttrpg
    Twitch
    USTR
    Va
    Valiant Rpg
    Vampire: The Masquerade
    Video Games
    Villian
    Volo
    Vs Ghosts
    Warhammer
    Warhammer 40K
    Werewolf: The Apocalypse
    Westbound RPG
    Wild West
    World Building
    World Of Darkness
    Writing Tips
    Year Zero
    Zweihander

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly