3.1 Mood and Content

The mood of your game is very important. The rules do not predetermine whether you play a dark urban game or a humorous adventure game. The group as a whole should discuss what mood you would like your game to have. Once you’ve agreed to it, you should try to stick with it when you pick the setting, make the characters, create your story seeds, and most of all play the game.

Setting the mood includes the following parts:

1. What’s the overall feel of the game? Is it gritty, funny, dark, romantic? What kinds of movies, series, novels, and so on would fit this mood? What would you pick as the game’s theme song?
2. What kind of content would you like to see in your story? Lots of intense fights, introspection, romance, intrigue, exploration, anime slapstick comedy? Are the combats wall-running, somersaulting action spectacles with no real blood, or gruesome shotgun-and-tentacle gore fests?
3. What kind of content do you not want in your story? This comes in two flavors, labeled in the game Sorcerer as lines and veils, which I find very helpful. What kind of stuff can happen but only off screen (veiled), and what kind of stuff isn’t brought up by anyone at all? For example, you might agree that characters in your story sometimes have sex, but do you fade to black before the clothes come off or actually play out parts or all of the event? Would it ruin the game for you if children got abused or killed during the story? What is over the line and not okay at all, and what is fine but shouldn’t be played in detail?

You might want to write down the mood and content guidelines you’ve come up with somewhere. Usually these things are large-scale enough that they’re easy to remember, but it can help to have a few written lines in front of you when you go on from here.

I’ll create an example setup throughout this chapter. Let’s say my group decides that we want something a little grittier than the standard Final Fantasy fare. Not quite Vampire Hunter D, but definitely not Kingdom Hearts. We decide that our mood can be summed up as “Gritty, but not gory, and with hope.” Something that would probably get a PG-13 rating if it was a movie.

We figure there’ll be some romance, and characters might hook up, but any actual sexual content will be veiled. There’ll be lots of violence and some descriptions of blood and injuries, but no exploding heads or tearing out of guts or the likes. Children either don’t show up much at all, or when they do, they won’t get hurt.

Some joking around is fine, but slapstick is right out. That could ruin the gritty mood we’re going for.

Discomfort During the Game

Chances are that at some point, one of the players (including the GM) might do something that goes against your established mood and content. This can go by without effect or it can have a negative impact on one or more players. It could be offensive, off-putting, boring, annoying, mood-breaking, hitting a vulnerable nerve, and so on.

It also could be something you thought you’d be okay with, but it turns out you’re not. This is especially the case when you jump into a dark mood without being sure just how far you’d like to go. For me personally, this can happen when I agree to play in a gruesome setting without specifying that anything really bad that happens to children has to be behind the veil. Maybe I thought I’d be okay exploring those things this time, but once it comes up I realize just how much that hits me in the stomach—too much to still let me enjoy the game.

If you are only a bit uncomfortable, it’s best to wait until the end of the session before bringing it up in a “Oh, and by the way” sort of fashion. Alternatively, you can bring it up at a later point, if you’re too uncomfortable with doing it right then. Often these things are more easily discussed with some distance, for example via email. If you don’t feel like you can write your group an email telling them that you were uncomfortable with something, then there’s a problem with your group trust that needs to be resolved.

If something really hits you, then you should be able to call time-out, take a break, and then talk about it right then or agree to do it later. Again, doing it via email or posts on a forum can add needed distance here. Every player in your group needs to be okay with this kind of reaction and with talking about it. Caring about each other’s fun and feelings is what makes this whole thing work.

If you see one of your fellow players having a negative reaction, you should give them a chance to make their choice about how to approach it. But if you think they’re too shy or otherwise incapable of bringing it up, you should step in and help out.

Overall, it’s a good idea to revisit your discussion of mood and content every now and then. It’ll help give your game a coherent focus and prevent anyone from feeling annoyed, hurt, or otherwise uncomfortable.