If I use these rules, then my game group will (1) reward/select for those who enjoy, tolerate, or are-afraid-to-object-to content that some other person might find disturbing and (2) punish those who find certain content distressing by forcing them out if they need to take a time-out more than once because nobody in their supposed-friend group prioritizes their friend in distress over their own brief fun for a scene in a game...it doesn't make any sense! I use actual safety tools because I actually play with people I care about...steer clear of this document if that applies to you. I read this doing my best to assume the author was writing this in good faith, but that part in particular (Tool 4 Freedom to Leave) broke any illusion of that. In my games, I want everyone to have fun--they're games. If people are not having fun, of course I'd want to adjust things! And if they're not just not having fun, but are in fact deeply distressed by something, I'd be an a**h*** to ignore that, but then to punish them for that is just incomprehensible to me. One player wants a brutal mob execution scene to play out when another's family member was killed that way? One PC commits sexual violence against another PC, and despite leaving the game for the session is told on return that this 100% happened in-game no matter their feelings about it? These rules don't address many situations I personally know of having happened. "Common courtesy" out-of-game is nice and all, but those who perpetrate these sorts of behaviors tend to argue "oh it's all in-character" and blame everyone else for "being unable to handle" reality vs. game separation. In LARPing communities, we call this "bleed"--and it's pretty universally recognized that it's essentially impossible to 100% compartmentalize, hence most LARPs having extensive safety tools. Big red flag against any player or GM who values a minute of provocative description over the mental peace of their friends and fellow players. These "tools" do allow for the GM to communicate things at the beginning of the campaign, but there is no opportunity for the players to communicate anything they are concerned about--nor is there any way for things to be resolved if the GM didn't communicate properly (far more likely than not). My personal thing is that I can't hear vomiting sounds (acted out or sound effects) or listen to a vivid description of vomiting without actually vomiting myself--but these rules don't account for this or many other situations, so woe to the carpet of whoever is hosting game I guess. Normally, this comes up during a session zero using actual safety tools, so it generally works out. Finally, according to this, game > campaign > all else; if I want that experience, I'll just play a video game. For GMs that value the campaign above the players, just go write a book already.

Then again, maybe everybody should read this; that way, if you join a game where the GM introduces these tools, you can know to steer clear.

Hi DM Bluddworth,

I originally paid $0 to pull this down and look at it, because I saw it referenced on a site called GeekNative.com, an article by an Andrew Girdwood called "RPG safety has always been important: A review of Safety Tools of the OSR Table" (I don't know if I can post URLs here, can I?).

I read his article, I read your document. ... I then posted a comment at the article's site which basically said how dishonestly the article author was misrepresenting your document as a justification for the new breed of Safety Tools. Yes, I pointed out that your article's page 7 specifically says "I believe they were not needed" and the point about the Tools being abused for the tyranny of the one.

... I'm stunned the comment post got approved on the site because I used phrases like "the comparison is ridiculous", "your logic is dangerously bad".

... and then I came back to DriveThru in order to pay AUD$10 for your document because damn, your article is definitively better than the unpleasantly dishonest website plumping it. To be fair, so would biological waste, so let me be clearer - your document is great.

If you want to write a screed about how kids these days are ruining gaming, post a series of angry tweets like the rest of us.

This is a bad faith effort in addressing something that is a really interesting question. There are questions about what the best practices around merging OSR style games with "saftey tools." They're not inherently opposed, but the interaction between the two is unexplored. I really wanted to see that. Maybe there are things to do differnetly. This is not that exploration.

Even if absolutely correct, even if you ought to, as the book suggests, get people who invoke such tools to quit your game, this is a disingenuious way of promoting that idea, a pay what you want strawman argument largely for a readership who can pat themselves on the back afterwards and claim the same self-rigthetousness that they assert their opposite are weilding towards them.

I write this review not for the author of this pdf, but as a warning for other people that may stumble upon this by accident and decide to purchase it because of its low price, without additional research into its background. For the record, I got this along with a couple of other pdfs that contain "zero level" or "level zero" in their description, not because I get off on pastoral Euro-nationalism. Although, while we're at it, the picture on the front page of the module has nothing to do with the "adventure" itself.

This module is written for system MYFAROG. If you are unaware of this system, you shouldn't feel bad about it, you could say it's pretty... kvlt. For example, I have some familiarity with roleplaying games, and more than a passing familiarity with heavy metal music, but even I was unaware that one Varg Vikernes authored an RPG system. In case you did not grow up in early 00s surrounded by teenage edgelords from low-income families, you might want to google that name for a fun read about murder, mayhem, Mayhem, church burning, and somewhat underwhelming, albeit very influential, black metal. Today, Varg Vikernes is most known not as an RPG author, but as an outspoken white supremacist. That's not me being hyperbolic, the guy literally espoused Nazism during the 90s, and these days he talks to "white Europeans" who should return to "native European values". The mainstream media seems a bit ignorant of the nuances of his beliefs though, and tends to simply refer to him as 'Norwegian neo-Nazi', which seems apt enough, though unfair to Norway, since they really don't want anyting to do with him.

The reason why I'm mentioning this is not because I think the author of this "module" is a neo-Nazi himself. I do believe that, because I can't think of any other reason why anyone would want to associate with this rubbish, but I can't be bothered to research it, nor do I particularly care. I also don't do it because I think the pdf should be taken down. I'm big on freedom of expression, and I feel RPGs, especially indie RPGs, are a great medium to explore unpopular topics and beliefs, in a provocative and, why not, offensive way. I mention it because I think you should be aware of it before purchasing this. Have no doubt, both MYFAROG and this module provide a mythical nationalist setting which serves as a backdrop for some thinly-veiled Nazi ideology.

I also have a big problem with presentation of "The Dawning of Thule" on this website not only relating to its background, but content as well, so here's the outline of the contained "adventure", as recommended by the author:

• PCs are leading a group of 7 to 8 year old boys, on a night in which they perform a ritual to 'honor the dead';
• these boys paint themselves as corpses;
• then they go to the graveyard;
• then they get naked, and remain such for the remainder of the adventure;
• then they slay a cow on a burial mound;
• then they go into a bear's cave to try to sneak by him, or fight him, and get a thingy from its cave;
• if they survive, they... did well? they get a warm glass of milk at dawn? not really sure about the rationality of any of this, maybe because I'm not connected with my "white European" roots enough.

Considering there's only 4 pages in the pdf, the adventure description is not much more detailed than that but there are some useful bells and whistles, such as tips on how to replace your naked 7yo who might have been mangled to death and/or devoured by a bear with another. Handy.

As I said, I'm usually really into artsy stuff. Progressive or not. "The Dawning of Thule" is not artsy. It's not experimental nor ambitious nor provocative. Once you know what it's about, it's just an attempt at PG13 version of FATAL, and as such, kinda stale.

Good common sense ideas rather than the unnecessary and counterproductive safety tools that are proliferating.