Roleplaying games (RPGs) offer the opportunity to explore and experience challenging situations and perspectives through characters that are not necessarily reflective of one's actual self. RPGs may involve intense emotional conflicts, life-or-death situations, and unhealthy environments, which can be challenging to deal with in real life. In RPGs, the premise and expectations of the game should be agreed upon by all players to ensure a fun and safe experience.

Consent is at the core of this idea, and it is essential to agree on the story's aspects to make it a fun and enjoyable experience for all. Alchemy has features built into the platform to help keep the gamemaster informed on soft and hard limits of certain topics as well as allow them to service content warnings to their players and game spectators. These settings improve safety when using the platform and boost transparency with both players and spectators to ensure everyone feels comfortable at the table.

In This Article

Safety limits are important as they define the boundaries of which sensitive topics a story can cover or how they can be covered. In Alchemy, safety limits can be set within an Alchemy profile. To open the safety modal, select the account's profile picture in the bottom left and navigate to the 'Safety' tab in the modal. The modal should look something like this.

In Alchemy, lines and veils are used to define a spectrum of comfort players have around a particular topic. These terms are from the Consent in Gaming Checklist (written by Ron Edwards) and are defined as follows.

Within this modal, all players can define their own personal lines and veils through selecting the arrow on the right side of the field and selecting any of the prepopulated types of content. Additionally, clicking elsewhere in the field allows for the player to define a custom line or veil not from the list that is added once they select enter on their keyboard.

Once the selections are saved through clicking the Floating Action Button, the lines and veils will be saved to the Alchemy profile. These limits will be automatically applied to any game joined as a player and will appear for all players and gamemasters to view anonymously.

Safety limits indicated privately by each player can be viewed by all players in a game. To view the safety modal in a game, select the Gear Icon and select the 'Safety Tools' option from the menu.

When a player views this tab, they will see the following modal.

This modal will display all of the indicated lines & veils of all players in the game as well as content warnings indicated by the Gamemaster. All players in the game can access this modal at any time and each player's specific selections are anonymized so nobody is aware of a specific person's lines or veils.

The X-Card is a safety tool commonly used across many TTRPG tables that allows for any player in the game to anonymously signal to the rest of the table that the direction of the narrative is making them feel uncomfortable. This allows the table to acknowledge where they are and shift the narrative away from the problematic content. Within a game, all players and gamemasters have access to the X-Card.

When something uncomfortable is happening within a narrative, a player can enter the game's options menu by selecting the gear icon beneath their player bar. This menu will have an 'X-Card' option they can select.

Once selected, the player will receive a notification that the X-Card has been sent.

Everyone else in the game will receive a pop-up notification indicating that someone is uncomfortable with the subject matter.

More information about using the X-Card can be found in the Consent in Gaming Checklist by Ron Edwards.

When viewing this same modal as a Gamemaster (by selecting the Gear Icon and selecting the 'Safety Tools' menu option), it will look slightly different.

This page looks largely similar to what players see from their view with the addition of the 'Settings' header and the fields beneath it.

If the game's content may not be suitable for all players for reasons where mature themes can potentially be explored, Matured Content can be toggled. This will tag the game as mature in the game card for all to see when viewing the game's information.

The Gamemaster has the ability to add content warnings to their game. Content warnings allow for all players and spectators to be aware of any themes the gamemaster feels is appropriate to warn them about before they can view the game. When one or more content warnings have been selected by the gamemaster, a screen like this will appear for anyone who attempts to join or spectate that game moving forward.