I want to take a moment to discuss my thoughts and theories about content in my games, which is to say these ideas that are not meant to be taken to any degree to be me telling other people how they should align their games. This is not even a description of the kind of content with which I will engage, consume, and enjoy. I just have a few basic rules and concepts that act as kind of a guiding principle to the kind of stories I write and play here.

I am a big fan of horror, weird fiction, and mysteries and those genres to encroach upon most things I post, though sometimes it is subtle. Even outside of those genres, there are often elements of action, paranoia, stress, and weirdness. Violence, monsters, and body horror are pretty frequent.

However, I appreciate that not everyone has the same tolerance as me [going both ways, there are things I have little stomach for that others would consider fine] and hence this page.

The Characters I Play

My characters—as in the characters I actually play as central the campaign—lean towards the good-hearted types where even if they are bastards they will still risk their lives to save others and will rarely just enter into murder-death-kill mode unless they are threatened. NPCs are more varied and there is a vast spectrum in their behavior.

While it would be incorrect to say that my characters are anything like a real reflection of myself [they tend to be a lot more capable than myself, and often a bit younger], I do try to play characters that approach a general sense of respect and caring that I can appreciate. It is my fantasy afterall.

Authority is often questioned. People punch up and not down. Bad guys are sometimes converted. All that.

That being said, a character played here should not necessarily be considered as me fully promoting on condoning all their actions [I mean, I don’t even condone going into strange, dark tunnels by torchlight, for starters]. Likewise, a character’s actions are not always condemning the opposite.

I have “Doug Notes” with most every post where I actually discuss my thoughts. There and only there should you actually blame me for being a silly ass. The rest is just fiction somewhat aided by dice rolls and random oracles. I mean, you can blame me for being a silly ass if you want, even outside of those notes. I don’t blame you.

Content Warnings, Lines, and Veils

I try and include a content warning for every in-game post. I do not always make it, and sometimes I miss obvious things, but this is a personal project and sometimes mistakes happen. Apologies in advance.

This is the case even when the content really needs no warning. Solo play is a vast field and people have different lines/veils. I cannot say I will flag everything that might bother someone but I at least try to be honest.

Sometimes I do post some warnings with the air of jocularity. This is not to mock those bothered by such things. It is simply the way I write. Sometimes the most severe things are given the most sarcastic glance.

WITH THAT BEING SAID, THIS PAGE WILL BE NAMING SOME TRIGGER WARNINGS. Just a head’s up.

Despite the horror, weird, and mystery themes that frequently provide a back-end of posts there a few topics I consider my lines/veils and rarely get any mention or direct acknowledgement unless I feel like there is not only a great reason for it but that the story necessitates it.

Some of these topics include, but are not limited to: rape, sexual assault, violence against pets/animals, cruelty towards young children, and other forms of sustained abuse. When these topics do surface, I acknowledge them in the commentaries of each post and keep their mention brief.

I am not a big fan of games where one species or another character class/type is deemed “automatically evil.” Some less sentient entities like bugs or beasts might violate this for simplicity but even then.

Themes like racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia are largely (but not entirely) ignored. This includes my more villainous characters who might do dastardly things but I keep specifics vague and rarely approach any “-ism”. I refuse to downplay their aspects or real life impacts—and those impacts are massive—but I am also trying to build fun fantasy worlds.

Of course, there will be exceptions. I just start from a place of trying to tell the story without these things.

Sex and Intimacy

I am not great at writing/playing sexy time scenes and it sometimes feels weird to have sexy time scenes in my solo-play (a personal preference). The rare instance in which it comes up I am apt to wink-wink-nod-nod it and move on rather than dwell. I have no issue with consenting adults having the time of their life, it just makes me feel weird to try and add too many details to my play sessions.

And yes, I am sure there are tables and oracles for that.

Ableism and Depictions of Struggle

I am disabled in real life due to an unfortunate hiking accident so sometimes playing characters that can just freely run around, run up stairs, walk for miles, etc is my own way to escape my own issues. I miss hiking and such so characters are prone to go places that require me to look at beautiful art of nature scenery to get into the mood. It is nice.

It is hard to have some high action, fantasy elements without touching upon ableism (in a world where some people have magical abilities and others get +4 to every DEX roll, it can be a quick leap to what a “Level 0 NPC” means in game world terms). I strive to avoid any sort of quality judgements about people in these worlds that have different life stories. Sometimes it hard to balance mechanics with the characters described by those mechanics. I try.

I play enough Lovecraftian and cosmic horror tinged things that a few phrases like “going mad,” “descent into insanity,” or such show up semi-often but I avoid, as best I can, anything like a realistic depiction or value judgement of real-life mental issues. Some exceptions would be things like grieving, depression, and social anxiety because I have had experiences with those—including therapy—but even then I try to avoid speaking for everyone’s grief or social issues. A few things like autism, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and others are almost actively avoided because they are way too easy to use as easy plot points and my experience is second-hand.

Queerness in my characters

I am a pansexual, cis, white male. My spouse is somewhere between transitioning and non-binary at the moment.

I fully support queer rights.

My game worlds—no matter the genre, time period, or general content/storyline—are considered openly queer-accepting as a default. Queer characters are ok. As are cis and hetero characters. There is very little to no dichotomy between such in my games.

Comments on sexuality and gender besides statement of fact tend to the rare and it is even rarer that it might show up as negative comment. This includes being open to gender-identity, asexuality, and polyamory.

Characters are usually presented as being whatever gender identity they choose without further comment. It only shows up in more detail if there is a good reason to add more detail.

Again, there might be exceptions.

Character Death

Character death happens but I only occasionally play the sort of game where character death should be assumed to be frequent or any kind of mechanical or story goal. Different campaigns will draw different lines. In some, most even, of my campaigns, any character “death” is more akin to a temporary and sometimes complicated set-back than an actual death.

Similarities to the Real World

Some of my stories take place in “the real world.” The majority take place in obvious fantasy worlds that might be partially or very nearly entirely based on the real world.

Virtually any character, name, place, event, piece of media, object, scientific law, rule, regulation, custom, et cetera should be considered more a facsimile than attempt to be 100% factual. A band might show up but the release date for their hit album is wrong. Sometimes this is me making a mistake. In other cases, it is part of the fiction.

This is especially true in the “Alabama Weird” stories. Which is sort of the real world, but also stories where the Gnoles exist, where Cresthill exists, where Lovecraft was only wrong insomuch as he moved some events that happened around Alabama to New England. etc.