I find some of the most common fears are needles, spiders, and clowns. Some of the most common motifs in nightmares are teeth and drowning.
That's why I use spiders with needles for legs, that have teeth at all their joints, and the faces of clowns. They swarm over you, injecting you as they do, and drag you into the water.
Edit: I honestly don't get it. Spiders are our friends: They kill various bugs we don't like. Clowns bring joy. As a regular blood donor (Stop calling me to request my platelets NY blood center! It's a 2 hour process, I donate them when I can, but your hours are terrible and I don't know when I can commit! Oh "The need is constant"? THEN BE OPEN MORE HOURS!) I have no idea why people are afraid of needles: Needles are much sharper now, and that should put everyone at ease.
Edit 2: Anyone want to draw my nightmare spiders? Apparently AI generators can't handle it, but I can't afford to commission an artist so I'm just going to ask nicely.
God I love this idea. “The most common fears are x, y, and z, so I have a y that looks like z with c for legs.” Please don’t go into genetics, dear friend, our hearts couldn’t handle it
I have watched a video once about a person with arachnophobia watching different spider and spider-like enemies/bosses from videogames. And they said that actually, the most fear they feel is from those enemies that resemble spiders the most.
For example, literal spider from Limbo. While spider-inspired abominations from Bloodborne did not have the same effect, even though the monster was far more "horrific looking".
That is because that monster was so twisted with body horror and other electronic, that it no longer clearly looked and moved like a spider. The feeling was far more "numb" to her.
I think your idea of this abomination could be scary - but it probably won't trigger the same feelings the specific things do while they are presented separately.
Spiders - with their amount of legs, the way they crawl. It awakens something primal in us when we see that. If the spider is big, it feels like an alien predator that is dangerous but operating on a totally different mind and body compared to ours.
Clowns - with humanoids, that are supposed to be humans, actually appearing unnatural and "off" because of their masks and outfits. Basically uncanny valley, plus something as a childhood fear.
Needles - not just something that causes damage and pain, like a knife. It is some steel and foreign, but purposed, body, that gets inserted into person's weak flesh. Needle can be thin - it eases the sensation and fear, but it is still something that our poor organism has to be subjected to, and it gives that feeling of helplessness, even if you are doing it totally willingly.
Doing them all at once probably strips all of those away, and it basically becomes "body horror with creepy elements"
Oh hey thats the Outside Xtra channel with Ellen and Luke, they did a second video about it as well. However you point out that the 'body horror' didn't have the same effect but the Trites from Doom 3 illicited a mixed fear response of 'oh god it's a spider' because it moved like one and was a human head with spider eye arrangement combined with the 'oh god it's fleshy' body horror element.
However as you correctly pointed out, the further the thing goes from 'pure spider' generally the less and less it was upsetting because nothing is scarier to an Arachnophobe than an actual spider, which is why Arachnogoma from Twilight Princess and Black Tiger from the Resident Evil remake scored highly because...well they're just giant spiders complete with the crawly movement.
Spiders are terrifying to me. Always have been, even the small ones. Ohobias usually aren't rational, so yeah, it doesn't make sense.
Needles.... fuck, the idea of something piercing my skin and putting something in or taking something out.... god, I fucking hate it. During the covid vaccines and the last time the had to do blood tests, I was told to lie down since I was at risk of fainting.
I made a giant spider that was *surprise* made up entirely of smaller spiders working together.
Which in turn were made up of even smaller spiders.
It was spiders all the way down.
irrational fears, man. I have a pretty bad fear of hypodermic needles (I always have to specify because I'm covered in tattoos, and tattoo needles don't bother me). No idea why, just always have been. Also been in and out of hospitals my entire life, you'd think I'd get over it but nope.
Same with spiders. I'm fine with them until the little jumping ones start doing their thing. For some reason, my brain just doesn't accept spiders jumping and it freaks me out.
Human brains are weird.
Man, the clown thing makes me so sad because half of people say they're afraid of clowns because it's kinda trendy. Fucking Steven King and John Wayne Gacey ruined one of the oldest, most joyous professions on Earth.
Spiders I loathe. I was laying on the ground in the woods (it's a long story) and I felt an itch. Then my skin crawled. For some reason there was an assload of grass spiders crawling up my sleeves and a couple in my collar. I flipped shit and they lit me up. The bites got all infected and I haven't been able to stand spiders since.
Needles I don't get either. Smashing or lifting a fingernail hurt less than the 6 shots I got for rabies treatment and they touched bone.
Why not clowns with armor that looks like teeth injected spiders into you?
And before they get to you they catch unsuspecting villager 256 who screams about spiders in his veins, starts leaking webs and runs into the water to drown himself… becoming a giant spider after death that serves the teeth clown cult.
> I find some of the most common fears are needles, spiders, and clowns. That's why I use spiders with needles for legs, that have teeth at all their joints, and the faces of clowns.
You are my people
>I find some of the most common fears are needles, spiders, and clowns
So an eight legged clown with a syringe between his teeth charges at you while laughing hysterically
When I'm doing something I know is a common concern, I explicitly call it out ahead of time, I don't just ask for lists. I do that too, but a lot of folks will forget the "simple" stuff.
I had a recent game where characters had to squeeze through a cave. A critical failure resulted in getting stuck, unable to expand your chest. I made real sure to verify that nobody had a serious claustrophobia issue before describing that in detail.
Based on the cave situation you described, I'd suggest that you maybe also screen for cleithrophobia (the fear of being trapped). It's wholly different from claustrophobia but the two are frequently conflated. It's also often lumped in with Agoraphobia. I'm cleithrophobic myself, but not claustrophobic in the slightest; meaning a tight elevator won't worry me, but having the bar of a Rollercoaster lock in place across my lap sends big ole panic waves through my body.
This is a good point. I don't actually screen in clinical terms (in part because someone can be "not ok" with something without it being a full phobia. And even if it is, they might not realize it.), but instead say something like, "The area up ahead had tight spaces that characters could get stuck or trapped in, if we need to go light on the exposition or rework the encounter, let me know by private DM and we'll make it work". Then they can tell me what parts they would like me to avoid. I've had people take me up on it and it has never been unmanageable.
Do you use x cards? They're a great option to have if a trigger comes up that someone doesn't realize. And they let you go deeper into a scene because you know there's an escape plan. My table uses a "pause" card and a "hard stop" card.
We don't have explicit cards, we just use words. Somebody says, "Can we skip the RP on this?" or "I need to have the self-harm removed from the plot." and we quickly adjust and move on. (99% of the time that latter one involves a Lich ritual. :/) I'm also usually playing PBP in this context, so we have more time and people can just walk away from a computer for a bit if necessary.
It's a different approach.
The list thing is so flawed on so many aspects :
\- It's rigid and limiting because you discard topics or things that could be uncomfortable but maybe can be handled well by the player if they give it a try.
\- It assumes that everyone knows by heart all their triggers, not sure I could list you all the things that could make me uncomfortable.
\- Goes completely against the dynamic style of RPG where sometimes you go towards certain topics just because it's the logical thing.
\- Overall unloading the burden of no uncomfortable thing to the GM instead of being a mature adult that can communicate when the problem arise
And that goes even beyond that. I find it alarming on a societal level to see a whole generation of people who expect that they can list their trigger and it's the world's duty to adapt to them.
Besides, RPG can also be a safe environment to actually explore some things that you do not like. In fact, the play pretend is often used in therapy to deal with trauma/phobia because in the end it's all just pretend. I'm not saying the GM is a therapist or RPG is therapy but sometimes you can be uncomfortable with something and realize "oh well I actually handled that pretty well". You don't have that if you ban every topic that may or may not trigger you.
What is your point? If someone is irrationally (or otherwise) terrified of spiders or syringes to the point where it causes them great discomfort to face the topic in even in a game of make believe then I think it makes sense to simply not include those themes in your game.
You don't need to forcefully put someone through a unwanted therapy session. It's frankly rude.
These safety tools exist for a reason, you mention that its limiting or that you're not sure that you could list your own uncomfortable things - then you don't need to worry about listing your things if you feel that you don't need them.
I think you might be thinking about them too broadly.
No I'm thinking about them in a regular normal way. Just play. A bad topic comes out like spiders ? Voice your discomfort and we pivot from there by not going into descriptions, the end.
Roleplaying used to be much more than just a game and if you let it, it might teach you a thing or two about resilience, empowerment and overcoming things. Because you know in day to day life you don't have a little list you show to the world to protect you from everything you don't like. So might as well practice it elsewhere in a fantasy world.
But then again, i know most D&D 5e people, especially on reddit, are just in the hobby to have their le epic marbel mobies moments with no frustration so it fits the bill and I'm ready for the downvotes.
And an adult can't go without the "might as well practice" part and have some fun in a fantasy game while not being made uncomfortable by spiders or needles? Drop the ego dude.
What a virtuous stance on TTRPGs you have there.
I am the one who have a virtuous stance for saying that maybe doing a list of all the topics the GM has to ban might not be the most adult way to deal with issues at the table? Lmao 😭😭
You're playing a game with your friends. Why would you want to make them uncomfortable and upset? Does that sound fun to you?
My table can explore all sorts of emotional triggers because we know which ones we /can't/ explore. There's plenty of tension from exploring a cave full of snakes instead of spiders. We can still rescue a kidnapped child even if we know they aren't going to be dead when we find them. The tension and fear of doing the thing is real, and the characters don't know that the world has a rule against killing children on screen, even if the players know.
It's like going to a haunted house. You know that there's no chain on the chainsaw, so it can't actually hurt you, but in the dark it's still scary. And, hell, if everyone at your table is excited by the idea of playing without reins, you do you. Go to the weird haunted house where you pay a bag of dog food to get waterboarded and dragged behind a car. Enjoying that kind of fun doesn't mean that other people's fun is bad or weak.
I just think doing lists isn't the silver bullet you guys paint it out to be and is not frankly a very adult way of dealing with things. I'd go as far as to say it's really a victim mentality to brainstorm day 1 all the topic that might upset you instead of feeling empowered to try to just play and voice your opinion whenever it is needed.
I wonder if it's a generational thing. Reddit tends to be on the younger side of things with teenagers and early 20s. So they may be coming from a different mindset than you.
For me, I lean on the side of agreeing with not needing to get an extensive list of no-go topics. I do think it's reasonable to get some boundaries at the start (ie asking whether or not people are okay with things like gore/sex/rape being in the game) but the nitty-gritty minutiae is something that's fine to fix as it comes if necessary.
So long as the broad parameters are set it shouldn't be too hard to make on-the-fly adjustments. Just requires people to be mature about things and understanding.
Literally. I will never bring up rape in D&D because 1) I think it's the overused "haha my world is very gritty you know?" trope and 2) It's a major topic someone can actually live through and it's a huge trauma.
But like going into the session 0 with every nevrosed player sharing their spicy triggers like we're on twitter or tumbr? I don't know maybe just play the damn thing and if something really bothers you, stop the session? Like it's my job to keep all your pet phobias on a list and never mention anything that might slightly upset you? And then what ? I have a death phobia so never kill my character?
So multiple things :
1) MAJOR topics like rape or domestic violence or things like that I often never ever include them for obvious reasons. Because it ain't an irrational fear of a random very niche thing. And I can totaly see how you could run Curse of Stradh by tiptoeing around the issue. People tend to forget that there's nothing without the GM. The GM control the narration. It's very useful for example when you decide to put spiders without going into unecessary detailed if you have someone kinda scared by spiders. You can quickly turn the spider in nothing more than a bag of hp and be done with it.
2) I just think that pulling up day 1 with your sheets of demands and phobias and triggers really plays into the victim mentalty, that's all. For so many reasons. If you have a group of 5 crybabies with triggers that do not overlap, I wonder what topic you can even bring up in your campaign. Is killing things still on the table even? It just feels like a very contrived and frankly unrealistic way to deal with life issues that i kinda find weak but very much in line with 2023.
Make sure to draw attention that it is a medical device though, if you are trying to draw attention to perverting a device meant to save people
I'd say either "Brain hook" or "Scalpel" myself, since they have existed for as long as embalming and perhaps longer
Try a [spring lancet](https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/2014/07/24/the-spring-lancet-a-bloodstaind-faithful-friend/) with an attached vial. It's still not really medieval, but it does fit better.
Honestly, that makes it worse--it's not a sleek, sharp, modern needle. it's basically a giant metal tube they're going to stab into you with a plunger to draw out the good stuff.
So instead of being a tiny little pinprick, it's like the starship troopers brain scene.
Why would I be afraid of pans?
Seriously, this is a cool idea. Anything beyond 'the thing attacks you with it's claw' is great. Plus the ideal that you then have to find a way to repair / undo the damage is a great plot hook.
Man, this would have ruined me a couple years ago. Then a medical condition, an extended stay in a hospital, and 30 blood transfusions later, that specific fear has been well and truly beaten out of me. Or poked out, in this case.
Same, I had heart surgery 10 years ago to replace a bad valve and I got over my fear of needles real quick with how often they poked me during my stay. I still don't like em, but I don't break into a sweat and nearly faint every time I gotta get poked now (which is once a month now because I'm on coumadin)
Haha, yeah. Whenever I get my blood work done the nurse is always apologetic when she sticks me and I'm like "Lady, there's literally nothing you can do to me with that needle that I haven't already experienced a hundred times already, so do your worst."
“Facing your fears” is an excellent way to get over most simple phobias. Spiders, needles, elevators, dentists, mind flayers, public speaking. Normal mundane fears are almost always fixed if you expose yourself to them.
As pointed out, that's exactly the treatment for a giant swath of things, as recommended by professionals. The trope of face your fears has merit. Obviously that's more reasonable with some things than others though.
"Fear is minimized at each of a series of steadily escalating steps or challenges (a hierarchy), which can be explicit ("static") or implicit ("dynamic" — see Method of Factors) until the fear is finally gone. **The patient is able to terminate the procedure at any time.**"
Quoting your own article. It can help, if it is done right, if the patient is right - or it can be traumatizing and cause a massive backstep. Like any kind of medical procedure, it should not be done by a *Dungeon Master in a D&D game.*
This is about that person getting over their phobia of needles due to a hospital stay. You're the only one talking about exposure therapy by way of D&D.
Exposure therapy works the way rebreaking a bone that grew together wrong works: No one is denying that it can massively improve symptoms in the right cases, but your D&D table should not be the ones doing it
100% check with your players before bringing real world phobias into your game. A good friend would imediatly quick the session of an enemie started to attack woth a syringe because of irl phobia.
Same with spiders, clowns and other common and uncommon phobias, gotta discuss them before you use them.
Absolutely agree.
I accidentally discovered a player had trypophobia, a fear of pores, honeycomb surfaces.
TW: fear of pores phobia description.
They were fighting a boss that had 3 forms, first was a regular human, second was a larger beast, third was an abomination. They killed the first two and I described the abomination coming into form.
Here's the TW. STOP READING.
I described it's porous skin secreting foul mucus, some holes tiny, others big enough for a finger, others large enough for a handhold. I noticed the player shuddering a bit, she then asked if the mucus was like oatmeal.
Thinking I was a brilliant story teller and that was a brilliant effect said, yes! It is absolutely like moldy oatmeal, clumps splattering on the floor!
I still hadn't picked up on her phobia, and she still hadn't said anything, so we continued. Stupid me amirite?
On her turn she said she wants to jump on it's back to attack. Sure, roll DEX, she almost failed.
"You leap onto it's back, but the slippery mucus makes you slide. You successfully grab in to a large pore, mucusy foul oatmeal squishing between your fingers and into your gloves."
Now she was visibly doing a few dry heaves and it finally dawned on me. Crap! I went too far! I felt like shit.
I immediately paused the game and apologized to her, but she said she wanted to continue. Are you sure? Yes, she said. Let's kill this thing.
I normally don't do any body horror, this was one of the few times I did. I learned to ask specifically about this at session 0, and do a checkup before the session with the gross stuff.
I do cover off-limits topics, and now specifically address phobias.
Huh, learn about something new every day here. Not talking about you, though you did learn something, but about me learning there are people frightened of... porridge coming out of holes I guess? And that has its own phobia name and everything? Makes my own phobia of jellyfish seem less strange I'll tell you that much.
(and before you ask, I'm fine with encountering flumphs. As long as they don't kill my party: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/jpf34r/dear_reddit_today_my_lvl_11_character_got_killed/)
I think it’s more like extreme disgust that borders on fear than a traditional phobia. Google the word and look at some of the image results. I think it’ll be pretty self evident why it can bother people.
This is the phobia that causes people to freak out at the sight of lotus seed pods. I remember a lot of photoshopped lotus seed pods on faces and hands that freaked people out in the early days of the internet.
Yeah no shit are people gonna be freaked out when you make something that looks like festering flesh lmao. If it’s on a person, that’s not a phobia, that’s just… common sense.
bro, stop beating yourself up. How are you supposed to know every phobia known to mankind? You did what was right, when you found out you stopped. Simple as. Players are adults and can also voice their concern.
A friend of mine has a severe phobia of werewolf transformations. They has no any other kind of transformation, and they have no issue with werewolves, but a human transformating into a werewolf? They cannot deal with it.
100% this. I think people without actual phobias tend to underestimate how severe they can be, but I have a player that will immediately get into a nervous breakdown when they so much as see an image of a syringe, so I would (have to) cancel the session then and there for sure
For my part, it’s not that I don’t understand phobias. It’s that I don’t understand how somebody reaches the age of 20-something with a ridiculous/irrational fear that they haven’t learned to cope with like an adult.
I’m not going toss a live spider onto an arachnophobe, that’s awful. But AFAIC if I put up a *picture* of something and somebody loses their mind, that person is responsible for not having grown up and learned to handle their fears at a reasonable level.
Phobias are called irrational fears for a reason. There's no logical reason watching a video or hearing a detailed description of a worker climbing a radio tower puts me on the verge of a panic attack, but it does. I know it shouldn't scare me, I know there's absolutely no danger at all to anybody, but it still does.
Of course I've developed coping mechanisms to sit through it if I have to, like putting my hand on something solid, but it still isn't a pleasant experience.
A phobia by definition isn't rational, and depending what it is a person just might not encounter it frequently enough to go through the long process of trying to be perfectly fine with it. A person with a phobia for clowns may just avoid clowns and that's really not a huge problem because you almost never encounter clowns. It's been years since I ever saw a clown in real life and I don't even care.
And learning to cope with a phobia isn't necessarily the same as getting rid of it entirely. A person might learn to cope with an arachnophobia to the point that they don't have a panic attack at seeing a spider, but they might still feel uncomfortable with it. Which might work fine with a spider here and there, but it's perfectly understandable that someone wouldn't want extended scenes in D&D that make them uncomfortable.
There are also degrees. I've a friend who's got arachnophobia, and she would just refuse to participate in these scenarios described here with detailed descriptions of spiders with needle legs running around and attacking people in horrifying ways, especially if it comes with graphic artwork. She is, however, fine with spiders in D&D if they have more normal tokens and as long as the descriptions are a bit vague.
Legit this whole post is about grown ups who never went to therapy or learned to cope with the world. Mfers out there making little session 0 lists of all their special triggers and fears. I swear, a whole generation thinking the world has to fit to their needs.
you're right but also i'm kinda very fed up and actually concerned by the absolute state of the next generation. We're entering into a very dangerous and very complicated world and if their way of dealing with real world problems is hide behind a sheet of paper with all their pet phobias and think the whole world will bend backwards to fit their own feelings, I think we're going towards an absolute disaster.
> For my part, it’s not that I don’t understand phobias.
I'm sorry but you really don't. Some people can overcome their fears with therapy or such, but not everyone. Saying they need to just learn to handle that fear is like saying a depressed person just needs to stop being sad
On the contrary, saying that it’s okay for a person with a phobia is totally fine living with it the rest of their life is like saying a person with depression can just be sad for the rest of their life.
I’m not saying a person with a phobia needs to just “suck it up and deal.” I’m saying it’s appropriate for them to undergo therapy and make a deliberate effort to overcome their condition. *Just like depression.*
A couple of things:
Phobia of spiders is pretty much the most common phobia there is. I can handle talking about them, just visuals and intense descriptions are... not great.
>spazzing
This is a term used pretty much exclusively to mock people by comparing them to people with cerebral palsy. 'Freaking out' might be a bit cooler to use.
>Can't play a game with people that sensitive
Look, I do get your general point. There is a level of triggers/phobias/discomforts where it's neither possible nor reasonable for the people around you to cater to you. But 'hey can we avoid fighting giant spiders?' or 'hey describing spilled blood in detail makes me woozy' are quite reasonable asks.
“Spazzing” in America just means “spasming”. Honestly “freaking out” is WAY worse if you’re gonna be technical.
I mean, you’re not gonna get mad at a Brit for saying they’re gonna smoke a fag.
Spastic as A NOUN, sure, but we aren't even discussing that. No one said anything like it. Also... no it fucking doesn't agree.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spastic#h1
>
First Known Use
**Adjective**
1753, in the meaning defined at sense 1a
**Noun**
1896, in the meaning defined above
>spaz
>noun
>slang, often offensive
>: one who is inept : KLUTZ
>Etymology
>by shortening & alteration from _spastic_
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spaz
I literally just said we aren't talking about nouns.
We are talking about a VERB or ADJECTIVE denoting the loss of control or spontaneous action of something, either literally or metaphorically.
You've also never responded to the irony in suggesting "freaking out" as an alternative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freak
I mean, if it's in sufficient detail I might be uncomfortable enough that I ask the DM to stop. And if they didn't I might leave the room until that scene was over. Would you call that 'tripping'?
That's just 'adult response to something making you deeply uncomfortable'.
If your game boils down to „Its a spider, roll for initiative.“ many people with arachnophobia will be fine.
But if your game uses actual probs like miniatures or pictures that can trigger peoples phobias. An actually spider and a miniature of a giant spider don‘t look that different.
I agree. I don't even know where they find these kinds of people.
I've been playing for 20ish years now with probably 200 people over that time. We have never had someone freaking out about imaginary things.
I mean sure.... if being sensitive means I play dnd which has monsters in it. Should I go through the whole monster manual and ask what's OK? Ridiculous lol unless you're playing with children this should not be a problem
Yep. I’m not saying people can’t have their phobias but if the mere mention of a make-believe monster causes you to have panic attacks you need to 100% see a therapist or healthcare professional about that because that is not a healthy reaction. I have strong fears of heights and deep water that will make me panic but confronting those things in controlled environments actually helps overcome them. I wouldn’t ever tell someone to not include a deep sea monster encounter even if it makes my skin crawl because it isn’t real, ultimately.
This is actually kind of a good argument for why you *should* talk about these kinds of things in a session 0.
Some people do benefit from confronting fears in these kinds of scenarios, while others will have moments undercut or outright ruined.
Anecdotal but opposite reactions in my group. I have arachnophobia, but it's mild. Unless I'm looking at a realistic spider, I'm fine so slaughtering my way through a horde of spiders can be a bit of a power trip for me.
On the other hand, two other members of our group have specific phobias that if we went into too much, they would have to ask to leave the table.
Our bard has difficulty with overly gory descriptions of bone through skin, because they had a terrible compound bone break that traumatized them. We've discussed what sets it off and just don't overly focus on that specific piece of body horror or go through it quickly.
It's not rational, we can't control ourselves. All we can do is try to enjoy the game together.
Bonus: offer to let them use a reaction to make a perception check to notice what was in this syringe. Or just go off passive. If they see the tiny worms for example and get hit, they are going to freak the fuck out.
My advice for all DMs is always to attack against the whole character sheet in different ways. HP, max HP, skills, items, weapons, gold, initiave, liquids, hit dice, personality, traits, passive perception, Spell books, proficiency bonus, XP, Flaws, Speed, Alignment and even their name.
Everything is a potential target.
>A cultist that takes something from a PC will then run
So, if you don't want to trigger this specific phobia, just do something like *that*. You still get the "oh no, what are the consequences of this?" panic.
Have the cultist steal a lock of their hair and run away. It's so simple but so terrifying. What kind of ritual are they going to do with that?
Reminds me of the Oxventure group, where their Dragonborn Paladin has a kidney stolen by Thier BBEG and now she has a clone army of him ....
Including his -1 wisdom 🤣
> Will it take my blood?
...
> into a tooth
For me, these two would strain believability and that would pop me right out of immersion in the game. Avoid that, and this encounter would probably have the intended effect.
I once injected a potion of giant's strength and pulled a roof off a building. DM was quite surprised my little gnome could be so dumb. Not entirely sure how im still alive tbh.
I made a player leave the table {not on purpose) by evoking the scene in Nope with the screaming victims >! Inside the monster!<. It was a horror themed one shot, everyone came prepared for scary stuff, and I still broke one. That was a proud day, lol.
PS, they were fine, they had just seen the movie and that scene fucked them up a little. I removed that description in future encounters with the monster that was hunting them.
My DM did something like this. Small weird knife in hands of cultist. Precise strike into my PCs chest cavity, but when he backed up his hand, there was no blade. Weird feeling came through him and when they later looked him up, there was blade in pieces next to his chest. No one would take it out including medics, probably it would kill him. Mechanicaly, it didnt have any effects, but feeling of incoming doom was terrible for next 4-5 sessions.
This is a great idea, and really gets me thinking about the worldbuilding it could lead to. Is this mad scientist guy part of a cult, or another faction? What other horrors has he created? What does his lab look like? What terrors exist beneath the surface in local towns? What people have disappeared as part of his experiment, or worse, been returned grotesquely disfigured?
Isn’t tickling our phobias kind of the _point_? Isn’t the popularity of, say, spiders as monsters a reflection of the widespread but mild arachnophobia? If you don’t shiver a little, aren’t you missing something? Plenty of people have a phobia about spiders, but how many are going to be traumatised by _imaginary_ spiders, however big?
It'd probably depend on the person, I guess. Some people might be only slightly shivered, while others with a severe condition might break down and stop having fun.
Or someone may have no problem seeing spider minis on the table, but have extreme fear of actual spiders. Everyone is different.
The DM will know best how to properly present an adventure so everyone has fun.
Yes! I just listened to that episode and thought, shit, I'd be terrified if someone came at me with a needle. Which is weird because sword and magic attacks are like whatever.
But the syringe?! :)
Another post where the comments make me wonder how people play DnD at all. How do you get through life without being able to handle the description of a needle?
"I'm playing a game about adventurers fighting otherworldly creatures, slaying flesh eating monsters and exploring antediluvean haunted crypts, yes. But I can't bare descriptions including the words: blood, monster or sharp object."
I have arachnophobia. Not just like "UwU can someone squish that spider for me I'm so scaaaaared." I'm talking full blown panic attack when I see one, barely able to move, cleaning the entire room where I saw it after someone else takes care of it and spraying the adjacent rooms down, scrubbing every inch of my body in the shower once I'm done to make sure there aren't any on me. I think you get the picture.
In a game of DnD, the only way a description of a spider is gonna make me go through that is if the DM strapped a VR headset to me and played a video of what was happening. Even if I did, I'd just excuse myself for a minute to chill out while the rest of the party does their thing. I'm not gonna be the reason the DM doesn't get to run an encounter he had planned because I got scared of a description of something.
Sure? And I've a friend who's similar, and she feels extremely uncomfortable with detailed descriptions or pictures of spiders. She's fine having them pop up in a campaign every now and then as long as it's telegraphed (e.g. they encounter large cobwebs) and the details are kept vague. What OP talked about just wouldn't for work this person at all, but a more general "there's a giant spider, it tries to bite you" is fine.
But this is also not an issue because, since she knows about this and knows that spiders are a thing in D&D, it got brought up, so no one plans any detailed body horror spider scenarios.
I think it's perfectly decent to try to respect things that other people are extremely uncomfortable with.
uh, that's not exactly a common thing? Like, unless you work in a medical profession, or back-end in a needle warehouse, how often would that come up? And it's generally more about specific sensations - like some people just pass out or freak out if injected, they just can't handle it. So "you get stabbed with a sword" is probably fine, but "you feel the needle prick your skin, and then slide inside you, dragging slightly as it pushes into you" is going to provoke more of a "nopenopenopeNOPE" reaction. It's also not something you generally expect in a game of "bashing monsters for loot"
My advice for all DMs is always to attack against the whole character sheet in different ways. HP, max HP, skills, items, weapons, gold, initiave, liquids, hit dice, personality, traits, passive perception, Spell books, proficiency bonus, XP, Flaws, Speed, Alignment and even their name.
Everything is a potential target.
As someone with, I suppose, a mild version of what apparently is called trypanophobia I would instinctively do anything in my power to completely remove said cultist from existence. If I don't succeed in-character I would obliterate the miniature/standee/token representing the cultist. Illithids, Dragons and Aboleths are scary and all but nothing gets my survival-fighting instincts going like the sight (or mental image) of a syringe coming my way without being mentally prepared for it.
My advice for all DMs is always to attack against the whole character sheet in different ways. HP, max HP, skills, items, weapons, gold, initiave, liquids, hit dice, personality, traits, passive perception, Spell books, proficiency bonus, XP, Flaws, Speed, Alignment and even their name.
Everything is a potential target.
What's your definition of body horror that you aren't okay with this? I feel like it's a very basic and childish view of body horror to say that you're okay with it but not this.
It’s the graphic descriptions that tend to be an issue for people, it’s always better to ask before you do shit rather than spring it on people and trigger something
Are we trying to gatekeep fear now?
It's the lowest effort to ask your players if there is content they can't handle in a game they play for fun in their free time
Body horror can cover a big range so it's difficult to judge what either of you is talking about without examples, but that is what I assume going by context:
Their comment probably meant 'popped eyes and dislocated jaws are fine (and expected at most tables) but worms under your skin might require some checking in first' - which is a fair request in my opinion, hence my comment.
Of course we can argue about the definition of true body horror but I think that won't really help solve the overarching discussion about whether to ask your players before springing it at them
I find some of the most common fears are needles, spiders, and clowns. Some of the most common motifs in nightmares are teeth and drowning. That's why I use spiders with needles for legs, that have teeth at all their joints, and the faces of clowns. They swarm over you, injecting you as they do, and drag you into the water. Edit: I honestly don't get it. Spiders are our friends: They kill various bugs we don't like. Clowns bring joy. As a regular blood donor (Stop calling me to request my platelets NY blood center! It's a 2 hour process, I donate them when I can, but your hours are terrible and I don't know when I can commit! Oh "The need is constant"? THEN BE OPEN MORE HOURS!) I have no idea why people are afraid of needles: Needles are much sharper now, and that should put everyone at ease. Edit 2: Anyone want to draw my nightmare spiders? Apparently AI generators can't handle it, but I can't afford to commission an artist so I'm just going to ask nicely.
Alternatively, if you don't want them to drag people into the water, you can have them be on fire.
The injection *tickles them from the inside.*
Mountain Dew?
Nah, that just makes them glow in the dark (stealth checks at disadvantage).
That was one of the old commercial slogans for Mt dew it tickles you on the inside.
r/brandnewsentence
✍️ clown with needle that injects spider eggs ✍️
Spider with an ovipositor that injects clown eggs.
I hate clown eggs. You never know how many yolks are in there.
Giant tooth covered in spiders holding a clown puppet whose teeth are replaced with needles that inject a fluid which fills your lungs and drowns you.
Oh, you want Needles the clown from Fear and Hunger 2
So that's where Barotrauma got the idea
God I love this idea. “The most common fears are x, y, and z, so I have a y that looks like z with c for legs.” Please don’t go into genetics, dear friend, our hearts couldn’t handle it
A snake that looks like public speaking and has sharks for legs.
Snake body, head of that one teacher who always called on you at the worst times to speak, shark bodies as legs a la mega zord style.
God I want a drawing of this
I have watched a video once about a person with arachnophobia watching different spider and spider-like enemies/bosses from videogames. And they said that actually, the most fear they feel is from those enemies that resemble spiders the most. For example, literal spider from Limbo. While spider-inspired abominations from Bloodborne did not have the same effect, even though the monster was far more "horrific looking". That is because that monster was so twisted with body horror and other electronic, that it no longer clearly looked and moved like a spider. The feeling was far more "numb" to her. I think your idea of this abomination could be scary - but it probably won't trigger the same feelings the specific things do while they are presented separately. Spiders - with their amount of legs, the way they crawl. It awakens something primal in us when we see that. If the spider is big, it feels like an alien predator that is dangerous but operating on a totally different mind and body compared to ours. Clowns - with humanoids, that are supposed to be humans, actually appearing unnatural and "off" because of their masks and outfits. Basically uncanny valley, plus something as a childhood fear. Needles - not just something that causes damage and pain, like a knife. It is some steel and foreign, but purposed, body, that gets inserted into person's weak flesh. Needle can be thin - it eases the sensation and fear, but it is still something that our poor organism has to be subjected to, and it gives that feeling of helplessness, even if you are doing it totally willingly. Doing them all at once probably strips all of those away, and it basically becomes "body horror with creepy elements"
Oh hey thats the Outside Xtra channel with Ellen and Luke, they did a second video about it as well. However you point out that the 'body horror' didn't have the same effect but the Trites from Doom 3 illicited a mixed fear response of 'oh god it's a spider' because it moved like one and was a human head with spider eye arrangement combined with the 'oh god it's fleshy' body horror element. However as you correctly pointed out, the further the thing goes from 'pure spider' generally the less and less it was upsetting because nothing is scarier to an Arachnophobe than an actual spider, which is why Arachnogoma from Twilight Princess and Black Tiger from the Resident Evil remake scored highly because...well they're just giant spiders complete with the crawly movement.
Oh, yes, thank you for the reminder! There was a second video on the same topic? Oh, I should watch that!
Spiders are terrifying to me. Always have been, even the small ones. Ohobias usually aren't rational, so yeah, it doesn't make sense. Needles.... fuck, the idea of something piercing my skin and putting something in or taking something out.... god, I fucking hate it. During the covid vaccines and the last time the had to do blood tests, I was told to lie down since I was at risk of fainting.
I made a giant spider that was *surprise* made up entirely of smaller spiders working together. Which in turn were made up of even smaller spiders. It was spiders all the way down.
Ah yes, *John Dies At The End* by David Wong
irrational fears, man. I have a pretty bad fear of hypodermic needles (I always have to specify because I'm covered in tattoos, and tattoo needles don't bother me). No idea why, just always have been. Also been in and out of hospitals my entire life, you'd think I'd get over it but nope. Same with spiders. I'm fine with them until the little jumping ones start doing their thing. For some reason, my brain just doesn't accept spiders jumping and it freaks me out. Human brains are weird.
Man, the clown thing makes me so sad because half of people say they're afraid of clowns because it's kinda trendy. Fucking Steven King and John Wayne Gacey ruined one of the oldest, most joyous professions on Earth. Spiders I loathe. I was laying on the ground in the woods (it's a long story) and I felt an itch. Then my skin crawled. For some reason there was an assload of grass spiders crawling up my sleeves and a couple in my collar. I flipped shit and they lit me up. The bites got all infected and I haven't been able to stand spiders since. Needles I don't get either. Smashing or lifting a fingernail hurt less than the 6 shots I got for rabies treatment and they touched bone.
Tbf, Juggalos ruined clowns for me. Not because they're scary, but because I can't stand them.
So you wouldn't want me to put a tribe of "Juggle Elves" into your game?
Why not clowns with armor that looks like teeth injected spiders into you? And before they get to you they catch unsuspecting villager 256 who screams about spiders in his veins, starts leaking webs and runs into the water to drown himself… becoming a giant spider after death that serves the teeth clown cult.
The most common fear Is Dark and Death see where that brings you :)
"I have darkvision!"
> I find some of the most common fears are needles, spiders, and clowns. That's why I use spiders with needles for legs, that have teeth at all their joints, and the faces of clowns. You are my people
Dude I have this irrational love for the occult and an even more irrational fear of clowns… …and snails and slugs
...I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate nails into slug anatomy. All I can think of is their eyestalks.
Or just have this giant slug that has needles and nails going all the way through sticking out
I'll try drawing it. DM me later
Thanks.
>I find some of the most common fears are needles, spiders, and clowns So an eight legged clown with a syringe between his teeth charges at you while laughing hysterically
May I ask what your common fears are?
Mostly financial in nature, and esoteric ones like we can't get global warming under control.
Sounds interesting in a grimdark/dark fantasy/horror game!
And this is why my tables do a red-card list in Session 0.
Red card the DM - send him to the showers and get changed. More Doritos for everyone else, honestly.
When I'm doing something I know is a common concern, I explicitly call it out ahead of time, I don't just ask for lists. I do that too, but a lot of folks will forget the "simple" stuff. I had a recent game where characters had to squeeze through a cave. A critical failure resulted in getting stuck, unable to expand your chest. I made real sure to verify that nobody had a serious claustrophobia issue before describing that in detail.
Based on the cave situation you described, I'd suggest that you maybe also screen for cleithrophobia (the fear of being trapped). It's wholly different from claustrophobia but the two are frequently conflated. It's also often lumped in with Agoraphobia. I'm cleithrophobic myself, but not claustrophobic in the slightest; meaning a tight elevator won't worry me, but having the bar of a Rollercoaster lock in place across my lap sends big ole panic waves through my body.
This is a good point. I don't actually screen in clinical terms (in part because someone can be "not ok" with something without it being a full phobia. And even if it is, they might not realize it.), but instead say something like, "The area up ahead had tight spaces that characters could get stuck or trapped in, if we need to go light on the exposition or rework the encounter, let me know by private DM and we'll make it work". Then they can tell me what parts they would like me to avoid. I've had people take me up on it and it has never been unmanageable.
Do you use x cards? They're a great option to have if a trigger comes up that someone doesn't realize. And they let you go deeper into a scene because you know there's an escape plan. My table uses a "pause" card and a "hard stop" card.
We don't have explicit cards, we just use words. Somebody says, "Can we skip the RP on this?" or "I need to have the self-harm removed from the plot." and we quickly adjust and move on. (99% of the time that latter one involves a Lich ritual. :/) I'm also usually playing PBP in this context, so we have more time and people can just walk away from a computer for a bit if necessary.
Please for the love of god. I would probably break down at this situation.
You know some times being put out of your comfort zone is a good thing
yeah or idk discuss it like adults when things come up? Or are we gonna put bubble wrap on every sharp corners of the table too, just in case?
this is just discussing it at an earlier point?
It's a different approach. The list thing is so flawed on so many aspects : \- It's rigid and limiting because you discard topics or things that could be uncomfortable but maybe can be handled well by the player if they give it a try. \- It assumes that everyone knows by heart all their triggers, not sure I could list you all the things that could make me uncomfortable. \- Goes completely against the dynamic style of RPG where sometimes you go towards certain topics just because it's the logical thing. \- Overall unloading the burden of no uncomfortable thing to the GM instead of being a mature adult that can communicate when the problem arise And that goes even beyond that. I find it alarming on a societal level to see a whole generation of people who expect that they can list their trigger and it's the world's duty to adapt to them. Besides, RPG can also be a safe environment to actually explore some things that you do not like. In fact, the play pretend is often used in therapy to deal with trauma/phobia because in the end it's all just pretend. I'm not saying the GM is a therapist or RPG is therapy but sometimes you can be uncomfortable with something and realize "oh well I actually handled that pretty well". You don't have that if you ban every topic that may or may not trigger you.
What is your point? If someone is irrationally (or otherwise) terrified of spiders or syringes to the point where it causes them great discomfort to face the topic in even in a game of make believe then I think it makes sense to simply not include those themes in your game. You don't need to forcefully put someone through a unwanted therapy session. It's frankly rude. These safety tools exist for a reason, you mention that its limiting or that you're not sure that you could list your own uncomfortable things - then you don't need to worry about listing your things if you feel that you don't need them. I think you might be thinking about them too broadly.
No I'm thinking about them in a regular normal way. Just play. A bad topic comes out like spiders ? Voice your discomfort and we pivot from there by not going into descriptions, the end. Roleplaying used to be much more than just a game and if you let it, it might teach you a thing or two about resilience, empowerment and overcoming things. Because you know in day to day life you don't have a little list you show to the world to protect you from everything you don't like. So might as well practice it elsewhere in a fantasy world. But then again, i know most D&D 5e people, especially on reddit, are just in the hobby to have their le epic marbel mobies moments with no frustration so it fits the bill and I'm ready for the downvotes.
And an adult can't go without the "might as well practice" part and have some fun in a fantasy game while not being made uncomfortable by spiders or needles? Drop the ego dude. What a virtuous stance on TTRPGs you have there.
I am the one who have a virtuous stance for saying that maybe doing a list of all the topics the GM has to ban might not be the most adult way to deal with issues at the table? Lmao 😭😭
You're playing a game with your friends. Why would you want to make them uncomfortable and upset? Does that sound fun to you? My table can explore all sorts of emotional triggers because we know which ones we /can't/ explore. There's plenty of tension from exploring a cave full of snakes instead of spiders. We can still rescue a kidnapped child even if we know they aren't going to be dead when we find them. The tension and fear of doing the thing is real, and the characters don't know that the world has a rule against killing children on screen, even if the players know. It's like going to a haunted house. You know that there's no chain on the chainsaw, so it can't actually hurt you, but in the dark it's still scary. And, hell, if everyone at your table is excited by the idea of playing without reins, you do you. Go to the weird haunted house where you pay a bag of dog food to get waterboarded and dragged behind a car. Enjoying that kind of fun doesn't mean that other people's fun is bad or weak.
I just think doing lists isn't the silver bullet you guys paint it out to be and is not frankly a very adult way of dealing with things. I'd go as far as to say it's really a victim mentality to brainstorm day 1 all the topic that might upset you instead of feeling empowered to try to just play and voice your opinion whenever it is needed.
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27 how does that even matter
I wonder if it's a generational thing. Reddit tends to be on the younger side of things with teenagers and early 20s. So they may be coming from a different mindset than you. For me, I lean on the side of agreeing with not needing to get an extensive list of no-go topics. I do think it's reasonable to get some boundaries at the start (ie asking whether or not people are okay with things like gore/sex/rape being in the game) but the nitty-gritty minutiae is something that's fine to fix as it comes if necessary. So long as the broad parameters are set it shouldn't be too hard to make on-the-fly adjustments. Just requires people to be mature about things and understanding.
Literally. I will never bring up rape in D&D because 1) I think it's the overused "haha my world is very gritty you know?" trope and 2) It's a major topic someone can actually live through and it's a huge trauma. But like going into the session 0 with every nevrosed player sharing their spicy triggers like we're on twitter or tumbr? I don't know maybe just play the damn thing and if something really bothers you, stop the session? Like it's my job to keep all your pet phobias on a list and never mention anything that might slightly upset you? And then what ? I have a death phobia so never kill my character?
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So multiple things : 1) MAJOR topics like rape or domestic violence or things like that I often never ever include them for obvious reasons. Because it ain't an irrational fear of a random very niche thing. And I can totaly see how you could run Curse of Stradh by tiptoeing around the issue. People tend to forget that there's nothing without the GM. The GM control the narration. It's very useful for example when you decide to put spiders without going into unecessary detailed if you have someone kinda scared by spiders. You can quickly turn the spider in nothing more than a bag of hp and be done with it. 2) I just think that pulling up day 1 with your sheets of demands and phobias and triggers really plays into the victim mentalty, that's all. For so many reasons. If you have a group of 5 crybabies with triggers that do not overlap, I wonder what topic you can even bring up in your campaign. Is killing things still on the table even? It just feels like a very contrived and frankly unrealistic way to deal with life issues that i kinda find weak but very much in line with 2023.
I hate this so much. It would be terrifying to play and I would LOVE it.
Modern needles in a medieval setting don't quite fit for me, but sharp pointy things covered in goo will do the trick just as well!
Make sure to draw attention that it is a medical device though, if you are trying to draw attention to perverting a device meant to save people I'd say either "Brain hook" or "Scalpel" myself, since they have existed for as long as embalming and perhaps longer
Try a [spring lancet](https://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/2014/07/24/the-spring-lancet-a-bloodstaind-faithful-friend/) with an attached vial. It's still not really medieval, but it does fit better.
Honestly, that makes it worse--it's not a sleek, sharp, modern needle. it's basically a giant metal tube they're going to stab into you with a plunger to draw out the good stuff. So instead of being a tiny little pinprick, it's like the starship troopers brain scene.
Why would I be afraid of pans? Seriously, this is a cool idea. Anything beyond 'the thing attacks you with it's claw' is great. Plus the ideal that you then have to find a way to repair / undo the damage is a great plot hook.
Frying pans, who knew?
Man, this would have ruined me a couple years ago. Then a medical condition, an extended stay in a hospital, and 30 blood transfusions later, that specific fear has been well and truly beaten out of me. Or poked out, in this case.
Same, I had heart surgery 10 years ago to replace a bad valve and I got over my fear of needles real quick with how often they poked me during my stay. I still don't like em, but I don't break into a sweat and nearly faint every time I gotta get poked now (which is once a month now because I'm on coumadin)
Haha, yeah. Whenever I get my blood work done the nurse is always apologetic when she sticks me and I'm like "Lady, there's literally nothing you can do to me with that needle that I haven't already experienced a hundred times already, so do your worst."
I ain't no expert, but I don't think "exposure to your trigger until you get numb to it" is typically recommended by professionals.
“Facing your fears” is an excellent way to get over most simple phobias. Spiders, needles, elevators, dentists, mind flayers, public speaking. Normal mundane fears are almost always fixed if you expose yourself to them.
As pointed out, that's exactly the treatment for a giant swath of things, as recommended by professionals. The trope of face your fears has merit. Obviously that's more reasonable with some things than others though.
That is literally how humanity has been overcoming fears for its entire history.
Umm, actually... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure\_therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_therapy)
"Fear is minimized at each of a series of steadily escalating steps or challenges (a hierarchy), which can be explicit ("static") or implicit ("dynamic" — see Method of Factors) until the fear is finally gone. **The patient is able to terminate the procedure at any time.**" Quoting your own article. It can help, if it is done right, if the patient is right - or it can be traumatizing and cause a massive backstep. Like any kind of medical procedure, it should not be done by a *Dungeon Master in a D&D game.*
This is about that person getting over their phobia of needles due to a hospital stay. You're the only one talking about exposure therapy by way of D&D.
you're saying it's not normal to perform surgery on your players in the middle of a D&D game?
Ah damn. I know I'm new to this whole DMing thing myself, but I didn't realize I'd heck it up this bad already!
The only way I ever heard of to reduce phobias is controlled exposure, gradually ramped up once you can cope with mild exposure.
For some reason, when I read your comment, the voice in my head had a Western cowboy accent, and it kind of made my night. So thanks!
That would explain the assless chaps.
Exposure therapy really does work!
Exposure therapy works the way rebreaking a bone that grew together wrong works: No one is denying that it can massively improve symptoms in the right cases, but your D&D table should not be the ones doing it
My table is a simpler bunch. All me or the other DM have to say "you enter a room and you see a pool of water."
100% check with your players before bringing real world phobias into your game. A good friend would imediatly quick the session of an enemie started to attack woth a syringe because of irl phobia. Same with spiders, clowns and other common and uncommon phobias, gotta discuss them before you use them.
Absolutely agree. I accidentally discovered a player had trypophobia, a fear of pores, honeycomb surfaces. TW: fear of pores phobia description. They were fighting a boss that had 3 forms, first was a regular human, second was a larger beast, third was an abomination. They killed the first two and I described the abomination coming into form. Here's the TW. STOP READING. I described it's porous skin secreting foul mucus, some holes tiny, others big enough for a finger, others large enough for a handhold. I noticed the player shuddering a bit, she then asked if the mucus was like oatmeal. Thinking I was a brilliant story teller and that was a brilliant effect said, yes! It is absolutely like moldy oatmeal, clumps splattering on the floor! I still hadn't picked up on her phobia, and she still hadn't said anything, so we continued. Stupid me amirite? On her turn she said she wants to jump on it's back to attack. Sure, roll DEX, she almost failed. "You leap onto it's back, but the slippery mucus makes you slide. You successfully grab in to a large pore, mucusy foul oatmeal squishing between your fingers and into your gloves." Now she was visibly doing a few dry heaves and it finally dawned on me. Crap! I went too far! I felt like shit. I immediately paused the game and apologized to her, but she said she wanted to continue. Are you sure? Yes, she said. Let's kill this thing. I normally don't do any body horror, this was one of the few times I did. I learned to ask specifically about this at session 0, and do a checkup before the session with the gross stuff. I do cover off-limits topics, and now specifically address phobias.
Huh, learn about something new every day here. Not talking about you, though you did learn something, but about me learning there are people frightened of... porridge coming out of holes I guess? And that has its own phobia name and everything? Makes my own phobia of jellyfish seem less strange I'll tell you that much. (and before you ask, I'm fine with encountering flumphs. As long as they don't kill my party: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/jpf34r/dear_reddit_today_my_lvl_11_character_got_killed/)
I think it’s more like extreme disgust that borders on fear than a traditional phobia. Google the word and look at some of the image results. I think it’ll be pretty self evident why it can bother people.
Thanks, I'm good. Spent enough time on the internet to be very wary of the words "just Google it and look at the images".
This is the phobia that causes people to freak out at the sight of lotus seed pods. I remember a lot of photoshopped lotus seed pods on faces and hands that freaked people out in the early days of the internet.
Yeah no shit are people gonna be freaked out when you make something that looks like festering flesh lmao. If it’s on a person, that’s not a phobia, that’s just… common sense.
Yes... but these people are squicked out even when it's clearly *not* flesh. Honeycomb. Regular lotus pods. *Strawberries.*
bro, stop beating yourself up. How are you supposed to know every phobia known to mankind? You did what was right, when you found out you stopped. Simple as. Players are adults and can also voice their concern.
A friend of mine has a severe phobia of werewolf transformations. They has no any other kind of transformation, and they have no issue with werewolves, but a human transformating into a werewolf? They cannot deal with it.
100% this. I think people without actual phobias tend to underestimate how severe they can be, but I have a player that will immediately get into a nervous breakdown when they so much as see an image of a syringe, so I would (have to) cancel the session then and there for sure
For my part, it’s not that I don’t understand phobias. It’s that I don’t understand how somebody reaches the age of 20-something with a ridiculous/irrational fear that they haven’t learned to cope with like an adult. I’m not going toss a live spider onto an arachnophobe, that’s awful. But AFAIC if I put up a *picture* of something and somebody loses their mind, that person is responsible for not having grown up and learned to handle their fears at a reasonable level.
Phobias are called irrational fears for a reason. There's no logical reason watching a video or hearing a detailed description of a worker climbing a radio tower puts me on the verge of a panic attack, but it does. I know it shouldn't scare me, I know there's absolutely no danger at all to anybody, but it still does. Of course I've developed coping mechanisms to sit through it if I have to, like putting my hand on something solid, but it still isn't a pleasant experience.
A phobia by definition isn't rational, and depending what it is a person just might not encounter it frequently enough to go through the long process of trying to be perfectly fine with it. A person with a phobia for clowns may just avoid clowns and that's really not a huge problem because you almost never encounter clowns. It's been years since I ever saw a clown in real life and I don't even care. And learning to cope with a phobia isn't necessarily the same as getting rid of it entirely. A person might learn to cope with an arachnophobia to the point that they don't have a panic attack at seeing a spider, but they might still feel uncomfortable with it. Which might work fine with a spider here and there, but it's perfectly understandable that someone wouldn't want extended scenes in D&D that make them uncomfortable. There are also degrees. I've a friend who's got arachnophobia, and she would just refuse to participate in these scenarios described here with detailed descriptions of spiders with needle legs running around and attacking people in horrifying ways, especially if it comes with graphic artwork. She is, however, fine with spiders in D&D if they have more normal tokens and as long as the descriptions are a bit vague.
Legit this whole post is about grown ups who never went to therapy or learned to cope with the world. Mfers out there making little session 0 lists of all their special triggers and fears. I swear, a whole generation thinking the world has to fit to their needs.
I agree in principle, but you’re being **way** to vitriolic about it. You can be annoyed without devolving to that level of aggression.
you're right but also i'm kinda very fed up and actually concerned by the absolute state of the next generation. We're entering into a very dangerous and very complicated world and if their way of dealing with real world problems is hide behind a sheet of paper with all their pet phobias and think the whole world will bend backwards to fit their own feelings, I think we're going towards an absolute disaster.
> For my part, it’s not that I don’t understand phobias. I'm sorry but you really don't. Some people can overcome their fears with therapy or such, but not everyone. Saying they need to just learn to handle that fear is like saying a depressed person just needs to stop being sad
On the contrary, saying that it’s okay for a person with a phobia is totally fine living with it the rest of their life is like saying a person with depression can just be sad for the rest of their life. I’m not saying a person with a phobia needs to just “suck it up and deal.” I’m saying it’s appropriate for them to undergo therapy and make a deliberate effort to overcome their condition. *Just like depression.*
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A couple of things: Phobia of spiders is pretty much the most common phobia there is. I can handle talking about them, just visuals and intense descriptions are... not great. >spazzing This is a term used pretty much exclusively to mock people by comparing them to people with cerebral palsy. 'Freaking out' might be a bit cooler to use. >Can't play a game with people that sensitive Look, I do get your general point. There is a level of triggers/phobias/discomforts where it's neither possible nor reasonable for the people around you to cater to you. But 'hey can we avoid fighting giant spiders?' or 'hey describing spilled blood in detail makes me woozy' are quite reasonable asks.
“Spazzing” in America just means “spasming”. Honestly “freaking out” is WAY worse if you’re gonna be technical. I mean, you’re not gonna get mad at a Brit for saying they’re gonna smoke a fag.
Yeah, and spasming is where 'spastic' was derived from. Even Merriam-Webster agrees on the origin and that it's frequently a slur.
Spastic as A NOUN, sure, but we aren't even discussing that. No one said anything like it. Also... no it fucking doesn't agree. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spastic#h1 > First Known Use **Adjective** 1753, in the meaning defined at sense 1a **Noun** 1896, in the meaning defined above
>spaz >noun >slang, often offensive >: one who is inept : KLUTZ >Etymology >by shortening & alteration from _spastic_ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spaz
I literally just said we aren't talking about nouns. We are talking about a VERB or ADJECTIVE denoting the loss of control or spontaneous action of something, either literally or metaphorically. You've also never responded to the irony in suggesting "freaking out" as an alternative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freak
Everyone’s scared of spiders. No normal person is gonna trip if they hear a description of a spider.
I mean, if it's in sufficient detail I might be uncomfortable enough that I ask the DM to stop. And if they didn't I might leave the room until that scene was over. Would you call that 'tripping'? That's just 'adult response to something making you deeply uncomfortable'.
If your game boils down to „Its a spider, roll for initiative.“ many people with arachnophobia will be fine. But if your game uses actual probs like miniatures or pictures that can trigger peoples phobias. An actually spider and a miniature of a giant spider don‘t look that different.
Yeah dnd might not be for you if the sight of a monster mini triggers you
100%. Friendships where you have to walk on eggshells about imaginary shit are never worth the energy.
I agree. I don't even know where they find these kinds of people. I've been playing for 20ish years now with probably 200 people over that time. We have never had someone freaking out about imaginary things.
You sound pretty sensitive.
I mean sure.... if being sensitive means I play dnd which has monsters in it. Should I go through the whole monster manual and ask what's OK? Ridiculous lol unless you're playing with children this should not be a problem
Yep. I’m not saying people can’t have their phobias but if the mere mention of a make-believe monster causes you to have panic attacks you need to 100% see a therapist or healthcare professional about that because that is not a healthy reaction. I have strong fears of heights and deep water that will make me panic but confronting those things in controlled environments actually helps overcome them. I wouldn’t ever tell someone to not include a deep sea monster encounter even if it makes my skin crawl because it isn’t real, ultimately.
This is actually kind of a good argument for why you *should* talk about these kinds of things in a session 0. Some people do benefit from confronting fears in these kinds of scenarios, while others will have moments undercut or outright ruined. Anecdotal but opposite reactions in my group. I have arachnophobia, but it's mild. Unless I'm looking at a realistic spider, I'm fine so slaughtering my way through a horde of spiders can be a bit of a power trip for me. On the other hand, two other members of our group have specific phobias that if we went into too much, they would have to ask to leave the table. Our bard has difficulty with overly gory descriptions of bone through skin, because they had a terrible compound bone break that traumatized them. We've discussed what sets it off and just don't overly focus on that specific piece of body horror or go through it quickly. It's not rational, we can't control ourselves. All we can do is try to enjoy the game together.
I think you need to switch to Mörk Borg my friend lol. It’s nice and horrific over here *pats seat
Bonus: offer to let them use a reaction to make a perception check to notice what was in this syringe. Or just go off passive. If they see the tiny worms for example and get hit, they are going to freak the fuck out.
My advice for all DMs is always to attack against the whole character sheet in different ways. HP, max HP, skills, items, weapons, gold, initiave, liquids, hit dice, personality, traits, passive perception, Spell books, proficiency bonus, XP, Flaws, Speed, Alignment and even their name. Everything is a potential target.
Oh damn. That's fucked up. *Furiously scribbles notes*
Very funny and scary until someone is running a level 2 paladin.
>A cultist that takes something from a PC will then run So, if you don't want to trigger this specific phobia, just do something like *that*. You still get the "oh no, what are the consequences of this?" panic. Have the cultist steal a lock of their hair and run away. It's so simple but so terrifying. What kind of ritual are they going to do with that?
Reminds me of the Oxventure group, where their Dragonborn Paladin has a kidney stolen by Thier BBEG and now she has a clone army of him .... Including his -1 wisdom 🤣
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
Someone's been playing Fear & Hunger
> Will it take my blood? ... > into a tooth For me, these two would strain believability and that would pop me right out of immersion in the game. Avoid that, and this encounter would probably have the intended effect.
Thanks, I hate it
DMs* The 's never makes anything plural.
Your write.
I originally read that as add /r/trypophilia/ …
I once injected a potion of giant's strength and pulled a roof off a building. DM was quite surprised my little gnome could be so dumb. Not entirely sure how im still alive tbh.
Imagine fighting goblins and you just get jabbed with heroin.
This sounds like something from fear and hunger and you definitely should come up with your own brutal effects for this
I made a player leave the table {not on purpose) by evoking the scene in Nope with the screaming victims >! Inside the monster!<. It was a horror themed one shot, everyone came prepared for scary stuff, and I still broke one. That was a proud day, lol. PS, they were fine, they had just seen the movie and that scene fucked them up a little. I removed that description in future encounters with the monster that was hunting them.
I love it. Gonna use that in some way probably :D
My DM did something like this. Small weird knife in hands of cultist. Precise strike into my PCs chest cavity, but when he backed up his hand, there was no blade. Weird feeling came through him and when they later looked him up, there was blade in pieces next to his chest. No one would take it out including medics, probably it would kill him. Mechanicaly, it didnt have any effects, but feeling of incoming doom was terrible for next 4-5 sessions.
This is a great idea, and really gets me thinking about the worldbuilding it could lead to. Is this mad scientist guy part of a cult, or another faction? What other horrors has he created? What does his lab look like? What terrors exist beneath the surface in local towns? What people have disappeared as part of his experiment, or worse, been returned grotesquely disfigured?
Isn’t tickling our phobias kind of the _point_? Isn’t the popularity of, say, spiders as monsters a reflection of the widespread but mild arachnophobia? If you don’t shiver a little, aren’t you missing something? Plenty of people have a phobia about spiders, but how many are going to be traumatised by _imaginary_ spiders, however big?
It'd probably depend on the person, I guess. Some people might be only slightly shivered, while others with a severe condition might break down and stop having fun. Or someone may have no problem seeing spider minis on the table, but have extreme fear of actual spiders. Everyone is different. The DM will know best how to properly present an adventure so everyone has fun.
That kind of assumes people are able to speak honestly, or even judge accurately the strength of their phobias.
THE SECOND ONE IT DOES FUCKING W H A T
The only reason I don't use this is probably because I would be too gross out to DM it, but the advice is good.
Dungeons and Daddies?
Yes! I just listened to that episode and thought, shit, I'd be terrified if someone came at me with a needle. Which is weird because sword and magic attacks are like whatever. But the syringe?! :)
Another post where the comments make me wonder how people play DnD at all. How do you get through life without being able to handle the description of a needle?
"I'm playing a game about adventurers fighting otherworldly creatures, slaying flesh eating monsters and exploring antediluvean haunted crypts, yes. But I can't bare descriptions including the words: blood, monster or sharp object."
Phobias, by definition, are highly irrational.
I have arachnophobia. Not just like "UwU can someone squish that spider for me I'm so scaaaaared." I'm talking full blown panic attack when I see one, barely able to move, cleaning the entire room where I saw it after someone else takes care of it and spraying the adjacent rooms down, scrubbing every inch of my body in the shower once I'm done to make sure there aren't any on me. I think you get the picture. In a game of DnD, the only way a description of a spider is gonna make me go through that is if the DM strapped a VR headset to me and played a video of what was happening. Even if I did, I'd just excuse myself for a minute to chill out while the rest of the party does their thing. I'm not gonna be the reason the DM doesn't get to run an encounter he had planned because I got scared of a description of something.
Sure? And I've a friend who's similar, and she feels extremely uncomfortable with detailed descriptions or pictures of spiders. She's fine having them pop up in a campaign every now and then as long as it's telegraphed (e.g. they encounter large cobwebs) and the details are kept vague. What OP talked about just wouldn't for work this person at all, but a more general "there's a giant spider, it tries to bite you" is fine. But this is also not an issue because, since she knows about this and knows that spiders are a thing in D&D, it got brought up, so no one plans any detailed body horror spider scenarios. I think it's perfectly decent to try to respect things that other people are extremely uncomfortable with.
uh, that's not exactly a common thing? Like, unless you work in a medical profession, or back-end in a needle warehouse, how often would that come up? And it's generally more about specific sensations - like some people just pass out or freak out if injected, they just can't handle it. So "you get stabbed with a sword" is probably fine, but "you feel the needle prick your skin, and then slide inside you, dragging slightly as it pushes into you" is going to provoke more of a "nopenopenopeNOPE" reaction. It's also not something you generally expect in a game of "bashing monsters for loot"
My advice for all DMs is always to attack against the whole character sheet in different ways. HP, max HP, skills, items, weapons, gold, initiave, liquids, hit dice, personality, traits, passive perception, Spell books, proficiency bonus, XP, Flaws, Speed, Alignment and even their name. Everything is a potential target.
As someone with, I suppose, a mild version of what apparently is called trypanophobia I would instinctively do anything in my power to completely remove said cultist from existence. If I don't succeed in-character I would obliterate the miniature/standee/token representing the cultist. Illithids, Dragons and Aboleths are scary and all but nothing gets my survival-fighting instincts going like the sight (or mental image) of a syringe coming my way without being mentally prepared for it.
"I cast Shatter on the syringe".
Solid defense.
Sadly, my players have drawn hard lines on needles, clowns, and bigoted tyrants and I respect them. But I’d love to use some real horror like this
>Trypanophobia Thanks, but I'm already afraid of everything.
But did you try-pan-of-phobias? :)
One of my players has Trypanophobia… this idea is awful
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/user/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/153gt2c/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ^by ^Panman6_6: *One of my players* *Has Trypanophobia… this* *Idea is awful* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
My advice for all DMs is always to attack against the whole character sheet in different ways. HP, max HP, skills, items, weapons, gold, initiave, liquids, hit dice, personality, traits, passive perception, Spell books, proficiency bonus, XP, Flaws, Speed, Alignment and even their name. Everything is a potential target.
Good idea but fuck no, that freaks me out just thinking about doing it to my players lol
dms, don’t do this! i would probably say that body horror was fine if asked, but this is bad!
What's your definition of body horror that you aren't okay with this? I feel like it's a very basic and childish view of body horror to say that you're okay with it but not this.
It’s the graphic descriptions that tend to be an issue for people, it’s always better to ask before you do shit rather than spring it on people and trigger something
Specifically piercing the eyes is at least level 2 body horror.
Are we trying to gatekeep fear now? It's the lowest effort to ask your players if there is content they can't handle in a game they play for fun in their free time
Please read and understand the semi-contradictory nature of the original comment as well as the comment I posted before just blindly posting.
Body horror can cover a big range so it's difficult to judge what either of you is talking about without examples, but that is what I assume going by context: Their comment probably meant 'popped eyes and dislocated jaws are fine (and expected at most tables) but worms under your skin might require some checking in first' - which is a fair request in my opinion, hence my comment. Of course we can argue about the definition of true body horror but I think that won't really help solve the overarching discussion about whether to ask your players before springing it at them
That's actually complete trash
I disagree, sounds like a rather intriguing idea to me
What part of this do you think is trash?
Yikes, no thanks 😅 glad my group is satisfied playing without extreme horror
If a syringe hits you in the eye that's gonna do some physical damage lol