Uninformed Consent in TTRPGs: Communicating Expectations to Avoid Nightmare Game Master Horror Stories

This article offers a qualitative analysis of social media such as Reddit, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube regarding the abuse of power by a dungeonmaster (DM) in tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) gameplay. It uses NVivo to analyze stories documenting “nightmare dungeonmasters” (NDMs) in order to better understand what players mean by that term. The data is coded for themes such as power, abuse, boundaries, and consent. The first half of the article deploys critical discourse analysis regarding passive/informed consent and the violation/maintenance of social boundaries at the TTRPG table. The second half of the article aligns the stories related in the first half with safety tools that are seen as applicable for avoiding NDM behaviors and their correspondingly negative gaming experiences. Tools are sourced both from this primary research and also from a literature review. The spirit of ethical research within the gaming community serves its reader by supplying them with a better understanding of NDM phenomena, as well as safety tools that can be employed on behalf of player boundaries.