I am preparing for a homebrew game, with my players being between the ages of 12 and 14. One of them keeps trying to bring adult content into their character, which I am uncomfortable with. Honestly, even though I am going to be the games DM, I don't need to know this aspect of their characters.
When they have done this in previous games, I've just said "I am not running that, so fade to black."
I'm mainly asking the question to verify that I am not the only one occasionally dealing with this, and to see if there are other suggestions on how to politely address this.
As with anything in life, no means no. Don't want some sort of content in your game? Tell them so, and if they don't like it then too bad, their options are to suck it up and follow your rules, or leave.
I've occasionally dealt with this to some extent--the best way I've found to handle it is to address it in Session Zero, and to be clear and consistent across the board. I've DMed teenagers before and yeah, they're raging balls of hormones, so certain 'adult content' is bound to come up, because it's just such a major part of their lives.
In my case, part of what's helped has been the age gap. Because I'm a good decade older than them, they don't try to romance the NPCs, which I'm glad of. I think I'd just have NPCs politely turn them down. But they will try and romance each other's PCs, and my established policy is "just keep it PG at the table, and make sure all the involved players are happy and comfortable".
It sounds like you're already doing a good job, but really, all you need to do is communicate a policy and enforce it across the board. I generally make sure, especially when I'm dealing with teenagers, to do so in a way that makes it clear that it's not that 'adult activities' are inherently shameful, but that this isn't the appropriate venue for discussing them.
This is a thing I do not have to deal with because of how I have gone about setting up new players to play at my table.
Specifically, I sit down with the new player (or group of new players, or group who I am the new addition to) and we have a conversation about what we want out of the game-play experience, what ideas/themes we want added, and what ideas/themes would cause discomfort for anyone involved - and we come to an agreement that all things that make anyone uncomfortable are going to be left absent from the game no matter what, on punishment of removal from the game (and if the group just won't agree to not make other people at the table uncomfortable, I exit the group - no point spending my limited game time on people that don't want everyone to have a fun time).
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I am preparing for a homebrew game, with my players being between the ages of 12 and 14. One of them keeps trying to bring adult content into their character, which I am uncomfortable with. Honestly, even though I am going to be the games DM, I don't need to know this aspect of their characters.
When they have done this in previous games, I've just said "I am not running that, so fade to black."
I'm mainly asking the question to verify that I am not the only one occasionally dealing with this, and to see if there are other suggestions on how to politely address this.
Fierna is the best Duchess of Hell
As with anything in life, no means no. Don't want some sort of content in your game? Tell them so, and if they don't like it then too bad, their options are to suck it up and follow your rules, or leave.
I've occasionally dealt with this to some extent--the best way I've found to handle it is to address it in Session Zero, and to be clear and consistent across the board. I've DMed teenagers before and yeah, they're raging balls of hormones, so certain 'adult content' is bound to come up, because it's just such a major part of their lives.
In my case, part of what's helped has been the age gap. Because I'm a good decade older than them, they don't try to romance the NPCs, which I'm glad of. I think I'd just have NPCs politely turn them down. But they will try and romance each other's PCs, and my established policy is "just keep it PG at the table, and make sure all the involved players are happy and comfortable".
It sounds like you're already doing a good job, but really, all you need to do is communicate a policy and enforce it across the board. I generally make sure, especially when I'm dealing with teenagers, to do so in a way that makes it clear that it's not that 'adult activities' are inherently shameful, but that this isn't the appropriate venue for discussing them.
This is a thing I do not have to deal with because of how I have gone about setting up new players to play at my table.
Specifically, I sit down with the new player (or group of new players, or group who I am the new addition to) and we have a conversation about what we want out of the game-play experience, what ideas/themes we want added, and what ideas/themes would cause discomfort for anyone involved - and we come to an agreement that all things that make anyone uncomfortable are going to be left absent from the game no matter what, on punishment of removal from the game (and if the group just won't agree to not make other people at the table uncomfortable, I exit the group - no point spending my limited game time on people that don't want everyone to have a fun time).