Hapless adventurers: Prologue

"If by that you mean you're kinky as fuck, then yeah," Silus said lovingly.

"Well, she's certainly not the only one," Sebastian said quietly from his end of the table.

"Damn straight," Emma concurred, backing up her friend. Silus winked at her.

"But..." Ingrid continued, attempting to wrest control of the conversation from her rambunctious friends, "kink without consent veers quickly into the territory of abuse and trauma." Ingrid paused a moment to let the seriousness of what she had just said sink in a bit before going on. "So if we're going to mix kink and Dungeons and Dragons--which is what this campaign is all about--we have to be clear up front about what we're getting into, what we're all agreeing to."

"Enthusiastically agreeing to," Yuna added.

"Yes!" Ingrid punctuated. "I want to know that everyone is going to enjoy this. And if you're ever not comfortable, I need to know that you're brave enough to speak up."

"On that note," Emma interjected, "we should probably establish a series of safe words--one for check-ins, one for pauses, and one for hard stops."

"Spoken like a true submissive," Yuna said proudly, nudging her girl softly with her elbow. Emma blushed again.

"You're right," Ingrid said. "Any suggestions?"

The room was silent for several seconds, then Sebastian offered, "I'm a fan of green, yellow, red."

"As in: green for 'all is well'; yellow for 'pause a moment'; and red for 'stop everything'?" Ingrid asked. Seb nodded. "Any objections?"

Emma, Yuna, and Silus all shook their heads.

"Great. Glad to have that established," Ingrid said. "They're useless if you don't use them, though. Remember, enforcing boundaries--and yes, that can mean stopping play entirely--is a demonstration of respect and trust. I don't want anyone to feel guilty for pausing or stopping play if they no longer feel comfortable or ok with what's going on." Ingrid made eye contact with each of her players, one at a time.

"Ok, on to the fun stuff now." Ingrid cleared her throat. "Basically, this D&D campaign differs from our previous ones in two crucial respects. First, kinky stuff can (and will) happen to your characters. I won't tell you when or what, exactly, since that would ruin the fun. But I'll try to keep it natural and organic, and nothing will happen to your character that you haven't previously consented to in a private conversation with me. But since stuff happening to one character affects everyone, you should know that the range of kinky shit includes impact play, rope play, dominance and submission, bondage, sadism and masochism, fire play (including wax play), exhibitionism, and voyeurism."

Again, Ingrid paused for a moment.

"That sounds fucking hot," Yuna said into the silence. "Also, I'm curious which stuff got added because of which of you kinky fuckers."

Silus grinned and chuckled. Emma and Seb looked a little embarrassed.

"Though I think I can guess," Yuna added, looking at Emma with a naughty grin.

"Yeah, well you know what might happen to each of your characters individually. But do you consent to any and all of the other stuff happening to the other members of your party?" Ingrid asked the group.

"Hell yeah," Silus consented.

"You know it," Yuna agreed.

Emma smiled and nodded. Seb smirked and nodded as well.

Ingrid let out a breath she had been holding. "Ok, good."

"What's the second way this is different, then?" Silus asked, looking genuinely puzzled. Ingrid looked over at him, then quickly to each of her players in turn.

"This is the part I haven't discussed with all of you yet," she said, looking a little anxious. One of Silus' eyebrows shot up.

"Now you've got my attention," he said.

Ingrid took a deep breath and let it out, as if choosing her words carefully. "A few of you proposed that, in addition to having kinky stuff happen to your characters in-game, we introduce the possibility of kinky stuff happening to you, the players."

Now Silus' eyes were wide. He looked over at Yuna, who had that naughty grin on her face again. Seb looked equally surprised.

"You filthy sluts," Silus said in awe and admiration, his gaze shifting back and forth between Yuna and Emma.

"The idea is that when something kinky happens to your character, the same thing might--with your consent, of course--happen to you, here in real life."

"That. Is. Brilliant." Silus said reverently. Emma began blushing furiously.

"Wait," Seb interjected. "I don't understand."

"What's up, Seb?" Ingrid asked.

"A kink scene nearly always requires two people. For me, kink is about the voluntary exchange of power between at least two people." Sebastian paused here for a moment, then continued. "If something kinky happens to one of us, who's going to be that other person?"

"Great question," Ingrid replied. "Yuna, do you want to handle this one?"

"With pleasure! Basically, if you want kinky stuff to happen, it's on you to find someone willing to participate in the scene with you." Yuna looked over at Emma. "That person could be one of us, or you could invite someone else to come to the session just for that purpose."

In the silence that followed Yuna's explanation, both Silus and Sebastian seemed to be considering the possibilities.

"Would the flow of play be interrupted by the in-person kink scenes?" Silus asked.

"That depends," Ingrid answered. "In some cases, yes. In others, it can freely continue. In fact, depending on the circumstances, some scenes might actually affect play."

"Wait. Whoa!" Silus said, bringing both hands up in a 'hold your horses' sort of gesture. "That's pretty amazing, right there." Ingrid looked over at him with a knowing smile. This was clearly something she had thought a great deal about and was proud of. Silus' expression went vacant for a moment, processing this thought. "That's like two different levels of theater occurring simultaneously and interpenetrating one another."

"Yup," Ingrid replied, her self-satisfied expression still intact.

"Hehe," Yuna chuckled. "Penetrating." Emma rolled her eyes.

"Shit! This is amazing!" Silus said, totally ignoring Yuna's joke.

"I know! I can't wait," Yuna said.

"I'm pretty excited, too," Emma added. Seb looked like he, too, was imagining the possibilities.

"I'm glad you all like it," Ingrid said. "But we need to be clear on consent here, too. It goes without saying that if you want what happens to your character to happen to you, too, you're going to have to talk with me about it in detail beforehand. At the very least, you need to enthusiastically consent to a subset of things that you've consented to for your character that can also happen to you. Second, you need to coordinate the participation of whoever else is going to be involved in the scene. If you want to be surprised, this means coming up with a list of participants and sharing their contact info with me, so I can reach out to them."

Ingrid paused, and a moment of quiet descended.

"But in addition to consent for your own scenes, we need enthusiastic consent from each of you for each other's scenes. If any of you aren't comfortable with any of the scenes I listed earlier happening here, in this room, involving your friends at this table, I want you to feel absolutely empowered to say so at any time. You can reach out to me privately or use any of the safe words we decided on earlier. Ok?"

Again, Ingrid made a slow tour of the group, making deliberate eye contact with each player in turn.

"I feel kind of bad for introducing this to some of you on the spot," Ingrid said, sounding apologetic. "It's been something I've wanted to try for a long time now, but didn't have the guts to suggest it." She looked over at Emma. "But then Emma independently proposed the idea to me yesterday, and I decided this might be the perfect time and place and group of people to try it."

The eyes of the whole group descended on Emma, who looked down at her hands.

"You brilliant little slut," Silus said in wonder.

"That's my girl," Yuna said. Ingrid smiled at Emma. Emma looked up and smiled back.

"If you want to do a scene," Ingrid continued, "reach out to me in private. The first time this happens, we'll take it slow and make sure everyone's ok with it. How does that sound?"

"Hot damn, yes," Silus concurred.

Seb nodded silently, but his face glittered with excitement.

"Alright, then!" Ingrid said, putting her hands in the pockets of her cargo pants. "You've all created your characters already, so let's jump into tonight's episode of kinky D&D!"