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The Palette Grid
🕑 Added 2025-02-17 15:06:59 +0000 UTCWhile I’ve been working on a new game lately (Seven-Part Pact, as if I’m ever working on anything else) I ran into an issue with a lot of safety tools and how they’re implemented. Specifically, I found myself wanting to include Lines & Veils, but being really dissatisfied with how Lines & Veils approaches difficult topics. So (as I often do when working on games like this) I made my own tool. This article is going to be quick and practical — I’m going to talk through how L&V currently works, why it failed me, and the tool I invented to replace it: something I’m calling the Palette Grid. If you want to play games that deal with more intense, high-octane topics, and if you’re interested in intentionally going into spaces that players normally feel uncomfortable going, this might be a good tool for your table.
Lines & Veils, and its Discontents
Lines & Veils (if I remember my history right) were originally invented for Sorcerer by Ron Edwards. You take a piece of paper and write “Lines” on one side and “Veils” on the other. Then (as Bee Zelda helpfully describes in their guest blog on Roll20):
On one side, you have your LINES. This is content that will NOT be crossed. Everyone agrees that those themes will be avoided during the time of play. This is non-negotiable.
Then, we have the VEILS. A veil is content that might come up in play, but the GM and players will fade it to black. This is content that can be viewed as problematic but might come up in play. You want to determine what content can be explored and what everyone is comfortable with. Veils can also be content that you simply don’t like; it doesn’t have to only be themes and topics that are associated with trauma.
This is all well and good for a lot of tables. It has a lot in common with other “List” style tools, such as the Monte Cook Safety Checklist or the Palette from Microscope. It’s a totally functional safety tool that helps a lot of people out. So why doesn’t it work for my needs?
To start, Lines & Veils conflates “caution” with “presence in play.” It works great if our discomfort and nervousness around a topic is consistent with our desire to avoid it during play, but what if I want to play in a space that makes me and others at the table uncomfortable?
For instance, let’s say I (a trans woman) want to run a gritty campaign set in the modern day, and there’s a cis man at my table. That cis man might be really nervous about the presence of real-world oppression and transmisogyny, but if I’m using Lines & Veils he only has three possible options:
Put a line on Transmisogyny, leaving me unable to discuss a very important aspect of my real-world experiences.
Put a veil on Transmisogyny, leaving us unable to depict and dwell on transmisogyny, and therefore continuing to reject an important part of what I could get out of the game.
Say nothing about Transmisogyny, leaving him in a spot where he has to be anxious and uncomfortable at any moment during play, and giving him no recourse for if play crosses into spaces that make him uncomfortable!
Extend this to any other form of oppression (or frankly any other form of experience) and we start to see the issue that Lines & Veils have that I hope to solve. Due to conflicting access needs, one person’s “valuable catharsis” is another person’s “distressing trigger.” We never play games alone, and the process of negotiation is really important when dealing with topics that dwell on the sharp edge of play. Hiding and obscuring dark or distressing topics can work if we all seek escapism, but frankly in 2025 I’m sick of escapism. I want games that dig into darkness, that dwell on pain and hurt. How can I achieve that without leaving my other players in an uncomfortable spot?
The Palette Grid
The Palette Grid explodes Lines & Veils into two distinct categories. The X Axis represents how careful we want to be when the topic comes up, and the Y Axis represents what we want to do with that topic when it comes up during play.
On one end of the X Axis we have “Easy & Comfortable,” for anything that we think will be a breeze for us to allow in play. On the other end we have “Risky & Cautious,” for anything that is a minefield of potential triggers if handled poorly.
On one end of the Y Axis we have “Embrace & Explore,” for anything we actively want to have show up in our game, and anything we want to devote proverbial “screentime” to. On the other end we have “Obscure & Reject,” for any topic that we actively don’t want to have crop up during play. It’s still potentially real in the world, we’re just fully veiling it, and it won’t come up.
The intersection of these two Axes produces four categories, each one on a spectrum. If something’s Easy and we want to Embrace it, then let’s go nuts and do it as much as we want. If something’s Risky and we want to Obscure it, then we should pretend like it doesn’t exist at all (the equivalent of marking it as a Line). These are both familiar to folks who play with Lines & Veils.
The other two categories are new. If something’s Easy but we want to Obscure it, that means we find it dull. It’s not risky or dangerous to have it come up, but we just don’t want to play it out. It bores us! If something’s Risky but we want to Embrace it, that means we need to proceed with caution. When it comes up (because it may come up), we should frequently step out of character to check in with everyone playing, have discussions about how we include it as we do, and we should make sure we look out for each other in the aftermath to make sure no one’s been impacted by its inclusion. But just because something’s difficult doesn’t mean we should eliminate it from play.
The final thing worth noting about this grid is that it’s composed of multiple spectrums. The exact meaning of the spectrum is for the group to discuss. If something’s only sorta Easy, or we only want to lightly Obscure it, what that means may be different for different groups. The conversation surrounding the creation of a group’s Palette Grid is just as important as the final object, and the continuous re-adjustment and re-negotiation of the Grid is also very important. There is no safety tool that can substitute for open and clear communication, and if you’re not sure what the placement of a concept means, then talk about it with the group.
Sample Palette Grid
Here’s a sample Palette Grid, filled out by a group of players. This group is really excited about Body Horror and Patriarchy, although they also know Patriarchy can be a potentially distressing topic for the group, and so they’ve marked it as more risky. They’re also interested in violence, but they’re much more interested in violence than combat. Combat and sex are both marked as boring (combat because it’s overdone in other games, sex because multiple players are in committed relationships and they’re just not drawn to it). Sexual violence, however, has ended up deep in the “Block” corner, along with fingernail damage (which is one player’s specific ick). Natural disasters are smack-dab in the middle, as one of the players has anxiety about natural disasters but is also aware it is likely to come up during play and doesn’t feel called to forbid it completely, even if they do have the option to do so.
During play, discrimination ends up moving from “Block” to “Be Careful,” as the group realizes that they’re extremely interested in dealing with the ramifications of homophobia under patriarchy. They end up separating out “ableism” and “racism” from discrimination, as they realize their concerns with discrimination were more about forms of discrimination that aren’t inexorably linked to patriarchy.
Disputes within the Palette Grid
The Palette Grid is produced through consensus. Every player should agree to the placement of every concept on the grid. It may sometimes occur that multiple players fundamentally disagree on the placement of a particular concept. The easiest solution here is to divide a concept into sub-concepts.
In the earlier example, “discrimination” was placed under Block, but it turns out that there are forms of discrimination we’re extremely interested in. If one player wants a concept to be fully obscured while another player wants a concept to be fully embraced, discuss together which aspects of that concept each player is interested in or put off by. Often this dispute emerges from the players conflating multiple distinct ideas under a single too-vague word, and by breaking it apart into multiple concepts, we can tease out what ideas are worth exploring.
It’s also possible that this intractable divide between players points to a fundamental disagreement in the goals of play. While that’s a shame (and the correct path forward will be for everyone to decide), it’s good you found it out now, and not 5 sessions in when a big argument blows up the group. Sometimes a concept is also critical to the game you’re seeking to play. Sex is a difficult thing to Obscure entirely in Monsterhearts, for instance. If an intractable dispute has emerged around a topic that’s core to play, that means there’s a core divide in how the players are thinking about the game, and it’s a good chance to step back, discuss the game itself, and make sure the game you’re playing is actually a good fit for the group as a whole.
Conclusions
Now, more than ever, it’s important we avoid conflating discomfort with denial. Living in Philadelphia, I see things that make me uncomfortable all the time. One time I saw a homeless guy take a shit on Broad St., and while I certainly didn’t enjoy seeing him do that, I think it would be terribly corrosive to try and stop him from doing that. The world is full of things that make us uncomfortable. It has many fewer things that leave us unsafe. By conflating our comfort with our safety, we embrace toxic escapism and try to hide away the parts of the world that scare us. We take on a liberal “I just want to have brunch” mindset, where we hide away the unsightly and try our best not to dwell on it.
My biggest complaint with many safety tools (besides the fact that we call them “safety tools” at all) is that they seek to terminate conversation, rather than enable it. The pressure of being discriminated against at low-trust tables has led many marginalized folks to adopt a blanket “Do This No Questions Asked” policy around safety tools. But if I’m at a table and someone says something homophobic, I can’t just x-card that away. Similarly, if I’m with a group of friends and we want to delve deep into the darkest corners and furthest extremes of play, I don’t want to just slam my fist down and forbid all discussion of a particular topic. By forbidding all mention of a particular topic, it leaves the people most impacted by that topic out in the cold, and it preemptively terminates potentially useful conversations. I hope the Palette Grid can serve as a tool for enabling further discussion and opening new doors to new kinds of play.
Comments
Nate W.
Good point - it's something everyone DOES want to do, just with a level of caution. Maybe something along the lines of "Let's Do This With Care"? Something to convey it's exciting, but we're being mindful while doing it. I'll think on that for future iterations and ask some of my playgroup what they think. Thanks for the thoughts!
Jay Dragon
That's a neat approach! I like the short sentences, although I may slightly push on Upper Left to also emphasize that it's something players want to embrace? Cool approach though!
Nate W.
This is honestly great. Agreed that "safety tools" is a bit of a misnomer (implying RPGs are inherently 'unsafe') and communication tools are much more in line with what they're actually trying to do. I did some very minor tweaking in the phrasing of this for my own game: X-Axis: Risky <--> Safe Y-Axis: Skip <--> Embrace And the quadrants are short sentences just to be extra clear to users: Upper Left: Let's Be Careful With This Upper Right: Let's Do More of This Lower Left: Let's Completely Remove This Lower Right: Let's Skip This Where Possible
Xavid
I've also seen Hospitality. Agency, and Steering tools used, but honestly conversation tools is pretty solid.
Xavid
I think this is a really cool and interesting approach! One thing I ran into with Your Proper Place is when you're steering towards difficult content (e.g., you have a PC whose arc is about their struggles with a racists/transphobic/sexist society) then sometimes you actually want to encourage other players to make things "less safe"/"more problematic" to better support that arc. This approach is a really cool way of getting on the same page about difficult content you actively want to engage with in a nuanced way.
Jay Dragon
potentially, but it wouldn't enable the (imo very important) distinction between "engage with caution because i'm not sure i want it around" and "engage with caution but i really really want it"
Jupiter
I've been using Lines and Veils and Invitations for a while and it always felt important to also have things players WANT as part of the convo. But I also struggle with the rigidity and finality of L & V because sometimes things like violence or intimacy get veiled and the narrative weight of the events disappear because the group is nervous to have touched a Forbidden Topic. Always hoping for a cultural shift in this hobby where we can make mistakes and repair them or have conversations about hard things without it being labelled harm over conflict. Thanks for this, Jay
Chris Sellers
This is super interesting! I love me a Cartesian grid. Would a stoplight palette address some of the same issues? Like, where yellow is "engage with caution" instead of "fade to black"?
Hive_Indicator
Good point. Comfort Including, then.
Jay Dragon
I personally would use "excitement" over "comfort" — i don't find patriarchy very comforting, but i do find it very exciting (in play). but i like "risk" as the other axis!
booked
Also, I made I thought while reading this. I'm not sure if its worth any merit, but it might be an idea to including something similar to this in the Itch Project you created some time ago (that I finally read recently). something to do with basics of play? Ill see if I can remember it and get back to you. Possums Essentials! that was it!
Hive_Indicator
Ooh. This is super useful. I'm going to label the axes (I can't believe the plural of axis is the same as the plural of axe) "comfort" and "risk". Comfy risks and the boringly safe are fitting polar opposites
booked
I would truely agree with that. honestly, conversation tools feels best to me! because what is play, if not a conversation?
Jay Dragon
i think "conversation tools" or "calibration tools" are both more useful and also more honest as to what they're doing and what they accomplish
booked
Woah, this was super enlightening! I had trouble with what we used for our sessions of MotW (it was a traffic light system for various topics and horror themes), this feels far more flexible! I'm interested, what would you prefer for "safety tools" to be called :)
Lisa H
Yay I've been waiting for this one! My group implemented this for our recently concluded Sleepaway game and it was a very effective tool for us. Having body horror, jealousy, and hallucinations in the upper right had us pulling fewer punches in the best way
