Update: 'We agreed to play this way': Vegan DND player requests overhaul of game, finds DM's post about her

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 30, 2023 3:00 PM EDT

When this DM made a post about a player's interesting request, they had no idea it would capture the attention of the DND community. 

Reddit isn't nearly as anonymous as people like to think it is. This DND player, u/EmotionalMacaroon169, tried to make a post on a throwaway account. They shared with the DND community that they were in a conundrum. A new player joined their homebrew game, and since she's a vegan, she wanted the game's world to reflect that. The OP was using a throwaway account so that this woman wouldn't find out, but due to the large amount of attention the post gained, the group did find out! 

The original post is below, and right underneath that is the OP's update. Commenters on the original post advised OP to kick her out of their game. If she wants a world where no animals are treated poorly, many people suggested she should build her own world, or start a game with other vegan players. The OP mentioned that their group included a chef and a few other members who hadn't considered making the world vegan before. It seems like their friend group will survive their brush with virality. 

Next up, these students had some hilarious answers to their teacher's quiz questions, and their teachers could barely keep their giggles to themselves. 

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    Toy
    via Clint Bustrillos on Unsplash
  • 02
    Organism - r/DnD . Posted by u/Emotional Macaroon169 1 day ago DMing homebrew, vegan player demands a 'cruelty free world' - need advice. Out of Game
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 03
    Font - Hi all, throwaway account as my players all know my main and I'd rather they not know about this conflict since I've chatted to them individually and they've not been the nicest to each other in response to this.
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 04
    Font - I'm running a homebrew campaign which has been running for a few years now, and we recently had a new player join. This player is a mutual friend of a few people in the group who agreed that they'd fit the dynamic well, and it really looked like things were going nicely for a few sessions.
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 05
    Font - In the most recent session, they visited a tabaxi village. In this homebrew world, the tabaxi live in isolated tribes in a desert, so the PCs befriended them and spent some time using the village as a base from which to explore. The problem arose after the most recent session, where the hunters brought back a wild pig, prepared it, and then shared the feast with the PCs. One of the PCs is a chef by background and enjoys RP around food, so described his enjoyment of the feast in a lot of d
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 06
    Font - The vegan player messaged me after the session telling me it was wrong and cruel to do that to a pig even if it's fictional, and that she was feeling uncomfortable with both the chef player's RP (quite a lot of it had been him trying new foods, often nonvegan as the setting is LOTR-type fantasy) and also several of my descriptions of things up to now, like saying that a tavern served a meat stew, or describing the bad state of a neglected dog that the party later rescued.
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 07
    Font - She then went on to say that she deals with so much of this cruetly on a daily basis that she doesn't want it in her fantasy escape game. Since it's my world and I can do anything I want with it, it should be no problem to make it 'cruelty free' and that if I don't, I'm the one being cruel and against vegan values (I do eat meat).
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 08
    Font - I'm not really sure if that's a reasonable request to make things like food which I was using as flavour can potentially go under the abstraction layer, but the chef player will miss out on a core part of his RP, which also gave me an easy way to make places distinct based on the food they serve. Part of me also feels like things like the neglect of the dog are core story beats that allow the PCs to do things that make the world a better place and feel like heroes.
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 09
    Font - So that's the situation. I don't want to make the vegan player uncomfortable, but I'm also wary of making the whole world and story bland if I comply with her demands. She sent me a list of what's not ok and it basically includes any harm to animals, period. Any advice on how to handle this is appreciated. Thank you.
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
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    Font - Edit: wow this got a lot more attention than expected. Thank you for all your advice. Based on the most common ideas, I agree it would be a good idea to do a mid-campaign 'session O' to realign expectations and have a discussion about this, particularly as they players themselves have been arguing about it. We do have a list of things that the campaign avoids that all players are aware of - eg one player nearly drowned as a child so we had a chat at the time to figure out what was ok and
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 11
    Font - Edit2: our table snacks are completely vegan already to make the player feel welcome! I and the players have no issue with that. Edit3: to the people saying this is fake - if I only wanted karma or whatever, surely I would post this on my main account? Genuinely was here to ask for advice and it's blown up a bit. Many thanks to people coming with various suggestions of possible compromises. Despite everything, she is my friend as well as friends with many people in the group, so we want t
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 12

    The OP added their update, with lots of information about how their games will be played going forward

    Font - [Follow up] Vegan player demands a cruelty-free world Out of Game This is a follow up to https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/co mments/1125w95/dming_homebr ew vegan player demands a crue Ity/ now that my group sat down and had a discussion. Firstly, I want to thank everyone that commented there with suggestions for how to make things work - particularly appreciative of the vegans that weighed in, since that was helpful for better understanding where the player was coming from.
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
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    Font - Secondly, my players found the post O_O. I didn't expect it to get so much attention, but they are all having a great laugh at how badly I 'hid' it, and they all had a rough read of the comments before our chat. I think this helped us out too.
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 14
    Font - So with the background of the post in mind we sat down and started with the vegan player, getting her to explain her boundaries with the 'cruelty'. She apologised for overreacting a bit after the session and said she was quite upset about the pig (the descriptions of chef player weren't hugely gy, but they did involve skinning and deboning it, which was the thing that upset her the most). She asked that we put details of meat eating under a 'veil' as some commenters called it, saying that
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 15
    Font - The table agrees that this is reasonable, and chef player offered to RP without mentioning the meat specifically. Vegan player and chef player also think there is potential for fun RP around vegan player teaching the chef new recipies. She also offered to make some of the recipies IRL for game night as a fun immersion thing, which honestly sounds great. I do not know what a jackfruit is but I guess we're finding out next week!
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 16
    Font - With regards to cruelty elsewhere, vegan player said she did not want to harm anything that is 'an animal from our world' but compromised on monsters like owlbears, which are ok as they are not real in our world. Harming humanoids is also not an issue for her in-game, we asked her jokingly about cnnibalism and she laughed and said 'only if it's consensual' (which naturally dissolved into s jokes). A similar compromise was reached for animal cruelty in general - a malnourished dog is too c
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 17
    Font - Finally, as many pointed out, the flavor of the world doesn't have to be conveyed through meat- containing foods - I can use spices, fruits and veg, or be nonspecific like 'a curry' or 'a stew'. It'll take a bit of work to not default but since she was willing to work out a compromise here so everyone keeps enjoying the game, I'm happy to try too. We agreed to play this way for a few sessions and then have another chat for what is/isn't working. If we find things aren't working then we've
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 18
    Font - All in all it was a very mature discussion and I think this sub had a pretty large part in that, even if unintentionally. So thanks to all that commented in good faith, may your hits be crits!
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169
  • 19
    Font - Edit: in honor of the gold, I have changed my avatar to a tiger, as voted by my players who have unanimously nicknamed me 'Sir Meatalot' due to one comment on the old post. They also wanted me to share that fact with y'all as part of it. I'm never living this down. Edit2: Because some people were curious: my plan with any real animals that were planned is to make them into 'dragon-animal hybrid' type creatures: the campaign's main story is that there are five ancient chromatic dragons tha
    via u/EmotionalMacaroon169

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