Comfortable

We invite you to join us from a place that is environmentally supportive for you: comfy, as free of irritants as possible, and within easy reach of whatever sustenance you might need. We will be communicating in English. The first session of all events will be for connecting and comfort. The person who can best and most immediately respond to your needs is you, so please do prioritise self-care. Ways we have found that we need to do that include:

• making food plans in advance of a session, so preparation is simple and food easily accessible
• having water, hot drinks etc within easy reach before we start
• taking any required meds at the right time to help with focus
• logging in from a place that doesn't have a lot of distracting background noise
• letting others in the vicinity know in advance that we'll be busy for the duration of the session
• taking care of pets, children, any caretaking responsibilities in advance of a session where possible

Character / Player Separation
In roleplay games, it can be easy to get caught up in the moment and experience some of the emotions that your character is experiencing.
This can result in something referred to as 'bleed': the character's feelings bleed into the player, and/or vice versa, and the line is blurred to the extent that both player and character have co-responding emotions.
Some roleplay games positively encourage this, especially in genres like horror where the purpose is to instill fear in the player as well as their character.
This kind of shared experience can give some useful catharsis: finding some release for strong emotions in a controlled and considered way. It can also feel overwhelming, and have a lingering impact.
Talking out-of-character about what the characters are experiencing can give players:

• a useful objective distance from their character/s
• an opportunity to consider their character/s responses and behaviours
• some objective views of other players
• the support of a collaborative process

Of course, other players may be experiencing their own 'bleed'. Even in moments when it might be difficult to feel sympathetic towards a character, it's helpful to assume that the person playing that character feels sympathy towards them, or at least has some understanding of why they are doing the things they're doing.
There can also be moments when players have a different understanding of what's going on in a scene, which can lead to some frustration and confusion. Characters might make assumptions about each other, but if something seems out of place or unusual to the players, it's really helpful to check in with each other about that for clarification: shared information smooths the path of collaboration.
There are some guidelines around Accompanying to help players and facilitators maintain as supportive a space as possible.
As well as encouraging discussion about the play, talking to each other out of character can also give players a way to quickly ask for a pause in play for other reasons: being a bit lost, needing help to bring in a character, and asking to move on from triggering subjects. This can be spoken, or typed in chat, including privately to someone else who can help. There is always the option to go into a breakout room on Zoom, or the #Accompany channel on Discord.
If you want to stop play quickly on Discord, you can do that in any 'in-character' channel by using brackets/parentheses and, if we remember, the letters OOC:

((OOC: can we pause for a sec? I'm a bit lost.))
((um... I can't see a way to bring in my character - help?!))
((OOC: please can we move on from this subject??))

There are many ways you can help yourself to get into character, and get out of character again afterwards. Game and theatre maker Chloe Mashiter has some great info on that here.

Comfortable / Uncomfortable

We don’t have specific words or tools, no pause cards or safewords. We have each other, and the continuous transparency that allows us to say, at any time, that we're just not comfortable.
It can be said to everyone in the OOC place, or privately to any trusted person.
Phrase it in any way you like. We can all be sensitive to the fact that these things can be hard to say. We can all listen out for them, and check for them. That is part of us all holding space for each other.
In fact, saying that stuff out loud, about what makes us feel uncomfortable, isn’t just about safety. It’s a really valuable and important part of the process of transparency. It is OOC info, it is collaboration, it's what we do.
Speaking it aloud isn’t necessarily a demand for someone to fix it. It’s just a declaration. You might also declare what would help you feel comfortable again, if you know it. Or if you need it.
“Can we stop a sec? I need to pee.” is just as valid as, “Wow, this scene feels really uncomfortable. Do we need to be this graphic?” which is just as valid as, “These characters are so awkward! I’m actually finding this hard to watch.”
With the latter, we might all agree. It might spark a useful conversation. We might ask, “Do you need a minute?” or we might say, “Isn’t it brilliantly awful?!” or it might change the play. And all of that is all of us, working together.

Breathers and Bridges

Sometimes, the combination of where a player is at, and what’s going on in the play, can just be too much. A thing that is normally with comfort levels slides over the line on a bad day. That’s what The Copenhagen Interpretation is: a response to how we are at any given moment.
If you need to head out of play for a while, but you don’t want to fully disconnect, we can hold a bridge for you in case you want to come back in. Accompanying can sometimes help in that way.
(Here's a blog post about 'Comfortable/Uncomfortable'.)

Consent

Consent is a thing that must be given and then continuously re-given. You can always withdraw it, and withdraw from play, at any time, for any reason, and you don't need to give that reason.

The Access Accord

"To come to an accord..."
Supported Space
Open Space Technology
Permissions
Specific Access Needs
Comfortable
Blog post: comfortable, uncomfortable

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How to join us
The Copenhagen Interpretation

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This is still (always) in development, but we intend to provide this information in other accessible formats

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This is The Copenhagen Interpretation of an Access Accord v5. This draft is dated 17th April 2022, developed for ADHD-inclusive digital platform usage for The Broad Cloth R&D 2022, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
The contents of this draft have been shaped by Jenifer Toksvig for The Copenhagen Interpretation with support from the ADHD Hive (Marie Moran, Claire Stewart, Ross Watt), Ellen Armstrong, David Bellwood, Martyn Blunt, Chloe Coleman, Diana Miranda, Flo O’Mahoney, Wendy O’Mahoney, Chloe Mashiter, Laurie Ogden, Erika O’Reilly, Teatro Vivo (Kas Darley, Mark Stevenson), Zoo Co, and pets, as well as those who came to play with us on Zoom and Discord during the 2022 R&D, in particular Mark Aspinall, Solomon Foster, Rachel Hebert, Lorena Hodgson,Amy Ledin, Sue Lee, Beatrix Livesey-Stephens, and Jennifer Lunn. Some of this process has been inspired by, or directly uses processes from, other people including Harrison Owen's Open Space Technology, and Kit Whitfield Thomas's observation that, when you have ADHD and you speak while someone else is speaking, you're not interrupting them, you're harmonising with them. Others who have inspired these things include FFRPG writers Debra Phillips, Kate Sinclair, and Jamison Yager, and theatre makers Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson of Improbable, and Alan Lane of Slung Low.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Everyone is free to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format), and/or adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) for any purpose, even commercially. If you use it and can let us know, you will be supporting our future fundraising work – thank you.