If you're ever unsure if you can or should share content with a Young Hero or Guardian, reach out to Support for help (youngheroes@startplaying.com). We want to provide guidance to avoid safety issues before they come up.
Our guidelines on content-sharing may change as Young Heroes grows.
Sharing Content with Young Heroes/Guardians
Most of the content you will be sharing with your players and their Guardians is going to be handled through D&D Beyond-- character sheets, maps, etc.
Our DM training highlights that DMs should never share outside links with players. "Links" in this context means linking to any outside tools such as Discord, Roll20, or other tools outside of our approved list.
However, we understand that you may need to get more information from your players before you play. Safety Tools need players' input to make them useful, and character creation may require more answers than a simple character sheet can provide. Below are guidelines on how to manage that additional information safely.
What Can I Share?
DMs are allowed to share links to Safety Tool documents or character creation documents with discretion. These links or forms should be filled out by the Guardian, with input from their Young Hero.
Links sent to Guardians should never:
ask for personally identifying information (PII)
be shared or listed publicly
be shared with your players without being shared with their Guardians
Links sent to Guardians should always:
be shared directly with Guardians (links can be provided via StartPlaying messaging), who will get the needed info from their Young Heroes and send it back to you
be stored securely in a cloud environment
be unique to each game or party
have any player/Guardian-provided information transferred to your own separate records as soon as possible
have any player/Guardian information-provided information documents be deleted once the needed information has been stored on your end
For anything you share with a Young Hero or Guardian, err on the side of caution. Try to put yourself in the shoes of a Guardian who isn't tech savvy or familiar with standard tabletop safety rules. Treat every request for information as specific to the individual and able to be redacted as soon as you have what you need.
How Can I Share?
Below are several options for gathering the needed information from players/Guardians outside of Zoom or D&D Beyond. This is not an exhaustive list, and is subject to change.
Sending Surveys (Google Forms):
Links to Google Forms (surveys) are a simple way to gather Safety Tool information from your Guardians and players. You're welcome to share those with Guardians if they meet the criteria listed above (private links, securely stored in the cloud, not shared with anyone else, information deleted once gleaned).
Keep it anonymous
Google Forms asks for email addresses to manage survey answers-- do not ask for users' email addresses. This is personally identifiable information (PII) that may not be shared.
Google Forms does not allow other responders to view anyone else's answers, so you can reassure your players/Guardians that the only person reading their answers is you.
Keep it simple
Most questions should be multiple choice rather than write-in
Write-in questions are fine if the user needs to add a topic that wasn't already listed. However, any PII shared in write-ins must be deleted immediately when discovered.
Keep it safe
Once all of your Guardians/players have filled out the survey, compile their answers into your own separate documentation. Then, delete the survey itself. The goal is to keep users' information from being outside our closed system for as little time as possible.
You can share your compiled document via Google link with your players, but it must not be editable by them. We recommend sending it as a PDF so you are the only one who can make changes. Every player needs to know what Lines & Veils are in place, but they don't get to change them on their end.
We recommend creating a new survey for each campaign/one-shot so that you can easily manage who is answering for which games.
Other survey tools besides Google Forms should be approved by Support first, to ensure they fit all of our safety criteria.
Example:
You create a Lines & Veils survey via Google Forms that you need your players to fill out. You send a unique link via StartPlaying messaging to each Guardian for them (and their child) to fill out. Once they've sent in their response, you gather their answers and paste them into your own separate Lines & Veils document for the campaign overall. You then immediately delete the response form they sent back to you, keeping their answers only in your own document. Once everyone has completed the survey and all answers are transferred to your own records, you delete the survey itself as well. You share a PDF of your final Lines & Veils document with each Guardian via StartPlaying messaging, so they can view it but not edit it.
In your Prep Materials
Your specified Prep Materials are automatically provided to each Guardian when they sign up for a game.
Besides the Zoom link, you decide what goes into these materials. This can include a link to a Google Form for the Guardian/player to fill out, or your Safety Tool questions provided directly:
If you are providing your Safety Tools questions directly here, you'll need to include that the Guardian must send their answers to you via StartPlaying message.
Since the same Prep Materials are sent to all Guardians in the same game, do not provide a link to a Google Doc or Sheet for them to fill out. This would allow everyone to see each other's responses, removing anonymity and a layer of safety.
As always, if any PII is shared, delete it immediately or reach out to Support to delete it from your messages.
Pre-Written Text via StartPlaying Messaging:
If you want to keep your Safety Tool prep within our messaging system, it can be helpful to have some pre-written texts to send. A form letter may seem impersonal, but it's a great way to get everyone on the same page from the jump.
As with a Google Form, if a user provides you with PII it needs to be redacted as soon as possible. Reach out to Support and we can delete any messages with sensitive information.
Example, using Lines & Veils:
"Hi, [Guardian Name]! I'm so excited to embark on our Adventure, [Game Name], with your Young Hero. Before we get started, I'm reaching out to all my players to gauge their comfort level with various topics. Not all of these will come up in our adventure, but I use [Safety Tool] to help make sure my players feel safe with anything that comes up at our table.
[Description of how Lines & Veils operates]
Below are a list of topics that may come up in our game. Please go over these with your Young Hero, and reply back to me to let me know any topics that are [Lines] or [Veils]. If there are any topics not listed that you would like avoided, please list those for me as well:
-Bugs
-Spiders
-Animal Harm
-Heights/Falling
-Romance"
When in doubt, reach out to Support. We can help you determine if you're asking for appropriate information in a safe manner. Safety is the top priority.