I'm a forever DM, as a favor to all DMs out there, please don't use DND for therapy. We're not therapists, we're storytellers. We're just as likely to make things worse.

Trauma Trauma Role Playing Game.

My characters almost always gain 90% of their trauma from the adventure itself.

Nothing wrong with a little bit of projection every now and then. It seems some people take it too far as a coping mechanism sometimes taking it to unhinged/unsafe degrees.

I consider it an ethical and moral responsibility to hide the darker aspects of my life from other people in general unless they are closely loved family or get paid to deal with such things as a career. If were just weekend night game buddies theres no reason you should be able to guess anything about my shitty life or internal suffering through poorly veiled character back story allusions. Its not your responsibility, its more personal that most are casually comfortable with, and its wrong for me to try to burden you with knowledge like that.

Revealing your deep traumas / "venting" to other regular people who only know you as a friend or passing aquanitence simply adds onto their psychological burden and likely makes further interaction weird or even secretly unwanted by complicating the relationship. Likely without improving your emotional situation any long term.

brennan lee mulligan making a new character

Do not assume that every character Trauma is the player putting their own Trauma, while it's not uncommon to be from a bankrupt wealthy familyor gender non comforming, oreven a single parentIRL, it's a very classic Character design trope, because fighting lord evil who stole your family possession or finding back your original body/form are great Character goal feeding the plot and the story.

Sure it may be a way to tell something about you in the PC creation, but it may just be a way to offer plot hooks

Couldnt be me, I'm the head empty goblin girl and my motivation is chaos

I've only played one character with trauma. Even then, I made sure it was thematic and still allowed for him to function in a party.

It also made him a never nude.

Listen, my 9/11 Rogue/Sorcerer just hit level 10, so he can spend sorcery points to subtract d8 damage! I promise, he's viable! 😭