A Dungeon Master took to social media to find a solution for a vegan Dungeons & Dragons player that requested a cruelty-free campaign.
A DM using a throwaway account on the DnD Subreddit posted a detailed question asking for advice on handling the situation of split D&D party interests. According to them, a friend had recently joined their ongoing campaign with other pals. A few sessions in, however, problems quickly arose when a player character that is a chef decided to cook a recently slaughtered pig. The new player, who is vegan, privately messaged the DM afterward to request they change the campaign to be "cruelty-free."
"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," the DM explained, "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."
As the player explained, she dealt with enough of those situations daily and didn't want to have that in her "fantasy escape game." While the DM was willing to make the changes, he asked for advice from other D&D players on navigating the situation so it didn't impact his chef player's role-playing or other aspects of the campaign while respecting the vegan player's boundaries.
Playing D&D Cruelity-Free
In an update to Reddit, the Dungeon Master revealed that the whole party sat down to discuss the situation and find compromises. The chef PC and the DM agreed to leave out graphic descriptions of cooking animals or meals containing animals, and the DM would stick with fantasy creatures only. The vegan player explained they were comfortable fighting animals or encountering malnourished pets as long as they were creatures they couldn't find in the real world and, for the latter, players had a chance to assist them if they were hurt or mistreated. Overall, the DM described the conversation as respectful as the party agreed to alter the campaign in inclusive ways.
The DnD Subreddit has become a hotspot for players to discuss challenging situations with party members like this. Others on the subreddit discuss D&D experiences, like their party's worst actions, or share custom monsters. Fanmade content and navigating differences between players remain the most popular topics on the Subreddit.