Anti-Harassment & Code of Conduct

Last updated 11th July 2026 | Link to live document

1. Purpose & Scope

Dragon Gaming exists so people can play tabletop roleplaying games together in a space that feels welcoming, safe and fun. This policy sets out the standard of behaviour we expect from everyone involved with Dragon Gaming, and what happens if that standard isn’t met.

This policy applies to everyone taking part in Dragon Gaming activity: members, guests, Game Masters, Guild Council members, volunteers and directors. Guests are made aware of this policy when attending a session, and the same standard applies to them as to members. It covers behaviour at guild sessions and any other in-person Dragon Gaming event, and it covers online spaces used for Dragon Gaming business or community, including the website, WhatsApp communities, Discord and social media pages.

This policy should be read alongside the Complaints & Grievance Policy and the Safeguarding Policy. Where a matter involves a child or young person, or a vulnerable adult, the Safeguarding Policy takes precedence on how the concern is handled.

2. Our Commitment

Everyone who takes part in Dragon Gaming is entitled to be treated with courtesy and respect, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. We want our tables, our guilds and our online spaces to be places where people feel able to be themselves. This includes making reasonable accommodations for disability or neuro-divergence where we can. 

Everyone shares responsibility for keeping Dragon Gaming welcoming. That means looking out for one another, speaking up when something isn’t right, and supporting anyone who raises a concern in good faith.

3. Expected Behaviour

We ask everyone taking part in Dragon Gaming to:

• Treat other members, Game Masters, council members, volunteers and venue staff with courtesy and respect, in person and online.
• Respect other people’s boundaries, including around physical contact, personal space, and the content of games (see ‘Session content and consent’ below).
• Listen to and follow reasonable instructions from the Game Master running a session, and from Guild Council members acting in their role.
• Speak up, calmly and constructively, if something at the table or in the guild doesn’t sit right, rather than letting it build up.
• Respect the confidentiality of any complaint or concern they’re told about in confidence (see Section 8).
• Treat guild equipment, venues and other members’ belongings with care.

Session Content and Consent
Tabletop games can involve dark or mature themes as part of the story. Game Masters should agree expectations with their table before a game starts (for example, using a simple tool such as lines and veils, or an equivalent check-in), and should be responsive if a player asks for a theme to be dialled back or avoided during play. No player should feel pressured to stay in a scene, or at a table, that they’re not comfortable with.

4. Unacceptable Behaviour

The examples below aren’t exhaustive, but give a sense of what we mean. Unacceptable behaviour includes:

• Harassment of any kind, including unwanted comments, jokes, or conduct relating to a protected characteristic (see Section 2).
• Sexual harassment, including unwelcome sexual comments, advances or contact.
• Bullying, intimidation, or deliberately excluding someone from a group or game.
• Discriminatory language or behaviour, including in-character content used as an excuse to target another player out of character.
• Unwanted contact, in person or online. Not everyone is comfortable being touched, and closeness that’s fine between a couple or close friends isn’t automatically fine between anyone else – if in doubt, don’t.
• Sharing photos, recordings, or personal information about another member without their consent.
• Physical aggression, threats or violence.
• The possession, use, or distribution of illegal drugs at any Dragon Gaming session or event. Any such activity will be reported to the police.
• Attending, or attempting to attend, a session while under the influence of illegal drugs.
• Attending, or attempting to attend, a session while under the influence of alcohol to a degree that affects other members’ safety or enjoyment. Responsible alcohol consumption at venues that offer it is not itself an issue – what matters is the level of intoxication and how someone behaves as a result.
• Bringing a weapon (including a prop that could reasonably be mistaken for a real weapon) to a session without having agreed this with the Game Master and venue in advance.
• Any behaviour prohibited under the Safeguarding Policy, including any form of abuse toward a child or vulnerable adult.

“In character” is not a shield. Using a game to say or do something that would be unacceptable out of character is still unacceptable.

5. Roles and Responsibilities

This policy works alongside the Guild Council roles set out in the Guild Charter:

• Game Masters set the tone at their own table and can pause or end a session if behaviour becomes unacceptable.
• The Player Envoy is a guild’s first point of contact for any welfare concern or complaint, and champions member voice at Guild Council level.
• The Guild Council as a whole is responsible for a guild feeling welcoming, and for making sure concerns raised with the Player Envoy are taken seriously.
• The Head Envoy is an independent Arbiter, a non-director HQ volunteer, playing the same welfare and complaints role as a Player Envoy but at HQ level, for complaints that can’t be resolved at guild level, or that concern HQ or a director.
• HQ (the directors) hold overall responsibility for this policy, for safeguarding, and for any complaint that reaches Stage 3.

6. Your Right to Respond

Anyone facing a complaint under this policy has the right to:

• State their case in person before a decision is made.
• Bring a supporting person of their choosing to any meeting, interview, or hearing relating to the complaint.
• Seek advice or support from a Council member, HQ volunteer, or an external agency.

7. Raising a Concern

This policy uses the same three-stage process as the Guild Charter’s complaints procedure, summarised here for convenience; the Charter is the definitive version if the two ever differ.

Stage	When to use it
Stage 1: Guild level	Raise it with your guild’s Player Envoy. Most day-to-day issues should be resolved here, informally and quickly.
Stage 2: Head Envoy	Used when the complaint is about a Guild Council member, Stage 1 hasn’t resolved it in a reasonable time, or the complaint concerns a director or HQ’s handling of a matter.
Stage 3: HQ	Used when a safeguarding, harassment, or Code of Conduct concern is involved (these go straight here regardless of stage), when Stage 2 hasn’t resolved it in a reasonable time, or when the complaint concerns the Head Envoy.

A concern can be raised verbally or in writing, whichever feels easier. You don’t need to have all the details worked out, or to know exactly which stage applies, before you raise something, the Player Envoy or Head Envoy can help you work out the right next step.

The Head Envoy and HQ will acknowledge receipt of a complaint within 3 days. Complaints are typically resolved within 14 days of being raised, though this can vary with complexity; if it takes longer, you’ll be kept updated on progress.

8. Immediate Action for Serious Breaches

Some situations can’t wait for the process above to run its course. Where a breach presents a significant and immediate risk to someone’s safety, or involves illegal drugs or otherwise illegal conduct:

• Whoever is present in an official capacity (a Game Master, Guild Council member, or director) can remove the person from the session immediately.
• The person is temporarily suspended from all Dragon Gaming guilds and activities while a formal investigation takes place.
• The matter is referred to the Board as a priority. The Board decides whether a permanent ban or other sanction is required, following the same decision-making process as any other sanction (see Section 11), including the exclusions that apply where a director is involved.

This immediate removal and temporary suspension is a holding measure to protect people while the matter is properly investigated – it isn’t the final outcome. The person is still entitled to the full process set out in this policy, including the right to respond (Section 6) and to appeal (Section 13), once the Board has made its decision.

Deliberately false allegations used to trigger this process are treated with equal seriousness. Because immediate removal is disruptive and serious, knowingly making a false allegation in order to trigger it will itself be investigated as a serious breach of this policy – up to and including a permanent ban, given the harm caused both to the person wrongly suspended and to trust in the process itself. This is separate from, and more serious than, a concern raised in good faith that turns out on investigation to be mistaken – see Section 12.

9. Allegations of Abuse

Where a concern involves an allegation of abuse, physical, sexual, financial, or otherwise, against a director, Guild Council member, Game Master, or volunteer, it must be reported to HQ immediately and must not be held or handled informally at guild level, under any circumstances. This sits alongside, and does not replace, the welfare response set out in the Safeguarding Policy.

Dragon Gaming’s insurance requires the company to notify its insurer within 7 days of becoming aware of, or having reasonable grounds to suspect, such an allegation. This is a condition of cover, not just good practice, so whoever first becomes aware of an allegation of this kind should treat telling HQ as time-critical.

10. Confidentiality

Complaints and concerns are handled discreetly. Only those who need to know in order to resolve the matter are told, and this includes protecting the complainant’s identity wherever possible.

There may be situations, particularly where safeguarding or a legal obligation is involved, where identity cannot be fully protected. Where this applies, it will be explained to the complainant as early as possible, so no one is given an assurance that later turns out not to hold.

11. Possible Outcomes

What happens after a complaint is investigated depends on what’s found and how serious it is. Possible outcomes include, but aren’t limited to:

• No further action, where a concern is not upheld.
• An informal conversation or reminder of expected behaviour.
• A formal warning.
• A requirement to change specific behaviour (for example, at a particular table or in a particular online space).
• Temporary suspension from sessions or Dragon Gaming spaces while a matter is looked into.
• Removal of membership, or removal from a Guild Council or volunteer role.
• Referral to the police or another external authority, where the matter warrants it.

Any outcome will be proportionate to what happened, and will be communicated to those directly involved in writing. For confidentiality reasons, the Board isn’t required to publicly explain its reasoning to the wider membership. Where safeguarding law or another legal obligation requires a different course of action, that obligation takes precedence over anything in this policy.

Where the conduct in question is a director’s: that director takes no part in the decision, and the remaining directors decide the outcome. The Head Envoy provides a recommendation, in the same way they would for any other matter, but the decision itself remains with the other directors. If the remaining directors cannot agree, the decision is deferred back to the Head Envoy for further investigation. If, after that, the remaining directors still cannot reach agreement, the complaint is treated as not upheld.

12. Malicious or Vexatious Complaints

Raising a concern in good faith, even if it later turns out to be mistaken, will never be treated as a problem in itself – we would always rather people spoke up. A complaint that is knowingly false, or made maliciously to cause harm to another member, is different, and may itself be treated as a breach of this policy.

Equally, no one will be penalised for raising a genuine concern in good faith, and any form of victimisation or retaliation against someone because they’ve raised a concern will itself be treated as a breach of this policy.

13. Appeals

Anyone sanctioned under this policy has the right to appeal. An appeal must be submitted in writing to the Head Envoy within 14 days of being informed of the decision.

1. The person wishing to appeal notifies the Head Envoy in writing, within 14 days of being informed of the original decision.
2. The Head Envoy appoints an Appeals Panel of three responsible members. Because the panel is convened on an ad hoc basis, there’s no fixed eligibility criteria for who can sit on it – but no one may sit on the Panel if they were involved in the original complaint, investigation, or decision, or if they have a significant prior relationship or dispute with the complainant or the subject of the complaint. This is a temporary appointment for the purpose of hearing that specific appeal only.
3. The Head Envoy provides the Panel with the context of the original complaint and how it was handled – enough for the Panel to understand the matter fairly – without sitting on the Panel themselves.
4. The Panel reviews the appeal and makes a formal recommendation to the Board. The Panel doesn’t have the power to overturn, confirm, or change the outcome itself – that decision remains with the Board.
5. The Board considers the Panel’s recommendation and makes the final decision.

Where the appeal concerns a director’s conduct, or an outcome decided about a director: that director takes no part in considering the appeal or the Board’s final decision, which is made by the remaining directors, informed by the Panel’s recommendation. If the remaining directors cannot agree, the decision is deferred back to the Panel for further consideration. If, after that, the remaining directors still cannot reach agreement, the appeal is treated as not upheld.

14. Online and Social Conduct

This policy applies just as much online as it does in person. Dragon Gaming’s WhatsApp communities, Discord (where used), and social media pages are an extension of our guilds, and the same standard of behaviour is expected there as at the table.

• Keep discussion on official Dragon Gaming channels on-topic and respectful.
• Don’t share another member’s personal details, photos, or private messages without their consent.
• If a disagreement starts to get heated, pause rather than pushing it further in the group. A Guild Council member or admin may step in to pause or redirect a conversation if needed, and this isn’t a punishment – it’s the same thing a GM does at the table if things get tense mid-session.
• If something needs resolving rather than just cooling off, raise it through the normal process (see Section 7) rather than letting it play out in the channel or between individuals.

Concerns about online conduct are raised and handled in exactly the same way as any other concern – see Section 7.

15. Review

This policy is reviewed annually by the Board, or sooner if a related policy (the Guild Charter, or the Safeguarding Policy) changes in a way that affects it. Feedback and questions are always welcome – speak to your Player Envoy, the Head Envoy or contact Head Office directly.