The Inevitably-Named "Rape in RPGs"

 

It's funny. I'm always hearing horror stories about in-game rape, but no one ever seems to want to do anything about it – even write an article. In fact, it seems as though people are frequently surprised to hear that it's a common problem – and there are too many people who refuse to admit that it's a problem in the first place. This article is an attempt to address the problem, explaining what's acceptable, what's not, and what you should watch out for.

If you're like me, you may be wondering why I'm even bothering to write this article. "Of course no one is going to rape someone's character without being absolutely, positively sure it's okay with them," you may be thinking. "Right?" Wrong. Throughout my years of gaming experience I've heard continual stories of players' characters being raped when it really, really wasn't even remotely okay at all – I've even been there for a couple such incidents – and I think it's an important enough issue that it ought to be addressed in clear, certain terms. I also think there are a lot of peripheral issues that aren't immediately considered when we discuss rape in gaming, and I'm going to try to address all of them here. (Wish me luck!) For another related Gamegrene article, take a look at On Verant's Banning of Mystere, concerning fanfiction, child rape (and its female author) and EverQuest. --Morbus Iff

Why you shouldn't use rape – without permission

We, sweet and trusting players that we are, all put our characters in the hands of the GM, and we all (generally) expect a certain amount of trauma to result for the poor things. Their entire families may be killed; their lovers may be grabbed and held at gunpoint; they may even die. These are the kinds of risks we accept as normal when we decide to participate in a roleplaying game – we agree, essentially, that bad things can happen to our characters.

However, although you may disagree, there are a number of people who consider rape to go over the line, even when they're okay with the rest of the horrible events I've listed. Why? It's complicated. I don't think I'm going to be able to explain why some people consider rape to be the absolute worst possible thing that can be done to a human being if you don't already understand that viewpoint. But, believe me, there are an awful lot of people out there who think so.

one of the top three Cardinal Sins of GMing

I'm sure you've heard this a lot, but I'll repeat it again: it is the GM's job to keep the game comfortable for everyone. This involves a certain degree of sensitivity to the wishes of the players, and that means that even if you don't think rape is all that bad an experience, you have to be aware that there are lots of people who do. I can't emphasize this enough: if you decide to have one of the player characters raped in one of your games, and you don't get the player's explicit permission first, then you are doing an Extremely Bad Thing – in fact, I would call this one of the top three Cardinal Sins of GMing, if not the Cardinal Sin.

I don't want you to think I'm being overly dramatic here – but this is a dramatic issue. I know people (yes, more than one person) who have had characters raped, and later had nightmares about the experience – yes, actual real-life, wake-up-screaming nightmares! I know of gaming groups that fell apart because of one rape scene, and people who never spoke to each other again. I know of people who swore off gaming forever because they had a character raped and were so sickened that they couldn't stomach ever roleplaying again. I also know of people who were raped in real life, then had a character raped in a roleplaying game and had to deal with all of their horrible emotional baggage over again because of one GM's insensitivity. Stories like these are the reason you have to be careful and respectful – do you really want to be responsible for cruelly messing around with someone's psyche like that? (If your answer was 'yes', then please provide me with your name, address and least favourite way to die for ... uh ... no reason.)

Now, obviously, if you have a player's permission to have his or her character raped, then far be it from me to tell you not to. However, on the topic of asking permission, I do have a few pieces of advice. If you do get permission, I very much highly extremely recommend using the "fade to black" approach for the rape scene itself.

  1. If you feel at all uncomfortable asking a player for permission to have their character raped, then you should take that as a strong indicator that you shouldn't be considering having their character raped at all.
  2. Make sure that you explicitly ask for permission to have the player's character raped. Many players are just fine with playing in horrifying, disturbingly gritty games, but still draw the line at rape. Don't ask, "Is it okay with you if I run a gritty and traumatic game?" and then assume that because the player answers "Yes," they've given you permission to have their character raped. Ask, "Is it all right with you if I have your character coerced into sex acts against his / her will?" (Even asking the question, "Is it all right with you if I have your character raped?" is a little bit dicey, because in some circles the word "rape" is frequently used in its alternate meaning of "abusive or improper treatment", and it's possible that the player will mistake your meaning. I wouldn't say that this is likely, but hey, I figure we should cover all the bases here; besides, I want to see if I can make it to double the recommended word count and really piss Morbus off. /me grumbles. --Morbus Iff)
  3. Make sure the player knows it really is okay if he or she answers, "No." Players, especially new or inexperienced players, are frequently intimidated by established (or even just large) gaming groups – and particularly by the GM. A player will not want to be labelled a "bad player", "not a team player", "annoying", "histrionic" or what have you, and sometimes players will say that they're okay with things that they aren't okay with because they don't want to seem like a problem. Make it clear to the player that acceptance into the group and good opinion of other group members is not contingent on them saying "Yes" to character rape.
  4. You should make sure that everyone playing in the game is okay with you bringing rape into the game – not just the players whose characters are affected. Other players are going to be involved too, after all, and it's entirely possible that some of them don't want to deal with that kind of thing, even peripherally.

Why people sometimes don't speak up

gently but firmly say something!

Don't assume that just because someone has had characters raped before in your presence and didn't say anything, they were fine with it. A lot of the time, players simply don't want to make a fuss. I've seen this happen multiple times – a player has a character raped, and although she (or potentially he, but I've never seen this happen to a man) is very upset about it, she keeps quiet and tries to laugh it off because she doesn't want to make a scene or offend the group.

Naturally, if you're a player in such a situation, I advise you to gently but firmly say something! If a GM even starts to put your character into a rape situation (or, of course, any situation you aren't okay with) then say, "I'm not comfortable with this." If your GM continues despite this, or you catch flak from the GM or the group for saying it, then I will personally help you skin the offender(s) and dump their bodies in the river. (Okay, not really. Don't do this – it'll just result in more groups like BADD.)

Opposite-sex characters

For some reason, apparently, people who would never consider having a female player's character raped have been known to have male players' characters raped. I'm here to tell you that the assumption that a man is going to be okay with having his (female or otherwise) character raped just because he's male is an extremely flawed one. It is also an assumption that many people find offensive and disturbing – there are lots of people, including men, who are disgusted by the implication that men are "okay" with rape just because they're male. The idea that rape is solely a "women's problem" is not only statistically incorrect (more men, for example, are gang-raped in the United States than women); it also implies that men are unaffected when women are raped, and I'm sure any man whose wife or daughter has been raped can explain to you quite clearly why this is not the case. More to the point, men are just as capable as women of relating to and understanding the potential mind-numbing horror of the act, and therefore can be just as angry and hurt if it happens to their characters as any woman might be. In short, you should go through the same steps in confirming that potential in-game rape is all right with your male players as you would with a female player.

"Justifications" for in-game rape

I can think of no justification I would accept for having a character raped without the player's permission. I am going to present some situations that people have claimed (or potentially could claim) as acceptable reasons to have characters raped without permission, because rationalization is a powerful and pervasive thing, and I want to discourage it as much as possible (in this context, that is – I'm not about to tell you that you can't rationalize as much as you want about, say, buying that new $30 supplement).

  1. "But it's realistic!" I can't tell you how often I've heard this one. "Hey, your character is gorgeous, wearing a tight bodysuit, and alone in a horrible neighbourhood of a major modern city at night. Of course she's going to get raped!" "Hey, your character has been taken captive by a barbarian tribe. Of course she's going to get raped!" Now I tell you, and I tell you truly, that I am normally one of the biggest advocates for realism in gaming ever. Realism is very important to me – in my opinion, it makes a game infinitely better. Regardless, I still flat-out forbid my GMs from having my characters raped, and I consider my discomfort with the idea to be more than enough reason to keep rape out of the game. Realism should never be prioritized above basic sensitivity to a player's feelings – and even players who prefer realism to a seemingly-psychotic extent will often tell you that they're still not comfortable with character rape.

    Realism should never be prioritized over player feelings

    Furthermore, there are always other ways to address realism – I can think of no situation in which rape would be an inevitability, especially when you, as the GM, have infinite control of events and personalities. If you want to make a character's dangerous situation clear, there are other ways to do it. Is the character a frail, attractive woman alone at night? Have her mugged and stabbed. The character got taken captive by a barbarian tribe? Decide that the tribe has a taboo against sex with captives, but have the character beaten or forced to fight in mock-gladiatorial combat or something. Maybe that sadistic nemesis who has managed to take the character into captivity simply finds the character too personally annoying to rape – or maybe they're even impotent / frigid. A little creativity can make short work of "realistic necessity".

  2. The character is a courtesan, extremely promiscuous, or victim of a previous rape. The fact that a given character sells sex for money, or even just has lots of sex for no reason at all, does not mean that it is automatically okay to have them raped. You should still ask permission – you might be surprised at how some people who play courtesans, or whatever, feel about having their characters raped. It is also worth noting that some people make characters whose backstories state they've been raped before. Do not take this as a signal that you can have their character raped again with impunity – in fact, you should be ultra-sensitive even in terms of mere simple romance with such a character.

"Disguised" rape

There are a number of situations that may arise, particularly in fantasy games, that don't necessarily appear to be rape per se. Let's briefly examine the definition of rape (that is, the definition that applies here – obviously, for the purposes of this article, I'm ignoring such definitions as "the refuse of grapes left after the extraction of the juice in winemaking"). (Bet you didn't know that one, did you?)

rape: (noun) unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception.

Let's go on to specific situations:

  1. "But you had a choice!" The character is given a "choice" – for example, "Sleep with me or your lover dies!" This counts as rape. Even if the character could, hypothetically, get out of the situation by risking their life, or causing a war, or whatever, and chooses to have sex rather than initiate the catastrophic consequence, it's still rape. "Valid consent" means consent without duress, and thus, obviously, if the character is under duress, then he or she cannot give valid consent. Don't hide behind such excuses as, "But you could have fought an army single-handedly with nothing but a toothpick and conceivably survived to escape your rapist!" And don't force your players to have their characters make choices like that unless, as always, you have their explicit and prior consent.
  2. Deception can come in all sorts of forms, and roleplaying games tend to only increase the possibilities. My personal favourite example is the shapeshifter clause: a shapeshifter takes on the form of someone else, for example, a player character's lover, and "seduces" the player character. I've had GMs claim that this "didn't count" as rape for some reason – even in cases in which the "seduced" player character character would not have had consensual sex with the shapeshifter had they known the shapeshifter's true identity. Obviously, deception can come in more mundane forms as well, such as merely lying ("But of course I'm not your arch-nemesis, darling").

    "of course I'm not your arch- nemesis, darling"

    It's worth noting that having a player character tricked into having sex – particularly by smooth talkin' – is not necessarily as likely to cause the same kind of hurt feelings, anger and recriminations that can arise from having a player character forcibly raped against their immediate will; and there are many players who will be fine with having their characters tricked into sex who would be appalled by the idea of having their characters raped in a more physically coercive way. However – as always – I recommend that you inquire beforehand, because there's a fair number of people that are going to consider this kind of thing just as bad as any other form of rape.

  3. The "Charm Person" effect. A person who is magically enchanted into falling in love with someone and / or wanting to sleep with them, who then sleeps with them, has been raped. Period. And, because I have to say this so often that it becomes annoying, you should make sure to ask whether it's okay first.
  4. Threats. With some players, having a character threatened with rape will upset them almost as much as actually having the character raped. Even if you think that the threat of rape would be the best possible way to motivate your plot, and even if you are positive that the threat will never, ever escalate into in-game reality, you should employ the same sensitivity as you would with the "real thing".

Peripheral issues

Now I'm going to talk about a couple of issues that, while not rape, still ought to be mentioned in this article. These may not involve in-game rape, but for out-of-game reasons they're still unacceptable because they're forcing a player to play out sexual situations that he or she may not want to deal with. The character may not have been raped, and there is thus no reason for the character to exhibit long-term psychological rape trauma effects – but making the characters in your game do sexual things that the players don't want their characters doing is a kind of mental violation, and it is liable to lead to some of the same consequences that having a character raped might (for example, alienation and disgust with the game).

Forcing the characters to deal with the things I'm about to outline also takes a large part of the entertainment out of the game for many people because it turns things into GM decisions that should be player decisions. For example, wouldn't you be annoyed if a GM had a non-player character approach your character and suggest something to them, and then said, "Okay, because your character is tired and depressed and not very strong-willed, your character was just persuaded"? What's the point of playing the game if you, as a player, aren't going to have any real control over your character and their development? A character, and a gaming situation, is more than just a group of statistics and abstract descriptors, and some things should just be left up to the player – for flavour, if for no other reason. These are a couple of them.

  1. Die-roll seductions. I'm going to state for the record, before I discuss this, that it is my opinion that if someone gives someone else permission to have sex with them, then they cannot later say that they were raped (unless, of course, they were definitely not in their right mind, e.g. they had just drunk a liter of vodka). So don't start with me on that score. However, seduction in roleplaying games can be a little bit different because of the dice factor. In real life, someone can't walk up to you and say, "I just rolled a 20 on my Charisma check, so that means you have to sleep with me." Unfortunately, situations like this have been known to happen in roleplaying games. They shouldn't. Keep in mind that people put a lot of care and love into their characters and sex is an extremely personal thing – not just in real life, but also in character-building – and some people are going to be really upset if you inform them that they don't get to decide who their character voluntarily sleeps with. And, just as with the rape issue, it's a good idea to respect such opinions even if you don't agree with them; you're a lot less likely to offend people and lose players (and possibly friends) that way.

    may be violating a very personal part of character- building

    I do understand that some games actually implement statistics to try to measure characters' personalities, and that sometimes such statistics will purport to measure such variables as how seduceable a character is (for example, the "Temperance Virtue" in the White Wolf game Exalted). Therefore, when playing such a game, it may be tempting to force a player to make a roll based on one of those "personality statistics" in order to determine whether or not they are seduced by someone. Even if a player has given their character statistics that would seem to indicate that he or she is highly seduceable, I still think it's a bad idea to force a player to roll dice in order to see if their character is seduced. Maybe they did stat out a "seduceable" character, and maybe they should have expected to therefore be easily seduced, but the fact remains that forcing a player to have their character sleep with someone because of a dice roll may be violating a very personal part of their character-building effort. If you find you really can't expect the player to make the kind of decisions the character they have built would make based on the character's statistics, then I suggest you remind them their character's decisions aren't reflecting their statted-out "personality". If the problem persists, tell the player you're going to make them spend experience – or whatever – to change their "personality statistics" unless they begin to play their character in line with those statistics. But don't, repeat don't, make the decision of how the character acts sexually for the player, and don't have the dice do it either – unless, obviously, the player has told you explicitly that that is okay with them.

  2. Pregnancy. Don't get characters pregnant without the player's explicit and prior permission. It doesn't matter if they're being promiscuous and acting in such a way that they're extremely liable to get pregnant; don't do it. You also shouldn't sterilize a character without permission, or force a character who is pregnant to miscarry or get an abortion without permission. These may seem like minor or even amusing things, but they have the potential to really offend people – probably not as much as, say, having a character raped, but enough that you should avoid it unless you know it's fine. (I should say here that I've never seen a player whose character was male get offended by the GM's sudden introduction of a pregnancy or an unknown child by means of someone the character slept with; this is, apparently, a much less sensitive issue than messing around with a female character's pregnancy or nonpregnancy. Regardless... you know the drill.)

Player characters initiating rape

So, welcome to the end of this long-ass article. You'll note that I didn't address one thing: the possibility of the players having their characters rape others, whether the "others" be player characters or GM characters. I think that everything I've said here can be easily applied to players as well as GMs – although players don't have the same overarching responsibility as GMs, they still should employ some elementary sensitivity, and try to be nice to each other. I can definitely tell you that as a GM, if I had a player in one of my games say anything along the lines of "I rape so-and-so ..." I would stop right there and tell them to get the hell out of my game – I, for one, don't want to deal with the issue of rape in my games. That's just my opinion, of course – but it's shared by a lot of people. If you want to play a character who rapes people, I'm sure there are circles you can find in which it would be acceptable – but if you go assuming that it's acceptable everywhere, you're going to have to be prepared for some potentially nasty consequences.

One last note: I've actually heard of GMs coming under pressure from their players to include rape in games. Always remember that, as GM, you may be proverbially expected to "keep the game comfortable for everyone" – but that definitely includes yourself. If your players want you to put rape in your games and you're uncomfortable with it, then you are absolutely, positively not required to do it.

I'd be interested to know if there are any in-game rape situations that people think I failed to cover.

This is where I apologize if I sounded patronizing or if you think I was offensive. I think it's an important enough topic to be worth potentially offending some people. As for patronization – well, as noted, I've heard of all of the situations listed here happening at least once, and many have come up in my presence; I'm only addressing this stuff because I've realized some gamers honestly don't understand it, not because I want to talk down to you. If you think that any of this shouldn't need to be said, well, reality evidences otherwise – and I can only hope that this article goes a little ways towards changing that reality.

Off-site references

  • A Rape In Cyberspace – Julian Dibbell's landmark article about a rape case in a MUD helps highlight the strong feelings people have about the matter of raped characters, as well as the self-consciousness and occasional difficulty people have coming to terms with those feelings. (Thanks for the link to Morbus Iff.)
  • Pursuing the Libido's Dark Side – An article about the (currently in beta) MMORPG Sociolotron (which has implemented commands that allow characters to rape each other) that discusses how people react to that aspect of it and why people voluntarily participate.
  • Rape in Role Playing Games – An archived thread from a discussion group for gamerchicks that, in an comparatively coherent and well-written way, discusses a lot of their specific experiences with the subject.
  • I'd also like to note an article by a certain A. Whetton (titled, shockingly enough, "Rape in RPGs") that has been constantly recommended to me. I can't find it, but it's supposed to be a must-read. It's been published separately, but was apparently first published as a chapter in the game Principia Malefex.

Lydia Laurenson, a.k.a. Shataina, is a freelance writer who's primarily done work on White Wolf's "Exalted".
You can contact her at shataina(at)gmail.com.

Interesting how a well thought out article by Shataina can end up leading us all down the merry little path towards slinging mud.
each to their own but I honestly cannot see the point in playing in a game where Rape is used as a foreground plot device - by foreground I mean anything done to OR by a PC.
Also as previously stated by another poster, unlike nearly all other crimes, actions or abuse Rape is predominantly a emotional crime inflicting mental anguish on the other person, so if thats how you get your rocks off Sifolis then so be it.
But try telling people what you do for a hobby... sure you tell them you play some fantasy hero and they might smirk or snigger... some might be interseted and wish to find out more info... whereas some might just think you are basically doing minor amateur drmatics of a sort..
but you tell anyone who has never RP before that oh yeah and in my game if someone wants to rape or be raoped then thats ok with me....
i for one would be ashamed to be associated in the same hobby as that person... ( and well you should know who your playing in the same group as is no defense... isn't that like saying any woman who has ever been date raped should have known the type of man whom she was out with)... sounds different when you put it into a more 'realistic' context doesnt it
Oh and feel free to flame away in response if thats your thaaang.

Don't feed the troll, people.

(Don't get me wrong, I'm all up for a bit of troll-sporting if they're the entertaining sort. But this one looks pretty lame.)

whocares? Exactly. Who cares about your comment? It is an obvious immature and sexist remark and really has no place in our forum.

I've known many women who play male PCs; should I no longer game with them? According to your post-- yes

Likewise, I've known many mem who play female characters. Should they then be discounted? According to your post-- yes

So, we'll leave you to your one-sided, biased and totally-out-of-it point of view, it's a wonder that you have any friends much less a group with which to game.

I'm sorry...but i gotta say-

HahahahahahahahahahahahahahahHHAHAHAHHA!

Sorry guys, I know you wanna run a decent and friendly sight, but thats just the kind of funny-ha-ha that gets me giggling like a school boy.

ps- NOT funny dude, have some fricken respect!

Okay, your first problem is that you shouldn't be playing D&D with women, and on the off chance that you do, you may as well rape them. I mean, what else is a female character good for? It's not like they can fight. And...getting their permission first? Then it wouldn't be rape, would it?! Rape has to be a surprise, it's just not as much fun when you see it coming.

All right, I agree a GM can use whatever punishment he deems appropriate. But I didn't take the article to tell me never to use a rape in a role-playing game. It just means to me that whatever I cause to the player characters must be acceptable to the players themselves. Some people can stomach virtual rape. Some others can't. It doesn't make them worse players to me. Most people couldn't stomach a detailed description of a blade wound if I was to give them one. But hey, I'm playing with my friends, not local war veterans! If they cannot accept their characters being raped, than I don't allow the GM to rape them, period. Anyway, I seldom GM games, where grittiness is an issue. Your characters could get chopped in two by the first successful blow, but still, I wouldn't make a detailed description of the wound. This character just got a deadly strike, so he is dead, period. Make a new one!
If the character gets raped, however, there is no such rebirth. You have to deal with the pain and trauma. Worse, you get to roleplay it. In order to do it, you have to imagine it is real. In short, it can hurt you out of game, and I dislike things that can hurt the players and not just the characters.
Just my 0.02$ worth.

:laugh: S'okay. I have fantasies about helping the damsel in distress too. For me I doubt it has anything to do with machoness, however.

Fair comment. However I think Axiomatic may have been speaking in jest a little (at least that was my assumption, and the basis for my reply).

Please pardon our brief lapse into macho helping-the-damsel-in-distress-get-her-revenge fantasies....;-)

With all due respect, I actually think that's a terrible way to "solve" the problem. If the Storyteller is actually trying to spare her feelings, he should find a way to head off the in-game rape *before* it happens, and talk to his players privately if he thinks it'll be a problem.

Next subject being? Pretty hats in D&D and do they fit right?

OK....
hoping that now everyone's agreed to play nice, let's move on!

Next topic, please! (...and guys, try to stay on topic for...errr...once?)

- reading a signature is silly -

oh..and one more thing, Ill try to make it quick and to the point.
I do not like some of the people here, if you think I am being rude then thats your opinion, cus in my own opinion I think I am tolerating way too much crap from a few people who I think are total idiots...I keep the majority of this inside cus I know its rude to retort...But those who choose to take advantage of "me being new" by critisising me for my ways or my spelling flaws are just as bad.

Since you say there are players who cant take the very idea behind rape in a fantasy game, perhaps they should also think what it must be like in the REAL WORLD with a documented disorder that may cuases them to have real problems with english in its typed form.

think about that...

now...think how pissed somone with this disorder would be if he simply game to play along and talk about a subject of love with fellow table-toppers and all he got was-
"dude, spell checks your friend, use it"
or
"if you DM like you spell, then your game prolly aint my cup of tea"

dude...lets get away from the table and say this...you say that crap to any man in the real world and you would get your stupid snotty nose dented in...its rude, its wrong and its as bad as anything you dont like about my views...

I doubt you even think before you use your holyer-then-thou additudes, this whole "i was here first, so I know the rules and what this forum will allow" blah blah blah...ive been posting in forums for many many years, if I find myself removed I wont say
"wow..i wish some egotistical testicals woulda warned me that sticking up for myself and treating jerks LIKE jerks was wrong"

I know I am not being the "great good guy" here, but I refuse to try really hard to be him, since many of these "home-teamers" have done nothing but poop on me from the start. My first post was nice, and not hostile..the replies it got made me understand what kinda people hang here. so I wont leave to suit you, cus Im american and we dont play that sissy role. And I refuse to kiss ass to get a few dorks respect long enough to speak my mind in a safe area. Frick that!

Anyway..If I was really "trolling" or looking to "pick fights" , trust me Id have alot more to say on this subject..but I didnt want to offend shacklina (whaevea)...

Ill go now...before I'm told that Its wrong to defend yourself, or refuse to be polite once somone has offended you over and over.

Food for thought: Its not trolling when you dissagree with somthing. Maybe if you were more sensitive to new-comers youd have more then 500 posts on the entire site, and the number one artical wouldnt be about "rape".

Hey Sif, take it easy. Try to cool down a little. I wasn't asking you to leave the board, in fact the reason I gave you some gentle advice is because I don't wan't to see you get booted.

Your posts don't really aggravate me at all but then I'm not an easy person to rouse to anger (it's kind of a British thing!). I'm not responding here to 'fight back', I'm trying to help out a little. I know that you will probably think I'm being patronising, as you're just a little touchy and over-sensitive. But I can't help that.

Sure, it's not trolling to disagree with something. I never said it was. Take a look back through this thread and you'll see that I had a very lengthy argument with Rogue Githyanki in which I was basically defending the right to include rape in a game, if circumstances warrant the inclusion of such an occurence - just as you have done. Trolling is where you say something specifically designed to wind people up. Mind you I'm not saying that everything you post should be some po-faced piece of Vulcan logic either. Nothing wrong with a bit of leg-pulling now and then, but the other guy needs to be able to see that tongue planted in your cheek to avoid the discussion degenerating into a flame war.

By the way, there's no 'home team' on this board, really, and we're not all singing from the same hymn sheet. You keep talking as if we've all got it in for you and you're lashing out at all and sundry. I don't have it in for you, in fact you remind me of an old friend of mine (who was also rather...excitable, shall we say).

The number of posts on this board as a measure of how good it is? What kind of nonsense is that? Does the fact that only a handful of people drive an Aston Martin Vanquish mean it's a rubbish car? Does the fact that only a small percentage of the human race is able to understand nuclear science mean that nuclear science is crud? C'mon.

Just calm down, my friend.

I use a Mac...and macs beat PCs no matter how many tards use PCs (cheek-tongue-see?)..and I know your not being a jerk, in fact your one of the few people around here who gave me a fair turn for turn. I am thankful for that, and dont think Im not. I have read almost every artical on this site before I even posted, and the reason I decided to nest here for whatever moment I am allowed is cus its a damn good read, and full of interesting views on table-topping. I thought I went out of my way to say "a few" people here suck, not all. I really didnt think I spat in the face of everyone, just the few who did the same for me...

but, as for getting excitable, I dunno if thats the right discription of my motivation when it comes to mouthing off...I enjoy nice-talk and I dont mind rough-houseing either...Im fine being good, bad or neutral...

You and Calamar have moved me to being polite in the recent past cus you both had a good point or two, a well mannered manner, and the kind of tone you have when you dont wish to be a jerk. So in return I do the same when typing to you both. There are a few people on here who are cool, and a few who i am sure are great people but they have earned my thorns n roses...yknow, the golden rule.

Im not mad...I enjoy typing away at my desk, I enjoy reading every artical or post dealing with D&D, even ones I find silly or over-the-top. so seriously, Im not going nuts over here. I will say it again "this is me being nice" Im a black-belt in being a %ick, and I have not gone to that level since I dont want to offend those who spent energy being nice, or people who enjoy this place and dont want to deal with a raving mad-man swearing and offending people with vulgarity...

Just so you know...I do thank you for being nice. and those who treat people nice should always be rewarded with respect, and I hope you can see I am trying to show it to you.

anyway...going home now, 9 hours of work have passed, and I have wasted enough of all of our time. peace.

I always burie that hatchet with that guy, and then he returns with "leave the board". So plainly said- "I dont care if I am booted, this site is small and one of many". And, I am not here trolling, I am here talking about the one game that took over my entire youth and lead me into adulthood playing a table-top game with colorful dice. The game itself is an integrel part of the way I grew up. Its not going too far saying, that D&D raised thousands of kids of my generation...so, no, I am not trolling.

what i AM doing is, posting my thoughts. I didnt say shack-anacka-whats her name didnt write a good artical here. Nor did I direct my thoughts on this subject directly at her. I simply said, with gusto, that I think certain players who think certain things are too "grusome" should go plug in a final-fantasy game and shut up.

I also pointed out that a "really creepy" GM shouldnt be played with at all.

Now both those statments bleed truth and nothing is hostile to shama-lama-ding-dong in that. Your right, she did write a good artical in saying that new players can be shocked. But yknow what? Anyone whos new to D&D should already have heard about the GM's style, the past adventures he has run, the opinion of others who played.

and lets say this new player is from Mars and hasnt had the chance to disscuss this new game with anyone who has played with this GM yet (cus he is from Centron-Z...farther away then mars), and then this mysterious GM pops outta thin air (poof!) and starts his adventure...then goes into this long blow-by-blow discription of his huge army of rapist-goblins who sodomise everything they see with phallic swords-etc-etc...then I can understand the new player's shock.

but more likely its friend running the game, or the game was recomended to the player by a friend...whatever....alls I am saying is if this was a problem in D&D it would end up in a christ-comic or on the news like all those stupid warnings about the devil and murder....so I stated my point.

But heyyyyy..im the jerk right? who cares, so be it. If I get booooooted, as you so warn, then I go to one of dozens of other sites. you dont want my view on things? then perhaps your blind and enjoy that...me? I enjoy reading every view on this board and I dont go picking fights, I simply allow you anal jerks to judge me and say "water of a duck man...water offa duck"

Cus im a duck! and your water! so...get off my back.

ok?

jesus...wtf happend to D&D, everyones a fricking hall monitor for sum online-forum these days.

Gee Sif...I thought we *had* buried the hatchet...back when you agreed not to come on so strong, which was after I warned you about my early experience with coming on too strong on this site. My issues with your posts (particularily this one) is that rather than enter into a debate about the pros and cons of yours and others opinions, you start calling people names and typeing in poorly disguised obscenity.

I'd like you to point out the half of me and Shataina's posts that are just as stupid as yours. I can't remember either of us ever claiming to be the Hitler of D&D for example...but I could point to a handful of your posts where you've trash mouthed this site, the people on it, and the people that like the things that those posters like.

I said it right when we got off to a bad start, man. Say whatever you want about D&D, or different styles of play...but don't start calling the people interested in those things names, or we won't get along. That sort of heavy handedness only works when you're speaking face to face; your joking tone doesn't come across very well while you are typeing things like "And I have never seen so many *ussies in one forum..."

I would fathom a guess that your welcome to this site was not entirely based on your spelling, but rather how you choose to get your point across. Since Gamegrene doesn't have an "ignore" function, we're going to have to put up with each other...as I was warned in the past, lay off the invective and stick to the topic at hand. You'll get better response to your posts.

But back to the topic at hand...rape is a very real thing in my setting. It's happened to prominant NPCs, and it even happened to a female players character once. I play with very mature people, and they can handle it. However, we always have a discussion about the theme of the next campaign or adventure before it begins where we set the ground rules for how far things will go. I run very dark campaigns, always have, and especially if you are bringing new players into a group it's important to know what they are okay with and what they aren't. In that regard, this article was quite informative about some of the different pitfalls to watch out for when bringing this topic up.

I think your biggest mistake here is your attempt to "pull rank" by talking about what you've suffered in real life and how you can deal with it.

As a GM, it's not just about you. I tried to spell it out already, but I'll do it one more time: it's also about your players, and if your players are okay with that, that's totally fine. However, you can't expect everyone to be okay with this stuff just because you and they are. And frankly, saying that you understand it sooo much better just because you have personal experience with it is just stupid. Everyone takes their personal experience differently: people close to me have also been raped -- one, a family member -- and hurt. And I still wrote this article, didn't I?

Saying that you understand this better than other people because you think you've been there isn't just pretentious and patronizing. It's also incorrect and insensitive. Bottom line: if you don't get how they feel, you *haven't actually been there*, even if you've experienced something similar. And until you really, truly *have* been there, you won't really know what you're talking about.

Shorthand for Religious Studies. (Maybe I should have written it out.)

Just, you know, studying other religions. Hard to put it more completely than that ....

Well, you know, Sif, I understand that you like to wind people up and that half of what you say is exaggeration. But when you deliberately set out to inflame people's emotions on a message board just for the pleasure of seeing them explode, well as you probably know that's called 'trolling'. I rather suspect that this isn't the kind of board that will tolerate that sort of behaviour on a protracted basis, so if you plan on sticking around, I'd try to reign in those urges a little. I'm not trying to be a killjoy and sometimes I tease people a little in my posts but it's a matter of knowing where to draw the line.

Many of your posts do have a backbone of thoughtful comment amongst the 'giggle-n-smirk' as you put it so I personally wouldn't want to see you get booted.

Although I do not ban any kind of activity in my campaign, I think that Shataina wrote a pretty good article here, especially as a piece of advice for less experienced referees, but also worth thinking about for more experienced ones as well. Particularly with regard to how they treat new players joining the game. Remember, the rulebooks show pictures of people fighting monsters and seeking treasure on the covers, and so that's the over-simplified expectation that many newer players would have of the game. It could be argued that a game in which rape occurs is not quite doing what it says on the cover! Maybe those new players didn't sign up for that kind of thing, and some people can be quite emotionally involved in their game-playing and can get hurt by nasty surprises. Maybe those sort of players should steer clear of your playing group, but they need a chance to realise what they're getting into when they join. Shataina was really just saying that a referee shouldn't blithely assume that a player will be able to take their character getting raped in their stride. And I'd agree with that sentiment.

You know, I happen to think that Scott Free has some pretty good things to say as well. I know that you and he got off on a bad footing, but maybe it's time to bury the hatchet?

Good points, and well said...and no, I wouldnt say I "truly" am any Hitler of any game. It was more typed with the same giggle-n-smirk that I use when a player meets his final demise at the end of some sword, or is devoured by the land-shark never to be found again. Its all an act when it comes to DM-ing really. And yes, you are correct to assume it swagger...its showmen-ship.

Most GM's dont act out an personality for the most important NPC in the game "the GM itself"
and though I fully obey my oath as a GM "to be fair, to be entertaining and to be nothing less then a "good" GM for my friends...I'm sure you understand the back-bone of my post for one reason..

reason being- you said that anything that "can" happen in the real would CAN happen in your game. With that said I all ready know you are enough like me to assume your games would be fun and at times nail-biting. thats what players get addicted to.

To play in a game, were I played a female bard, and I was walking through an underground prison of the worst human criminals known to the surface world-I hate to know that "I'm in no danger of ever being raped cus this game is politically correct and sensitive to certain types of violence and not others.

yknow, call me a dick. dont care...after reading my posts you wanna call me names and say I must be a negitive megolomaniac at my table...fine. again, dont care. Cus half these posts from this chick and this scott guy are just as stupid as any of mine...at lest mine show I have a grasp on how to challeng players and not just feed them video-game-esk pleasure, in worlds that forbid one act of torture over another cus they are biased story-tellers or weaker-boned players.

ps- As for the spell cluase at the end of each post...its a jab at your anal grudges agianst new comers to this board...and my additude is simply a result of the way most the a$$holes on this board welcomed me. love it, hate it, whatever. Ill be nice to those who do the same to me...I flip the rest of your mothers off with a smile.

Ummm, Sifolis...I'd like to disagree with your viewpoint, but you've left me with little to say. I think you've done a far better job of making yourself look like a joke than I ever could.

Please go far away now. Far, far, far away from here.

Hi Sifolis,

Looks like your attempt to yank people's chains over this was successful!

As I said before my entire viewpoint is that each group will have its own set of rules as to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in a game, and I don't think we should indulge in moral panics over each other's game content, because everyone has different ideas about where the lines of taboo are drawn. In my own game, well, if it can happen in the real world, then it can happen in my game. Because I *know* that's the way my players like it.

The referee needs to be sensitive to the needs of their players (if he or she wants to retain their players). I agree with your sentiment that it's an issue of trust built up between players and referee. And I think you are quite right when you say that there *are* plenty of things worse than rape although this is to a certain extent subjective - some people would literally rather die than be raped, or at any rate would rather their character die than be raped.

I don't really believe for one moment that you are the Hitler of D&D. I have personally encountered someone who *was* the Hitler of D&D and guess what? Everyone deserted his campaign. Of course, you may have happened to have somehow acquired a particularly submissive, masochistic set of players who enjoy being ruled by your whims. And if you all enjoy it that way, and no harm is being done to anyone in the real world, no-one's rights are being infringed and the 'golden rule' is being followed then fine. But I think you should bear Shataina's advice in mind, particularly when new players are joining your group. I don't mean to patronise, for all your swagger I suspect that you are not such a bad fellow actually and I don't imagine that a player who is new to your group would get their character anally raped in a bar during their first session, esp. if you didn't know them too well.....would they?!

BTW - the whole 'So I can't spell, so bite me' thing is getting a bit tired now....

In-fact, if i had sum player bitching about how a game went too far, got too scary, creeped them out too much- then Id slap myself high-5 and laugh at them..then I would continue to have the monster rape them....

shut up with saying what a GM can and cant do. He/She can do ANYTHING they want to you...yknow why? cus he/she spent 3-12 hours making the fricken game your playing in, and your sissy nature is dragging it down hill cus you want a fruity-dooty world of play where you can get cut but you cant get %ucked. whaaaaaaaaatever!...

Your lucky your not in my realms. Cus i burn children, sell woman to orks, and for homosexuality on full grown men who pride themselvs to be macho...I am the Hitler of D&D, and you are pawns in my epic song of death and blood. Do not pretend you have rights agaisnt anything I say, do or roll, cus you dont.

I thought the role of the GM was to be the referee/mediator, not an adversary of the player characters. Hmmm... maybe things have changed since the game was released.

One thing I don't have to worry about though: I won't be playing in any of your games, and it doesn't have anything to do with having "balls" or not. In my opinion, the descriptions (and rhetoric) you have posted on these boards show a level of immaturity with which I would not enjoy playing. Your players obviously enjoy it, so more power to you and them for finding a format that fits everyone's interest in your playing group.

Its funny, I see so many posters backing up the "pc's rights" agaisnt the DM's NPC's raping their PCs. Its funny, cus here I am, related to a real-life victim of rape, a total out-n-out hater of rape, and yet I want to scream

"YOU ARE ALL WRONG!"

Look...death by a sword, slowly slicing through your guts, towards your juicey insides, tearing, cutting, chopping your body to bits, is horrible...but we play it out, acting it every step of the way.

Getting shot in the face, over and over and over is equally as bad as swords ripping you apart (i assume...perhaps faster, but the out come is still your death) and we play this out and role-play it time and time again...

Being beaten to a pulp by a giant gollum's fists, or your mind being ripped apart by a samerien demon, or dueling satanic-esk creatures for your very soul- all these things are bad bad bad...very bad.

and yet our DMs have been doing this to us all for years. We trust them to hurt us, torture us, even kill us. but when it comes to sexual abuse we are to what? Say "noooo man, thats a line we dont cross!"??? GET THE %UCK OUTTA HERE YOU SISSYS!

In my game i dont make rape a daily thing, nor do I use it every time a female is captured...hell the few times i DID use rape only male PCs were involved. The female at the table didnt think it was taboo or creepy, yknow why? cus it fit the moment and was the out come of a horrible moment for those involved.

If you trust you play-life with a DM how can you limit his powers of pain and punishment just cus your wamby-pamby ass can take a little fantasy monster-rape!? comon now.

Look, my friend's brother was shot and killed, a few games ago his PC was shot and killed...no one bugged out. yknow why? cus we are mentally stable enough to delv into a fantasy world and not allow our mental demons get ahold of our dungeons-n-dragons.

In-fact, if i had sum player bitching about how a game went too far, got too scary, creeped them out too much- then Id slap myself high-5 and laugh at them..then I would continue to have the monster rape them.

detailing the rape in blow-by-blow discription is of course rediculus, and if your DM is doing that, then your playing with a really creepy mother-#ucker, and your half to blame for it...cus who cant see that their GM is a wack-o? Im serious, the game dont just start with this guy begining the game with saying

"ok guys...your all in a tavern, and you...well you get anally raped and lemmie discribe it"

no...you play game after game, trusting this guy, getting to know your game master. If the guys a fricken weirdo, then you knew it. thats right...you knew within the first conversation with this guy. or maybe you didnt , maybe the rape moment was the first sign of his creepy-ness, but i doubt it.

anyway...shut up with saying what a GM can and cant do. He/She can do ANYTHING they want to you...yknow why? cus he/she spent 3-12 hours making the fricken game your playing in, and your sissy nature is dragging it down hill cus you want a fruity-dooty world of play where you can get cut but you cant get %ucked. whaaaaaaaaatever!

Your lucky your not in my realms. Cus i burn children, sell woman to orks, and for homosexuality on full grown men who pride themselvs to be macho...I am the Hitler of D&D, and you are pawns in my epic song of death and blood. Do not pretend you have rights agaisnt anything I say, do or roll, cus you dont.

And I have never seen so many *ussies in one forum backing up the bull-$hit view that "A GM shouldnt ever, EVER use rape as a plot mechanic or in-game punishment"

Thats lame..and grown players have the balls to deal with it.

Peace.

ps- I cant spell, cant walk or speak...deal with it. I rather be illiterate then be grown dorks who bitch n moan about their make-beleive wizard getting raped by a bugbear...how droll.

Excuse me for not staying on-topic, but while I get studying Philosophy and Design, what is a degree in Religion?

- reading a signature is silly -

Thank you. I appreciate it. This is a topic I feel strongly about, and I'm glad I still managed to treat it carefully.

When I was considering that study, I actually got in touch with Gary Alan Fine (a sociologist who teaches at Northwestern who's done some previous work on the sociology of RPGs) and asked him what he thought. He said he thought it sounded very interesting and that I'd be a good person to do it, and suggested that I try to find a sociology grad student to help me (I have no background in sociology at all -- I was a Philosophy, Religion and Design student -- so I'd definitely need some help). No one stepped up to the plate, and I wasn't sure there was enough interest to continue anyway, so I sort of let go of the idea.

Thanks for the encouragement, though. I do think it would be an important and interesting study to do, especially as games get more and more important to "real" American culture. If I get a chance, and a sociologist to help me, I'll leap on it.

Thank you for bringing this topic to light Shataina! this has to be the deepest look into gaming motivations and disorders i have ever read on a forum. i must say, you have changed my opnion on the subject. the sister thread on rpgnet was very insightful as well. if you were to do that soc study i would pay for a copy of the findings, as i'm sure many other people would as well. i think the field would benifit greatly from content on the subject, the gaming community would probebly benifit as well. that study you kindly included a link to brings up the lucrative possiability that role playing in this form may have positive theraputic applications. this would shake the world's view of gaming greatly if it is shown that this is true! gaming would no longer be seen as something that detaches one from reality and instead would be seen as i feel it is; a device that helps one become even more grounded in reality.
if you ever get around to that study please let me know! i also look forward to any future thought provoking threads you come up with.

BTW, 2+2 = 4. It's a universal truth. :)

{snorts, paws ground with hoof, lowers head....}

Well, I generally don't write articles to incite wrath of the reading public. At the same time...I think too much sugar coating doesn't drive the point across.

I think one has to argue from the POV that they're right instead of possibly-right. Lack of conviction generally won't win you any support -- sympathy, perhaps, but not strong support.

And now I'm thinking about changing the article to "Do Absolute Truths Exist in RPG's?"...but, that might get too esoteric.

BTW, 2+2 = 4. It's a universal truth. :)

Before anyone succumbs to the temptation to demonize me.......(absurdly) imagining that I am in some way 'pro-rape'....or even 'pro-virtual-rape'.....

I would like to mention that I have just been re-reading the original article, and I was once again impressed by the author's calm, even-handed and respectful approach to this very difficult subject. And also her lack of patronisation or over-zealousness. Other writers could take a leaf from her book.

I found very little in Shataina's original article that I would disagree with, and found it a very good article. Extremely thoughtful and well-written, and a highly recommended read.

(Sorry to keep harping on, zip....but I felt it had to be said. Don't worry, I have better things to do than have another ten-page argument with GiacomoArt!)

Your opinion, and your reaction to my opinion, is noted with bemused interest.

So murder (the termination of someone's consciousness) isn't a mental crime?

I said it before, and I'll say it again, since LG's been insisting on lumping mentally playing out a mental crime (rape) with mentally playing out a physical crime (murder) all this time I've been gone. The two are apples and oranges, and while trying to actually ban the role-play of rape would be inefectual and pointless, that doesn't change the underlying social truth:

Role-playing rape is bad idea. Anyone who thinks that ANYONE is "mature" enough to handle it with zero ill effects is officially disinvited from any party that I will ever throw. Ever.

and just in time, too.

i'm glad the line " RG, LG, change the subject or shut up" didn't need to be said

;-)

Oh, don't be silly...I wouldn't force people to accept my opinion even if I had the means. I think you were joking, but still...

{winks}

I think we've strayed quite a bit from how all of this got started. I still maintain that PC to PC rape...or GM to PC rape is a no-no for the game.

Okey-dokey...I see no further need to re-iterate my arguments. Anyone joining the thread at this point is advised to read back.

And I think universal truths exist.

Stop waving that red rag in my direction!

I don't back down just because someone disagrees with me or finds my stance "unacceptable"

Ditto (obviously)

After all of this, I've toyed with the idea of writing an article or what belongs in the game and what doesn't...as I think there are other subjects that should be avoided for gaming.

{grins}

I'm trembling in anticipation. Though may I suggest, your article ought perhaps to be delicately titled "How to have a great game like Rogue Githyanki's"....or maybe...."Ten Things That Need To Be Handled With Care in RPGs" - that is, if you want to avoid a horde of irritated, experienced GMs tearing into you with their responses. Especially if you start saying things like divorce and taxes have no place in RPGs...

Well, I rather suspect that this exchange is doomed to continue until one of two things occur -

  • A third party steps in and tells us both to shut up
  • One of us does so voluntarily
  • So at this point I shall elect to do the latter.

    I like the way you think!

    Oh, don't be silly...I wouldn't force people to accept my opinion even if I had the means. I think you were joking, but still...

    I think we've strayed quite a bit from how all of this got started. I still maintain that PC to PC rape...or GM to PC rape is a no-no for the game.

    And I think universal truths exist. Is this one of them? Ah, heck, who really knows...but I have my stance and I believe in it. I don't back down just because someone disagrees with me or finds my stance "unacceptable" (insert whatever term you wish). But I don't expect people to agree with me and don't force ideas on others...my other articles and posts should reflect that.

    After all of this, I've toyed with the idea of writing an article or what belongs in the game and what doesn't...as I think there are other subjects that should be avoided for gaming. If I get the inclanation, I'll do it. But, in short, it has nothing to do with what's taboo and what's not...it deals with what has the best Return on Investment. I mainly argue against in-game rape because I see no ROI (tho I confess I have a bias against it).

  • YES let's offer advice where it's OBVIOUSLY needed - like warning a bunch of teenage boys that it's NOT OK to gang-rape a girl's character who's just joined the group just for fun - something that clearly breaks through the real world / game world boundary in a negative way, because it's just mildly traumatised a young girl and put her off RPGs for life (and if I were refereeing THAT one, I'd have thrown in a divine intervention and sod the realism!)

    Well, that kind of thing could be solved by giving the girl a new character to roll, only let her get ten extra levels above the highest of the rapists, and then allowed her to explain her dissatisfaction by chopping all their characters into humiliatingly little bits. Divine intervention may be just, but karma is more fun.

  • Drop all the pennies you want...

    FYI, 'The penny drops!' is a British expression - it refers to the sudden dawning of understanding. It is usually voiced by someone when they finally succeed in explaining something to another individual - possibly after a lengthy struggle.

    You're still offering advice...

    ...and all I'm doing is offering advice.

    Yes. Both of us are free to do so.

    I don't encourage people to put rape in an RPG

    Neither do I.

    I'm simply pointing out that your advice -

    Don't put rape in the game.

    may not be universally applicable as a means to improve people's game play, from their own perspective.

    I'm also voicing my opposition to the idea that someone who doesn't choose to take your advice is mentally unhealthy. Just in case there's anyone around here who thinks that may be the case.

    Now, while I have virtually unshakable faith that I'm right, I don't go around and force people to heed my advice...

    {grins}

    Given the tenacity with which you have argued your point I have an uncomfortable suspicion that this is only because you lack the means to do so!

    (bear in mind that whilst I have also argued tenaciously, I have simply been arguing in favour of people's right to have the kind of game they are happy with - and pointing out that arguments agiainst the inclusion of certain elements 'on principle' are based on subjective judgements that may equally well be applied to other elements of roleplaying games).

    In fact, I'd be disappointed in someone if they stopped putting rape in the game based purely off my say-so.

    My original post was a defence of GM's who reserve the right to have rape occur in a campaign under certain circumstances; your response seemed to indicate that you disagreed with this idea, and you were expounding that a GM should NEVER allow a rape to occur under any conditions. Naturally I felt inclined to defend my viewpoint.

    Now you are saying that people shouldn't just go by your say-so. This is an encouraging statement which is as close as you have come to acknowledging, at last, that I may be making a valid point.

    We're not disagreeing that people can play the game the way they want to...

    Even more encouraging!

    at this point, we're simply disagreeing on who has the better advice.

    Well...natuarlly...I do :)

    And naturally, I disagree ;-)

    - with the notion that your advice is universally applicable.....

    .....although I freely acknowledge that your advice may improve the game play of some gaming groups.....!

    Drop all the pennies you want...like me, you're telling people how to play the game. Oh, you're not doing it as concretely as I am...but you're still doing it. Telling people that "you can" or to "choose carefully" is still telling people "how."

    You're still offering advice...

    ...and all I'm doing is offering advice. Don't put rape in the game.

    If I were forcing people to accept my viewpoint, then maybe you'd have ground to stand on. But I'm not going to people's houses and making them play the game my way. I've written a handful of articles here and each and every one of them deal with advice for GM's. I'm not doing this to start a cult or anything...just telling people what I think is best for the Game...

    ...and, yes, I do it under the guise that I'm right. Why shouldn't I?

    I don't encourage people to cheat on their spouses.

    I don't encourage people to drive over 100 mph on the freeway.

    I don't encourage people to eat raw chicken.

    I don't encouage people to watch Pualey Shore movies...

    ...and I don't encourage people to put rape in an RPG -- at the most, it should be an off-camera, background detail.

    We've long since strayed away why I don't think rape works in the RPG environment..but, at this point, I doubt anyone is reading / cares.

    Now, while I have virtually unshakable faith that I'm right, I don't go around and force people to heed my advice...

    In fact, I'd be disappointed in someone if they stopped putting rape in the game based purely off my say-so.

    We're not disagreeing that people can play the game the way they want to...at this point, we're simply disagreeing on who has the better advice.

    Well...natuarlly...I do :)

    Hi Rogue.

    In the interests of readability I have posted my reply to this further down....

    The following is a response to Rogue Githyanki's post a little further up....

    I think the slippery slope goes both ways. One can endanger a game by excluding too many things...and the game can become endangered by including too many things.

    It's all about where one draws the line. I'd encourage everyone to draw the line at rape as I see no benefit to including it.

    Your opinion is noted, and you are very welcome to hold this opinion, and apply this thinking to the games you play.

    There are of course other people who would encourage everyone not to play games that involve simulated violence of any description, since they see no 'upside' in including it. Why have an imaginary game world with evil people in it at all? What's wrong with playing dominoes instead? Or if you insist on roleplaying, why not have a game that's solely focussed on solving riddles in order to advance in levels and earn wealth?

    These people are also welcome to hold this opinion and I will not try and convince them otherwise. I will not sneer at their dominoes. However, if they come to me and start handing out criticism of the type of game that I and my group of players wish to experience and are comfortable playing because they think they 'know better', well they had better be prepared to see me defend the practises of my gaming group. Just as you are now discovering.

    Taking rape out of the game does not limit realism or creativity -- in fact, I'd argue that people who would enjoy the game less because rape was excluded are a less creative group. "Aw, man, no rape? How we gonna enjoy the game now?"

    A nice piece of stereotyping that fails to resemble my group in any way, shape or form. Shame on you.

    The problem with this kind of argument is that it can easily be made to fit anything at all that you don't like.

    Watch this, Rogue:

    'I'd argue that people who would enjoy the game less because violence was excluded are a less creative group. "Aw, man, no violence? How we gonna enjoy the game now?"'

    Did you see what I did there?

    The upside to having violence / death in the game is that is the X Factor that makes the game intense / exciting / whatever. This is really no different than a video game game -- if you were always guaranteed to "beat the level" (or whatever), then the game is not likely to be as fun. Having death in the game means there are no guarantees.

    Comparing it with a video game doesn't automatically justify violence, since the presence of violence in video games is just as contestable as it is in RPGs.

    Why does it have to be death? People find football exciting, but aside from rare, freak accidents, people don't get killed playing football, do they?

    Now, you see, Rogue, actually, I'm not arguing against the inclusion of violence in role playing games. I entirely understand why people include this in their games - indeed, to a large part it is core to many RPGs. BUT there ARE people who do find the violence and death portrayed in RPGs just as horrible as you find rape. AND these people use the same kind of argument that you use! What's more, there are plenty of people who will happily support legislation to limit the contents of games - electronic or tabletop - on the basis of similar arguments to your own.

    You have said that including violence and death makes the game exciting - it's the 'X factor'. Now let's take this a bit further. For my players (at least with respect to most of the characters they play), creatures don't deserve to have violence or death visited on them unless they are EVIL. In order to be EVIL they need to commit evil acts - and these acts may include any kind of act that we, in the real world, might consider evil. As none of my players, either male or female, is more specially disturbed by the idea of rape in an imaginary setting than they are the idea of torture, murder, slavery, or various other terrible evils, I have seen no reason to exclude it from my game so far. It's one of the things that bad guys might do that warrants punishment and the exaction of revenge. My player's characters don't go after people and hack them up because they have an alignment; and they don't do it because 'violence is exciting'; they do it because those people are bastards that make their blood boil.

    Yes, PC's have died in my games. But I don't kill them often. I think it's more intense if players don't know when they might die. If I killed one per month, then it becomes anticipated and the game loses punch.

    That's the way I like it too. There we are. We have something else in common....

    (You know, despite this argument, we might even enjoy playing in each other's campaigns!)

    As far as player character rape is concerned - well, let's go back to my earlier (hypothetical) scenario where a PC is captured by orcs, and I said that I would allow for the (completely reasonable, if unpleasant) possibility that they might be raped. Now this possibility is one of the reasons that getting captured by orcs is a really bad thing so don't try it if you can help it. Mercifullly, this hasn't ever happened yet. But, supposing it did. Now, let's suppose, having given them a few fair but not giveaway chances to escape / be rescued, and these fail, and so I roll the dice to see what happens to them and they get a 'something very bad' result, and I said to the player concerned, 'Well, ordinarily, I would have said that your character is chosen by the war-chief to be his concubine. However, Rogue Githyanki has enlightened me as to how truly awful rape is ('cause before I didn't realise), so I'm pleased to say that instead they kill your character, boil them and eat them, bones and all. Not necessarily in that order. You can post on Gamegrene to say thanks.' I can guarantee you they wouldn't be impressed - in my game group, which is of course different to yours and everyone elses'.

    The possibility of bad things happening to their characters - which includes the whole gamut of possibilities in my 'realistic' game world - are part of the 'X' factor that keeps players on their toes, in my game. And they appreciate the realism. It's one of the reasons they still consider our tabletop game to be superior to MMORPG.

    Of course I'm aware of the concept of subjectivity. Are you? My proposoal that rape should be excluded is no more or less subjective than your stance.

    The reason I mentioned subjectivity is because you seem to imagine that the way your group plays is a better way to play, in a morally objectivist sense. At least this is what comes across in your argument. Not once (to my notice) have you acknowledged the simple fact that different groups have different styles of play that are suited to them and the individuals within those groups, all of whom may be perfectly happy with that style of play. Something I keep re-iterating as core to my argument, and something that you repeatedly seem to ignore.

    I have never said that the way my group plays is better than the way your group plays. In fact I have repeatedly said that you are welcome to continue playing the way that you do, and that I'm sure your style is right for your players. I have been VERY respectful of that fact.

    And yet, you keep saying things like -

    "I stand by my stance that games are better off without having rape in them -- I feel that the risks outweight the benefits when it comes to RPG rape and I'm all about encouraging folks to make the best RPG's they can."

    Yes, we are both being subjective at the 'argument' level. Both of us have an argument, that is simply a matter of opinion for both of us. But the nature of your argument is that you are claiming the existence of an 'objectively correct' playing style that would be beneficial to all roleplaying groups - you do not admit to the possibility that your advice may not be universally applicable, and herein lies your failure to acknowledge subjectivity - at the in-game playing style level.

    Shataina ADVISES that rape should be handled very carefully and the players' consent should be obtained - and that rape should not be a gratuitous occurrence to be taken lightly or as a throwaway event by a referee. She doesn't claim that it is wrong to include rape in a game - only that the referee should handle the subject with more care and thought than is typically observed in many gaming groups.

    I entirely agree with Shataina's very reasonable views on this. I have some small quibbles concerning her expanded definitions of rape, but these are relatively minor compared to the overall issue and I shan't go into them here.

    I'm saying "red" and you're saying "blue" -- both of us are telling others what's best for the the game...we just happen to disagree.

    NO. This is the fundamental difference in our arguments that you don't seem to have grasped. I hope that this is the post where the penny drops.

    YOU are telling others what's best for the game. By your own admission.

    I am saying that what's best for the game is different for different groups of players - and furthermore, what's best may change over time as the group changes, adds and loses players, and players grow older and more mature.

    MY argument is that non-exclusion of rape from a game world is not necessarily a bad thing, under ALL circumstances. This doesn't mean that I am advising groups that currently exclude rape to start including it! Can you see the subtle difference? I am not saying 'You should', or 'You shouldn't'. I am saying 'You CAN - it's possible to run a realistic campaign world that doesn't have a special exclusion clause for rape - if the conditions are right - if the players have a suitable attitude'.

    The other thing I am taking issue with, is certain people's earlier comments on this board that a referee who allowed a rape to occur within their campaign world was, perforce, some kind of deviant that they wouldn't want around their house. WAAAAYYYY too judgemental. Yes, those people have a personal right to make those kind of snap judgements if they wish, but I also have a right to counter their opinion if I see them encouraging a prejudiced attitude by posting their snap judgements on a message board.

    That's not to say that every referee who allows rape to occur in their game is necessarily OK either. Some of them might be sickos. As might some referees who purposely exclude rape from their games. (By the way, it's worth mentioning here that in order to qualify as a 'sicko' in my book you actually have to do something sick...)

    Everyone draws a line somewhere. I draw mine at rape. I seriously doubt that you truly believe that anything goes in a game.

    Ever played the 'Nuclear War' card game, Rogue?

    http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/nucwar.htm

    Just curious....

    What 'goes' in a game depends entirely on context. I wouldn't pass judgement from afar on someone else's game without a good deal more familiarity. If someone told me that a group of players spent every session simulating rape or torture in their imaginary game world and then asked me to condemn them, my response would be 'insufficient data'. (Though I admit, on first hearing, that it doesn't sound too good....)

    For example...do you truly believe that the game would be better if everyone played the game stark naked? I mean, let's not limit ourselves...right? Let's not go down the slippery slope of excluding possibilities. So...go ahead and try this next time and let me know how it works for you and your group.

    Whoops. You are confusing what goes on in-game with what goes on in the real world. Remember, we're talking about drawing a line at what goes on in-game.

    Besides, it's really very narrow-minded of you to assume that naturists don't enjoy the odd session of D&D now and then....

    If all you were doing was disagreeing about where I draw the line, then I wouldn't have rambled on so much. But, you have to understand that it's not wrong to draw the line and then encourage others to take to your POV -- you're doing the same thing, you're just doing it from the other side of the fence.

    Certainly, I am encouraging people to take my point of view - and my point of view is, let's be open-minded about this - every gaming group is different, and what works in one group may not work in another (or the same group 10 years later).

  • NO, let's not go around telling one another what we should or shouldn't be doing in our game worlds, disregarding the fact that the players in a particular group are perfectly happy with their game world as it is, thanks.
  • NO, let's not make the assumption that because a referee allows a rape to occur in their campaign world that means they are likely to be a nasty piece of work in real life.
  • YES let's offer advice where it's OBVIOUSLY needed - like warning a bunch of teenage boys that it's NOT OK to gang-rape a girl's character who's just joined the group just for fun - something that clearly breaks through the real world / game world boundary in a negative way, because it's just mildly traumatised a young girl and put her off RPGs for life (and if I were refereeing THAT one, I'd have thrown in a divine intervention and sod the realism!)
  • Earlier on, you said that we were both arguing our subjective viewpoints from opposite sides of the fence - that you were saying "red" and I'm saying "blue".

    I'm not saying "blue"

    I'm saying "pick a colour - but choose carefully...."

    Well, nuts. I'd typed a reply and it didn't post.

    I think the slippery slope goes both ways. One can endanger a game by excluding too many things...and the game can become endangered by including too many things.

    It's all about where one draws the line. I'd encourage everyone to draw the line at rape as I see no benefit to including it.

    Taking rape out of the game does not limit realism or creativity -- in fact, I'd argue that people who would enjoy the game less because rape was excluded are a less creative group. "Aw, man, no rape? How we gonna enjoy the game now?"

    The upside to having violence / death in the game is that is the X Factor that makes the game intense / exciting / whatever. This is really no different than a video game game -- if you were always guaranteed to "beat the level" (or whatever), then the game is not likely to be as fun. Having death in the game means there are no guarantees.

    Yes, PC's have died in my games. But I don't kill them often. I think it's more intense if players don't know when they might die. If I killed one per month, then it becomes anticipated and the game loses punch.

    Of course I'm aware of the concept of subjectivity. Are you? My proposoal that rape should be excluded is no more or less subjective than your stance. I'm saying "red" and you're saying "blue" -- both of us are telling others what's best for the the game...we just happen to disagree. Subjectivity doesn't really having anything to do with this.

    Everyone draws a line somewhere. I draw mine at rape. I seriously doubt that you truly believe that anything goes in a game.

    For example...do you truly believe that the game would be better if everyone played the game stark naked? I mean, let's not limit ourselves...right? Let's not go down the slippery slope of excluding possibilities. So...go ahead and try this next time and let me know how it works for you and your group.

    Everyone draws the line somewhere. And I stand by my stance that games are better off without having rape in them -- I feel that the risks outweight the benefits when it comes to RPG rape and I'm all about encouraging folks to make the best RPG's they can. Sometimes that means you have to tailor things and throw out things.

    If all you were doing was disagreeing about where I draw the line, then I wouldn't have rambled on so much. But, you have to understand that it's not wrong to draw the line and then encourage others to take to your POV -- you're doing the same thing, you're just doing it from the other side of the fence.

    just to b clear... i wasn't trying to undermine or support your argument. just add a note. you sure did strike a nerve :)

    It's not about censorship...it's about style...it's about putting square pegs in round holes...or, rather, not doing that.

    Indeed. It's about style. Different groups have different styles. My group has a different style to your own. And you are in no position to claim that my group's playing style is wrong. There is no universal standard for what constitutes a square peg and a round hole; you and your group of players will define these things differently to my own.

    You say it's not about censorship. I'm not saying it is, at the moment. But it's a step down the slippery slope, when people start handing out judgements on other people's game content. This kind of thinking lies behind Hasbro's revocation of the d20 license for the 'Book of Erotic Fantasy' - despite the fact that the material was d20 compliant. (Please don't make the mistake of thinking that I am claiming rape has anything to do with eroticism, by the way. I am citing this as an example of the 'thought police' in action).

    And quit trying to equate RPG violence with murder. Killing and murdering are two different things (either accept that or don't...I don't have the energy to start that debate).

    My reference to murder in the post you refer to was not a general equation of violence with murder. I was talking quite specifically about murder. Such as that which might be comitted by a bunch of raiding Ogres attacking some helpless villagers. Or by a jealous husband who discovers his wife is having an affair and decides to do away with her lover. Do you not agree that these are acts of murder? And do they never happen in your campaign world?

    Do player characters ever get killed in your world? I mean, ever?

    It's about trying to include something that doesn't fit.

    Are you familiar with the concept of subjectivity?

    I don't add the concept of divorce in my games either. It's not because it's taboo or because it offends someone's sensibilities...it's because divorce doesn't bring anything to RPG's.

    My goodness. Do you have the concept of marriage in your game world? What happens when things don't work out? Are people obliged by the state/church to soldier on in loveless marriages? Do player characters ever marry?

    Maybe these things just don't enter into your virtual universe - and that's absolutely fine, if you and your players want that kind of game. Just don't, I repeat DON'T get upset when the rest of the world don't all fall sweetly into line with your idea of what constitutes an 'ideal playing style'. Not everyone wants to eat at McDonalds.

    It'd be silly to make an intriguing movie based off how one deals with the trauma of rape and / or divorce...and then throw in a lightsaber fight in the middle because we don't want to censor out the violence.

    I'm truly sorry to say this, Rogue, but you're a marketing executive's dream.....

    I admire your dedication...but I think you're barking up the wrong tree. I doubt anyone reading this thinks that I, or anyone else, is saying that we're making a "knee-jerk" decision to exclude rape.

    Your decision to categorically exclude rape from your personal campaign world is not knee-jerk. The kind of knee-jerk reaction I was talking about would be explicit statements written into the rules of games by their authors / publishers, telling people what kind of things should or shouldn't occur in a game. (Advice is fine; suggestions are fine; diktats about content are not). Or even worse, legislation being brought to bear against people who include particular content in games.

    I was thinking of the wider / longer term picture, you see. Not simply your game, Rogue.

    I've gamed for over 15 years and I have a pretty good idea about what works and what doesn't. I'm saying that rape just doesn't work.

    You forgot the magic words, Rogue. 'In my campaign world, with my players, in the style of game I play'. Add those on to the end of your sentence and I would take no issue with it whatsoever.

    Having gamed for over 25 years I too have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't, in my campaign world, with my players, in the style of game I play.

    I play RPG's 'cause I'm a bit too old (and my knees are too weak) to go outside and play cops and robbers and I'd feel a bit foolish doing it.

    Hey, you're never too old to make a fool of yourself. Some of us lot are 40 or pushing 40. Take a look:

    http://baylon69.valuehost.co.uk/mdb/webpics/York02/YK0010.jpg

    (shame about that lamp-post)

    http://www.atburton.freeserve.co.uk/MilitiesdeBec/Main_files/image005.jpg

    Don't worry, we don't go around raping people...

    I believe that RPG's exist to give us guys who are 15+ the chance to keep playing...'cause I think it's a good thing to inlcude playtime in one's life (so long as it doesn't become the prime focus of one's life).

    There you are, Rogue. I told you we had more in common than you think. I absolutely, 100% agree with you here.

    With the proviso that the content of those RPGs does not have to forevermore remain frozen at a '15' rating.

    Whatever. The P stands for Playing.

    If you'll excuse the play on words....I can play that game too:

    'Playing' here is part of 'Roleplaying':

    http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=roleplaying

    And even if you take it as a word in its own right, see the various definitions in the link below:

    http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=playing

    I don't believe in running games where it's a pure slaughterhouse of bad-guys, by the way...I said something to that affect a few posts ago, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in. Heck, one of my players spends 75% of his time trying to talk to the minotaurs rather than attacking them out of reaction.

    I have never claimed otherwise, Rogue....I am sure you run a very varied game. I am not accusing you of running a hack-fest. My point - which you still haven't responded to - was this: You say that you can see no upside to rape within the game, therefore on this basis you question my willingness to allow it to happen under certain (believable) circumstances. Hypothetically speaking, of course, as in practise no player character has ever been raped in any of my games.

    However, you have yet to provide me with any justification to include murder, or for that matter death of any kind, in an RPG.

    Where's the upside?

    As a closing note, let me try to explain something here that YOU don't seem able to grasp.

    The fact that we have different game-world philosophies; neither of which are right or wrong.

    Your game-world philosophy would seem to be something a little like this:

    "Identify elements from 'heroic fantasy' that are wholesome and enjoyable and that I know my players find fun to play, and use these as the basis for my game world. Put in the kind of stuff that they'd cheer at in the movies."

    My game-world philosophy is:

    "My players are a fussy lot who routinely tear movies apart for their lack of realism and absurd deus ex machina driven plots; they get annoyed when super-villains fail to just shoot James Bond in the back of the head when he's in their clutches. Not because they want James Bond to die, but because it's just not realistic.

    Therefore I must create for them a world that, so far as possible, does nothing to disturb their suspension of disbelief; it should be a game world that is rather like real life, with people who act like real-life people, including evil people who actually act like real-life evil people. A medieval-type setting, with the addition of magic and heroic feats and some exotic creatures and races (that's the 'fun' bit), but otherwise as believable and absorbing as possible."

    I haven't written a longer description of my philosophy in order to denigrate yours in any way. I'm just trying to explain the way I think about this in some detail.

    Oh, I've never had a divorce in my campaign. But we have had a couple of player characters get married. Watch this space, you never know....

    I refer you back to your earlier comment -

    I don't add the concept of divorce in my games either

    This is fundamental to the whole thing. You see inclusion of rape as "adding a concept" to a game - because you create a game world based on elements that fulfill certain criteria.

    But in my game-world, it's not a matter of "adding a concept". The only "added concepts" in my game world are magic, heroic feats and some exotic creatures / races.

    Otherwise, it's simply an attempt at a realistic portrayal of a (mostly) gunpowder-free early renaissance world - warts and all. That's the baseline.

    For you, the appearance of rape as a centre-stage event in your game world would be a conscious decision to include. I am not criticising you for choosing not to include rape in your game. Neither you nor your players would be comfortable with its inclusion, so why include it?

    For me, the denial of the possibility of rape ever occuring as a centre stage event would be a conscious decision to exclude something that could happen in real life, and under certain conditions might even be a likely event - and something that the players in my group would definitely NOT want me to categorically exclude for out-of-game reasons. They'd feel equally uncomfortable with my decision to exclude as your players would feel uncomfortable about your decision to include.

    I hope that you will have the same respect for my decision as I have for yours, recognise that our groups have different playing styles and that there isn't a universally right way or a wrong way to roleplay - just a right way or wrong way for a particular individual or group of players.

    It's not about censorship...it's about style...it's about putting square pegs in round holes...or, rather, not doing that.

    And quit trying to equate RPG violence with murder. Killing and murdering are two different things (either accept that or don't...I don't have the energy to start that debate).

    RPG's are games...that's what the G stands for. Certain things don't make for fun / interesting / realistic / authentic games. The only basic argument you have for including rape is that we shouldn't "censor" ourselves.

    It's NOT about censorship. I can't seem to make that clear. It's not about TABOO.

    It's about trying to include something that doesn't fit. I'm all about pushing the envelope and playing against type...but, at some point you have to draw the line.

    I think once you start throwing rape into games...GAMES...then you've crossed the line.

    I don't add the concept of divorce in my games either. It's not because it's taboo or because it offends someone's sensibilities...it's because divorce doesn't bring anything to RPG's.

    It'd be silly to make an intriguing movie based off how one deals with the trauma of rape and / or divorce...and then throw in a lightsaber fight in the middle because we don't want to censor out the violence.

    I admire your dedication...but I think you're barking up the wrong tree. I doubt anyone reading this thinks that I, or anyone else, is saying that we're making a "knee-jerk" decision to exclude rape.

    I've gamed for over 15 years and I have a pretty good idea about what works and what doesn't. I'm saying that rape just doesn't work. It's a subject that usually poorly dealt with at the game table...other times its distracting. I won't say that it can't be done...'casue as soon as I do, some 21 year old from Idaho will show up with the sole intent to prove me wrong...but 99% of the time it just doesn't work / fit...and there's really no reason to try and make it work / fit.

    Most cartoons are violent...but the violence is fake and any mature person knows this. Most kids get this too -- they laugh when the Road Runner pushes the Coyote off the cliff. But...hey...let's not give in to censorship here! Let's try and make rape fit into this show! So, next time someone draws up one of these cartoon, let's have the Coyote get raped by the RR...

    ...well, that would be a ridiculous thing to do. And I feel that it's equally ridiculous to include the concept of rape where it just doesn't fit.

    It's fun to go and see what's in the dragon's lair...or what's in the Death Star...because that's what the game is there for...to give somebody the chance to be a "hero" or an "adventurer" or whatever. It's fun to fight the "bad guys."

    Anyone who goes to great lengths to analyze why it's "okay" to shoot Stormtroopers either doesn't get it...or is just posturing to look intellectual to others naive enough to fall for it.

    I play RPG's 'cause I'm a bit too old (and my knees are too weak) to go outside and play cops and robbers and I'd feel a bit foolish doing it. I believe that RPG's exist to give us guys who are 15+ the chance to keep playing...'cause I think it's a good thing to inlcude playtime in one's life (so long as it doesn't become the prime focus of one's life).

    RPG's aren't for everyone...but for those of us who play them...it's just another form of *playing*. Some folks don't like to call it that 'cause some folks have hang-ups about being 30+ and "playing" with their friends.

    Whatever. The P stands for Playing.

    But, when you throw something like rape in...playtime gets blurred with reality...and that's where I think the line should be drawn. Not just rape...like I said, Role Playing out a divorce case doesn't really seem to fit the envelope that RPG's were designed for.

    It's not about censorship...it's not about taboo...it's about good style and good taste. Pushing the envelope is fine...but there's a point where the envelope has to give.

    I don't believe in running games where it's a pure slaughterhouse of bad-guys, by the way...I said something to that affect a few posts ago, but it doesn't seem to be sinking in. Heck, one of my players spends 75% of his time trying to talk to the minotaurs rather than attacking them out of reaction.

    OK zip, I understand that I've struck a nerve here. I paused for a second before typing that stuff about Hitler and the Pope, knowing it would strike a nerve with someone - but I decided to publish and be damned. I admit with hindsight that perhaps I could have chosen a better example.

    Please don't imagine that I idealise the Catholic church or any other organised religion. My main point was that we shouldn't be content to simply take a claim of 'good cause' at face value and see it as a justification for anything and everything.

    Alignment thread? Read it, done it, got the T-shirt years ago which is now faded and worn lying at the bottom of my drawer.

    I accept your rant, and on the whole agree with it. And I believe it supports my viewpoint rather than undermines it.

    lurkinggherkin,

    you said "... so did Hitler, come to think of it".
    well, please don't get into all the "good (cause) isn't an absolute thing" argument, as this has been done and redone on the "the trouble with D&D alignments" thread. please go read it

    you also said "let's not forget, even the Pope was a Hitler Youth once".

    So?

    All that this says to me is that the POPE is suspect. If you believe the catholic clergy unable of commiting evil, that makes you short-sighted (child molesting priests, anyone?).the whole catholic church (organization) "we are the official word of God" bit is pompous and logically and morally lacking, IMO. More so when you cosider the fact that the currecnt pope was quick to suggest making the last one into a saint. Come On! some people might believe he was a great man... but a saint? if that's not politics, i don't know what is.

    i find all this " majority archbishop vote makes you a saint" deal ridiculous.

    end of rant

    For someone who continues to admit that there's no upside to having rape in the game...you sure do go to great lengths to defend it.

    Whilst you seem unable to provide any upside to having murder in the game.

    I am not, of course, going to great lengths to defend the act of rape (which I'm sure you understand, but just to clarify).

    What I am going to great lengths to defend is the freedom of GMs and players to have as realistic a game as possible if that is what they want. In other words, what I am opposed to is censorship and political correctness intruding into role-playing game worlds.

    Shataina has written a good article here, because she has pointed out the importance of treating the subject of rape in a game with care and sensitivity - she has made it clear (to those for whom perhaps it wasn't already clear) - that an in-game rape is not a trivial matter!

    However, I am concerned with knee-jerk reactions to this, such as 'banning' rape from RPGs or making claims that any GM or group of players who are not adverse to the notion of in-game rape occuring in their game world are a bunch of sick perverts.

    Not least because once you start doing this you are on the slippery slope of restricting the content of what goes on in RPGs. And for me, the basic tenet of role-playing game worlds is the principle that anything can happen in such a world - both good and bad.

    I have a feeling we'd also disagree on what a "realistic" game is...and what constitutes an enjoyable one.

    I daresay - however, don't let our disagreement over this specific issue colour your opinion of me. You may find we have more in common than you think. I thought your article on hit points was a good one, by the way.

    Oh, one last thing -

    Bag Pipes don't mix well in Jazz bands.

    http://www.hipwax.com/music/patch/horns_rh.html

    ;-)

    For someone who continues to admit that there's no upside to having rape in the game...you sure do go to great lengths to defend it.

    Violent acts...killing folks in battle, for instance...can be used for evil intent. But, sometimes, it's the only way to do make good things happen. In the Hobbit...the only way to save the town is to kill the dragon. It's a good story...suitable for all ages...and there's absolutely no reason to argue that rape would have been an appropriate inclusion into that story.

    I know you're not trying to convince me to put rape in my games...I know you're not saying that my games suck...and I'm sure there's some DM's out there that could, in theory, deal with in-game rape in decent fashion.

    I still maintain that it doesn't belong. RPG's should be done for fun...they should be done for storytelling...and, to some extent, character development. It's a game...not a simulation for reality, it's a passtime and hobby...not a duty. I simply do not think that rape belongs in the game...not in the forefront and only with caution as a background detail.

    Guns don't belong in basketball.

    Strong cursing doesn't belong in Star Wars.

    Space Ships don't belong in Indiana Jones.

    A square peg doesn't belong in a round role.

    Whales aren't very practicle in polo.

    Bag Pipes don't mix well in Jazz bands.

    Golf is not a contact sport.

    There's just certain things that don't jive. I'm convinced that rape doesn't jive in RPG's -- forget about whether it's a taboo subject or not...it just doesn't fit and seems to have more potential for dismal failure than great results.

    I have a feeling we'd also disagree on what a "realistic" game is...and what constitutes an enjoyable one.

    It's just one of those things that I feel doesn't deserve a defense of *any* sort...not when it comes to its existience in escapist type events, like RPG's.

    Given that you later make this statement.....

    The only crime that I can think of that trumps rape in terms of evil intent is Murder One

    ....I am curious to learn whether anyone (PC or NPC) is restrained by Deus Ex Machina in your campaign world from ever commiting the more abhorrent crime of Murder One.

    Let me re-emphasise; I am not attacking the way that you play. There's nothing wrong with the kind of game that you and your friends enjoy.

    I am only attacking your assertion that the occurence of a rape in game play at ANY game table is indefensible under ANY circumstances; particularly when the best defense you can offer for in-game violence is that 'it's in a good cause'. Swordfish (of the film of the same name) uses much the same argument. As do Team America. Actually, so did Hitler, come to think of it. NO I'm not saying you guys are as bad as the Nazis (not all of whom were bad, in fact; and let's not forget, even the Pope was a Hitler Youth once). I'm just saying that if you are going to REQUIRE everything that goes on in your game world to have a 'sufficient justification' other than that of 'it happens in real life', well I think that justifying violence simply because 'it's in a good cause' is a pretty flimsy argument.

    You keep talking about not being able to see a 'reason to include rape in a game' and how it is 'superfluous'. Well, if you take the alignment mechanism provided in D&D at face value, ALL acts of evil are superfluous. Because creatures that are evil just detect as such without ever having to commit a single evil act! All the player characters need to do is wind the Paladin up, turn him/her loose and attack anything he/she gets a bad feeling about. Murder is superfluous; heck, stealing candy from a kid is superfluous! Why have the bad guys do anything bad at all, they can just be 'born bad' like it says in the monster manual / compendium!

    OK, so let's say that you let rapes happen, but only ever 'off-camera'. Presumably, unless there's a whole lot of consentual sex going on between humans and orcs, this is going on somewhere to produce all those half-orcs. So suppose a female player character is captured by orcs? Now, in some gaming groups, where rape is a no-no (especially if they tend to play in 1st person), the DM might dream up some reason why the character isn't abused in the 'expected' fashion.

    Now don't get me wrong - if 'my orcs' have a PC in their clutches, don't think I wouldn't give them a chance, within reason. I'd look favourably on their escape attempts and cut them some slack; but there'd still be some die rolls in it. I'd give them some time, so that the other PCs can effect a rescue.

    But, I can assure you, if all of these fail, there would come a point at which the player themselves (in my gaming group) realises they've outstretched their favours, and they themselves will start to feel uncomfortable with the breaks I'm giving them, because they stretch the bounds of credibility like a bad movie (or what WE would consider to be a bad movie). Bear in mind that these are people who, for the most part, I have known for twenty years or more. Even then, when they have bowed to 'the inevitable' it still wouldn't be inevitable - there'd be a die roll in it, kind of a 'what do they do to her today' sort of thing. And I'd roll it up front, not behind my screen. And if the worst happened, nobody would laugh or find it funny. And I'm certain they wouldn't hold it against me either; they'd say I was being 'more than reasonable'.

    The above scenario has never happened. But it COULD happen, and it would run pretty much as I've described. Depending on the player involved I might tread a little more carefully in some cases than others.

    There have been two occasions during games I've been running in which player characters have been subjected to what I would call 'early-stage' torture (these occasions were seperated by about 12 years of real time BTW). In one case the PC spilled the beans to the bad guys just as they were about to take an eye; he escaped shortly after on a successful bend bars roll (and he hadn't told them the whole truth, of course....). In the other, the PC (a different one) was given a short spell on a rack to 'loosen his tongue'; he toughed it out on a Resist Interrogation roll. He was contacted in his cell by an NPC who was a traitor within the enemy camp (not a traitor on the party's side, per se, just someone with his own agenda). He was given some healing for his dislocated joints and set loose (on the proviso that he would carry out a mission on behalf of this NPC). I didn't throw the NPC in to 'let him off' by the way; the prescence of the traitorous NPC in the enemy camp was already detailed in my notes. And I hadn't planned to capture the PC either; it was just something that happened. A fortuitous connection of events.

    Many adventures in our campaign tend to be 'set-piece' affairs; the DM sets up the initial conditions that the PCs wander into / encounter / become aware of, and then we just see how things develop. In a campaign where the action is very linear and story-based, it's easy I suppose to not have things happen that you don't want to happen, and if you are used to playing that type of game you might be forgiven for thinking that ALL games are similarly story-based, and so you might say 'why write a rape into the storyline?'. But with our campaign there IS no storyline - not on a day-to-day basis, though there is a long-term plot going on but with LOTS of side-treks and unplanned stuff happening.

    I don't doubt that it's *possible* for rape to be dealt with in mature fashion in a RPG...but why do it? Where's the upside in dealing with this? Didn't you even admit there's not really much of one in a previous post?

    I did, but then there's no 'upside' to player characters being killed either. But most campaigns allow for this to occur.

    Why do it? Because convincing bad guys do actual evil things, they don't just wear an invisible 'chaotic evil' badge. Not in my campaign, anyhow. And my players happen to want something vaguely realistic. Even if that means that their own characters might also be on the receiving end of that realism.

  • I'm not disagreeing with Shataina's assertion that the subject of player character rape should be handled VERY carefully.
  • I'm not disagreeing with anyone who says 'never in my game!'
  • I AM disagreeing with the notion that rape should be considered a universal 'taboo' subject in all roleplaying games everywhere, and that we should ALL steer gently round it. And I am willing to bet that there are some rape victims out there - some, maybe not all, but some - who would agree with me. I don't think they'd be happy to hear that someone's idea of escapism is to escape to a world where rape never happens. Where does that leave them?

    I know that you are probably never going to agree with me, because I think you feel that I am trying to persuade you to include rape as a part of your game. I'm not. I'm simply saying that it CAN be a part of a 'realistic' game and handled in a mature fashion. If you ask the question 'why do it?', don't expect a moral justification or a plot-building justification. There are none. I would never have a character raped as part of a plot, although the act itself might give rise to one incidentally.

    The only 'justification' is the simple fact that in a realistic game 'bad things sometimes happen to good people' - just like in real life. Maybe that's not 'escapist' enough for you. For my players, perhaps the escapism lies in having the power to go after the bastards that do those bad things and make them sorry.

    It honestly depends on what mood I'm in. If I'm pumped up for the game, I talk in character the whole time...unless I *need* to say something as myself.

    If I'm tired...it's been a long day...don't have the juice...then I just explain what my guy says / does.

    The people I play with are mostly the same.

    No...I don't mean to imply that *you're* advocating rape (in the game or outside of it). It's just one of those things that I feel doesn't deserve a defense of *any* sort...not when it comes to its existience in escapist type events, like RPG's.

    And I don't feel that real life murder equates to the same kind of violence that exists in RPG's -- I feel there's a difference in fighting for a good cause and setting out to ruin another's life (whether it be murder or rape). Too much pycho-analysis of why the PC's do what they do

    It's not about sanitization. It's about not pouring Pepsi over your Wheaties. Certain things just don't mix.

    Rape is one of those things that is seldomly dealt with in the right context. A book / movie about how someone deals with it...I have no objections with. A book / movie / whatever that thows it in for a "hefty dose of reality...'cause like is tough, buckwheat...deal with my outlook"...no, sorry, had too much of that and its far from quality entertainment.

    I don't doubt that it's *possible* for rape to be dealt with in mature fashion in a RPG...but why do it? Where's the upside in dealing with this? Didn't you even admit there's not really much of one in a previous post?

    I'd probably have no objections if someone were to argue against making games more violent...but to argue that because the violence is there and, therefore, rape shouldn't be excluded...sorry, I just can't think of a reason to include it (except maybe as a sub-plot for an off-screen, 3rd tier NPC -- i.e., the Duke of Cuckoo Land's wife was raped 20 years ago by the evil tyrant that you're fighting against).

    But, no, I don't think the inclusion of rape in a game makes a DM "evil." I'm not saying that. The inclusion is most likely superfulous...but not evil, per se. I seriously doubt it makes the game more enjoyable in any capacity.

    I'll go ahead and confess that my hatred of rape is bases in part because it's treated as a "lesser" crime. A guy can accidentally kill another -- manslaughter -- and get 25 years in jail. Another man can plan a rape...deliberately terrorize another person...and walk in 5. The only crime that I can think of that trumps rape in terms of evil intent is Murder One...but, because murder has a higher consequence, we treat it as the higher crime. I think the focus is too much on consequence and not enough on intent.

    If anyone is sick enough to try to commit rape in a game you as the ref (DM) should simply kick them out of the game and ban them from the group.

    Let's not conflate the role-played description or implication of a rape with the actual thing. While I generally find it distasteful to play, I think it would be more an example of insensitivity and immaturity in a player under most circumstances, but not sickness.

    GM's are often driven to make their villains evil, and often use shortcuts to do so since the goal is to establish villainy quickly. I have seen more than a few GM's go to grotesque lengths to make players really hate the bad guys, including sexual depravity.

    I myself once created a scenario where it was implied that this may have occurred (off-camera though), between a villain and an NPC held in thrall through magic. But I didn't make sure the players knew the exact nature of the villains depravities, and frankly – knowing they wouldn't ask – I didn't really answer it for myself. The "rape" implication was more vague than the existence of the "half-orc" race in DnD.

    The important thing to the story was that the NPC was held in thrall, against her will, and also that one of the PC's (with amnesia) had also been held against her will by the same villain – in her backstory (which she just assigned to me to write for her). Players could do their own math. In this case, nobody was "getting off" on it. There was no blow-by-blow of who did what to whom. I left it open as to whether or not it did happen.

    In hindsight, while I'm confident in the way I engineered the background itself – I think the player in question was more indoctrinated to a certain slant on gender politics than most, and really, if I was tailoring a story to the person rather than the game scenario, I just would have not have left it open. Not that I actually *went* there, but I think she thought I did, and I knew some players would.

    Later, another GM also offered an aside where graphic and gory evidence of other sexual depravities were discovered by the players, but I think the GM felt self-conscious about the text and sort of backed off from it. Not sure about that. Neither of us were "getting off" on it – it was a crude and quick way of getting players to hate the villain.

    That said, my general advice today would just be to steer clear of it. If you must – if it is vital – then do it off-camera. Certainly don't allow PC's to try it on each other or in game – what is the point of that? And make sure you are confident of the players' politics first. Some topics, like Nazis, are so charged politically – that any reference to them (even deserved) will completely dominate everything – and that's likely not the goal of the scenario.

    in a somewhat off-topic side note:
    how many of you people play (or have players in your group play) characters in the third person? how many in first?
    Think about the changes this element of playing style causes to player immersion and POV (as pointed by lurkinggherkin)

    Sure, the nature of most RPG's involves some form of violence. If that doesn't float some people's boat...then they don't have to play those games. I've always been bewildered by this -- if people don't like the violence of a movie...then they don't have to watch that movie. Just because something is there, doesn't mean that it has to be consumed.

    You could say an identical thing about an RPG that involves routine occurences of rape.

    Anyway, it seems that the Real World and the Fantasy world are getting confused here.

    By whom?

    In my games, players don't pay taxes

    In my games, players don't pay taxes - but their characters do. Or they're supposed to anyhow....

    We don't include events in our game because it's logical.

    I think you have a different approach to GM'ing than in my own group. I don't think your approach is wrong. I rather hope that you don't think mine is. I'm sure that your style is geared to your own group of players and that they enjoy your games.

    I don't find slaying Drow abhorrent -- it's make-believe...they don't exist...

    You could say exactly the same thing about raping non-existent, make-believe Drow.

    Just because violence is in and rape is out...doesn't mean it's all about the violence...doesnt' mean that's the point of the game.

    If you include rape in the game, you can also make exactly the same statement.

    Do we cheer when we get a cricitcal hit? Sure we do. Not because we've slain an imaginary critter...it's like making a 3-point shot in basketball...or a hole in one. It's a game.

    But you could base a game around non-consentual sex that involved making die rolls for success in overpowering a victim etc and make exactly the same argument!

    Stop right there! I can see what you're thinking. 'This sicko is actually ADVOCATING rape in role-playing games!'

    WRONG.

    What I am trying to point out, is this simple truth - just because a particular GM is willing to allow the occurrence of rape within his or her campaign world, does not automatically imply that the GM is a perverted, sick individual, if the occurrence is a believable and consistent event within the virtual world of the campaign, and as long as this virtual event isn't harming anyone IRL (at the game table or anywhere else).

    Would it make you feel better if my player's started raping the orc-corpse after we killed it? Would that level the playing field? Would we finally "get it?" Would that be politically correct?

    No on all counts. Now who's being silly?

    Rogue, please don't think that I have been trying to say that the way you game is wrong. What I am trying to say is that we shouldn't be too quick to pass judgement on other people's games, because they happen to include occurrences of rape or other specific forms of unpleasantness that we might consider 'taboo'. Because, whilst we might be quick to point the finger and say 'that's disgusting - you bunch of sickos' about a gaming table somewhere, someone else might think that OUR game (that we think is merely innocent fun) is nothing more than a sordid celebration of violence. And indeed there ARE plenty of people who think exactly that about RPGs and combat-oriented gaming / wargaming in general.

    I'm NOT attacking the kind of game you play. I'm simply saying that you shouldn't imagine that your game is some kind of 'gold standard' of morally superior roleplay because it more closely resembles Star Wars than, say, the Watchmen comic series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

    ....then, as Game Master, I feel that I should start encouraging my players to eat each other when they're starving for food...I mean, it happens in real life, right???

    Thanks, you've just given me a great scenario idea ;-)

    (kidding)

    I notice that you keep referring to 'players' instead of 'characters' doing things in the game.

    I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that perhaps in your group you don't have the same degree of psychological player/character seperation that is common in my own group. I'm imagining that perhaps characters in your group are 'in game representations' of the players rather than perceived as seperate identities. I daresay your players say things like 'I go up and listen at the door' rather than 'Mandragoras goes up and listens at the door'. Thus a player character rape, to you, might be far more unthinkable than in my own group where we tend not to refer to our characters in the first person.

    Only a guess, mind you, and I could be entirely wrong. And, I'll hasten to add, I'm NOT saying that's a wrong way to play either! It's simply a different style of playing.

    Sorry. I'm sticking to my guns.

    You are very welcome to do so, as long as they are not pointed at me!

    Certain things have no place at the Game Table. Not my Game Table anyway.

    Agreed. In my case the things not allowed at my game table are player vs player bullying, intimidation, or abuse, whether via in-game rape or any other means.

    I think you're trying too hard to meld reality with fantasy. If you're going to continue along those lines, you might as well start endorsing that embezzelment, infaticide, cannibalism, and scatology should be in the game as well.

    Those things are all in my games. I'm just sayin'. Scatology has never had any "air time" because it's not something I really think about. But if a player asked me if it existed, I'd say it probably does somewhere, if you look in a place that is populous or degenerate enough. But those other things, especially cannibalism, are very much part of the setting I run. It's a dark setting, sure, and it's definitely not for everyone. But my players and I love it.

    Not my Game Table anyway.

    That's the real point. We play these things to have fun. If there's anything that gets in the way of your fun, get rid of it. If pure escapism is your bag, go for it! I like "gritty" fantasy, myself. My setting is sort of like the real world, but "through a glass and darkly." It's not straight D&D or "high fantasy" because those things don't move me.

    I think Shataina's line on this subject is a bit broader than yours, RG. She seems to think there are ways in which even the darkest subjects can be handled in such a way as to keep the game fun (and more importantly, to keep it from scarring anyone). I agree. If it's not for you, it's not for you...but I think you're being a bit categorical.

    To my mind, what has no place in the game is anything that interferes with the enjoyment of it. Everything else is fair game as far as I'm concerned. But I'm very glad this article was written, because it made me re-think how I handle certain disturbing elements.

    Sure, the nature of most RPG's involves some form of violence. If that doesn't float some people's boat...then they don't have to play those games. I've always been bewildered by this -- if people don't like the violence of a movie...then they don't have to watch that movie. Just because something is there, doesn't mean that it has to be consumed.

    Anyway, it seems that the Real World and the Fantasy world are getting confused here.

    Most people that I know play RPG's as an escape from reality...they don't do it to experience Real Life situations. In my games, players don't pay taxes, don't have to worry about who to vote for, don't worry about buying new lawnmowers, or putting gas in the car...we get enough of that in the Real World. We play games to take a break from Reality (amongst other reasons).

    I find rape abhorrent...so I steer away from it in my games. My PC's don't get raped...and, in turn, they don't get to rape. And, political correctness be damned, I'm not going to throw a rape into my game because "that's what should have happened." We don't include events in our game because it's logical. Give me a break.

    I don't find slaying Drow abhorrent -- it's make-believe...they don't exist...and by no means am I making a statement that it's okay to kill certain kinds of people based off their race. I'm saying that it the world of make-believe, the good guys ought to free the people and defend the crown...or something like that.

    Yes...in the world of Make-Believe, guys like Palpatine avoid rape...because in Make-Believe, bad guys are Make-Believe with fanciful motivations and desires. It's silly to speculate if a guy who can shoot lightning out of his hands would have taken Mon Mothma by force. And, no, Star Wars isn't just for kids -- what kind of silly talk is that? I'm 30 years old...sometimes I want to watch something gritty like the Sopranos...sometimes I want something more fanciful...like Star Wars. I very rarely want the two blended together -- I don't want Tony taking out mobsters with a lightsaber...and I don't want Luke kneeling on the ground and getting capped in the back of the head, twice.

    You gotta keep the stuff seperated fromt the stuff.

    And don't assume that because rape is out and killing orcs and drow is in that games are all about killing. Most of the time, it's not -- not the games I play. 75% of what we do is exploration, conversation...character and story development. One of my players, the Rune Reader, spends 50% of every fight trying to keep people from getting killed. I suspect there are a lot of similar guys in other games across the country that do the same thing -- don't assume that those of us who exlcude rape are reveling in wanton murder and orc-slaying. Just because violence is in and rape is out...doesn't mean it's all about the violence...doesnt' mean that's the point of the game.

    Do we cheer when we get a cricitcal hit? Sure we do. Not because we've slain an imaginary critter...it's like making a 3-point shot in basketball...or a hole in one. It's a game. A friend of mine also claps when the Death Star blows up -- that doesn't mean that he's happy that all of those guys blew up on the station...doesn't mean that he glorifies death...in fact, same guy is super-critical of all the crap going on in Iraq.

    It's not fair to pigeon-hole people you don't know based off a single preference. No, rape doesn't happen in my game...but that doesn't necessarily mean Point A, Point B, Point C, Point D...that's all just assumptions.

    Would it make you feel better if my player's started raping the orc-corpse after we killed it? Would that level the playing field? Would we finally "get it?" Would that be politically correct?

    I think you're trying too hard to meld reality with fantasy. If you're going to continue along those lines, you might as well start endorsing that embezzelment, infaticide, cannibalism, and scatology should be in the game as well. I mean...if we should throw rapes into the game because its the sensible things to do...then, as Game Master, I feel that I should start encouraging my players to eat each other when they're starving for food...I mean, it happens in real life, right???

    Sorry. I'm sticking to my guns. Certain things have no place at the Game Table. Not my Game Table anyway.

    I think violence can be more acceptable than rape in an RPG (or game, or comic, or movie, or whatever) depending on how it's conveyed.

    My wife disagrees with you. She can't understand why anyone would want to invent a game where the object of the game is to go around killing things or people - for whatever thinly disguised justification.

    In a game where monsters have alignments and are intrinsically evil, players can conveniently claim that they are justified in killing those monsters because their 'detect evil' ability registers 'bad guy' - regardless of any actual evidence (or lack thereof) of wrongdoing. But are you trying to say that players of games don't actually enjoy the act of virtual killing and violence? The satisfaction of scoring a hit and dealing a deadly wound?

    Most games sanitise violence by avoiding things like the permanent disablements or disfigurements that can arise from being hit by a bloody great sword. In Star Wars, you can get repaired anyhow, so no worries there.

    What I am trying to say is that violence in games is such an accepted part of the games culture that gamers tend to take for granted that it is acceptable. Not everyone finds it so.

    Star Wars is a tale of good versus evil. Guys on both sides get killed / maimed. The violence goes hand-in-hand with the adventure aspects of the movie. Rape has no place in the SW movies and I fail to see what rape could bring to them.

    I'd just like to point out that Star Wars is a film for kids. Check the rating.

    Do you imagine that Palpatine, steeped in the ways of the Dark Side, would never have commited an act of rape in his life? Because it's just 'too humiliating and perverse'?

    Okay, so what if some want a more realistic game? Something grittier. I still see no reason to inlcude rape.

    It depends on what kind of 'reasons' govern the action in your game. If the things that happen in your game are always driven by OOG reasons and RL sensibilities of the players and DM, then fair enough, although I find that that kind of game is somewhat problematic in itself, for other reasons. If you say that you don't allow rape to EVER occur in your game because it's just too offensive IRL, you're kind of saying that anything else that happens in the game IS OK IRL.

    What I was saying is that rape could potentially occur in a game where you have 'evil' creatures and people. Newsflash, rape is an evil act (according to most people's definition of evil in modern western culture, and certainly according to those who have been raped) and so why should the bad guys exclude it from their lexicon of evil? The 'reason' for the rape occuring isn't an OOG one, the DM isn't doing it for fun or something, he/she is simply extrapolating the likely actions of their disturbingly evil NPCs. When running my NPCs I don't think 'What do I want the NPC to do?', I tend to think 'What would the NPC do in this situation, given the impression I have of their personality?' This is why, for instance, monsters and opponents of the player characters in my campaigns often flee or surrender when it becomes clear that the odds are against them winning (if they've taken 50% casualties and have barely scratched the PCs in return, they'd be stupid not to). In fact my individual monsters tend to try to back out of a fight when they are 75% damaged, especially if they haven't scored a decent hit in return. Just about the only creatures that fight to the death in my games are zombies or golems or similar.

    What's the upside to having one of the PC's raped?

    Just like in RL, there are none. The only 'upside' is that it might make for a more consistent and believable campaign. More 'quasi-authentic'. I'm not suggesting that you should consciously choose to throw in a few rapes to MAKE your campaign authentic. I'm just saying that if a situation arises where NPCs could 'reasonably' be expected to carry out such an act, and provided you know that any players involved have a sufficient degree of psychological player/character seperation to not be personally traumatised or offended, then you shouldn't consciously avoid this occuring. In a sense, where possible, you should avoid 'intervention' in the game reality for the sake of political correctness.

    At this point, I'd like to mention as an aside, that a player character has never actually BEEN raped in any of my campaigns. I'm just saying that it's certainly not excluded as a possibility. And I'm absolutely certain the players are aware of that.

    There are too many opportunities to have fallout between the DM and the PC's...or the PC's and the PC's...depending on how the rape is handled.

    See my comments above about 'a sufficient degree of psychological player/character seperation' and my earlier comments about GM's having to tread with care when dealing with a group of players that they don't know very well.

    I don't think we can use the "rape isn't as bad as murder" aspect to justify it. One, that's debatable depending on who you are -- if I think rape is worse and I'm deemed a moron for it...fine, then I'm a moron and I'll deal with it...but I'm not changing my mind.

    I would never call you a moron for having this opinion. For some people, they think they would rather die than be raped, although I suspect that if put in an actual RL pants-wetting situation where they have to make a choice I suspect that many of them will change their minds. It also makes a difference if you have kids; you wouldn't want to leave them alone in the world if there's another option no matter how grim. Without going into details I was in a situation not too long ago where I genuinely thought I was about to die and the main thing on my mind was the anguish that my death would cause to my wife and daughter.

    Two, would anyone ever make a video game where the player goes around and rapes other people?

    Firstly, unpleasant though it is to contemplate, I think that someone would and someone either has, or will - though it certainly wouldn't be a 'mainsream phenomenon' in western society. There are more nasty people about in the world than you might imagine who would play this game. Your neighbour two doors down the street might be one of them. The well-groomed corporate CEO that you never get to meet might be one of them.

    I wouldn't be at all surprised if a trawl of japanese on-line gaming sites turned up something unpleasant of this nature. Consider the tentacle rape scenes that occur in certain animé videos.

    Secondly, would anyone ever make a video game where the player character goes around killing people? Yes, they would - and have done - because they are able to add a justification for the killing. The people being killed are 'bad guys' and killing them terminates their ability to perform future acts of evil, whereas raping them would not. Rape doesn't 'fix' anything, and you can't add a veneer of justification to it. However, try to tell me that a player doesn't feel a sense of smug satisfaction about taking down an opponent? Rather than a sense of sorrow that they have to kill this person, or thing? How often do you see games where enemies are taken prisoner and an attempt is made to re-habilitate them? How often do you see games where enemies surrender and their surrender is accepted and they are treated as POWs? Please don't kid yourself, player characters (under the guidance of their players) often do some pretty ugly things in the name of 'Good'. Most game designers (of video games) tend not to present people with moral dilemmas and generally speaking the monsters/bad guys just attack mindlessly until they are killed, thus conveniently de-humanising them for the player's benefit.

    The point is, that no-one designs games in which the point of the game is, ostensibly, just killing things. There's always an in-game reason provided for the killing. Similarly, non-one other than a sicko (of which there are more than you may imagine) would be expected to design a game where the point of the game is, ostensibly, just raping things. But it is entirely possible that a game could be designed where such a thing could occur, under certain conditions, for in-game reasons.

    Why does death jive? Because in a game, death doesn't have the consequence that it does in real life. If you guy dies...he can come back via a quarter / restart switch / or raise dead spell.

    How convenient. Ever played in a campaign where resurrection isn't permitted?

    How about a campaign where people actually role-play the trauma of death? A resurrected character is plagued by nightmares about the moments leading up to, and the actual moment of, death? Quite simply, you are underestimating how traumatic death is.

    If you say that the resurrection magic somehow erases the trauma from the character's mind, you should also allow magic to be able to erase the trauma of a rape from someone's mind. How about a Restoration spell in D&D? That fixes quite a few things.

    How would you "take back" the rape?

    See above.

    Most PC's kill orcs...but very few murder.

    When is killing an orc justified, and when is it murder?

    Luckily, orcs look very ugly and they 'ping' as evil on the alignment radar so most people don't worry about killing them even if they've never actually seen them commit an evil act. So what if the dungeon you've invaded is their home? They have no right to use force on you to try to drive you out, do they, because you're the 'good' guys....uh-huh?

    Also..in the real world...murder is about malice, hatred, loss-of-control, wrath, impulse...something along those lines. But in the game world...most death isn't murder...death in RPG's is more about victory, justice, questing...things like that.

    Yep. Victory and justice against bad people who actually commit evil acts within the game setting.....like rape.

    Questing? Why would you kill someone because you're questing? Because they're in your way?

    Rape is about hummiliation, helplessness, torture, violation, and perversion. I'm at a loss in figuring out what kind of alternate meaning rape can have in a game.

    It doesn't have any alternate meaning that I can see, within the game.

    Sorry...I just feel that certain things have no place at the game table.

    I also agree that certain things have no place 'at the game table' (as opposed to 'within the game').

    In my case, I am more concerned about player vs player conflict or player vs DM conflict, or bullying and intimidation - which are the things that can sometimes go on at gaming tables in real life, especially (but not exclusively) amongst younger players. The fact is that if these things manifest themselves in-game via actions such as PC vs PC rape, then removing the possibility of this occuring in the game has simply denied the aggressor one channel for expression of their aggression. They will find another, such as PC vs PC killing or PC vs PC torture. Or even stealing their goods or property, repeatedly. If the DM is involved as the bullying party it's even worse (and possibly harder to spot that it's happening).

    When this kind of behaviour occurs, I'm of the opinion that it's better to deal with it at the OOG source rather than seeking to impose artificial restrictions on in-game behaviour.

    I think I'm hearing what you're saying...but I can't quite climb on board the boat.

    I think violence can be more acceptable than rape in an RPG (or game, or comic, or movie, or whatever) depending on how it's conveyed.

    Star Wars is a tale of good versus evil. Guys on both sides get killed / maimed. The violence goes hand-in-hand with the adventure aspects of the movie. Rape has no place in the SW movies and I fail to see what rape could bring to them.

    Many RPG's are done in the same vein as Star Wars -- basic tales of good versus evil...adventures. It's an escape from reality -- most of us don't actually crusade against orcs or stormtroopers. RPG's exist to let us be somebody that we're not...if only for a little while...thigns we can't be in the real world. Killing an orc and murdering a human...not exactly the same thing. But, raping a PC and raping someone...well...

    Okay, so what if some want a more realistic game? Something grittier. I still see no reason to inlcude rape. What's the upside to having one of the PC's raped? There are too many opportunities to have fallout between the DM and the PC's...or the PC's and the PC's...depending on how the rape is handled.

    I don't think we can use the "rape isn't as bad as murder" aspect to justify it. One, that's debatable depending on who you are -- if I think rape is worse and I'm deemed a moron for it...fine, then I'm a moron and I'll deal with it...but I'm not changing my mind. Two, would anyone ever make a video game where the player goes around and rapes other people? I seriously doubt it...and I'd be curious to know what kind of people *wouldn't* find that disturbing.

    There's just certain things that don't jive with certain things. I think one of those things is rape and gaming.

    Why does death jive? Because in a game, death doesn't have the consequence that it does in real life. If you guy dies...he can come back via a quarter / restart switch / or raise dead spell. How would you "take back" the rape? Most PC's kill orcs...but very few murder.

    Also..in the real world...murder is about malice, hatred, loss-of-control, wrath, impulse...something along those lines. But in the game world...most death isn't murder...death in RPG's is more about victory, justice, questing...things like that.

    Rape is about hummiliation, helplessness, torture, violation, and perversion. I'm at a loss in figuring out what kind of alternate meaning rape can have in a game.

    Sorry...I just feel that certain things have no place at the game table.

    an interesting outlook there , lurkinggherkin, and a thoughtful one.

    just a note: you said:
    "Graphic violence on the big or small screen is held to be more acceptable than graphic scenes of sexual congress.."

    I'd like to emphasize that this is a very american view. In other countries (i.e. most of Europe) the relation is reversed and sex (or erotic imagery) is more prevalent than violence. In still other places, both are equally abundant (whether common, rare or even completly banned).

    I recall a few years back that a certain chain of department stores in the UK (who shall remain nameless) were involved in a criminal rehabilitation program - allowing prisoners on day-release to come and work in their stores as part of an effort to re-integrate them into society. They proudly announced, however, that convicted sex offenders would be excluded from the scheme; presumably to reassure their customers that they weren't going to be served by any rapists or child molesters. Arsonists who had burnt people to death, however, received no such exclusion.

    Seemingly, modern society finds sex offenders even more abhorrent than actual murderers who completely terminate people's existence. Let's get a sense of perspective here; rape is NOT as great an evil as murder. No, I'm sorry, it just ISN'T. You can hand-wring all you like about how deeply it scars people, how it's a terribly, terribly personal crime that stays with you for the rest of your life. It's not as bad as NOT HAVING a rest of your life.

    Of course, there are those who will use the argument that death is inevitable whereas rape is not - appealing to the notion that murderers have only hastened the onset of something that would happen anyway. But if you subscribe to this idea, you are effectively claiming that all kinds of death are equivalent and that life has no value because of its temporary nature. Why bother teaching your kids to cross the road properly? They're going to die one day anyhow....

    So am I claiming that the modern day abhorrence of rape and sex crimes in mainstream Western society is unjustified? Absolutely not! (Careful - watch out for the double negative there...) We should bear in mind however that this is presently a very emotive subject in people's minds, even the minds of people who have never personally been touched by such a crime - in reaction to our relatively recent enlightenment regarding the centuries of misogynism that women have been subjected to in the past. Not that I am denying the existence nor the atrocity of male rape either, but the main driving factor in getting society to recognise that rape is a truly awful crime that is never 'deserved' by the victim has been the efforts of the women's movement in drawing attention to the severity of the crime and highlighting the disturbing frequency with which it occurs - especially if situations like 'date rape' are considered. And the battle still goes on in people's hearts and minds; there are still too many folks out there who, on hearing about a young girl raped while out late at night (dressed perhaps somewhat immodestly), will point the finger at HER and say 'she was asking for it'. However if she were subsequently killed as well the same people wouldn't dream of saying 'she was asking to be killed'. There is a strong consensus of opinion on murder, hence it is somewhat less emotive a topic of social discourse than rape.

    Traumatic as rape is, it isn't the only thing that traumatises. Rape victims are certainly traumatised by their experience; but people who have been severely tortured are also traumatised. People who suffer serious injuries are traumatised. People who see dear friends or loved ones killed in front of them are traumatised. Different things affect a given individual in different ways and it is very hard to draw some kind of universal scale for traumatic experience. But we should not underestimate the trauma you would suffer if you were involved in, say, a heavy combat action in which you see several friends turned into steaming piles of organs and you yourself lose a limb or an eye or suffer some other serious injury. Nor should we underestimate the trauma that victims of torture feel, or the pain of concentration camp survivors that lingers with them even to this day.

    Time to turn our attention to roleplaying games. Now I feel quite strongly that we should be wary of letting political correctness intrude too far into our fantasy worlds. I understand the temptation to do so, because of course we may be fearful that people scrutinising those worlds will see them as a realm of 'wish fulfillment' and the expression of our inner biases, prejudices and desires rather than an attempt to create a 'quasi-authentic' millieu. Now if you want to have a game that resembles the adventures of the Care Bears then that's entirely up to you, but I definitely believe that a GM shouldn't be lambasted if he or she wants a game of gritty realism or dark horror - on the proviso that that's what the players also want.....a good GM will know how far to go and where the lines are drawn with their own group. A GM dealing with a new group of players needs to watch their step, but this can be said of all aspects of the game.

    Most RPGers tend to be fairly hardened to the horrors of hand-to-hand combat (at least whilst remaining in the safety of their armchairs) for various reasons. Firstly, we have strange double standards with regard to what we find acceptable in the popular media. Graphic violence on the big or small screen is held to be more acceptable than graphic scenes of sexual congress (consensual or otherwise). Perhaps this is because it's relatively easy to fake up some violence, but sex scenes are not so easy to fake - with increasingly sophisticated and more affordable CGI perhaps this will change - but for the moment when we see people 'doing it' on screen we can be fairly sure they REALLY ARE 'doing it' (If the action is just as - ahem - 'graphic' as much of the violence we see is!). As the concerned father of a young child, I have recently become much more aware of how much aggression and violence is depicted on TV even during daylight hours. The makers of 'The Simpsons' knew just what they were talking about when they created 'The Itchy & Scratchy Show'! Conversely we don't often see a rape scene, and when one does occur it's never a graphic depiction, nor is it a throwaway piece of violence, but rather a huge piece of drama that's invariably (on television) swiftly followed by a helpline phone number for rape victims to call, firmly stamping 'PC' credentials on the whole affair.

    Secondly, combat in RPG systems tends to be very abstract, a dice-rolling contest between players and GM to decide who lives and who dies. It's very easy to forget the horror of it all. And in games that have alignment systems and entrenched racial hatreds (institutionalised in the very rules themseles in some cases - aren't D&D Rangers the ultimate racists?) it's easy to forget about the moral dimension and it's easy to forget the pain and suffering. How many GM's inflict post-resurrection trauma on characters that are brought back from the dead? How many role-players voluntarily assume such trauma?

    Torture is another evil that isn't really portrayed in its true depth in films and TV. A hollywood film producer's idea of a torture scene usually involves a muscular hero strapped into some device that inflicts pain intangibly or perhaps with crackly blue electrical special effects. The hero sweats and strains and grits his teeth and maybe screams in a manly way as his tormenters turn some dial, but he refuses to give in. Real torture is much more gruesome, debilitating, permanent in both physical and mental effect and often carried out just for sadistic pleasure. Anyone who thinks that rape should never occur in an RPG 'as a matter of principle' but who thinks a bit of torture now and again is acceptable should think again.

    So, my basic message thus far, in a nutshell is - if your game allows people to kill one another, you shouldn't feel the need to ban or exclude any other kind of activity merely 'on principle', regardless of whether it is between player characters or NPCs or both.

    BUT that's not the whole story of course!

    A player character captured by an arch-enemy and 'ravished' against their will (because, basically, the arch-enemy is a complete bastard and that's what they do) is one thing. I'm certainly not suggesting that the GM should AIM to accomplish this state of affairs, but it may be one of those things that arises 'naturally' in a game where the action isn't following a strict storyline. One of my own characters is a female magic user and whilst she definitely wouldn't relish the prospect of being raped, if one of the GM's bad guys captured her somehow she would rather submit to being a concubine (in the hope of eventual escape or rescue) than be vivisected for their amusement. And her desire for revenge could add an interesting dimension to her character. No, I'm not saying that her getting raped would be anything to be wished for, absolutely not - in fact I would probably feel a bit upset. That's the interesting thing about roleplay - you can create a character who you can then empathise with and get just a taste of what it would be like to BE them without actually BEING them. And unless your characters live in a Care Bears type campaign world, you sometimes have to take the rough with the smooth.

    However, a bunch of teenage boys having their player characters rape a girl's new character when she joins their group 'just for a laugh' is something else entirely. They are doing it, not because they are being good roleplayers, but because THEY PERSONALLY find the idea funny. This is a clear projection of their own personal biases into the game. Those are the kids that could grow up to be date-rapists if someone doesn't set them straight. Because they think that rape would be OK if they were in a situation where they could get away with it.

    The situation where a GM has a particular player character raped a second time round 'because it's funny' also needs to examine their own motives carefully - especially if they planned the whole set-up. Someone who plans such a set-up for their own amusement or to win the approval of some misogynistic peer-group IS an asshole!

    These kind of unhealthy patterns of behaviour are not rape in a 'real' sense of course. But in a very real sense they are a form of BULLYING and INTIMIDATION. In just the same way, a GM who continually kills a particular players' characters because the rest of the group finds it funny is also performing an act of bullying. Whilst there should be room for terrible acts to occur in roleplaying game worlds, there should be no room for bullying at the gaming table.

    Interesting. I come here on occasion to read the articles. This one actually prompted me to join and respond.

    I've been playing off and on over the last 20+ years. Now we can be pretty sick in our own right, i remember one character who took the description of a monster (erect hyena-men) a bit to far, and abused their corpses after we killed them (surely you didn't think we lost did you). But the question of rape has never come up. Being a guy that likes to play a female character, this article brought me up short. Made me wonder how i'd feel if my character were forced into something like that.

    Now i've been known to come up with some very bizarre, perverse stuff in my time. Sickened co-workes with some of my utterances but i'm actually a bit shocked that this has never even occured to me. Knowing the guys i play with, this would probably never come up (now watch it come up next time we get together) but the article is very thought provoking. Good job!

    I have to agree with everyone else that this was really a thought provoking article to read. As a GM if you're going to use rape as a plot device it has to be handled very carefully and with a certian level of taste. I also think if you are using it too often, there is an issue with someone. In my 20-some years of GMing, I think I've only used it maybe two times. Once was an NPC who had been taken by the villian before the game started, but even then all that was said was that she had been abused, there was no need to go into detial. In the end, she was the one who knew the villian's weakness and killed him. I guess in my mind while developing the story, I knew it was some type of sexual abuse, but bringing that sort of detail out to the PCs really would not have helped the story, it explained why she had such a desire to kill the villian, but the players didn't need to know and even in-game, it's something she wouldn't have shared with them. I guess this sticks out in my mind because later one of my female players took the NPC over and ran it as her PC.

    The other situation was much simpler, the party had to rescue the fair maiden before the evil villian violated her. It was only used as a plot device to get the party there on time, it was never planed to really happen.

    It's surprising to hear about the number of gaming groups where rape is a common occurance. And from what I read it seem that some of these smae groups go into a lot of detail about it. That just worries me! Run away, run away! A point I think someone started to make is that there things do often escalate with offenders, be they rapest or serial killers. How far are some of these people from actually physically acting it out now that they are openly talking about it and describing it?

    There are some things that are just too taboo for me to throw into a game, and this is one of them. I have never played with a GM who has done this, nor would I likely play with them for very long if they did do it. Sex comes up in game from time to time (or quite often depending on the campaign), and this is fine. Murder, fine. Torture, yeah occasionally. But rape is crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed in my opinion.

    When I first read this article I thought to myself 'You have got to be kidding! What a bunch of crappola.' In the thirty years I've role-played no character has ever been 'raped' by an NPC's or other players!

    But then I started thinking about my experiences with some gaming groups and I realized that 'rape' is not the only 'role-played' act of violence and humiliation against players. Gamers can sometimes be quite an insular group of people. Can you say 'Deliverance'? And I've seen new players to a gaming group treated to one humiliation after another as a sort of rite of passage. That got me thinking. Traditional role-playing has hit hard times of late with diminishing numbers of players, many of whom have moved over to online gaming. Could one reason for this exodus be the fact that some of these people were ill-treated during gaming sessions, and find it easier to game alone in a room with a computer, in complete control of their environment?

    Maybe the idea of rape ought to be extended to how game groups treat not only new players but everyone involved in their group. That's such an easy thing to say but here are some guidelines:

    1) It is up to the GM to make a game fun, fair and entertaining for everyone. If the GM cannot control the players, or allows some elements of the group to bully others, they're no GM. Move on and find another group to play with.

    2) Hey Guys: Hello it's 2005, and its time you started treating women as people. I know this may come as a shock but there are female role-players. Try treating them as role-players and friends. My group has two regular female players, both would kick the who-haw at of anyone stupid enough to treat them as anything other than thinking independent adults.

    3) Game groups have to have standards of conduct that are observed by all members. If you can't conduct yourself as a reasoning, well mannered and intelligent person, I suggest you play alone off-line on your computer.

    Keep Rolling the Bones!

    1) It is up to the GM to make a game fun, fair and entertaining for everyone. If the GM cannot control the players, or allows some elements of the group to bully others, they're no GM. Move on and find another group to play with.

    I'd have to disagree with this. At the social level, it's everyone at the table's responsibility to make sure the session is fun, fair and entertaining for everyone.

    MArsden
    When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.

    Sure, but a GM bears a heavier burden of this responsibility than the average player. You have a good point: players cannot reasonably expect the GM to act as policeman and cheerleader for the entire table. But when things are aimless or headed in a bad direction, players rightly look to the GM for guidance. I think a good GM gives good guidance, and a bad GM gives no guidance or actively moves the game in a bad direction.

    I started a thread over on RPG.net on another possible article on this topic (it would be more of a sociological study than anything else). It's available at http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=185593. Not sure if it'll ever get off the ground -- it's looking especially unlikely that it'll ever do so for an RPG-playing audience -- but I invite y'all to contribute to the thread at least. (Edit: if you have anything to say about my actual original post, you should probably contact me personally at this point, as the thread has -- predictably, I admit -- degenerated into something mostly useless for my purposes.)

    Hmm.

    As I said before, I have a hard time condemning people who put rape in their games after they've made absolutely, positively sure that everyone involved is okay with it. And I think there's a difference between someone who gets their kicks from RPG rape, and someone who just thinks it might be something worth exploring. After all, authors write books about rape without getting their kicks from it; I see RPGs as a similar kind of art form, in terms of possibly-harmless exploration of a theme and / or even a self-exorcism.

    I'll add, though, that a little while ago I heard about a study which gave a bunch of young men accounts of rape to read. Some of the accounts were real-life retellings, and some of the accounts were fictional. From what I heard, those who read the real-life accounts were less likely to be sexual criminals, and scored better on some kind of empathy test that measured their reactions to sex crimes than the group that read the fictional accounts. (I can't vouch for this study because the person who told me about it was unable to give enough information for me to find the actual study itself and examine it; still, it's interesting.) So it seems that fictional accounts of such a thing might be a real problem (although, of course, another conclusion to be drawn here is that fictional accounts make no difference, but reading real-life accounts boosts empathy beyond what it would normally be; I wish I could track the study down and see if there was a control group).

    On the other hand, I read a really interesting article a while back (http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19970201-000017.html), about a study that looked at two groups of people: some writing about real traumas that had happened to them, and some writing about fictional traumas. Surprisingly, both groups showed equivalent health benefits after writing their accounts. I find myself wondering if RPGs can be a similar tool, to help people deal with their inner demons or some such.

    In the end, I'm also simply not convinced that even someone who actively fantasizes about rape, and gets to act it out in an RPG, is going to be more likely to act on those fantasies in real life. But I can still tell you that I wouldn't want to be alone with someone who "got his kicks" from RPG rape, either.

    There is no legitimate reason to have a rape occur in a D&D game. Rape is about hate for women and power. If anyone is sick enough to try to commit rape in a game you as the ref (DM) should simply kick them out of the game and ban them from the group. You don't want to associate with someone like that. If it is the ref (DM) that brings rape into the game then the players should simply pack up their stuff and leave, never to return. Anyone who thinks rape has a place in the game is sick and deserves to be locked up like any other sexual deviate.

    So I'm going to go on the record and say, yes, role-playing rape is always a bad idea.

    I'll start by saying that I have come to agree with this position. Some lines shouldn't be crossed.

    2) With player consent. By definition, there's no immediate victim with this type of role-play rape, but role-play is the most powerful learning tool available...A lot of what we learn from the fantasies of RPGs depends on what made us want to act out those fantasies in the first place. Each time our role-play efforts meet with un-rebuffed success, we take it as a personal affirmation of the motives behind our fantasies...We've revealed a tiny fragment of our soul to our fellow players, and they've given their approval, tacitly if not explicitly....Player-consent role-play rape, then, is basically vandalism of the mind. It teaches the participants that they can engage in the mental and emotional vicitimization of others and get away with it.

    Here, I think you're taking a reasonable position and going rather overboard with it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your reasoning seems to be:

    1) Player and GM agree to stage in-game rape of PC
    2) GM "gets off" on the rape on some level
    3) GM progresses, or is encouraged to progress, to sicker and more twisted forms of interpersonal, psychological abuse.

    While that's certainly a possibility, let me submit that there's at least one other possible outcome:

    2) GM feels uneasy about the incident
    3) GM learns a lesson about dramatics and workings of own psyche
    4) GM matures as a person

    In other words, lesson learned. As Shataina's article points out, and as some of the posts above indicate, a fair number of in-game rapes are perpetrated from some misguided sense of "realism" or devotion to dramatics rather than prurience and a need to dominate or victimize others.

    But I'd never, ever leave my wife or child alone with someone who got his kicks off of role-played rape...

    Then you're a good husband and father. I like to think the same about myself; I would not leave my wife or daughter alone with such a person, either. But it's sort of a no-brainer, you know? The phrase "who got his kicks off..." reveals that you're not talking about a healthy person. Do you understand what I mean?

    Always happy to be quoted in a positive light. :-)

    I wouldn't worry that "discussing [why roleplayed rape is a bad thing] will lead to rationalization about it on some peoples' part," though, mostly because the people who would try to rationalize it have already made up their minds, and will manage to rationalize it to themselves whether you give them words to twist or not. Sort of like the old Infocom "Hitchhiker's Guide" game, where if you make a typo, you cause a catastrophe of cosmic proportions. And if you work and work and work and manage to never make a typo... well, in the end, you cause that exact same catastrophe.

    So I'm going to go on the record and say, yes, role-playing rape is always a bad idea, in the same way that playing "shoot the tale off the donkey using live ammunition" would always be a bad idea for a party game. Sure, you could fire the gun once and do no actual harm. Or fire it twice. Or five times. Or ten. Or fifty. Or you could fire it just once, straight through the heart of your best friend, just arrived at the party to wish you a happy birthday.

    Anyone who tells you there are no victims in a role-played rape is spouting BS. There are only two types of role-play rape available, and each causes it's own sort of damage:

    1) Without player consent. In this type, there is a true victim, since the damage from rape is mental/emotional (per my previous post).

    2) With player consent. By definition, there's no immediate victim with this type of role-play rape, but role-play is the most powerful learning tool available. And while I'm as sickened as anyone by the religious rights' attempts to oversimplify the lessons we learn from it, and to tar the whole thing as demonic brainwashing, I cannot begin to deny that nearly 30 years of role-play have had a deep, profound, and dramatic impact on my personality.

    A lot of what we learn from the fantasies of RPGs depends on what made us want to act out those fantasies in the first place. Each time our role-play efforts meet with un-rebuffed success, we take it as a personal affirmation of the motives behind our fantasies, not (unless we're mentally unstable) an affirmation of the fantasies themselves, which is where the religious right gets it wrong. We've revealed a tiny fragment of our soul to our fellow players, and they've given their approval, tacitly if not explicitly. And all this plays straight into the "broken windows" model of urban crime.

    The essence of the broken windows model (which was proved through practical testing to cut down crime in New York City) is that broken windows in a neighborhood increase the crime rate. In a broader sense, it means that the way to stop the big crimes before they happen (murder, rape, armed robbery) is to vigorously prosecute the small crimes (vandalism, turnstyle jumping, etc.), because people rarely jump straight into the big crimes. Instead, they learn that they can get away with the little stuff without consequences, and slowly expand their horizons to include the more severe offenses.

    Player-consent role-play rape, then, is basically vandalism of the mind. It teaches the participants that they can engage in the mental and emotional vicitimization of others and get away with it. And just as few vandals ever graduate to murder, few consent-role-play rapists will ever graduate to real life rape. But I'd never, ever leave my wife or child alone with someone who got his kicks off of role-played rape any more than I'd drop them off unescorted in the middle a neighborhood full of grafitti and broken windows.

    Yikes. I'd thought better of White Wolf. Man, you'd think they'd at least have put a sidebar in or something ... well, just goes to show.

    Funny timing - I've barely gotten around to reading World of Darkness: Ghost Stories, and the entire Chapter 2 ("The Terrifying Tale of James Magnus") seems absolutely ripe for exploitation of the above kind. Reading the adventure (a haunted house infected with oversexed black magic kinks) kept tweaking my "rape" nerve, but it came to quite a point when page 67 rolled around. Describing the female antagonist, which can possess PCs: "It may attempt to seduce females, or possess them and use them to seduce or attack males" and then a bit later, in regards to her transmogrify ability of a possessed victim: "Characters can spare the lives of [their possessed friends] by consenting to Aiesha's sexual advances". Sounds like "Charm Person" and "But you had a choice!" to me.

    Well said, particularly the last sentence -- and the statement that rape is entirely a crime of context is especially aptly put as well.

    It's something I've been tossing around in my head for a while. One of the things that kinda bugged me about writing this article was that I wasn't writing a sociological study or even a discussion of why exactly roleplayed rape is a bad thing -- in fact, I consciously avoided both those topics. This is mainly because I was trying to get the point across that roleplayed rape is an incredibly bad thing for some people, without causing argument about whether or why roleplayed rape is a bad thing -- I think that would be astoundingly counterproductive. In short, I think it would be interesting to discuss, but I worry that discussing it will lead to rationalization about it on some peoples' part.

    Hmm. Looking back over this comment, it wasn't super-relevant to what you actually said. Sorry about that. Anyway, yeah, props; if I ever actually do the kind of sociological study I'd like to do about this, I'll quote you.

    Hmm. Well, I'll just say that I hope no one who thinks having sex with someone while they're unconcious is a "lesser crime" than rape ever talks to me. I can't even begin to comprehend that viewpoint.

    The reason role-played rape is so much nastier than any other role-played crime, including murder, is that rape isn't really best described as either a violent crime or a sexual crime, but a mental/emotional crime. Rape is entirely a crime of context, degredation, and dehumanization. Under proper conditions, the physical acts themselves might be exceedingly pleasant, so the atmosphere and conditions in which the acts were committed are the true offense.

    Role-playing is all about creating context and atmosphere; about opening our minds and our hearts to one degree or another, in order to experience emotionally that which is outside our grasp to experience phsyically. When we engage in role-play, we make ourselves vulnerable to the crime of imagined rape in a way we do not and cannot make ourselves vulnerable to the crime of imagined murder.

    Taking advantage of sleeping people is sometimes argued as a lesser crime since no threat of violence was involved. But you're right, it's in the same category as getting someone so drunk they can't say yes or no.

    And the situation has been made clear in later discussions. Our group has almost fallen apart over some other incidents, and it always results in a huge e-mail discussion. Everyone gets to say what they want from the games and what they absolutely DON'T want.

    Thanks for the great article! I linked to it for my blog series on sex in RPGs.

    I thought sexual violation while unconscious went without saying, to be honest. I was more occupied with trying to address situations that people might think were reasonable, and discourage them. It never occurred to me that, once I said rape is a bad thing, anyone might think rape while asleep might be an exception.

    Incidentally, I hate to sound like I'm lecturing, but I just thought I better recommend that you explicitly tell that GM not to rape your characters ever again, ever. You say you think it got across, but ... well, example: I had a character raped, and I cried. After that, I thought I'd made it real clear how bad it was, and I kept "making it clear", but the GM had the same character raped *again* later in the same game. I hadn't made it clear. Maybe he was insensitive -- hell, he definitely was insensitive -- but he still didn't realize just how awful what he'd done was, and if I'd actually said something explicit, maybe he would have.

    As a GM, I would never dream of bringing sex into the game. We keep it at a level of fun escapism and leave potential baggage at the door. All of my players are there to forget their worries and have some laughs.

    I did have a problem with a previous player that insisted on creating absolutely miserable background stories for each of his characters: typically they had been orphaned, were products and victims of incest, had been raped, mutilated, tortured, you name it. Then he played these psychological husks that were paralyzed by indecision; think "fighter with phobias of edged weapons, blood, fire, and loud noises" or "cleric that has become an atheist and so has no spellcasting ability." Their motivation? Exacting bloody, horrific, sex-and-violence type revenge on their malefactors. Oh my.

    It was ridiculous. I cautioned him privately against it, but he was resolute that playing an angst-ridden, suicidal trainwreck was just his cup of tea.

    Two games in, the party abandoned his 13 year old waif Psionicist with club feet in the forest and moved on. He complained; they stopped the show and said, "Dude, you are adding ZERO fun to the game. Deal with it."

    He pouted and quit, and the fun-factor immediately went up. It's so nice when your players help steer the ship clear of rocky personalities.

    Actually, I just had a (male) character flipped into a female body and raped (and made pregnant) by his "evil" twin brother. This was an attempt by that NPC to take over the shared soul the two of us possess. In this case the situation is so artificial and over the top that it really didn't bother me too much...the character had already been female for a while and had a child (a different story...). Also the fact that it was so deeply embedded in a long running story line helped quite a bit. And everything was "off camera". I found out most of what happened *after* the rescue.

    The fact that it happened while I wasn't there and my party wasn't paying attention when I was kidnapped annoyed me quite a bit more.

    However, I think the same thing would have really bothered several of our female players if it had happened to them (we are 4 married couples). We've gamed together for over 20 years with the same GM, so I think he has a feel for what is acceptable to me and the rest of the group. This really fit the storyline, and while being annoying, was not out of bounds.

    I would've really had a problem with the Gypsy situation above, or some out of the blue situation involving sex. I will say that the tolerance for sexuality in our group has varied quite a bit over time as well...so don't assume that because it was okay before that its okay now. For instance, as parents we have become *much* more sensitive to situations involving children...and now teenagers.

    [Aside]
    Also, please note that there is a difference between "Dominance" fantasies and "Rape" fantasies -- in one, control is surrendered by one party willingly and in the other it is taken away. The choice is quite important.
    [/Aside]

    I hope I'm not being insensitive by analyzing that experience in this way, but it's sort of interesting to hear about, in that it's so similar to so many gang-rape stories. I can only imagine that she echoed (in a weaker way) a lot of the feelings of a survivor of that kind of thing, such as the feelings of extreme isolation, distrust, unwillingness to be alone in such a group again, etc. I worry that such an experience could have been truly traumatic in a very real way, but that both she and possibly outside sources would be unwilling or unable to see it that way because it was all "just a game".

    I think you're absolutely right about everything you've said. I also think that another issue with rape in games is that it contains several social elements that simply aren't present in the vast majority of general violent things. Yes, when it comes down to it, I'd probably rather be raped than die ... but in a game? I'd far rather have my character die than be raped. For one thing, it's extremely demoralizing and miserifying (that's probably not a word ... oh well) to play a character who's been so badly mentally wounded; you don't have to play a dead character, and an injured character rarely takes it so emotionally. For another, a lot of the feelings that are attached to rape come through strongly even during a "virtual" rape, because they're a lot more mental and social, whereas there are almost never the same effects attached to a death or injury. Not that you can't humiliate someone by say, defeating them in battle, but it's much less humiliation than the wholesale degradation that comes from rape.

    My girlfriend first got involved in roleplaying in her early teens. Her dad (also a gamer) signed her up for a D&D club. Her group contained a bunch of 13-17 year old boys. Needless to say, she was the only girl (this was 1984 or so after all) and the other PCs raped her character. Now she won't go near a role playing game with a 10' pole and 50' of rope. Not even with a group of people who are her friends and can be guaranteed not to be a buch of f*cktards.

    I'd love to go back in time and beat some sense into those idiots.

    I do appreciate your clarification. I don't want to sound like a callous jerk who thinks sexual assault can be indiscriminately lumped in with the casual murder that is so frequently part of our role-playing fun.

    I think a big part of the problem is that rape is sometimes taken too lightly by society at large. In one of my posts above, I reference the concept of 'tentacle rape.' I really wish I were making up the phrase, but I'm not. There are fans of Hentai out there who apparently don't have a problem with it. To me, it's indicative of a serious level of misogyny, and the fact that it's perpetrated against cartoon japanese schoolgirls doesn't really help me there.

    At the risk of starting a tangential flamewar, there's a respected, modern, female philosopher (I'm trying to be charitable here) who includes a rape as the consummation of a romance in one of her major works! I was absolutely appalled when I read it - I almost gave up on her book right there. The fact that anyone has any respect for the rest of her philosophy is mind-boggling to me: rape fantasies, to me, are pathological.

    While I was a teenager, my own mother innocently gave me John Norman's Ultra-Misogynist Gor series to read, thinking it was typical fantasy fare. Given the sexist tendencies in fantasy art at the time, I think she had no way of knowing what sorts of BDS&M material and hardcore misogynist diatribes the books contained. Reading them screwed me up mentally for years. I won't say I had no moral compass of my own, but sometimes it's hard to know what's right when you're a teenaged boy and some bizarre-o adult tells you that your gender is The Superior One. Man, some of the stuff I spouted from those books made my Dad angry -- I'm very lucky he was there to give me some clearer-headed perspective on things.

    Against such a backdrop, I can see why some gamers "don't get it." There are things in our society - admittedly on the fringes, but still there - that seem to rationalize, justify, and sometimes perversely even seem to argue in favor of rape as a concept.

    That's why I'll agree with RG, the 'Timer, and all others who call your article here important. It is. To shamelessly steal a slogan from the gay activist movement, Silence = Death. I'm glad you've broken the silence - OldTimer is not wrong to say it takes courage to do so.

    It is interesting to think about what such twistedness actually accomplishes, isn't it? One might say that it's a good way to get people emotionally involved, but it seems as though there are always other ways to do that. I wonder what it is that attracts us to that sort of thing?

    Perhaps a little bit of context might help. I'm running a D&D game with a strong Call of Cthulhu-style emphasis on Cosmic Horror. I don't use alignment or standard fantasy racial stereotypes, and I've removed resurrection from the setting. I emphasize a sort of Gnostic/Zoroastrian struggle between the "true nature of the soul" and the evils perpetrated by the demiurge.

    In this setting, I play mortals as people - they run the gamut from "noble" to villainous to barking mad. The Outsiders are mostly beings of utter horror. This conceit speaks to my feelings about alignment; it's my way of telling my players "Your standard perceptions of good, evil, and 'neutrality' don't apply here. You have to treat people as people. By the same token, when Cthulhu comes to town, you can't act like it doesn't apply to you."

    I find this helps us explore the true limits of heroic behavior. When all is hopeless, a character's true nature is revealed. The real heroes are the ones who are willing to suffer death - or far worse - so others may live.

    What has this got to do with rape? Well, we're exploring the limits of goodness, so we also have to know the limits of evil. You say below that there are some lines that shouldn't be crossed without player consent; I would go a step further and say that there are some lines that probably shouldn't be crossed at all.

    Take, for example, one of my favorite stories from the so-called Cthulhu Mythos: "The Dunwich Horror" by H.P. Lovecraft. In this story, a young woman is offered by her own father as a rape-offering to a hideous, alien entity. This happens 'off-stage,' as it were; and the symbolism of the story is such that it clearly conveys much of HPL's own fears relating to women and the reproductive act. But any way you slice it, this is a story centered around what is sometimes casually called 'tentacle rape.' The monsters of the story are the resultant offspring of this incident.

    I wouldn't ever go there. I just can't. I seriously doubt any of my female players (or male players who play female characters) would ever consent to such a plotline, but more importantly it's just too misogynist and twisted for me. I can conceive of it, but I don't like to. The furthest I'll go is to include Dunwich-Horror-style monsters in my setting, who presumably result from a similar episode involving some nameless, dreadfully unfortunate NPC.

    I can see the objection coming (perhaps not from you, but from someone): "But that's not real, and 'regular' rape is. Why does something imaginary turn your stomach when something reflective of a very real problem seems ok to you?" I don't have a good answer: I can only say we all draw the line in different places. I will insist, perhaps feebly, that I am neither a misogynist nor a homophobe and that this is a subject that I do not like to see handled lightly. With considerable respect to OldTimer, the example of the "humorous" rape of a human man by an orc woman is something I think actually shows a little bit of insensitivity. Who am I to preach at the 'Timer, when I'm running a far darker game than he(?) ever would? No one. I don't hold myself superior. But I wouldn't ever characterize a sexual assault as amusing. (I'm a bit of a pro-Orc, anti-stereotype gamer, too, so that's important to keep in mind with reference to this particular remark.)

    I've included several rapes of female NPCs in my campaign - all 'offscreen' - to help define some of my villains as villainous bastards. It's effective: the players uniformly despise them and want to see justice visited upon them.

    I had a player perpetrating gay-rape on NPCs for a while. His NPC victims were all thoroughly villainous, but there was a general distaste at the table for this character and his proclivities. It was an offensive-as-all-hell stereotype, and I probably should've put a stop to it. Fortunately the character died before anyone got truly offended.

    As noted, I had one PC raped by an NPC. While the player and I discussed this eventuality at some length before it happened, I now think perhaps you are right - I probably had already established this NPC character's villainy by his previous attacks against the PC's NPC best-friend. In retrospect, I think the assault was gratuitous. While the same PC was sexually coerced in the same plotline, the player really hammed up that part of the story, and it led to a fascinating subplot. But I worry that maybe I stepped over the line with the assault, even though she was "a good sport" as I somewhat patronizingly put it, and I probably won't do such a thing to a PC again. There are many, many ways to establish villainy, and to resort to one of the ultimate forms of violation seems to betray a lack of imagination on my part.

    What a lousy GM - rapes your character repeatedly with one of the most offensive stereotypes imaginable (the "gay rapist"), but then penalizes YOU for excessive violence...!

    I'm in awe. I echo Shataina in congratulating you for speaking up, and I can't help but feel you'll find a better group. It sounds as though you can hardly fail to!

    Wow! That's quite bad. I think that beats most of the ones I've heard. I'm sorry it happened to you! But I am glad you did speak up. Good for you for having the courage to do so in such an obviously hostile setting.

    Well here's my horror story. I had been playing with a group for a couple of weeks and my male goody two shoes cleric of Lathander was captured by slaver traders. To my disgust I was sold to a bunch of gay gypsies who repeatedly raped my charsimatic cleric. I was shocked as rape jokes spead around the table. When my cleric finally enacted his bloody revenge the GM made me change the alignment from neutral good to chaotic neutral as a punishment for excessive violence and mutilation of dead bodies (my cleric was REALLY MAD). Finally, I spoke up. I said that rape did not belong at the game table and that this was offensive to both gays and straights. Suffice to say that didn't go over well with the group who were getting a good laugh over this "joke". I left the group, but afterwards I heard that a female elf PC had been raped by a drow elf PC. That caused the group to completely disolve.

    I don't really have a point to make except that if this is happening to you then don't put up with it. Make yourself heard and quit if it your group turns out to be a bunch of pervs. You'll be much happier with another group.

    As a further note, I thought of a couple examples that I've directly witnessed / heard firsthand accounts about, so you can see what I mean by the people who *really* don't get it.

    1) A girl has a character raped, and has nightmares about it. She diffidently mentions one of the nightmares to a few guys from her gaming group. They laugh at her, then occasionally deliberately refer to the rape incident for months afterwards, in a "playful" attempt to bug her.

    2) A girl has a character semi-violently raped. The character is (obviously) severely mentally scarred, etc; the girl also takes it very badly. Though she thinks her GM understands that it was a really awful event and he should never ever do anything like that again, he has the same character raped again later in the same game. The first time she tries to directly speak to him about how bad the experience was, he argues with her about how comparatively negative an experience rape is, with such lines as: "I mean, would you rather lose a limb or be raped?"

    I know the males involved in both of these events, in some cases very well, and what most confused me for a while is that they really, really aren't assholes. Seriously! They were just incredibly, incredibly insensitive. They *honestly* didn't understand just how horrid what they were doing was, and when they had it adequately expressed to them in a way in which it finally got through -- as opposed to loss of temper, tears, etc, none of which are a great way to get someone to understand exactly what they're doing wrong -- they felt terrible.

    This article is obviously aimed at everyone, but mostly at that group of people: people who simply don't understand how potentially damaging the use of rape in their games can be, and how far removed it is from the other kinds of violence that we (paradoxically or no) take as commonplace and acceptable. I want to make sure that I get the point across before the event so that stuff like this doesn't happen to more people. People like you, who already understand that there are lines Not To Be Crossed Without Player Consent, aren't what I see as the problem (although I'm also trying to demonstrate that there are "lesser" shades of in-game sexual violation that need to be treated seriously, because I know that there are also lots of people who are not insensitive enough to do the kind of things I listed in this comment, but who might still seriously piss off a player by, say, getting the character pregnant without permission).

    Yeah, I hear what you're saying.

    In all honesty, I have a greater fear of rape than death. If somebody attacks me with the intent to kill, I know I'll go down fighting...and, for some Conan-ish reason, that's okay with me. If I just get raped instead...then I'll be left to deal with that forever...and in today's society, there's no retaliation I can take that would be satisfying -- sorry, but suing someone and putting them in jail...well, these days, how gratifying is that...especially when you know that guy is gonna be back on the streets in a few years.

    I guess the reason my stance is seen as sophomoric by some of the people I know is that I have different beliefs regarding life. I cherish life...but know that I'm mortal and will die...and, honestly, the 14 year old in me had rather go down in a fight than die slowly with some rotting disease. Yes, life is good...but I don't completely agree with the notion of clinging on to every last drop...and I'd rather have my life snuffed out than ruined. But, a lot of my opponents tell me that I'm wrong...that one should opt for life no matter what. Eh...I'm not so sure.

    I think a lot of the problem is that we...as a society...have made rape a sensation. It used to be a taboo subject, but now we have numerous TV shows that put it in the highlight. At the same time, we Americans have a lot of hang-ups regarding sexuality...and a number of people insist of calling rape "a crime of violence." Well, sure, it's violence...but it's also sex. If I beat up someone with a bat...or, if a husband beats a wife...that's violence. If I rape a woman...it's not just violence.

    I think we've "canned" rape in such a way that a lot of people think they'd get past it...after all, don't the characters on TV move on? And I think we've made rape more "okay" by saying that it's "just violence." I grew up in some rough neighborhoods when I was in junior-high and got into a few fights at school...that was violence...but it definately wasn't rape.

    Part of my angst over rape is that I consider myself to be very free-willed. I don't like to be controlled by others...and, to me, rape would be the epitome of loss-of-control. I hate that notion.

    Of course...I live in a good part of the country and the only way that I'm likely to get raped is if I cave in...bash in my boss's head with an axe...and go to prison.

    To me...it's a complicated, touchy subject...and I don't feel that it's handled well by the media. These rape-dramas don't do due justice in showing the trauma...I don't think. And us non-rape victims with non-rape victims in the family...heck, we might not even know what we're talking about.

    Even so...I still think rape is a great evil that has been severly downplayed by American society.

    And...for me...it's a bit too touchy to include in my games in direct fashion.

    an interesting and thought provoking read. thanks, shataina.

    I have to say that I do like some very occasional and usually understated romance in my games, so it's tough for me to say that it's an all-around advantage for a game to eliminate it like that.

    Still, it's tough, and I do have to say that ensuring that my characters wouldn't be raped -- even at the cost of any possible kind of romantic encounter -- could potentially be very worth it from my end, especially for cases when I'd be playing with GMs I didn't know / trust.

    Wow! "Sophomoric"? The minute I see that word applied to this, I become curious about why you would even think that. Although I think I can understand it ... I've definitely come upon the attitude myself that rape "just isn't that bad". I think the problem is that some people really think that if *they* were raped, they'd get over it without any real trauma (and hey, maybe they're right). To directly quote someone I know: "If I were raped, I'd be pissed, but that's all." I think people like this are prone to thinking things like, "Since I can / could get over rape easily, anyone who couldn't is just a weakling who needs some backbone."

    As if it weren't obvious enough, I certainly don't think that considering rape to be one of extreme evils is sophomoric! Not to, you know, come down too hard on anyone -- but I definitely think it's extraordinarily sophomoric *not* to regard rape as one of the extreme evils.

    Heh! Thanks, although I'm not sure "courageous" is accurate!

    As much as this topic is distasteful in many ways, I think it's interesting to watch how people react to their characters once they've been raped. The fact that that player chose to never play the character again is telling, I think -- I had a very similar experience, where a character I loved was subjected to so much horror and trauma that eventually I just couldn't bring myself to play her anymore (although occasionally I consider trying).

    Thanks, and I'm glad you found it helpful. For what it's worth, it doesn't sound to me as though you "fundamentally don't get it" -- not that I can, you know, judge at all from my computer screen. But especially since you've said that it's important to know what your players are comfortable with and that you've laid all your cards on the table and checked beforehand ... well, as I said, it sounds to me like you've done everything the way I would want a GM to do it if they were running a game for me, especially with the explicit asking of permission. I find it very difficult to say that anyone's doing anything wrong as long as everyone involved in [whatever] is a consenting adult.

    It is interesting to think about what such twistedness actually accomplishes, isn't it? One might say that it's a good way to get people emotionally involved, but it seems as though there are always other ways to do that. I wonder what it is that attracts us to that sort of thing?

    The only "comical" rape scene we had was where a player wanted to play a half-orc character... and his background was that his mother was the orc.

    Think about it...

    ... (ugh!) gives me the willies.

    Rogue, buddy... where ya been?

    Thanks for your support and insight... well worth it, as usual.

    Come to think of it, we may have had an NPC-behind-the-scenes-rescued-after-the-fact kind of rape in a game. Boy, that was some time ago. In that regard, I can see how it can work with a campaign's storyline. Doesn't need to be shown; just understood that it happened.

    Great example of famine... heh. Have to try that one sometime.

    I agree with the Timer -- big shock, huh?

    I use the aspect of rape lightly -- it has happened to one of our NPC's, who was rescued from a prison after-the-incident. The odd villain has used it as the odd threat...but that's about as much as I use it.

    If one of my player's came up and said "gee, I want my wizard to get raped by Moloch down the road." Well...even then, I'm not sure I'd do it.

    I'm one of those people who find rape to be one of the extreme evils. It may be sophomoric of me to think so, but I consider it worse than murder. Yes, I understand that there are a lot of rape survivors who have gotten past their trials...and I admire them 'cause, quite frankly, I'm not sure if I'd be able to endure that kind of trauma and humiliation -- I have no desire to find out.

    Sure, rape is a real-life event...not sure it belongs at the gaming table. Anyone who argues that the inclusion of rape in a game makes the game "better" should probablly rethink that stance -- I think it's okay if it's used as an off-screen detail for some NPC...or for some backstory or something...but to make it a focal point of any gaming session...eh...I can't throw in with that.

    Anyone who argues that it makes the game more "real"...well, I don't play games for the realism, per se, but to have fun (as the Timer says). Famine is real too...but I can't think of a game where the players sat around and starved to death. "Okay...it's your 8th day in the Endless Desert...what do you do...nope, search for water fails...another day passes..."

    There's just something weird about a GM wanting to have a character raped...and I'm not sure I'd want that person coming over to my house. One could argue that a GM that does such a thing has commited virtual rape -- again, why would any healty person want to do that?

    As a sidenote, this is one of the less-mentioned (but still considered) advantages of Paranoia: the ample amounts of hormone suppressants cuts out 99% of potential "encounters". (As for the other 1%, if you want sex in games, you shouldn't be playing Paranoia.) Combined with the knee-jerk "DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS" censorship of cuss words and you have one of the more kid-friendly RPGs out there. (That is, if you don't mind the violence, anti-social behavior and the humorously depressing viewpoint.)

    As for my other games, I've never had one where sex came up, let alone rape. Either I'm lucky, or most of the groups out there consider sex a forbidden topic.

    -Mike Lemmer

    It occurs to me that I may seem to be one of the People Who Fundamentally Don't Get It, or worse, one of the People In Denial That This Is A Problem.

    So let me say that I don't mean to undercut your point in any way. Your article was thought-provoking enough that I am examining my own assumptions about what is acceptable. What did my campaign's twistedness bring to the table that it wouldn't have had otherwise? In the final analysis, I'm not sure that the "realism" or vividness of the setting is worth the potential price to be paid in terms of friendship, mutual respect, and mental health.

    Wow, a very well covered (and courageous) article.

    We had one game where the GM had a PC raped, and although the GM still played with our group, he was never made GM again. Fortunately for the PC's player, the actual rape wasn't graphic, so the trauma of the actual rape was low. But that player never played that character again, and was quite irritated at the GM.

    I also prefer a game with realism, but it is after all only a game, and there are some aspects of "the real" that I don't feel are appropriate for a game-- this is one of them. I have said on previous posts that the game is all about having fun, and if the group isn't having fun, then what's the point of it all.

    Thanks for writing on this topic. Whether or not it needed to be written, I think it needs to be read.

    Good article, Shataina.

    I think the key here is player-to-GM communication. Know Thy Group should be a primary commandment for GMs. Whenever things get into a zone of potential awkwardness, stop the game and discuss what's going on (or what might potentially go on).

    We play games to have fun, and there's no reason to violate that principle. When gamers say "...but it's realistic!" as an excuse for whatever annoying thing they happen to be perpetrating at the time, I have to ask: "how does it contribute to the fun?" If it doesn't, I don't think it belongs in the game. I most frequently run into this problem between players, oddly enough: people want to victimize each other over their IC motivations. "But IC my character would do this..." seems to be a favorite rationale for starting many an argument. I wind up having to say: "these characters, these situations, they AREN'T REAL. Snap out of it!"

    I'll admit to feeling a little awkwardness reading this article because I am currently running a campaign that has included some Sick And Twisted Sh*t(TM):

    • Sexual Assault (by PCs against NPCs, and then later back the other way)
    • Kidnapping
    • Torture
    • Slavery
    • Homosexuality*
    • Sexual Coercion (defined in this article as 'Disguised Rape')

    *Edit: I don't mean to imply that homosexuality is "sick" or "twisted." I only include it in this list because frank discussions of homosexuality tend to get treated in a stereotypical or dismissive fashion in RPGs. Sexuality can make people uncomfortable, regardless of its orientation!

    I can understand why Shataina or anyone else might not feel comfortable participating in such a campaign. Sometimes it creeps even ME out. I can only say that I've made an effort to lay all my cards on the table in an OOC fashion: this is the kind of setting I've envisioned, these are the sorts of things that might happen, this is what the society is like, and so on. Before a long-term Bit of Unpleasantness for a certain character, I took pains to discuss the probable consequences with the player and make sure she understood that the point was to weave an interesting story and not to be a perv, or make her uncomfortable, or anything like that. I did say: we don't have to go here. She understood and was a good sport, and I felt we created a very interesting thread.

    Even then, I have to observe that one of my female players (and a longtime friend of mine) has complained that female characters get singled out for abuse. I feel this is an unfair charge, and the other female players don't seem to support her in this, but I have to emphasize it's a touchy subject. The fact that someone complains at all makes me wonder if it was a good idea to run such a game.

    I would like to add a few additional comments:

    • I handle stuff like this by BLUE-BOOKING. I cannot imagine having an 'on-screen assault' at the table. Typically, a player and I deal with this sort of thing by e-mail or private discussion. We 'fade to black' wherever things are touchy or wherever a player wants to draw the line. I've found out that one of my female players is even pervier than I am, but that's a side issue.
    • Many players, male and female alike, are uncomfortable with their characters suffering ANY form of assault - not just sexual. They wade into combat to get blasted to bits or diced to shreds, but torture just makes people get the willies. I don't say it's logical; I just say my experience tells me this. My advice to GMs dealing with torture and other forms of dark, oppressive treatment is to treat it with the same kind of caution you would sex, sexual assault, or any other twisted aspect of your game.
    • Sex itself is a touchy issue. If you include sex in your game or setting, expect people to get creeped out from time to time. Keep a sharp eye on your players' comfort zone. Be aware that not everyone enjoys the subject matter on the same level.
    • When in doubt, err on the side of caution. Better to get accused of being a PC, touchy-feely, wishy-washy wimp than to get called a virtual rapist.

    Again - Shataina, thanks for your insight. I'm not seeking absolution here, just trying to share my own thoughts and experiences on the subject.

    Any situations missing from the original article? How about characters getting violated while they're unconscious?

    We were playing Warhammer FRPG. This is a game where characters have Fate Points. If you get killed, pay a Fate Point and survive through some lucky happenstance. Perhaps the blow only knocked you out, and the enemy left you for dead? Perhaps there was a really huge tree under the rock wall you fell from, and the multitude of branches you hit slowed you enough to save your life? Anyway, the GM is supposed to let you off with some lost equipment and wounds that will heal in time.

    I was playing a human female, one of fine breeding who had fallen on hard times. Nothing special in starting skills, but she had a few good careers and was both tough and smart. The party was sitting out the winter in a small town when it was attacked by orcs. Some heavy fighting later my character decided to flee, badly wounded. An orc managed to catch her and the next blow was fatal. OK, lets pay a Fate Point. So we wake up in a bed sometime later, feeling poorly but alive. The orcs took what supplies they needed and left the town be.

    And then the GM says my character realizes she's pregnant later in spring. GAH! I felt both dizzy and physically ill at the thought. The GM certainly heard he'd gone too far, my voice wasn't exactly steady when I said the character would probably take her own life. So miscarriage it is, nothing odd for first-time pregnancies. I continued playing her for a time, but that particular character never glowed like she used to after that. Even without a bastard child she was ruined for me. Realism can go hang, I don't want to have characters raped by orcs after getting knocked out.

    This GM hasn't dealt with rape in any later games, and I trust he won't. It's a sickening crime, even if I'm a man. Sex is fine in our games, as long as people keep the game going instead of doing some improvised Pôrnmaster:Lewis does Tashal City.

    "We don't negotiate with fish."
    -M, magician and cleric of Shar after wiping out some surrendering Sahuagin.

    I would never call anything done virtually as being real in the "real world". We don't virtually transfer money. I wouldn't call rape online as real rape either. I already hate the governments for creating such a restrictive environment in the real world. I don't need to be policed or have the government get involved on-line as well. It's bad enough we can't be free in real-life, at least they can allow us to do it on-line. However, if there are POLICED virtual worlds, than there will also be un-policed virtual worlds where anything goes. Where you can get raped, virtually smoke pot, or snort cocaine, or do virtually whatever you want. Can you imagine being brought up on a possesion charge because they found drug residue on your avatar? That would totally be screwed up. That the whole point of virtual. Nothing is real or limited. We are a country built around excess, we can take anything to the limit, and we probably will ON-LINE.

    I'm pretty surprised about in game rape being a big deal. I wouldn't like a graphic description, but I doubt I'd dislike it any more than a graphic rape in a movie. I'm new to pen and paper RPG, though, and haven't really gotten emotionally attached to characters. Of course, I do realize that players and GMs have to work together. The characters don't have to respect each other, but to have fun the players and GMs do.

    I expect my reaction to getting raped in game would just be that its a good RPing opportunity. I can't imagine myself having my character rape anyone else, though. But, I've not even played an evil character yet.

    Sorry to revive an old topic, but I was linked to it from another site - an article (this one: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/sexdrive/2007/05/sexdr...) about a real-life investigation of virtual rape, which was tantalisingly short of information, especially as I'm unfamiliar with the game in question ("Second Life"). As there was no real indication of what has happened in the real-life case, I lost interest in that issue pretty quickly, but I found this article and discussion fascinating.

    A little background on me: I've never participated in any tabletop RPGs. The closest I've come to was an online RPG on a messageboard, but from what I've gathered about RPGing in general, that seems to have been quite an unconventional example - we had no kind of stats or fighting rules, no dice, and the only thing that limited player actions was whether or not it would make a good story. I suppose it was more a kind of collaborative fiction than an RPG. When it began, it was set up as a sub-forum by myself and three or four others, so we became the moderators of that forum. I quickly became a kind of default GM, though, because I seemed to be the only player who was willing to have my characters not be the centre of attention, and also I seemed to have a proliferation of characters, so my characters were retroactively designated NPCs. My role was really the role of trying to weave an interesting story out of other people's characters and ambitions, and most of that was done using instant-messanger services, so the basic plot was outlined in my mind before it happened in "canon", as it were. As a result, most people knew what was going to happen to their characters, but not to everyone else's (except where the two characters interacted). What was in this for other players, I don't really know, but it was a fascinating process for me. I quite miss it.

    Anyway, enough rambling. I'm sure you don't care.

    I don't recall rape ever being involved in our plotlines, and it would probably have been out-of-bounds, but only because the RPG was happening on an open messageboard that allowed people of any age to join. If we had introduced a rape story, we would probably have gotten into some trouble from the site's administrators. I see no reason to categorically exclude rape as a plotline from an RPG.

    The issue of player consent is of course crucial. If one of my characters was raped without my consent, I would be very pissed-off. But no more pissed-off than I would be if one of my characters was crippled or killed off without my consent. Or, for that matter, if my characters were written as having done anything that I would consider out-of-character.

    I hold no truck with this notion that rape is somehow worse than murder. That is logically equivalent to saying that having been raped is worse than having been murdered. It's a short leap (if any) from there to saying that people who have been raped may as well kill themselves. This is, of course, an absurd thing to suggest, but I can't see any difference in the proposition. If you think that rape is a worse thing to happen to somebody than death, then you're basically saying that there is no way back for somebody who has been raped, that their life is no longer worth living. This seems to me profoundly insulting to anybody who has been raped, and this attitude can only contribute to the sense of isolation that victims of such a crime often feel. If society has decided that it would essentially have been better for you if you had been killed, then that can only help to perpetuate that view within yourself, which will obviously not be good for your self-esteem.

    On a wider scale, the overall reluctance of the media to address the issue of rape is damaging to society, as it makes the discussion of the issue taboo, which only makes victims feel that they have no means of support. Only by accepting that such things happen, and dealing with them in the same way that we deal with other crimes such as murder and robbery, can we ultimately hope to help the victims.

    Of course, in an RPG situation, if one or more members of a group don't feel comfortable confronting such an issue, then it should be avoided. But we have to ask ourselves WHY people feel uncomfortable. If they or someone close to them has been raped, it is understandable, but if they just feel uncomfortable with the idea, then I can't help but feel that it is because they wish to pretend to themselves that it simply doesn't happen. This is a very dangerous attitude to take.

    Ultimately, RPGs are about enjoyment, and nobody should be forced to experience anything outside of their comfort zone in that context. But to assert that rape should NEVER be addressed is to play into the hands of those who seek to brush such issues under the carpet.

    Again, sorry for dragging up the topic, but I found the issue just too fascinating to let it pass by without giving my opinion.

    I am in complete agreement that being raped is not worse than death. However, I don't necessarily believe that murder is a worse crime than rape -- the two viewpoints are not mutually exclusive. When this topic is on the table it is essential to remember that there are at least two perspectives in every rape: the victim's and the attacker's. I don't really feel equiped to engaged in a debate over the relative evils of the crimes in question with murder, rape, and torture being put on some kind of ethical scale and measured.

    The consideration that I would like to offer to this topic is that we are what we think. In fact, if we agree with Descartes then thinking is the thing that proves our existence. Branfish has an excellent post above outlining the dangers of letting rape be a "dirty little secret" crime that festers in the shadows of our society. That is still a long way from concluding that it should be examined by roleplayers. Is narrating a rape from either perspective illuminating for the role-player? Should it be something that we dwell on? I dont think so. So few people who takle the topic are adding to our understanding and compassion. There are a few exceptions.
    In Elizabeth Moon's Deed's of Paksenarion the main character is raped. The scene of her rape in the book is quite graphic and disturbing (I couldn't even read it through the first time -- I skimmed ahead). What makes her story different is the next steps, the character becomes healed. Throughout the story the character experiences weakness, defeat, humiliation and uses these events to consolidate her compassion not as fuel for retribution. Typically, the less mature rape story involves a brutal rape/revenge cycle. This suggests that the only way to deal with a rape is to erase it -- kill the person who perpetrated the crime and go on, slightly diminished and damaged, with your life. That is a rotten message, but unfortunately it seems to be the prevailing attitude towards the topic.

    Back when I played Magic: The Gathering, I got rid of all of the black cards that I owned and played with the other colours. I didn't need black. I didn't need to dwell on those images or ideas for the fear of becoming what I think about. If all I can think about is horror and revenge then where is my imagination; if I learn through my pursuits to explore depravity and seek to inflame my anger then where is my self control?

    Sure, let's talk about rape. Let's talk about it outside of the game. In the game let us challenge our own need for revenge, uphold the rights of the weak, and seek to explore and understand. One of the dangers of the role-playing format is that most games are predicated on making the player characters constantly more powerful (but that is another topic).

    Ok, I've rambled on long enough. In a nutshell my opinion is that a gaming group is typically not a good environment to explore the concept of rape. While we should acknowledge the presence of evil and that it is the major drving force in almost all fantasy literature, dwelling on dark and evil things is perverse.

    I'm sorry, did you just say you took out all the black Magic cards?
    Why?

    Do you think playing Terror on an opponent's creature affects you in some way? or employing a Royal Assassin or Mind Twist?
    Please explain that logic.

    I've not played Magic: the Gathering - what are these "Black Cards"? Are they like black magic spells (I assume "Terror" that zipdrive mentioned was one of them)? Is there some degree of roleplaying involved in the game, with you choosing an "alignment" that allows you to use certain types of cards, or did you (Gilgamesh) just not feel comfortable with the concepts involved?

    On-topic, I agree with you for the most part, Gilgamesh. I wasn't advocating that rape should be dealt with by RPGers - obviously many (probably most) players don't have the emotional maturity for that dark a story. I was just saying that it can be dealt with maturely, and when it is there's no reason to condemn it, or see it as a symptom of some kind of psychological disorder. I was astonished by some posts I saw on this topic (I think they were over at that other rpg forum Shataina mentioned) that said that rape in roleplay was literally a case of rape, and should be legally treated as such.

    Branfish, if you would like to know more, I suggest you read the following entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_the_gathering
    which includes a paragraph on demonic art/flavor used in the game.

    In a short short answer to your inquiry, there is no alignment in the game, and black is one of six categories the cards come in (the others being white, red, blue, green and colorless).

    Not to be snippy, dude, but if you'd paid attention to my article, you'd have seen a link to a virtual environment just like what you describe.

    It sounds to me like you're an electronic gamer. No disrespect intended, but I think that's probably a lot of why my point was totally lost on you.

    Holy crap. Something I wrote has been linked by "Wired"! I'm a little stunned. I wish I'd heard about this sooner!

    Thanks for your comment, Gilgamesh. It said a lot of good stuff. I do want to add this, Branfish:

    "I hold no truck with this notion that rape is somehow worse than murder. That is logically equivalent to saying that having been raped is worse than having been murdered. It's a short leap (if any) from there to saying that people who have been raped may as well kill themselves. This is, of course, an absurd thing to suggest, but I can't see any difference in the proposition. If you think that rape is a worse thing to happen to somebody than death, then you're basically saying that there is no way back for somebody who has been raped, that their life is no longer worth living."

    With all due respect:

    1) Saying something like, "In my opinion, rape is worse than murder," or "I would rather die than be raped," is rather different from saying, "Rape is objectively worse than murder," which is how you're interpreting it. Your logic falls down if you acknowledge that statements about how people feel about rape have nothing to do with objectivity or, well, logic. If someone says she'd rather die than be raped, I don't see how it's progressive or useful for you to say, "No you wouldn't," or "Have you really thought about that?" or anything like that. I can see your point about how it can be patronizing to rape survivors to cast rape as an objectively worse crime than murder, but has anyone actually saying it objectively is?

    2) Furthermore, saying that you'd rather have a character die than be raped is also rather different from saying you yourself would rather die than be raped. Having characters killed is, as I noted in the article, a fairly "normal" thing to happen in games. It's an understood part of the gaming social contract, if you will. Rape is a different story. It's a lot more hardcore and a lot more potentially traumatic; as Julian Dibbell sums up so well in the piece I linked at the end of my article, there's a real-life aspect of coercion in an unwanted in-game act of rape. If you're a girl surrounded by five dudes and one of them starts pretend-raping you, don't you think you'll be rather horrified?

    I'd never say virtual rape should be treated as an actual crime. This article was intended for tabletop games -- I think the online gaming world will take care of itself, as exemplified by the game "Sociolotron" that I linked at the end of the article. Having another player rape a player in an online game that has no overseer is a very different issue from being in a room full of guys, in which one of them has been tacitly granted oversight, and having him abuse that oversight.

    Yeah I took out all the black. It was all about the imagery. I didn't want to play the dark side with corpses, demons, skulls, and pestilence. I'd play against black decks -- I'm not a raving purist. I just thought that the kind of magic that I would imagine summoning while playing the game shouldn't be dark and twisted. I have the assumption that magic would come from within.

    Other people would be cool with it and I don't place any value judgement on that. For me black cards don't work.

    I guess the logic is that it will change you if you think it can. Since I think that it can change me, I shouldn't do it.

    "Rape is a different story. It's a lot more hardcore and a lot more potentially traumatic; as Julian Dibbell sums up so well in the piece I linked at the end of my article, there's a real-life aspect of coercion in an unwanted in-game act of rape. If you're a girl surrounded by five dudes and one of them starts pretend-raping you, don't you think you'll be rather horrified?"

    That's fine, and you're entitled to your opinion, but it's also a very different thing to say "I would not like to take part in an RPG that included rape" to saying "Nobody should ever take part in an RPG that included raps". As I've said, it's absolutely fine to exclude rape from any individual RPG, depending on the make-up and maturity of the players, but it's absolutely not fine to maintain that NOBODY should ever include rape in an RPG, which several people in this discussion have been suggesting.

    Coming in to this very late, but pointed to it after an in game experience.

    [edit :-) There's a lot of waffle here, sorry, but I have a point which I'll make here. Sometimes the BLUE SCREEN when something bad happens can actually lead to more happening than was initially intended if the fade out and fade back in aren't handled with a lot of thought.]

    I seem to sit in between a lot of the comments I've read (I admit I didn't read them all, sorry :-) ) in that as far as I'm concerned it's a 'consent' thing from my players/GM about what is included in the game and, for me, sometimes the darker side of life is important to have there. I play because I enjoy exploring the lives of my characters and sometimes those lives aren't fun but, for me, that doesn't mean that there isn't something there to work with. I often play 'damaged' characters rather than upstanding square jawed heros but that's just what I prefer working with.

    I tend to play within my own gender as I worry that I won't get playing a female character right and that's where my need to discuss an ingame experience with a couple of female friends came from.

    In terms of the article above it was a 'sexually active' character pushed in to an act by a poor dice roll. Part of the problem for me was the BLUE SCREEN effect in that not only was control of the character taken from me but what happened from that point was ambigious and to my mind indicated intercourse (although that some sex act had occurred was implicit and that the character ended up feeling used and discarded was also played upon.) It all happened very quickly and I was kind of overcome with the whole wide mouthed 'Eh?' approach. As this was mid game and my brain just hadn't processed what had happened fully I had her go in to autopilot for a bit, refuse to discuss what had happened with the PC's, NPC's and then when the option arose (it was/is a Buffy tVS game and she's a Slayer, hence me having to play female) she took out her anger and frustration on the next two Vampires.

    After game, while driving home, I had time to gather my thoughts and realise that, yes, she'd been raped. Also that I didn't feel I'd got her right. That played seriously on my mind for a few days and I had a long email conversation with the GM and arranged to meet up with a couple of friends and discuss what had happened and what should happen. The GM was pretty dismissive until I stopped using the 'had sex with' phraseology and started using the word 'rape'. After a lot of discussion I ended up giving him the two options, if the act stood, then I felt I could play that standpoint, but expect the game to get a hell of a lot darker because there would be brooding a plenty and not a little bit of revenge. Part of the problem I'd had was trying to work out a realistic reaction for her. The idea of becoming a murderer as a result of it, and easy thing power wise for the character, just felt like two wrongs even if it was far from being out of the question. She had 'civilians' to worry about too which had the chance of guiding her reaction as well, a real minefield. OR we retcon it, moved whatever happened a long way back down the scale and take it from there. After a long face to face discussion with the GM we went for retconning as he didn't want to take the season in the direction that the Slayer becoming a rape victim would have led. Especially as it wasn't something he'd specifically intended. We also had a big discussion about her sexuality and what was acceptable, and what wasn't ending up with the decision (which I hadn't realised wasn't implicit within the game) that she'd only sleep with people she actually (not failed dice roll actually) wanted to, however she'd be happy to flirt with people which could have the wrong results, only those results wouldn't be rape. While discussing I also put the absolute (whichever way we'd gone) that pregnancy was out of the question. That avenue was something that he hadn't considered heading down at all as THAT was 'too far' in his mind.

    The incident was a big bump, for me and the GM, in the campaign but we managed to sit down outside of the game environment and talk through what had happened and how it had crossed boundaries and the game (in my mind) has been strengthened by the discussion that we probably should have had during character creation, not that you realise what needs to be discussed then and what doesn't.

    As a side note, the same GM did kill a party (before I'd joined the group) by having them die of thirst in the desert thanks to insufficient planning for what water they'd need...

    There is a great out-pouring of emotion here, but I am not sure that I have a clear grasp on the situation. There was a dice-roll to determine if your female character would sleep with a male NPC? You are feeling that the dice roll took away the choice from the player as well as the character? Perhaps you can give us a bit more context if you are comfortable with that -- it sounds to me like your head is spinning.
    I am sorry to hear about your experience.

    Nice post shataina. Rape is a different story it's a lot more potentially traumatic and hardcore. But sure is an imaginary. But is it a little discriminating if male player's character raped female player's character?

    I don't think this topic is ever going to fully go away. Ha!

    I personally think that if a male PC raped a female PC then there is something seriously dysfunctional in the group as a whole. PvP rape is the symptom at that point, not the problem. I also think that that particular male player would be rudely disinvited from any further sessions if that were to happen at my table.

    "Fixated" is certainly one way to put it...

    He did perceive gaming to be an "art" (which I totally respect), the rape issue came up for the third (and last) time when he included a morally-flawed character that he really liked from a book he had just read.
    I felt kinda bad for putting the kibosh on using a literary reference, but *then* I read the Wikipedia article on him - shudder! I’m really glad we rotate GMs and will be switching to someone else very soon!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Bothari

    Sound to me like someone's a little fixated (by which I mean James, not you).

    Just a quick note in James' defense - if one considers RPGs an art, as I do, that means that part of the artistry is addressing challenging topics such as violence, poverty and even rape. That being said, you should always keep in mind your audience. That's why, for instance, movies have ratings - so we know if it has something in it that, whatever the artistic integrity (if there be any) of the film, would make us uncomfortable and tells us to steer clear. So, before he even brought it into the game, he should have made certain the group was ok with it, which he obviously didn't.

    I think it's pretty clear that whatever makes the participators in any social event uncomfortable to the point of really upsetting them should be avoided. Making people uncomfortable is fair game if done right, but outright upsetting them is going for cheap emotion and disrupts the experience. Personally, I like to be challenged by my art, and, if my GM were to have lengthy conversations concerning rape, even raping my character in a game, before the act happened, I think I'd be ok with it. But that's the trick. It ruins the "surprise" but you have to give people fair warning that this is where you're thinking of taking the game and that if they don't want the game to go there, it won't. For instance, once when I ran a game, one of my players' character died. Her husband (who was thought to be dead) was held by the enemy and escaped, soon to join the rest of the party just in time to learn his wife was dead (we were big on pathos in my group). However, I held a one on one session with the player, in which we detailed what happened to the husband character while he was held by the enemy. He didn't get raped, but the bad guys did cut open his stomach and sew in a particular bit of evil inside, basically an item that connected to his nervous system and gave the enemy free access to all his senses. Then they let him go. I did this knowing this player very well, and knowing that not only could they handle such a devastating compromisation of their character, but that they'd take it somewhere I never expected and use it as fuel for character development. But I was careful to stipulate that if the player didn't want to do this, she didn't have to, and I had even been leaning towards letting the bad guys have access to her character's thoughts, but she insisted against that, based on the feeling that he needed to have something inviolate, that was his own. I agreed, and so he got to keep his thoughts. Under that kind of method, I think bringing up taboo topics is ok. But, as a GM, you have to do it carefully and with sensitivity.

    Under the circumstances of what you're talking about, however, I think you're in the right. If something makes you uncomfortable, you shouldn't have to deal with it if you don't want to. And the GM has a responsibility to listen to his/her players, especially with this kind of stuff. Hopefully you'll still be able to kill goblins and such without having to worry about rape or anything like it. Part of this is his being a new GM. I know it's been several years, but these things can come with time. I just wish more people were sensitive to how others feel about these things. Personally, I would never put rape in a game, unless a player specifically said to me, I want this to happen to my character for character development, or I felt it was part of the artistic integrity of the game and I wanted my players to seriously grapple with the issue. Even then, though, I'd make sure the entire group was ok with it, and I'd never ever go into detailed description of the act. So, I hope things get better for you in that regard. Also, you should stick around on this site and look at some of the other articles. Many are quite good, particularly the articles by gamerchick, aeon, arkelias, calamar, gilgamesh, lurkinggherkin, morbus iff, scott free, and whutaguy. Also we have some cool topics and discussions all over here. You can post most anywhere, and, if we find it interesting, we'll post back. So, yeah stick around. Might breathe some life back into this place.

    I know that this subject hasn't been active in a while, but I'm wondering if you could address an issue I'm currently going through with my gaming group.
    You discussed much about PC to PC and NPC to PC rape, but what about NPC to NPC rape? I as a player and my character are not feeling personally violated, but I am affected by the occurrence of rape in the general game world. Do I have a right to be affected by this, or am I over-reacting?

    How often does it happen? How is it described? Is the GM sensitive about it? Did he/she ask you all if you were ok with it?

    Judging a correct reaction relies completely on the situation the reaction is in.

    Here's the basic story line (some of which I wasn't aware of at the time but learned after the fact):

    "James", a gamer in our group decides to try GMing for the first time. Our current GM "Brad" gives him some general GM advice, including what topics to avoid (rape and sexual assault were mentioned).
    After a few gaming sessions, the characters encounter a hostage-scenario situation, where one of the NPC hostage takers is actively raping an NPC hostage.
    I'm annoyed by it, but figure he's new and it probably won't come up again.
    Brad talks to the GM after the session about the content (basically saying "Dude, remember when I said not to include rape in your games?").
    The next time it came up, my character blows a spell which results in her developing a new incapacitating phobia (GM's discretion). He decides that my character is convinced that the other PC characters are going to rape her. I roleplay my character being all freaked out and running away from everyone until one of the other characters uses his power to remove my phobia.
    After that session, I contacted the GM to ask him if he would remove rape references in the game. He says “no problem”.
    Several years later, he forgets about that request, and our characters encounter an NPC getting raped/tortured. At this point I get pissed off and leave the game. After he realizes I’ve left, he comes over, says he’s sorry and that he honestly forgot about my request.
    After I told him I was leaving his game because I did not find roleplaying rape scenes “fun”, he says that rape will not come up in gaming anymore (and based on the lengthy emails I sent him about it, I think he will remember this time).

    Part of me is waiting for the next session to see if James will send my character to “nothing bad ever happens land” full of rainbows and ponies, where I won’t have to deal with anything difficult, sad, or mildly unhappy ever again. ;)

    Wow. That's a lot of rape. Sounds like the author is just like your GM. It also sounds like the books are not very good, as this guys story seems to hit all the same notes - master person who abuses him, something to do with rape, finds new master, kills old master, suffers "deep psychological trauma" - whatever the hell that means. As I said previously, rape can be a powerful storytelling tool, but like any such tool, it must be used carefully and with control. Just sticking rape in a story for emotional shock is cheap and disgusting. Just sticking anything in a story for emotional shock is cheap and disgusting. It must have a purpose, which this obviously didn't.

    Yeah, I'm glad you'll be getting a new one soon, too. Good luck with that!