On the matter of half-orcs

[pawsplay]

As others have said, you can't really laugh about RAPE unlike even murder or slavery.

I'm black and my friends and I have joked about slavery and similarly, we've joked about murder. I just can't see anyway to joke about rape....

Just because this keeps coming up, reluctant as I am to address this subject, rape-for-laughs appears in Discworld, Yellowbeard, The World According to Garp, Tomcats, Revenge of the Nerds, and Young Frankenstein, and probably many others. I'm not saying it's wrong or right, I'm just saying, tvtropes.org has had a lot of ongoing discussion about Rape As Comedy. South Park and Family Guy, of course, reference rape all the time. Link to a whole article on the subject:

Rape As Comedy - Television Tropes & Idioms

Hopefuly we are now done with that talking point.

I think usmdw makes a good point. I'll argue further that vampires in RPGs have an overtone of rape, with infection (a blood-born illness such as, say, AIDS), and implications of incest.

I feel it's dishonest to draw a big HERE BE DRAGONS on the map and refuse to acknowledge the logical outcome of human-orc interfertility along with the existence of half-orcs. Logically, sometimes, somewhere, it must have occured. Probably not often enough or consistently enough to be produce a new "race," but surely it has happened. The thing is, most of the other backstories I can imagine, apart from the scenario of human-orc border towns, have unsavory elements as well. I don't think it's overreaching for an RPG to be mature enough to state or imply, "Some half-orcs are the result of consensual relationships, and others aren't." I think it's fine, too, if most half-orcs are the descendents of half-orcs, but you have to identify where they come from, and it's just hard to accept that all the original half-orcs were the result of loving, culture-crossing relationships. If you want to make them the product of magic and make them very much a separate race, that's an option, too.

 

[Obryn]

I teach a course in creative writing, and I find the idea that adults cannot or should not deal with the most unpleasant aspects of human evil to be deeply patronizing. D&D is a game, but it is a game that represents a SORT of reality, if not reality itself. A reality without abuse or violence is not the sort of reality I can find particularly realistic.

I think there's a lot to be said for making a sharp distinction between the assumed setting, and individual tables.

I agree that some game tables can handle mature topics. A table full of adults can hopefully treat difficult subjects well.

I disagree that WotC should expect all game tables to handle mature topics. That's not patronizing - that's just courteous.

-O

 

[Jack99]

While this is commendable, it's hardly universal.

Edit: Eg there's a homosexual rape scene in Pulp Fiction that's played for laughs.

BRING OUT THE GIMP!

This homosexual didn't find that scene funny in the slightest.

And if a master filmmaker like Quentin Tarantino can't pull it off particularly well, how well do you think the average GM will do?

In theory, rape should be an appropriate subject for an R-rated D&D game. In practice though, it simply doesn't work. I've been in, and heard stories of, many D&D sessions that featured rape in some form or another. Every single one of them went badly. Either the players end up feeling queasy about the portrayal or they react in an inappropriately juvenile manner (usually some of each at the table).

I'm sure that a group of players somewhere are capable of dealing with rape in ways that don't devolve into queasiness and immaturity. But such cases are rare enough that rape should not be preserved as a major story element of a player race.

My best friend and his boyfriend both find it hilareous, so it's probably not decided by sexual orientation.

But overall I agree that such subjects are best left out as "default setting" at least. It might work for a minority of groups, but only in that.

 

[usdmw]

I can understand WHY wotc might wish to sanitize parts of the game for a younger crowd. What I don't understand is why players should feel enobled that such a measure has been enacted. D&D has always been a game for adults, playable by children. If it has now become a game for children, playable by adults, then that's quite different. AD&D 2e had many comparable changes (elimination of the assassin and half-orcs, renaming of demons), and those changes were largely demonized.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I don't think anyone is trying to be patronizing. I'm not claiming that it's impossible to have a good game with the subject of rape in it. I just personally haven't seen much of it that didn't wreck a game, and I don't understand the neccesity.

Again, the wonderful thing about dying is that, once it happens, it's over. Nobody dies twice. Have you worked in a woman's shelter or with rape victims? Protip: It's not over once it's "over." That's why people are squeemish about it, not because they're patronizing or because they're childish, and not because they want to have a moral high ground, or claim "OH BUT IT'S JUST A GAME" (I mean seriously have you seen my other posts?). It's because they feel there's a line that shouldn't be crossed for their entertainment. Some people do find comedy in rape. That doesn't mean everyone does. Personally, I find little to no comedy in "LOL WOMEN" jokes, but I see them constantly. It doesn't mean I need to suck it up and stop being childish about it, it means I know who won't be playing in my games, and who's games I won't be playing in.

I dunno what else I can say; for some people, rape, quite frankly, is indeed more horrible then murdering things and taking their stuff, and it's past the line of what's acceptable in their games, especially if it's just shrugged off as no big deal. Yes, I think that using it as nothing more then a device to show how eeeeeeeeeevil a villain can be is shrugging it off as no big deal - you can do that just fine with many other things. If I had a character who wanted to rape someone in game, I'd have a rather serious talk with them as to why they would ("BECAUSE I'M EVIL" isn't an acceptable answer, nor is "Because I want to challenge the norm!"). If a rape would occur in game due to the story, I'd be severely put off if it was treated lightly.

 

[Obryn]

I can understand WHY wotc might wish to sanitize parts of the game for a younger crowd. What I don't understand is why players should feel enobled that such a measure has been enacted. D&D has always been a game for adults, playable by children. If it has now become a game for children, playable by adults, then that's quite different. AD&D 2e had many comparable changes (elimination of the assassin and half-orcs, renaming of demons), and those changes were largely demonized.

So your argument is that, because it's mostly an adult game, it should be okay to have a race that's born out of a kind of violence that's very personal for a whole lot of people, including many potential players? And that newer settings, because they don't embrace the "orc rapists" origin of half-orcs, are somehow now just for kids?

Sorry, I still don't get it. Then again, I haven't understood from the beginning why D&D should ever need more rape.

-O

 

[Nivenus]

Any character of any race could be the result of a rape. I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the PHB as a possible background, though. Strangely, no one was up in arms over that omission...

I [i[think[/i] (though I could be wrong) that you misinterpreted me. I didn't mean that I'm disgruntled by the lack of rape as an origin for half-orcs (or half-elves) but rather that I'm disgruntled that the developers that that, in order for half-orcs to exist, they had to come up with some magical origin that doesn't exist for half-elves.

I.e., the idea that a human and orc couldn't get along just fine on their own.

 

[S'mon]

This thread has inspired me to include communities of true-breeding man-orcs IMC, probably descended from a mad wizard's experiments or a dark lord messing with forced breeding programs. Hurray.

 

[Spatula]

I [i[think[/i] (though I could be wrong) that you misinterpreted me. I didn't mean that I'm disgruntled by the lack of rape as an origin for half-orcs (or half-elves) but rather that I'm disgruntled that the developers that that, in order for half-orcs to exist, they had to come up with some magical origin that doesn't exist for half-elves.

I.e., the idea that a human and orc couldn't get along just fine on their own.

Ah, I see, and I agree with you. And it's not just half races. A dwarf, a human, an anything could have a "rape" background. But that's not in the PHB for those races, nor does it need to be there. For any race.

Though obviously not all of the developers feel that there has to be extenuating circumstances for half-orcs to exist. Eberron has its half-orcs, and it seems of the four designers working on the race in 4e, it was just Rich Baker and Chris Sims that had an issue with a more natural origin (according to the design & development article).

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I think the big problem with half-orcs isn't the "They sometimes come from rape" but that it was implied in most settings that they only came from rape. That was the difference between how people saw half-elves and half-orcs; half-elves could be rape babies, half-orcs were supposed to be.