Sex, Violence, Drugs and other naughty things

[STARP_President]

How much 'adult content' do you use in your games? Is there a place you can draw the line?

Personally, I try to keep it PG rated as much as I can, but because all my players are responsible adults from time to time I up the age group a bit.
Druids, for example, in my earlier campaign were for the most part narcotics users, snorting, smoking or eating 'happy herbs' which was basically marajuana. I also did a storyline involving harder drugs, being smuggled by the Thieves Guild.

I don't include explicit sex, but that's only because it's never come up. I've had the odd married PC, so presumably there's a bit of hello-folks-and-what-about-the-workers in there somewhere, but nothing obvious. One of my ambitions as a DM is to have two of my PCs shag. Is that sick? I do have two characters called the Temptresses who are basically magical crooks - using charm spells and kissy faces to con and swindle, as well as steal.

Violence is one area I try not to be too detailed on. I'm not comfortable with violence of any sort - I can handle D&D because it's so obviously unreal. For this reason I tend to use the 'hit-miss-hit-miss' style of combat description unless it's an exciting or unusual combat. From time to time I throw in a graphic description, especially when trying to emphasis the viciousness of something.

 

[Crothian]

I sho9w that it is there, but don't go into it in great detail.

 

[alsih2o]

Sex- complete gloss over ("You go do whatever with the wench")

Drugs- None so far, and no plans to add them, except for one kind of bad guy that uses a speed type drug.

Violence- Massive loads of bloody everything.

Our hosts wife isn't big on Potty Mouth, which is a challenge for me. But we do alright.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Sex- complete gloss over ("You go do whatever with the wench")

Drugs- None so far, and no plans to add them, except for one kind of bad guy that uses a speed type drug.

Violence- Massive loads of bloody everything.

Our hosts wife isn't big on Potty Mouth, which is a challenge for me. But we do alright.

That's pretty much my game except....

1) All manner of "Black Lotus"-type Conan-esque drugs for the truly hedonistic

and...

2) Swearing like sailors

 

[Zappo]

The quantity and quality of mature topics is at its core a matter of taste. There is no better or worse way to handle them. It depends on the people involved, and on the context. I use different styles for different campaigns.

The Warcraft campaign doesn't feature much sex. If it happens, it's going to be largely behind the scenes, and not terribly important. It won't be described graphically or in detail. It's a hack'n'slash campaign, and sex just isn't relevant.
Violence is plentiful; I'll give descriptions too, with especially spectacular actions or when I want to emphasize something, but I won't spend time describing every centimeter of guts.
No drugs yet. Given the setting, they wouldn't fit. There is no decadence or luxury on Azeroth; everyone works hard to rebuild the world after the near-apocalypse of Warcraft III.
Overall, this campaign is PG-13.

The Planescape campaign is a mature, roleplaying-oriented one. People act like real people, and fiends act even worse.
There is sex and some evil NPCs will occasionally get to its dark side. No detailed descriptions; if it's good, we already know, if it isn't, we don't want to know. Rape happened several times in ways more relevant than just "something many half-fiends and half-orcs come from". Still, NPCs only were involved, and it was offscreen, with no graphicness. In every occasion, the act wasn't described and it served to further the plot or to better define an NPC. I don't touch these themes lightly. For the majority of time, sex isn't touched upon.
Violence happens. Combats are about the same as any other campaign, but sometimes there is some serious graphicness or torture. My guideline for the splattery stuff is "not so much that it becomes cartoonish". For torture and the graphic death of innocents, the same rules as rape apply: unless it is very generic ("you enter a torture chamber, there's an iron maiden with a skeleton in it", "this guy razed a village once"), I am very careful to only use it if it is important. For the majority of time, violence is at the normal D&D level.
Drugs exist and get used. I don't consider drugs anywhere near as evil as violence or rape, so I wouldn't have problems with a PC using them, but this hasn't happened yet.
Overall, this campaign is R-rated.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

In usual campaigns, there is violence, some drugs, and if there's sex, it's happening behind closed doors. My players are all mature and open-minded (well, more open-minded than mature), so when those issues come up, it's no biggie.

In my evil campaign, some disturbing stuff has happened, stuff that I don't think enhanced the game.

Again, I don't mind normal adult themes, but I don't make special efforts to include them in my game.

AR

 

[Imret]

Well, I don't run many games with minors. But then, my love of D&D came from some books with very...questionable characters. So I guess that gives me more leeway, and I run with it.

1) Sex. I'm not interested in cowriting elf porn with any of my players, so it's glossed, but it happens, in all its ugliness and beauty. It's for sale in the seedy part of town. It's a tool for subverting loyal agents of an organization. It's something people do. It's a weapon for the truly evil. They know it surrounds them as one of the basic drives of all life, but I'll never need the Carnal Knowledge guide.

2) Drugs. Yes. The FR drugs, the BoVD drugs, and several homebrows; the mild euphoric/sedative herb burned in the Temples of Peace (dope-puffing socialists*, every one of 'em!), khas leaf, a massively addictive euphoric that ends in madness and wasting death (it leaches mercury from the soil, so addicts are easy to spot by their silver-washed eyes), 'warbutter', a faintly yellow root paste rubbed into the skin that speeds reactions, enhances strength, and eliminates fatigue...but the excruciating muscle cramps and skin tightening as it wears off make it bad for you.

3) Violence. Most certainly. Combat is bloody..."You deal 10 points of damage" is mechanics. "(Censored for code of conduct - imagine what happens with greataxe crits)" is a story, and reminds players what it's like in the world. Any tool I can suspend disbelief with, I use.

4) Cursing. On occasion. I've whipped up a few regional oaths and whatnot that I use, but players have a lot on their plate and little time to think up everything, so modern swearing is more common - I just translate it in my head to the D&D version I use.

In conclusion, I'd say R-rated, and quite possibly an NC-17 campaign. I've never had a group uncomfortable with it...in fact, most of my groups would be more uncomfortable in a squeaky-clean cartoon D&D.

Edit: Forgot to explain my *. I'm from Canada, my entire government is composed of dope-puffing socialists. So I tend to bandy the phrase about. Apologies if I offended.

 

[painandgreed]

In D&D, not very much. It happens but is pretty subdued, not for the least because I don't feel like sitting around having tiny sex with my gamer friends. Usually, its along along the lines of "you get lucky."

Move it to the modern era and sex stays the same pretty much for the same reasons. The only time it ever differed was when I was running a one on one Vampire game with this cute goth girl that I usually flirted with anyway, then her vampire and my zombie NPC ended up making out in a graveyard with some graphic description roleplayed between us. Drugs tend to come in more as everybody has familiarity with the ones that actually exist and seek to relive their college days, and such are used for PC recreational use fairly common.

 

[barsoomcore]

Sex is pretty much offscreen -- except for a couple of very memorable times when the "details" turned out to be major plot points (so did the evil feathered creature appear before or after you guys... um... you know, um... I mean, was it before things got started, or were you in the middle or was it right when, you know, um...).

Drugs -- well there's a fair amount of "We get blind drunk and reminisce about the old days when all we had to do was kill things." One character started taking a 'stay-awake' drug to keep her from forgetting her spells (on Barsoom if you fall asleep your spells disappear from your head). And there's been some interaction with drug-smuggling as a plot point.

Violence -- I throw out pretty explicit descriptions of combat, but try to keep enough for my players' imagination to do some of the work.

Swearing -- my wife is well-known for the foulness of her mouth, and she pretty much sets the tone. She also throws dice at me when her characters die (which they do, far more frequently than anyone else's).

 

[fusangite]

TB and I have pretty much identical policies when it comes to sex and violence. Although I'm Canadian, I do try to live up to the American ideal of the ruthlessly violent prude when I GM. Swearing, the more the better. Drugs, I assume that being medieval-style warriors usually, everyone is at least slightly drunk while adventuring and completely hammered while in town but drugs never really work as plot points; I try for a steady background level of intoxication amongst both players and their characters but sometimes it's not there unfortunately.