Players 'distressed' by gang-rape role-playing game

While there are those who like to push buttons....

The putz at that table is well past "unacceptable"...

You don't spring loss of character control on players.
You don't use sexual content in game without prior approval of the players.
You don't use sexual violence in game without prior approval of the players.
You don't use sexual content in public or near children.
You especially don't use sexual violence content in view of children.

THat the game is about kids is even more squeamish a situation, too. I wonder if he has (or lives with someone else's) kids; if he does, it's a bit more worrisome still.

It's also sad, but inevitable, that some serious jerks will agree with his choices. The internet is filled with troll havens.

Celebrim said:

is it really true that at one time this would have been brushed over as not weird?

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I don't think there's been a year, between 1974 and 2019, in which no TRPGers anywhere would have any objections or concerns about a con game going down that path.

I also don't think there's been a year, between 1974 and 2019, in which no one anywhere was eager to project their sexual fantasies into TRPG.

Example one: that Dead Alewives skit, with a line to the effect of "if there are any chicks in the tavern, I want to do them"
Example two: that time I visited by Friendly Local Game Store to join one of their open D&D tables, and one of the regular players established *before the session started* that his character was "rapey" (his word, not mine) (this was in the last year or so).
Example three: in 1980, Jean Wells wrote the module "Palace of the Silver Princess", which includes a scene in which the DM narrates, to the players, that they see a gang of men, a captive young woman, and sexualized violence. The module included an illustration of this scene. Someone *in the post-production process* realized that shipping this module to hobby stores would be a bad idea. TSR buried thousands of "orange cover" copies in a landfill, then hired Tom Moldvay to rewrite the module; they then published the "green cover" version listing both Moldvay and Wells as authors.

As you say, "it keeps happening apparently again and again". It's as if there was some sort of ongoing struggle between the best and worst aspects of humanity.

And for this reason session 0's were invented. Discuss which themes and topics may come up in your campaign before you start subjecting your players to it. If for example you run a horror campaign, then body horror may be part of the game, and thats fine... but where are the limits? It is incredibly important to get all your players on the same page. It doesn't sound like this DM really cared for any of that. It's sad that for some players this was their first D&D experience.

Imaculata said:

And for this reason session 0's were invented. Discuss which themes and topics may come up in your campaign before you start subjecting your players to it. If for example you run a horror campaign, then body horror may be part of the game, and thats fine... but where are the limits? It is incredibly important to get all your players on the same page. It doesn't sound like this DM really cared for any of that. It's sad that for some players this was their first D&D experience.

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A con game is typically a one shot very often played with people who have never met before so a session zero isn't really practical. But it would be trivial to include content warnings on the sign in sheet so people had an idea of what they were getting into. But even then that particular scenario was not appropriate for the venue even if the players knew what they were getting into.

When you have rando walk-ins you don't do rapey themes period.

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ccs said:

Should not run that stuff without the right group

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There's a "right" kind of group?

That's almost...more disturbing.

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I fear that’s a part of it. Like, I couldn’t imagine having the chutzpah to show up to a con game table that was 50% women and play a pole dancer-bard, complete with a miniature to match (true story, this).

Anyway, appalling is the right word for the original incident. I’m glad to hear that it was handled quickly and decisively.

I like to think that I do a good job at being respectful of my players boundaries, but I’ve been considering implementing the X-card system at my open table, just to be sure.

Immortal Sun said:

Yeah, it was quite disturbing how willing these people were to be public with their "fixations" like they got some kind of extra kick about doing it in public.

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Ralif Redhammer said:

I like to think that I do a good job at being respectful of my players boundaries, but I’ve been considering implementing the X-card system at my open table, just to be sure.

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While this was probably prompted as a parody of the "X-Card" I think it is actually worth looking at as it tackles the same problem from a different direction. I also think it would have worked better in this instance.

The "M-Card"

https://postmortemstudios.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/rpg-m-card-roleplaying-outside-safe-spaces/

While either of those might have helped in the situation that lead to the news article, with the M-Card the player would have been suitably forewarned assuming the GM was sensible enough to put "sexual violence" on the card. So wouldn't have sat at the table in the first place. The M-Card also works better in a con environment as it lets people not involved in the game know the content isn't suitable to all, so they can stay clear, rather than an X-Card that tells you nothing of the content of the game, and is no help to people not playing.

The problem with the X-Card in this instance, is by the time comes when you need to use it the damage is already done.

However I think neither would have worked in this instance, because the GM in question wouldn't have used any "safety tools" because the shock factor was what they were looking for. So they weren't likely to forewarn the players in either case.