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

Bedrockgames said:

What I see is a lot of people online calling for this person to be banned, and calling for large changes to how the hobby functions, over a single incident. One where the game was marked mature. Like I said, the con can do what it wants. If they feel he crossed a line, then by all means, that is their judgment. But I do think is a mob thing going on here (and many posters are freely talking about the value of public shaming in cases like this). I am not so sure. I do think that this is going to have an impact on the life of the GM in question. It is one thing to say a person crossed the line at a con and should be removed, but should a global ban be in effect? And again, the game was marked mature. That isn't the kind of game I would want to play, and I am a bit unclear if the tone of it was meant to be serious and disturbing, or if it was meant to be more in the style of the hang over movies. But if I signed up for a mature session, in the back of my mind, I would see this kind of adolescent humor/gross-out/edgy stuff might or even objectionable content, might crop up. Most likely I'd just excuse myself from the game. Again, not my cup of tea, but I do think there is a powerful moral consensus against this one individual forming in the game community and I don't know if it is such a good thing that this is happening.

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Oh, please.

1. What kind of impact is this having on the life of the GM? He can't run games at conventions? Oh, noes, the horrors and despair. Again, if I was at a job and I screwed up on this kind of level, I'd get fired from my job and I wouldn't be allowed to work at that company any more. Is that "mob mentality"? And, if it's just "Oh, well, he can't run at this con this year, but, next year it's fine" how is that supposed to work?

2. There's a pretty significant diffference between "mature" (and the actual write up for the game didn't even hint that this was a possibility) and "I'm going to rape your characters and there's nothing you can do about it just so I can see your reactions and apparently because some gaming company put me up to it."

If there is a strong moral consensus against this individual forming, bloody FANTASTIC. It's about time we stop treating this sort of thing as "oh, well, it's a shame, tut tut, there there" and, as a fandom stand up and say in no uncertain terms, "Buddy, you're out of here. We don't want you in our hobby".

This is what I'm talking about. The con organizer says that the GM went way over the line. The players COMPLAINED about the GM going way over the line and we're now supposed to just waggle our fingers and stroke our beards? Gimme a break. No. No more.

mythago said:

Look, kindergartners can grasp the concept of "If you are mean to the other kids, they won't want to play with you anymore". We as adult gamers should be able to understand that too. And we should also be able to expend a little emotional energy on worrying about the aftermath for the people who were on the receiving end of the crummy behavior, instead of focusing solely on whether the dude who experienced the natural consequences of being a jackwagon got a feelings-booboo.

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What I see in a lot of these incidents is people using another persons perceived bad behavior as an excuse for cruelty. Just look at the language of your paragraph. Was he being mean? I didn't get that impression. I got the impression he may have been clueless or been behaving like a bit of an ass trying to push boundaries. But I can also see a scenario here where this is just a misguided attempt at humor, or where he failed to read the room. That the game was marked Mature makes a big difference in my mind. To me it looks like a lot of mature games I've seen, which is it is basically immaturity thinking it is mature (one of my main reasons for not having an interest in a lot of the mature content stuff in RPGs I've encountered. And like I said, Con can do what it wants. That is their call. I am just not so sure about the calls we are seeing to push him out of all cons or push someone out of the hobby over a single game at the con.

And yes we should be empathetic to peoples concerns at the game table. To me though, that doesn't suggest that once someone has a bad experience, that we can mistreat the person who ran the bad game or behave however we like in the pursuit of rectifying the situation. And I do think we have a responsibility to consider whether it is as black and white as it initially appears (and I am not sure it is at all).

[MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] - did you read the blog posting that was linked? Or did you skip a bunch of pages. Because, I think that you might be missing a LOT of information here.

Bedrockgames said:

What I see is a lot of people online calling for this person to be banned, and calling for large changes to how the hobby functions, over a single incident. One where the game was marked mature. Like I said, the con can do what it wants. If they feel he crossed a line, then by all means, that is their judgment. But I do think is a mob thing going on here (and many posters are freely talking about the value of public shaming in cases like this). I am not so sure. I do think that this is going to have an impact on the life of the GM in question. It is one thing to say a person crossed the line at a con and should be removed, but should a global ban be in effect? And again, the game was marked mature. That isn't the kind of game I would want to play, and I am a bit unclear if the tone of it was meant to be serious and disturbing, or if it was meant to be more in the style of the hang over movies. But if I signed up for a mature session, in the back of my mind, I would see this kind of adolescent humor/gross-out/edgy stuff might or even objectionable content, might crop up. Most likely I'd just excuse myself from the game. Again, not my cup of tea, but I do think there is a powerful moral consensus against this one individual forming in the game community and I don't know if it is such a good thing that this is happening.

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I have to ask two questions.

what would it take for you to be sure that a community consensus against allowing a GM at a con after an incident to continue to run games at other cons run by some of the same folks was a good thing?

Same question also about his role as official room captain folks are told to take issues like this to?

What would be the threshold that you would be comfortable with the choice to say "yeah, nope, let's not let them do this anymore at our public events?"

Playing devil's advocate...cause I agree with the ruling of the Con.

Man rapes, man get's charged, man serves time, man is released, man is allowed to date again.

GM rapes fictional characters at Con, banned from GMing at Con for life.

What am I missing?

Sadras said:

Playing devil's advocate...cause I agree with the ruling of the Con.

Man rapes, man get's charged, man serves time, man is released, man is allowed to date again.

GM rapes fictional characters at Con, banned from GMing at Con for life.

What am I missing?

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Man is placed on sex offenders register and will be excluded from all sorts of stuff as a result if they demand a DBS check.

It's a pretty lousy analogy.

Hussar said:

@Bedrockgames - did you read the blog posting that was linked? Or did you skip a bunch of pages. Because, I think that you might be missing a LOT of information here.

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Point me a link and I will read it

5ekyu said:

I have to ask two questions.

what would it take for you to be sure that a community consensus against allowing a GM at a con after an incident to continue to run games at other cons run by some of the same folks was a good thing?

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Well, generally I think we should not rush to form judgements in these cases. I don't know about you, but it actually takes me a while to puzzle through the morality of events like this, and to think through the different angles. The urgency of the response is one of the things I think will lead to less good outcomes.

In terms of when I would say it is a good thing? I don't think the internet is particularly well suited to forming those kinds of judgements. Places like twitter tend not to allow for much nuance. Forums tend to be driven by whoever has the best rhetoric, and there is the added factor that online we are all dehumanized by the fact that we are just text and avatars. I think if someone were a real threat to people (was violent or a predator) it would make sense for cons to not allow that person. I think for running a questionable and offensive game, it is different. The cons should make this kind of determination on their own. But like I said, it was marked mature. It isn't like this was totally unexpected. When a game is marked mature, that to me suggests any amount of mature content that can appear in movies, might appear in the game. At the end of the day, I am not very confident in the ability of large groups of people online to for a sound consensus on what consequences a person should suffer for something they did wrong at a con.

Same question also about his role as official room captain folks are told to take issues like this to?

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Can you rephrase this question? I am not sure what you are asking.

What would be the threshold that you would be comfortable with the choice to say "yeah, nope, let's not let them do this anymore at our public events?"

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I don't know. It would really have to be taken case by case. But I don't know that we as a community should be making these determinations en masse. I just don't think large groups of people online are the best way to sort out this kind of controversy.

ajevans said:

Man is placed on sex offenders register and will be excluded from all sorts of stuff as a result if they demand a DBS check.

It's a pretty lousy analogy.

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Thanks. Had to google DBS check. Keep on forgetting about criminal record ruining future employment opportunities once out of prison. That's what happens when you don't think things through properly.

Hussar said:

Oh, please.

1. What kind of impact is this having on the life of the GM? He can't run games at conventions? Oh, noes, the horrors and despair. Again, if I was at a job and I screwed up on this kind of level, I'd get fired from my job and I wouldn't be allowed to work at that company any more. Is that "mob mentality"? And, if it's just "Oh, well, he can't run at this con this year, but, next year it's fine" how is that supposed to work?
....

If there is a strong moral consensus against this individual forming, bloody FANTASTIC. It's about time we stop treating this sort of thing as "oh, well, it's a shame, tut tut, there there" and, as a fandom stand up and say in no uncertain terms, "Buddy, you're out of here. We don't want you in our hobby".

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On the one hand you are saying his life is unaffected, on the other you are saying it is good that he is being eliminated from the hobby. Not being able to participate in something you enjoy, is an impact on one's life.

Also this isn't his job. This is a leisure activity. I don't think the analogy holds well here.