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

Bedrockgames · Jun 11, 2019

Hussar said:
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."
.

Couple of things. First, as far as I am aware, there was no 'in scene rape'. This was an implied rape because they awakened handcuffed and their bums were sore. This could have been anything from the characters were raped to hangover style humor.

In terms of maturity content, I think a scene where players awaken in this state is within the boundaries of mature content. Whether that is acceptable content for this con, is another thing entirely. And that is ultimately up to the con to decide. But like I said, I find it adolescent. I don't particularly care for mature games. But if I signed up for a mature game, that is a scenario I wouldn't be surprised to encounter. It probably wouldn't be what I would think most mature games would be. It just wouldn't blind side me.

Bagpuss · Jun 11, 2019

Hussar said:
and apparently because some gaming company put me up to it."

Sorry I missed the evidence for this, can you provide a link?

Riley37 · Jun 11, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
Point me a link and I will read it

I hereby direct you to post #213, in this thread. You can find post #213 on your own, right? Did you skip past it on the way here? If so, then take your allegations of "rushing to judgement without full information", and apply them directly to yourself.

That post includes a link, and it also quotes a player in that game, recounting how Rolfe told the players that the PCs had been "raped for many many hours. Then he introduced our rapists, who weren’t even part of the story (not that that would have made it better or anything). They then told us they wanted to see us run, that they would give us 10 mins before catching up to us and raping us again and again."

I recommend that you not repeat your assertion that this player, and his fellow players in that game, were "over-reacting", because mods have discouraged blaming the victims.

You could try to argue that this player was lying... but that argument would involve ALSO stipulating that John Dodd was lying, in the blog post where he says "My investigation was swift and through" and "In the two days that followed, I spoke to all but one of the people who played in that game".

(An earlier post provided the link for John Dodd's statement. Here it is again: http://millionwordman.blogspot.com/2019/06/on-inappropriate-content-in-games-and.html)

Again, if this is news to you: then YOU are the one tossing around accusations - accusations of mob mentality - without basing your accusation on the available information.

macd21 · Jun 11, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
Couple of things. First, as far as I am aware, there was no 'in scene rape'. This was an implied rape because they awakened handcuffed and their bums were sore. This could have been anything from the characters were raped to hangover style humor.

In terms of maturity content, I think a scene where players awaken in this state is within the boundaries of mature content. Whether that is acceptable content for this con, is another thing entirely. And that is ultimately up to the con to decide. But like I said, I find it adolescent. I don't particularly care for mature games. But if I signed up for a mature game, that is a scenario I wouldn't be surprised to encounter. It probably wouldn't be what I would think most mature games would be. It just wouldn't blind side me.

Per at least one of the players, the rape was not ‘implied,’ they were told their characters had been raped and would be either raped again or murdered if they did not escape.

Secondly, the players did not sign up for a ‘mature’ game (and even a ‘mature’ warning wouldn’t have sufficed, IMO). They signed up for an 18+ game, which is not the same thing. 18+ covers a multitude, and is no way sufficient warning for players to expect something as awful as rape in a game. This is especially true of a game of Tales from the Flood. The scenario description did not convey to the people signing up that they were getting into some kind of hard core horror game. Nor did the two and a half hours of gameplay leading up to the rape, which had been light hearted and funny up until that point. The GM pulled this

precisely because he wanted to shock and disgust the players, and guess what: mission accomplished. His reward is never running a game at a con again.

Guest 6801328 · Jun 11, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
Couple of things. First, as far as I am aware, there was no 'in scene rape'. This was an implied rape because they awakened handcuffed and their bums were sore. This could have been anything from the characters were raped to hangover style humor.

Oh, well in that case we should just excuse the whole thing.

Wait...what century is this?

Oh, my bad, I was so fully immersed in my latest gaming session that I thought we were in the dark ages.

Riley37 · Jun 11, 2019

5ekyu asked: "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?"

Bedrockgames said:
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.

If you cannot name ANYTHING a GM might do, which would result in your approval for John Dodd's decision;

if not even "the GM tells the players that their characters were raped for hours, and then has NPCs with guns announce intent to rape them again" isn't enough for you say more than "I don't know";

if you think that rape of PCs, followed by threat to rape PCs again, needs to be handled "case by case", that cons can't make categorical rules against scenarios with rape of PCs;

then I sure hope you never run a games convention.

I'm glad that John Dodd IS on staff at games conventions.

I would express myself in more heated terms, because I'm rather angry, but this is EN World.

Hussar · Jun 11, 2019

Heh, irony is a wonderful thing.
[MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] is complaining that folks are rushing to judgement and we're negatively impacting this guy's life without learning the facts all the while not bothering to actually spend any time learning the facts that are IN THIS THREAD. That's a whole lot of irony right there.

So, folks, the moral of the story is, actually do a bit of due diligence before cramming your foot in your mouth and looking like a ninny.

5ekyu · Jun 11, 2019

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?

This seems less like devils advocate and more like lampooning or charicature.

Whats missing is the host of other negatives involved with serving time. Whats missing is that the gm is not being told he cannot gm again, just cons deciding they dont want him gming at their events.

This is more akin to a retailer they dont want to hire a known thief to do their money deliveries at any of their stores.

Man, the lengths folks will go for this is amazing.

5ekyu · Jun 11, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
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.

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

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.

Uhhh... Huh...

So, the only thing really concrete is that since it was posted mature the players shoulda known better and been expecting sonething like this might be on the menu and just took it in stride, maybe left?

Got it.

billd91 · Jun 11, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
To use one offered example, the Central Park 5 were eventually exonerated and awarded a multimillion dollar settlement. And, as I recall, a second one as well as more facts came forward. (OTOH, the person who took out a full page ad in the NYT calling for their execution has never apologized.)

Were they made whole? Could they return to their previous normal lives? Of course not. The bell, rung, cannot be unrung. But they were given the apology (most) of society could give them. They are free to find their new normal, if they can.

That's partly my point - there's no redress, no proportionality you can extract from the mob. The Central Park 5 were able to obtain some redress because there are mechanisms in place that can allow for that (though even the appellate courts had failed them), specifically, there was some entity they could legitimately sue. We'll see if Frog God Games is successful in the suit they've filed.