As a player, do you have a preferred gender for your GM?

[Water Bob]

IAs for rape I stay away from it because I have found most of my players male and females don't want it in game.

Though I have had female players have rape in their backgrounds as character motivation on why they adventure.

I use it as a story telling tool. It's an emotional subject that gets players fires burning. But, it can be over-used. I try not to do that.

I really can't remember the last time I used rape in a game, but in my current game, my players were afraid that the little 4 year old girl would be raped by the enemy clan that took her. It was kinda like being on the western frontier, and the savage indians took the settlers' daughter. Think the Ron Howard film The Missing.

But, that didn't happen in my current game. As I said above, they cut her tongue out, but they didn't violate her sexually.

Not all bad guys are interested in that kind of power. These guys in my game are enthralled by a demon, so they're more the type to sacrifice the little girl in a ritualistic fashion rather than rape her.

The demon, though, is worshipped as a god by some peoples, and one of his aspects is rape. A god of strife and mysery, rape, battle, and destruction.





This type of dark grittiness has a home in the Conan universe. Heck, I remember reading a Marvel comic where Conan is magically forced to have sex with dead women--zombies. And, that was from the 70's. I couldnt' believe that the scene got past the comics code back then.

And in reading a favorite series, Thieves World. One of the characters was cursed by a god to live forever. And, in that god's background, the god raped his own sister. There is a Thieves World story where the god is trying to get his deciple to do the same to his sister.

Greek mythology is filled with this type of stuff. It's even shows up in the recent Clash of the Titans remake.

Presentation is not as gritty, though, I'll grant you.

 

[S'mon]

Out of curiosity, let's say you were playing a female character in my Conan game, and your character got captured by some real bad, bad guys. And then your character got raped. Some heinous things happen to the males that were captured with you.

This is a total curiosity question, nothing more. Would you deal with that, and maybe become a Red Sonja-esque type character (rape is part of her backstory), or would you become incensed as a person, leave the table, and go home?

I've never had a female PC raped in any of my games, but then again, I haven't had too many males play females in my games either. When it happens, it's been an NPC I established in the game given over to a player. I have had a few NPC women raped. It doesn't happen every game session--or even every campaign. But, if it's logical that it would occur in the rough and tumble world, it happens in the game.

I did have a male PC raped one time in a game. The player rolled with it, then made a superb character with a revenge motif out of the situation. It worked out well.

OK, assuming this is a normal game where I highly identify with my PC, not some Forgeist author-stance stuff:

I expect I would find it highly traumatic - probably about 95% as traumatic as if your NPCs raped my male PC. Either way, how I handled it would depend a lot on how much respect I had for you as GM. Would I think you were a jerk having a laugh at my expense, or is this a serious exploration of the dark side of human nature?

It would also depend a lot on the game, and my prior choices. In the Savage Worlds horror campaign I played in recently, I created a female PC with the thought in mind that she could be raped by the biker gangs that I knew were part of the campaign. But I knew it was a horror game, and I was well set up to deal with horror - not so well set up to deal with a GM who I felt tended to ignore my PC, though (his Evil Biker NPCs certainly did)! Raping my PC in a horror game would be very very different from raping my PC in a D&D action-adventure game.

On a related note, the grimdarkiest GM I ever had was a female German ex-bodyguard, she ran a very in-depth Midnight campaign. I remember when my female PC Zana Than surrendered to the Legates of Izrador, the bad guys, to try to save the life of her fallen comrade Jess - that was very scary. Even scarier for the woman playing Jess when the Legate began interrogating her! She never made it out alive, killed during a failed rescue bid. That was all kept on a fairly refined plane though, not the splatterpunk style you seem to be referring to.

 

[S'mon]

This is a total curiosity question, nothing more. Would you deal with that, and maybe become a Red Sonja-esque type character (rape is part of her backstory), or would you become incensed as a person, leave the table, and go home?

If it happens in-game it's not really backstory, is it? It's frontstory. If we're talking Conansque swords & sorcery, there is a big difference between:

1) My PC was a 16 year old peasant girl. I write her background, that she was raped by brigands, and swore revenge. She became a warrior.

2) My PC is already a 25 year old experienced warrior. In the game you GM, NPCs defeat her, capture her and rape her.

The latter is potentially very deprotagonising in a way the former is not. There's a reason why rape is often used as a weapon of war, to break the enemy. Being realistic doesn't necessarily make it enjoyable or even acceptable. Or in-genre: nobody rapes Conan.

 

[S'mon]

While our group traditionally has male GMs, this is not so by preference, rather by performance - the females in the group have not volunteered to GM. Despite this fact, I have preferences for neither male nor female GMs, however any tertiary genders are probably not allowable in our game...

That kind of talk can get you banned on rpgnet!!

 

[S'mon]

"Contrarian" isn't really the word you're looking for there.

Play nice - I don't think he's being sexist if he prefers male GMs, any more than I am for liking female GMs, female drill instructors, female cops... ~S'mon goes into slight reverie~

 

[Piratecat]

Guys, if the thread continues discussing rape it's going to be closed. Back on topic, por favor.

 

[Water Bob]

Or in-genre: nobody rapes Conan.

That's a good point. I'd XP you for that, if I could. Don't forget, though, that Conan has sure met plenty of females in the various stories that have been, and the big barbarian has even been accused by some of being close to it himself a couple of time (The Front Giant's Daughter, and Red Nails).

Play nice - I don't think he's being sexist if he prefers male GMs, any more than I am for liking female GMs, female drill instructors, female cops... ~S'mon goes into slight reverie~

You understood me correctly.

Guys, if the thread continues discussing rape it's going to be closed. Back on topic, por favor.

As you say, but I thought the discussion was being handled quite respectfully. Sure, it can be a hot topic, but why stamp on it when sides are treating the subject as adults would?

 

[Piratecat]

If you have a problem with moderation, you PM the moderator. Discussing it in-thread is one of the few things that will get you banned. Please don't.

Carry on with the thread, folks.

 

[Barastrondo]

I don't, but my wife prefers a male GM, which is to say me. I have done nothing to dissuade her from this stance.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't think he's being sexist if he prefers male GMs, any more than I am for liking female GMs, female drill instructors, female cops...

But that's not what he's saying:

I would be hesitant of a female GM to be able to deliver the type of game I like to play

He's saying he doesn't believe women are capable of DMing the type of game he'd enjoy. If he said the same thing of black DMs or Jewish DMs, I don't think anyone would declare that "just a preference."