Are Your Games Rated G, PG, R, X, etc.?

[Orryn Emrys]

I find the variation from group to group fascinating. I have never truly shied away from any particular material, but I don't force my players to delve any more deeply into a given topic than they seem comfortable doing. Essentially, if they don't seem interested in the details, I don't provide them.

Controversially, I've never been fond of gore. My combats are descriptive, but much of the dressing is left to the imagination. Sex need never be explicit, of course, as that isn't really relevant to the kind of experience we're trying to share. So I guess that we leave a lot to the imagination.

That said, mature themes aren't uncommon. Mind you, if ideas like rape, torture and child abuse weren't horrifying to the players in my game, I don't think I'd ever alude to them. As it is, such concepts are still best left to the imagination of the individual players, in as much as they choose to explore it within their own minds.

All in all, I'd say the ratings in my games would certainly depend a great deal on the interests of the players.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Please tell me you're joking.

Wulf

Nope -- totally serious -- he's Alya in diaglo's Story Hour. Good guy, EN Worlder, does a good job with both RP and killing stuff, even though the character occasionally did things that were a bit ... odd ... when she was still female. Though I guess as a high Cha character, performing a striptease for a couple of the guards is one way to do a Gather Information check.

Heck, two of my players were gender-bending at one point or another -- Angelsboi was one of them. While I don't prefer to play that way myself, they both pulled it off without resorting to the stereotypical nympho-lesbian Amazon-type that most other males playing female characters seem to play.

 

[Wombat]

I'd say I generally run R-rated campaigns anymore, due to violence if nothing else.

And there is the one gal in our group who is trying to move it towards NC-17...

We often get pretty graphic in our descriptions of deaths, both of our own characters and our opposition. Equally there is a lot of blue language in use. Sex is usually more suggested than anything else, but there are enough nude bodies (or bits thereof) to qualify on that level.

Much more important to our games, however, are the thematic elements. We really like dealing with moral greys, lots of ambiguity over what is right and what is wrong, and all the rest. For example, we had an adventure here recently involving slavery in our world. There was a fellow who owned a plantation with nearly 200 slaves, most of them sibeccai (dog-like folks from Monte's AU), but with a smattering of other races. The owner thought of himself as "enlightened", but basically treated the slaves like objects, while his overseer was a vicious b*****d. There was a group of escaped slaves who wanted to free other slaves, but they only wanted freedom for the sibeccai, didn't care about the others, wanted to burn every slaveowner at the stake (and anyone they thought was friendly with slaveowners in general), and were quite willing to kill snitches.

The party, having stepped on this fire ant nest, had to try and sort out who was "right", who was "wrong", and come out intact, living the the consequences of their choices, choices that were not 100% (or ever 75%) satisifactory, but close enough so they could live with it.

Without the violence and language, we would still be at least PG-13, just due to such themes...

 

[WayneLigon]

PG peaking up into NC-17 at times, depending on how silly or horrific we're being. We have no underage players.

 

[Samnell]

R to NC-17, depending on the situation. All players are adults, and generally willing to be a bit immature from time to time. I once had a half-ogre fly through the wall of a brothel. The madame assaulted him with a parisol until he left.

The level of graphic description of violence varies heavily, since I don't have a lot of expertise in the area. So when a blow takes someone to -10 or something, usually a head goes flying or someone ends up being shipped in two packages. Once in a while I'm feeling frisky and disembowel someone.

I don't use drugs a lot because I don't view, and don't want to play drugs, addictive or otherwise as evil in themselves. I did have plans for an evil mystery cult that used drugs to suppress resistance to mind control once, but the party never came across it. There are drug dens (both the discreet gentleperson's parlor and the abandoned building variety) but no one ever seems interested in looking into them.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Hmmmm, ideally for me it would be PG to Pg-13. Nothing too explicit with violence, and sex is very much a fade to black thing.

 

[Ibram]

PG-13 to R for my games (though ocasionaly there might be a PG session). Violence is often described in graphic (though not gory detail), sex is aluded to (like most others here I use the "branch tapping against the window" when it comes to sex), prostitution and slavery exist but are rarely part of the game, human (or sentient creature) sacrifice is rathter common in campaings with dark cults.

Warlords and soldiers can be cruel, priests are often indiffrent, bandits and raiders dont hold back, torture and execution are quite common (the newest member of the party was rescued from a "Tree of Woe" situation). Slave girls (and once slave boys) are usualy scantily clad. I do keep the more graphic (NC-17 and higher) "off cammera" so to speak, i find that discribing the aftermath and letting the players imagine indiviualy what happened is more effective then anything I could say.

 

[MonsterMash]

I would guess R for the background including slavery, prostitution, and the general level of violence, actual gaming sessions are more PG-13 as we're not a big group for swearing, etc (though some of us do drink at times so that might rate it higher).

 

[ph34r]

Rated R. My DM likes to give detailed descriptions of fights and everyone seems to like to use profanity in large amounts.

 

[LizardWizard]

According to these standards, my games would be PG-13, although many R-rated, mainly due to an excessive amount of gore, violence and a heavy religious content.
"And remember what the M.P.A.A. says: graphic violence is OK, as long as nobody says any naughty words!" (c) South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut