D&D 5E Do you allow adult situations in your games?

[Lanefan]

Similarly, the level of details in the descriptions is often largely unneeded, and it can make a huge difference in the offensiveness. Saying "the evil dragon has raized many villages looking for children to eat" or "the orcs torture their prisoners" is one thing, but adding descriptions is another.

Those examples both sound like a DM describing the setting and-or background; this is fine, and it's up to the DM how much detail to provide.

But when the players decide to get into detail about what their characters are doing with (or to) each other that's a different realm, and up to the players to sort out.

Lan-"sometimes a DM has no alternative except sit back, shut up, crack open a beer, and wonder what's going to happen next"-efan

 

[Grainger]

Those examples both sound like a DM describing the setting and-or background; this is fine, and it's up to the DM how much detail to provide.

But when the players decide to get into detail about what their characters are doing with (or to) each other that's a different realm, and up to the players to sort out.

Lan-"sometimes a DM has no alternative except sit back, shut up, crack open a beer, and wonder what's going to happen next"-efan

I wouldn't particularly like one of my friends talking about gory violence in explicit detail to me in a normal conversation, and I would hint as much. If he or she continued, I would ask them to stop. If they still continued, I would be royally annoyed. As a DM, if the PCs started torturing an NPC, I would just say "so you're torturing him - OK, we don't need to know the details" and fade to black in the game.

Your game may differ from this, and that's fine*, but no-one has to sit and listen to this kind of detail if they don't want to.




*as long as all the players are fine with it

 

[DaveDash]

We do torture and dark brutality in our games. I've played a gritty soldier type who isn't afraid to get information by torture.
I've also been pretty brutal against my players, torturing and killing innocent family members.
In my current game my players are resting too much, so I plan on the Drow they are attacking to raid their village on the surface, and leave the heads of villagers outside their camp (which is a Magnificent Mansion).
Basically evil holds no punches in my games.

Sex stuff though we don't go there and don't want to.

 

[Unwise]

All sorts of terrors happen off camera in my games. It is always either off camera or preventable. It is just not enjoyable for anybody to have the DM sit there and describe atrocities you can't do anything about. Sure they might walk in an see the bodies of previous sacrificial victims, but there will only be one on the altar about to get stabbed if there is something they can do about it.

I play a lot of Star Wars games and the most common cause of death for all PCs is suicide. Nobody wants to be taken alive by the Empire. The same goes in my Scales of War D&D game. Everybody knows you are better off dead than captured. Given that my PCs take the threats so seriously, there is nothing I need to do as a DM to enforce the fact. I am happy to not bring up horrid topics, because my players just assume that it is all in the mix off camera.

I recently had a very dark sub-plot where the players were avenging the spirit of a brave little boy that died trying to protect his mum from raiders. It was a tragic story, but they had agency in it. They avenged the family and reunited the little boy's spirit with his mum and dad and gave him a proper burial. There was a brief round of thanks from the ghosts who came back to claim their boy and the gods let it be known they were pleased. The darker a plot, the more agency the PCs have to have so it doesn't just feel like they are watching a snuff film.

 

[Grainger]

Indeed - it's worth noting that if you so choose, you can still have dark themes in a campaign without describing them "on screen".

 

[Wolfskin]

In my games, it varies by player and specific topic.

All of my players are adults so sex has a place in the game world, but then again none of us is interested in mentioning more than as a passing reference. Rape is always a no-no except as background story/something that happened or the character knows that happens but it's far away from the screen.

As for violence, drug use and torture, they do happen from time to time (especially violence, since you could say the characters kill things for a living). My players don't like to play evil characters (and I wouldn't allow it anyway), so resorting to torture tends to be an extreme and non-savory measure when time is short and everything else fails.

 

[The Human Target]

Sure!

Not usually super graphic, but its there.

The PCs are spending a lot of time in a brothel in the current game, working for the owner. And one is dating an "exotic dancer."

The minotaur barbarian recently interacted with a phantasm of his dead son who blamed him for his murder and urged him to suicide.

 

[nomotog]

So... when does the Book of Erotic Fantasy pdf go up for sale at dndclassics.com?

That wasn't that good of a book if I recall. Most of the books on the topic from that time don't hold up well anymore

 

[Grazzt]

All of the players IMC are adults and since our game was influenced by Conan, Elric, Tanith Lee, Witch World, then yep. If the kids play, we either play a one-off game or the players play other characters in the same campaign and we tone all of the below down or eliminate it (mostly).

But in the main game with adults:

* Sex - yes
* Rape - yes (off screen, though way back in 1e we did have an evil character attempt this with a female PC; the other PCs caught him in the act, castrated him and then tied him to a tree and left the PC to die)
* Prostitution - yes
* Drug use - yes
* Alcohol use - yes
* Dismemberment/disfigurement - yes
* Torture - yes
* Child death - yes (mostly off screen)
* Human sacrifice - yes
* Demon/devil worship - yes
* Cannibalism - yes

If it can happen in the real world, or could/did happen in the dark or middle ages, then it's in our game (either on screen or off).

 

[KarinsDad]

You know, come to think of it, I think we may have to deny that teenager wanting to join. I'm kinda afraid we're going to corrupt her, mentally scar her, or shatter her sanity.

My teenage daughter is the DM of our group. Trust me. Most teenagers, even very pleasant ones like my daughter, already know a lot of adult topics. Bringing more young people into a game is almost always a good thing.