How do you handle mature topics in your games?

[Afrodyte]

I was looking at this thread at RPGnet, and beyond the issue at hand, I began to wonder how GMs, both as storytellers and world-builders, handle mature topics in their games. This thread is emphatically not for arguing over whether or not things like graphic violence, graphic sex, and the like should be included in D&D games, but how you handle them when you do include them.

When dealing with the players, do you tell them up front as soon as you get your campaign ideas that the game will deal with mature topics? Do you wait until such things come up before seeing how far the players are willing to go? Do you adjust your approach on a case-by-case basis? What do you do when there are varying comfort levels with mature topics? Do you fade to black or be more indirect with the players whose sensibilities are more reserved while the more liberal ones are taken aside and given the graphic details? Do you just see how far you can go and then back off once a player expresses being disturbed by the direction events are taking?

What are your experiences in using mature themes and situations in your games? In-game, how do you handle mature topics? How do you integrate it into the context of the setting and characters? How does the tone of the game affect your portrayal of mature subject matter?

 

[Jolly Giant]

I've played with and/or DMed the same group for years, so I know them all very well. We're all in our late 20s to late 30s, and none of us are squeamish about "mature content", as you so nicely put it.

I'll use graphic violence and even graphic sex once in a rare while, if it suits the story. I had a male, elven paladin PC be gang-raped by orcs, once... It din't make his hatred for orcs any milder, I can tell you that!

 

[Buttercup]

In my game evil NPCs do sometimes commit atrocities--they're evil after all. But I've never had them perpetrate such an act on a PC. I have tended to have the horrible stuff happen off camera, and have the party stumble upon it after the fact, or maybe set out to prevent further incidents.

As for consensual sex, we all jokingly call it "fade to the fireplace" and leave it at that.

 

[drunkmoogle]

Now that I'm running a strictly evil campaign, I've decided to glamorize the taboos and "fade to black" much less often. I've felt uncomfortable at times, but I'd say that it was worth it.

Sex (or in this case, sexual deviancy) is something that I will still FTB over.

 

[shilsen]

By knowing that any subject can be mature or juvenile depending on how it's handled, telling my players beforehand that any and all subjects may show up in the game and that they should let me know if they'd be uncomfortable with any, and using/discarding them on the basis of the previous information.

Graphic violence has shown up often in the game, but sexual matters generally happen off-camera.

 

[mossfoot]

Personally I simply guage the players, what do I think they can handle or want to handle. Forutunately for me, we're all pretty much on the same track. Sex would be off camera, naturally... nobody wants to try and keep a straight face saying words like "throbbing member" (YUCK!) Basically if I were to describe sex, it would be in one of those PG kind of ways in the movies

 

[Jolly Giant]

Hmm... I'm starting to wonder if everyone thinks I'm a sexual deviant after my last post! That incident I described was a one-shot event, tailored specifically to engage the paladin player in the story. I felt he wasn't really into it: "Eh, yet another hunting-green-skins-adventure..." He was in a bit of a RPing rut, I think, and needed waking up.

He woke up, all right! Suddenly he (and his PC!) had all the motivation in the world to hunt orcs!

Normally, any sexual stuff happens "off-screen".

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

I was kind of teethed on the mature gaming side (black dog, Kult, CoC, Witchcraft, Elric, Hol, darker ShadowRun, etc) so most of my games can get *very* dark and I tend to let players know right up front that if that isn't their cup of tea they might should look for a different group. I will fade to black sometimes if the sex or darkness isn't absolutely needed at that time. Most of my players understand it though, and when I dming regularly on IRC I had a lot of people search me out specifically for a darker game. I handle rape, murder, canabalism, demons, sex, bdsm, moral ambiguity and about anything else that I can think of if it fits witht he story. One of my proudest moments was giving one player nightmares for over a month (he thought it was cool and was a diehard supporter cause he liked being scared).

Now, having said that, it isn't all I run. I have run BSM and Toon as well, but I usually drift back to my roots (I also read stuff like Clive Barker, HPL, Dean Koontz and John Saul when I was in middle school). I just make sure everyone knows the level of the game before it starts and then if they can't handle it they can either pass on the session or find another group. I find now that I am not in college my maturity level is declining due to lack of ready pool of players though.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Well, seeing as how I currently have a 12 year old girl in my game (along with her father), I have to be careful to keep my game PG-13.

Normally I handle most "mature" situations off-screen. However I find using an extremly gruesome description, used only rarely, motivates my players as few other things can.

Such as when they went to the Abyssal Layer of Waste a few sessions ago, or as they termed it "The Plane of Pooh". The descritpions of driving "rain" and pelting "hail" had them squirming quite convincingly.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

Things get rough in our game world from time to time. We have a rape survivor that plays in our game and she has, on several occasions, had to leave the room when the DM and other players have taken the time to describe the disgusting acts that have resulted in the creation of several sorts of half-breed races. The descriptions went on and she grew more and more upset... was an all-round bad situation... something that someone shouldn't have to go through with her friends... but, it wasn't common knowledge amongst all the players.

I think that it is very important to know the things that *bother* your players-- that way, you don't end up in a situation that you cannot back yourself out of... and, best of all, there are no hurt feelings.
When adding a new player to my current group, he emailed me before his first adventure and asked "is there anything I should know about the other players? Jokes I shouldn't tell? Places I shouldn't "go"? I think questions like that need to be asked in order to run a happy game where everyone enjoys their experience.