LordEntrails
Hero
I've never doubted the stories. Guess its not in me to not take people at face value.I used to think most RPG horror stories were fake, because there's no way people would behave that way in front of people, right? Some would have to be true-ish, but they can't be that bad. But then it happened to me when I was playing a female character, a year into a campaign, and even though I said outside of the game, "Hey dawg, I'm not down with anything that's going on here," the DM just kind of laughed me off. And it's strange. The most strange. It's completely disarming to be ignored in a situation like that, and it felt like the social tools I had at hand weren't enough, and I couldn't think of any solution except escalating the situation into an argument — which I didn't do.
Unrelated, but.. A few months later I brought a female character to a one-shot, and I was last in the order of people describing and introducing their characters. When the first guy described his character as womanizer who would sleep with anyone, I changed the gender of my character last-minute. And then I realised that heaps of women in real life don't have that option and are forced to navigate social mindfields layed by entitled creeps. It was a real valuable experience.
I can only speculate what goes through someone's mind when they are confronted about there behavior and they fail to change it in the moment.
And you are right about women and the minefields they have to navigate. I can understand or sympathize with it intellectually. But, again "I'm lucky" and have not had to experience such social ... crap and therefore I can't really emotionally empathize. Entitled? Fortunate? Both I guess.