Slavery, Rape, Madness and War!

[JacktheRabbit]

I can see a Tick style super hero one shot or short campaign being a great break some serious gaming for a while.

Strangely enough, I ran a superhero campaign somewhat similar to this. It was intended to be humourous like the Tick, so I guess it matches.

Apologies for hijacking the topic. We now return you to SHARK-cast

 

[JacktheRabbit]

No, its just a little song I hear my 3 year old singing to herself on ocassion.

Wasn't that bunnies and burrows?

 

[arwink]

No, its just a little song I hear my 3 year old singing to herself on ocassion.

In either case, I'm now having evil visions of exactly what all those concussed field mice could be used for. There's gotta be an adventure in there somewhere....

 

[Sammael99]

How do some of you include such themes in your campaigns?

How have your players responded, and I suppose most interestingly, how have some of these kinds of themes and elements affected the characters, other relationships, and the larger campaign environment that the characters interact with?

Hi Shark,

Once more, I commend you for bringing up interesting and challenging topics for discussion. I should be working, of course, but that's another issue

The following examples are set in a campaign part when the characters were hunting down a slave ring in order to liberate one of their friends who happened to be heir to the throne of a dwarven kingdom.

(1) Madness :
So far, the PCs have met with one slightly mad character in something else than a confrontational encounter. They had to sneak into a jail and interrogate an inmate who was modelled upon Renfrew, the mad lunatic in Dracula. His case was mild but he alluded to seeing the equivalent Dracula "drink up" his cell mate. The players steer the conversation in the right direction though, so this was essentially not as frightening as it could have been.

On very efficient way to bring madness in, though, would be to have an NPC the characters know well and rely upon go stark raving mad. That really could frighten the sh*t out of them IMO...

(2) Rape :
I have had both rape and more generally "sex industry" featured in my campaign so far. First of all, the characters had to investigate on a slave ring (see below) and their only leads for information were two prostitutes. They were in a city known for being very liberal with its entertainment, and we played a whole evening with them visiting brothels, interrogating prostitutes and (for one PC at least) purchasing the wares on display, of you see what I mean. (I keep thinking of Cole Porter's "Love for Sale" : Who will buy / Who will answer my supply...)

Later in the game, they found the slavers' camp. A female enemy assassin who wanted to eliminate their friend (to let another access the aforementioned dwarven throne) got there before them, but she got captured and when the PCs reached the place and wiped it clean (more or less) she had been abused sexually for several days. She was tied to a rock and the slavers took turns. You get the idea. What I wanted in game terms was to make them pity an enemy that they really hated. It only worked partially. Some players reacted by acting as if she deserved it. Others were more humane and there was even a pretty serious in-group debate about what was to become of her. Overall, it was not as efficient story-wise as I expected.

(3) Slavery :
Yup. See above. Essentially, the slavers were raiding villages and ferrying the slaves outside the kingdom. Nothing much to add except that it forced me to flesh out the position of various religions to slavery in-game. Overall, a realistic medieval setting is likely to include at least serfdom, which is afterall just a watered down version of slavery...

(4) War :
Not yet, but chances are it's coming. I'll let you know !

[pimp]
If any of you speak French, you can check out the whole story hour for this campaign by simply clicking on the link below.
[/pimp]

 

[Gez]

All these exist, of course, IMC.

Actually, the campaign world is a quite little continent (a bit smaller than Australia, with no other continents or major islands in the known world). When you have humans and halflings and elves and dwarves and goblins and orcs and giants and gnomes and kobolds and gnolls and lots of other things, it's quite cramped. This make it a place of conflict and evergoing war.

Dwarves rules nearly all mountains; and a fascist elven empire rule nearly all the rest. In that empire, if you're not an elf (imperial citizen) or a dwarf (citizen of the dwarven confederation), you're a slave and your life has no worth.

In the north-east, there is the sentient city of Kaztengarken, the evergrowing citadel. Kaztengarken wants only one thing: to spread over the whole world. To further "her" ends, "she" mutated a tribe of orcs, whose minds where reshapped in a more useful (to "her") way. These LE überorcs now have the sacred duty of raiding and pillaging for slaves, food, and other resources so that Kaztengarken could grow ever bigger, ever stronger. Some of these orcs are in constant mental communication with the City, and can use a portion of her deific power, making them psions or psychic warriors. Mind-control is heavily used on new slave to coerce them more efficiently, but breaking a mind is easier when the body is attacked also; so torture and rape are very common also.

The Kazten orcs raid other orc tribes (classical CE orcs) to subjugate them into becoming battlefodders, and raid imperial settlements for working slaves.

Male slaves are set to work, mining, building, and so on, while female slaves are put in military brothels, where they help keeping the CE orcs in check and provide with future half-orc troopers.

Old or wounded slaves are sacrificed, then their bones are used as construction materials for the City and their flesh is used to feed wardogs, soldiers, and other slaves.


In the empire, the nobility (self--called high elves) frequently abuse their human and halfling servants, in more ways than one. Those who have the pretention of keeping a touch of the wildness of elves enjoy making hunts, releasing several slaves and prisonners in their domain before chasing them with dogs, mounts, and bows. While ugly slaves, like kobold and goblins (who are not even allowed to live outside of factories and slave parks, contrarily to humans and halflings) are just fed to the dogs once caught, no hunt is complete without a female human or halfling to catch and rape (before feeding her to the dogs). Always very young, because elves, lacking body hair, don't like body hair. And also because they're perverse cowards.


In the dwarven confederation, things are much, much better for everyone. Dwarves are LG. No slavery, no rape, no murder or torture. Stern and boring, heavily militaristic albeit good-heartedly (good-hearted militarism... That's a fantasy world, no doubt !). In fact, the dwarven confederation, like the hidden gnome towns, are off-topic.


Finally, there's two small independant human nations. One "democracy" (as much democratic as ancient Greece, that is: voting is expensively taxed, so only the upper class can vote) and one oligarchy (ruled by a bunch of mafious families that works together only because of the high importance given to things like Honor, Prestige, Panache and the Face). In both of them, rape and murder is a crime, and slavery is not legaly recognized. The fact that slavery is not recognized don't means it is inexistant or even simply illegal; just that there's no laws whatsoever related to that (so a slaver can't complain if his "cattle" has been stolen by someone else, and there's no legal penalties for an escaped slave). However, if slavery is forgotten by the laws, something very close exist in the oligarchic state: most crimes are punished by having the guilty work for the wronged party until he repays wholly his "debt of atonement". Needless to say they're rarely paid enough for their forced work to ever be able to pay this debt totally...


Finally, there's nothing special about madness. Insanity exist, and it sometime explains some villain's behavior; but otherwise... NOthing special, really.


That's for the setting. Now, for how all this affect the PCs...

Madness: Mad PCs are totally the domain of the players. It's not CoC, I don't enforce insanity on the PCs. If a player think his/her PC has been so traumatized by something the character is becoming mad; that's up to him/her.

Rape: None of the actual PCs would rape anyone, I think (two lawful goods, including one paladin, one deceased chaotic good, and one chaotic neutral with rather good tendancies; who'd rather steal something than rape). Raped PCs is not something impossible, but rather improbable. I will not try to get the scenario into that direction; however if, because of some tactical stupidities, a PC end up captured by amoral bullies, that PC is going to suffer all sort of nastiness before being executed. I would not describe it longly, however.
(Actually, two PCs got captured once by an ogremage's minions, but it was not in that ogre's behavior to rape and torture physically -- I planned him to be somewhat civil, and to be someone the PCs would meet and discuss with, but they didn't behaved like I thought. So, the captured PCs ended up in jail, underfeed, and the ogre used angst and boredom to try to make them speak about some topics of interest to him, all the while posing as a cultivated, reasonnable host, with whom it would be much better to discuss freely before a glass of fine wine than in the dankness of a cave. Eventually, however, one of the PCs ended up in the ogremage's dish for her refusal to cooperate and a failed escape attempt.)

Slavery: Normally, none of the PCs should be interested in having slaves. They actually have freed slaves, to the contrary (notably the goblin and kobold slaves of the aforementionned ogremage, freed to help the rescue and escape operation). Like for rape, I don't think the PCs would end up enslaved; except if they behave stupidly when the danger exist (like, if they want to make some tourism in Kaztengarken or if they try to meet an illithid loremaster, or something silly like that). In such a case, I would not pull my punches, and it would be up to them to successfully escape or die trying (thus screwing the campaign, probably).

War: There's ongoing wars and cold wars everywhere. The PCs have a quest (finding the mythic Ark of Lymbo, where they could throw a cursed artifact they carry to destroy it once and for all), and they will probably avoid getting engaged in one of these struggle as long as they have that mission to fulfill. But they'll come across razed cities, might see battlefields from a distance, and might encounter scouts from one army or another. They may be taken for spies, or requisitionned and asked to perform some missions. That's mainly depends on their choice of itinerary, and their success (or lack thereof) at stealthiness.

 

[seasong]

Now, from a theoretical point of view, or maybe it's philosophical--I haven't decided for sure yet--but why would you *not* have such topics and themes in a campaign? I mean, if such doesn't exist in a campaign, what is then going on, you know?

From a philosophical point of view? I play what I like. I don't like rape. From a practical point of view, it's only slightly more complicated than that:

Rape engenders a negative emotional response. It can also lend a certain small amount of verisimilitude when used properly. And combined with retribution, it can enhance the positive emotional response of the retribution.

For any given campaign, the question is this: Is the payoff (in verisimilitude and retributive feelings) worth the cost (negative feelings)?

In my case, even talking about rape gets me angry and adrenalined. Those are my feelings, flat and simple. The cost (for me) has never been worth the marginal (for me) payoff. For someone who is more tolerant of/less sensitive to rape, the equation may tilt the other way (as it does with you).

The same or similar measure can be applied to everything else you posted.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Good thread, Shark.

In order to keep it open, the people that do want darker things need to not start calling the people that don't want the darker things childish and immature, and the people that don't want the darker things need to not start calling the people that do want the darker things childish and immature.

I run two games. One has the 14-year old daughter of two of my best friends in it. No rape there, no slavery, some cold-blooded murder (and the PCs really hate one of my NPCs for it), and war as an abstract. In essence, it's a PG-13 story, and we're all happy that way.

In my other game, anything goes. It's all adults over 25, so I can throw in pretty much whatever I want or need.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Under number 2 you forgot the most common referense to rape, at least understood rape . . . half-orcs. Would have to say that a vast majority of these were not the products of love.

This isn't quite the case as presented in the background. Mostly they seem to result from orcs and northemen forming alliances.

 

[Dragongirl]

This isn't quite the case as presented in the background. Mostly they seem to result from orcs and northemen forming alliances.

This from the same company that said evil wizards copulate with Tarasques. Fraid I don't buy it, just an attempt to be more PC. IMO most half-orcs and not a few half-elves were not planned.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Madness? Nope, don't use it. I've never had a PC, who had been tortured and brutalized by one of the NPC's develop a hysterical fear of restraints and fire pokers. Never had an insane wizard blasting spells at things that only exist in his fevered imagination. Never, ever, ever had some poor slob who was driven mad, and now the party would have to take care of them while they tried to accomplish the mission, important clues appearing in the babbling of this madman.
OK, so I have. I've used everything I could. The Wizard who heard voices telling him to kill everyone. The PC who was terrified of the dark.

Rape: Hmmm, Nope, I'd never used that in my Ravenloft game. Nobody ever gets drug into an alley and brutally raped and murdered. Oh, wait, yes they do. All the time. My regular D&D Games have it also. It rarely happens to the PC's, but sometimes it does. Some crazy bastard jumps a female PC (The same freak that the PC's are hunting for his string of serial rape/murders) when she goes off alone. He tries to subdue her and tear away her clothing so he can get down to business. It's a literary tool, nothing more, in my game. We don't have descriptions of the actual goings on. I'm running a D&D game, not an interactive porno.

Slavery: Exists in my campaigns, as does serfdom, bondsmen, indentured servitude, the whole works. Some are not that harsh (The serfs of Artik-Huln for example: They will collapse from exhaustion after carrying a hoe across the yard. The serfs are lazy and shrewd, the nobles are soft hearted and have no conception of what actual work is like) while others are brutal and cruel.

War-Hmmmm, that's a tough one. The Lich King War. The Ascension War. The War of Mastery. The Clan Rift War, The Human/Vampire War, The Second Lich King War, 14 Humaniod Wars.
Nope. We don't have wars in my campaign.

Since we are on the topic of evil, what about genocide? I remember it appears in Dark Sun, but let's face it, since orcs are an intelligent life, how do you rational the apparent attempted genocide whenever the orcish armies are put down? Face it, PC's kill men, women and children when dealing with them. What if you inserted a race of creatures that were "almost" kobold, but slightly different enough to warrant thier own genus and god. When the last of them is killed, the god begins wailing about all of his children being slain, and that the PC's have slain the last.

Concentration/Prisoner Camps: How do you deal with those, or do they come up. We've had the in my game. At one point, the PC's snuck behind enemy lines during the Humaniod War and released a camp full of prisoners that were used for rape, slave labor, sport and experimentation.

Terrorism: While it may sound like something that belongs in modern or sci-fi games, it doesn't. My party has been after a bastard who throws fireballs into churches and schools, casts blade barrier into guard houses, ect ect ect. The guy is dangerous, soaked in blood, and the characters caused him. Makes for a bit of personal stake.

On other, "evil" things.....
One of the evil warlords not only wants to exterminate gnomes, because he thinks that thier noses are too big, he's also a child molester, a slaver, a coward, and a mad man to boot.
The players hate this guy too.
The fact that he is a child molester is not very well liked, but let's face it, there have always been those freaks out there. We're not talking 13-18 year old kids, we're talking 5-9 year old girls and boys.

Human Sacrifice. What if the PC's could not interfere? Human sacrifice like the ritualized, institutionalized rites of the Aztecs and the killing of criminals in ancient Wales would both be acceptable in ancient times.
What if someone the PC's like drew the bad lot (IE: The Lottery) and was going to be sacrificed on the Solstice. Imagine the players confusion when thier friend, a decorated veteran, minor noble, and all around square-peg guy, begins wandering around with a dreamy, euphoric look on his face? No mind control, he just realizes that he gets to give the ultimate service to his god. (Inside the most normal appearing people is a crazed zealot) Should the PC's stop it? What if the party finds out that thier friend had to ENTER the lottery in order to be chosen, and can back out at any time? Is it right for the party to interfere? Should they?

Of course, you can mix several of these. A crazed serial rapist/killer who preys on young children, and after raping them, sacrifices them to a dark god that exists only in his mind should have every PC practically fist fighting to be the ones to introduce the freak to Mr. Blunt Object. Make it so that he preys on slave children, so nobody cares but the slaves.

I say, go for all of the above, if your game and your players can handle it. If not, hey, nothing wrong with that. Opening that kettle of fish can be difficult, and you never know how some people may react.
I'm very careful nowdays, since the one day I described to the party what was going as they were running at the dark knight, and he was tearing the maiden's clothing off and bending her backwards over a rock with his knife in his hand (That's about as detailed as I get nowdays, right there) and questions got asked, so I added a little more detail.
Then I happened to catch the eye of our devoutly religious (no, I won't say what religion, he is not a general representation) player, and almost stopped in mid description.
The drool at the corner of his mouth, and the gleam in his eyes said volumes.
So now, I'm very careful who is there at the table when these topics are discussed, and very Victorian in my descriptions.

Some times, the nicest wrappings conceal the most disgusting objects.