[Vile? Mature] Going Too Far.

[Mulkhoran]

your age is a factor because you know the theory and intellectual parts of a lot that you have not encountered in an emotional sense. Your players are not insulting you or using a easy slam when they talk about your age. They are saying "I forgot you were at an age where this is just another story element to you. You understand everything you need to make it a story element, but not that for some of us it has been a real life issue." I have encountered this on gender, not age. One DM just couldn't seem to understand why I dealt with threats to have my character raped differently than the male players did when such was discussed with their female characters.

Kahuna Burger

While this is clearly well thought out, it's still a presumption based on an age bias. To arbitrarily claim that someone simply "knows the theory and intellectual parts" based on their age is silly. As Henry said (much more articulately and smoothly than this), assuming that someone doesn't have the facility to understand due to lack of experience, or even assuming that they don't *have* the experience, simply due to their age, is pointless. More importantly, it doesn't contribute to a healthy and helpful discussion of the issues at hand.

Of course, most likely, as others have said, this was likely more of a defensive mechanism to respond to the caused pain, the old "stupid kid" defense, as it were.


Xarlen, the fact that you brought this here, and the tenor and quality of your posts, and genuine concern that you've expressed, are more than enough to demonstrate your maturity. There's little else I can say that hasn't been said well already by others. Good luck, hope things turn out well.

 

[Psion]

As Arcady said, you need to be sensitive to your player's sensitivities. Unless you are intimately with your players, you really don't know which real life issues affect them in such a way that they simply can't shrug it off when something is "just a game."

If you are worried about these things (and it makes sense that you would be), the best thing to do is probably to ask. Set up a little questionaires, probably with some breif examples, to get an idea of what your players perceive as "going too far".

When it comes to what is mature or vile, it is very much a personal determination and guesswork is hazardous. As an example, on the NG boards a few people state that they think that the BoVD is tepid, and that they have been doing such gory stuff since they were kids. I, on the other hand (regardless of what I thought was appropriate when I was a teenager -- that is certainly not a gauge!) would not want my daughter browsing through my copy of the BoVD and think the advisory is perfectly appropriate (that said, I did take the sticker off...)

 

[kkoie]

Well I can understand your situation. I'd be in the same boat if I used the exact same scenario. Ever since my wife and I became parents, she can't stand watching anything on TV that has to deal with pregnant women having problems or parents losing their kids (she has said a dozen times she will never ever watch the movie John Q for that reason).

So the deal with your player wasn't a problem with age, but perspective. She's just more sensitive to themes dealing with pregnancy and child lose than you realized.

 

[Xarlen]

I havn't had a chance to read all the responses (I have to leave early), but... WOW. Wow. Thank you everyone for your responses.

There have been some pretty good responses to your query already, but I have a couple of things to add.

I think you hit the nail on the head about the situation, Hadit. Though, my biggest concern is not the age thing. But I guess it still struck me too, I was wondering about the boundries.

The fact that the children died *before* they had a chance to live, that elves don't give birth but rarely, and Twins are a very rare thing (often elven twins have a special, almost magical bond between them), the intene pain and sorrow, it all just Came Together.

Sexual things, or in some cases vile things, Hasn't bothered the PCs in the past. But then again, I hadn't cranked it up like this before...

I *do* know the people. I've known them for over two years, and the campaign would have it's second birthday in April. I talk to them daily. Infact, I took a trip to canada to see everybody (We had a little geekmeet). Though, the player that had the problem is newer, and I've only known her for about a year...

 

[Xarlen]

I havn't had a chance to read all the responses (I have to leave early), but... WOW. Wow. Thank you everyone for your responses.

There have been some pretty good responses to your query already, but I have a couple of things to add.

I think you hit the nail on the head about the situation, Hadit. Though, my biggest concern is not the age thing. But I guess it still struck me too, I was wondering about the boundries.

The fact that the children died *before* they had a chance to live, that elves don't give birth but rarely, and Twins are a very rare thing (often elven twins have a special, almost magical bond between them), the intene pain and sorrow, it all just Came Together.

Sexual things, or in some cases vile things, Hasn't bothered the PCs in the past. But then again, I hadn't cranked it up like this before...

I *do* know the people. I've known them for over two years, and the campaign would have it's second birthday in April. I talk to them daily. Infact, I took a trip to canada to see everybody (We had a little geekmeet). Though, the player that had the problem is newer, and I've only known her for about a year...

 

[The Sigil]

FWIW, a few thoughts of my own here...

1.) In an online game, it is very difficult to accurately "gauge" your players. Hence, I think the suggestion to exclude mature content from a game unless it is explicitly stated upfront that such will exist is a good one.

2.) There's a difference between "maturity" and "experience." A 19-year old can be "more mature" than a 30-year old. However (assuming normal lives), a 19-year-old is never "more experienced" than a 30-year-old (in one or two specific things, perhaps, but overall depth of experience is limited). You can only gain experience with time - there are no shortcuts. I was mature at about 8 (I was often called 8 going on 18). I could handle subjects like violence, rape, sex, abuse, kidnapping, murder, and so forth and discuss them in a rational, intellectual manner with adults of any age. But I sure wasn't experienced! Experience naturally alters your perspective.

3.) Do I think Xarlen made a mistake, or that the player made a mistake? Probably not. If this was the first time "mature' subject matter has been introduced, and if it was introduced without warning, then that was a mistake on Xarlen's part. Otherwise, the handling of the situation on both sides looks pretty good... you have a DM who genuinely feels bad that he may have inadvertently stepped on the feelings of another and you have a player who didn't storm off, but sucked it up, played through it, and then let the DM know after the fact that he had crossed the line.

---

As others have said, it's almost impossible to know exactly what will touch nerves with people. Usually those who have been through traumatic experiences have no desire to revisit them again. If I knew one of my players suffered sexual abuse as a child, for example, I would not throw "sexual abuse" (of children or otherwise) into a mature game (not that I would run a mature game in the first place, but for sake of argument) without first having a long talk with the player, exploring the depth of the scars and asking if it is okay to deal with such issues. Ditto for "miscarriage/stillborn/loss of child" or "physical abuse by drunken father" (which my father had to deal with; his earliest memory as a child is that of hiding under his bed while his father stalked through the house with a knife, looking for a "disobedient brat" to cut up) nor even "childhood sickness ravages body" (my mother-in-law had polio and is confined to a wheelchair). I might even shy away from "divorce"-centered stuff.

Why? Because the game is supposed to be fun - people play the game to escape from the "Bad Stuff" in their real lives for a while and take up other, more manageable problems; though occasional exploration of a complex issue is desirable, it's probably good to make sure that's not the norm. In fact, by default, I don't bring any of the above issues up unless I know every single one of my players well enough to know for darn sure it's not going to touch a nerve.

I am reminded of an incident when *I* was 19 - I had a female friend call me up near midnight and tell me she had just been in a car accident and miscarried a baby (she hadn't told her parents she was pregnant in the first place; that's why she called me - but living on the opposite end of the country with the navy for a year and having just transferred to a new base, she didn't know anyone there she felt she could call - and I gave her my number before she left and told her if she ever needed to talk about anything, I was "there" - and I suppose she felt she needed to use that). I told her I was very sorry to hear that and that I felt awful for her. I said something along the lines of, "calm down, relax, you're all right... I understand..."

She cut me off, "YOU don't understand ANYTHING! You haven't had a child growing inside you! You haven't felt it kicking! You have NO IDEA what I'm going through right now. You're a man! You can NEVER understand this!"

And you know what? She was right. I didn't. I couldn't. I can't. I told her, "You're right. I don't understand exactly what you're going through. I DO understand that you are going through something that's really difficult and are looking for comfort, otherwise you wouldn't have called me. While I don't understand how it feels to go through it, I can understand that it feels horrible."

With my wife and myself expecting our second child at the end of the month, I think I have a little better understanding. When my wife was about 7.5 months pregnant with our first child, she was still working. One Saturday, in the middle of my weekly D&D game, she called me.

"Honey, we need to go to the doctor now. I haven't felt the baby move at all for two days now."

I went pale. I hung up the phone. We were literally in the middle of a combat round. I said, "guys, game's over right now. I have to go.") They knew something serious was up. On the drive to pick up my wife, I had plenty of time to review worst-case scenarios in my head. That was probably the closest I could come to understanding a miscarriage... the baby, of course, started kicking up a storm pretty much as soon as she hung up the phone with me (little stinker :b - but of course, I can laugh about it because everything was all right in the end).

Now, my son has had a couple of "close calls" since - he was down to 4.5 pounds when we took him home from the hospital after being born two weeks LATE and wasn't eating well. Lots of sleepless nights there. At about a month old, he got sick and went back to the hospital for almost a week. Those "close calls" have given me some idea of what it might be like to lose a child - but I still don't truly *KNOW*.

You might be in the same situation with your player. She may have that same thought - "YOU don't understand ANYTHING!" And she may have a point.

Ultimately, I agree with the advice given - catch her privately online and explain to her you are sorry if you hit a little too close to home on that one - while you don't understand the depth of sorrow it might cause, you do understand that it hurts a lot and didn't know anyone might have a problem with it - and you feel bad that it did cause a problem and possibly reopen old wounds. You won't do it again. In my experience, most people are quite willing to forgive you if you naively touched a nerve. Obviously, if you keep bringing it up, you should expect less sympathy. But I think everyone's entitled to "miss" once on stuff... after all, you don't know the first time you try it.

There. My 2 cents.

--The Sigil

 

[The Serge]

Bravo!

This is one of the most interesting threads I've seen in a long time. Bravo, everyone!

Xarlen, I think most everything has already been said about what happened with you and your players. We all know that your age is probably irrelevent. We also know that clearly the Player was not necessarily upset at you, but with the circumstances of the game. Finally, we've already had some people recommend that you speak to players about what they expect. It's here that I'd like to chime in.

IMC, my Players have come to expect very morose situations. Still, I sometimes worry about the some of the experiences I put them through (My players would scoff at this notion, but it's the truth).

For example, once the PCs encountered the dead souls of children... I started rattling off how terrible they appeared due to the way they were murdered and mentioned that one was a girl about 2 years of age. As I was prattling on, I realized that I may have just made a very insensitive comment because two of the players are married and had a 3 year old daughter (who's, unlike her father, a delightful young lady). I even remember the two of them glancing at me as I was describing the souls. This was not intentional on my part and I look back on it as a somewhat insensitive faux pas, but I think the players knew what my intent was. In the games I like to play, I want complex stories with complex relationships where not everything is all happiness and roses. I want evil to be completely reprehensible, but not always clearly horrible. I want variety in villains and Evil and I want the PCs to really feel what's at stake. Providing a world in which horrible things happen and in which the forces of Light and Good can and do win after perservering is essential to me and I think my players appreciate it (although they would never admit as much).

I think it would behoove you to sit down and discuss the situation with your gamers. It may be that they would prefer not to deal with certain things in the game. It may be that they don't expect to deal with certain things because, historically, you haven't offered them and this situation was a complete shock. Talk with them and find out what things may be too much. Still, make it clear to them what your interests are as a DM. I really like having villains that, while evil, love and can be hurt by simple things as much as I like having villains that are so horrible as to be entirely alien to PCs. I don't know if I would want to give that up as a DM.

Anyway, it sounds like your story was a good one and one that made your PCs feel. I think that for sophisticated games this is very important. It gives the players ownership. Still, don't go too far (I can't wait until my Players read this. Boy am I gonna get it!). If your games get to the point where the PCs are always dealing with these types of events, you may want to lay off for a while.

I'm done!

 

[Elf Witch]

As a female player, and one who has seen Dms introduce very sensitive topics as "plot elements", I'm gonna break from the soothing pack and say - yeah, you obviously screwed up some. And your age is a factor in it.

Players can become very emotionally invested in the story. This is not a sign that they "can't tell the story from real life" or any such crap, it means they are enjoying it. Usually, I (for one) allow myself to become more or less invested in a game/book/whathaveyou based on whether I can handle the subject matter becoming personal. I can become very invested in heroic fantasy, but keep boundries like crazy from stephen king. It is wrong to get your players invested in a story then throw in the sort of "plot elements" that people want to keep boundries up around. You did this, unintentionally, but you need to learn from it, not be told that its the player's problem.

your age is a factor because you know the theory and intellectual parts of a lot that you have not encountered in an emotional sense. Your players are not insulting you or using a easy slam when they talk about your age. They are saying "I forgot you were at an age where this is just another story element to you. You understand everything you need to make it a story element, but not that for some of us it has been a real life issue." I have encountered this on gender, not age. One DM just couldn't seem to understand why I dealt with threats to have my character raped differently than the male players did when such was discussed with their female characters.

pay attention to what your players are saying, learn from it. Neither passive guilting nor saying "ah its their problem" is a useful response.

Kahuna Burger

I disagree stongly on this. She made her/his players feel something. I am impressed. I play in several different games and the ones that I love the best are the one that have an emotional impact. I have actually cried in those's games. There is nothing wrong with introducing madness into a game. There is a spell that even cures madness.

Different people want differant things from gaming some don't want any real life issues in it all. That's fine it is why you should talk about what you want out of the game a head of time.

Even if the players say they want real life issues there is always a chance you might add something that hits to close to home. In real life I have lost two babies and have been raped. One of my PCs was raped in game. The DM was horrified when he found out that I had been raped in real life. He did not go graphic detail nor was it gratuitous she was a captive. One of the other players who knew told him the after game. The thing is because the way it was handled I was ok with it. I don't freak out anymore over the subject. Nor was I offended rape can be a part of being a prisoner it is a form of tortue. It can be a plot development like an NPC who was raped by a dragon and gave birth to half dragon who later became a major problem for the party. I enjoy this kind of mature role playing others may not. DMs should ask female players a head of time if this is going to be a problem and if it is used maturity and sensitivity.

 

[Xarlen]

I went a step ahead and showed the player this thread.

First, she says that, Ironicly, Kahua Burger's post says what she wants to say. It turns out she lost a sibling this way, and a nephew/niece.

She commented that I simply Don't know the statistics. That it's not 1-10 women who are raped, but 1-3, and she thinks this figure is Optimistic, since 90% of rapes are not reported.

20% of pregnancies results in miscarriage.

I had... No Idea. I've never even SEEN these statistics.

And, I will agree with her that everyon here seems to think that any feeling from the game, ANY feeling is good. No. It's not. Yes, it makes a DM tingle when they creep their characters out after or uring a good Horror game. The current plot has them looking over their shoulder, or they want to Kill the villain with every ounce f their being. That they hate this NPC, that they want to Save this NPC for no other reason then they care. YES. These are what DMs Live for. This I accomplished with a villain who destroys the earth with Blight Magic, just to cast spells. They want him stopped at no cost.

But if you offend a player, if you touch on a nerve and hit them too hard, if you do somethig that makes them feel Bad about the situation, want to get Away from it, then no, that isn't constructive. It's like John Swift's A Modest Proposal. You're going to offend and sicken a lot of people, and that isn't going to be very good. You don't Want to offend or scar or hurt your players. I would hope that an author or film-maker would not seek to do this with their audiance. Make them drawn into the story, not avoid it like the plague.

 

[Kichwas]

I enjoy this kind of mature role playing others may not. DMs should ask female players a head of time if this is going to be a problem and if it is used maturity and sensitivity.

Not just women.

I personally know more men than women who have been raped.

It isn't discussed publicly, because men feel even more shame over it than women do; after all, society doesn't even recognize it as beng possible... Despite the current problems in the Catholic church...

Being descended from a family of hard core drug dealers / users (my caucasian step-grandfather on down), I'm in the extreme minority in my family for not having been a victim in my childhood -thanks to a person who put me through years of another form of torture instead-. Almost everyone I knew growing up -both male and female- has been a victim of violence, sexual assault, and drug crimes.

I know a number of men who are not comfortable with the topic being in their entertainment.

You are in fact what I would call a minority for being a survivor who is comfortable finding entertainment in rape stories.

Whenever a gaming group wishes to start using -mature- subject matter, they should discuss it ahead of times and set boundries, and then do so again everytime they add a new player.

Some people are comfortable with just about anything, other people can even go into traumatic flashbacks over the mere mention of a topic. The spectrum ranges throughout.

Unfortnately we don't live in a victimless world. In fact you can no more spot the victims in a crowd than you can the perps.