[Vile? Mature] Going Too Far.

[Kichwas]

Xarlen: I hope everything between you and the player is / can be resolved.

Be glad you've discovered the need for such kinds of sensitivity in a format where you can resolve it, and make peace and a greater understanding with the person who's button you unknowingly pushed.

This is a valuable life lesson many people never really learn, and learning it young, in a way you can make peace with it, is a great advantage.

 

[LostSoul]

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

Some people. Some people play because they want to challenge themselves on those issues in a safe environment.

I guess it all comes down to knowing what your players are comfortable with.

 

[Henry]

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.

Small correction - if she's getting those stats from RAINN, then the 1 in 3 figure already assumes that most rapes go unreported. It's still a horrible problem that I won't go into here, because that gets off focus.

What I do want to focus on is that it's ALWAYS important, as I said, to be sure what level of mature themes is acceptable to your group. If a group does not wish to handle it, then that's just as fine as a group who wants to tackle it.

I am glad to see you continue a good relationship with the player, though. I hope that it certainly goes well from here on out.

 

[Xarlen]

A long, long time ago when the campaign first started (When I was 17), I told the PCs I was going to play with some mature topics, sexual and such, and I wanted to know if anyone had any problems.

The first adventure included lizardfolk having raided a gnoll camp, and taking the spellcasters (dragonblooded sorcerors) for sacrificing onto dragon eggs, and the children for eating. Since food was scarce in the arctic.

But I just hinted at it, barely mentioned it. No one had a problem (Though, they were really surprised they were helping Gnolls).

This was when the game first started, and I've cycled through 4 other players since then. I still have 2 of the origional 4 (at one point, it was just those 2). The current player who I unnerved started a little while ago. She first was my Co-GM during a mega-adventure, and then became a player.

 

[MinscFan]

As a DM, there is no way you should avoid subject matter because of the simple possibility of offense to a player... UNLESS you KNOW the situation beforehand. Then it is common sense and good cricket to avoid a sensitive subject.

Many of the games I have run contained players I barely knew -- a friend of a friend who plays and heard we were gaming. Heck, that's how you meet people. And, I've run games at conventions where I knew NONE of the players.

Did that stop me from using my own "Book of Vile Darkness" type of content? No. Serge said it well -- you must make evil reprehensible to make defeating it that much more enjoyable. Evil characters do evil things. Mostly, these evil things are despicable. They don't push granny down on the sidewalk. They break her legs, torture her, and push her in front a car.

If a situation arises in a roleplaying game that might resemble something that happened to a player in real life, that is pure coincidence and not the responsibility of the DM to "water down". That would be like saying you can't talk about a suspense movie because you might offend a starnger standing behind you at the mall.

The only way I change my storytelling approach is if I have good, prior reason to. If someone joins my game and tells me after a few sessions that the subject matter is disturbing, I will deal with it. IF a young person enters agame I am running, I'll tone down the "adult" content.

But I won't tone down any storyline beforehand (whatever the subject matter) because it "might" offend someone or might be parallel to a real life experience of one of the players in my game.

I put the responsibility on the person who has suffered the misfortune to decide for himself / herself whether or not they should play in a roleplaying game where lifelike situations can occur and evil things exist. If they can't get past the personal event in order to enjoy a game played in a social setting, they should probably rethink playing in that game until they have dealt with the grief personally.

I know, it sounds hard-a@@ed, and I feel for someone who has a terrible thing like that happen to them, but I also don't believe in openly foisting your grief on those around you.

Your friends and family will take measures to support you that are appropriate, and you will know if you can count on them for support.

If you are a friend in my game I know you and your background, then I know what I should or shouldn't include in a game -- just like you know what you should or shouldn't say to someone. But strangers and general acquaintences who don't know the situation have no reason to behave any differently in front of that person. That carries into running a game.

And Serge, Cass and I had no problem with the undead children. Honestly. I'll just continue let little Maddie roll all the NPC attack rolls on you in future games...

 

[Xarlen]

Well, I'm always willing to go for mature content - IF DONE MATURELY. I will not just 'throw something in there' gratitustly for the sake of having some aweful stuff in there. No. I thought this through.

And, I'm going to check with my party in the Supers game I'll be running (Yes, superheros, Dark and gritty ) and the new game I'll be DMing after this story arc.

 

[barsoomcore]

Xarlen, I just want to add my bit of assurance to you, and a consideration I haven't seen anyone else mention.

I would not have thought that an NPC driven mad by miscarriage would be considered offensive by a player, either. I likely would have fallen into exactly the same issue you have, even though I'm older than your player.

Not because I don't think miscarriage is a horrible, painful thing. Of course it is. But, well, I guess I feel that including such a painful event in an NPC's background just isn't likely to offend anyone. Many of my NPC's have similar, or even much worse, things in their backgrounds.

Most people I know in my life have very painful events in their pasts. These are usually formative events for people in the real world. When trying to create memorable and believable characters, I find I am unable to avoid giving them grief-stricken backgrounds. Were I to expunge all references to things my players might potentially find painful, I would be mighty restricted in my NPC creation.

I would certainly not hesitate to create an NPC with a similar background, that's what I'm saying.

There's also the question of how the NPC was played by you. That can be another source of offensiveness to a player, I think. Perhaps you were particularly ham-handed in your presentation and turned what should have been a painful but honest piece of story-telling into an insulting cartoon of emotional manipulation. I wasn't there and so can't comment, but that's another danger of "mature" subject matter in games -- as a DM you have to be able to not just think this stuff up but communicate it believably and sensitively.

It's something that we as DMs have to always consider -- are we going to be able to play this NPC or describe that particular outrage of evil?

I am sorry for the pain you inadverdantly caused your player and I hope that your game is improved rather than weakened by this. I am not in "This is just silly entertainment" camp on RPGs -- I do believe that real and important stories can be told this way. It's just hard, that's all. Good for you for trying. You'll do a better job next time, I'm sure.

 

[Elf Witch]

I would like to set the record straight I am not entertained by rape stories. Nor am I entertained by tortue stories or killing stories. What I am entertained by are well thought out mature stories dealing with differant topics in a mature and senstive way.

In the novel I am reading a witch was tortued for information she ended up losing two fingers. The scene was rather disturbing which it should be tortue is a distrubing sick thing. The novel is not about tortue it is about a group of witches trying to save their people and over throw an evil ruler. The tortue was a literary device. When I read a story I do not want things sugar coated.

In gaming I sometimes want evil to be truly evil and evil does horriable things. There is no difference to me between tortue, killing innocents and rape. They are all evil acts. I like a certain amount of realism in my role playing.

When I was first raped I could not talk about it or read or watch movies with rape as part of the plot. That was my issue so I did not read, or watch anything that might have that theme. Over time with help I got to where I am today. I am able to seperate fictional rape from the reality of what happened to me. Since this was my issue I did not expect authors or Hollywood to stop making books or movies with rape in it. I took control and stayed away.

This is true for everyone we all may have issues that we are not comfertable dealing with, but we cannot expect everyone else in the world to know this. To expect a DM to sanatize their game to avoid possiably offending someone is wrong. Someone else said it here that if you cannot handle things then it maybe best for you to not play in a game that could upset you. Or read a book or watch a movie for that matter.

 

[WizarDru]

Note to self: Xarlen is a DM I would play with, MinscFan probably isn't.

Frankly, I guess it depends on your tastes. I don't think it was the 'evil NPC gone mad due to personal tragedy' that was the problem, it was the delivery. The player and the DM were both mature about the way they felt about it, and resolved it like adults.

I think Xarlen deserves praise for being concerned about his players experience. Feeling just anything, to me, is not valid. I don't play D&D to be angry or upset. I play it to tell stories, and enjoy the heroic struggle of the good guys against evil. Sure evil needs to be represented (and I've done some things in my games that would make some uncomfortable...like the children used as power sources for villain's constructs), but I don't think it has to be put forth offensively, players be darned.

To me, as a DM, knowing my players, their preferences and their tolerances is what a DM DOES. If I want a DM who doesn't care about my experience except to mentally assualt me with his grand design, I can always go play a CRPG. I realize that not everyone plays that way, and that's fine. I wouldn't want someone to be forced to play my way....but I suspect more people play D&D to enjoy a good escapist fantasy than to put themselves in challenging emotional situations. YMMV.

 

[barsoomcore]

To me, as a DM, knowing my players, their preferences and their tolerances is what a DM DOES. If I want a DM who doesn't care about my experience except to mentally assualt me with his grand design, I can always go play a CRPG.

I agree with this as long as we agree that there are more options than

A) never doing anything that might offend your players and allowing their comfort zones to dictate campaign content absolutely, and

B) not giving a hoot about their comfort zones or feelings and just doing what you like, to heck with them.

Sometimes it's good to be taken outside your comfort zone, even when you're supposed to be just enjoying yourself. I like books and movies that ask me to stretch my brain and my emotions a little. And so I like to run a campaign that asks the players to do the same.

That doesn't mean I ignore their feelings or insist on including elements I know will upset them. One of my players is a devout Christian, so I make sure my game does not include any particular Christian references he might find offensive. On the other hand, that certain NPCs have suffered cruel tortures (and that some have indeed lost a certain moral stability as a result) is a commonplace on Barsoom and leads to many difficult debates for the party as they try to decide if some NPC should be destroyed because of her past crimes or comforted because of the horrors that led her to do what she did. It's uncomfortable for them, but at the same time it leads to utterly gripping stories.

There's no absolute right or wrong, except to say that consideration is always useful, and so is story-telling integrity. Each campaign finds its own balance between those sometimes opposing qualities naturally. "Be considerate," and "Tell great stories," are both excellent pieces of advice for DMs everywhere. If you find them conflicting then you'll have to decide for yourself what the right balance is.