What subjects are taboo in your game?

[shadow]

There have been a lot of threads lately about how mature people make their games. Some people have very high-fantasy worlds, where villians never do anything truly evil in game. Others brag about the extreme level of vileness that pervades their campaign. With the BoVD there has been a lot of debate about how far people should take their games. IMHO, much of that depends on the people playing in the group. However, I'm interested in where everyone draws the line. Even if you have a very graphic and dark campaign, are there any topics that you consider off limits? As for, me there are two things that I never bring up in my game: rape and religious blasphemy.

Rape is a very sensitive issue for many women. It's not really an issue that should be treated lightly. I've gamed with a few women from time to time, and don't feel comfortable bringing it up in game. Many women have had traumatic experiences with rape, or know someone who was a victim of rape. This week was "Take Back the Night Week" on my campus. Take Back the Night is an event to raise awareness about rape and sexual assualt. I was shocked at the number of people that attend my college, who were victims of rape. Although some people may argue that rape adds realism to the campaign, I doubt many women would be confortable having a rape happen in game. As such I think rape is an issue better left out of the game.

Religious blasphemy is another issue that I won't touch. When I say blasphemy, I mean putting down and making fun of real world religion. Although I don't mind mythic fantasy gods in a game, I try to avoid real world religion in my game. I might, for example, have a plot where characters investigate the motives of a fantasy church, but I won't ever have a plot where a characters investigate the Roman Catholic church, or any real world church or religion (or even fantasy religions that are obviously meant to represent real world religions). For that reason I won't touch games like KULT with a 10' pole.

 

[Mark]

Graphic description of sexual bahavior has always been excluded from any table I have run.

 

[Crothian]

Graphic description of sexual bahavior has always been excluded from any table I have run.

Same with us. Also, most violence is taken down a notch since there are kids around. So, the game is mostly PG.

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Graphic description of sexual bahavior has always been excluded from any table I have run.

I'd say that's about it with my group too. It's never come up in game but even though some members of the group are religious the blasphemy thing wouldn't be a problem. I would also say there would be no graphic rape scenes either, although it's possible for a rape to occur "off screen".

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Rape is a very sensitive issue for many women.

Well, it's "sensitive" for some of us men, too. A friend of mine was raped in high school, and three have dealt with serious forms of sexual harrassment.

When rape or sexual harrassment comes up in real life, my hands start to shake, and I begin thinking about various ways to make sure the perpetrator never, ever even thinks about it again.

That said, I handle the topic fairly well in a gaming situation. I think I have a pretty good grip on fantasy vs reality. The one exception was when a member of a group I played with began to get a little to "into" the idea. That made my skin crawl, and I decided to leave before I said something I would regret.

That kind of person is why the DM has to have a better grip on what his group is up for than mine did. He thought I was going to be the one with a problem. Of course, from his perspective, I guess I WAS the one with a problem. He was more than happy to keep feeding the glassy-eyed little...

OK. Think I need stop talking about it.

 

[baradtgnome]

Alfred Hitchcock style. The most horrible moments appear off screen and are best imagined.

Although death is a common event in D&D, we try and keep it a serious matter. (now, doesn't that sound ridiculous) We keep the rape stuff down to a minimum, though how do you completely ingnore the fact that every half-orc is a child of an orc raping a human female? I the game where I am a player (vs the game I DM), I play a half-orc cleric, who is very sensitive to the fact that his mother was captured into slavery and raped. He becomes rather outraged when pretty human women are at risk by some nasty creature.

Although it is an adult game, most of the sensitive matters are not graphically portrayed, but are well understood.

 

[Buttercup]

Graphic description of sexual bahavior has always been excluded from any table I have run.

Yeah, me too. I just have no interest in running that kind of game.

As for rape, I've used it, but off-camera. One player had it as part of her background story, but since she was an escaped slave, it wasn't really surprising. I would never actually describe a rape, nor would I subject a PC to it. I don't think I would want to deal with rape in-game in any way but abstractly. And actually the character I mention was in an online game. I don't think I would allow such a thing in a tabletop game, because it would be too uncomfortable. Rape is so very horrible that it just doesn't have any place (for me) in a game.

I don't think I could describe a torture scene either. I might very well have a villain who was into that, but the closest the PCs would come to seeing him in action would be to see the machinery, or possibly to rescue someone who was on their way to the torture chamber.

 

[arwink]

My players tend to be pretty easy-going. Like many others, Rape is probably the closest to being taboo - it's something that happens in the campaign world, but PC's will mostly deal with its aftermath rather than the actual event itself.

Mostly, though, the players will go along with anything as long as it seems appropriate to the game. Random uses of BoVD style horror would probably irritate and appal them, but finding torture racks, slave pens, opium dens and other evils in the lair of someone who is meant to be a despicable and perverted evil to be wiped from the face of the earth is something entirely different.

 

[Deadguy]

I don't think I have anything that is taboo per se in my games. In other words, I don't start out saying to myself (and my players): no sex in this one please. Instead it evolves from the style of play of the players. If they want a graphic and gory campaign, then it is likely that things like torture, rape and brutality will slowly make an appearance in the game until I and the players are happy with the content.

That said, there are some things I use with care. Of these, the one I am most careful about is rape of a PC. I once used the gang-rape of a male PC by a group of male soldiers* as a tool for showing how detested his race was. However, the player was still relatively inexperienced (he'd been gaming for arounf a year-and-a-half and was 19 years old). Whilst I wasn't graphic in the description (other than the award of injuries afterward), it nearly put him off playing the game. I say nearly, because we talked about it later and he found that helpful. Indeed the character became his favourite and he continued to play him for many years thereafter. That traumatic event crystallised his thinking over the character and gave him personality.

So, as with all things, take matters slowly, talk things through with your players, and observe their play. This is the best guide to pitching the game to their desires and yours.


* lest I seem a monster to some people for including such a thing, the campaign had been earmarked as grim'n'gritty (though we didn't use that term back in those days!). And the events were not entirely fictional - I have myself been the victim of a sexual assault so I have some ideas of the feelings and emotions that are aroused by such actions. For a few years it made me a union representative and in that time I helped counsel people who had been similarly assaulted.

 

[Hygric]

Rape, torture, mass murder etc etc all occure "off-camera" in my games (well, DnD games anyhow, Vampire and SLA are different matters...). On-camera we will have the evidence that it happened, but not the actual act happening. The party gets to be the healing or avenging angel type.

Sex happens in my games, but not with graphic details. Strange realy, as I consider graphic violence to be more worthy of a higher rating than graphic sex, but I guess that it just aint worth lengthy descriptions of the ol' in-out in-out while it can be for a bit of the ol' ultra-violent.

Blaspheming against real world religions is something I am against in an RPG context. That is one reason why I don't particularly like the Forgotten Realms. I am a Pagan, and I find it mildly offensive to see one of my gods, such as Oghma, depicted in an RPG. It also makes me question the lack of creativity of the designer of that god if they had to lift one from real world mythology. That is also the reason why I did not and will not buy the deities and demigods book. It does annoy me sometimes that gamers seem to believe that it is ok to use other religions in their games, but would blanch at the idea of stating out Jesus or Buddha or Mohommad (sp?) etc. Respect all faiths and cultures, not just some.