What subjects are taboo in your game?

[wulfstan]

I recently DMed a session in which a player sexually mutilated a slain orc (I'll share you the details). I told him that this sort of sadistic roleplaying was out of bounds. The other players generally agreed. The player insisted on defending his actions ("orcs killed my family!") as good roleplaying. I found this excuse to be rather pathetic and told him point blank that if he acted out any thing as vile as that again, he could find somewhere else to game. He didn't take this very well ("you can't tell me how to roleplay!") but he stayed in the group and has never done anything like it again.

 

[Mark]

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.

I'd like to add that I do not like the use of Real World religion in RPGs, though I do draw some paralels and trappings from Real World religions for use in those religions depicted in my games.

 

[Deadguy]

I recently DMed a session in which a player sexually mutilated a slain orc (I'll share you the details). I told him that this sort of sadistic roleplaying was out of bounds. The other players generally agreed. The player insisted on defending his actions ("orcs killed my family!") as good roleplaying. I found this excuse to be rather pathetic and told him point blank that if he acted out any thing as vile as that again, he could find somewhere else to game. He didn't take this very well ("you can't tell me how to roleplay!") but he stayed in the group and has never done anything like it again.

My suggestion wulfstan is not that the behaviour was actually 'wrong' of the PC, but that the graphic description made both you and the players uncomfortable. That's fine, and it needs to be expressed. Perhaps it would have been best to tell the player "what you are doing is not something we are including in the game; we can assume that you are behaving so off-camera, but please consider the effects this might have on whcih alignment best describes your character".

I just feel that this way you don't dictate the PC's actions, but you avoid unpleasant interludes and you make clear that there are consequences for behaving in such a fashion.

 

[Nightfall]

While I don't ACTIVELY think about such things, I do tend to shy away from graphic descriptions of sexual assault, molostation or rape. General Violence and mayhem are alright.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...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.

I think this somewhat of an unfair assessment of gamers. A LOT of games have one or more "Christian" churches. There's a large number of Judeo-Christian and Islamic influences in game religions just on these boards. And I've only ever heard of one instance of someone saying, "That's a little too similar to Christianity, back it off."

And despite my upbringing (or perhaps because of it), I'd love a game where I could rap with Christ in character or seek wisdom from some bohisattvas. "Climb the steps of Mount Celestia..."

As long as the elements are used respectfully, and everyone on the table's on the same page, I see no problem. Whole game's just a metaphor anyway...

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Taboo

In my game? Graphic sexual descriptions (I'm running a game, not an interactive porno) graphic torture descriptions, and real religions.
That's it.
Murder, rape, incest, genocide, war, terrorism, assassination, addiction, some of the nastiest things in actual history (Believe it or not, people actually laid there and took days to die during the Siege of Troy!) occur in my campaign setting.
But I know when to stop. What not to say, and what to say.
The strange thing is, the half-breeds of my world are not all children of rape. Even some of the half-orcs are products of love. To say all orcs are brutal rapists is just as closed minded as saying all evles are forest prancing repressed homosexuals.
I know my players though, and every one of my players feel comfortable in raising a hand and asking that the story line be changed, or to tell me that something is making them uncomfortable.
I had to rewrite a whole adventure involving an infant's ghost because one of the female players had lost a child to SID's before she had started playing with us, and the theme was too painful for her.
I'm an adult, I can handle being careful of other people's feelings.

 

[Fenes 2]

I do not get graphic when describing sex or torture, but both happen in my campaigns. I usually let the imaginations of the players work out the details, same as with some scenes of extreme violence, or the description of a murder scene. I usually do not use real-world religions (other than the ones used in the FR campaign books apparently) since I don't think they are appropraite for the setting I play in. I would have no problem with blasphemy, however, and some church-bashing comes up in the small-talk before game from time to time, with no one taking offense at it.

If I would be playing with a victim of some real-world traumatic event I would, probably, shy away from such things in game, but such is not the case. And there is a point where I would rather stop gaming with such a person than "sanitize" my game - I don't want to play a game that 6-year olds could play in, or even 12-year olds.

 

[Thanee]

Yep, some things are better left to the imagination of the players (and a few things better do not even get that far)!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Hygric]

I think this somewhat of an unfair assessment of gamers. A LOT of games have one or more "Christian" churches. There's a large number of Judeo-Christian and Islamic influences in game religions just on these boards. And I've only ever heard of one instance of someone saying, "That's a little too similar to Christianity, back it off."

fair enough, I did over-generalise back there.

I should have stated more along the lines that I do find irony, analogy etc to be all good, it is the direct use of names etc that I find mildly (must stress the word mildly) offensive. I guess why I find the exapmles of Pagan dieties in WoTC products to be mildly offensive is that they are being published by the main D20 company as official game world bits, as opposed to whatever one particuar group does in their campaign. Still, shouldn't go over the top with PC-ness, it ends up eliminating nearly everything if taken to far.

 

[Bagpuss]

I think about the only taboo is graphic descriptions of a sexual nature, but only because it makes me blush.

Politics and Religion are fair game, and great inspiration for modern games... Inomine, Vampire, etc.

My next game is going to be an "All Flesh Must Be Eaten" zombie survival horror game, based on current events and fears about chemical and biological terror attacks, so I would say their is very little taboo in my games.