D&D General Which movie rating would you use to describe your D&D campaigns?

[el-remmen]

I was looking over someone's D&D campaign intro one-sheet and in the spot discussing the "lines and veils" the DM described the game as having PG-13 violence and themes, which seems like such an obvious way to rate your game's "appropriateness" for different groups (at least for Americans, I know other countries have different systems - or none at all - for rating films) but one I never considered before.

Talking it over with a friend, who like me thinks it is really important for players to know what kind of game they are getting into and what might come up, but that nevertheless lean in towards some of the horrible things that can happen in a world where people go into holes to hunt monsters, monsters emerge from holes to hunt people, and armies clash with wizards capable of calling a fire storm down on them, and the like, he said his games are more like "Rated R" and I agreed about my own game, but then wondered if some of my descriptions of violence or gore might actually be more like NC-17 (but with NC-17 leaning towards overt non-porn depictions of sex, probably not)

I think that's fine because I play with all adults who are okay with (or even prefer) that kind of grittiness and potential horror. If and when I ran the game for teens or children (or adults not down for that), the rating would be more like PG-13 or PG (though I have not run a game for kids in decades - one for a group of older HS teens in the late 90s and before that when I was a kid myself).

So I was curious how you'd rate your typical D&D campaign using movie ratings (which I understand have their own limits and problems). I am limiting the choices to one, but am more interested in any details of why you chose that rating in your post (or if you run or play in more than one game that'd have different ratings, choose one that feels "typical" and tell us about the other in your post).

For those who are unfamiliar with American movie ratings or need a refresher, here is a quick n' dirty (but not beyond "PG" dirty ) description:

• Rated G = General Audiences: All ages. No or little explicit violence. No foul language. No sex. Think Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, the former of which has a group of dwarves hunting down a witch and the latter a battle with a dragon with "all the powers of hell."
• Rated PG = Parental Guidance Suggested: Some material may not be suitable for children. But the degree of romance, violence, and intense moments of danger you might find in a Star Wars movie (esp. the original trilogy). A planet blows up, but we don't see people suffer, though a mostly bloodless arm is cut off (A New Hope), some fade to black torture (Empire), a giant space slug has an ornamental sex slave (RotJ). Hmm, actually, I wonder if some of those might have been PG-13 if that rating had existed back then. As for language, non-sexually-derived profanity is allowed in moderation. No drug use.
• Rated PG-13 = Parents strongly cautioned – Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13: Depictions of intense violence are permitted under the PG-13 rating, but violence that is both realistic and extreme or persistent moves it to the "R" designation. Drug use is permitted in moderation. Infamously, removing the still beating heart of a sacrificial victim in Temple of Doom along with the scary situations and wonton violence in Gremlins led to the creation of this rating. This is actually the rating I imagine is most common. The Lord of the Rings movies were PG-13 as are the Star Wars movie since Revenge of the Sith.
• Rated R = Restricted – Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian: Intense and persistent violence or gore, sexual situations, full nudity (in moderation), and any kind of language are all permitted. In real life, the rating really start to fall apart here because you have films like Billy Elliot and Erin Brockovich getting an "R" rating for language, but putting them in the same category as a film like Kill Bill. Conan the Barbarian (which is a big influence on my DM style of description and view of the world) was rated R (and the first uncut R movie I ever saw at perhaps too young an age).
• Rated NC-17 = Adults Only – No one 17 and under admitted: Unfortunately, this rating is the kiss of death for a lot of films, and the way the MPAA grants this rating leans a lot more towards sex than violence or other themes/depictions - so it seems to be if applied to D&D campaigns the way it is to movies it'd be the kiss of death for a lot of campaigns too. As the recent, "How do your handle Romance?" thread suggested, a lot of people fade to black or just wholly avoid any kind of sexual situation (which is understandable - though sex and romance are different things) but violence is pretty central to the D&D conceit. Personally, I might describe the melting flesh of someone killed by a fireball, which could be gross enough for NC-17, but at the same time, Raiders of Lost Ark's melting Nazis earned a PG (maybe because God did it ). This rating replaced the "X" rating which was dropped for its association with porn, though neither X movies or NC-17 movies are porn. An example of a movie that has the kind of intense and persistent violence that might reasonably called NC-17 is Saving Private Ryan - but it did not receive that rating because Spielberg and the ideological weight of WW2 in American society.

Despite going through all these I still feel torn between Rated R and NC-17, not because my games necessarily have what is often found in NC-17 movies, but because nonetheless, I would only feel comfortable running my typical games for adults - though I have no doubt that there would be some teens it'd be okay for - but that is not my job to determine.


So what about you? How'd you rate your games?

 

[Lyxen]

The problem with these ratings is that they are one-dimensional, covering violence, sex, horror, other themes (slavery, etc.), etc. In our games there are no explicit sexual descriptions (although there can be some crude jokes now and then), lots of violence, sometimes gratuitous, not much horror (we do heroic games, and horror does not mix well with that), and sometimes other disturbing themes... And even all that may vary...

 

[overgeeked]

Solid R for themes, language, and violence.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Probably somewhere straddling the line between PG-13 and R. Usually pretty pulpy action adventure, but there can be some darker themes and whilst I don't usually describe violence as super gory, it's not bloodless video game violence either. In last game the characters actually ended up carving up a dead troll to get its heart... Also this actually isn't particularly noticeable in verbal form, but as the setting is stone age and bronze age with very warm climate, the standards of modesty might not be quite to the modern western standards. I really don't focus on that on verbal descriptions, but in visual media it would be readily apparent.

 

[J.Quondam]

In practice, I think I usually keep it PG most of the time, but rate it PG-13 to cover the occasional still-beating heart extraction that's bound to occur.
It really depends on the group and genre, though.

 

[R_J_K75]

NC-17 and I don't think I'd play with anyone under 21. In fact I most likely wouldn't even play with anyone I didn't know these days. Our game isnt necessarily ultra graphic or violent but rather we've all known each other so long that theres quite a bit of off color jokes, topics and insults that someone who didnt know us probably wouldnt be comfortable with.

 

[J-H]

Generally PG/PG-13 is what I shoot for. There's definitely violence, but I don't usually get too descriptive.

 

[ericstephen]

I was looking over someone's D&D campaign intro one-sheet and in the spot discussing the "lines and veils" the DM described the game as having PG-13 violence and themes, which seems like such an obvious way to rate your game's "appropriateness" for different groups (at least for Americans, I know other countries have different systems - or none at all - for rating films) but one I never considered before.

Talking it over with a friend, who like me thinks it is really important for players to know what kind of game they are getting into and what might come up, but that nevertheless lean in towards some of the horrible things that can happen in a world where people go into holes to hunt monsters, monsters emerge from holes to hunt people, and armies clash with wizards capable of calling a fire storm down on them, and the like, he said his games are more like "Rated R" and I agreed about my own game, but then wondered if some of my descriptions of violence or gore might actually be more like NC-17 (but with NC-17 leaning towards overt non-porn depictions of sex, probably not)

I think that's fine because I play with all adults who are okay with (or even prefer) that kind of grittiness and potential horror. If and when I ran the game for teens or children (or adults not down for that), the rating would be more like PG-13 or PG (though I have not run a game for kids in decades - one for a group of older HS teens in the late 90s and before that when I was a kid myself).

So I was curious how you'd rate your typical D&D campaign using movie ratings (which I understand have their own limits and problems). I am limiting the choices to one, but am more interested in any details of why you chose that rating in your post (or if you run or play in more than one game that'd have different ratings, choose one that feels "typical" and tell us about the other in your post).

For those who are unfamiliar with American movie ratings or need a refresher, here is a quick n' dirty (but not beyond "PG" dirty ) description:

• Rated G = General Audiences: All ages. No or little explicit violence. No foul language. No sex. Think Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, the former of which has a group of dwarves hunting down a witch and the latter a battle with a dragon with "all the powers of hell."
• Rated PG = Parental Guidance Suggested: Some material may not be suitable for children. But the degree of romance, violence, and intense moments of danger you might find in a Star Wars movie (esp. the original trilogy). A planet blows up, but we don't see people suffer, though a mostly bloodless arm is cut off (A New Hope), some fade to black torture (Empire), a giant space slug has an ornamental sex slave (RotJ). Hmm, actually, I wonder if some of those might have been PG-13 if that rating had existed back then. As for language, non-sexually-derived profanity is allowed in moderation. No drug use.
• Rated PG-13 = Parents strongly cautioned – Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13: Depictions of intense violence are permitted under the PG-13 rating, but violence that is both realistic and extreme or persistent moves it to the "R" designation. Drug use is permitted in moderation. Infamously, removing the still beating heart of a sacrificial victim in Temple of Doom along with the scary situations and wonton violence in Gremlins led to the creation of this rating. This is actually the rating I imagine is most common. The Lord of the Rings movies were PG-13 as are the Star Wars movie since Revenge of the Sith.
• Rated R = Restricted – Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian: Intense and persistent violence or gore, sexual situations, full nudity (in moderation), and any kind of language are all permitted. In real life, the rating really start to fall apart here because you have films like Billy Elliot and Erin Brockovich getting an "R" rating for language, but putting them in the same category as a film like Kill Bill. Conan the Barbarian (which is a big influence on my DM style of description and view of the world) was rated R (and the first uncut R movie I ever saw at perhaps too young an age).
• Rated NC-17 = Adults Only – No one 17 and under admitted: Unfortunately, this rating is the kiss of death for a lot of films, and the way the MPAA grants this rating leans a lot more towards sex than violence or other themes/depictions - so it seems to be if applied to D&D campaigns the way it is to movies it'd be the kiss of death for a lot of campaigns too. As the recent, "How do your handle Romance?" thread suggested, a lot of people fade to black or just wholly avoid any kind of sexual situation (which is understandable - though sex and romance are different things) but violence is pretty central to the D&D conceit. Personally, I might describe the melting flesh of someone killed by a fireball, which could be gross enough for NC-17, but at the same time, Raiders of Lost Ark's melting Nazis earned a PG (maybe because God did it ). This rating replaced the "X" rating which was dropped for its association with porn, though neither X movies or NC-17 movies are porn. An example of a movie that has the kind of intense and persistent violence that might reasonably called NC-17 is Saving Private Ryan - but it did not receive that rating because Spielberg and the ideological weight of WW2 in American society.

Despite going through all these I still feel torn between Rated R and NC-17, not because my games necessarily have what is often found in NC-17 movies, but because nonetheless, I would only feel comfortable running my typical games for adults - though I have no doubt that there would be some teens it'd be okay for - but that is not my job to determine.


So what about you? How'd you rate your games?

In the over 5 year campaign you ran and we got to complete, that's definitely NC17 for Gunthar alone. The infernal gnome ripping off the head of our companion & eating it in front of us is the Romero Director's Cut of an R-rated campaign your good twin ran somewhere out there in the multiverse.

So far, our current campaign is PG13.

 

[Charlaquin]

The motion picture content rating system has some odd rules. My games would definitely get slapped with an R rating, mainly because of language. My players and I swear openly and often. Otherwise though, it would probably fall under PG 13. Maybe even PG except in a few particular instances.

 

[Minigiant]

When I DM, the game is very PG.... until someone gets crit or screwed over by a NPC.... then it dips into R hard with the swearing, descriptions of gore, and lewd jokes and insults.

NC-17 if Mal gets crit hit twice in a session.