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So many times I've encountered people deliberately working themselves up into a state over something that offends them. They complain, they posture, they quickly scramble up a mountain they just made to get the moral high-ground. Victim politics follow, attacking the other side as not progressive as I, it all happens.This is clearly limited to feminism, and never, ever, ever happens when someone is, say, defending the moral rightness of their problematic ideas on a roleplaying game message board.
Or their views on rules. :P
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Hey you can't please all of the people all of the time, but you will always be offending somebody!
Hey you can't please all of the people all of the time, but you will always be offending somebody!
Monica Lewinsky?
Monica Lewinsky?
I'd hit that.
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If this villain offends your players, inform them of the bigger villain: Lamashtu (in fact, she'd make an excellent patron for your villain).
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How can you cast a female in a villain role?! Whats wrong with you?! All women are angelic figures of purity and chastity! Also where are the baby daddies? Are the paying child support? ......end whining voice.
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A Dingo just ate my baby :(
They'll start to care when they meet the afterbirth.
I like it, it's a great villain.
If your worried about offending your players, try talking with them to find the limits of their...offence...?
I mean, definitely not for kids. But i don't imagine to many others getting that offended.
But if kids were in it, they could learn that not everything born is beautiful. A valuable life lesson.
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In all honesty, I don't like villains that are "cool." I want to actually hate the BBEG. Killing a "cool" villain produces a "That was fun." moment. Killing a truly vile villain produces a "That was so very satisfying." moment.
Sephiroth? Too cool to be a villain. Aside from his sociopathic behavior, of course. Everyone digs him, though. Fangirls swoon.
Fernand Mondego (from Alexanre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo)? Definitely the right kind of villain for me. I wanted that betraying bastard to die as soon as he picked up his sword.
But talk to your players. They're the ones that really matter.
Sephiroth? Too cool to be a villain. Aside from his sociopathic behavior, of course. Everyone digs him, though. Fangirls swoon.
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Ah, but the fun and frivolity can be drained by such warnings.
This game has unsettling content, you may be offended.
This game was traps which may offend you if your char is killed.
The attack bonus of some monsters may be unsettling.
You won't be able to play every type of char you want or use every feat you ever read. You may be offended by this.
---Etc.---
A lot of that is a given; if a player doesn't know or won't except the usual risks of Pathfinder, they should play a different game.
Maybe I should have said unsettling or inappropriate or something like that. If one of your players was abused/raped/tortured in real life you should know better than to include that content in your game. If you know your players, you should know what's off limits. It's a matter of respect.
Leaping Gnome, an initiative of 4 means the ogress rapist goes first. Grapple check time.
That's ok I'm greased. I'm always greased ;). I cast polymorph any object on her to turn her into a sexy gnome lady and then go with it. You can't rape the willing!
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That's ok I'm greased. I'm always greased ;). I cast polymorph any object on her to turn her into a sexy gnome lady and then go with it. You can't rape the willing!
Ah, but can you make the concentration check go go through with your plan?
A lot of that is a given; if a player doesn't know or won't except the usual risks of Pathfinder, they should play a different game.
Maybe I should have said unsettling or inappropriate or something like that. If one of your players was abused/raped/tortured in real life you should know better than to include that content in your game. If you know your players, you should know what's off limits. It's a matter of respect.
This is the crutch of the matter. The game assumes a certain amount of unpleasant themes will be present, and approaching it from a purely post modern viewpoint is going to be a nonstarter. However, individual players will have certain things that simply cross the line for genuine reasons. It might be rape, it might be abuse, it might be the example earlier of a parent fearing something being described could happen to their child. Having a talk before the campaign starts about where those general boundaries are will reduce the risk of genuinely offending someone without having to talk about details of what is going to happen and when that could take out the excitement of the story. However, as long as the DM presents a balanced world, a single example of any given behavior possibility shouldn't break the campaign in most cases, even if it is highly emphasized as being the primary evil the party faces.
The idea for a main bad guy who is a literal mother of monsters.
Either a witch or an Alchemist who a can breed monsters the "Normal" way but gets the best results and loyalties by dosing herself with with potions and mutagens and using herself as cauldron. She then uses the "children" to get what she wants.
Considering what's been going on in the internet of late. My question how likely is it someone or some of you would find the idea offensive?
I find your idea more macabre than offensive. I know I'm not helping you determine weather or not this is right for your games, and I'm not going to, as this is something you and your players need to decide for yourselves. That being said if you decide to go down this route consider using some of the following additional source material from 3.5.
Heroes of Horror: Corruption and Insanity are awesome additional rule sets in these styles of campaigns. Also they have expanded rules for the effects of fear and how to implement fear as a saving throw effect.
The Book of Vile Darkness: While this work as a whole is rather silly it had some good starting points for ideas. Take what you will.
I suggest these additional source materials if you really want to play up the horror behind your concept. Depending upon your campaign style this type of villain might cross the line from just another BBEG to something more disgusting and offensive, so much so, that to the PCs the very nature of what this villain is doing is an affront to their very sanity. It all depends on whether or not you want the concept to be so offensive, in character, that the very knowledge of what this villain is doing to create her monsters would be enough to severely traumatize a PC.
Also you could apply the taint and corruption rules to the main villain so that as she continues this warped practice of breading her monsters she herself is progressively embracing that corruption within herself leading to even stronger monsters being born from her womb due to the ever increasing levels of corruption within herself.
Personally I feel as though you as a GM should already have a good idea as to whether or not your concept will be offensive to your players. If you don't you may want to do some probing. Maybe refer to the horror genre and a similar idea to see how they react to it outside of the game. I personally would not ask flat out if they were okay with this idea as that tends to spoil the surprise should you decide to run with it. Half the fun with these kinds of concepts is the shock value. Still my best suggestion would be to feel this topic out with your players outside of game and once you have a good idea on what there feelings are about it that should tell you whether or not this is an idea for an adventure or an idea to go in the GM note book for future consideration at a later date.
This is the crutch of the matter. The game assumes a certain amount of unpleasant themes will be present, and approaching it from a purely post modern viewpoint is going to be a nonstarter. However, individual players will have certain things that simply cross the line for genuine reasons. It might be rape, it might be abuse, it might be the example earlier of a parent fearing something being described could happen to their child. Having a talk before the campaign starts about where those general boundaries are will reduce the risk of genuinely offending someone without having to talk about details of what is going to happen and when that could take out the excitement of the story. However, as long as the DM presents a balanced world, a single example of any given behavior possibility shouldn't break the campaign in most cases, even if it is highly emphasized as being the primary evil the party faces.Crux, and that's not what post-modern means. And holy s%!%, "genuine" reasons? You probably couldn't sound more sanctimonious if you tried.
Most players are willing to tolerate a certain amount of problematic material, even if they find it distasteful! It doesn't make you some sort of bad person to put aside your objections to, say, the racist overtones in inherent in nearly every series' fantasy races (e.g. orcs are dark-skinned, inherently evil, ape-like brutes with sloping foreheads who want to kidnap and rape human women, and the products of this miscegenation aren't even human any more) because you enjoy other things about fantasy RPGs. It's just important to keep these objections in mind and be respectful of them, because it's easy to cross a line and kill all of the fun for someone. That doesn't mean that just a little bit of objectionable material is less objectionable; it's just easier for people to ignore.
Look, if you have genuine doubts about whether you're going to offend your players or not, then you need to clear things with them first or you need to not do...
I'm sorry you took my meaning to be that severe. My point was simply if you are going to be offended by a single individual aspect of a campaign just because it doesn't fit the modern view of the world and you weren't warned ahead of time that it would be showing up, you don't need to be playing Pathfinder. If you have an issue that you have genuine feelings about, you need to share those ahead of time, and the DM should do their best to honor them, but if the issue is simply one of expectations, as the sexism concern in the original example is, than you need to be willing to change as much as you expect everyone around you to change. If something works for everyone else, then you need to be honest with both yourself and the others, and determine how much playing with that group is worth to you.
I totally agree with you Sunshadow
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Hey there, folks.
In these parts, we have a well-established player with a morbid fear of spiders. He plays a lot of Pathfinder Society games. I'd steer him away from a scenario with a lot of arachnid elements, because he'd have a really bad time sitting at the table, and I don't want to wreck his day.
An he doesn't have to explain his arachnophobia or justify it. He doesn't have to get over it. I know he doesn't like spiders, and I have other monsters to throw at the party. I'd do the same with somebody with a morbid fear of snakes, or fire.
It's likely that at least one of the women at my table has been threatened with rape or sexual violence. Some of them have actually been assaulted. And I haven't considered asking them about it, because most of them aren't that close to me.
Unless I know that nobody at the table has a problem with sexualized violence or weaponized sex, I steer clear of it in my games.
I think someone made a good point earlier on. If a bad event happened one time to a party - rape, killing, whatever - and it happened neutrally, to men and women alike, than it is hardly indicative of being bad or hating women.
If the types of event occurred repeatedly (women always victimized) or only impacted females, than there is an issue.
I do not and will not ever screen my party for every type of situation that could possibly offend them. I do avoid things that I know will cause a problem if I am aware of the historical issue (i.e. player was kidnapped, will not kidnap said character), but I can't spend all my time holding psychological screening parties to find out trigger issues.
Bad s#$% happens in real life, and some bad s#$% will probably happen in a game simulating rough adventuring. The GM should not strive to damage the players psyche, but the players should be responsible about playing in fantasy-land if they know it is dark fantasy.
In short, I guess that boils down to the players and GM should at least have a play-style discussion before gaming. Is this light-hearted fantasy or serious, rough and tumble?
Unless I know that nobody at the table has a problem with sexualized violence or weaponized sex, I steer clear of it in my games.
I like this - I won't avoid material, but I pay attention to the kids or other folks who are in the party, and we have set "setting" expectations for the game when our group formed.
Pathfinder isn't some sort of unchangeable history that we are observing through archaeological and anthropological evidence. It's contemporary game played by players who are generally from the 20th and 21st century and created by creators from the latter half of the 20th century. That Pathfinder has problematic material is not an excuse for that problematic material to exist, and that Jacobs et al. make the mistake of making badguys rapists (so we know that they're rilly rilly bad) is offensive is no excuse to repeat that mistake. (It's not Cthulhutech, but it is problematic.) In fact, they already aren't interested in "historical accuracy" when it's not fun: there isn't rampant subjugation of or discrimination against women in the non-evil societies for this exact reason. "Well, you have to put up with rapist villains because they're in Pathfinder and we're playing Pathfinder" makes you the golden pissy forests GM again.
I'm saying that Pathfinder comes with a certain set of expectations of the type of things you can expect to encounter, some of which can be unpleasant, especially when it comes to the classification and characterization of bad guys. If a player has a specific reason to object to a certain piece of included material, that is certainly something the DM needs to consider, but general concerns are a lot harder to accommodate because they often don't have clear flash points or limits. It is the player's responsibility to understand and accept that if they play the game enough, they will be run into at least some of this unpleasant material, and that if the situation is within the routine expectations of the system, as the original example very clearly is when it comes to Pathfinder, then simply blaming the DM for offending them is not a proper response, and that no good DM will treat it as such. That doesn't mean the DM should ignore the concern, it simply means that "I don't like it" is not by itself enough of a complaint to warrant changes to the NPC and the campaign.
I don't think anyone here as posted that it is clearly something that could be done in every campaign in every group. Rather, most people have said that within the context of Pathfinder and Pathfinder related material, it is fairly routine, and probably wouldn't cause an issue in most campaigns because most people who are going to be offended are probably not playing Pathfinder to begin with.
Obviously only the op knows the details of his group, but given the information we have, it's hard to see how using this bad guy would knowingly insult or offend anyone who agreed to play in this system in the first place, given the sheer amount of material that covers the same ground and often goes even further.
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I'm saying that Pathfinder comes with a certain set of expectations of the type of things you can expect to encounter, some of which can be unpleasant, especially when it comes to the classification and characterization of bad guys."It's Pathfinder, you should expect rapists."
More like, "It's Pathfinder, you should expect a much darker world than the one we live in. If that's a problem, speak up now so we can figure out if this is the system you want to be playing in. If the problem is an isolated one, we can probably work around it. If it's general discomfort with the themes it presents, you need to DM so you can completely control those themes to your satisfaction, or you need to find another game/system. If after the discussion, you decide to play despite your concerns, be aware you were warned and that while I will be willing to work with you as things come up to keep things running as smoothly as possible, the campaign and the party are greater than one character and player, and that I cannot really do much with complaints that start and end with 'I don't like it'."
You seem to think that it's up to the DM to babysit the needs of every single player when it's not. It's up to the individual player to do that for themselves; the DM's responsibility is to present a story and a world that is balanced and interesting to the group as a whole. This includes being aware of the needs of players, but not necessarily pandering to each and every individual concern, especially ones that the players themselves cannot clearly define limitations for.
Yes it is! "Guys, I'm not having fun" is a perfectly reasonable reason to ask for changes to an NPC or the campaign. This doesn't even have to have anything to do with feminism or any of that: if a player isn't having fun, then they need to bring that up right away and it needs to be addressed or why the hell are you playing roleplaying games anyway?
It's perfectly reasonable to ask, but if that is where the complaint stops, it's not reasonable to expect changes to occur, especially if you're the only one who is saying it. A good DM will try to have a conversation and ascertain specific reasons and whether the requested changes can be made and/or are acceptable to the group as a whole, but in and of itself, "I'm not having fun" is a bit too generic to expect the DM and the group to automatically change what they are doing and enjoying. If the player making that complaint can't clarify it or add to it, they are the ones who need to make changes, not anyone else.
It's perfectly reasonable to ask, but if that is where the complaint stops, it's not reasonable to expect changes to occur, especially if you're the only one who is saying it. A good DM will try to have a conversation and ascertain specific reasons and whether the requested changes can be made and/or are acceptable to the group as a whole, but in and of itself, "I'm not having fun" is a bit too generic to expect the DM and the group to automatically change what they are doing and enjoying. If the player making that complaint can't clarify it or add to it, they are the ones who need to make changes, not anyone else."I'm not having fun because this game has rapists."
If you're saying that the player needs to make the accommodation here, and not the GM, then congratulations, you are the golden pissy forests GM. You're going to have problems with any players who aren't eager to have their characters pee into the troll's mouth.
Sweet way to trash any person whose opinions differ.
"I'm not having fun because this game has rapists."
If you're saying that the player needs to make the accommodation here, and not the GM, then congratulations, you are the golden pissy forests GM. You're going to have problems with any players who aren't eager to have their characters pee into the troll's mouth.
A lot if it depends on when this is said. If it is only mentioned when the scene comes up in the game, than the DM really can't do a whole lot if the other players are willing to accept it as part of the game. If it was mentioned before the game started, and the DM made it a central theme anyway, that is another matter entirely. But the player has to understand that most every fantasy world has rapists in it; it's only a question of how big a role they play in the individual campaign, and that even when it's not emphasized, it may still come up, and they may still have to deal with the ramifications of it being present as a fairly common, and occasionally even tolerated, activity. If they understand this before the game starts, and choose to play anyway, they really can't put the entire blame on the DM when it does come up. Again, if the DM knows ahead of time that particular subject is one that should be avoided as much as possible, and he goes out of his way to emphasize it, that's another matter, but expecting to be able to avoid the subject entirely over the course of a campaign is unrealistic, and the player who expects this is setting themselves up for disappointment and looking for offenses when none are intended.
And yet I said none of those things you just claimed.
I commented on how you equate someone with a different and yet complete arguable opinion with a fictional deviant pee-drinker. As if anyone who disagrees with you is nasty beyond reproach.
You have attacked this topic as an activist looking for an ax to grind, and have insulted posters repeatedly.
You should try acting the adult and check your attitude at the door.
"My game has offensive material, deal with it or walk,"
"I run my game like this, deal with it or walk"
You are over reading what I am saying. I am not advocating anything as harsh as the listed statements. I am saying that while the DM can and should work the players as much as possible, there is a time and a place for such discussions, with the middle of the game not being good for either, and not every request each individual player makes is going to be able to be followed. I am also saying that not every game/DM is going to be a good match for every player. If the DM makes it clear what style of campaign he wants to run, and it doesn't quite match what the player is looking for, it's the player's responsibility to give the DM enough reasons to change his mind (and "I don't like it," by itself, is not usually a good enough reason), accept what the DM is offering, or seek out another game (possibly offering to run one themselves to demonstrate what they are looking for).
Once the game has started, the player's options are much more limited and requesting any changes is going to require very good reasons and support from the other players. Now, in this example, most other players probably wouldn't object to lessening the active role that the subject of rape has in the campaign, but they may very well object removing it from the world entirely without very good reasons, as that require a bunch of other changes that would leave the world being a very different place, something that most players and DMs try to avoid mid campaign.
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If I thought that rapist ogres were part of the Pathfinder game system, I'd quit playing today and never look back, because that's not the sort of game element I want. You can run Pathfinder RPG, and even run in Golarion, and even run ogres, and not deal with any PG-13 material. You can run cultists of Lamashtu and leave the monstrous deformed children well off-screen.
Again, if you think everybody's on board, do as you please.
But I'd like to note that "being sensitive" is the purview of both GM and player. It's the player's job to let the GM know -- perhaps privately -- before things get too uncomfortable. It's the GM's job to watch the players for negative reactions. If something were likely to trigger a negative reaction (snakes, very explicit gore and gruesome violence, prostitution or slavery in a positive light, explicit torture...) I think the GM would be wise to telegraph that well in advance. Something that's more of a quirk on the part of a player ("I'm sorry, but a pickle killed my father.") is different.
Put another way, the first fifteen minutes into a five-hour adventure in the cess-chapels of Zon-Kuthon is the wrong time to let the GM know that you find torture-porn icky.
@ Chris-
Agree with you 100%
"I'm sorry, but a pickle killed my father." is different.
That's just awesome ; )
But the player has to understand that most every fantasy world has rapists in it
What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you say, "Yeah, we can't have a setting with magical elves and dragons and heroic adventure without including rapists"? Fantasy is fiction. If you don't want automobiles in it, don't put any automobiles in it. If you don't want cheese in it, don't put cheese in it. If you don't want rapists in it, don't put any rapists in it. Why on Earth would you include something you don't want in your game?
If you don't want it included, DM a game yourself and make a world to fit what you want. If you aren't willing to take that step, find someone that is, and play under them. Otherwise, be prepared to accept that DMs make worlds, players live in them, and that most worlds created will include the darker elements of human nature, including rapists, to at least some degree; otherwise, there really isn't much need for adventurers, and the campaign is probably going to be rather short. Telling a DM that he needs to change a world he's worked on for 30 years because a single player doesn't like rapists isn't going to get a very positive reaction. Asking him to downplay that aspect is certainly reasonable, but asking him to remove them entirely is not.
If I thought that rapist ogres were part of the Pathfinder game system, I'd quit playing today and never look back, because that's not the sort of game element I want. You can run Pathfinder RPG, and even run in Golarion, and even run ogres, and not deal with any PG-13 material. You can run cultists of Lamashtu and leave the monstrous deformed children well off-screen.
They are part of the system; most people downplay it naturally, but if you read some of the descriptions of the monsters in the bestiary, it's there, and usually comes up occasionally in some form or another, even when actively deemphasized. As for being off screen, some people would be offended by the basic concept of them, and no DM can gaurantee that they will stay entirely off screen the entire length of a campaign.
If something were likely to trigger a negative reaction (snakes, very explicit gore and gruesome violence, prostitution or slavery in a positive light, explicit torture...) I think the GM would be wise to telegraph that well in advance. Something that's more of a quirk on the part of a player ("I'm sorry, but a pickle killed my father.") is different.
Put another way, the first fifteen minutes into a five-hour adventure in the cess-chapels of Zon-Kuthon is the wrong time to let the GM know that you find torture-porn icky.
This, I agree with. The DM can, and should telegraph the general direction he is looking to take the campaign so that the players have plenty of time to react and adjustments can be made based on those reactions. If the player chooses to not take advantage of that time, or fails to notice the warning signs, it's hard to feel too much pity for them.
"I'm not having fun because this game has rapists."
So does real life.
That aside, Pathfinder also has murder, human sacrifices, monsters eating people and a whole range of nasty activities that would upset the babies at your local creche.
If we took all those justifications out for your character to go and set right in the world then your character would be faced with playing Farmville.
Rated PG.
There's a huge difference between the game having matters such as rape dealt with in the abstract ie we know it happened yada yada, and some GM who wants to get into a tabletop Cyb0rz session sharing the depths of his psyche in some kind of /fic-smutporn exploration.
A GM should realize that sexualized violence is one of a handful of commonly-offensive subjects in the first place. Failing that, if the player says, "I'm not cool with sexualized violence," then they have a right to have that addressed. While politely taking someone aside to say, "This is the sort of game we're running, unfortunately it may not be for you," is addressing it, I would recommend more introspection on the need for objectionable subject matter and more accommodation than that, because it was your responsibility to get this stuff up front at the beginning. If your response is "This isn't objectionable because..." you are not only doing it wrong but you are also an insensitive jerk.
Generally, any campaign where that subject matter routinely comes up is going to have a hard core label on it from the very beginning with lots and lots of warning. You are correct that the player has a right to have it addressed at some point, but if that point is at the very beginning, and the response is, "I want to run a dark campaign," that should be a clear sign to the player they don't want to be in that particular game. If a player is worried that it might show up in one out of the hundreds of encounters they'll have, they need to find a different system and/or revise their own expectations/responses. Even the lightest hack and slash campaign is going to have dark moments, and they need to be prepared to deal with them.
I like the backpedaling here. "Wait, no not most fantasy worlds. Just this hypothetical GM's 30-year-old world, where having rapists is absolutely key to the setting and completely immutable!"
Guess what, both Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms are that old, and while they aren't immutable or requiring rapists specifically, they do require dark elements to base adventures upon, and the threat of dangers like rapists are still important parts of those worlds, and these are on the light end of fantasy worlds. Many, including Middle Earth and Dragonlance, are even darker, and those themes are important to the stories told in them. Worlds like Golarion, while a bit more uncommon, are still not rare. Also, it can be very hard to make changes to established worlds without having ripple effects. Considering that most DMs run in established worlds, either their own, or some published world, ripple effects over the course of an entire campaign are a big problem (even without making major changes to the base setting). Again, downplaying certain elements is certainly doable in most cases, but flat out removal is much, much harder.
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So does real life.And it's universally considered to be a bad thing!
Right on!
So when it happens feel free to express moral outrage and go on a lynching. IN game.
There's a huge difference between the game having matters such as rape dealt with in the abstract ie we know it happened yada yada, and some GM who wants to get into a tabletop Cyb0rz session sharing the depths of his psyche in some kind of /fic-smutporn exploration.
Exactly, having the elements present, but for the most part abstract, is how most fantasy worlds work. A particular NPC or event may bring a particular uncomfortable aspect of the world, whether it be slavery, rape, or murder, into temporary focus, but even then you don't ever have to any deeper than the original post. Discomfort with a particular topic does not mean that they can't or shouldn't be explored; it means that if you dare to do so, be prepared to tread very carefully through that particular minefield.
So does real life.And it's universally considered to be a bad thing!Right on!
So when it happens feel free to express moral outrage and go on a lynching. IN game.
Perfect response.
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Dunno, I always kinda liked that part of RPGs when you get to bulldoze rapists/murderers/slavers/rapist murderer slavers into ground instead of having to endure the inefficiency of authorities handling them IRL.
You know, it's that "acting act your fantasy part". You get to have a kick from swinging big sword at bad guys, remember? Bad guys ain't bad guys just because they run around at night shouting "ooga booga" and torching an empty barn once per month.
WOTC should use that for 5e! "Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms, now featuring rape!" It'll be a hit.
Again, you think it has to be directly used if it's present. Far more often when it comes to the darker elements, it the THREAT of them that is the story, not their actual use. Most times I've seen the actual use is after a great deal of build up and/or because of player stupidity.