DM Salsa Presents - Rise of the Runelords (Inactive)

Game Master AdamWarnock

All redlines should be respected, sir. While it should not come up for Cailyn in the least, I will do my best to remember and respect.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

I've had a lot of women in my life having a pregnancy end (or choosing to terminate one) for a great variety of reasons. It has never been a taboo, and I do not believe we should silence the fact that women are dying or becoming infertile because they have no access to proper medical care. I could die in Texas if a pregnancy goes bad (or even if I'm forcefully impregnated, according to the current law).

If the topic cannot even be brought up in a fictional setting, no matter how slight the reference, then I would rather bow out than keep quiet on something that has every woman's life at stake.

There's a difference between writing a story and playing a game. I do this for fun, and dealing with that particular topic in a game is not my idea of fun, nor do I think a game is the proper venue for opening up discussions about and exploring this kind of topic. I've said that it is a topic that needs to be discussed, but I don't think this is the proper place nor do I particularly wish to touch on it through the games I run, even if only tangentially.

If you still wish to bow out, then I will be sorry to see you go. I think you are a great player and I have enjoyed having you and Conrad at the table. Either way, I hope you enjoy whatever tables you find yourself at.

What I infer from your posts (and here I might be wrong, but at least it's how I understand it) is that we wouldn't be allowed, as players, to bring up terminating a pregnancy as a topic for religious reasons.

I understand that boundaries can be tough to negotiate, and I fully respect 'under no circumstances do I want x to happen to my character in-game because of personal reasons'. But if I don't have the space to discuss or oppose views that are not my own in a game about collaborative writing, then it's pretty much the opposite of fun for me.

Everyone has the right to write the story of their characters however they seem fit, as long as there no consequences on other PCs. I wouldn't want to cross out the parts in my notes about Conrad's mother losing pregnancies because someone else at the table objects to this topic.

Additionally, I think that an issue as important as women's health and the inherent risks of childbirth deserves a bit more grace and consideration than simply being erased and treated as offensive. On the greater scheme of things, you're entitled to your faith; but I'm entitled to live my life without having to suffer through the consequences of your faith, and I no longer feel comfortable at this table if I'm expected to follow rules derived from a religion that is not mine, and enforced by political forces threatening my civil rights.

Thank you for the compliments, but I'm still leaving.

I find it ironic that you're proving my point about why I didn't want to bring this up in a game entirely valid. You've said some things that I believe I need to address, and to do so, I think I have to explain my stance on this whole issue, but first, I need to make it clear that I respect that you have you're own views and beliefs and that you have your reasons for bowing out. However, I have to ask how likely, really, is the topic of abortion to come up in game if I have no intention of bringing it up myself, unless a player decides to bring it up themselves? I'm not rolling to see if a sexual encounter would result in pregnancy nor would I force such an encounter on anyone. (The scene with Jubrayl wasn't to pressure Dare into anything. It was to paint him as a hedonistic sleezeball. I just royally screwed up by not talking to DeathQuaker about how I was going about it first, as she very clearly asked me to, and didn't even think about the power dynamics until she pointed them out to me.) As a player in the other game I run pointed out, it shouldn't ever come up unless a player wants it to come up, and given how charged emotions are on both sides of the debate are, why would someone bring that up in a game unless they were trying to stir crap up.

I won't deny that part of the reason I do have the stance I have is because of my faith. I also respect that not everyone shares my religion, my values, nor my opinions. What I do not appreciate is the implication that I find the issues of women's health and the risks of pregnancy offensive or that I am for taking someone's civil rights away.

I know that child birth is not without risk to both the child and the mother. I also know that with good prenatal care those risks are significantly reduced. I also know that there are serious issues with regards to women being given proper treatments for things like pain and other medical issues that only affect them. In the interest of full disclosure, my sister is a registered nurse that works in the nursery of a local hospital. We don't often talk about those issues, but we have had discussions about them and her own experiences with doctors not really prescribing the right medications, one of which has been a woman.

What I don't think is right is the apparent assumption that a woman has the right to kill the child she's carrying. If you believe, as I do and I sincerely hope you do, that every human has an inviolable right to life then I don't see how you can possibly justify any abortion when there is a chance to save both the mother and the child. To do so is to argue that an unborn child is either not alive or not a human. You can't argue that the child is not human. There is no mechanism in biology that changes an individual's species in the process of birth. As for being alive, the child is growing, taking in energy in the form of sugars and oxygen and converting those to water and carbon dioxide. That would satisfy any scientific definition of life that I have found or that would make sense.

So if we accept that all humans have a right to life, then we have to accept that includes humans that have not been born yet, unless we want to allow for other people's rights to infringe the rights of others. If someone cannot decide if another human being lives or dies without due process, then why does that not extend to an unborn child? The child a woman carries is not part of her body. The child's DNA did not come from the procession of cellular division but from the process of fertilization. Even if the child's DNA was a perfect match for the mother's, which is practically impossible, they're still not the same individual as the mother. So if a woman has a right to decide what happens to her body and no one else has that right, then why does she have a right to say what happens to someone else's body, wherever that body may currently reside?

What I'm getting at is that if we accept that it if you have a human right to life and that if you have a human right to bodily autonomy, then those rights should logically extend to unborn children. Yes, pregnancy comes with its own set of risks for women, but so does sex. Pregnancy is one of the things that women risk whenever they have sex, and I don't see how any competent (in the legal sense of being able to make her own decisions) woman in a modern society could be unaware of that. Yes, there are ways to mitigate that risk as with all of the others, but the risk is never zero. So why should an unborn child bear the consequences of an action, that by the very process of how this all works, they not only had no say in, they didn't even exist when the decision to perform that action was made.

Which leads me to the argument that a lot of pro-choice advocates seem to bring up whenever they try to defend abortion, what about victims of rape? I want to make it clear that I do not blame the victims for what happened. I can't say what I would advocate as a proper punishment to those that perpetrate rape, especially men against women, because it would violate Paizo's terms of service. I also can't truly know the feelings that a woman who has been raped and has been impregnated because of it has. I understand that some women feel that they could never love a child that was fathered by their rapist. I even understand that some women would feel resentment and even hatred towards that child. But how can we condone what is effectively punishing the child for a crime that happened before they even existed? Punishing a child for the sins of their father goes against everything I believe is right and every principle of due process and the cause of justice. The child had nothing to do with it. Aborting the pregnancy won't undo the trauma the mother has already endured. It won't undo the crime. It can't.

In short, I don't see abortion as a legitimate form of healthcare or a woman's right. I can't. I see it as the murder of children that have no voice of their own and no way to defend themselves. I won't knowingly support anyone that advocates for it. This isn't to diminish the issues, the real issues, that woman face with regards to healthcare and access to it. This isn't to brush off the risks women face in the course of a pregnancy and childbirth. It is because I believe that all humans have a right to live and to choose for themselves what path they take. And yes, it is also because I believe that God has made all of us and that children are a gift from Him.

The reason I did not want to bring this up in game is because I know my own limitations. There's not a chance that I could handle it with anything resembling impartiality. The reason I did call it out as a redline, however, is because, no matter how slight the chance is that it would ever come up, I had a duty to inform you that redline existed. The reason for that redline wasn't solely because the topic offends me, but because the last thing I want to happen is for this game to disintegrate because a topic came up that I don't think I can handle gracefully in game. This one was as much about protecting y'all from me as it was myself.

As I've mentioned already, this topic is personal to me in a very real, if somewhat indirect sense. To me, abortion is a barbarism. It's the ultimate expression of maternal neglect. It's about as clear of a sign as you can get that a child is not wanted.

My father committed suicide when I was five years old. I hadn't even started Kindergarten when he did. For years, I struggled with depression, grief, and a hatred I didn't even realize I harbored for him. One of the things that was in the back of my mind was the question of why he did it, and the fear that it was because he didn't want me any more. For years my worst fear was turning out like him. I know now that I am not my father, but I do share with him a capacity for anger, even rage, that is frightening to those around me when it is on display. It takes a lot for me to get to that point, but there are things that can push me there quickly, and those that neglect, abuse, abandon, resent, and hate their children are among those things. While I feel nothing but sympathy and sorrow for the women who have aborted a pregnancy that came about as a result of their rape or who have aborted a pregnancy because trying to carry the child to term was likely to kill them both, to the other women, the ones who could have had the child, but chose to kill them instead, I feel contempt and outrage and in no small part because of what I have experienced.

All of that to say, while I respect your decision to leave, I don't appreciate the implications that have been leveled at me. If I were to ban topics because they offended my religious sensibilities, then there would be a lot more redlines than just this one. This was specifically about abortion, not women's rights, not women's health issues, not anything else. If you want to discuss political issues and sensitive topics in character in a game, then that is your prerogative. Please don't assume, however, that my unwillingness to do so is because I find the topic offensive. I am unwilling because I am well aware of my own weaknesses and tendencies. Perhaps that is petty distinction in your eyes, but it's not in mine. I've even said that this is a topic that needs to be discussed, but not in a game, especially one that I run as an escape from real world issues.

As I've said before, I wish you the best, and I'm sad to see you go. Let me know how you want Conrad to be written out and I'll make it happen.

While I could explain my stances on the subject, I do not believe this is the forum to do so.

I appreciate all the effort everyone has put into this game, but I have decided to bow out as well.

So.... Hm. I would have been willing, if it had been left at the first post, to accept this as a redline and move on with the game. To be perfectly honest, I'm very uncomfortable with a PC becoming pregnant on screen in a campaign, however it's handled, and the GM you mentioned making rolls for conception would have skeeved me all the way out the door. I'm fine making the handwave that contraception in this fantasy make-believe world is easy, reliable, and practical enough that it barely needs mentioning.

The more this topic gets expanded on, the less comfortable I become. Your points range from things that I might disagree with but have some sympathy for, to things that I find actively harmful. I can handle having a friend who might be uncomfortable with the topic, or might have some complicated feelings surrounding it, I think that's natural. But, somewhere in these posts, you crossed the line for me.

I really do appreciate the effort you've put into this game. You're a good writer, and I've been really enjoying this cast of PCs, so I am very sad to be bowing out, but I struggle to see myself continuing to be comfortable here.

To all the other players, I really enjoyed playing with you all, and would love to do so again if the opportunity ever arises. Feel free to send a DM if you'd like to keep in touch. See y'all around.

You're all great RPers. I think Salsa is a great DM. And ... as I suspect the game will not survive the loss of three players at once, it was a pleasure to play with each of you. Hope to see you all in other games.