Something that I've seen a lot on these boards is people complaining about how adult some of the storylines are (Hook Mountain Massacre, Scuttle Cove). I've found some of these posts laughable, given my home brewed game is WAY darker, and more disturbing. So, I'm curious, how dark is too dark for you? I draw the line at rape and Pedophilia, but other than that, most everything else is fair game.
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Quite a few of us are running games for our kids these days, so even with fairly minor stuff, like Freeport's brothels, or story-arcs involving crime-lords who run drugs, there's lines. If we were all 20 year olds again, crazy stuff would happen, as it did when we were 20.
Once you hit 30-40, the stuff that's labeled 'mature' tends to look pretty uninteresting. Gore and torture porn and sex-talk and all that is really fascinating to anyone who hasn't watched their wife give birth.
These days, to me anyway, 'mature,' is a warning label that it probably won't interest me much. So over that stage.
[OTOH, the Book of Vile Darkness had some pretty cool stuff in it, so perhaps Monte's idea of 'mature' is more in tune with mine, instead of Saw / Hostel sorts of 'mature.']
My games can get very dark as well, However I keep sex out of the game. For some reason sitting around the table on a saturday night with a group of guys talking about D&D + sex just makes me feel like a looser.
Blood and guts however can get very ulgy and some strange and twisted things come up
C-
I guess mature has nothing to do with it as I like mature (opposite being immature). Graphic, that has a limit though. Killing and all that. Fine. Emotionally disturbing stuff? Also ok (as long as it is not that common) but not explained in graphic detail.
Quite a few of us are running games for our kids these days, so even with fairly minor stuff, like Freeport's brothels, or story-arcs involving crime-lords who run drugs, there's lines. If we were all 20 year olds again, crazy stuff would happen, as it did when we were 20.
Once you hit 30-40, the stuff that's labeled 'mature' tends to look pretty uninteresting. Gore and torture porn and sex-talk and all that is really fascinating to anyone who hasn't watched their wife give birth.
These days, to me anyway, 'mature,' is a warning label that it probably won't interest me much. So over that stage.
[OTOH, the Book of Vile Darkness had some pretty cool stuff in it, so perhaps Monte's idea of 'mature' is more in tune with mine, instead of Saw / Hostel sorts of 'mature.']
I'm in that 30-40 stage as are all of my players, so I guess I haven't out grown it. As far as giving birth, while my wife and I don't have children, I was my sisters lamaz coach during the birth of my niece, so, yes, I've had a up close with natures little blood bath and still have an intrest in disturbing imagery. I do agree Hostle and Saw are just gore for gores sake, and not really worth the time to watch, but a do still love a good oldfashion gory horror movie. (Though I am tired of movies showing people throwing up. When the hell did this start?)
I guess I didn't make myself clear with the original post. What is your specific line? How gory is too gory? Is it a dead body, or is it a dead body bloated in the sun writhing with worms? How much sex is too much? A brothel that shows up on a map, or walking in on Malcanthet roman orgy in STAP Enemy of my Enemies? I trying to figure out where the mark is, not if you have one.
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I guess I didn't make myself clear with the original post. What is your specific line? How gory is too gory? Is it a dead body, or is it a dead body bloated in the sun writhing with worms? How much sex is too much? A brothel that shows up on a map, or walking in on Malcanthet roman orgy in STAP Enemy of my Enemies? I trying to figure out where the mark is, not if you have one.
The mark for how much is too much for gore and sex is the same as it is with any element in a story. Does it add anything to the setting? Does it help define the situation? Does it help explain the type of person or people you're dealing with?
If you're dealing with a Necromancer who's also a Necrophiliac, then yeah, some might be a good idea. But once you've established what you're dealing with, its not necessary to dwell on it.
Perhaps the main villain is a hedonist. Yeah, it would make sense that just about every place he has is going to have a built-in harem or be near a brothel. Once in a while, you can go into detail to describe it, but please, don't do it every time.
Its like saying to the party: Before you sits a box. It is large and made of wood. On each side it has seventeen slats of wood, twelve at a diagonal angle, four on top & across each end, and one along with the previous four at a diagonal contrary to the first twelve. Holding all these slats of wood together are nails made of lead. Stamped on one side of the box is an arrow pointing upward and words below it reading "THIS END UP". It is apparent to you that it can be pried open easily with a crowbar.
Basicly put, once you've made something, you can reference to it quickly, but don't go back over it all again. If certain things fit a motif for a character, feel free to have them around him often(for instance, if the characters are tracking down a serial killer, it makes sense to find gore). However, once you've established a detail or set of details, leave it be.
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I agree with whoever it was that said mature was a state of mind, rather than an age. I'm in my early twenties, and I find excessive use of *mature themes* (as in Saw, Hostel, etc...) to be repetitive and boring. In my opinion, the best usage of so-called mature content is to use it sparingly, for dramatic effect- much as you'd use any other storytelling element. If you overuse anything, it's going to get old fast.
The best usage of mature content I've seen in any game can be found HERE.
I'm 16 and I find the gratuitous use of 'mature' themes irritating. Its not interesting or cool, its just annoying and distasteful. Mostly I think that such themes, used in moderation, can greatly add to a story. A little gore or sex or disturbing themes can be necassary for a story but used in overabundance, they take whatever real 'punch' the story would have had. Often I find they're used to cover a lack of an actual story with depth. Horror is far more effective if the man who's killed horribly by the monster is killed off stage with enough hints as to what's going on for the audience to know than if its done out in the open. What each individual's mind can come up with for what's happening to the red shirt is worse than anything a writer or director can come up with because it taps into your own fears. Too much blood, gore, sex ect usually means that its a low quality product trying to cover its shortcomings with shock value.
I guess I didn't make myself clear with the original post. What is your specific line? How gory is too gory? Is it a dead body, or is it a dead body bloated in the sun writhing with worms? How much sex is too much? A brothel that shows up on a map, or walking in on Malcanthet roman orgy in STAP Enemy of my Enemies? I trying to figure out where the mark is, not if you have one.The mark for how much is too much for gore and sex is the same as it is with any element in a story. Does it add anything to the setting? Does it help define the situation? Does it help explain the type of person or people you're dealing with?
If you're dealing with a Necromancer who's also a Necrophiliac, then yeah, some might be a good idea. But once you've established what you're dealing with, its not necessary to dwell on it.
Perhaps the main villain is a hedonist. Yeah, it would make sense that just about every place he has is going to have a built-in harem or be near a brothel. Once in a while, you can go into detail to describe it, but please, don't do it every time.
Its like saying to the party: Before you sits a box. It is large and made of wood. On each side it has seventeen slats of wood, twelve at a diagonal angle, four on top & across each end, and one along with the previous four at a diagonal contrary to the first twelve. Holding all these slats of wood together are nails made of lead. Stamped on one side of the box is an arrow pointing upward and words below it reading "THIS END UP". It is apparent to you that it can be pried open easily with a crowbar.
Basicly put, once you've made something, you can reference to it quickly, but don't go back over it all again. If certain things fit a motif for a character, feel free to have them around him often(for instance, if the characters are tracking down a serial killer, it makes sense to find gore). However, once you've established a detail or set of details, leave it be.
Exactly; such things should be part of a story, because they're elements of the world you're creating with your game. Used in moderation, these 'mature' themes become a natural and integral part of the story, adding depth and realism. If over used, they become boring and gratiutous. At that point, not only do they no longer add anything to the story, but they take a lot away from it.
I like disturbing themes, I like darker adventures with these so -called more mature themes, as long as they're used well and to move the story along and not just as a shock value cover for poor quality.
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I am 40 and my wife is 35, and we have no kids (unless 4-legged furry ones count) and our gaming group ranges from mid-20s to me the old man at 40.
When I run a game all facets of the human experience is available to explore. Everything from sexuality to murder to rape to torture. I find it interesting that people find it more suitable to allow their kids to behead and disembowel to their heart's content, but cannot touch sex or romance. I think that is misplaced values. I know parents who say "well it is more likely my kid will have sex than go blow away a bunch of people." And I am sure the parents of the Virginia Tech, and every other college high school massacre said the same thing.
Now for me, Mature Content does not mean porn or torture porn or graphic depictions of violence, etc. But it does mean dealing with the human condition. Unfortunately so many people want to shield their babies from the human condition, what it is to be human, that when these babies grow up, they can't have a relationship (greater than 50% marriage failure rate) they become violent (US has one of the highest violent crime rates in the world) and they are generally unhappy (US has one of the highest rates of unhappiness in the world).
Now that being said, we have no children in our games, but if I had kids I would have them watch movies like the Omen 2006 (Great movie), Saw, Superman, Driving Miss Daisy, The Blue Lagoon. Nudity, sex, violence, death, birth, love, good, evil all of these and more is what we need to be teaching our children.
RPGs under a parent's guidance can do a great job of teaching humanity to children, and thereby producing adults who are not all freaked out that life is not all safe and perfect.
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I remember, and took part in, the original HMM torture porn thread. I particularly resent the use of the term "mature" as a synonym for graphic violence. Nick Logue (who I must add I have utmost respect for as a writer) gave some fairly (to me) specious reasoning that it somehow was justified to make the heroes look and feel more heroic by comparison, but I didn't really buy that. The tone was more a sort of gleeful, sophomoric revelling in naughtiness - especially when it turns out he hid references to Pett and Vaughn (sp - apologies Greg) in one of his nastier scenes. I found it all rather distasteful - I wasn't shocked, I was just left wondering what the point of it all was.
Now, if this comes across as a bit ranty, my "line" is actually pretty fuzzy. I could probably countenance most forms of vile violence and depravation - if it has a good, story basis, and my players consent to it. As Krome says, it is part of human experience, and while I don't believe it needs to be fully reflected in a fantasy genre, to some extent it has to be there if you want to create believable characters.
I think the problem with HMM was that it violated both of those principles. We were never asked if we wanted stuff like that - it was just dumped on us. And it probably seems a bit out of place for those that like their fantasy heroic, rather than dark.
And I felt it didn't add much. Sure - the bad guys were pretty bad, and some unpleasantness would have been justified in that context - but it overdone. A better example of that might be the humanoid viands found in Thistletop - again, demonstrating the nastiness of the goblins, but as an unsettling detail rather than a central, emphasised aspect. But even that might cross the line for some.
I was vaguely amused by the furore over Mammy Graul's wardrobe malfunction, though. Sex bothers me much less than violence.
I was vaguely amused by the furore over Mammy Graul's wardrobe malfunction, though. Sex bothers me much less than violence.
That part cracked me up. I honestly didn't understand what all the anger was about. It isn't really an explicit image, even if you do notice (which I didn't the first oh, ten or so times I read HMM) her wardrobe malfunction. People are way too touchy about some things but not nearly touchy enough about others.
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People are way too touchy about some things but not nearly touchy enough about others.
It's a matter of opinion. Some people find certain topics distasteful. It doesn't make the people that found it distasteful closed-minded and it doesn't make those that openly accept it liberated free-thinkers. It just means we're all different and have varying tastes.
Personally, I didn't care for the whole inbred redneck ogre thing. If I ever run RotRL, I'll probably rewrite it to make it more along the lines of what my friends and I prefer.
Maybe what alot of people have been annoyed with was that it seems to be easier to take a typical adventure and make it darker by adding blood and gore than to take a dark adventure and turn it into something a little more PG.
-Skeld
I was vaguely amused by the furore over Mammy Graul's wardrobe malfunction, though. Sex bothers me much less than violence.
Wardrobe malfunction? OK going back I see it know. Totally missed that the first time through.
I'm not really sure what all the fuss is about in this adventure. I did not really find it particularly excessive...maybe I was simply let down by the hype as I did not start reading it until the torture porn thread was well on its way. When I started reading I went and got a bucket to keep nearby in case I could not hold down my food due to the material I was reading. I was rather disappointed to find that I was able to read that module an did not utilize the bucket, not even once. Quite the let down after all I had been led to believe by the torture porn thread.
People are way too touchy about some things but not nearly touchy enough about others.It's a matter of opinion. Some people find certain topics distasteful. It doesn't make the people that found it distasteful closed-minded and it doesn't make those that openly accept it liberated free-thinkers. It just means we're all different and have varying tastes.
Personally, I didn't care for the whole inbred redneck ogre thing. If I ever run RotRL, I'll probably rewrite it to make it more along the lines of what my friends and I prefer.
Maybe what alot of people have been annoyed with was that it seems to be easier to take a typical adventure and make it darker by adding blood and gore than to take a dark adventure and turn it into something a little more PG.
-Skeld
Couldn't you just eliminate all references to distasteful things in the module? I'd think some work with a pencil crossing lines out would mostly do it. I'm not really sure how its easier to make something disturbing and distasteful then it is to make it PG again.
I'd just treat the whole place as a hold fast of Ogres and give them some class levels. You'd need to make the building larger as the inhabitants are large instead of medium but otherwise the map could stay the same. Most of the gist of what a room serves can be picked up and adapted to be an Ogre Hold Fast, The dining room is the place where the Ogres eat, describe how you would normally do so in your game. Mammy's room is the Ogre Chieftains room etc.
I place the line wherever anyone at the table begins to stop having fun and begins showing discomfort. The weakest link in the chain determines how hard I pull.
I do find it a little odd, however, you find it laughable when people who have campaigns less macabre than your own draw a line, but then you draw a line at the rapists and pedophiles, who are no doubt laughing at your own pitiable scruples.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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I can tolerate anything (and I do mean anything) with the exception of graphic violence committed against children. I'm okay with implied violence to children, as long as it suits the story, and I don't mind there being dead children in a campaign as a sign of a truly horrific event. I don't even mind if you kill a child "on screen" as it were, as long as it is not in an excessive and graphic manner.
Rape I can handle, torture I can handle, nudity, sex, debauchery, and rampant fetishism is all tolerable. Just don't mess with the kids.
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I can tolerate anything (and I do mean anything) with the exception of graphic violence committed against children.
I second that. Must be 'cause of my own children that I've become rather sensitive when it comes to gratuitous (and graphic) violence against children.
This said I agree with Set. Most of the time I see the term "mature" used when it comes to things most adults aren't even interested in. Industry tends to use this term as a bait for the younger generation. Maybe I'm selective but I don't even know a single person over 21 which likes gore as presented in Saw (or is interested in in any way). I'm speaking from a german point of view so that may be different in the U.S.
I have no problems with violence as presented in HMM though where it is used to show the reader how degenerate and evil the opponents truly are. I wouldn't run it for my children as is, but generally (and if rarely used) it is a good way to show the players what the true results of fighting and killing are.
When I was planning to do Serpents of Scuttlecove or the Porphyry House Horror, or even for instance making use of the Shadizar boxed set for Conan D20 I couldn't help but think, "What's the big deal? I've seen and read worse."
In every one of Terry Goodkind's novels that I read someone gets raped, someone gets tortured, and some people get horribly murdered. In one of George R.R. Martin's books (just ONE book) there are depictions of torture, implications of awful experimentations of live human subjects, the humiliation and rape of captive women, numerous brutal deaths and so on. So I have to admit that while I found "The Porphyry House Horror" on par with this I didn't find it all that shocking. I believed that the mature rating was because it was a game (let's face it, there are no huge warning labels on the books of the novelists I mentioned--no one is going to stop someone who is only 12 from buying them) and video games, rpgs and movies lately have to have warning labels on them.
Wasn't there a Calvin & Hobbes about this issue? If Paizo starts labellings some products as being for mature audiences, I demand modules with adult situations like paying taxes or investing for retirement.
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Wasn't there a Calvin & Hobbes about this issue? If Paizo starts labellings some products as being for mature audiences, I demand modules with adult situations like paying taxes or investing for retirement.
That pretty much sums up my point of view.
Except I don't want adventures about filing tax returns.
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In every one of Terry Goodkind's novels that I read someone gets raped, someone gets tortured, and some people get horribly murdered. In one of George R.R. Martin's books (just ONE book) there are depictions of torture, implications of awful experimentations of live human subjects, the humiliation and rape of captive women, numerous brutal deaths and so on. So I have to admit that while I found "The Porphyry House Horror" on par with this I didn't find it all that shocking. I believed that the mature rating was because it was a game (let's face it, there are no huge warning labels on the books of the novelists I mentioned--no one is going to stop someone who is only 12 from buying them) and video games, rpgs and movies lately have to have warning labels on them.
That's a good point. I think the difference lies in that, with a book, you have a sustained narrative. It contextualises stuff, so it probably fits in better. (That said novelists of pulpy fantasy are as motivated to tittilate for the benefit of sales as everyone else, and gratuitous violence and sex in a novel doesn't necessarily make it better than in a gaming product.)
The problem with a gaming product is that you have a few lines of description, followed by a few lines (or more, in 3.5) of stats. There is no flow as such, so possibly it slaps you in the face more when a writer goes down the path of graphic nastiness. And that might, of course, mean that while I could fairly happily read about situations like that in a novel (though I'm trying to think of novels like that I have read, and failing) I'm less happy about it in a module.
I dunno, it may just be a factor of my more vanilla taste in literature - I'm throwing that out for discussion.
Generally, I think I can stand quite a bit "mature" content. I remember buying most of White Wolfs mature stuff published under the Black Dog label, and found most of it not too disgusting to me. I haven´t read HMM yet, so I cannot say about that one, but I found the book of Vile Darkness interesting to portray truly hideous villains.
That said, I don´t touch these topics often in my games, and then, only in passing. In D&D, I use graphic violence only to portray someone as evil, and sex does not play a big role in my games. My players put sex scenes off-stage, and that is ok with me. Therefore, I don´t have a need for these mature themes to have a good game. If I had an audience so jaded that I needed something drastic to get them going, I would have little trouble to deliver it. But using these themes for the sake of using them is the opposite of mature, as pointed out above.
Stefan
Except I don't want adventures about filing tax returns.
Aw, cmon! Adventure Hook:
The heroes forget to file “Schedule C: Capital Gains and Losses“ and “Form I-43: Taxable Proceeds from Dungeoneering” following the defeat of the Great Wyrm Smaug. Furthermore, their preparer, Jihad, being a wizard from the Al-Qadim setting, mistakenly attached the forms on the right side of the page! Now they’re on the run from the king’s assayers and must liberate their stronghold from the heartbreak of foreclosure, as only one thing is certain, death or taxes!----
I tend to avoid references to sex wherever possible, as it only encourages the "slavering over every mention of breasts" crowd.
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Except I don't want adventures about filing tax returns.Aw, cmon! Adventure Hook:
The heroes forget to file “Schedule C: Capital Gains and Losses“ and “Form I-43: Taxable Proceeds from Dungeoneering” following the defeat of the Great Wyrm Smaug. Furthermore, their preparer, Jihad, being a wizard from the Al-Qadim setting, mistakenly attached the forms on the right side of the page! Now they’re on the run from the king’s assayers and must liberate their stronghold from the heartbreak of foreclosure, as only one thing is certain, death or taxes!
Don't forget the new Expanded Class, Renegade Accountant, who gets bonuses to attack when using a sack containing the party's payroll.
Wasn't there a Calvin & Hobbes about this issue? If Paizo starts labellings some products as being for mature audiences, I demand modules with adult situations like paying taxes or investing for retirement.
Hah, reminded me of some sessions in one campaign, where one of the characters, a nice wholesome girl and all that, accidentally killed a person. She misinterpreted the actions of more-or-less innocent bystander and shot him...afterwards, the character was played to be more and more messed up and traumatized about the event...that's what I call mature gaming (the same campaign had plenty of other instances of best intentions going wrong and things having bad repercussions).
Normally the players pretty much define the level of maturity, DM just adjusts to correct level. There was one WoD Vampire campaign where the storyguide informed that under no conditions will he ever run a Sabbat campaign for us, since our Camarilla vampires were already gleefully sadistic and inventive in violence. Well, not my character who was very peaceful and supported killing only when necessary...thus making plans of removing some key nuisances from the scene during an important operation by spiking their food and drink with powerful laxatives. They will be in discomfort but they won't die.
I'm not big fan of graphic violence and rarely describe it. Usually it is enough to hint at conditions and let the players form images in their heads (which they then occasionally start describing...)
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The biggest difference between a novel and a gaming product is the DM filter that sits between a gaming product and the players. I'm really not disturbed by anything I've read in any Dungeon or Pathfinder product. I'm the only one directly exposed to the material in my group, and I've read way worse and more graphic stuff in some very good novels. Pillars of the Earth, The End of War, etc.
I very rarely use descriptions rote from a book, so everything in the game is getting my spin anyway. I control 100% of the material I expose my players to. I dial it way back when I DM for my young kids - I understand Krome's point, but they were not ready for the Kobold King spoiler below...
For my adult-only games, the group sets the tone of what's too much. The point behind HMM or the Glassworks in Burnt Offerings is to lay down a little bit of shock. If you can use the material in the adventure to create a little bit of that, then the device worked. As an example, in my RotR game a goblin at the glassworks used a severed head coated in glass as an improvised thrown weapon against the PCs. Of course, as a weapon in the hands of a goblin it sucked and I missed. But one of the players had a *gasp* I hope that's not Ameiko's head moment. That response justifies the gore to me.
I'm absolutely certain I can get that kind of reaction from some of the HMM stuff. I'm sure I'll dial alot of it back, but I don't mind it being there.
When I run a game all facets of the human experience is available to explore. Everything from sexuality to murder to rape to torture. I find it interesting that people find it more suitable to allow their kids to behead and disembowel to their heart's content, but cannot touch sex or romance. I think that is misplaced values. I know parents who say "well it is more likely my kid will have sex than go blow away a bunch of people." And I am sure the parents of the Virginia Tech, and every other college high school massacre said the same thing.
I agree. My sister (whom I game with) Will let my niece and nephew watch Halloween (the new zombie version) but she freaked out when the nude scean came up. What? Graphic violence is fine in this country, but show a breast at the Superbowl and the counrty lost it's mind.
I can tolerate anything (and I do mean anything) with the exception of graphic violence committed against children. I'm okay with implied violence to children, as long as it suits the story, and I don't mind there being dead children in a campaign as a sign of a truly horrific event. I don't even mind if you kill a child "on screen" as it were, as long as it is not in an excessive and graphic manner.
Rape I can handle, torture I can handle, nudity, sex, debauchery, and rampant fetishism is all tolerable. Just don't mess with the kids.
My wife works for a Rape Crisis agency, and I worked there for a while processing restraining orders. It has a lot to do with where I draw the line. She has one character where rape is part of her back story, but it was done in a story, and not in gameplay. I also have primarily female players, so it is a matter of respect and my own personal preference that I stay away from the subject.
Ah, this thread again.
::Promptly slits wrists and climbs into a hot bath::
;-)
Ah, this thread again.
::Promptly slits wrists and climbs into a hot bath::
;-)
Last time I did that a pair of lady chimps with 12" strap-ons charged into my bathroom and made love to my gushing wrist slits. All you DMs with your mature games are playing Candyland compared to my real life.
Last time I did that a pair of lady chimps with 12" strap-ons charged into my bathroom and made love to my gushing wrist slits. All you DMs with your mature games are playing Candyland compared to my real life.Ah, this thread again.
::Promptly slits wrists and climbs into a hot bath::
;-)
::Feverishly jots down the above for his next adventure::
especially when it turns out he hid references to Pett and Vaughn (sp - apologies Greg) in one of his nastier scenes. I found it all rather distasteful
Just to set the record straight for those newer members of the boards here, the above is a practice we began in Ye Old Dungeon Mag days and is one Rich and I enjoy. We love to take snipes at each other in our adventures, it's all in jest, and I think it goes without saying, but I'll say it just in case: I have tremendous amounts of respect for Rich and Greg, who I truly believe are the industry's top adventure writers at present. Their work is stunning, never failing to innovate, inspire and provide readers and players with great times.
Now, I'm going to assassinate this thread with a chainsaw dildo, if you all don't mind.
::Revvs up dildo-saw, puts on pig mask::
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Now that being said, we have no children in our games, but if I had kids I would have them watch movies like the Omen 2006 (Great movie), Saw, Superman, Driving Miss Daisy, The Blue Lagoon. Nudity, sex, violence, death, birth, love, good, evil all of these and more is what we need to be teaching our children.
RPGs under a parent's guidance can do a great job of teaching humanity to children, and thereby producing adults who are not all freaked out that life is not all safe and perfect.
I hope you would make some consideration with the relative ages of the children. There is enough research out there that children that are exposed to certain graphic things at too early of an age have serious emotional developmental problems. Children are not just small uninformed adults, they process information differently.
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::Feverishly jots down the above for his next adventure::Last time I did that a pair of lady chimps with 12" strap-ons charged into my bathroom and made love to my gushing wrist slits. All you DMs with your mature games are playing Candyland compared to my real life.Ah, this thread again.
::Promptly slits wrists and climbs into a hot bath::
;-)
Jot THIS down; it is how you say, "the mammarys?"
FIENDISH....DIRE....MACAQUES!!!!freebie from Lord Dementor
::Feverishly jots down the above for his next adventure::Last time I did that a pair of lady chimps with 12" strap-ons charged into my bathroom and made love to my gushing wrist slits. All you DMs with your mature games are playing Candyland compared to my real life.Ah, this thread again.
::Promptly slits wrists and climbs into a hot bath::
;-)
Jot THIS down; it is how you say, "the mammarys?"
FIENDISH....DIRE....MACAQUES!!!!freebie from Lord Dementor
But...do they rape children? If they don't rape-f!~* I can't use them.
What an incredibly effective demonstration of crossing the line.
The line is wherever your group decides it is. I have no interest personally in gore fests like Saw or Hostel (never seen 'em and don't plan to) or sex fests or whatnot but some butchery, brutality and/or sex if it serves the story is acceptable. Also alluding to such but not actually showing it is useful in keeping the story working. I don't have kids myself but I'd leave violence and such against kids well outside the game myself. As far as Mature goes it is as others have said a state of mind not something tied to age. Both the BOVD and BOED have had some intersting material and some that's meh. Also consider that each group might have certain specific sensitivities that other groups don't. For example one group I played with was almost exclusively Jewish but had no problems bringing allusions to the holocaust or the Israel/Palestine conflict into the game and these actually caused ME to be uncomfortable with the flippant tone taken with these very real and horrifying events (I tend to be fairly serious in game versus the somewhat more flippant nature of those in that group who were still great guys nonetheless) but others would feel that bringing even a mere allusion to the holocaust or other real world horrors into the game would be incredibly insensitive, disrespectful and vulgar (which was how I felt)
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OK, so. Here's my stand on the whole thing.
I don't have a problem with excessive sex/violence, as I've been pretty much completely desensitized to the whole thing. Really, I don't give a flying f!+@ about inbred ogrekin screwing whatever, or torturing children with devil knows what. I mean, come on. Just turn on the f$@!ing news. But I digress.
If someone has a problem with the content of an adventure, it's their prerogative to change it beforehand to fit their own preferences, and the preferences of their players. Sure, it's work, but, if we're talking about the same gamer crowd here, it's a labor of love.
I suppose I'm being overly obtuse about all of this, but the only qualms I have about the whole *problem* is the use of the word "mature" to describe graphic content (I think Aubrey the Malformed brought up this point earlier).
If maturity is what this is all about, then deal with it in a mature manner. Though, I suppose, I'm the last person that should be proselytizing about the meaning of the word *mature*.
Peace, love, and nukes,
Mr. Shiny
P.S: If you honestly have a problem with me, we can take it out in the parking lot.
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I was vaguely amused by the furore over Mammy Graul's wardrobe malfunction, though. Sex bothers me much less than violence.
Sex is supposed to be fun, especially if you do it right.
Violence, not so much.
Speaking as an American, we're freaking psycho. OMG! Janet's nipple! Scared for life! I need millions of dollars because of the trauma of seeing a black booby. And then those same people sit down to watch Jack Bauer torture six people in a 24 hour period, as well as shoot his boss because *he annoyed him.* I wish I lived in Europe sometimes, where they have less violence and more sex.
Creative Director
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Interesting thread! On two levels!
1) I'm obviously interested in finding out what level of mature content is right for Pathfinder, and this thread (and the others like it) certainly help.
2) I'm also interested in seeing how far Nick goes with his public displays of madness. NICK: This is NOT a challenge! I'm just a bystander.
Anyway, violence and sex and drugs and profanity are all a part of our culture, and as a result they're also part of our entertainment. It's interesting as well how different TYPES of entertainment are held to different standards. Obviously sex and violence in videogames is a huge hot-button right now, and some stores don't stock games that are rated Mature. It's easier to get away with violence and sex in movies, with hundreds of critically-acclaimed and successful movies FILLED with content we'd never be able to get away with in Pathfinder (Platoon, The Godfather, The Terminator, There's Something About Mary, Saw, Passion of the Christ, etc.). And in books novels it's even EASIER. A lot of Stephen King's novels, if they were filmed scene for exact scene, would be beyond R-rated, yet you can buy Stephen King books at Safeway without showing your ID.
Of course... novels aren't a visual medium, but nonetheless, I wonder if it's not that as much as it is the fact that we've had novels available for a LOT longer than movies, video games, or RPGs that's made them "safer" ways to deliver mature content. Same goes for movies; they're older than video games or RPGs, and therefore "safer" to deliver mature content. Check out the list of top 100 movies at IMDB. Just in the top ten, you've got movies filled with profanity, rape, drugs, nudity, violence, torture, genocide, and worse, yet all of those top ten movies are more or less universally hailed as masterpieces.
Put another way... why is it a bare breast in "Clash of the Titans" (a PG movie) is less onerous than a bare breast in an RPG? Why is it that a depiction of a child being killed is fine for a movie like "Jaws" (also a PG movie), but it's a taboo subject in an RPG?
And what about classic books like "Lord of the Flies?" That thing's FILLED with kids getting messed up, but they teach it in High School english classes!
I honestly don't know why a bare breast is okay in Clash, or why it's okay to show kids getting gobbled by sharks. Maybe it's because of some kind of popularity thing? Eveybody loves Greek mythology, and Jaws was the original summer blockbuster of all time- so it must be okay?
I'm sure part of it is the changing world itself. I'm POSITIVE that if Jaws were released today, it'd get a PG-13 rating. Maybe even an R. And if Clash of the Titans were made today... the nipple would not make an appearance.
Time's also a factor. Both of those movies have been out for decades, while Pathfinder's been out only for months. The movies have stood the test of time and remain part of pop culture today (Jaws more than Clash, of course). It remains to be seen if Pathfinder'll be remembered in 30 years. (crosses fingers)
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Creative Director
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That was weird... the messageboards turned me into Watcher or something and overwrote his post! His original post:
I'll give you another example.
In the RPG Superstar thread, a poster (who I shall leave nameless) stated he'd be proud and honored to stand shoulder to shoulder with a fine adventure writer like Nick Logue.Nick "I'll say any dirty word you want for a nickel" Logue :D
At some point in a post I used the Lord's name in vain (for which I am still sorry, because I didn't mean to offend). The same poster was very upset. Took me to task for it publicly on the board, reminded me that there are lot of family oriented folks who read these boards, and would I show some basic respect and decency for others?
I'm serious.
And I do respect how he feels. I don't bring this up to disrepect this person or lampoon them, and I'm willing to honor their request.
But they're a great admirer of Nick, who we all know doesn't hold back from controversial posting.
(And for the record I have never been offended by Nick, he's a good guy, and when he gets crazy I take it in the spirit of fun I know it's intended. I hope he forgives me for using him as an example..)
But you see what I mean?
I honestly don't know why a bare breast is okay in Clash, or why it's okay to show kids getting gobbled by sharks. Maybe it's because of some kind of popularity thing? Eveybody loves Greek mythology, and Jaws was the original summer blockbuster of all time- so it must be okay?
Nick, can you take the Lord's name in vain and still be the President of the Cool Kid's Club? ;) I sure can't.
Hmmm... wonder if I accidently hit "EDIT" when I was trying to reply to his post? CURSE THIS COSMIC MESSAGEBOARD POWER!