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I've never seen a thread get this derailed before.
Some people just want to spend an entire thread talking about their pet issue. When others try move away from their pet issue they begin insulting them and asserting falsehoods... gets untidy after that.
I still don't see any argument why you just gotta have rape. Why would you want it in your game in the first place?That depends on precisely what you mean by that. What most of us mean is that it is and should be present in the world as one of many background themes the party could potentially run into based on their actions, and can occasionally come to the forefront from time to time as the story makes it's merry way through the campaign, usually just long enough for a few sentences to describe the general scene and move on to dealing with the consequences of it. I haven't seen anyone outside of yourself suggesting that it should be commonly played out in actual play, nor have I seen it used in that manner in most games. It's there, but usually the point of interest in it is figuring out how to deal with it or how to avoid it, not the actual act itself. The act itself is still necessary as a cause and a threat, but it really isn't the main interest when the subject is brought up. The avoidance and the aftermath both provide much better story content, most of which is also far less disturbing, and therefore much less problematic. Even the op's example didn't sound like the actual process would be played out, but rather described more or less as it was in this thread and that the PCs got to deal with the results from the process.
Working out the mechanics of combat rape, grapple checks, intimidate, fort checks, str checks, not something I would want to do.
Some people just want to spend an entire thread talking about their pet issue. When others try move away from their pet issue they begin insulting them and asserting falsehoods... gets untidy after that.
Some people just want to talk about rape.
Some people just want to talk about rape.
Its shocking how they keep bringing it up over and over, as though it were essential to a thread.
Are you going to throw in some brood mother monsters?
Do we have time?
Can I interest you in a set of steak knives instead?
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If you do offend the sensibilities of your players, take pride in the fact you just created an emotional reaction in your "readers".
The goal of any story teller in any medium is the creation of emotion in the viewer/reader/player.
If you can make them offended, disturbed, even sick to their stomach, you have done something AMAZING.
I've only hit that mark once, personally. I've only created deep disturbance in my readers (it was a short story, not a game) one time, and it took the slow, methodical construction of tension leading up to a rape.
Best part, the rape never happened. Didn't need to happen, I had created the disturbance in the events leading up to the rape and didn't even need to "seal the deal".
So never worry about creating a negative emotion in your players, as long as they can focus it into the game and not turn it into a real world argument.
Are you going to throw in some brood mother monsters?
I personally don't have a place to really put them at the moment, but they are definitely an idea for potential future bad guys. I've found that trying to stack too many things onto the same group of bad guys just ends up turning all of them into mud and reduces the overall impact.
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Is unfortunate that one person with their own personal pet peeve causes the discussion to move away from the original topic. Then proceeds to ignore 95% of what everyone is suggesting and remember the remaining 5% with goggles of selective memory.
Is unfortunate that one person with their own personal pet peeve causes the discussion to move away from the original topic. Then proceeds to ignore 95% of what everyone is suggesting and remember the remaining 5% with goggles of selective memory.
Welcome to the internet!
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To chime in on the "why do you have to have rape?"
You don't have to have anything, but rape is a very unique type of assault. It is turning a usually pleasurable act into a moment of horror and terror.
We don't have many (any?) parallels to it. It's kind of the worst thing we can do to each other as human beings. I'd even consider it worse than murder in some ways.
You are simultaneously doing physical and mental damage. You are permanently twisting a person's view of a biological act that we have a natural desire to engage in.
The brain wants sex, but a rape victim has confused feelings towards sex.
It's like shattering a person's body and mind at the same time.
Sexual violence taps into a part of the human psyche that nothing else taps. This means that when used properly in a story telling atmosphere, it can create extreme emotions.
Even the most gore-soaked of us, those of us who watched horror movies from the moment we could work a VCR, are STILL bothered by rape.
It's THAT inherently "bad" that it becomes nearly impossible to desensitize yourself to it. Blood and guts do nothing to me these days, but rape is as potent today as it was the first time I saw it on film or read it in a story.
There are so few things in the human psyche as strong as rape as an emotional tool, and as a writer it is very hard to ignore a giant, useful tool that has an almost guaranteed universal emotional response.
I even pointed out in my first post that I have used POSSIBLE rape to great emotional effect. I didn't even need the rape itself. There are not many things that potent for a writer to use.
Many of us may know a murderer, or someone who has killed, either in self defense, by accident, or even maybe out of malice. Go enough social circles out from yourself and you'll hit a killer. Many of us who directly know killers, who may even be friends with people who have killed other humans, we can make excuses for them. We can even imagine points where we could kill another, in self defense. Murderers get forgiven.
A rapist never gets forgiven.
Think about that.
Being a murderer is more socially acceptable than being a rapist.
offending people isn't difficult or amazing, and if anything is a lazy narrative device.
Compare the use of rape in say Song of Ice and Fire and say any of Terry Goodkind's work. The former author actually uses it to increase tension and indicate how much of a crapsack world Westeros is for women. The latter just uses it to create ridiculous over the top scenes that causes eyes to roll and serve as color-coding of badguys.
I am sure there are DM's that can deal with the concept of rape in their game in a mature manner. But there are probably many many more who can't incorporate it within a game without serious eye-rolling.
I agree with most of what Man in Black says, which originally started out as protesting the following:
1) That a dark fantasy isn't dark unless it includes rape
2) That if someone is offended by rape in their game, they should just get out
3) Sexual assault in the game is no different from demonic sacrifice or any other evil activity
4) If someone has previously been a victim or knows a victim of sexual assault, and can't deal with the issue they are immature.
I disagree with all of the above. Rape is a very very sensitive subject, moreso than other forms of game violence, and should be handled in a mature manner. It needs to be viewed in that light. And honestly, if you immediately and constantly have to go to rape as a way to threaten your characters or vilify the villians, I think that only says something about your own maturity or originality
I find that the more offensive the bad guy is, the more the players want to take them down.
I disagree with all of the above. Rape is a very very sensitive subject, moreso than other forms of game violence, and should be handled in a mature manner. It needs to be viewed in that light. And honestly, if you immediately and constantly have to go to rape as a way to threaten your characters or vilify the villians, I think that only says something about your own maturity or originality
Like always, once you get people taking positions at the extreme ends of the spectrum, the discussion becomes pretty much fruitless and will just go around in circles.
Maybe I can make my position understood:
Sexual violence, rape, and a plethora of evil things are an inherent part of our world, as well as of the medieval areas RPGs love to borrow from, and are present in many if not most of the myths fantasy RPGs use.
Stating these things do not exist in my fantasy world, especially if playing a gritty and dark setting, would be pretty much breaking the very verisimilitude that is called upon on these boards all too often. So, sorry; my fantasy worlds contain these aspects, and possibly more.
However, even if I think these dark sides of humankind to be part of the world. I would never claim I must call them to the attention of the players, much less wallow in them like it's going out of style.
The amount of spotlight (if any) these things get, and the detail (if any) the situations are going to go into are entirely dependent on what the GM is willing to run, and what the group is comfortable with.
Which, like I said various times, is something that should be clarified before.
