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Me and my group play it to the hilt. Blood, entrails, severed limbs and very graphic and medically correct description of various pieces of anatomy.
Sometimes, we get new players who don't like that style of description, and we tone it down a notch, but they either get used to it or leave.
I don't see what is the problem with that and neither do my players, but we understand if people are squeamish. We once played a PG game because a girl that wanted to play with us said that she gets sick even on the mention of blood. So combat was described narnia style. It was a trifle boring to us, but she had so much fun that we were happy.
So, what are your preferences and what is the maximum of graphic violence that you can stand?
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Blood spatters, decapitations, severed limbs, and oblique references to viscera. Usually just a quick 'yeah he is a mess' comment and we move on. Body parts don't tend to get mentioned unless it becomes a specific target. (e.g. The beholder having its torturer hack the PCs arm off for a snack.)
One DM described my wife's polearm as erupting out the other side with the enemy's spleen on the end. We found that unnecessary as well as nonsensical.
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Blood spatters, decapitations, severed limbs, and oblique references to viscera. Usually just a quick 'yeah he is a mess' comment and we move on. Body parts don't tend to get mentioned unless it becomes a specific target. (e.g. The beholder having its torturer hack the PCs arm off for a snack.)
One DM described my wife's polearm as erupting out the other side with the enemy's spleen on the end. We found that unnecessary as well as nonsensical.
Pretty much this. Too much and it just turns into gore porn or parody, like the Monty Python "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days" skit. Or calm blood-splattered "you have something on your face" conversations in Dragon Age. wat
Too much desensitizes and dulls the moments when its supposed to hit hard.
I save gory descriptions for hard-earned or unexpected crits, obscenely high damage rolls, or the deaths of particularly difficult enemies.
Even then I don't get too medical. "Your axe slices into his neck as he's casting his spell, causing his magic to fizzle as the words are replaced with a bloody gurgle" is about my usual level of gory description.
As for what I can stand... Heh... What kind of rakshasa would I be if my stomach turned at the sight of a few misplaced organs?
Wow. A bit squeamish, are we?
Yeah, bad things happen in my games. Mostly entrails falling out or brains being dashed. When it's me, I try to let it be as medical as possible, probably because I was raised by a pair of nurses.
When I'm behind the screen, I let my players describe what happens to whom, particularly when it's a kill shot. (Thank you Jason!!!!) It lets the players decide their level of gore.
Personally, I'm so not a believer in "gore porn" it's not funny, but that's probably because of my upbringing and the fact that I could quite literally end up dying a messy death because someone didn't pay attention when merging lanes one day(cyclist).
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After we took a look at the Rolemaster critical hit tables, we were inspired to describe much more interesting injuries in our games. Some of those tables were just hilarious: "Your arrow enters one ear and emerges from the other. The poor lummox is dead, and any ear wax is removed."
A high level in my games. Especially for crits. For years used a crit chart of doom.
Gore porn gets thrown around, but I really get into it when a player is doing well and carving through the monsters and enemies.
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We had one episode of a superhero game, a campaign we were clear on from the start was a comic book. We ended up fighting an enemy with ungodly levels of regeneration... and it got beyond messy. She got smashed by a large stone table, basically into paste, and repeatedly splattered across the entire room and everything in it.
We had so much fun... and to get things back on track, the GM told us that the comic book issue had had a change of artist in the middle. They just had to use the already drawn pages due to budget restraints.
Eventually, we managed to scoop her up and drop her in a massive safe, which was dumped deep into the ocean. It became a legendary episode for us.
To the depths of the ocean, good choice.
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Usually very, very light. Decapitations, maimings, etc. occur (especially since I always use the Crit/Fumble Decks) but there's never anything more to the description than "[Body part] was cut off".
The one time I went into high graphic description was in Olangru's Temple in Savage Tide, and I not only managed to nauseate two of my players but myself in the process. I have no stomach for gore.
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My opinion on gore is similar to my views on nudity and profanity (and computer generated special effects). In moderation all of these can be powerful tools to enhance the enjoyment of the people involved. But excessive amounts of any of these tends to be an indication that those involved lack creative.
I generally give a description of what happens, then leave my players to imagine the aftereffects to the extent they want. One example: A critical hit from an arrow on a goblin warchanter became "Your arrow flies straight through his big open mouth and into his brain, cutting off his song immediately."
Remember the ginger beer trick from Night Watch. A little suggestion goes a lot farther than a florid description.
My opinion on gore is similar to my views on nudity and profanity (and computer generated special effects). In moderation all of these can be powerful tools to enhance the enjoyment of the people involved. But excessive amounts of any of these tends to be an indication that those involved lack creative.
Well said, sir. Well said indeed.
Blood spatters, decapitations, severed limbs, and oblique references to viscera. Usually just a quick 'yeah he is a mess' comment and we move on. Body parts don't tend to get mentioned unless it becomes a specific target. (e.g. The beholder having its torturer hack the PCs arm off for a snack.)
One DM described my wife's polearm as erupting out the other side with the enemy's spleen on the end. We found that unnecessary as well as nonsensical.
Pretty much this. Too much and it just turns into gore porn or parody, like the Monty Python "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days" skit. Or calm blood-splattered "you have something on your face" conversations in Dragon Age. wat
Too much desensitizes and dulls the moments when its supposed to hit hard.
My opinion on gore is similar to my views on nudity and profanity (and computer generated special effects). In moderation all of these can be powerful tools to enhance the enjoyment of the people involved. But excessive amounts of any of these tends to be an indication that those involved lack creative.
I'm with these concepts. Generally we go with fairly vague references. Sometimes when there's a need to be evocative or descriptive (describing the effect from a crit hit card or something) -- but those descriptions will be all the more effective if they are rare. Besides, I believe in the old school premise of the imagination is stronger than what is seen--set up a good atmosphere, and whatever the audience (players in this case) imagines will be far more frightening than a direct and graphic image.
(And oh god, why did you have to even bring up that Monty Python sketch from the Meaning of Life, TOZ; it's lunchtime and now I'm not hungry.)
Usually not much and usually only for a crit.
Blood spatters, decapitations, severed limbs, and oblique references to viscera. Usually just a quick 'yeah he is a mess' comment and we move on. Body parts don't tend to get mentioned unless it becomes a specific target. (e.g. The beholder having its torturer hack the PCs arm off for a snack.)
One DM described my wife's polearm as erupting out the other side with the enemy's spleen on the end. We found that unnecessary as well as nonsensical.
Pretty much this. Too much and it just turns into gore porn or parody, like the Monty Python "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days" skit. Or calm blood-splattered "you have something on your face" conversations in Dragon Age. wat
Too much desensitizes and dulls the moments when its supposed to hit hard.
My opinion on gore is similar to my views on nudity and profanity (and computer generated special effects). In moderation all of these can be powerful tools to enhance the enjoyment of the people involved. But excessive amounts of any of these tends to be an indication that those involved lack creative.I'm with these concepts. Generally we go with fairly vague references. Sometimes when there's a need to be evocative or descriptive (describing the effect from a crit hit card or something) -- but those descriptions will be all the more effective if they are rare. Besides, I believe in the old school premise of the imagination is stronger than what is seen--set up a good atmosphere, and whatever the audience (players in this case) imagines will be far more frightening than a direct and graphic image.
(And oh god, why did you have to even bring up that Monty Python sketch from the Meaning of Life, TOZ; it's lunchtime and now I'm not hungry.)
Can't I even tempt you with a bit of minty chocolate? It's only wafer-thin.
Have you read what the Vikings used to get up to? I'm at most slightly naughty by comparison.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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I have a long-standing table rule called Gibs: if you take an enemy from positive hp to negative Con (dead) in a single hit, or if you kill an enemy with a crit, you may describe in as gruesome a manner as you can stomach the grisly details of your foe's demise.
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Swedes have a very long tradition of going touristing in tourist villages abroad...
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I have a long-standing table rule called Gibs: if you take an enemy from positive hp to negative Con (dead) in a single hit, or if you kill an enemy with a crit, you may describe in as gruesome a manner as you can stomach the grisly details of your foe's demise.
I don't think that's one of Gibs rules...
I have a long-standing table rule called Gibs: if you take an enemy from positive hp to negative Con (dead) in a single hit, or if you kill an enemy with a crit, you may describe in as gruesome a manner as you can stomach the grisly details of your foe's demise.
I don't think that works well in play by post.
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Our group kind of glosses over the idea of describing out graphic levels of gore/violence. Our GM went above and beyond in describing (in the darkness of a not-quite-nightmare experienced by the PCs as they were trying to rescue a certain Kuthite priestess) the *idea* of sounds of things she would have experienced.
Most of us just sat there, spellbound, with our insides twisting and horror and despair on our faces. He didn't have to gross us out with specifics; our imaginations handed us the worst possible sounds and images in relation to the simple descriptions.
Again, he did all this without graphic description. Just things like, "you know that it's not happening now and not real, but you can hear terrible sounds that remind you of flesh being ripped from the living". The man is a diabolical GENIUS for working it that way...! I'm still slightly creeped out, even though this happened MONTHS ago.
Lovecraft, he read Lovecraft.
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Wow. A bit squeamish, are we?Angel Cop.
Black Magic M-66.
Akira.Need I go on?
Please do, you are naming some of my favorite classics and making me all warm inside.
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You're a horrible horrible longboat.