The Gaming Den

Ogrebattle: Terrible ideas. Really. I'll explain why in a moment.



The right way to do it depends on your players. Seriously. Different tables will require different approaches. Different players will be comfortable with different things.

Ironically, this is one of those situations where borrowing from sexual BDSM roleplay makes your game less uncomfortable.

You see, those wacky doms, subs, sadists, and masochists have put a great deal of effort into finding safe and fun ways to roleplay things that should be horribly traumatic.

1)Your entire group needs to sit down and have a very frank discussion about your comfort zones, limits, and boundaries and what everyone wants to get out of the game. This is a good idea even if you don't intend to do anything squicky, as it ensures that everyone is on the same page.

2)Safewords. They're extremely useful. They don't need to be actual safewords unless you're LARPing or something, but every player needs the ability to stop the game at any time, and safewords are a tried and true mechanism. The important thing is that the players have control and can just say no at any time. The ability to just throw your dice away and stop playing is, of course, assumed in any tabletop game. But it helps if its codified in some way, and easy to implement without hard feelings.

Cyberzombie wrote: Finding raped NPCs is fine though, I think it's a great way to set up a villain as being evil. D&D players tend to be desensitized to mass murder, so having something more personal like rape is a good way to freshen up the evil in your game.

Um, no. Really. As a gameplay element, it's not terrible but can be uncomfortable. As a narrative device it's absolutely horrible. And treating rape as shorthand for ultimate evil really is insensitive as all fuck.

If you're going to include rape as a narrative device, then you really should do some research and treat it with the gravity and nuance it deserves. Including it just to prove that Rapey McEvilrapist is a bad guy isn't that.

As for playing it for laughs, fuck no. That trivializes.

False allegations of rape, while not terrible narrative devices, perpetuate an unfortunate stereotype and potentially make things uncomfortable. It's probably better to use something less hot button to allege unless you're doing an Aesop about the presumption of innocence.

Edit:

the article wrote: Dungeons & Dragons: Why do orcs rape women and create so many half-orcs that they’re a separate and distinct race in the D&D universe? Because they’re EVIL. DUH.

This is rather unfortunate because it's wholly unnecessary.

I do remember an article written by Ed Greenwood what basically said that most half-orcs in the forgotten realms are the product of consensual relations. Because, really, when you have a bunch of humans and a bunch of orcs living near each other on an untamed frontier, then it's sort of inevitable that some of them will shack up.

And while Greenwood's article did hit some unfortunate button from the other side by mentioning mother-daughter polygamy (because if you're shacking up with a widow who has adult daughters, they might want some living, too, apparantly) the general gist of it was good. You can totally have half-orcs without rape. And most human-orc liaisons will be romantic, not violent.

@Penny Arcade:
I don't have a problem with either the original comic or their response.
Given how satire works, the original comic was clearly a commentary on the monstrous nature of people who demonstrate the lack of conscience that allows them to completely ignore the suffering of others (particularly when said suffering is especially depraved).
Their response, while it seemed to be a non sequitur, was actually saying "we clearly didn't advocate rape, so your moral outrage is misplaced". And they were right (more on that in a minute).

@PC rape (and game-table rape in general)
I've had PCs get tortured, but never raped. No PC at any table I've ever been at has ever raped; because that's absolutely not the kind of gaming that I want to be a part of.
But I have used rape as one-of-many ways to villainize an NPCs (but usually only if the villain in question is engaging in every sort of disgusting depravity), and I've used "rape as setting" (waaaay in the background). But it's never on-screen, and it never presents on its own (i.e., "the ogres burned the village, raped the women and children, and killed everyone" - or - "... and other deplorable actions" type of thing).

@more general topic (especially at the moral outrage):
Look, I've had lots of traumatizing events in my life; but that doesn't mean that any of those things should be pushed into the realm of "untouchable". If it were the case that everything that has a history of traumatizing people, then our entertainment outlets would be limited to Barney and Teletubbies (and even those are suspect). I don't think that I need to line-item list all the truly depraved things that tend to traumatize people -- yet every single one of those things - save one- seem to be open and fair game. How about a little consistency? (yes, I know that each individual has their own boundaries; but I'm speaking in a more general sense).
Whether or not something is implemented in a "tasteful" manner is purely subjective (though there are some commonly accepted norms; but I think that's a different issue).

And as we know from the Law of Conservation of Detail, you don't include something like that unless it has a purpose.
Which, I guess, might prompt another question: what are some other literary devices could implementing such an element possibly satisfy?

But anyway .....
So, if the artist is not advocating rape, then there is not necessarily a rational reason to express moral outrage at the artist (that is, unless you are the type that demands general sterilization of all media)

Just to reiterate:

wotmaniac wrote:More to the point -- can it be implemented in such a way that doesn't fall in to the "Big 4" cliches?

I say "no".

hyzmarca wrote:

Cyberzombie wrote: Finding raped NPCs is fine though, I think it's a great way to set up a villain as being evil. D&D players tend to be desensitized to mass murder, so having something more personal like rape is a good way to freshen up the evil in your game.

Um, no. Really. As a gameplay element, it's not terrible but can be uncomfortable. As a narrative device it's absolutely horrible. And treating rape as shorthand for ultimate evil really is insensitive as all fuck.

Which means that you're left with "Dr. McEvil is super disgustingly evil because .... reasons". Because everything else that you could possibly use to describe Dr. McEvil as being the face of ultimate evil is equally disgusting, equally depraved, and equally traumatizing.
"Listing depraved behaviors" is either on the table or off the table -- disgusting, depraved, and traumatizing is disgusting, depraved, and traumatizing. Objectively speaking, rape is no more wrongbad than torture, eating babies, or even wholesale slaughter.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here (and probably turn myself in to a pariah in the process -- even though I am in no way trying to diminish the depravity and seriousness of rape) :
The only reason that rape has become such a hot-button taboo in recent years is because the silencing hammer of Militant Feminism. Every time you have a group that feels offended/marginalized/whatever, there pops up activists that demand that nobody can even discuss the issue unless such a discussion indulges the attitudes of said activists.


Look -- the reason I don't curl up in the fetal position in pant-shitting fear every time I see the depiction of someone having a gun shoved in to their mouth is because I know that the world is not going to change for me; and as such, it is incumbent upon me to deal with my shit and get on with my life. The only difference now is that whenever I do see such a depiction, I can say from first-hand experience that that is indeed a scary instance of disempowerment and personal violation.
Having said that, I fully understand that individuals handle things in their own time and in their own way. But that is by no means a rational position from which to ban things from general consumption.

---

Also, PL has an extraordinary ability that lets him always take 20 on his strawman checks, and can perform a strawman as an immediate action.

wotmaniac wrote:Also, PL has an extraordinary ability that lets him always take 20 on his strawman checks, and can perform a strawman as an immediate action.

Right up until that post you had not acknowledged consent as the boundary for making in game rape acceptable and had not acknowledged any differentiation between PC and NPC rape.

You have now acknowledged the boundary between NPC and PC rape only once called out on it. You STILL have not actually acknowledged consent as a boundary for acceptability.

Instead you had spent all your time arguing that being a "tried and true literary device" was justification for rape in RPGs. That is it, that is your only justification and the only qualifier you provided, and by that reasoning my post was most certainly NOT a strawman, it is the direct end point of that reasoning.

Now that you have at least acknowledged PC rape as somehow unsavory you have undermined your stupid position that "literary device" is the only justification you need. You NOW clearly understand that it is not always a sufficient excuse for this bullshit.

NOW you just need to realize that NPC rapes CAN also be somehow unsavory and that say, gratuitously going on about Ogres raping the women and children in town before murdering them, is a tactless, tacky and creepy thing creepy GMs do that WILL creep out many players if you aren't first sure they have signed up for that and that perhaps you should also consider checking consent before you spend five minutes of game explaining to the players that "Yes you know that because as you explore the town you find physical evidence amongst the many raped woman and child corpses! Let me elaborate on the details so that claim makes sense! Yay!".

THEN you might have caught up with decent normal humanity. But as long as you are instead running around wringing your hands over how someone somewhere is DARING to suggest you aren't free to use rape as a literary device without being a creepy asshole you are on the wrong side of the argument.

edit:

wotmaniac wrote:The only reason that rape has become such a hot-button taboo in recent years is because the silencing hammer of Militant Feminism.

... oh look, you're "That Guy"...

OK, Rape has "become an issue" because it has ALWAYS been an issue, and because our society has acknowledged women as equals and has acknowledged that men can be rape victims without being dehumanized shamed weaklings.

So now the people who fucking care about rape, who ALWAYS cared about rape, are now permitted to speak out about how much, well, guys like you creep them out with all the obsessive demands to use rape as literary devices.

And while that may in part be thanks to the feminist movement, it is not the bullshit crazy sexist paranoia fantasy you depict and is rather more simply because we now acknowledge women as real humans who's feelings about rape actually fucking matter.

How much of a creepy "that guy" asshole do you really want to be here?

PhoneLobster wrote:

I find it telling that you are the only one on this thread that has construed my posts in this manner.

Sorry buddy -- you'll have to find someone else to pick a fight with.

Acknowledge "consent" as the boundary, the obvious boundary you should have acknowledged from square one, for acceptable use of rape in RPGs then.

Oh and take back your paranoid sexist fantasies about militant feminists who don't really care about rape pissing in your cornflakes just because they can.

wotmaniac wrote:

hyzmarca wrote:

Cyberzombie wrote: Finding raped NPCs is fine though, I think it's a great way to set up a villain as being evil. D&D players tend to be desensitized to mass murder, so having something more personal like rape is a good way to freshen up the evil in your game.

Um, no. Really. As a gameplay element, it's not terrible but can be uncomfortable. As a narrative device it's absolutely horrible. And treating rape as shorthand for ultimate evil really is insensitive as all fuck.

Which means that you're left with "Dr. McEvil is super disgustingly evil because .... reasons". Because everything else that you could possibly use to describe Dr. McEvil as being the face of ultimate evil is equally disgusting, equally depraved, and equally traumatizing.
"Listing depraved behaviors" is either on the table or off the table -- disgusting, depraved, and traumatizing is disgusting, depraved, and traumatizing. Objectively speaking, rape is no more wrongbad than torture, eating babies, or even wholesale slaughter.

Or you can, you know, not be lazy and write three dimensional villains that actually make sense. Evilperson McEvilson and Killfuck Soulshitter are, in fact, bad things. They're lazy writing. They're barely okay on early 90s children's television but I'm pretty sure that even kids shows have moved beyond that by now.

There are many reasons why using rape as shorthand for evil is bad, but the biggest is the "it can't happen here vibe." Because, you know, most rapes aren't committed by evil people. Fuck, most rapists don't even know that they are rapists. And really, that's sort of a problem. If you want to use rape, you shouldn't gloss over the causes of rape. Nor should you gloss over the fact that stranger rape is rare compared to acquaintance rape, date rape, and spousal rape. And you shouldn't gloss over the fact that some people are just idiots who can't see where the lines are drawn.

(Funny enough, the easiest way to reduce rape rates in coed environments is to educate men on how to recognize those lines.)

There are also many reasons why using rape as shorthand for evil is incredibly fucking offensive, but the biggest reason that it's is that rape really isn't worse than murder. Being raped isn't worse than being dead. And you shouldn't fucking treat it as such. Because, fuck, rape survivors have enough to deal with without that particular stereotype.


Really, just put some effort into your villains. You don't have to be a lazy fuck about it. Skip the shorthand and make some really interesting three dimensional badguys. Your game will be better for it.

aaaand PL is on ignore.
somebody let me know if he accidentally says anything thats relevant and is not a strawman.

---

@hyzmarca:
Okay, I think I see what you're getting at here -- it's the lazy shorthand that bugs you? I can agree with that.
I thought you were saying that it never has any place in any description.

But that gets me back to one of my firsts questions:
What does "right" look like? I need an example to clarify it for me.

For instance:
- You have a piece of prepared text that says something like: "An army of [your viking-like culture] is rampaging the countryside, raping and pillaging as they go".
-- That is clearly establishing mood and/or characteristics of the culture. Which is invoking "rape as setting" and/or "shorthand for evil". But I don't see a problem with the above text. What am I missing?

- In the new 300 movie, both the "rape makes for strong woman" and "vagina trauma" tropes are a pretty big deal for Artemisia. Is this bad? According to the "Big 4", it is. But I don't see a problem with it.

- The whole "demonic sacrifice" motif hinges on metaphoric and literal rape. Does that entire genre/motif need to be expunged? Do I at least need to erase the succubus from my MM? Or is that just "lazy shorthand"? Or is there something else that I'm missing?

And I could go on and on.
These questions are not rhetorical; and they are very specific, and I'm merely trying to establish a coherent baseline.

If you REALLY want to be edgy, why not put the whole "murder is a given in RPG" thing under a microscope?

Why, in a world where you can Force Cage fugitives, and use Charm Person to rehabilitate career recidivists, is it taken as an axiom that killing is a necessary part of survival? Shouldn't the guy who rolls a character who can only solve problems by stabbing them with a sword be considered "that guy"?

I keep hearing "why is okay to kill but not okay to rape" when "why is it okay to kill" is a bolder question.

@Sakuya
That's actually part of the point:

wotmaniac wrote:"Listing depraved behaviors" is either on the table or off the table -- disgusting, depraved, and traumatizing is disgusting, depraved, and traumatizing.

If it's genre appropriate, then it's genre appropriate. If it's not, it's not.

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:If you REALLY want to be edgy, why not put the whole "murder is a given in RPG" thing under a microscope?

Wait -- I just picked up on what you're getting at here.
This has nothing to do with trying to be "edgy". I read a couple of articles, was confounded about a couple of points, and am trying to figure out WTF.

I just never realized just how big of an issue this is for some people.

wotmaniac wrote: Look, I've had lots of traumatizing events in my life; but that doesn't mean that any of those things should be pushed into the realm of "untouchable". If it were the case that everything that has a history of traumatizing people, then our entertainment outlets would be limited to Barney and Teletubbies (and even those are suspect). I don't think that I need to line-item list all the truly depraved things that tend to traumatize people -- yet every single one of those things - save one- seem to be open and fair game. How about a little consistency? (yes, I know that each individual has their own boundaries; but I'm speaking in a more general sense).
Whether or not something is implemented in a "tasteful" manner is purely subjective (though there are some commonly accepted norms; but I think that's a different issue).

You've obviously never seen a rape survivor trigger off of some careless commentary first hand. Much like if a veteran had PTSD triggers I'd try to avoid them in an RPG. Problem is, I'm more likely to know of a veteran may or may not have PTSD triggers than I am if someone has rape triggers.

And as we know from the Law of Conservation of Detail, you don't include something like that unless it has a purpose.
Which, I guess, might prompt another question: what are some other literary devices could implementing such an element possibly satisfy?

Better yet, what does rape bring to the story period? While we may use it as a literary device to denote depravity and eeeeeevil, the reality is that a *lot* of women (and men in the right population groups) are rape victims and our culture trivializes it or supresses it or discounts accusations of rape or persecutes the victim. Most rapists aren't Snidley Whiplash evil, so I even question using rape as a shorthand for "villain".

But anyway .....
So, if the artist is not advocating rape, then there is not necessarily a rational reason to express moral outrage at the artist (that is, unless you are the type that demands general sterilization of all media)

Again, you've never triggered someone's PTSD inadvertently. And throwing in rape as a shorthand for "villain" isn't exactly what I'd call art.

Which means that you're left with "Dr. McEvil is super disgustingly evil because .... reasons". Because everything else that you could possibly use to describe Dr. McEvil as being the face of ultimate evil is equally disgusting, equally depraved, and equally traumatizing.
"Listing depraved behaviors" is either on the table or off the table -- disgusting, depraved, and traumatizing is disgusting, depraved, and traumatizing. Objectively speaking, rape is no more wrongbad than torture, eating babies, or even wholesale slaughter.

Except that you go into a fantasy or other RPG with some expectation of violence intrinsic to the game. It's more or less intertwined. And the odds of stumbling across someone who is the survivor of an infant cannibalism attack is fairly slim. If there's a woman in your party, the odds of her having been the victim of some sort of sexual attack is like... 1 in 3. And asking someone "So how do you feel about your rape experience, is it okay if I rape characters in this game for thematic reasons?" is kind of... yeah.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here (and probably turn myself in to a pariah in the process -- even though I am in no way trying to diminish the depravity and seriousness of rape) :
The only reason that rape has become such a hot-button taboo in recent years is because the silencing hammer of Militant Feminism.

Really? Really? It has nothing to do with stuff like the endemic culture of rape in the military (so bad that Congressmen are actually stating "women need to consider rape as part of a job in the military"), shit like the Penn State/Sandusky scandal and massive coverup that the college engaged in for *decades*, or any of the litany of stories that a quick google could pull up of college sports athletes tweeting pictures of their rape conquests and having the college more or less cover it up? It has nothing to do with the politicians saying that women who get pregnant from a rape secretly wanted it because in a "legitimate rape womens' bodies have ways of shutting that down"? It has nothing to do with the suicide stories that pop up a couple times a month where a girl is raped and her peers slut shame her until she cracks and kills herself? I could go on for fucking days but it's all because of militant feminists? Really?

It's a hot button because shit like that happens *constantly* and people like you dismiss it as the rantings of "militant feminism".

wotmaniac wrote:In the new 300 movie, both the "rape makes for strong woman" and "vagina trauma" tropes are a pretty big deal for Artemisia. Is this bad? According to the "Big 4", it is. But I don't see a problem with it.

Hm, interesting point! Have you considered that the reason for this is because you're an idiot or asshole?

@TheFlatline:
You make some fair points. I'm perfectly willing to admit ignorance on a large part of this issue, given that my experience with the issue is quite limited.
That's why I'm asking questions.
I'm not anti-anti-rape (much less pro-rape) -- but I do sometimes need some convincing when I'm presented with ideas that vary from my own observations.
That's all.
I'm also admit that my calloused world view is probably figuring in to this (i.e., the world is a cold place that doesn't give a single fuck about anybody; a body's got 2 choices: accept it and adjust accordingly, or get pulled under and suffocate

TheFlatline wrote: It's a hot button because shit like that happens *constantly* and people like you dismiss it as the rantings of "militant feminism".

Watch yourself with that -- you're starting to veer in to PL territory with that one.
Now, while I probably used poor word choice, I would think that the very next sentence should have cleared some of that up.
Yes, somebody had to start beating that drum at some point; because, you know, as it turns out, women are as much autonomous human beings as men. And that's a good thing. However, the point I was attempting to make was that the drum has been (and continues to be) beaten so hard that we now have a weird kind of thing going on that we're compelled to apotheosize victimhood; which gives us a climate wherein people of good conscience are not even allowed to have a full-throated discussion anymore -- STFU and toe the line or your a soulless dirtbag.

And that does not, in any way, diminish the victims or their plight.
Whack-jobs like Todd Akin don't even figure in to this.
But at the same time, "because PTSD is a thing" is not an excuse to whitewash every fucking thing at every fucking turn.

But let us not forget the original question (that everybody seems to be dancing around): Does there exist a manner of including the subject matter of rape that does not involve invoking the "Big 4"?
Just to reiterate, the "Big 4" are:
- defining eeeeevil
- "hardcore-strong woman"
- "vagina trauma"
- "rape as setting"
If someone can answer that question "yes" - with examples that are actually not one of the 4 - then I'll shut-up and move on.
If that can't happen, then I can be equally satisfied with "no", as long as someone can actually show me what it looks like to "not be lazy" about it. Seriously -- what does "not lazy" and "not shorthand" actually look like? I'm asking because (after this) I honestly don't know anymore.
Seriously, that's all I'm looking for -- it's purely and exercise in intellectual curiosity.

---

A Man In Black wrote:

wotmaniac wrote:In the new 300 movie, both the "rape makes for strong woman" and "vagina trauma" tropes are a pretty big deal for Artemisia. Is this bad? According to the "Big 4", it is. But I don't see a problem with it.

Hm, interesting point! Have you considered that the reason for this is because you're an idiot or asshole?

Allow me to clarify:
Given the fact that it was indeed in the movie, I don't have a problem with the way that it was implemented. That is to say -- while I don't feel like it was entirely vital to the story (or even her story), I don't think that the manner of implementation was necessarily in bad taste - I personally thought that it simply added a tooth or two to her sense of betrayal and revenge (as well as making a point to not whitewash certain realities of the setting). Was it lazy? I don't think necessarily so; but who am I to say? If so, what does "not lazy" or "not shorthand" look like?

Does that, in and of itself, still make me an idiot or an asshole?
If so, then I seriously need some educating, and somebody's got some 'splainin' to do.

---

and if all else fails, maybe someone can help me with my verbiage? -- fuck, I don't know.

wotmaniac wrote:Seriously, that's all I'm looking for -- it's purely and exercise in intellectual curiosity.

No I think it is clear what you are looking for is validation of a personal belief that "tried and true literary device" is all the justification you need to include rape in your games regardless of creepiness or consent.

You want people to tell you "lol no, the various criticisms of stupid creepy needless rape stories are crap, you go ahead and repeat those old cliched mistakes all you want don't you worry your pretty little head about it.".

You don't want to accept anything else. You certainly have refused to even interact with the idea that everything in an interactive game where the other participants are right fucking there is about fucking consent.

I mean seriously. Consent of audiences might be a hard line to draw for non interactive fiction but fuck it. It's an RPG, your audience is right there you CAN ask them for consent. And if you can't even ask consent without making it creepy or wrong then you sure as hell aren't able to skip that and "just do it" without being a creep either.

Also if it were pure intellectual curiosity and not a creepy creepy agenda what's up with all the Mr crazy eyes "militant feminists ate my rape story babies" bullshit?

wotmaniac wrote:Allow me to clarify:
Given the fact that it was indeed in the movie, I don't have a problem with the way that it was implemented. That is to say -- while I don't feel like it was entirely vital to the story (or even her story), I don't think that the manner of implementation was necessarily in bad taste - I personally thought that it simply added a tooth or two to her sense of betrayal and revenge (as well as making a point to not whitewash certain realities of the setting). Was it lazy? I don't think necessarily so; but who am I to say? If so, what does "not lazy" or "not shorthand" look like?

Does that, in and of itself, still make me an idiot or an asshole?

Yes.

300 2 is pure nonsense. It bears about as much resemblance to history (or classic literature) as Conan the fucking Barbarian. This isn't necessarily a problem, if you're looking for a vaguely history-ish stylized action movie, like its predecessor. Here's are two problems.

That is to say -- while I don't feel like it was entirely vital to the story (or even her story)

This is the definition of gratuitous. It isn't necessary to have her be raped. It doesn't really contribute anything. But boy howdy, it's gotta be there for some reason, and here you are defending this pointless inclusion while also pointing out how pointless it is.

Plus...

making a point to not whitewash certain realities of the setting.

Making her a sex slave is not a "certain reality of the setting". The setting is pure fantasy. The author is responsible for whatever happens, because Miller (or whoever, I don't know what his original was like) is making shit up from whole cloth. The only reason this detail exists is because they wanted it there for some reason. I don't know why he or they wanted her to have a sex slave backstory, because it's lazy and dumb and they really should know better.

It's doubly ridiculous because Artimisia was a real person, and doesn't need any bullshit grimdark story to spice up Herodotus's (almost certainly exaggerated, if not entirely fictional) version of her exploits. In the part of the Histories that 300 2 is very loosely based upon, she has a much more interesting story than this nonsense. She is the queen of Halicarnassus and one of Xerxes's admirals, not a Greek who was sold into Persian prostitution, and has basically the opposite role as she does in this movie. She is the lone voice to tell Xerxes that this battle is folly, and when he ignores her advice, she is the first to try to make her escape and salvage her fleet, and tricks Xerxes into thinking she's the hero of the battle in doing so. After the battle, she parlays this mistaken heroism into convincing Xerxes that he can abandon the hopeless campaign against the Greeks while saving face.

I just want to make this clear. This is a fictional story about an actual queen and admiral and you think she's a better character because they dropped all of that shit and made her a rape victim. You are arguing that this change is fine because it's more realistic.

So I'm gonna go ahead and say you don't know shit about shit, and that your claim that this is somehow a "certain reality of the setting" is because you figure rape is somehow normal in this setting despite not knowing a goddamned bit about it. That could go with idiot, if you just have really stupid ideas about history, or asshole, if you assume that history naturally conforms to your asshole prejudices.

In short:

PhoneLobster wrote:You want people to tell you "lol no, the various criticisms of stupid creepy needless rape stories are crap, you go ahead and repeat those old cliched mistakes all you want don't you worry your pretty little head about it.".

Your example of 300: Idiot Subtitle is not only a story with gratuitous rape, but a story which is actively harmed by the addition of rape where it did not previously exist.

Basically, this is you.

wotmaniac wrote: The only reason that rape has become such a hot-button taboo in recent years is because the silencing hammer of Militant Feminism. Every time you have a group that feels offended/marginalized/whatever, there pops up activists that demand that nobody can even discuss the issue unless such a discussion indulges the attitudes of said activists.

The only thing your second sentence clarifies is that you're an asshole. This is either the stupidest or most offensive thing I've seen anyone write on here, ever. And people here say mean things on the Internet.

Rape survivors feel offended/marginalized? Do you read the news or know absolutely anything about rape ? Female rape survivors being blamed and shamed for having the audacity to get raped (protip: getting drunk doesn't mean that person is inviting rape) is not just a thing that happens, it is a common thing. Male rape is literally played for laughs in media and people laugh at it! People write articles telling women to not do things because they might get raped for doing it.

There's a difference between feeling offended/marginalized and being surrounded by a culture that thinks the crime committed against you isn't a big deal or is literally a joke. You're an asshole, and that you tried to defend your asshole behavior with "I'm just cynical" only goes to further prove that you are an asshole who also thinks he's a tough guy.

Stop being an asshole and do a little research into topics you want to discuss. You either address rape as a real and serious thing or you don't address it at all (and you absolutely don't say "people just don't talk about it because of feminism, rape survivors only FEEL marginalized"). EDIT: I mean when talking about it. You shouldn't include rape in your games at all unless you've talked it over with everyone or know them well enough that rape won't freak them out.

Really though, don't say stupid shit like that. That isn't a word choice issue, that is a "your beliefs are terrible and you are part of the problem" issue.

Wotmaniac wrote:The only reason that rape has become such a hot-button taboo in recent years is because the silencing hammer of Militant Feminism. Every time you have a group that feels offended/marginalized/whatever, there pops up activists that demand that nobody can even discuss the issue unless such a discussion indulges the attitudes of said activists.

Wotmaniac, what the fuck is wrong with you? This is the worst thing that anyone has written on this forum is recent memory, and we just got done dealing with Zak.

Another two wooden nickels from me: rape that's implied more strongly than the incident in Order of the Phoenix with Umbridge and the centaurs should probably be saved for games that already have a sexual focus.

wotmaniac wrote: The only reason that rape has become such a hot-button taboo in recent years is because the silencing hammer of Militant Feminism. Every time you have a group that feels offended/marginalized/whatever, there pops up activists that demand that nobody can even discuss the issue unless such a discussion indulges the attitudes of said activists.

Totally agree with you.

I'm totally okay with people not wanting to have people raped on screen in graphic detail, but it's fine to have such things happen off-camera.

However, pretending that rape is somehow a worse crime than murder, slavery, genocide or a demon eating someone's soul is laughable. Evil people do evil stuff, and yeah, rape is undenaibly something evil. So long as you're portraying it as something evil, I don't see a problem with it. The taboo that it's somehow worse than other forms of evil is nothing but feminist crap spread around. If it's okay to have some evil villain performing the equivalent of the Holocaust on the elven race, then it should be fine to portray a few rape victims. Unless someone is going to be so arrogant as to say that rape is somehow worse than genocide. And if they are, they really need to wake up.

I don't see any need to sugar coat the whole issue of rape. I hate the retcon of half-orcs not being the product of rape. You've got these evil humanoids of a barbaric raiding culture living next to humans that are apparently capable of reproducing offspring. And somehow all half-orcs are all the products of loving consensual relationships? Yeah... right. What a load of BS.

That sure is a good-ass takedown of a point nobody at all was making!

I don't know about you, but I've had zero problems with radfems trying to censor my campaigns.

The reason you should keep rape (most especially of or by PCs) out of games isn't because the feminazis will raid your game, it's because it seriously squicks most female gamers and a decent percentage of male gamers. You won't have a rational discussion of it in a game because of how most women will react to it. Just don't go there unless you actually do the whole bounds setting discussion first, and I'm not sure even that will really work.

I'm probably going to regret wading into this, but I'm bored.

Yes, it is weird that people react more strongly to rape than, say, skewering civilians Vlad-style, because those are both pretty awful things. Yes, a certain social movement is ultimately responsible for this even though their zealots will not break up their game, because the all-pervasive nature of this movement means that it has already infected the people at your table with its ideas, which is the reason why they are irrationally uncomfortable with rape as opposed to torture, slavery, genocide, and other horrifying things real people really do to each other.

That social movement is not actually feminism, though. Obviously not, because the idea of rape as the ultimate villainy was at its height before feminism was even a thing. It's the entrenched puritanism of the western world in general and America in particular that's caused this weird double-standard, because a crime that involves sex must is automatically double-bad as compared to crimes which merely involve violence. Feminism is not the source of the infection, it's just another victim of it.

And even if the belief is ultimately irrational, that does not for one second change the fact that odds are excellent that your players are going to be squicked out by it, and even if they agree that squicking at rape but not mass murder is kind of odd, the squick is still there and they are still no longer having fun while playing your game, so mission failed. Everything else is just trying to place blame, and while that's not automatically a bad thing to do (we can't heal the wound until the bleeding stops, after all), the source of the problem is entirely different from a discussion of how to treat the topic in a world where 100% of your players grew up surrounded by the idea that rape is the ultimate evil.

Who's saying rape is worse than murder? Who are Cyberzombie and Chamomile talking to?