SERIOUSLY? We Actually Need to Say This?

[satyrblade]

Dear fellow Game Masters, especially* those of the male persuasion:

RAPE IS NOT YOUR PLOT DEVICE.

No matter how edgy, cool or hardcore you may think you are, there are places in a game you really should not go - most especially without the prior consent of your players. Sexual assault is one of them.

While there may be exceptions made with the

Comments

[zydee]

Well said.

I'd add torture to the list of "nevers." Some years ago I was involved in a game that involved mental/deprivation torture (think Picard and the "how many lights" general sort of scenario). I've never been tortured so it didn't blip my radar as possibly damaging, and I could recognize that the scenario would involve quite a bit of character development, so I consented to it. It was fairly delicately and non-gruesomely glossed, and overall I can't say that anybody took glee in any of it. All that, plus I'm hardly a spun-glass blossom that can be destroyed with a stray glance.

Still. Bad idea.

Some five years later, I still get hung up on that RP. I've told that GM that I will never do that again. I probably dwelled on the situation for weeks, and still remember how freaked out I, as a player, felt. I might not ever have been tortured personally, but I've been helpless and hopeless. I refuse to use the word "trigger," but it brought up a lot of old baggage. I'm a lot more protective of myself--and for that matter my own gamers, when I GM--since then, so I guess some good came out of it. There will never be rape or torture in any of my games, period.

[tzaddi_93]

All that, plus I'm hardly a spun-glass blossom that can be destroyed with a stray glance.

Neither are the people who are triggered by things that remind them of life-altering trauma that they have suffered.

[zydee]

There is definitely a wide spectrum of people who have suffered trauma. I wasn't saying that all people who are affected by rape/torture RP are over-delicate; I know that's not the case, since I'm not and I was still affected in an unpleasant way. I probably could've worded it better than I did. Hope that helps?

[tzaddi_93]

Yes, much. Thank you. The suggestion that people who are triggered by something are overly delicate or too sensitive is frequently used to silence them when they object to the triggering material, which is why I felt the need to point it out. I'm glad that's not how you meant it.

[guldan]

This makes me think of an interesting couple of sessions I guest GMed back in college. (And yes, I ran these ideas by the primary GM and they did make plot sense in the world/adventure.)

I introduced a young female NPC who had been held as a political prisoner for much of her life and based her traits and personality off of similar real-world political prisoners (which the players didn't know). Though no details of what she went through were ever discussed or revealed, I was shocked by just how strongly it affected and disturbed the players.

While I would never even consider subjecting any characters to rape (or torture beyond the hand-wavey "They are interrogating you") I didn't expect the offset existence of these things to have such power. I learned a lot from that experience.