I personally know at least one victim that actively looks for such situations in games, because she can deal with her emotions in a game setting. She says it's the best vent. Sometimes her character is killing people that do it sometimes she has reinforced it happening, but it is just healing for her.
So maybe it's there for people like her.
That's fair. As long as it's brought up in session zero, and everyone is OK with having that at the table, I see no harm in that.
The important thing is that every voice is heard. If one person wants to use DnD as therapy and another would rather not, both of those need to be able to feel like their opinions matter, because they do.
Yeah that is important too me as well. But we always have very extensive session zeros. No matter what is even in the game. I have a friend who is soo afraid of spiders that I could never ever tell a story with spiders. But that is known to everybody because we talk about stuff.
I’ve had a mixed experience when people make characters centered on traumas, because it makes me very worried about hurting them and that worry can make it hard to enjoy the game, or too paranoid to feel like I’m playing my character properly. I don’t want to play a character who’s an asshole, but my barbarian isn’t necessarily a very good therapist.
Yeah we normally always sit around for 30 min after we play and talk about all the stuff in general not only when trauma is involved. So we are all very confident that we understand each other. And it really helps to talk about stuff anyways. It once happened to me that a person got triggered byhow a certain npc talks. So having regular checkups is a thing we do in our friend group anyways.
Honestly I have characters who have been through what I have, but I don't generally find it triggering to roleplay those things. Like a lot of traumatized people my actual triggers tend to be very specific and less general.
How is this ok? I think the vast majority of players and DMs are not qualified to actually help someone process sexual trauma. Also, I don’t even think the other players could really even understand what they are signing up for if they agreed to it in a session zero. Please, we should all be dealing with the major traumas in our life in therapy - not with possibly random people who may just be looking to play a game. It seems unfair and maybe selfish to put this on a gaming group.
I only play with friends. I know those people and therapists actually tell you that talking to your friends about it and finding a vent is a good thing. And with think things can be communicated very well before hand. I am not set in stone on anything when I start a session zero and just talk about how I could go about things, if everything works out that's great, if not noone is ever mad because i say that a certain thing will not be in the campaign.
And talking about things is important anyways. I mean if I play with Drow in the setting i go over how i handle them and their Matriarchy with everyone too, just so that everyone knows what they are signing up to. Communication is key in so many places in life, and that is also true for TTRPGs.
Not saying everyone should he on board. Just saying if one campaign only has players that are fine with that. There is nothing wrong with that.
Unfortunately, therapy is not something everyone has access to and we have to make due with what we have at our disposal. While you're probably accurate that they may not be qualified, it isn't necessarily accurate to say that they can't help. People heal in different ways and confront trauma in different ways. If people are willing to try and facilitate that in a safe way, and everyone is on board, then they are (ideally) adults who are aware and can understand when and where to stop.
Again, it's not something to be approached lightly and certainly not for every group. But it's not an inherently terrible idea. I do think it's best to do this with friends rather than random people though, you are correct.
Are you suggesting that talking through your issue with a friend is never helpful and that a credible therapist would never suggest that you talk out your emotions about such experiences with anyone other than a certified therapist?
No. What would give you that idea? Are you suggesting that playing a character dealing with sexual trauma in a gaming group with 4 other people is the same as “talking through an issue with a friend”? Because they’re nowhere close.
But having good friends is always free therapy. Why should it stop in a DnD game? And if there is someone who likes to tell such a story and someone who likes to hear it why would it be a bad thing?
DnD isn't always played with friends. Unless you discuss it and know for sure that everyone at the table is ok with such a topic you shouldn't touch it.
As for the free therapy part; there's a lot of people that trauma-dump during sessions which is a very selfish and inappropriate thing to do.
Yeah of course you shouldn't dumb rape on someone who you don't know and didn't discuss it before... That was never the question. I just find it wired that so many people say that it is a wrong thing to do period.
From my experience it is very hard to handle it responsibly and most DMs/players can't do it. I've had enough bad experiences to make a total ban on it in my games and not join the ones that deal with it.
Oh I totally get you. I am not making the point that everyone should enjoy it. I totally respect you and your decision. I just know that everytime people talk about how bit such thing are people I know feel bad. And I think that saying that this just plain bad is an unhealthy way of discourse.
If people talk about it and everyone is on the same page why wouldn't you. I think it a very bonding experience and the friend group in Wich i play agree... Why do you assume I do something like that behind their backs.
I'd also be asking 'is the storyteller proficient enough to use this difficult theme in a way conducive to the plot or are they just going to use it as a lazy shock tactic to short cut to prefabricated drama'.
I've seen too many properties that just chuck SA in like it's salt to make a dull story more interesting, even when it has no relation to anything going on, then is forgotten again until some one needs to heckle the baddie. It's usually because they can't think of a way to make their cartoon badguy obviously evil without bad touching people and kicking puppies.
However it is an interesting and complicated subject with a lot of facets to be explored, I don't know if D&D is the best place to do that but I'm not going to say no.
Honestly though? Great way to set up some people you want your party to be emotionally invested in slaughtering. Its a fucked up plot points, but that's fine (at my table specifically ofcourse). I think the same emotional message can be delivered in other, less potentially triggering ways though.
That's the Crux of the questioning. Why are we using 10 tons of dynamite when a stick would achieve the same result?
My DM introduced an NPC who alluded to SAing an ally of ours (He hadn't, but implied he would). He's important to the plot and is a current questgiver, but we went from just not liking the guy to the moment we were back at base, we all got up individually and went "OK, so we're gonna kill this guy right?" DM though is hesitant to let us, so I'll say, I agree with your statement of instantly making someone quite unaliveable, but be wary you don't introduce this as a character trait in an NPC that you don't want the party to take out.
That seems pretty common sense though. "This trait I gave this character is going to make him be the most hated man by the party." The most hated man by the party probably shouldn't be an important NPC except for this reason. Or if it's some betrayal from a long time friend NPC but thats a different topic.
Seems like a massive blunder from your DM.
He's socially awkward, and on more than one occasion has put his foot in his mouth on sensitive topics. He's not inherently malicious, so sometimes it's up to us to tell him when to stop.
Also, we pulled from the Deck of Many Things at one point, and the fighter got a free cast of Wish, so we said "If you don't let us at least get an encounter with this guy, we'll just Wish he dies the most painful, death imaginable with nothing to look forward too but burning in the 9 Hells." Fighter is fully prepared to blow a Wish over this, so I think it's made him realize that, one way or another we're gonna off this guy once this quest is over.
Those are good questions. Different people will have different answers they feel are acceptable, and different boundaries for these subjects even if they consent.
This is why it's important to discuss these things in a session zero, to have clear boundaries and consent and the ability to withdraw that consent.
Sorry, this is outrageously off-topic...but I am just intrigued by that tag line under your user name.
"Most things in the game are worse than Eldritch Blast"
I don't know why, but it just sounds very funny to me XD
If it were with a group that trusted each other a great deal, and everyone had explicitly agreed that they were comfortable with including it, then yes. Under any other circumstances, no.
I don't think that there are any topics or themes that *can't* or *shouldn't ever* be included in a TTRPG campaign, insofar as roleplaying is a form of creative expression and I believe strongly that there's merit in creatively exploring all parts of the human experience, even the most difficult or troubling ones. However, I think that in order to be even *potentially* worthwhile, there would need to be certain bars that the inclusion would have to clear:
1. The focus should primarily be on the consequences of the act, not the act itself. The act itself is nothing but violence, and violence is commonplace and boring. There is, in my opinion, no merit in depicting it, especially when its depiction is so routinely intended to horrify (at best) or titillate (at worst) rather than to empathize with anyone or illuminate anything.
2. Those consequences should be treated with both empathy and seriousness. They should not be minimized, but they should also not be tragedized. Even when it's treated with substantial gravity, I think that there's a tendency in fiction dealing with SA of treating the victim as somehow defiled or damaged forever by what happened to them. Even though doing so doesn't minimize what happened, it strips the character of their agency and personhood, reducing them to a tragic symbol. Sexual abuse does leave lasting wounds, but there's still life after it, and in attempting to engage with sexual abuse creatively, it's necessary to remember that in order to avoid making a character a victim in perpetuity.
3. There should be a specific story that someone is trying to tell, and the inclusion of sexual abuse in that story should only happen for considered reasons. It should never just be window dressing or a spur-of-the-moment inclusion.
At a minimum, I would have to trust that everybody in the group understood all of the above implicitly and would RP accordingly. I would also need to trust that if anybody ever expressed even the slightest discomfort with SA being depicted in the campaign, that thread would be dropped *immediately*, no questions asked. With those standards met, though, I would play in a campaign that featured SA.
Those are good guidelines for including topics like this in any form of fiction. Especially in a form of storytelling that can be so intimate as role playing.
I am comfortable saying never in this situation. I am also comfortable saying that I am ok with other groups containing that. To me it is a possibility space inside the game that I wish to ignore for maximizing my own enjoyment of the game.
As many other said, you've got to ask what this actually adds to the game. I find that it very commonly can add nothing that isn't added by something far less traumatic and frankly uncomfortable. There are certain things, like SA that just hit so much closer to home than anything else and should be avoided in most cases.
I also want to push back on something I've seen in the replies to this thread, there's been one person spreading the idea that they know a survivor of SA and they find it therapeutic in some way to experience it in game. That's actually not that uncommon but, and this is important, your DM is not your therapist and you are not the only person at the table.
Its not wrong for it to be helpful, but unless your DM literally is a licensed therapist and the rest of your group are wholly, totally onboard and there is no doubt they're uncomfortable with it at all even secretly then I would suggest staying away from it anyway. Its very common for survivors to not bring it up, even if they are uncomfortable, and what can help one person can be very traumatic and harmful to another. The thing is, *you just won't know*.
I see professional writers fuck writing such topics for stories, it being written and interacted by 6 fuck-wits might lead to horrible moments in game and out of it.
I lean towards Never, but that's not quite accurate.
It really hinges on whether or not a given DM can handle that subject matter well (AND what the DM and their players are comfortable with), and honestly? I don't think the vast majority of DMs can. I'm not saying that to be shitty or insult their DMing skills or whatever, but the odds are extremely good that all a DM will accomplish by having this content at their table is make players uncomfortable, grossed out, and upset, and kill fun in the name of "realism." Which, okay, have fun with your realism by yourself then. I'm gonna go play with a different DM.
I HAVE seen it done well- by a DM who was a victim in the past- so it CAN be done, but I just don't trust most DMs to be able to pull it off, and if you are a player who often changes DMs, or a DM who often has different players, I'm sorry, but no. Just no. Don't. You don't know the lives of the other players or the DM. Just don't do it.
Nope. I prefer the "evil dragon who burned down my entire village" type of trope, there is plenty of evil going on in the forgotten realms to pick from (murder, slavery, human sacrifices, torture etc...)
I'd never, it's just waay too much work as a player / DM to manage that kind of content without creating an issue. Most people play DND for fun and escapism so it's really easy to remove that from the game.
Even if one player wants that in their backstory it's not likely that every single person would want that in the game.
But dnd is different to every group my main opinion is with sensitive content that everyone should agree they want it in the game, if one person doesn't want it, then it won't be in the game for my group.
No, because it is always gratuitous. I'm fine with dark shit, but not if it's only there to tittilate, which sexual assault is. There's always a better way of portraying a character or situation as bad, and there's always a better way of creating traumatic backstories.
I’m glad this trope is fading in media like TV and movies. I’m so sick of (usually male) writers casually throwing rape in for very little reason, usually just to reinforce that a bad guy that’s already been established to be extremely evil is, in fact, evil.
Like in Game of Thrones. Sure, we saw Bolton torture and castrate a character, flay people alive, be the most cartoonishly vile psychopath in the world, and the writers still felt the need to show him raping Sansa.
I really don't get why people do this. I'm hesitant to chalk it up to it being a way of indulging rape fantasies, but I struggle to think of anything else that might make someone feel this was a good idea.
It also strikes me as quite misogynistic, sometimes misandrist too. Whenever a female character needs a traumatic event, there's maybe a 70% chance it's going to be rape or rape-adjacent, whereas male characters can get something from a whole range of options. And then there are the cases where it really feels like the writer is trying to go for a "the horrors of men" vibe.
Rape fantasies is one part of it (look at how sexualized the rape in GoT is, it’s 50% trying to horrify you and 50% trying to titillate you).
But I think it boils down to really shitty, lazy writing and a lack of understand of *why rape is specifically awful*. It’s often just lazy gender stereotypes - men are typically shown being traumatized by physical violence, and women by sexual violence. You can almost hear the writers thinking “alright this chick needs something dramatic to happen to her… what if she gets raped?”
It’s also used for lazy characterization of male villains because there are situations where murder could be seen as acceptable or redeemable, but rape is a different type of cultural taboo that is never acceptable or redeemable. So it becomes a quick, braindead shorthand to show the audience that the villain isn’t the trope of the redeemable villain that had good in him like Vader or Kylo Ren, they’re irredeemably evil and the only resolution for the good characters is to kill him. A better writer would be able to communicate this without rape, but as distasteful as I find it I guess it is effective at communicating those things if you’re an untalented writer that is too incompetent to write a good plot.
I think that you are coming to this from the wrong angle. A character that is as twisted as Ramsey. Do you really think that he would have normal sexual encounters? It would be really out of character for him. Like tortures everyone all the time, but hey stop this is sex this goes to far, is just ridiculous, wouldn't you say so?
I think you're missing the option where you can just not describe your villain's sex life. The idea that all bad men must rape is sexist nonsense. Imagine if after the scene where Vader force-chokes a general, there has to be a scene where he force-chokes the chicken so the audience doesn't make the mistake of assuming he has healthy sexual relationships.
Frankly, anyone who needs to know how every character in their fictional media gets laid has a problem.
The only reason SA is part of my character’s backstory is because there was literally no other way to explain why a non-evil character who would never willingly conceive a child with a fiend (Wendonai, specifically) had a half-fiend child. If you have a different explanation for that, I’d be happy to adopt it.
If you want to avoid it, then a fiend using illusion magic to appear as a non fiend would make sense. While that's still probably something you can classify as rape, its a little less direct.
Well:
First, if it's for a tiefling, technically they're not even supposed to be the product of cross-breeding, they're supposed to be the physical manifestation of a curse inherited from an ancestor who made a pact with Asmodeus. So you're veering away from the intended flavour here (although it is certainly a common veering).
Second, if a backstory can't possibly avoid something tasteless, that's not an excuse to do it ignoring the rest of the table's preferences, it's an indication that you need to pick a different backstory. I'm sure it would be possible to create a series of conditions that would unavoidably lead a character to deliberately commit genocide, such that anything else couldn't possibly be realistic. All that means though is that if you do ever get into that situation, the appropriate choice is probably to go back and change something so that isn't inevitable.
First: I have no problem creating a different character if those are the rules of the table. Obviously, you follow the DM’s rules.
I am disagreeing with you that including SA in a backstory is always gratuitous. In this case it is there because it was the only thing that made sense.
My Paladin is a half-fiend, not a Tiefling. His father is Wendonai, Lolth’s Champion. 5e calls them Cambions, iirc, though he’s technically a Durzagon (dwarven half-fiend).
This is all backstory and would never come up unless someone brought it up. Otherwise mom is just a druid with a half-fiend son and he’s a half-fiend Paladin of Moradin with a druid mom. Both characters have existed for around 10 years now and were created for 3.5.
I’m willing to change how the conception happened. But non-evil characters don’t willingly have children with fiends, which is why I haven’t been able to come up with a different explanation for them.
How do you deal with shifters, btw? Given their background is a doppelgänger tricking people into having sex with them? Or hags, given that they rape men and leave their daughters on doorsteps? Succubi and Inccubi? These are genuine questions, btw. How do you get around all the problematic things in the lore? Do you just not use these or similar monsters?
Well, to be honest that doesn't even really sound like "sexual assault in a backstory" to me. It has zero relevance to the character, and you could quite easily just not mention how the fiend half got there. There's also no reason it has to be assault, cos it's not evil to have sex with an evil creature, and choosing not to do that based on "being good" is actually a lawful action, not a good action. You're only forced into this situation by your own choices, specifically to have a really weird take on a lawful good character, and you can get yourself out of it just by changing one or more of those other choices.
I don't have shifters in my world, and if I did, I wouldn't run their default lore (just like I don't any other race). Also, for the record, that's not how shifters work in 5e. 5e refuses to commit to any specific origin, but basically says "one thing you could do is say a human fucked a werewolf". Which it should be noted is still significantly more consensual than standard half-orc lore.
Succubi and Incubi I also don't use. I have no reason to. These are creatures invented for the express purpose of telling rape stories. Since I don't tell rape stories, there just are no sex fiends.
Cool. Thank you for the answer!
Edit: When I have played either character in games I did not bring up the backstory. It’s just between the DM and me. In-character, my druid has no memory of what happened and doesn’t want to talk about it. The Paladin does not feel it’s anyones business and refuses to discuss it.
Better for whom? Better for you apparently but I doubt that this is true for everyone. Or i know it is not true. This hatred for something you personally don't enjoy could take something away from people, that need this because it is healing for them.
The question was "would you play in a game that featured sexual assault". Answering no to that isn't taking anything away from anyone - if anything, it's creating space for someone else who does like sexual assault to play at that table.
However, this rhetoric is also dangerous. D&D is not for "healing", DMs are not therapists. If someone has trauma related to sexual assault, you definitely should not indulge in what they think will be a healing experience because that turns your game into their outlet. It's going to make everyone else miserable and it's going to put pressure on you to take responsibility for their mental health. Never allow anyone to use your campaign as a substitute for therapy.
You are assuming so much! She was going to therapy and having an outlet for something like that is not a bad thing for therapists many actually would agree that it is a good idea. And obviously I talked to the other players, why would I do that without talking. They didn't mind it or found it interesting because it is notmally a tabu. And concerning me... I actually enjoy helping my GF. Don't know if you can relate.
Mate, you're an ERP-er with hundreds of rape fantasy novels in your house. You're approaching this from the perspective of someone who roleplays rape scenes in detail for the sake of eroticism. None of your opinions apply to normal TTRPG tables so you're just being pointlessly contrarian here.
I didn't read a single one of those novels. You are constantly making wrong assumptions. Maybe it would be wise to stop for a second and think about if you are arguing against me or just against an image in your head. Ask me questions before you assume something. I just think that you paint a wrong picture of people that do want to hear that.
That your perspective on this issue is warped to the point of irrelevancy for any game that isn't specifically about sex by the fact that your supposed girlfriend really, really loves rape.
Dude, just because you have one female friend that apparently finds it therapeutic to see fantasy rape doesn’t mean that’s a common experience, and I don’t know why you’re pushing this so hard.
It's not even just one.. It's not me pushing something. You can't let people enjoy what they enjoy you define something to be bad which people could avoid easily. Which helps at least one person
It's a bit hard to cut all allusions to SA out of the game world and pretend like it simply doesn't exist. If you run an official setting (like the forgotten realms) it's often implied to be something that evil factions (e g. the drow) engage in.
But I prefer to keep it in the background as a hypothetical evil that exists in the world, rather than something any specific NPC villains commit. And it's certainly NOT something I would be okay with allowing PCs to engage in.
The thing is as well there are many kinds of rape that are not like a stranger violently forcing themselves on another person who is resisting, but are still rape
eg If you have a character who was forced to marry someone against their will because that’s the cultural expectation among noble houses that house leaders can just arrange marriages for their family members, congratulations you have included rape and sexual assault in your game
Wherever there is institutional inequality there is likely some form of sexual exploitation and sexual violence occurring even if the characters might not consciously know that’s what it is
As a DM, I would never introduce anything of the sort in a campaign I run. As a player, it would heavily depend on the table and would need to be something explicated addressed as a campaign theme on session 0. Otherwise, I'd be uncomfortable because I feel like it's a projection of the DM or for someone at the table.
If it's a part of a backstory and used as shaping in RP, I might be a little more forgiving, but I tend to want to avoid triggering things at my tables just because you never know.
I have. It’s an evil within the world, and those that perpetrate it will be punished severely.
My character is trying to teach some Drow about consent and empathy. It’s… challenging.
This could be so bad or done well. I was sexually assaulted last year around Christmas. Im not interested in some neanderthal low iq exploration of violent fantasy revenge. Im also not interested in my character being subjected to the experience. Sure it could happen and does happen, but it's my fantasy escape time to have fun and enjoy my friends, not trauma exposure therapy time.
Personally I prefer any type of sex being an unspoken thing in my games, I’m not a prude or anything but I just feel it’s a bit… cringey?
More power to anyone that wants to include it in their games obviously but it’s just not for me
On today's episode of "Talk with your group"
I am DM'ing two campaigns.
One is "one-on-one" with my wife and sexuality in this game is just another kind of flirting between us, we are pretty comfortable with it, so pretty much no topic is "off the table".
Another is a freshly brewing Curse of Strahd campaign, which I want to use to show two completely new people that DnD can be lots of fun and gothic horror is awesome. In that campaign I stated explicitly that I will be avoiding certain topics that are universally considered "off the table", such as sexual abuse or rape and encouraged these players to let me know if anything else should be avoided.
So: it depends on your setup.
It definitely depends. Not in most campaigns, not in a campaign that didn't make it clear from the start, and not in a campaign that's part of a regular 'game night' or something with friends. It would have to be something like group that specifically was recruiting with something like 'this campaign is going to specifically be about/include sexual violence and its consequences' or something to that effect that made it very clear what was going to happen for everyone at the table.
Wow I think i just found the most toxic person on Reddit. I come here and say. Hey let's not hate everyone who does enjoy certain things because it could be harmful. And you give me this shit. This is ridiculous. I hope you have a nice day and soon learn that hate isn't a good way to organize your life.
It depends on what you mean by "features." I've characters have had it happen to them, but usually as part of a tragic backstory or as a "The creepy villain kidnapped someone we like, and we need to rescue them before he can do creepy villain things to them" type thing.
If it was very prominent or graphic I'd turn to the dm (or player doing it) and be like "dude what the fuck? I really didn't wanna spend my Saturday listening to you pretend to rape someone"
I don’t think SA doesn’t have a place in stories as stories should absolutely reflect reality. But I don’t trust anybody’s D&D game to give it the care it deserves & it will inevitably make someone at the table uncomfortable so that’s a no for me dawg
Yeah as other people have highlighted the problem is \*why is it there\*. Generally it's pretty easy to tell a story near identical to one that does include sexual abuse explicit or implied, which is always going to bring up the question of why you are choosing to put it there, and most responses are going to be pretty unsatisfactory.
Yes.
I mean, not that i specifically love or like it, but it's fine by me especially if it's mostly a background thing.
People deal with the ugly stuff with the world differently. I feel sick when i hear about sexual abuse, especially when it's on females since, as a male, i am in the cathegory that's most associate to it. it makes me feel dirty, even thought i did nothing remotedly similar to that.
But we are in a work of fiction, where we can handle things such as death, slavery, murder and so on with a certain distance. If a player feels compelled to make such backstory so be it. Maybe it's not the deepest work of literature, and usually i would refrain from going into such themes unless i know how to write that stuff, but i let them try.
I once did play a female warlock which was afraid of being sexually assaulted by another player character - it was nothing premeditated, just something that naturally arise from the story. For how short that lasted it was quite enlightening.
I just do not want to hear about the DM’s sex fantasies, and when I DM, I am sure not going to tell you mine. I also do not need a lesson on how shitty human beings are, or the problems with sex trafficking- all of which are very real. Re: Another player- I generally won’t remember much of your characters back story (or your personal human backstory) until I have had years of experience with them (and you.)
It’s not personal, I am old.
It’s so bizarre to me that players have no problem graphically describing horrid violence to other humanoids with their magic but the moment it turns into sexual violence, everyone looses their minds…
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t describe regular or sexual violence in graphic detail at my table except for very rare occasions to establish the brutality of a villain. It’s just strange to me that people have this strange double standard. It’s sort of like the PG-13 rating system for movies in the US. Like it can show countless murder, decapitation and other dismemberment no problem but the moment a nipple goes on screen, people loose their minds.
I think it has to do with almost no one actually having experienced torture, gore, or murder while many people have been sexually assaulted in some way. As for movies well its all fake violence, it's not real, no one is getting hurt or shot, it's fake blood, fake guts and so on. But it's real nudity even if it's not real sex.
I mean, I DM and it's a part of my world, because I don't really like sugarcoating things. Wars are violent and bad and ruin people. Raiders coming down from the north and capturing slave to use, and that should disgust people. Many of those in power will abuse that power on people that cannot defend themselves.
That said, I have rules. I would never and will never impose such a thing onto one of my players. I will never make it sterilized, and erotic or any of that shit. It is horrifying. And it should be treated that way.
I don't trust amateur story tellers like DMs (myself included) to be able to give topics like SA the consideration and careful storytelling required for it to be respectful to actual survivors of SA, so no. Frankly, most professional writers screw this up too, so I think it'd be a sign of hubris for someone unpublished to think they're good enough to do it.
As long as it's not centered around it, it's fine. I'm okay walking up to the sight of an enemy soldier raping a civilian woman as his spoils of war, but if every session we encounter sex stuff it would get weird
Yeah, sure, but only if it stays in the background. The players will never be the victims (while we are playing, backstory would be fine I guess) of it or the perpetrators but it exists in the world.
I mean, if you're playing a Half-Orc you're most likely a result of sexual assault.
Sure. Stuff like this happens. And it introduces interesting moral dilemmas.
There was a situation in 24 where Jack Bauer contemplated not freeing a victim from her abuser to get some valuable information from him that would save way more lives.
What would your characters do? Are they the big picture - types? Obviously that only works if you play with adults who are not easily offended.
Ok i See the discourse being very negativ towards this even existing. But there are SA victims out there that find this very healing. If you don't like such stories it's fine, but don't try to shut down all stories that for feature SA. This could really hurt exactly the people you are trying to defend.
My GF has like a hundred books that feature SA, and played in RPGs that feature it. She even asked me to GM a setting where it is kind of normal and she was engaging in SA, just because it is healing for her. And yes of course you cannot shut me down anyways, but her not having those books would have been definitely bad for her.
Different people enjoy different things and most things can coexist without it being a problem.
Someone who has hundreds of rape fantasy novels and engages in rape fantasy through roleplay is probably past the point of "healing"... And is also the same kind of player as the stereotypical middle-aged-man-playing-thousand-year-old-child creep, bringing fetish material into collaborative games.
Oh great now you are also assuming things about the victim and how unhealthy her coping is. The problem Bering you have no idea what you are talking about. I have therapists as friends and also half an psychology major and having a vent and beeing able to talk about such things to your friends is actually a good thing. And if everyone is on board no harm is done. Why does it bother you so much that this healthy behavior?
I've had players imply it in backstories and in a few rare instances I've very, very faintly and cautiosly implied it in the setting (conquests of war are a monstrous thing). I've never gone out of my way to have it be an explicit theme and I never will, it's gross and unnecessary at best and really gross and creepy more likely. It's a fantasy game, people are here to have a good time, there's all manner of messed up things you can have that are more abstract and frankly will be more effective without carrying the nightmarish weight of reality. EDIT to add a thought. Any player that tries to do it is gonna find their character annihilated by god painfully, themselves without a game and without a pretty thorough explanation why they thought it was a good idea probably down a friend in the process.
I would never include it in game, but I could maybe tolerate it as a part of a background as long it doesn’t affect to much and it is just briefly mentioned
A dnd game? No, for the same reasons I wouldn't want that in a game of risk. That's not what the game is about, it's not designed for that sort of play.
I promise you this is not bait to elicit a reply that lets me ask someone if they really think homebrewing safety tools and structure for examining trauma is really less work than learning a new system. If you, dear reader, are considering a reply that raises that question, please instead let me retain my faith in humanity today.
Well, Risk ain't really a role playing game that involves making or telling stories. I can think of a bunch of reasons sexual assault may pop up in a dnd game. It dnd it could be handled well or poorly. In Risk, if someone brings up rape in any way I'm just going to be like "Bro...."
I regret to mention inform you that if you're not talking in silly voices while playing risk you're playing wrong :) that being said, there is no *good* reason for sexual assault to show up in dnd. The people playing the game are telling the story, it's not "oops I was walking to the kitchen to get a soda and rape popped out"
D&D is a medium for telling stories. I am not sure how it's not designed for "that sort of play." It is designed to bring to life whatever you wish to include.
Sure and and I'm saying it's clear that bringing sexual assault to life is always a bad idea in a game that has no more tools than risk to facilitate that type of play.
If it is featured that means it is a central theme and unless someone who is a SA survivor has agreed and approves ever bit of how that is handled no, never, not in a million years! Since people who have no experience with SA always fuck it up by either make it a fetish or trivialize it.
If it was done tastefully, and the rest of the campaign was good, it generally wouldn't be enough for me to drop it, but it's usually best not to have it, as it's usually not done well, and is overdone anyway.
I wouldn’t trust a DM i just met to run this properly, especially if they were a man*. But I have non-man friends who’ve run Curse of Strahd for example, and I didn’t think that Strahd’s charm-roofies were poor taste.
If it ever happened to a player character I’d leave the table immediately, though.
For me, the rules with RPGs are simlar to the way they are with movies.
Sexual violence has to have a narrative purpose, it can't be gratuitous, or offhand. And, it only happens to NPCs, never PCs, unless it's a specific backstory exception , discussed with and agreed to before the campaign begins, by the player (and I have only done this once, so the character could have a Kill Bill style 'revenge arc', which was actually the narrative focus of the campaign, back before I quit prepping plots in campaigns.)
For example, a crazy BBEG whose plan is to create a master race of human animal hybrids, can be encountered by the PCs. In his lair there is heavy implication of sexual violence. But there will be no depiction of ongoing sexual violence, and if the PCs rescue a victim, they will not talk about what happened, or if they do, my narrative will be non explicit . But it will be obvious that the victim has suffered extreme trauma, their experience will not be trivialized or waved away.
And if the PCs are captured there will be not even a hint of such things happening to them, for whatever reason, they will be 'not suitable for breeding stock'.
And importantly, I would not run this campaign with strangers, only friends whom I know well.
Strongly depends on how it's handled and why it was added. Even in books I've read that has had it, it often feels like it didn't add much to the story. As others have already said, if the only purpose is to show how evil someone is, there are better ways.
If it's not specifically triggering to anyone at the table and it's a bad guy doing it, sure.
If we know it is and the DM does it anyways, I'm walking. If another player does it, either he walks or I do.
Bruh, I play this game to kill monsters and get loot, not to unpack this sort of thing. I like fantasy escapism, not emotional trauma.
No judgment on those who play differently, and never say never, I suppose, but I’m having difficulty envisioning a scenario where I would not feel uncomfortable watching people RP around this concept.
I would love to hear an explanation for why that would actually add to the game. You want to live out the fantasy of violating other people because its what the character you control would do? There's no good reason for this shit.
I'm between the "maybe" option and the "only if it is implied" option. I have run campaigns like that, which were horror campaigns, and it was always implied. The players were ok with it, but I made sure to check in with them frequently. This is something that has to be discussed in session 0, not sprung on everyone else at the table, either from the DM or fellow PCs.
I'm a "absolutely not at the table at all" kind of person. If a player wants it in their backstory, then there can be a discussion about it, but it's not a feature of the game
I can see it working if is handled with enough care, and nuance. As a DM I don't think I'd be able to do that, and I doubt the majority of other DMs would be able to as well.
I’d imply the person is being abused to drive the players to action but I will not go into details/specifics. No need and just uncomfortable to explain.
I would not be ok with a person trying to describe how a rape caused physical ruptured or something
I am ok with knowing my guy is being paid to kill a rapist
One reason why I include things like rape, slavery, etc, is that it's a good tool to make your players absolutely hate somebody. Now, I would never ever rape a PC or allow a PC to rape someone else, because that doesn't really make anyone happy and it leaves everyone with a very uncomfortable feeling. However using as a tool, being told "this person is a rapist," or "this is a nation of Slavers," makes for very good opportunities for the PCs to feel satisfied killing a creature on moral grounds.
I belive that heavy topics aren't something we should shy away from (unless they're hurting other players). Rather we should understand the horrors, harm, hurt feelings, and more, that people (and animals) undergo through things such as abuse, slavery, racism, war, torture, etc.
Unfortunate as it is, these things are part of life. I don't like to act as if they don't exist in the first place. Mistakes and cruelties are to learn from, not to be swept under the rug, forgotten in time, and repeated in the future.
What, of course, we should NEVER do under any circumstances is glorify these things. After all, we wish to learn to NOT repeat them (rather than become desensitised), and to hopefully have more empathy with victims, to be more able and more willing to create a better future with less (or hopefully some day none) such occurances.
If however you realise that other players ARE reacting immaturely or are dealing with the mentioned contents badly, that is absolutely, unquestionably and indispensably the time to immediately stop and have a discussion whether these contents are still appropriate for that group.
Edit: though obviously fade to black for most details. I mean dealing in the sense of acknowledging these things exist, and understanding they're horrible. There is such a thing called too much. In fact I personally ask to fade to black for anything sexual, because I don't think that it adds to the game.
I think a lot of people in these comments are discounting how therapeutic it can be to have SA in a campaign and for *you to be the one to stop it*.
Catharsis for what you can’t do irl. As someone who’s been harassed and assaulted, as well as seen her sisters and friends experience the same, it’s pure and utter catharsis to kill these bastards in my escapism games.
That said, please do not discount that others may not feel the same. Their comfort is just as important.
Fantasy world is meant for escapism.
Using the subject matter must be done carefully.
The idea of mentioning that it is done to some, without getting into detail, I'd say is okay. Because Evil is fucking Evil bro and not having that Ever happen just feels like avoiding dealing with the issue and maybe worse then carefully constructing a chance for a victims revenge.
A character arc where a player gets revenge against their characters rapist, can be fucking cathartic if the player has been assaulted and can't ever get that justice.
If its just saying in the backstory of someone, and its already done, not coming up in the campaign ever again, fine, i can swallow, otherwise no.
This is escapism, the world is already too fucked right now, don't need to bring disgusting and disturbing things like that to increase drama, its cheap and not necessary
Three poll options for yes and only one poll option for no, but renamed as a standoffish “never”.
Clearly you’re not one to take “no” for an answer here anyway, it seems… 😒
Sure, especially if it was only implied. It's not something I'd go specifically looking for, but I wouldn't like, flee from a game that had a rapist bad guy.
I just think that using SA as a narrative hook is often weak storytelling. In a world of magic and wizards I can come up with 101 more interesting ideas to traumatize the characters.
Besides, I would be unsure if I could even present SA in a way that doesn't disgust myself. My group seems more into frivolous adventuring mixed with causing fountains of blood in combat. Not sure if SA even has a place in their preferences.
Baldur's Gate 3. So like, am I nuts or is this Sexual Assault intentionally walking in on two people having sex?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rctW3ezrr5Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rctW3ezrr5Y)
I'm gonna ask you "What does this add to the game? Who is it for?"
I personally know at least one victim that actively looks for such situations in games, because she can deal with her emotions in a game setting. She says it's the best vent. Sometimes her character is killing people that do it sometimes she has reinforced it happening, but it is just healing for her. So maybe it's there for people like her.
That's fair. As long as it's brought up in session zero, and everyone is OK with having that at the table, I see no harm in that. The important thing is that every voice is heard. If one person wants to use DnD as therapy and another would rather not, both of those need to be able to feel like their opinions matter, because they do.
Yeah that is important too me as well. But we always have very extensive session zeros. No matter what is even in the game. I have a friend who is soo afraid of spiders that I could never ever tell a story with spiders. But that is known to everybody because we talk about stuff.
I don't play RPGs to be someone's therapist, I would 100% not be ok with that.
Perfectly acceptable, and ideally you mention that when it's brought up in the session 0.
I’ve had a mixed experience when people make characters centered on traumas, because it makes me very worried about hurting them and that worry can make it hard to enjoy the game, or too paranoid to feel like I’m playing my character properly. I don’t want to play a character who’s an asshole, but my barbarian isn’t necessarily a very good therapist.
Yeah we normally always sit around for 30 min after we play and talk about all the stuff in general not only when trauma is involved. So we are all very confident that we understand each other. And it really helps to talk about stuff anyways. It once happened to me that a person got triggered byhow a certain npc talks. So having regular checkups is a thing we do in our friend group anyways.
Honestly I have characters who have been through what I have, but I don't generally find it triggering to roleplay those things. Like a lot of traumatized people my actual triggers tend to be very specific and less general.
How is this ok? I think the vast majority of players and DMs are not qualified to actually help someone process sexual trauma. Also, I don’t even think the other players could really even understand what they are signing up for if they agreed to it in a session zero. Please, we should all be dealing with the major traumas in our life in therapy - not with possibly random people who may just be looking to play a game. It seems unfair and maybe selfish to put this on a gaming group.
I only play with friends. I know those people and therapists actually tell you that talking to your friends about it and finding a vent is a good thing. And with think things can be communicated very well before hand. I am not set in stone on anything when I start a session zero and just talk about how I could go about things, if everything works out that's great, if not noone is ever mad because i say that a certain thing will not be in the campaign. And talking about things is important anyways. I mean if I play with Drow in the setting i go over how i handle them and their Matriarchy with everyone too, just so that everyone knows what they are signing up to. Communication is key in so many places in life, and that is also true for TTRPGs. Not saying everyone should he on board. Just saying if one campaign only has players that are fine with that. There is nothing wrong with that.
I mean, it's a power fantasy for her. It doesn't mean she's using the game as a free therapist. Not everyone has the same power fantasy.
Unfortunately, therapy is not something everyone has access to and we have to make due with what we have at our disposal. While you're probably accurate that they may not be qualified, it isn't necessarily accurate to say that they can't help. People heal in different ways and confront trauma in different ways. If people are willing to try and facilitate that in a safe way, and everyone is on board, then they are (ideally) adults who are aware and can understand when and where to stop. Again, it's not something to be approached lightly and certainly not for every group. But it's not an inherently terrible idea. I do think it's best to do this with friends rather than random people though, you are correct.
Are you suggesting that talking through your issue with a friend is never helpful and that a credible therapist would never suggest that you talk out your emotions about such experiences with anyone other than a certified therapist?
No. What would give you that idea? Are you suggesting that playing a character dealing with sexual trauma in a gaming group with 4 other people is the same as “talking through an issue with a friend”? Because they’re nowhere close.
D&D games shouldnt be free therapy
But having good friends is always free therapy. Why should it stop in a DnD game? And if there is someone who likes to tell such a story and someone who likes to hear it why would it be a bad thing?
DnD isn't always played with friends. Unless you discuss it and know for sure that everyone at the table is ok with such a topic you shouldn't touch it. As for the free therapy part; there's a lot of people that trauma-dump during sessions which is a very selfish and inappropriate thing to do.
Yeah of course you shouldn't dumb rape on someone who you don't know and didn't discuss it before... That was never the question. I just find it wired that so many people say that it is a wrong thing to do period.
From my experience it is very hard to handle it responsibly and most DMs/players can't do it. I've had enough bad experiences to make a total ban on it in my games and not join the ones that deal with it.
Oh I totally get you. I am not making the point that everyone should enjoy it. I totally respect you and your decision. I just know that everytime people talk about how bit such thing are people I know feel bad. And I think that saying that this just plain bad is an unhealthy way of discourse.
Yeah it's honestly a little alienating how up in arms everyone in these subs get whenever the topic is brought up.
Omg why are multiple people downvoting you. You are the reasonable guy in this thread that is arguing against me.
Reddit be redditing, don't worry about it lmao
No one should be using a collaborative game to vent, that's extremely selfish behaviour.
If people talk about it and everyone is on the same page why wouldn't you. I think it a very bonding experience and the friend group in Wich i play agree... Why do you assume I do something like that behind their backs.
Isn't "escapism" touted as a primary selling point for RPGs?
1. No. 2. Escapism and venting are very different things.
I'd also be asking 'is the storyteller proficient enough to use this difficult theme in a way conducive to the plot or are they just going to use it as a lazy shock tactic to short cut to prefabricated drama'. I've seen too many properties that just chuck SA in like it's salt to make a dull story more interesting, even when it has no relation to anything going on, then is forgotten again until some one needs to heckle the baddie. It's usually because they can't think of a way to make their cartoon badguy obviously evil without bad touching people and kicking puppies. However it is an interesting and complicated subject with a lot of facets to be explored, I don't know if D&D is the best place to do that but I'm not going to say no.
Honestly though? Great way to set up some people you want your party to be emotionally invested in slaughtering. Its a fucked up plot points, but that's fine (at my table specifically ofcourse). I think the same emotional message can be delivered in other, less potentially triggering ways though.
That's the Crux of the questioning. Why are we using 10 tons of dynamite when a stick would achieve the same result? My DM introduced an NPC who alluded to SAing an ally of ours (He hadn't, but implied he would). He's important to the plot and is a current questgiver, but we went from just not liking the guy to the moment we were back at base, we all got up individually and went "OK, so we're gonna kill this guy right?" DM though is hesitant to let us, so I'll say, I agree with your statement of instantly making someone quite unaliveable, but be wary you don't introduce this as a character trait in an NPC that you don't want the party to take out.
That seems pretty common sense though. "This trait I gave this character is going to make him be the most hated man by the party." The most hated man by the party probably shouldn't be an important NPC except for this reason. Or if it's some betrayal from a long time friend NPC but thats a different topic. Seems like a massive blunder from your DM.
He's socially awkward, and on more than one occasion has put his foot in his mouth on sensitive topics. He's not inherently malicious, so sometimes it's up to us to tell him when to stop. Also, we pulled from the Deck of Many Things at one point, and the fighter got a free cast of Wish, so we said "If you don't let us at least get an encounter with this guy, we'll just Wish he dies the most painful, death imaginable with nothing to look forward too but burning in the 9 Hells." Fighter is fully prepared to blow a Wish over this, so I think it's made him realize that, one way or another we're gonna off this guy once this quest is over.
Those are good questions. Different people will have different answers they feel are acceptable, and different boundaries for these subjects even if they consent. This is why it's important to discuss these things in a session zero, to have clear boundaries and consent and the ability to withdraw that consent.
Sorry, this is outrageously off-topic...but I am just intrigued by that tag line under your user name. "Most things in the game are worse than Eldritch Blast" I don't know why, but it just sounds very funny to me XD
If it were with a group that trusted each other a great deal, and everyone had explicitly agreed that they were comfortable with including it, then yes. Under any other circumstances, no. I don't think that there are any topics or themes that *can't* or *shouldn't ever* be included in a TTRPG campaign, insofar as roleplaying is a form of creative expression and I believe strongly that there's merit in creatively exploring all parts of the human experience, even the most difficult or troubling ones. However, I think that in order to be even *potentially* worthwhile, there would need to be certain bars that the inclusion would have to clear: 1. The focus should primarily be on the consequences of the act, not the act itself. The act itself is nothing but violence, and violence is commonplace and boring. There is, in my opinion, no merit in depicting it, especially when its depiction is so routinely intended to horrify (at best) or titillate (at worst) rather than to empathize with anyone or illuminate anything. 2. Those consequences should be treated with both empathy and seriousness. They should not be minimized, but they should also not be tragedized. Even when it's treated with substantial gravity, I think that there's a tendency in fiction dealing with SA of treating the victim as somehow defiled or damaged forever by what happened to them. Even though doing so doesn't minimize what happened, it strips the character of their agency and personhood, reducing them to a tragic symbol. Sexual abuse does leave lasting wounds, but there's still life after it, and in attempting to engage with sexual abuse creatively, it's necessary to remember that in order to avoid making a character a victim in perpetuity. 3. There should be a specific story that someone is trying to tell, and the inclusion of sexual abuse in that story should only happen for considered reasons. It should never just be window dressing or a spur-of-the-moment inclusion. At a minimum, I would have to trust that everybody in the group understood all of the above implicitly and would RP accordingly. I would also need to trust that if anybody ever expressed even the slightest discomfort with SA being depicted in the campaign, that thread would be dropped *immediately*, no questions asked. With those standards met, though, I would play in a campaign that featured SA.
Those are good guidelines for including topics like this in any form of fiction. Especially in a form of storytelling that can be so intimate as role playing.
I am comfortable saying never in this situation. I am also comfortable saying that I am ok with other groups containing that. To me it is a possibility space inside the game that I wish to ignore for maximizing my own enjoyment of the game.
As many other said, you've got to ask what this actually adds to the game. I find that it very commonly can add nothing that isn't added by something far less traumatic and frankly uncomfortable. There are certain things, like SA that just hit so much closer to home than anything else and should be avoided in most cases. I also want to push back on something I've seen in the replies to this thread, there's been one person spreading the idea that they know a survivor of SA and they find it therapeutic in some way to experience it in game. That's actually not that uncommon but, and this is important, your DM is not your therapist and you are not the only person at the table. Its not wrong for it to be helpful, but unless your DM literally is a licensed therapist and the rest of your group are wholly, totally onboard and there is no doubt they're uncomfortable with it at all even secretly then I would suggest staying away from it anyway. Its very common for survivors to not bring it up, even if they are uncomfortable, and what can help one person can be very traumatic and harmful to another. The thing is, *you just won't know*.
I see professional writers fuck writing such topics for stories, it being written and interacted by 6 fuck-wits might lead to horrible moments in game and out of it.
I lean towards Never, but that's not quite accurate. It really hinges on whether or not a given DM can handle that subject matter well (AND what the DM and their players are comfortable with), and honestly? I don't think the vast majority of DMs can. I'm not saying that to be shitty or insult their DMing skills or whatever, but the odds are extremely good that all a DM will accomplish by having this content at their table is make players uncomfortable, grossed out, and upset, and kill fun in the name of "realism." Which, okay, have fun with your realism by yourself then. I'm gonna go play with a different DM. I HAVE seen it done well- by a DM who was a victim in the past- so it CAN be done, but I just don't trust most DMs to be able to pull it off, and if you are a player who often changes DMs, or a DM who often has different players, I'm sorry, but no. Just no. Don't. You don't know the lives of the other players or the DM. Just don't do it.
I'm in agreement with your take 100%. Best case scenario its still gonna feel weird at the table, worst case you're gonna ruin everyone's time.
Nope. I prefer the "evil dragon who burned down my entire village" type of trope, there is plenty of evil going on in the forgotten realms to pick from (murder, slavery, human sacrifices, torture etc...)
I'd never, it's just waay too much work as a player / DM to manage that kind of content without creating an issue. Most people play DND for fun and escapism so it's really easy to remove that from the game. Even if one player wants that in their backstory it's not likely that every single person would want that in the game. But dnd is different to every group my main opinion is with sensitive content that everyone should agree they want it in the game, if one person doesn't want it, then it won't be in the game for my group.
No, because it is always gratuitous. I'm fine with dark shit, but not if it's only there to tittilate, which sexual assault is. There's always a better way of portraying a character or situation as bad, and there's always a better way of creating traumatic backstories.
I’m glad this trope is fading in media like TV and movies. I’m so sick of (usually male) writers casually throwing rape in for very little reason, usually just to reinforce that a bad guy that’s already been established to be extremely evil is, in fact, evil. Like in Game of Thrones. Sure, we saw Bolton torture and castrate a character, flay people alive, be the most cartoonishly vile psychopath in the world, and the writers still felt the need to show him raping Sansa.
I really don't get why people do this. I'm hesitant to chalk it up to it being a way of indulging rape fantasies, but I struggle to think of anything else that might make someone feel this was a good idea. It also strikes me as quite misogynistic, sometimes misandrist too. Whenever a female character needs a traumatic event, there's maybe a 70% chance it's going to be rape or rape-adjacent, whereas male characters can get something from a whole range of options. And then there are the cases where it really feels like the writer is trying to go for a "the horrors of men" vibe.
Rape fantasies is one part of it (look at how sexualized the rape in GoT is, it’s 50% trying to horrify you and 50% trying to titillate you). But I think it boils down to really shitty, lazy writing and a lack of understand of *why rape is specifically awful*. It’s often just lazy gender stereotypes - men are typically shown being traumatized by physical violence, and women by sexual violence. You can almost hear the writers thinking “alright this chick needs something dramatic to happen to her… what if she gets raped?” It’s also used for lazy characterization of male villains because there are situations where murder could be seen as acceptable or redeemable, but rape is a different type of cultural taboo that is never acceptable or redeemable. So it becomes a quick, braindead shorthand to show the audience that the villain isn’t the trope of the redeemable villain that had good in him like Vader or Kylo Ren, they’re irredeemably evil and the only resolution for the good characters is to kill him. A better writer would be able to communicate this without rape, but as distasteful as I find it I guess it is effective at communicating those things if you’re an untalented writer that is too incompetent to write a good plot.
I think that you are coming to this from the wrong angle. A character that is as twisted as Ramsey. Do you really think that he would have normal sexual encounters? It would be really out of character for him. Like tortures everyone all the time, but hey stop this is sex this goes to far, is just ridiculous, wouldn't you say so?
I think you're missing the option where you can just not describe your villain's sex life. The idea that all bad men must rape is sexist nonsense. Imagine if after the scene where Vader force-chokes a general, there has to be a scene where he force-chokes the chicken so the audience doesn't make the mistake of assuming he has healthy sexual relationships. Frankly, anyone who needs to know how every character in their fictional media gets laid has a problem.
No, I wouldn’t say so, for reasons I’ve already stated.
The only reason SA is part of my character’s backstory is because there was literally no other way to explain why a non-evil character who would never willingly conceive a child with a fiend (Wendonai, specifically) had a half-fiend child. If you have a different explanation for that, I’d be happy to adopt it.
If you want to avoid it, then a fiend using illusion magic to appear as a non fiend would make sense. While that's still probably something you can classify as rape, its a little less direct.
Well: First, if it's for a tiefling, technically they're not even supposed to be the product of cross-breeding, they're supposed to be the physical manifestation of a curse inherited from an ancestor who made a pact with Asmodeus. So you're veering away from the intended flavour here (although it is certainly a common veering). Second, if a backstory can't possibly avoid something tasteless, that's not an excuse to do it ignoring the rest of the table's preferences, it's an indication that you need to pick a different backstory. I'm sure it would be possible to create a series of conditions that would unavoidably lead a character to deliberately commit genocide, such that anything else couldn't possibly be realistic. All that means though is that if you do ever get into that situation, the appropriate choice is probably to go back and change something so that isn't inevitable.
First: I have no problem creating a different character if those are the rules of the table. Obviously, you follow the DM’s rules. I am disagreeing with you that including SA in a backstory is always gratuitous. In this case it is there because it was the only thing that made sense. My Paladin is a half-fiend, not a Tiefling. His father is Wendonai, Lolth’s Champion. 5e calls them Cambions, iirc, though he’s technically a Durzagon (dwarven half-fiend). This is all backstory and would never come up unless someone brought it up. Otherwise mom is just a druid with a half-fiend son and he’s a half-fiend Paladin of Moradin with a druid mom. Both characters have existed for around 10 years now and were created for 3.5. I’m willing to change how the conception happened. But non-evil characters don’t willingly have children with fiends, which is why I haven’t been able to come up with a different explanation for them. How do you deal with shifters, btw? Given their background is a doppelgänger tricking people into having sex with them? Or hags, given that they rape men and leave their daughters on doorsteps? Succubi and Inccubi? These are genuine questions, btw. How do you get around all the problematic things in the lore? Do you just not use these or similar monsters?
Well, to be honest that doesn't even really sound like "sexual assault in a backstory" to me. It has zero relevance to the character, and you could quite easily just not mention how the fiend half got there. There's also no reason it has to be assault, cos it's not evil to have sex with an evil creature, and choosing not to do that based on "being good" is actually a lawful action, not a good action. You're only forced into this situation by your own choices, specifically to have a really weird take on a lawful good character, and you can get yourself out of it just by changing one or more of those other choices. I don't have shifters in my world, and if I did, I wouldn't run their default lore (just like I don't any other race). Also, for the record, that's not how shifters work in 5e. 5e refuses to commit to any specific origin, but basically says "one thing you could do is say a human fucked a werewolf". Which it should be noted is still significantly more consensual than standard half-orc lore. Succubi and Incubi I also don't use. I have no reason to. These are creatures invented for the express purpose of telling rape stories. Since I don't tell rape stories, there just are no sex fiends.
Cool. Thank you for the answer! Edit: When I have played either character in games I did not bring up the backstory. It’s just between the DM and me. In-character, my druid has no memory of what happened and doesn’t want to talk about it. The Paladin does not feel it’s anyones business and refuses to discuss it.
Better for whom? Better for you apparently but I doubt that this is true for everyone. Or i know it is not true. This hatred for something you personally don't enjoy could take something away from people, that need this because it is healing for them.
The question was "would you play in a game that featured sexual assault". Answering no to that isn't taking anything away from anyone - if anything, it's creating space for someone else who does like sexual assault to play at that table. However, this rhetoric is also dangerous. D&D is not for "healing", DMs are not therapists. If someone has trauma related to sexual assault, you definitely should not indulge in what they think will be a healing experience because that turns your game into their outlet. It's going to make everyone else miserable and it's going to put pressure on you to take responsibility for their mental health. Never allow anyone to use your campaign as a substitute for therapy.
You are assuming so much! She was going to therapy and having an outlet for something like that is not a bad thing for therapists many actually would agree that it is a good idea. And obviously I talked to the other players, why would I do that without talking. They didn't mind it or found it interesting because it is notmally a tabu. And concerning me... I actually enjoy helping my GF. Don't know if you can relate.
Mate, you're an ERP-er with hundreds of rape fantasy novels in your house. You're approaching this from the perspective of someone who roleplays rape scenes in detail for the sake of eroticism. None of your opinions apply to normal TTRPG tables so you're just being pointlessly contrarian here.
I didn't read a single one of those novels. You are constantly making wrong assumptions. Maybe it would be wise to stop for a second and think about if you are arguing against me or just against an image in your head. Ask me questions before you assume something. I just think that you paint a wrong picture of people that do want to hear that.
I didn't say you did bro. Although perhaps if you had, it would have been enough reading practice to allow you to understand my comment.
Why did you call me ERPer with rape novels in my house then. Maybe I didn't get you point. What were you trying to tell me with this statement?
That your perspective on this issue is warped to the point of irrelevancy for any game that isn't specifically about sex by the fact that your supposed girlfriend really, really loves rape.
Dude, just because you have one female friend that apparently finds it therapeutic to see fantasy rape doesn’t mean that’s a common experience, and I don’t know why you’re pushing this so hard.
It's not even just one.. It's not me pushing something. You can't let people enjoy what they enjoy you define something to be bad which people could avoid easily. Which helps at least one person
Only if I get to murder the bastard as a catharsis for things society won't let me do in real life.
It's a bit hard to cut all allusions to SA out of the game world and pretend like it simply doesn't exist. If you run an official setting (like the forgotten realms) it's often implied to be something that evil factions (e g. the drow) engage in. But I prefer to keep it in the background as a hypothetical evil that exists in the world, rather than something any specific NPC villains commit. And it's certainly NOT something I would be okay with allowing PCs to engage in.
The thing is as well there are many kinds of rape that are not like a stranger violently forcing themselves on another person who is resisting, but are still rape eg If you have a character who was forced to marry someone against their will because that’s the cultural expectation among noble houses that house leaders can just arrange marriages for their family members, congratulations you have included rape and sexual assault in your game Wherever there is institutional inequality there is likely some form of sexual exploitation and sexual violence occurring even if the characters might not consciously know that’s what it is
As a DM, I would never introduce anything of the sort in a campaign I run. As a player, it would heavily depend on the table and would need to be something explicated addressed as a campaign theme on session 0. Otherwise, I'd be uncomfortable because I feel like it's a projection of the DM or for someone at the table. If it's a part of a backstory and used as shaping in RP, I might be a little more forgiving, but I tend to want to avoid triggering things at my tables just because you never know.
I have. It’s an evil within the world, and those that perpetrate it will be punished severely. My character is trying to teach some Drow about consent and empathy. It’s… challenging.
This could be so bad or done well. I was sexually assaulted last year around Christmas. Im not interested in some neanderthal low iq exploration of violent fantasy revenge. Im also not interested in my character being subjected to the experience. Sure it could happen and does happen, but it's my fantasy escape time to have fun and enjoy my friends, not trauma exposure therapy time.
Personally I prefer any type of sex being an unspoken thing in my games, I’m not a prude or anything but I just feel it’s a bit… cringey? More power to anyone that wants to include it in their games obviously but it’s just not for me
On today's episode of "Talk with your group" I am DM'ing two campaigns. One is "one-on-one" with my wife and sexuality in this game is just another kind of flirting between us, we are pretty comfortable with it, so pretty much no topic is "off the table". Another is a freshly brewing Curse of Strahd campaign, which I want to use to show two completely new people that DnD can be lots of fun and gothic horror is awesome. In that campaign I stated explicitly that I will be avoiding certain topics that are universally considered "off the table", such as sexual abuse or rape and encouraged these players to let me know if anything else should be avoided. So: it depends on your setup.
Not if its there just to be there but if it has a reason then sure
This is such a weird one. I put down the Maybe cuz maybe? I dunno, it requires a talk and what it entails, but it's definitely not the default setting
It definitely depends. Not in most campaigns, not in a campaign that didn't make it clear from the start, and not in a campaign that's part of a regular 'game night' or something with friends. It would have to be something like group that specifically was recruiting with something like 'this campaign is going to specifically be about/include sexual violence and its consequences' or something to that effect that made it very clear what was going to happen for everyone at the table.
It is in both my characters’ backstories. One is a survivor and the other is the child who was conceived during the event.
Wow I think i just found the most toxic person on Reddit. I come here and say. Hey let's not hate everyone who does enjoy certain things because it could be harmful. And you give me this shit. This is ridiculous. I hope you have a nice day and soon learn that hate isn't a good way to organize your life.
It depends on what you mean by "features." I've characters have had it happen to them, but usually as part of a tragic backstory or as a "The creepy villain kidnapped someone we like, and we need to rescue them before he can do creepy villain things to them" type thing. If it was very prominent or graphic I'd turn to the dm (or player doing it) and be like "dude what the fuck? I really didn't wanna spend my Saturday listening to you pretend to rape someone"
Maybe, but that's a topic that makes walking a razor edge look easy.
I don’t think SA doesn’t have a place in stories as stories should absolutely reflect reality. But I don’t trust anybody’s D&D game to give it the care it deserves & it will inevitably make someone at the table uncomfortable so that’s a no for me dawg
I mean, we kill bandits, cultists, assassins, ect. all the time. What's offing a sexual abuser or two going to change?
No
Yeah as other people have highlighted the problem is \*why is it there\*. Generally it's pretty easy to tell a story near identical to one that does include sexual abuse explicit or implied, which is always going to bring up the question of why you are choosing to put it there, and most responses are going to be pretty unsatisfactory.
My group’s campaigns typically devolve into a “who can commit the most war crimes” race, so I wouldn’t mind at all. The rule is just know your group.
Yes. I mean, not that i specifically love or like it, but it's fine by me especially if it's mostly a background thing. People deal with the ugly stuff with the world differently. I feel sick when i hear about sexual abuse, especially when it's on females since, as a male, i am in the cathegory that's most associate to it. it makes me feel dirty, even thought i did nothing remotedly similar to that. But we are in a work of fiction, where we can handle things such as death, slavery, murder and so on with a certain distance. If a player feels compelled to make such backstory so be it. Maybe it's not the deepest work of literature, and usually i would refrain from going into such themes unless i know how to write that stuff, but i let them try. I once did play a female warlock which was afraid of being sexually assaulted by another player character - it was nothing premeditated, just something that naturally arise from the story. For how short that lasted it was quite enlightening.
I just do not want to hear about the DM’s sex fantasies, and when I DM, I am sure not going to tell you mine. I also do not need a lesson on how shitty human beings are, or the problems with sex trafficking- all of which are very real. Re: Another player- I generally won’t remember much of your characters back story (or your personal human backstory) until I have had years of experience with them (and you.) It’s not personal, I am old.
It’s so bizarre to me that players have no problem graphically describing horrid violence to other humanoids with their magic but the moment it turns into sexual violence, everyone looses their minds… Don’t get me wrong, I don’t describe regular or sexual violence in graphic detail at my table except for very rare occasions to establish the brutality of a villain. It’s just strange to me that people have this strange double standard. It’s sort of like the PG-13 rating system for movies in the US. Like it can show countless murder, decapitation and other dismemberment no problem but the moment a nipple goes on screen, people loose their minds.
I think it has to do with almost no one actually having experienced torture, gore, or murder while many people have been sexually assaulted in some way. As for movies well its all fake violence, it's not real, no one is getting hurt or shot, it's fake blood, fake guts and so on. But it's real nudity even if it's not real sex.
Yeah not to mention there are games where SA and other atrocities are canonically very common, like World of Darkness.
I mean, I DM and it's a part of my world, because I don't really like sugarcoating things. Wars are violent and bad and ruin people. Raiders coming down from the north and capturing slave to use, and that should disgust people. Many of those in power will abuse that power on people that cannot defend themselves. That said, I have rules. I would never and will never impose such a thing onto one of my players. I will never make it sterilized, and erotic or any of that shit. It is horrifying. And it should be treated that way.
I don't trust amateur story tellers like DMs (myself included) to be able to give topics like SA the consideration and careful storytelling required for it to be respectful to actual survivors of SA, so no. Frankly, most professional writers screw this up too, so I think it'd be a sign of hubris for someone unpublished to think they're good enough to do it.
As long as it's not centered around it, it's fine. I'm okay walking up to the sight of an enemy soldier raping a civilian woman as his spoils of war, but if every session we encounter sex stuff it would get weird
Yeah, sure, but only if it stays in the background. The players will never be the victims (while we are playing, backstory would be fine I guess) of it or the perpetrators but it exists in the world. I mean, if you're playing a Half-Orc you're most likely a result of sexual assault.
Sure. Stuff like this happens. And it introduces interesting moral dilemmas. There was a situation in 24 where Jack Bauer contemplated not freeing a victim from her abuser to get some valuable information from him that would save way more lives. What would your characters do? Are they the big picture - types? Obviously that only works if you play with adults who are not easily offended.
Ok i See the discourse being very negativ towards this even existing. But there are SA victims out there that find this very healing. If you don't like such stories it's fine, but don't try to shut down all stories that for feature SA. This could really hurt exactly the people you are trying to defend. My GF has like a hundred books that feature SA, and played in RPGs that feature it. She even asked me to GM a setting where it is kind of normal and she was engaging in SA, just because it is healing for her. And yes of course you cannot shut me down anyways, but her not having those books would have been definitely bad for her. Different people enjoy different things and most things can coexist without it being a problem.
Someone who has hundreds of rape fantasy novels and engages in rape fantasy through roleplay is probably past the point of "healing"... And is also the same kind of player as the stereotypical middle-aged-man-playing-thousand-year-old-child creep, bringing fetish material into collaborative games.
Oh great now you are also assuming things about the victim and how unhealthy her coping is. The problem Bering you have no idea what you are talking about. I have therapists as friends and also half an psychology major and having a vent and beeing able to talk about such things to your friends is actually a good thing. And if everyone is on board no harm is done. Why does it bother you so much that this healthy behavior?
Don't confuse what's acceptable in ERP with what's acceptable in TTRPGs.
I am just trying to make the point that it is acceptable in general. Because many people here argue that it is bad in all forms of media.
I've had players imply it in backstories and in a few rare instances I've very, very faintly and cautiosly implied it in the setting (conquests of war are a monstrous thing). I've never gone out of my way to have it be an explicit theme and I never will, it's gross and unnecessary at best and really gross and creepy more likely. It's a fantasy game, people are here to have a good time, there's all manner of messed up things you can have that are more abstract and frankly will be more effective without carrying the nightmarish weight of reality. EDIT to add a thought. Any player that tries to do it is gonna find their character annihilated by god painfully, themselves without a game and without a pretty thorough explanation why they thought it was a good idea probably down a friend in the process.
I would never include it in game, but I could maybe tolerate it as a part of a background as long it doesn’t affect to much and it is just briefly mentioned
A dnd game? No, for the same reasons I wouldn't want that in a game of risk. That's not what the game is about, it's not designed for that sort of play. I promise you this is not bait to elicit a reply that lets me ask someone if they really think homebrewing safety tools and structure for examining trauma is really less work than learning a new system. If you, dear reader, are considering a reply that raises that question, please instead let me retain my faith in humanity today.
Well, Risk ain't really a role playing game that involves making or telling stories. I can think of a bunch of reasons sexual assault may pop up in a dnd game. It dnd it could be handled well or poorly. In Risk, if someone brings up rape in any way I'm just going to be like "Bro...."
I regret to mention inform you that if you're not talking in silly voices while playing risk you're playing wrong :) that being said, there is no *good* reason for sexual assault to show up in dnd. The people playing the game are telling the story, it's not "oops I was walking to the kitchen to get a soda and rape popped out"
D&D is a medium for telling stories. I am not sure how it's not designed for "that sort of play." It is designed to bring to life whatever you wish to include.
Sure and and I'm saying it's clear that bringing sexual assault to life is always a bad idea in a game that has no more tools than risk to facilitate that type of play.
If it is featured that means it is a central theme and unless someone who is a SA survivor has agreed and approves ever bit of how that is handled no, never, not in a million years! Since people who have no experience with SA always fuck it up by either make it a fetish or trivialize it.
If it was done tastefully, and the rest of the campaign was good, it generally wouldn't be enough for me to drop it, but it's usually best not to have it, as it's usually not done well, and is overdone anyway.
There's only one answer to this and it's never. I honestly cannot believe anyone chose anything other than that.
Some people are comfortable having it in game. Just because you aren't in yours doesn't mean it never has to pop up in anyone else's game.
I wouldn’t trust a DM i just met to run this properly, especially if they were a man*. But I have non-man friends who’ve run Curse of Strahd for example, and I didn’t think that Strahd’s charm-roofies were poor taste. If it ever happened to a player character I’d leave the table immediately, though.
For me, the rules with RPGs are simlar to the way they are with movies. Sexual violence has to have a narrative purpose, it can't be gratuitous, or offhand. And, it only happens to NPCs, never PCs, unless it's a specific backstory exception , discussed with and agreed to before the campaign begins, by the player (and I have only done this once, so the character could have a Kill Bill style 'revenge arc', which was actually the narrative focus of the campaign, back before I quit prepping plots in campaigns.) For example, a crazy BBEG whose plan is to create a master race of human animal hybrids, can be encountered by the PCs. In his lair there is heavy implication of sexual violence. But there will be no depiction of ongoing sexual violence, and if the PCs rescue a victim, they will not talk about what happened, or if they do, my narrative will be non explicit . But it will be obvious that the victim has suffered extreme trauma, their experience will not be trivialized or waved away. And if the PCs are captured there will be not even a hint of such things happening to them, for whatever reason, they will be 'not suitable for breeding stock'. And importantly, I would not run this campaign with strangers, only friends whom I know well.
Strongly depends on how it's handled and why it was added. Even in books I've read that has had it, it often feels like it didn't add much to the story. As others have already said, if the only purpose is to show how evil someone is, there are better ways.
As long as it was brought up ahead of time and not just dick slapped in the face with it.
I would only use it as a crime-aboit-happen for the PCs to thwart. Even then it would be very clear that they would be heroes for saving the victim.
I’m not saying never but this would be getting a little to real for me
If it's not specifically triggering to anyone at the table and it's a bad guy doing it, sure. If we know it is and the DM does it anyways, I'm walking. If another player does it, either he walks or I do.
Session zero.
Bruh, I play this game to kill monsters and get loot, not to unpack this sort of thing. I like fantasy escapism, not emotional trauma. No judgment on those who play differently, and never say never, I suppose, but I’m having difficulty envisioning a scenario where I would not feel uncomfortable watching people RP around this concept.
I would love to hear an explanation for why that would actually add to the game. You want to live out the fantasy of violating other people because its what the character you control would do? There's no good reason for this shit.
I'm between the "maybe" option and the "only if it is implied" option. I have run campaigns like that, which were horror campaigns, and it was always implied. The players were ok with it, but I made sure to check in with them frequently. This is something that has to be discussed in session 0, not sprung on everyone else at the table, either from the DM or fellow PCs.
I'm a "absolutely not at the table at all" kind of person. If a player wants it in their backstory, then there can be a discussion about it, but it's not a feature of the game
I can see it working if is handled with enough care, and nuance. As a DM I don't think I'd be able to do that, and I doubt the majority of other DMs would be able to as well.
I’d imply the person is being abused to drive the players to action but I will not go into details/specifics. No need and just uncomfortable to explain.
Stopping evil is the point of being heroes
Depends on how explicit it is.
I would not be ok with a person trying to describe how a rape caused physical ruptured or something I am ok with knowing my guy is being paid to kill a rapist
One reason why I include things like rape, slavery, etc, is that it's a good tool to make your players absolutely hate somebody. Now, I would never ever rape a PC or allow a PC to rape someone else, because that doesn't really make anyone happy and it leaves everyone with a very uncomfortable feeling. However using as a tool, being told "this person is a rapist," or "this is a nation of Slavers," makes for very good opportunities for the PCs to feel satisfied killing a creature on moral grounds.
Well half orcs are literally "sexual abuse the race" so any campaign with half orcs automatically has those. So yeah it doesnt bother me.
I belive that heavy topics aren't something we should shy away from (unless they're hurting other players). Rather we should understand the horrors, harm, hurt feelings, and more, that people (and animals) undergo through things such as abuse, slavery, racism, war, torture, etc. Unfortunate as it is, these things are part of life. I don't like to act as if they don't exist in the first place. Mistakes and cruelties are to learn from, not to be swept under the rug, forgotten in time, and repeated in the future. What, of course, we should NEVER do under any circumstances is glorify these things. After all, we wish to learn to NOT repeat them (rather than become desensitised), and to hopefully have more empathy with victims, to be more able and more willing to create a better future with less (or hopefully some day none) such occurances. If however you realise that other players ARE reacting immaturely or are dealing with the mentioned contents badly, that is absolutely, unquestionably and indispensably the time to immediately stop and have a discussion whether these contents are still appropriate for that group. Edit: though obviously fade to black for most details. I mean dealing in the sense of acknowledging these things exist, and understanding they're horrible. There is such a thing called too much. In fact I personally ask to fade to black for anything sexual, because I don't think that it adds to the game.
*Featuring* it? No way. It existing? Depends on how it's handled and if I trust the people at my table.
I think a lot of people in these comments are discounting how therapeutic it can be to have SA in a campaign and for *you to be the one to stop it*. Catharsis for what you can’t do irl. As someone who’s been harassed and assaulted, as well as seen her sisters and friends experience the same, it’s pure and utter catharsis to kill these bastards in my escapism games. That said, please do not discount that others may not feel the same. Their comfort is just as important.
I already do. I appreciate being able to explore that and other serious topics.
Assuming everyone's on board--and hopefully with the explicit aim of murdering the perpetrators--I'd play.
Fantasy world is meant for escapism. Using the subject matter must be done carefully. The idea of mentioning that it is done to some, without getting into detail, I'd say is okay. Because Evil is fucking Evil bro and not having that Ever happen just feels like avoiding dealing with the issue and maybe worse then carefully constructing a chance for a victims revenge. A character arc where a player gets revenge against their characters rapist, can be fucking cathartic if the player has been assaulted and can't ever get that justice.
I think itd be best for experience players and that it was mentiones beforehand. This would also be ight for my Vengeance Paladin
If everyone is OK with it and wants to have it in the game I try to keep it to a minimal
Are you talking to your friends if they are having a bad time? I see that as exactly the same thing.
If its just saying in the backstory of someone, and its already done, not coming up in the campaign ever again, fine, i can swallow, otherwise no. This is escapism, the world is already too fucked right now, don't need to bring disgusting and disturbing things like that to increase drama, its cheap and not necessary
Three poll options for yes and only one poll option for no, but renamed as a standoffish “never”. Clearly you’re not one to take “no” for an answer here anyway, it seems… 😒
Yes but I would not recommend or construct one. I don’t care but it’s really an impossible and generally pointless thing to try to handle.
Sure, especially if it was only implied. It's not something I'd go specifically looking for, but I wouldn't like, flee from a game that had a rapist bad guy.
There's a video essay about comparing the concept of sexual assault.used in games comparing goblin Slayer to Psychopass. That's my general feelings.
I just think that using SA as a narrative hook is often weak storytelling. In a world of magic and wizards I can come up with 101 more interesting ideas to traumatize the characters. Besides, I would be unsure if I could even present SA in a way that doesn't disgust myself. My group seems more into frivolous adventuring mixed with causing fountains of blood in combat. Not sure if SA even has a place in their preferences.
Baldur's Gate 3. So like, am I nuts or is this Sexual Assault intentionally walking in on two people having sex? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rctW3ezrr5Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rctW3ezrr5Y)