Quote from: walkerpAn interesting thing to think about is the prevalence of rape-inspired media in Japan (anime, comics, movies), a country which has one of the lowest sexual assualt rates in the first world.

one of the lowest reported sexual assault rates in the first world.

You might want to read up a bit on the issue of reports of sexual crimes. For example, Saudi Arabia has a lower rate of reported rapes than Japan. That could, just possibly, have something to do with the position of women in that country.

Japan ain't exactly a bastion of gender equality, you know. That sort of stuff skews the reports of sex crimes.

Art's an expression of the culture, of what's on its mind, what's important to it.

Quote from: KoltarDid we , the viewers ever actually see the Reavers kill the rest of the ship's crew in the third episode ?
 NO  - we saw , in shadow, the results of what they had done...and heard the hero character's reactions to what might happen next and saw the hooror in their facial expressions.

 In a later episode we saw a bad guy torture two of our hero characters - again it was a bad guy/evil character. It was also mostly shown offscreen.

This is all an example of the type of show that Firefly - indeed, Whedon's work in general - is.  Spike is stopped short of actually raping Buffy in the 6th season of BtVS.  Although people in the Firefly universe talk about the horrific violence committed by the Reavers - including rape - very little of it is shown on-screen.

Just to make this clear - although I think it should go without saying: I don't think that every movie, show, book, or roleplaying game should have to step up to issues like rape and confront them head on.  It's totally okay - hell, it's probably better - that most don't.  (It's also totally possible for media that approach these sorts of issues from the periphery or the aftermath to make a very powerful, compelling statement.)  Equally, I don't think that every roleplayer should want to or have to play Poison'd - again, I'd imagine that many/most wouldn't.  I'm guessing the game would have a pretty limited audience even if it was released by Wizards of the Coast.

Quote from: KoltarThats the way that extreme stuff should be handled.

Heroes are Heroes.

Vile stuff is done by the NPCs  that are outright evil characters.

- Ed C.

I don't see any more value to this statement than saying: "See how D&D3.5 handles attack rolls?  You roll a d20, add your BAB and other pertinent bonuses, and compare the result to the target's armor class.  That's how combat should be handled."

You're just describing one (completely valid) way of handling something.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Quote from: fifth_childThis is all an example of the type of show that Firefly - indeed, Whedon's work in general - is.  Spike is stopped short of actually raping Buffy in the 6th season of BtVS.  Although people in the Firefly universe talk about the horrific violence committed by the Reavers - including rape - very little of it is shown on-screen.

Just to make this clear - although I think it should go without saying: I don't think that every movie, show, book, or roleplaying game should have to step up to issues like rape and confront them head on.  It's totally okay - hell, it's probably better - that most don't.  (It's also totally possible for media that approach these sorts of issues from the periphery or the aftermath to make a very powerful, compelling statement.)  Equally, I don't think that every roleplayer should want to or have to play Poison'd - again, I'd imagine that many/most wouldn't.  I'm guessing the game would have a pretty limited audience even if it was released by Wizards of the Coast.


I don't see any more value to this statement than saying: "See how D&D3.5 handles attack rolls?  You roll a d20, add your BAB and other pertinent bonuses, and compare the result to the target's armor class.  That's how combat should be handled."

You're just describing one (completely valid) way of handling something.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Why are you commenting on this?  I thought you were just here to answer rules questions - yet here you are waxing philosophically about how discussing whether combat should be d20 based is the same as discussing whether pedophila/necrophilia should be cheeringly depicted with characters as the perpetrators.

Do you see why people don't believe your doe-eyed innocent "I'm just here for rules clarifications" bullshit?

Quote from: RobNJKoltar, why do you present your personal preferences as absolute truth for everyone? Doesn't that strike you as rather presumptive?

Isn't that what GNS/TBM does?  Isn't that presumptuous?

Quote from: RobNJKoltar, why do you present your personal preferences as absolute truth for everyone?
Doesn't that strike you as rather presumptive?

No... ..it doesn't .

 Just the same way that some pretend their over-the-line play sessions are better than my games because they somehow got in touch with a dark place in themselves...and got to play-act molesting , torturing people and then defiling corpses - all in the name of  supposed "art" .

I'nm not really claiming that my preferences are 'absolute truth' - but my preferences are closer to how the majority of RPG players play their games. (or might like to play them)

 Absolute truth ? Reveling or enjoying in a play-acted rape is just over the line.
 Its doing sick shit for the sake of sick shit.

It may be masked as a game play experience - but at its root its adults regressing to a juvenile level and doing a virtual "Lets see how Naughty I can be and if I can get away with it or not"

 I am presuming that many on here may have a code of ethics or set of morals beneath all of their testosterone bluster and cussword filled postings.

So yeah I may be presumptive a bit.

 I presume there may be good people in the gaming world.
 The folks in the actual play examples aren't them.


- Ed C.

Quote from: James J SkachWhy are you commenting on this?  I thought you were just here to answer rules questions - yet here you are waxing philosophically about how discussing whether combat should be d20 based is the same as discussing whether pedophila/necrophilia should be cheeringly depicted with characters as the perpetrators.

Do you see why people don't believe your doe-eyed innocent "I'm just here for rules clarifications" bullshit?

I said I'd answer any other questions people asked me that I felt like answering, if you recall.  You'll note I kept silent on the subject until someone asked me my opinion.  By the way, you seem to be confused about the precise definition of "cabin boy."

   A Cabin boy or ship's boy is a boy (in the sense of low-ranking male employee, not always a minor) who waits on the officers and passengers of a ship, especially running errands for the captain.

Furthermore, necrophilia (and paedophilia too, though it's unclear whether it applies to the example in question) is an illness, not an act.

I also don't really care what you think of me or my "doe-eyed innocence."

Quote from: fifth_childBy the way, you seem to be confused about the precise definition of "cabin boy."

   A Cabin boy or ship's boy is a boy (in the sense of low-ranking male employee, not always a minor) who waits on the officers and passengers of a ship, especially running errands for the captain.


Furthermore, necrophilia (and paedophilia too, though it's unclear whether it applies to the example in question) is an illness, not an act.

Nice side-step of the actual point. Here's a question for ya. Actually a few I suppose. First, does saying something like, "I think we sodomized a boy's esophagus (after decapitating him). Just to make sure we had a virgin orifice." actually gain a player's character some in-game reward, as opposed to just saying something like, "I kill the cabin boy and defile his corpse." without going into specifics, and if so do the rules explain why? Next, do the rules explain why "playing a woman disguised as a man" would gain a character a "level of blasphamy", and do the rules also go on to say that "fucking women as a "man." " would gain another "level of blasphamy", and if so why? What is there in the rules that would change my opinion, which has been formed based on this AP that has been posted, that the sole purpose of this game is to showcase an escalating level of gratuitous coarseness and depravity on the part of the players? Does the game have some point (other than the celebration of violence and depravity for it's own sake)?

Quote from: fifth_childI said I'd answer any other questions people asked me that I felt like answering, if you recall.  You'll note I kept silent on the subject until someone asked me my opinion.  By the way, you seem to be confused about the precise definition of "cabin boy."

   A Cabin boy or ship's boy is a boy (in the sense of low-ranking male employee, not always a minor) who waits on the officers and passengers of a ship, especially running errands for the captain.

Furthermore, necrophilia (and paedophilia too, though it's unclear whether it applies to the example in question) is an illness, not an act.

I also don't really care what you think of me or my "doe-eyed innocence."

This is what you've come to?  Really? Poorly crafted semantic arguments that can be swatted away with a few online dictionary searches?

Here, let me help you out.

Quote from: HollianDon't sugar-coat! I think we sodomized a boy's esophagus (after decapitating him). Just to make sure we had a virgin orifice.

Now, the online dictionary (The OED isn't handy) says:

Quote from: American Heritage Dictionary

• Cabin Boy - A boy servant aboard a ship.
• Boy - a male child.
• pedophilia - The act or fantasy on the part of an adult of engaging in sexual activity with a child or children.

So which part are you not getting.  I'm pretty secure with my logic.

I think your specific purpose was to claim to come in to answer any rules questions (I love Sigmunds!) so that you could later claim "Well, they were commenting on a game they knew nothing about.  I was there and nobody asked me rules questions."

Then there's the "who are you to judge us" defense.

Let's see...who am I missing.

Oh yeah, Tony's "Everybody thinks it's OK to tell stories, it's only fiction" Poll.

Anyone else?

Out of curiosity and an attempt at openmindedness I google Poison'd and I find this...

Quote from: lumpleyMe, Rich, Julia, John, Matt. Some other people watching for some of it, Julie, Ben, Ram. I was the GM. If you weren't at the table with us, then some of it, the best parts? You just don't get to know.

It's okay. There's plenty to tell. Let's start here. If you're delicate of sensibility, please cover your eyes now, okay?

It wasn't that I'd never played a game with rape in it before. Far from it - I've run towns in Dogs in the Vineyard that would curl your hair. It wasn't that I'd never played a game where a player character committed rape onscreen, not that either. Running kill puppies for satan all those times means that I've gotten pretty jaded about what PCs will do. By coincidence, it was the first game I've ever played where one PC raped another onscreen, but it wasn't even that. What it was was, it was the first game I've ever played where one PC raped another onscreen and everyone at the table liked it.

Remember this Perfect post of Ron's? Read the paragraph beginning "Brian provided a classic example of a Line in play..." It was a moment like the one he describes there, only the opposite: James Dobbins' player was watching us all to see if there was a line, and if he was about to cross it, and nope.

"Liked it." Jesus. But it's true. Raping Ebenezer was absolutely the right thing for James Dobbin's player to have James do. We at the table were like, holy fuck, but, fuck yeah. We laughed out loud because of how right it was. Because of what a monster former Captain Pallor had been and how he had visited his monstrousness upon all the characters in the game. The power vacuum he left behind was made of sex, violence, and their conjunction; to fill it, James Dobbins had to fucking FILL it.

Later in the game, Cuntface raped the governor's daughter. (Yes, the character's name was Cuntface. That's all you get to hear about that from me.) He didn't do a single thing that Errol Flynn wouldn't do - he scaled the wall, put his hand over the girl's mouth, fought off the guards with her slung over his shoulder, swing down the rope, took her aboard ship. We watched Cuntface's player tell about it with our mouths in thin lines, not laughing at all. Fuck, no, not fuck yeah. Oh Cuntface, you shouldn't. Shit.

Ebenezer had tried to castrate Cuntface. a) To subjugate him, yes. But also b) out of love, like a big brother's, to prevent this very thing. It's one thing for Ebenezer to rape and be raped. It's not cool when Cuntface does it.

Here's an important Poison'd GMing technique: "do you fight, or do you endure duress?" Enduring duress has the same mechanical benefits as everything else in the game, where fighting eats those benefits up, so the only reason to fight is because your character will. "Do you endure duress?" means that you can buy into even the most horrible experience for your character. It encourages a long view.

After the storm and the madness passed, while Cuntface was scaling the wall and fighting off the guards, Abyssinia, charged up with storm and madness, fucked James Dobbins. Threw open the door and bent him over. She had "a device," we called it. It had figured earlier, and you won't hear that part of the story from me either.

But. "Are you enduring duress?" I said.

"No," James' player said. "It's not that."

So, there you go. One rape no-holds-barred that made us laugh. One attempted rape I didn't tell you about. One romantic Errol Flynn rape where she was too scared to struggle and we didn't laugh at all. And one plain hard fuck.

You can uncover your eyes now.

Were we comfortable with what we did in the game? Yes. Well - we thought it was horrific, tragic, fitting, gruesome and bad. But whoever was talking, no matter how horrific and bad the things they were saying, never once did we wish they'd shut up.

After the game ended we sat and talked for another three hours or more, as friends. As, in fact, very good friends. None of us wanted to get up and go anywhere else. None of us wanted to open the circle to include anyone who hadn't been there. We split up for the night reluctantly and only very late. It was too good to leave behind.

-Vincent

...and this...

Quote from: John HarperToo good to leave behind. That's what it was, indeed. "The game most vile and beautiful," I told someone when I got back from GenCon.

I played James. By far the most vicious and damaged character I've ever played. I played James, but I wasn't the sole author of his sins onscreen. Like Vincent said, I was looking around the table the whole time we were moving across line after line, pulling down veil after veil, and not only was no one flinching, but everyone was nodding and sometimes smiling and sometimes laughing and all the time supporting. In the midst of the most transgressive and risky game I've ever played, I felt the most overwhelming sense of safety from my fellow players.

It wasn't cool when Cuntface did it, but it was okay. No one wanted the horrible things to happen, but no one objected. At no point did we hold each other in judgment. And, yeah... when James kicked down the door and fulfilled his twin ambitions to be revenged upon Ebenezer and to fuck him, too... yeah, we liked it. The extreme rightness of it was almost a joyful thing.

The bit at the end when Abyssinia fucked James was so important! Our ship was cursed. James did some black magic to see about lifting the curse, and he got an answer: Slit Abyssinia's throat and swab the deck with her blood. This he agreed to without batting an eye. But then, Abyssinia came to him and she made her move and he didn't resist her. I asked Abyssinia's player, "What's it like?" (the sex) and she says, "It's real. It's not power or revenge." After all the blood and curses, betrayals, revenge, and horror: it's something real.

Vincent asks if I'm enduring duress and I'm all, "Hell no. It's not that at all. Our ship can be cursed forever and to hell with all of us because not one drop of Abyssinia's blood will ever be spilled as long as I live."

And just like that we had a pirate marriage; knee deep in blood, but a marriage still.

Vincent is right to say we sat and talked after the game like good friends. Good, close friends were made during that game. We have been to war together, and seen each other's mettle and compassion under fire.

...and all I have to say is wtf? That is honestly pathetic...is that really the actual author of the game? Are fucking and raping and apparently murder) really as deep as this crew can get? Honestly, I sure hope I'm just seeing some out-of-context bluster and BS here because otherwise this shit is just silly. This is their attempt at exploring "moral" issues?

Quote from: fifth_childI really, honestly don't mind informed criticism that doesn't stray into aspersions of character or pseudo-diagnosis.

Wait...this is rich...you don't like pseudo diagnosis? Man, that's funny.

Quote from: fifth_childYou're of course not under any obligation to buy and read a book that you don't think you'll be interested in, but at the very least you should refrain from casting definitive judgment without knowing the subject.

See, this is where your logic falls apart.  I don't have to own the rule book - as someone pointed out upthread, I think we have enough to go by with the AP and designers comments. You've given no proof of any rule that says this play should not have occurred or rules the discourage this sort of play from resulting. You can't, can you? Otherwise, I have to take the word of the author. That, along with the AP, is plenty to cast any sort of judgement I want.

Quote from: fifth_childLike, for example, I think the Serenity rpg is probably not very good - from what I've heard people say about it, it sounds like it's not just not my cup of tea (I quite like the show, actually), but is actually a bit of a half-assed job at design.  But I don't really know, because I never bought it, because I don't think I'll like it.  So I've never once posted in a single thread about the Serenity rpg.

Except here...now.  And without any specific knowledge of the rule?!? How dare you! It would be funny if it weren't so sad - you're willing to cast judgement on the "half-assed" design of an RPG you've never read, while trying to chastise us for being repulsed by a game wherein a character decapitates a boy to sexually abuse the throat which we know based on the AP.

The title of the thread is appropos of a number of things, it appears - talk about trying to have it both ways!

A most interesting thread. Basically we have three groups of people. The first consists of a few who say, "This is too weird for me, I'm outa here." The second group is made up of those who say, "This is seriously fucked up shit, and those who take part in it are seriously fucked up people." Then you have the third group who who stare in mesmerized fascination and squeal, "Oh, look, bug guts!"

Call me a wussy petunia, but I sympathize with victims of rape and abuse. Part of my nature. I understand how emotionally fragile young adolescents are, and it hurts me. I understand how emotionally fragile rape victims are, and that hurts me. I've been out in the world, seen what happens in it, and I know how nasty it can be. Others in this thread have too.

Then you get those who show no understanding of what hurting other people involves. No idea of how physical and emotional pain can damage, even kill a victim. Especially the emotional pain. Classic examples of how profound ignorance warps perceptions. Seeing a girl being carved up for roasting on a movie screen is one thing. Having to carve up your own living daughter and then eat what you've cut off is quite another.

Yes, I'm talking about you WalkerP and Fifth_Child; among others. You know nothing about the world and the horrors it can hold. You're like the child in the Emo Philips story, told over and over again to never go past the cellar door. You've been shielded against the world and so have no defenses against the evil it holds.

You and people like you are like young children poking at a squashed beetle and telling each other, "Look at the bug guts." I hope you gain some measure of experience and maturity before it comes your day to die.

Quote from: SigmundNice side-step of the actual point. Here's a question for ya. Actually a few I suppose. First, does saying something like, "I think we sodomized a boy's esophagus (after decapitating him). Just to make sure we had a virgin orifice." actually gain a player's character some in-game reward, as opposed to just saying something like, "I kill the cabin boy and defile his corpse." without going into specifics, and if so do the rules explain why? Next, do the rules explain why "playing a woman disguised as a man" would gain a character a "level of blasphamy", and do the rules also go on to say that "fucking women as a "man." " would gain another "level of blasphamy", and if so why? What is there in the rules that would change my opinion, which has been formed based on this AP that has been posted, that the sole purpose of this game is to showcase an escalating level of gratuitous coarseness and depravity on the part of the players? Does the game have some point (other than the celebration of violence and depravity for it's own sake)?

It's not a side-step, nice or otherwise.  If you're going to use provocative wordings, it's advisable to be aware of precisely what they mean.

As to the mechanics of the situation... it's hard to know without more information about the actual play in question.  In the game, Murder is a sin, Sodomy is a sin, Rape is a sin.  If the pirate in question took any of the cabin boy's possessions then Robbery is also a sin.  If the character doesn't already have a level of Devil (either from character generation, where you pick a number of sins and set your Devil score equal to the number you pick, minimum 2 and maximum 6, with sins you commit habitually or without remorse counting for two), corresponding to any given one of those sins, then just doing that thing would be enough to gain a point of Devil.  There's no mechanical basis for level of detail or amount of screen time or anything else - mechanically, murder is murder, rape is rape, &c., whether you killed someone off-screen or spent twenty minutes on description.  It's also up to the judgment of the people playing whether having sex with a corpse counts as rape or not - it's certainly gross, but I'm not sure it technically fits as rape.

So, from those mechanics, it's clear that the player in question went significantly farther than was necessary, according to the rules.  On the other hand, we know very little of the fictional context in which the act took place.  It's conceivable that the character had a bargain, or that there was a Cruel Fortune in effect, that necessitated some of the other isolated details we've been provided with, such as the "virgin hole."  Or maybe there wasn't, I really can't say.  Of course, even if there were a bargain or a Cruel Fortune in play, it's the player's choice to honor the bargain or work to get rid of the Cruel Fortune.  For example, in Vincent's actual play, one of the characters chooses not to fulfill the criteria for eliminating a Cruel Fortune, which was in that case to slit another character's throat and swab the deck with her blood.

Concerning women being dressed as men being blasphemy, it's in the rules to create tension between the game's imaginary society and our modern sensibilities.  If a pirate ship were a bloodless democracy (they were often democracies of a sort, but never bloodless ones) whose crew's actions were always morally defensible, well, there wouldn't be much meat to the game.  Or, more specifically, this particular game would be a fantastic failure at driving towards conflict the way it's meant to.  By the way, just so you're aware, the impact of women dressing as men being a sin is pretty much negligible.  During character creation, you pick which sins you've committed.  You don't technically have to choose any, but even if you've committed zero sins, you still start with a Devil score of 2.  So a female character's Blasphemy can easily be one of those 2 semi-required sins, and if you like, you can still make her start as morally sound as it's possible for a pirate character to be.

The point of the game?  Well, you get to play a pirate.  You can use that as a vehicle to explore issues if you want - like how Vincent and his players felt that they were telling a story about an abusive family, covered with a thin veneer of pirate.  You can just tell rip-roaring tales of the exploits of flawed, dangerous, and hardened pirates, with nothing deeper than surface level.  You can use it to play a game of one-upmanship, seeing who can be the most daring or devious.  All of these games are going to have a tendency towards brutality of some level or another, so if that idea sounds distasteful to you then you're well within your rights to avoid the game.

The basic situation also strikes me as being pretty good for a one-shot.  "The captain is dead, killed by poison.  The cook, a secret agent of the king, is responsible, and he says there's a warship hot on your tail.  What do you?"  Is pretty simple, compelling, and leads to direct and dramatic action in a lot of different directions.  What do you do with the treacherous cook?  Who's going to be the new captain?  What do you do about the pursuing warship?  If you just play out those immediate circumstances, it strikes me as pretty unlikely that rape would enter into the picture, but of course hours of fun can be had with just Murder, Robbery, Blasphemy, and Idolatry, which are pretty standard fare for roleplaying games in general.

Quote from: James J SkachThis is what you've come to?  Really? Poorly crafted semantic arguments that can be swatted away with a few online dictionary searches?

Here, let me help you out.

Now, the online dictionary (The OED isn't handy) says:

[snip definitions]

So which part are you not getting.  I'm pretty secure with my logic.

"Boy" in a nautical context is much like a rank.  It denotes someone's position, not necessarily their age.  I was under the impression that the original AP snippet specifically said "cabin boy," but I misremembered.  It still might mean a cabin boy or ship's boy, but it does seem just as (if not more) likely that it's just a young male.  Consider that particular comment withdrawn.

Pedophilia (and necrophilia as well) is a type of paraphilia, a family of psychological disorders dealing with aberrant urges that interfere with a person's normal consensual and/or affectionate sexuality.  Properly speaking, the term classifies the illness, not the act.  You can check the Wikipedia page or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for more details.

Quote from: James J SkachI think your specific purpose was to claim to come in to answer any rules questions (I love Sigmunds!) so that you could later claim "Well, they were commenting on a game they knew nothing about.  I was there and nobody asked me rules questions."

It strikes me as unlikely that I'll be making any claims concerning this whole debate any time in the foreseeable future.  The outcry over the game will die down, the game will sell however well or poorly it's going to sell.  Some people will play it and enjoy it, some people will play it and not enjoy it, and many others won't play it at all.  Also, there's been a number of mechanical questions asked, all of which I've answered.

Quote from: James J SkachThen there's the "who are you to judge us" defense.

Let's see...who am I missing.

Oh yeah, Tony's "Everybody thinks it's OK to tell stories, it's only fiction" Poll.

Anyone else?

I don't even know the poll you're talking about.  I'm pretty much only paying attention to this thread here.  Bottom line: you're free to assume anything you like about my motives.

Quote from: mythusmageYes, I'm talking about you WalkerP and Fifth_Child; among others. You know nothing about the world and the horrors it can hold. You're like the child in the Emo Philips story, told over and over again to never go past the cellar door. You've been shielded against the world and so have no defenses against the evil it holds.

Don't fucking tell me what I do and don't know.  Don't make presumptious assumptions about what I've seen and lived through.  You have no fucking clue.  Don't paint my position with your morality brush.  I've seen some evil and that's exactly why I have no problem with a fictional representation of it.  What I have a problem with is people like you who think controlling what people do and think is fighting evil.  You're the ones telling the child to never go past the cellar door, not me.  And who the fuck is Emo Philips?

Quote from: mythusmageThen you get those who show no understanding of what hurting other people involves. No idea of how physical and emotional pain can damage, even kill a victim. Especially the emotional pain. Classic examples of how profound ignorance warps perceptions. Seeing a girl being carved up for roasting on a movie screen is one thing. Having to carve up your own living daughter and then eat what you've cut off is quite another.

So wait, have you done this?  Because that I do find disturbing.  I sincerely hope it was a matter of starvation and necessity rather than choice.