Quote from: Age of Fable;255996Boils down to saying it's a light and fun comedy game - it's got a bit of sexual stuff, but "those who have enjoyed a few of the more comical (or even hardcore) hentai titles will probably find it to be laugh out loud funny like I did".

As it happens, on Saturday I ended up talking about Maid with most of the players who were in my earlier Sailor Moon campaign (minus one since she moved out of town some time ago). Apparently they'd happily jump at the chance to try out this game, too.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;255992What, exactly, is your position and aim in coming in to this discussion?

Killing time while waiting for a bus. What's yours?

Believe I've stated it, but essentially that 'creepy wierdos' and 'creepy wierdo games' are harmful to the hobby.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;255983It's pretty tiny, let's be honest here. We have a profile marginally higher than that of stamp collectors.

*shrug* I don't know what to say. First you say the hobby is invisible, then you say we have a profile marginally higher than that of stamp collectors. My point is, that our behaviour is noticed. And yeah even the content of our games - see the whole demon & magic fiasco of AD&D 2E.

QuoteThe deeper you can see with a glance, the less long you have to look. How perceptive do we have to be to see that these movies take different perspectives?
If you think that the general public can't tell the difference between the perspectives of those two movies just from the posters, you must have a very low opinion of the public indeed.

Well maybe the popularity of the SAW movies says something about the public. Or the hypocrisy when it comes to the acceptability of violence when it comes to a movie like say The Passion of the Christ and the outrage when it comes to the evils of most Hollywood product. But your analogy isn't really appropriate.

Let's take the impression that is left when a non gamer sees a Mongoose cover (a woman with her legs spread and only a tiny piece of cloth covering her promised land) and say for instance the cover of WFRP. Which do you think gives gaming a bad rep?

QuoteYou're missing the point. I never said that deviant sexual stuff was part of mainstream gaming, nor that I ever expected it to be. What I said was that a nasty minority can come to represent a group as a whole to the general public - whether that group likes it or not.

Again who exactly are these deviants, kyle. Some games from the Forge are pretty lame IMO, but are you saying like the Pundit is, that they want to destroy the hobby. I mentioned Black Tokyo a d20 game. I hardly think this kind of stuff is mainstream or that they - products and gamers - represent or could ever represent the hobby.

QuoteWe're in no danger of every D&D player putting down their minis and taking up a ball gag and nipple clamp. But that people take lonely losers at cons and supershockedegycool Forgers to represent the hobby? That's plausible. Whether it'd actually happen I can't say. But it's plausible. It's not insane.

Well most of the bad behaviour comes from players of mainstream games. They are the most visible ones. Again, I get the impression you want to chase the whole Froge and Storygamer crowd out of the hobby, while most of the examples of stupid shit happening at Cons are from mainstream gamers. I'm not saying that the Froge crew are any better....bad behvaiour is bad behaviour, no matter where it comes from.

QuoteAbsolutely. But we're told that "System Matters" - therefore content influences behaviour. Now, I've always said people come first, and that you in the group get all the credit and the blame for everything that happens in it.

I don't care what we're told. But I do agree that we are all responsible for our own actions or in this case game play.

QuoteNonetheless, game content encourages or discourages certain in-character actions. It would be hard not to be silly in Paranoia or Hackmaster, for example. What's happening there is that something in the game speaks to something in the person - in those cases, humour.

And what does it say of gamers who seek out the bleakness of Unknown Armies or Midnight or Kult or most any White Wolf game? I mean seriously kyle, is this the argument now ? You are what you play....

QuoteNo game can bring out something that wasn't already there. So if someone plays Game X and sick shit comes out, that sick shit was there already. Frankly I think some shit should stay hidden and unsaid.

Well, I did say that the main question (never mind the fact that we obviously disagree on what exactly gives the hobby a bad rep) was, should certain subject matter be off limits in gaming ?

QuoteSure. People do nasty shit, and have nasty fantasies. Why encourage it?

Who said anything about encouraging it. Do the games I mentioned encourage nasty fantasies or are they just a form of escapism?

QuoteThere's grim and then there's just plain old nasty shit. They're different things.

Sure, which is why discussion to sort out the grim from the plain old nasty is important. Don't you think ?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Elliot WilenStill, we are talking about a game here, not an academic study. If the game can be rendered into usable form through judicious editing, maybe it'd be better to excise the offending material so it won't distract, and provide a means to access it along with commentary.

Of course you can do that, but I preffer non-castrated stuff, even if it's sick.

Quote from: Fritzs;255790Do you think, that RPGs are endangered and they need our protection?

No. I don't think the introduction of new and unwelcome - to those already in the hobby - elements will bring about the end of roleplaying...although they may well bring about an evolution of mainstream roleplaying into things we don't like. Nevertheless, some will remain, playing in the old way, about the old things, while the "hobby" progresses without us.

Whatever. I don't really care. Maybe next year, every single RPG on the market will be Maid or Fatal or Racial Holy War. That's not going to stop me or mine from playing, and it's not going to stop any of you from playing. Maybe in 100 years, no one will be playing OD&D, because everyone is roleplaying My Favorite Hentai; that's not really a concern of mine. Media change, and change again, and evolve in ways its original adherents don't like. I don't really care.

Quote from: Age of Fable;255996Boils down to saying it's a light and fun comedy game - it's got a bit of sexual stuff, but "those who have enjoyed a few of the more comical (or even hardcore) hentai titles will probably find it to be laugh out loud funny like I did".

It's worth noting that the word "hentai" actually means pervert in Japanese.

"Those who have enjoyed pervert titles..."

Just so I'm absolutely clear on this...

does it specifically say you can be an under-age character?

do the seduction rules address the characters' ages?

I mean, you can do creepy things with any system, there's a big difference between the rules allowing something and the rules being written for something. Eg d20s Use Rope skill & grapple rules could be used to enable people to play rapists, but no one condemns d20 for that.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;256001Believe I've stated it, but essentially that 'creepy wierdos' and 'creepy wierdo games' are harmful to the hobby.

You realize you're perilously close to sounding and acting just like the thing you're afraid of right?

Seriously folks if you're worried about a few goofballs ruining your hobby you may need to prioritize how you spend your time-more time gaming, less time worrying.

Quote from: David R;256002*shrug* I don't know what to say. First you say the hobby is invisible, then you say we have a profile marginally higher than that of stamp collectors.

Which is as close to invisible as anyone can really get. Let's not split fine semantic hairs, here.

Quote from: David RWell maybe the popularity of the SAW movies says something about the public.

They're doing pretty well, especially compared to their budgets. And yes, it says something about the part of the public which enjoys them. It says that the public find strong violence, sadism, misogyny and empathy with murderers far more acceptable, indeed even enjoyable, compared to ten or twenty or more years ago.

I don't dispute that the public has a nasty streak - not the majority, but certainly enough for some people to make a living serving them this stuff up - only that they're stupid. They have a pretty good idea of what they're being served up.

Quote from: David RLet's take the impression that is left when a non gamer sees a Mongoose cover (a woman with her legs spread and only a tiny piece of cloth covering her promised land) and say for instance the cover of WFRP. Which do you think gives gaming a bad rep?

As I said, I don't think covers have much effect. I agree with you that the behaviour of people is much stronger in creating images of the groups involved.

Quote from: David RAgain who exactly are these deviants, kyle.

We've seen the actual play reports of many such games. So - those players. Go back and look at old threads, there was no chance of my meeting and playing with them so I didn't bother memorising their names.

Quote from: David RSome games from the Forge are pretty lame IMO, but are you saying like the Pundit is, that they want to destroy the hobby.

Where did I say that?

I said their deviant desires expressed in games might harm the image of the hobby, or might not, but certainly wouldn't help it.

Quote from: David RI hardly think this kind of stuff is mainstream or that they - products and gamers - represent or could ever represent the hobby.

Yes, thank God it never happens that the actions of a tiny minority of fucksticks come to make people outside that group view the whole group as just like those fucksticks.

 

Quote from: David RAgain, I get the impression you want to chase the whole Froge and Storygamer crowd out of the hobby, while most of the examples of stupid shit happening at Cons are from mainstream gamers.

The thing is that in mainstream games, stupid shit is neither encouraged nor discouraged; in these games, it's encouraged. It's a bit like the difference between basketball and rugby and the number of bruises you can expect to get - in either game, a player can just up and smack someone in the head if he wants to, but since rugby is designed to have people bashing into each-other, the head punches are far more likely to show up there.

So, you know, everyone's heard the stories of the woman gamer who games for the first time and another PC rapes her character, and the GM, giggling, makes her roll a save vs pregnancy. This shit is far more likely when you get xp for it, as in Poison'd.

When someone is a deviant fuck in a game of (say) D&D, we can just write it off as, "well, that's just one guy, every place has one..." That's a bit harder with some of these games. I mean, just look at AndyK defending Maid.

Quote from: Andy Kit's not girl-on-girl sexual abuse there, however humiliation is involved, nudity is involved,

So girls are stripping each-other naked and humiliating each-other, but it's not sexual at all. Yeah, okay.

Quote from: Andy KErr, it's not "child abuse traits". I don't mean that in a "NAMBLA Apologist" way, either. But, you're right, we should have perhaps posted a sidebar stating that this could be platonic, etc, and doesn't mean actual sexual stuff.

A completely non-sexual relationship where an adult dominates a child dressed in a maid uniform, and... er... where's Mythusmage? He'd love this.
[quote-Andy K]There's a moment where two characters (one, a cyborg who appears to be of age 11) almost exchange a kiss, but given the context of the game, it's not humiliating, abusive, etc. I hope that those give a clearer picture of what the game is about.[/quote]
Underaged cyborgs almost getting it on? What the fuck?

Fucked-up shit can appear anywhere, absolutely. I know, I've seen it a lot. But there's a difference when it's designed into the game.

Quote from: David RAnd what does it say of gamers who seek out the bleakness of Unknown Armies or Midnight or Kult or most any White Wolf game? I mean seriously kyle, is this the argument now ? You are what you play....

Yes, the way you play is an expression of you. And many of those games give rather mixed messages - like UA, its combat chapter begins with this lecture on "killing is bad, m'kay?" and then gives you a list of 72 different types of firearms and 97 different types of ammo - compared to 80 or so example skills, only 24 or so of which were described beyond their title. So, what are the authours really telling us? They're rather confused. And they're not the only ones.

Quote from: David RWell, I did say that the main question (never mind the fact that we obviously disagree on what exactly gives the hobby a bad rep) was, should certain subject matter be off limits in gaming ?

Again, it's not the subject matter itself, but its treatment.

For example, in this evening's game session the PCs finally caught up with a bomber. He was in a university chemistry faculty using the fumehood to prepare his nerve gas. He'd been stumbled on by a young woman tutor and her boyfriend, and he and his sidekick bound them both, and he raped the woman then shot them both.

He's a nasty bastard.

But this all happened out of the sight of the PCs. They didn't get to hear descriptions of it happening live, and it certainly didn't happen to any PCs, they just came up to the guy and realised what had happened. So - nasty shit was in the campaign, but the PCs weren't the criminals or the victims, and nobody had to sit through hearing about it.

So I think virtually anything is fair to put in an rpg session. But where the PCs are the people doing or suffering truly nasty things, or where the GM gets his jollies describing the nasty shit while the players squirm - nope, wrong way, go back.

Quote from: GrimGent;255998As it happens, on Saturday I ended up talking about Maid with most of the players who were in my earlier Sailor Moon campaign (minus one since she moved out of town some time ago). Apparently they'd happily jump at the chance to try out this game, too.

Cool. Be sure and say

Quote from: the rpg.net reviewI sure am a lucky master… Oh, and we get to determine your uniform colors. I like my pure sexy maids to wear… brown.

There's nothing the ladies like better.

OK, that's the review and not the rules of the game, but you've got to admit that a fell air hangs over the whole thing?

Quote from: Age of Fable;256022OK, that's the review and not the rules of the game, but you've got to admit that a fell air hangs over the whole thing?

Eh, more accurately that's the reviewer flippantly joking about a randomly generated character which isn't quite turning out as he expected, not a GM talking to anyone else at the table. Like everything else, whether a given group chooses to turn up the dial on romance or naughtiness is a decision left entirely up to the players.

In Sailor Moon, the relationship between Usagi Tsukino and Mamoru Chiba drives the storyline, and Makoto Kino's ex-boyfriends are a running joke throughout the show. Both of those girls are thirteen as the first season of the series begins. They are also fully statted out and playable in the SM RPG. Would that be a problem for you?

QuoteIs the hobby really THAT fragile?

For almost thirty-five years gaming has remained impervious to the daily harm even the weirdest slice of it's demographic inflicts. Beyond that it's been banned at schools, linked to devil worship and cited along with heavy metal music as the inspiration for a number of murders and suicides. It has survived bad press on a scale so massive as to leave the whole "Maid controversy" in the dust. This is a non-issue for 99.99% of the hobby, let alone those few moral guardians who still can be bothered to keep tabs on it.

Quote from: Kyle AaronSo I think virtually anything is fair to put in an rpg session. But where the PCs are the people doing or suffering truly nasty things, or where the GM gets his jollies describing the nasty shit while the players squirm - nope, wrong way, go back.

Badwrongfun argument is bad. Who are you to tell me how to play my game...?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;256015It's worth noting that the word "hentai" actually means pervert in Japanese.

"Those who have enjoyed pervert titles..."

The comparable Chinese adj. would be 'bientai', literally "twisted type". I prefer another noun 'silang', which means a snake-y character. Which pretty much describes all that tentacle-sex shit.