Quote from: Darrin Kelley;948128I prefer not to get more jaded toward what I read than I already tend to be. That's an edge I would rather not fall off.

Being able to seperate fantasy from reality is also a sign of maturity. And sanity.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;948131Being able to seperate fantasy from reality is also a sign of maturity. And sanity.

I'll tell you a secret: A good fiction writer needs to have a touch of insanity to truly make their characters feel alive and vibrant. To create that illusion of life so vital to making their characters compelling.

The writer needs the ability to exist within the mind and point of view of the characters they create. So that the dialogue from those characters properly flow in a natural way. It's something one can't do from a third party perspective and make it believable.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;948123If I could say anything to that ex-cop, these more than two decades later. I would tell him how much of a scumbag I thought he was for psychologically raping me. By exposing me to what he did. And I would also tell him. That I reject all of it. That I have done everything in my life as a writer and a GM to never inflict on others what he did to me.

I've deleted my original response to Darrin here.

Normally, I'd never do this.  If I screw up in a post, I'll let it stand.  This is a little different.

What I originally posted was some ranting, epic-level stupidity on my part.  After I cooled down, I realized how stupid it was.  I may disagree with Darrin, and may do so strongly, but that's no reason for me to vomit the kind of melodramatic garbage on this thread that I did.  I could leave the original post here, but I feel it'd just hang here stinking up the place like the mental fart it was.  I don't want to add to the pollution.

I am not anti-cop. Anyone who knows me, knows I am one of the most supportive people toward police officers I can be. One of my Vietnam veteran uncles was a Police Detective who had served the department for decades.

I am also the survivor of a murder attempt made against me when I was four years old by my scumbag father. It left me with major medical conditions that plague me to this very day. That prevent me from actual conventional employment. Sticking me with the humiliation of a meager disability income.

So don't think you can preach to me! You don't have that right.

RPG groups are not the appropriate place to spill one's mental and emotional problems. Therapists and Psychiatrists exist for that. Forcing them on people who are woefully unequipped to deal with it isn't doing anybody any favors. If that ex-cop wanted therapy, he certainly had the time, opportunity, and money to get it. I wasn't the proper person to dump his memories of atrocity on!

What did I do to that ex-cop in the end? I removed him from the group for being disruptive. And tried my best to continue on for the sake of the rest of the group. Which I failed in the end to do. I was in so much mental and emotional shock, that I couldn't touch a GM's chair for three years.

Do you even get how entirely messed up that is? Being terrified of doing an activity I loved is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. It made me useless at one of the few things in my life I saw myself as being really good at.

Nobody in this hobby should ever be made to feel like that.

And again, another deleted post.  My original reply to Darrin here was a little more sane, but certainly wasn't constructive.

My reasons for deletion are the same as in my post upthread, #212.  However, I'll add that I thought this was Pundit's forum at the time.  I didn't realize it was the general roleplaying forum.  Not the best place for this nonsense on my part.  So, I'm policing myself here.

Sometimes you have an off day.  All you can do is correct whatever mistakes you can.

I've got this scar on my knee from when I fell down on a sharp rock...

Quote from: Simlasa;948150I've got this scar on my knee from when I fell down on a sharp rock...

You've seen some things, dude, and some stuff.  

Simlasa, you're a scholar and a gentleman (or gentle lady).  Thank you.

So one person incapable of handling their own shit triggered someone else who couldn't handle their own shit?

Urg.

If I had any sense, I would have stayed out of this one.  If I had any better sense I would have realized this was the general RPG sub-forum, and not Pundit's forum, and I just hijacked this thread with my ranting.

Apologies to all.

I take strong exception to most of what you wrote, Darrian.  For reasons I think one might understand.  I disagree with both the tone as well as the assumptions you seem to hold on this matter regarding your condemnation of this ex-cop.  From my POV, he did nothing wrong and your reaction is unjustified.

However...

As a rule, I don't like getting into this subject matter, but I've been breaking that rule lately, and I really should stop.

Darrian, I apologize if I offended you.  I was too strong in my writing.  I'll leave you the last word on this, and step away from this thread.

EDIT (some time later): I've edited out my original two posts above.  Reasons are explained there, but the short version is that was some high-level idiocy on my part that has no place on this thread.  Not doing this because I feel bad about looking like an idiot (I do that all the time, so I'm cool), but I won't tolerate a certain level of toxicity from myself regarding certain subjects.  Best if cleaned up and thrown in the trash where my earlier rants belonged.

Quote from: CRKrueger;948155So one person incapable of handling their own shit triggered someone else who couldn't handle their own shit?

That's exactly right.  See my post upthread.

EDIT: And thanks to CRK and Simlasa for having more common sense here than I did.

Quote from: Simlasa;948079Maybe the 'demon of lust' isn't meant to inspire lust but to embody it... it lusts for everything... it's ready to fuck or be fucked by all comers. Maybe it exudes pheromones that make it irresistible regardless of it's variant hardware.

Maaaybe, but I'm not persuaded. I mean, are the pheromones enough to overwrite sexual orientation?
I'd say no, it can only make really horny for the next compatible human being you meet. That's why both the incubus and succubus are sexy.

Quote from: Nexus;948099That assumes that is the only one kind of lust demon, perhaps there sorts for all types of fetishes and perverse tastes. Maybe it has pheromones or magic that inspire lust (Slaneesh deamonttes have some similar, IIRC) or its not meant to inspire lust but to embody it, in all forms, with as many possible...

And you have more of a problem with a hermaphrodite than an octopus wearing the skin of a woman as far as  not many people lusting after it? I've seen much more futanari and pre op transexual porn than Leatherface the Octopus porn.

Except it's actually not as easy to notice:). And a demon who wants to make you horny, possibly gets you alone, and then reveal its mass murderer's surprise:)?
That's totally a demon of lust, alright (though admittedly more of the kind that punishes you for being lustful - so, possibly a Church of Sigmar-approved devil testing the chastity of followers, instead).

QuoteI mean there's fertility Godd/esses and other mythological figures  depicted as hermaphrodites as objects of sexual desire and fertility.

Fertility god/deses don't need to make you feel lust. They need to be able to procreate, often with themselves - so it makes sense.

QuoteOr as monsters. Or both, So a demon meant to be an example of humanity's sexual excesses and transgressions being dual gendered doesn't seem unreasonable.

To you, maybe not, but it sure seems so to me.

QuotePeople are weird.

True some are, but I'm talking about the majority.

QuoteI get that that particular concept for a Lust Demon doesn't arouse you (and others. Truthfully it doesn't do much for me either). Some would be appalled by the new one. Others would disagree and some quite strongly I can understand that but I don't feel that eliminates it as a concept for lust demon. Tristram Evan's lust demon concept works too for the same reasons. Hell, if you want to pick nits then the only concept that would be acceptable would be shapeshifter as there's no single form that's going to appeal to absolutely everyone.

Yeah, that's what I said: everything else is inferiour for those goals! See my previous post.

QuoteI liked the original because it was alien and "other" yet close enough to human for the intent to be clear even if you find it repulsive. The revised version is okay just seems a little "generic" in comparison. I could see them existing in the same setting though.

In a way, I like them all - but I'd rather pick the skin-wearing one for an RPG if we can't have a real shape-changer.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;948123As a consumer I am getting sick of it being equated that: Grimdark = Mature. Because that is anything but the truth.

Some grimdark isn't mature, and some is.
Some optimistic material is mature, and some is the result of childishness:).

QuoteBeing a sufferer of manic depression. I can certainly tell you how destructive grim material and imagery can be to one's psyche.

Correction: you can tell us how destructive it can be to your psyche.
Other people get exposed to such materials and imagery in order to toughen up psychically (just like engaging in full-contact sparrings makes you better able to withstand pain, as a general rule). "Useful to prevent greater shocks disabling you" isn't destructive, it's a coping mechanism.

QuoteGrimdark by its very nature is not a mature point of view. It is a product of adolescent hopelessness and feelings of alienation.

For you.

QuoteBeating the hope and optimism out of someone is something that absolutely shouldn't be given praise. It's cruel act of terrorism to deliberately force a distorted worldview on someone. It's an act of assault on that person.

First: "assault" and "terrorism"? Let me put it in the gentlest possible terms: comparing being given reading material that you found too rough is not even close to the suffering of people who have been assaulted or became victims of terrorism. Please, stop using those words when talking about an imaginary experience! That's like saying "being mean to people on Internet is assault".

Second: Who tells you that the view of the cop you mentioned is the distorted one? What he has seen, happens. The distortion only comes if the knowledge about it dominates your waking moments...but not even knowing that those things happen is equally distorted.
By telling people that "grimdark is not-mature, not-whatever"...you're basically telling them that it doesn't happen. A lie many believe willingly.
And then it's you who has imposed your distorted version of reality on people, and in the process, you made them easier targets for human predators. You know, the ones that would cause those people the kind of things the cop described for you.
Yeah, I don't find that a worthy goal.

Everybody around a game table has their own demons and problems. The group I was the GM of at that time was no different. And we set rules at our table that would accommodate that.

If there were subjects that anyone at the table had issues with, it would go on the list of forbidden subjects. Things the GM and the players were expected honor as being too loaded and triggery to ever even allude to.

As GM, I was the firewall that prevented material on that list of subjects from ever making it into the wild of the campaign. I was the gatekeeper. But it also meant, I got everything given by the players unfiltered.

The content given by that ex-cop triggered virtually every one of those forbidden subjects. A list of topics he had been notified as being off-limits from the moment he joined the campaign.

No. I wasn't prepared in the slightest for what he did. There was no way I could have been. No way anyone could have been.

But I have to hand it to the rest of the game group. When I fell down and told them I couldn't go on. They were absolutely understanding. They were thankful to me for bringing them the enjoyment I had. Every single one of them. And they wished me well in whatever I would do in the future.

Weak isn't falling down. Weak would have been: Letting that player roll over me and inflict what he did to me on the rest of the group. No. I wasn't weak by any definition. I took a shot for the team. Which put me out for quite some time. But I didn't quit.

Oh for fuck's sake....

Can we just go back to talking about sensible things like what a minotaur's dick would really look like? Futanari demons and the men/women that love them? Fun shit like that

Quote from: noman;948157Darrian, I apologize if I offended you.  I was too strong in my writing.  I'll leave you the last word on this, and step away from this thread.

The apology ends the issue for me. Thank you very much for it.

For me, it will be like this incident never happened. That's how I will treat it.

Quote from: AsenRG;948159Maaaybe, but I'm not persuaded. I mean, are the pheromones enough to overwrite sexual orientation?
I'd say no, it can only make really horny for the next compatible human being you meet. That's why both the incubus and succubus are sexy.

Maybe they put out intoxicating fumes as well... exuding supernaturally powerful scents of lotus and mandragora from their 'pink secrets'... labia coated in hallucinatory drugs... penises dripping venom that bring ecstasy and death.
Instant beer-goggles!