I thought first of violence, but then looked over the thread and everyone was talking about sex, so...

I've long tried to make violence something significant in the campaigns I've run. For example, if I've a player who likes to have a badarse character just kill people, then of course I give them names and faces, and describe exactly what a bullet through someone's head does. I'm definitely not some pacifist hippy, but actions have consequences. You don't want to watch someone stumble around flapping his arms then fall over convulsing, then don't shoot him in the head!

I find most players have trouble setting aside modern sensibilities and ideas about violence. For example, in many ancient and medieval battles, it wasn't really just a bunch of duels; one side would poke at the other until one of them broke and ran, then they'd be chased and cut down from behind. Not really terribly chivalrous, but that was how it was. And then there's the thing of downing a foe, then finishing him off afterwards. Quite common and expected - but something players sometimes have trouble with, I find.

They also often have trouble with issues of social structures. So if their character has slaves, they're a kind master and never beat them. They tend not to be very deferential to superiors, and when on top try to be "one of the guys."

I think these issues of violence and social structure are fairly controversial - they're the heart of many issues discusssed daily on the news, after all - and they take some genuine maturity and thought to look at.

They even take maturity to decide whether you want to look at the issues, or whether you just want your game world to be some kind of... other world.


Imagine roleplaying in that game world, but with it more closely resembling the real Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1194. Wouldn't that be more interesting? It would certainly be controversial, and require some maturity.

Quote from: architect.zero]Not to mention that's a fairly US-centric POV too as much of the rest of the world has fairly different standards concerning sex and sexuality vs. violence.

I agree.  My Japanese co-workers thought Tom and Jerry was terribly violent when I lived in Japan.  Japanese movies and cable television also have a very different sensibility about showing sex.  They'll show all sorts of graphic behavior and simply hide or pixelize the naughty bits.  American movies and cable television care less about what bits are shown but what people are doing with them.

Yeah, my Pendragon players were a bit surprised by just what the real "rules" of being a knight were, finding some of them fairly unusual based on either modern sentiments or what they expected from a "medieval knights" game.

RPGPundit

The most mature thing that I've ever dealt with in a game I ran, as opposed to played in, was racism.

I had an Unknown Armies game where the PCs were detectives in New Orleans trying to figure out the cause of church burnings. The church burnings were a cover-up by a white supremacist group for a werewolf who only ate black people. He was a werewolf because a voodoo priest had cursed him after he beat up the priest's nephew, a gang member who'd started dating the werewolf's ex-girlfriend (a bearded woman at a local carnival where the werewolf worked). The werewolf had been inducted into the white supremacist organisation because they were the only group of people who accepted him for who he was (as a werewolf). They then used him to get revenge on a local black reverend who was causing trouble for the leader of the white supremacist group (who ran a series of successful and popular pet shops, and who made the werewolf, in wolf form, breed with his prize-winning hunting dogs).

The PCs were: An ex-cop obsessed with an immortal child-molester/serial killer he thought he had killed, a surveillance expert with a voyeuristic obsession, and a small time crook who just wanted everyone to like him. It was one of the coolest games I ever ran, even though it was a PbP that petered out.

Edit: Beer makes extra letters appear in "supremacist".

There was an adventure being promoted on ENWorld once. It involved the party delivering a girl to a location where she would be cared for.

The girl is 12, a psychc, autistic, and the victim of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. While the promo material never came out and said it, the impression given was that the abuse included rape.

The adventure, from what I could tell, dealt with the party learning how the child came to be the way she is, what her new guardians meant for her, and the problems inherent in dealing with a low-functioning autistic.

No on-screen violence or sex, just having to deal with the affects of such on a young child who is quite unable to care for herself. If you've ever dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder or the autistic, you can see what the adventurers are in for. Add in psychic ability and you've got a recipe for disaster.

No good people, you don't need sex or violence for an RPG to have mature content.

I run a lot of historical games, so there's loads of racism, religious bigotry, violence, torture and general shittiness.

Offscreen as a rule.

I like my history as it comes, so I don't want to shy away from what happens when vikings raid a monastery or mercenaries sack a town, but nor do I want to dwell on it in slomo.

Politics comes up constantly, deals for personal gain and issues like loss of faith sometimes as well as lust, revenge and sheer avarice.  All those are good.

But essentially, if describing it would make for an unpleasant atmosphere it happens but offscreen or just factually described.  I game for fun, mature content is there because we're mature, but because we're mature we don't need to wallow in it.

Hm, that sounds judgemental, ah well.

When I was an adolescent we wallowed in detail on all kinds of repulsive stuff, but that's the way it goes at that age for a lot of folk.

Quote from: BalbinusI run a lot of historical games, so there's loads of racism, religious bigotry, violence, torture and general shittiness.

When I was an adolescent we wallowed in detail on all kinds of repulsive stuff, but that's the way it goes at that age for a lot of folk.

This whole post is what I would write.

-clash

Quote from: BalbinusWhen I was an adolescent we wallowed in detail on all kinds of repulsive stuff, but that's the way it goes at that age for a lot of folk.

:eek: Do those games count???  

Pete

Quote from: BalbinusI run a lot of historical games, so there's loads of racism, religious bigotry, violence, torture and general shittiness.

Offscreen as a rule.

I like my history as it comes, so I don't want to shy away from what happens when vikings raid a monastery or mercenaries sack a town, but nor do I want to dwell on it in slomo.

Politics comes up constantly, deals for personal gain and issues like loss of faith sometimes as well as lust, revenge and sheer avarice.  All those are good.

But essentially, if describing it would make for an unpleasant atmosphere it happens but offscreen or just factually described.  I game for fun, mature content is there because we're mature, but because we're mature we don't need to wallow in it.

Hm, that sounds judgemental, ah well.

When I was an adolescent we wallowed in detail on all kinds of repulsive stuff, but that's the way it goes at that age for a lot of folk.

What Max said.

Quote from: ImperatorWhat Max said.

Pretty much me too, bar the teenage wallowing in repulsive stuff. I feel short-changed in my teenage roleplaying...

Quote from: Joshua FordPretty much me too, bar the teenage wallowing in repulsive stuff. I feel short-changed in my teenage roleplaying...

Do it when you get old, if you're gaming in your 80s and you try that stuff out what are people going to do?

It's called your second childhood for a reason

Quote from: BalbinusDo it when you get old, if you're gaming in your 80s and you try that stuff out what are people going to do?

It's called your second childhood for a reason

I have a feeling that it would be considered remarkably tame by the teenagers of 2062. Unless a surfeit of porn leads to a new puritanism that is, in which case I shall enjoy being a dirty old man greatly

Quote from: Joshua FordI have a feeling that it would be considered remarkably tame by the teenagers of 2062. Unless a surfeit of porn leads to a new puritanism that is, in which case I shall enjoy being a dirty old man greatly

For my money, old folk can usually shock the hell out of kids, who are frequently under the delusion that sex didn't exist before them for example...

Quote from: BalbinusFor my money, old folk can usually shock the hell out of kids, who are frequently under the delusion that sex didn't exist before them for example...

I had no such delusions. My grandfather's 'I've had more women than you've had hot dinners' conversation still rings in my ears.

Quote from: Joshua FordI had no such delusions. My grandfather's 'I've had more women than you've had hot dinners' conversation still rings in my ears.

I'm still scarred from the time, aged around 13 or so, I picked up my grandmother's mills and boon novel to see what she was reading.

All I recall is something about his throbbing passion reaching the melting nub of her desire, frankly I'm amazed after that I ever had sex...