Ok, so RPGs are an enjoyable recreational activity where we pretend to smite evil. The evil in fantasy worlds is nothing compared to the evil in the real world. Where do we draw the line (especially for those who claim to be building "realistic" fantasy worlds)? Where do we say, "to include this type of evil in a mere game is trivializing the suffering of people who endured such evil in the real world"?

[[Also, since RPGs descended from wargames, I always wondered, what do veterans think about a bunch of grown men sitting around playing out a war like it's some sort of game?]]

For the type of evil I'm talking about, see this link (warning: if you're a parent, this is difficult to read): http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5140511.ece

Quote from: 1989;322336Ok, so RPGs are an enjoyable recreational activity where we pretend to smite evil. The evil in fantasy worlds is nothing compared to the evil in the real world. Where do we draw the line (especially for those who claim to be building "realistic" fantasy worlds)? Where do we say, "to include this type of evil in a mere game is trivializing the suffering of people who endured such evil in the real world"?

Honestly, I never say that.

That said, the "level" of my evil is entirely reliant upon what feels right for the campaign.

My four color supers evil doesn't tend to be rapists and the like...

I have used an otherwise mundane, racist asshole as a villain in Deadlands.

In my Necessary Evil game, I have gradually ratcheted up the atrocities the V'Sori (semi-aquatic alien conquerors) have performed on humans.

My players generally trust me, and I tend to not abuse that trust.  Different things are appropriate for different games.

Depends a lot on my players. I've got one player who won't touch World War 2, because of the evils and the fact that impacting that feels disrespectful to those who lived through it. At the same time, we play heroes, and heroes unable to change that atrocity, well wouldn't be very heroic.

Another player doesn't want children hurt in a game. They can be threatened, but actual violence towards them is a no on.

My own opinion aren't too different, most of the time, I recognize a bit of leeway with such topics if they're well represented and have meaning to us when we play. A monster dragging off children to eat and the heroes stop him--but find bones of children from before they came here? That would be ok for me to represent, but showing their deaths "on screen?" No way. I don't deal with rape for the most part except as background motivation for some acts, or some events--I just don't feel its appropriate topic for gaming.

I don't care for being "hip" or "tragic" or "cool." I play these games to be action heroes who do neat things--not to play out some twisted fantasy, or present grimdark things

If we're going to be playing a game where there's a high potential for disturbing content, we always have a "lines and veils" discussion.  For example, rape is a hard line for me - I don't want it brought into the fiction at all.  Other things are veils - they are fine in the fiction, but I don't want them on screen in living color.  Fade to black.  If I'm playing with people who know me well and I trust implicitly, lines and veils ease up a bit.

So given this discussion, predicated on trust and respect around the table, we all have a good idea of where not to go.  

As far as insulting people who have gone through events we play out in living memory, I'm really sensitive to this.  I believe approaching contemporary events respectfully can have the opposite effect - it can both inform and promote empathy.  It's obviously a fine line and at times an awkward one - questions of verisimilitude and sensitivity are bound to arise - but the fact that it is difficult does not make it less rewarding.

I don't generally like to use RPGs to educate players on things I feel are important socially. I preach enough without messing up the game. Also, the game can't be fun without people being comfortable. No one generally likes having their character raped.

It varies temendously with the genre of the game.

I have a few taboos - rape and child abuse are the most stringent.

My old WFRP campaign had a Gilles de Rais based character... with details straight out of the trial testimony... and that guy wasn't anything but a toady of bigger swarms of corruption.

We had a character in our COC game who went nuts and made some snuff films...

But the guys I play with for Earthdawn/Deadlands would, I'm sure, have none of that and I wouldn't dream of pushing it on them.
It just depends on the tastes/interests of whoever is playing.

We allow pretty much anything. We're mainly concerned about it being stupid or implausible rather than unpalatable.

There's rarely a need to be gratuitous, but game worlds (fantasy, especially) are brutal places.  If the PCs are the forces of good, they sometimes need to face the violent realities of their existence.

I guess for me, I was always trending towards making everything more realistic. I liked the more realistic oil paintings of the 2e era. I like all the fluff that made the worlds seem real. The other big thing was film. My character backgrounds and adventures took cues from a lot of the tragedies I saw in films. I was trending towards grimmer and grittier all the time.

But I reached a point in my life where I had seen/experienced too much suffering/tragedy in the real world. I really felt that bringing real evil (like in our world) into a game would trivialize it. How could I sit around, eating potato chips, and centre a game around it? Yeah, that guy that tortured/murdered that child . ..  you just scored a critical hit on him(!) . . . he falls over dead. You all get 200 xp. I just couldn't do it (not that I ever would have tried).

That led to the question of . . . well, what about realism in RPGs, then? Do I just stick my head in the sand and pretend that this stuff doesn't happen in RPG worlds? No more realistic worlds? If the kind of stuff that was detailed in the article I linked in my original post was happening in the fantasy world, you can bet the PCs would be dealing with *that* evil, not wasting time on some dark lord in the land of shadows, gelatinous cubes, mad mages, or whatever.

So, I turned around 180 degrees. I used to think that superhero games, and the type of fantasy detailed by the early D&D artwork was for kids. I couldn't understand why anyone would choose Wayne Renolds, or Erol Otus, for example, over Brom, or Easley. I just couldn't understand why everyone didn't move towards more realistic-looking stuff, and more realistic worlds.

Now, my RPGs are more like He-Man, superheroes, and other less serious, less realistic stuff. Now, I don't seek to imagine realistic worlds in my head anymore. I don't want to because I know where that path leads. It eventually leads to a world with all the same stuff that is in our own world. And I just don't think that a game is an appropriate medium for addressing such issues, even tangentially.

Now, I explicitly state to my players . . . this world is purposely *not realistic*. The kind of stuff that happens in our world does not happen in my fantasy worlds. In my world, bad guys are like in the LotR film, not like the monsters in the article I linked. We are not going to pride ourselves on building a so-called dark and realistic world, and fool ourselves into thinking our gaming is more realistic (now that we know what realism actually entails).

Someone mentioned drawing the line at children. I think that's pretty much the sticking point for me, too. Before I had a child of my own, I wouldn't have understood (and I don't expect anyone who is not a parent to understand, either).

I'm not positing a one true way, here, or telling others how to game. Everyone has their own life experiences, and you go from there.

I'm pretty sure that the reason I play superhero RPGs (or light fantasy) is not the same as why others do. I had no attraction to these things when I started. But, now that I have seen what I have seen of this world, I am glad that those types of RPGs are there. I'm glad that we don't have only realistic RPG worlds. Nowadays, I would play Dark Champions: The Animated Series rather than Dark Champions.

Anyway, that's my lame story. I just wanted to see if other people have these sorts of thoughts.

Whatever NPCs do is rated MA15+. There's violence, but it's not sexualised violence and it's not gruesome, anything really horrific happens off-screen. Most "bad guys" have more or less rational reasons for what they do, and if given a chance will argue that they're not bad at all But some "bad guys" really are just nasty bastards. Hey, PCs have to have someone to hate after all.

Whatever PCs do is rated R18+. They can do whatever they want, but they get to hear the details just as their character would. So if they want to torture a guy, fine - but then they have to describe exactly what they're doing, and I as GM will describe exactly how the victim reacts. If they want to beat a guy to death, that's okay, too - but they get to hear about the crunch of bone, the spasming body, the vomiting and defecation. And of course what the PCs do has consequences in the game world.

Usually this will put off 1 or 2 of the players involved and they'll rein the other 2 or 3 in, and things will settle down a bit.

It depends on the type of game, I would expect there to be more explicit evil in say a Vampire game vs a LOTR type fantasy game.

Quote from: 1989;322637Now, I explicitly state to my players . . . this world is purposely *not realistic*.

I think setting expectations is really important, so this is smart.  There's no reason to deal with stuff in-game that you don't want to.  Letting people know your limits (or just communicating your expectations for tone) goes a long way toward everyone being on the same page and having fun, or bowing out of a game they aren't going to enjoy.  I've had experiences where this conversation didn't take place, and somebody got blindsided and it ruined their fun.  Sometimes that somebody was me.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;322741I think setting expectations is really important, so this is smart.  There's no reason to deal with stuff in-game that you don't want to.  Letting people know your limits (or just communicating your expectations for tone) goes a long way toward everyone being on the same page and having fun, or bowing out of a game they aren't going to enjoy.  I've had experiences where this conversation didn't take place, and somebody got blindsided and it ruined their fun.  Sometimes that somebody was me.

Exactly. Despite my best attempts to communicate to my players my direction of play. For example: I will never put forward a no win situation, there are games where the best success is to die in glory and make a difference, but I won't make that the ONLY option. Nor will I expect players to solve "one riddle" or die type situations.

However, despite my communicating this, and letting players no I won't kill them in the given game. They could die in combat, they could die because of choices, but as a GM I said explicitly that death will be a choice of the players for the most part. I still managed to ruin the fun for one player accidentally. In that game i put the players in a minor trap, meant to slow them down and give them some introspection--but because of the claustrophobic conditions, I somehow managed to trigger a player (not the characters) own fears. If I'd know I'd have left the scene out all together.

I HATE to impact the player's that way. Gaming is about fun, not pushing their own buttons. I did my best to let them know where I would go with the game. Even then I managed to step on a fear of the players and make it unfun. I try and get my players to communicate to me such issues, so I know not to go there.

I trust in TV. There are a while bunch of conventions and standards that sci-fi and adventure TV shows like Star Trek, Buffy, Stargate, Firefly have stuck to for pretty much my whole life and those conventions generally mean that no one is forced outside their comfort zone. If shows can deliver good quality entertainment without getting too nasty or unpleasant, so should I.

Bear in mind all I look for in a game is quality escapist entertainment - I not trying to make a statement or do anything important. If I wanted to tell a serious story about slow disintegration of a marriage I probably would not set in Middle Earth. But that's just me.