Quote from: Mailanka;689119For one thing, you don't call it a "rape monster." Nobody calls the alien "a rape monster." They might call it a xenomorph, but it's horror rather speaks for itself.  Horror generally does that anyway.  It leaves implications and innuendo and lets you come to the horrifying, hair-raising conclusions all on your own, instead of stopping to explain why you should totally be scared, like a bad comedian trying to defend his joke to his confused audience.

"Show, don't tell." Yup.

(wonders idly if ANYone would defend the concept if, say, it were men who were exclusively raped and impregnated by these monsters)

Quote from: Ravenswing;689127(wonders idly if ANYone would defend the concept if, say, it were men who were exclusively raped and impregnated by these monsters)

Nice thread-crap.

To try and drag things back on-topic, I think part of the reason the Uzmeks don't work is that they are simply presented in a crass way without nuance. (Xenomorphs in Alien don't provoke the same outrage, but equally the presentation of the xenomorphs in Alien were something Dan O'Bannon sweated over through multiple script rewrites and Ridley Scott was careful to set up with his direction: it could have very

But I also think part of the reason the Uzmeks generate so much heat is that they sound like a bad joke. I mean, seriously, they're monsters with semen for blood. That goes well beyond weird fantasy and well into the realm of full-on goofball stupidity; they resemble a juvenile joke someone might come up with in the middle of a game session and then everyone laughs about and then forgets about, not something you release in a printed product (or even as officially-endorsed material to support it).

Given how much of a hot-button topic rape is, at the very least when you address it you should take it seriously, or at least not make it into an idiotic snigger-fest. The Uzmeks are impossible to take seriously, because they have spunk for blood and how is that anything other than completely stupid?

Basically, they designed a monster which wouldn't be out of place in FATAL. And when your game content starts looking like something from out of FATAL, you need to think again.

Quote from: Ravenswing;689127(wonders idly if ANYone would defend the concept if, say, it were men who were exclusively raped and impregnated by these monsters)

No. That's equally bad. On the other hand...

Quote from: CRKrueger;689111There's a number of responders out there who feel that way, I didn't get that vibe.  He admitted the problem with the monster, and specifically said it was not going to be in the official book.  Maybe I just had a different reaction because I already knew the monster existed from Dan Davenport's review (I think Dan might be the one who coined "rape ogre").

Anyway, I think he can include the monster with modification and still please both groups, which was the original question.

Your redo of the concept was quite good. Squicky without being shit.

Quote from: One Horse Town;689133Nice thread-crap.

This whole thread is a thread crap.

There are two good reasons for including a monster in a game: 1) they are awesome and/or 2) they help convey the tone of the game. The Uzmek isn't awesome and there was nothing uniquely interesting about it to make its conclusion worthwhile. But I thought the very relevant part is that neither of those were the motivations for creating or adding the creature in the first place. It was designed as a joke/petty vendetta against players. That alone makes the whole thing not worth anyone's time.

Quote from: Ravenswing;689127(wonders idly if ANYone would defend the concept if, say, it were men who were exclusively raped and impregnated by these monsters)

Actually I would (though defend may be a bit of a strong word, I just don't feel any moral obligations to be against that monster, so to speak, though the concept was stupid). Hells, I'd design the monster first to be unisexual in the first place, so to speak. Less about spunk for blood, and more about something like Alien I suspect, with laying eggs inside someone. Or having that blood turn the host's body into the Uzmek's female (which'd probably be something out of Kafka's Metamorphosis or I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, because if you're going full on body horror, why stop in the middle of the way). Though I'd probably change it from blood to some poison released from the tail of the creature, have those ogres look like a combination of an ogre and a scorpion.

In fact, come to think of it, that could be a pretty sweet weapon in an arsenal of some fantasy supervillain, if that poison'd be set to change the victim after a few weeks/days - have them stung, then let them return to the village/city. Then, poison first takes over victim's mind, making them seek out a reclusive, shadowy and damp spot (because eggs need that, why the hell not), then finish the change process, and bam - humanoid infiltration bomb.

Does the "rape ogre" have the special ability: Dire Penetration?

/barf
/snark off

Quote from: Ravenswing;689127(wonders idly if ANYone would defend the concept if, say, it were men who were exclusively raped and impregnated by these monsters)

Probably NOT John Hurt or Ned Beatty.....


- Ed C.

Quote from: The Traveller;689149This whole thread is a thread crap.

Thank you; that was my thought, anyway.

Alien. It's about rape. One of the best monster movies of all time.

Aliens. It's about Vietnam. One of the best monster movies of all time.

The other Alien movies. They're about monsters from space. They... range from mediocre to not bad.

If you want to really get to people, you sometimes gotta go in deep and push nasty buttons. It can be done in ways that are crude, juvenile, and stupid or it can be done with great craft and skill.

No idea should be off the table.

I think there's a necessity to pick the right idea for the right table. Are the gamers you're playing with going to be up for an exploration of rape/Vietnam/whatever? More to the point, are they people you even want to raise those subjects with yourself? I have some friends I am happy to explore anything with without boundaries, and other friends who I'm not keen to talk about some subjects, either because I know it upsets them or because I know they have egregiously stupid opinions about the subject in question and I don't want to be subjected to their ridiculous views.

Quote from: TristramEvans;689150There are two good reasons for including a monster in a game: 1) they are awesome and/or 2) they help convey the tone of the game. The Uzmek isn't awesome and there was nothing uniquely interesting about it to make its conclusion worthwhile. But I thought the very relevant part is that neither of those were the motivations for creating or adding the creature in the first place. It was designed as a joke/petty vendetta against players. That alone makes the whole thing not worth anyone's time.

The bolded:
No, it was not.
Your comment is putting the finger on how too many seems to view the monster, though.

However, i did read the OP of that closed thread, and unless i remember it wrong, the "rape ogre" was designed to be "a monster so terrible and despiceable that everyone would want it to become utterly and completely destroyed".
Like a monster of monsters.
I would not use that kind of monster, but as i see it, it was clearly not meant as a joke, but a monster so gross that even a Chaotic Evil Orc would band together with a Paladin, just to destroy it.
The intention ... is interesting, but i dare say they actually succeeded too well.

It do not seem like the intention was to make a rape monster, but it was the result.

And yes, the Geiger Aliens is a kind of rape monsters, they are just indiscriminate about gender, and i guess that is part of why they are "accepted".

As for how half-orcs are made in a world where all orcs are chaotic and/or evil: To speak of consensuality if both are chaotic and or evil is to miss the entire point of consenual agreement.
Someone evil may rather prefer that it isn't consensual, and someone chaotic do not bother about consensuality at all. Put together ... two chaotics may be seen as consensual since neither bother ... but it can just as well be that one of them don't feel for it, and the other do not care.
Result:
Normally not consensual.

It was a creature designed " so that no player would want to take it as a PC race". Maybe it's uncharitable of me, but seeing as that was listed as the primary reason for the creatire's creation, that suggests to me that the motivation was based on a dislike of players wanting to play monsters as races. And if you dislike that it's fine, but it's like saying "I'm sick of those damn kids wanting to play with all my toys, so I'll pee all over this one".