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Aidan305
2010-10-30, 08:33 PM
This is primarily a question towards GMs, but I suppose that it can be answered by others as well.

I was sitting down for lunch this afternoon working on my notes for a quest my players are undertaking. I had originally planned it to be something, that was, in hindsight, poorly set up and would be pretty stupid. Unfortunately, I had a better idea last night on how to go through with it. I say unfortunately, because I'm worried that the themes it contains and the imagery might just be going a little too far. The ideas going through my head concerning it actually ended up putting me off my lunch, and I was on the verge of tears as I wrote out some of the segments of information I would be presenting to my players. I'm still not sure I want to run this adventure this way, simply because I myself was so upset by it in the process of writing it.

So my question to the Playground is this: Have you ever written an adventure that you think went a little too far? Something deeply upsetting or horrifying that you felt hit a little to close to home or pushed buttons that shouldn't be pushed?

Urpriest
2010-10-30, 08:38 PM
One adventure wasn't even all that disturbing, but it still caused the players to give me weird looks. They were in a dungeon that had inscriptions on the walls presenting the history of several lizardfolk races that had been corrupted by black dragons. The founder was originally a lizardfolk who became a troglodyte by committing the first ritual sacrifice on the suggestion of a manipulative black dragon goddess. Said troglodyte led his followers off into the jungle, and eventually took a wife from among his minions. The goddess became jealous and polymorphed into a male lizardfolk and seduced the troglodyte's wife. As a result the wife died in childbirth and the first half-dragons were born.

The players all found this very creepy. Well, the ones who could read the inscriptions anyway. The paladin, fortunately, couldn't.

true_shinken
2010-10-30, 08:42 PM
The players all found this very creepy. Well, the ones who could read the inscriptions anyway. The paladin, fortunately, couldn't.
It is kinda creepy, you know.



I'm still not sure I want to run this adventure this way, simply because I myself was so upset by it in the process of writing it.

Dude, now I'm curious. What is it about?

Aidan305
2010-10-30, 08:48 PM
Dude, now I'm curious. What is it about?

It's a hook for another part of the same adventure. It's about the ghost of a small girl who was driven mad, tortured and brutally murdered.

Urpriest
2010-10-30, 08:51 PM
It's a hook for another part of the same adventure. It's about the ghost of a small girl who was driven mad, tortured and brutally murdered.

I assume the little girl was tortured/etc., not the ghost.

Although that would be an interesting subversion...

Boci
2010-10-30, 08:54 PM
It's a hook for another part of the same adventure. It's about the ghost of a small girl who was driven mad, tortured and brutally murdered.

You can always imply without grusome details. Is the ghost ever sane enough to ever say "They broke my mind with metal tools and weeks of labour" or is there an NPC who could inform them?

Aidan305
2010-10-30, 09:00 PM
You can always imply without grusome details. Is the ghost ever sane enough to ever say "They broke my mind with metal tools and weeks of labour" or is there an NPC who could inform them?

Not really. As a ghost she's constantly reliving the worst moments of the end of her life. The players will be getting there information about what's been going on from the flashbacks they get should they touch her. (Not that I'm expecting them to, or even know what she is at first)

I could ease up on it all, but I'm also not certain if I should. Sadly, little Alyss has somehow managed to develop as a fully fleshed character, complete with personality and backstory both her her and for Mr Dragon, her wooden toy dragon. And the players have never met her.



I assume the little girl was tortured/etc., not the ghost.

Although that would be an interesting subversion...
It would indeed. (Notes down idea)

Hat-Trick
2010-10-30, 09:03 PM
Hey, you could use her as a reaccuring NPC depending on outcome! hopefully, unbreaking the woobie (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWoobie) as well.

Beelzebub1111
2010-10-30, 09:06 PM
I've been deliberately avoiding going to far. Keeping the adventures light and high on pulpy adventure. For the express purpose of causing extreme mood whiplash when I run "And Madness Followed"

Drakevarg
2010-10-30, 09:07 PM
Not yet. Then again, I don't consider it possible to go "too far." Traumatized players mean I'm doing my job right.

Although, there is one revelation still in waiting that could dramatically alter the dynamics of the party's relationship with the Big Bad, depending on how they took it. One of the party members is already well aware that she's the Big Bad's daughter (and idolizes him, much to my irritation), but she still doesn't know exactly what's evolved from that...

Aidan305
2010-10-30, 09:07 PM
I've been deliberately avoiding going to far. Keeping the adventures light and high on pulpy adventure. For the express purpose of causing extreme mood whiplash when I run "And Madness Followed"

I tend to as well, something like this is very out of character for me. My most recent scenario was Shadows Over Pontypandy, a crossover between Fireman Sam and the Mythos.

Halae
2010-10-30, 09:12 PM
I once had a "Descent Into Darkness" type of session. the party was following a young man who was running away from his noble parents in a bid for an uncontrolled life so that they could bring him back. anyways, I had him realize he was being pursued, so he found a small ruin to hide in, making the players go in after him. Only, under the first floor, the place got bigger. And darker. I had some creepy music playing the background with barely audible whispers that I used a sound editing program to add in, and it was when the players finally realized that they were hearing voices that they started getting paranoid. when they found the young noble, he was having his life drained away by shadows. Boss fight ensues, and I kick in the second piece of music. slightly more intense but still very creepy, and this time you could hear the voices.

I saw the one female player in the group the next day. She slapped me on sight for giving her horrifying nightmares.

Boci
2010-10-30, 09:18 PM
I once had a "Descent Into Darkness" type of session. the party was following a young man who was running away from his noble parents in a bid for an uncontrolled life so that they could bring him back. anyways, I had him realize he was being pursued, so he found a small ruin to hide in, making the players go in after him. Only, under the first floor, the place got bigger. And darker. I had some creepy music playing the background with barely audible whispers that I used a sound editing program to add in, and it was when the players finally realized that they were hearing voices that they started getting paranoid. when they found the young noble, he was having his life drained away by shadows. Boss fight ensues, and I kick in the second piece of music. slightly more intense but still very creepy, and this time you could hear the voices.

I saw the one female player in the group the next day. She slapped me on sight for giving her horrifying nightmares.

I am intriged. What were these songs?

Ashram
2010-10-30, 09:18 PM
Fortunately, the group that I play with is a hardened, crusty bunch of players, so "going too far" really doesn't exist for us, aside from possibly the awkward sexy time things should role play swing that way.

Considering one of our older DMs, part of the group, basically had an evil cult infiltrate a giant holy city dedicated to the DM's homebrew version of Pelor, brainwash all of the citizens, brutally murder all of the clergy of the goddess, AND wrench open a Gate to the Negative Energy Plane. The description for the room with the Gate in it, with the hanging bodies and gruesome, gory stuff was priceless.

Of course, this was because we felt safe in the city.

Halae
2010-10-30, 09:25 PM
I am intriged. What were these songs?

I don't remember what the first, more subtle one was, but the second was the theme for a battle with the AIDA virus from the Dot Hack series. I'd provide a link to it on youtube, but computer is being finicky right now and won't let me enter in the search command. It's quite literally the only song that has ever made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I absolutely hate it. It was perfect for the session.

Callista
2010-10-30, 09:25 PM
I once used a lot of zombies in an adventure... only to find out that one of the players found undead to be the creepiest things on the planet--and in a "this is not fun" way, not a Halloween-scary way. She only told me after I'd already run two undead-heavy sessions!

Nowadays, when I do spiders/rats/zombies/etc., I check for phobias first.

Quietus
2010-10-30, 09:43 PM
Not really. As a ghost she's constantly reliving the worst moments of the end of her life. The players will be getting there information about what's been going on from the flashbacks they get should they touch her. (Not that I'm expecting them to, or even know what she is at first)

I could ease up on it all, but I'm also not certain if I should. Sadly, little Alyss has somehow managed to develop as a fully fleshed character, complete with personality and backstory both her her and for Mr Dragon, her wooden toy dragon. And the players have never met her.



It would indeed. (Notes down idea)

If it's gotten to that point, I'd keep her around, but don't lay on the details when describing what players see/hear/experience when they touch her. *DO* mention that horrible things have happened - "You see silhouettes of men standing around you, and the glint of metal hooks - a moment later, your world is filled with pain, and you instinctively draw your hand back" sort of thing. If your players WANT more information, they'll go for it; Touching the ghost again is, in that case, akin to them saying "I want to know more". Give enough to give the basic idea, but the stuff that really makes you cry? Don't offer that up first. It's good stuff, but this way, your players get to decide how far is too far.

As for pushing my players too far.. not yet. I had my finger on the button, but made it so they got there in time for me not to push it. Brute threatening a young woman in a most lewd fashion, calvary arrives type stuff, where they got to stop things before they got too far. I wouldn't go farther than that, because while I knew the situation would push a few buttons, going beyond just threatening would be too much for my group. Of course, I haven't said as much to any of them, so they may still believe I'm willing to do so.. but that's just part of being a DM, threatening something you aren't willing to do, and having the players believe you are.

LibraryOgre
2010-10-30, 11:10 PM
So my question to the Playground is this: Have you ever written an adventure that you think went a little too far? Something deeply upsetting or horrifying that you felt hit a little to close to home or pushed buttons that shouldn't be pushed?

I did that for a Halloween Shadowrun adventure. Some of the grotesque flavor text of a serial killing Spider Shaman's lair was a bit much for them.

yaklin
2010-10-30, 11:24 PM
not as a dm, but as a player I once made my group give me weird looks by explaining in excruciating detail how I was torturing the assassin that I intimidated into surrendering. After that my dm said I was no longer lawful good.

Drakevarg
2010-10-30, 11:30 PM
not as a dm, but as a player I once made my group give me weird looks by explaining in excruciating detail how I was torturing the assassin that I intimidated into surrendering. After that my dm said I was no longer lawful good.

I tried to do this once, but the DMPC did it offscreen himself. I got pissed and tried to throw him off a cliff for stealing my fun.

Unfortunately, he managed to break grapple and had the Run feat. This was before any of us knew about the "can run a number of rounds equal to their CON score without saves" bit, otherwise my character and his massive CON would've caught him. :smallannoyed:

yaklin
2010-10-30, 11:41 PM
I tried to do this once, but the DMPC did it offscreen himself. I got pissed and tried to throw him off a cliff for stealing my fun.

Unfortunately, he managed to break grapple and had the Run feat. This was before any of us knew about the "can run a number of rounds equal to their CON score without saves" bit, otherwise my character and his massive CON would've caught him. :smallannoyed:

If he tries to do that again, just torture him again, you can never be to sure after all. :smallwink:

Drakevarg
2010-10-30, 11:43 PM
If he tries to do that again, just torture him again, you can never be to sure after all. :smallwink:

I wanted to... unfortunately that stupid DMPC killed him when he was done.

Unless you mean torture the DMPC. In which case, by all means. :smallamused:

Lycan 01
2010-10-30, 11:47 PM
Hm. A couple times. Both Call of Cthulhu related, naturally.

After I described in brutal and lurid detail (in a pitch black room, mind you) to one player how his character was strapped to a table and vivisected by an insane French chef, he followed me back into the room where the other players were, even though he was supposed to be seperated since he was having a hallucination. Apparently, I scared him so badly he didn't want to be in the dark, and he didn't want to be alone. He then had to be driven home after the game, since he refused to walk back to his house alone in the dark.

And then there was the time one guy ripped his own femur out. I described, again in graphic detail, about how the mind-controlled character plunged his hands into the open wound in his leg, gripped his femur, and violently began to tug and twist it until it finally wrenched free of his flesh, and he collapsed to the floor in a pool of his own blood, where he rapidly bled to death. Everyone at the table began to massage their legs as I described the snapping of tendons and whatnot, and one guy was just staring at the table in a "find a happy place, find a happy place..." sort of way. Oops...

AsteriskAmp
2010-10-30, 11:48 PM
In my actual group:
Strangely enough my group has no problem with gore and excruciating detail, which they sometimes indulge into.

On the other side I probably qualify by essentialy forcing the paladin to murder sleeping child and mothers (They were "Usually Lawful Evil", but still...) and having an amputee as one of the BBEGs.

On the players side I've been threatened to a beating by a player twice my size if I kill an NPC "Freddy" (Friederich) which he has taken a liking to, he is a guard with Warrior levels, so I try to make him run from the PCs.

I will probably qualify for what I will be doing soon to my players.

And in CR fashion I threw a Tarrasque to 3 Lvl 1 PCs, in their first session ... ever.

Callista
2010-10-31, 12:07 AM
Tarrasque vs. level 1s? Why?!

Uh, I guess it might be interesting to see what they did to escape it, but that's far too much of a risk of TPK...

*looks at topic title* Oh. Right. Well, I guess that did go too far!

(My DM recently sent level 5s against something with the breath weapon of an ancient dragon. I feel your pain, and so does my roasted, and luckily resurrected, character.)

AsteriskAmp
2010-10-31, 12:19 AM
Tarrasque vs. level 1s? Why?!

Uh, I guess it might be interesting to see what they did to escape it, but that's far too much of a risk of TPK...



They escape to the sewers through a hole in the ground, the Tarrasque began fighting paladins which began swarming it, it went mentally downhill from there for them, NPCs backstabbing are a common ocurrence by now.

WarKitty
2010-10-31, 12:34 AM
Usually my issue is with more "realistic" DM's that get to far into rape-y stuff...

Starfols
2010-10-31, 01:15 AM
On the other side I probably qualify by essentialy forcing the paladin to murder sleeping child and mothers (They were "Usually Lawful Evil", but still...)
Was that a "guys I want my pally to have a moral quandary" type of forcing or the "I'm going to kill your character if you don't do something immoral" type of forcing? If a character wants to be good, you should let him. :smallannoyed:

And in CR fashion I threw a Tarrasque to 3 Lvl 1 PCs, in their first session ... ever.
Why? Seriously, why? :smallconfused:

OT: I usually don't, because I'm the only dm who doesn't. Most of the people I've played under is or attempts to be grimdark, albeit some people are worse offenders than others. At the very least the bbegs are the ultimate evil of their universes. My games tend to be lighthearted, if for nothing else, a change of pace.

Edit:
Usually my issue is with more "realistic" DM's that get to far into rape-y stuff...
Yeah, that's a problem. The worst I've had is "I tie the girl to the bed and slash her throat so she can't scream" :smalleek:

AsteriskAmp
2010-10-31, 01:49 AM
Was that a "guys I want my pally to have a moral quandary" type of forcing or the "I'm going to kill your character if you don't do something immoral" type of forcing? If a character wants to be good, you should let him. :smallannoyed:


It was a: The Chaotic Neutral Druid knows he is slipping into Chaotic Good and that they will be dangerous to a nearby town, also they could be looted, the Chaotic Good Cleric knows they are Lawful Evil and encourages him to actually masacre since they are asleep and won't probably suffer and they are dangerous, the Palladin knows they are going to be dangerous, know some of them have actual combat training and finally they are in the under-ground fortress anyway. I keep an alignment chart, I hate instant falls and the likes, and prefer roleplaying character to alignment, he could have just walked by, but he still ended up killing them.


Why? Seriously, why?


Ingame: It's related to the plot.
Outside: Need giant monster to destroy things so players know it's dangerous and get into tutorialesque dungeon and they need a reason to be together, especially when two of the players don't get along well. Also it's part of the plot.

Cerlis
2010-10-31, 02:00 AM
Usually my issue is with more "realistic" DM's that get to far into rape-y stuff...

Luckily never had to do deal with it but this mind set (the DM not Warkitty) is the "to far"

To Aiden i'd agree that many movies and books reference horrible things (like a woman being raped and murdered after watching her sisters and mother raped and murdered) without actually showing it or saying it.

"You see him approaching her, fingering a glistening blade that looks to small to kill someone quickly and your vision blacks out and all you hear is the screaming" is as far as you might want to go and for some people even THAT is to far.

I'm reminded of being quite a bit put off by some players intimidating an NPC by threatening to Rape him.

As for DMs going to far, i got a bit miffed by a DM who i think TPKed us twice because i dont think he got CR and that some monsters are different. I belive the book says that CR is suppose to be essentially a "boss encounter". uses significant resources and players have to be very careful or one or two might die. And that some monsters have so many Defensive and offensive and crowd control abilities and Hi CR that they are meant to be a "boss monster". The creatre was a ...Vrock i think its called (the demon bird) i'm sure it was CR appropriate but not realisitically appropriate. We where defending a castle wall and there where 3 groups of them. as well as some...ogres or some sort of bruiser. Half the party was tied up with the Bruisers and the other half could only engage one group of Vrocks, It was impossible with all their HP AC attacks and abilities to get past 1 group much less two groups to stop the third group from finishing some 10 turn ritual to Explode the entire area. when we retried in a different part of the battlefield with different characters (or some of us made different characters) we where dealing with like 6 creatures that could teleport as a move action. It was impossible for any of our melee group to Full attack, and the only damage that was getting done was by our Pixie warlock/rogue (Greater invisibility +ranged touch+ sneak attack)

Zeta Kai
2010-10-31, 02:56 AM
I've been deliberately avoiding going to far. Keeping the adventures light and high on pulpy adventure. For the express purpose of causing extreme mood whiplash when I run "And Madness Followed"

Isn't that the one from Dungeon magazine that had the Yellow Symbol? I've always wanted to play that; it just looks so awesome.

Yeah, I've gone too far with descriptions & ended up freaking out my players. The group started off doing bar fight style stuff, very run-of-the-mill piratey type things. It was meant to introduce two new players to the game & give the veteran player a refresher course, all while setting up the foundation of the eventual plot. Then the party sails by a burning village & decides to check out the obvious plot hook there, which I didn't expect. So, they're walking along, with the only combat under their belts being against drunks, constables, & guys in robes. And they see a zombie. In the middle of a burning village. Here's the description that I read:
This zombie was once the body of a middle-aged woman, with long dark hair & mottled yellowish-gray skin. She appears to have been dead for quite some time, & her flesh flakes off the bone in places. Her face is a leathery mask over her ivory skull, particularly cracked & torn around her silent rictus of a mouth. Her eyes are the only tissues that are even close to fresh-looking, & even those are glazed & bulging orbs of vitreous jelly that leaks from her sockets like tears. Her clothes must have rotted to dust long ago, for her nearly skeletal figure is nude, exposing her moldy flesh to the air to further decay. Her belly has been torn open, & the dried remains of a dead fetus dangle from the wound by a greenish-clear umbilical cord. Her hands are almost worn to the bone, with most of her nails chipped or missing entirely. She smells of fungus & tilled earth.
The room was silent afterward, & very still. No one ate, or drank, or rolled dice. They just looked at me. The previous sessions had been somewhat lighthearted, but this was meant to say to them that things just Got Real. I wanted to make their first real monster have a lasting impression, & it worked a bit too well. It freaked out one of my new players pretty badly, as she had some issues with babies going way back.

Later, I accidentally pitted my arachnophobic wife against four monstrous spiders. Did I mention that I always include a custom picture with my monsters? Yeah, that didn't over well, either. :smallredface:

Kaww
2010-10-31, 03:32 AM
I once had a "Descent Into Darkness" type of session. the party was following a young man who was running away from his noble parents in a bid for an uncontrolled life so that they could bring him back. anyways, I had him realize he was being pursued, so he found a small ruin to hide in, making the players go in after him. Only, under the first floor, the place got bigger. And darker. I had some creepy music playing the background with barely audible whispers that I used a sound editing program to add in, and it was when the players finally realized that they were hearing voices that they started getting paranoid. when they found the young noble, he was having his life drained away by shadows. Boss fight ensues, and I kick in the second piece of music. slightly more intense but still very creepy, and this time you could hear the voices.

I saw the one female player in the group the next day. She slapped me on sight for giving her horrifying nightmares.

I would be grateful if you posted the links for the music themes... :smallsmile:

@ OP: Sanity is for the weak... There is no grater reward for my job/effort than seeing people going loco during my sessions.

RanWilde
2010-10-31, 03:56 AM
Isn't that the one from Dungeon magazine that had the Yellow Symbol? I've always wanted to play that; it just looks so awesome.

Yeah, I've gone too far with descriptions & ended up freaking out my players. The group started off doing bar fight style stuff, very run-of-the-mill piratey type things. It was meant to introduce two new players to the game & give the veteran player a refresher course, all while setting up the foundation of the eventual plot. Then the party sails by a burning village & decides to check out the obvious plot hook there, which I didn't expect. So, they're walking along, with the only combat under their belts being against drunks, constables, & guys in robes. And they see a zombie. In the middle of a burning village. Here's the description that I read:
This zombie was once the body of a middle-aged woman, with long dark hair & mottled yellowish-gray skin. She appears to have been dead for quite some time, & her flesh flakes off the bone in places. Her face is a leathery mask over her ivory skull, particularly cracked & torn around her silent rictus of a mouth. Her eyes are the only tissues that are even close to fresh-looking, & even those are glazed & bulging orbs of vitreous jelly that leaks from her sockets like tears. Her clothes must have rotted to dust long ago, for her nearly skeletal figure is nude, exposing her moldy flesh to the air to further decay. Her belly has been torn open, & the dried remains of a dead fetus dangle from the wound by a greenish-clear umbilical cord. Her hands are almost worn to the bone, with most of her nails chipped or missing entirely. She smells of fungus & tilled earth.
The room was silent afterward, & very still. No one ate, or drank, or rolled dice. They just looked at me. The previous sessions had been somewhat lighthearted, but this was meant to say to them that things just Got Real. I wanted to make their first real monster have a lasting impression, & it worked a bit too well. It freaked out one of my new players pretty badly, as she had some issues with babies going way back.

Later, I accidentally pitted my arachnophobic wife against four monstrous spiders. Did I mention that I always include a custom picture with my monsters? Yeah, that didn't over well, either. :smallredface:

Not gonna lie, **** just got real. Wow, that was awfully disgusting, but very very cool...

Callista
2010-10-31, 01:47 PM
I think if I'd heard that, I would've been a great deal more sad than horrified. It often makes much more of an impact to remind the group that those undead monsters were people once--and, if intelligent, may still remember their former lives and be trapped into a form that forces them to do horrible things. Gore doesn't do much. Get them to empathize, on the other hand...

Halae
2010-10-31, 08:52 PM
I would be grateful if you posted the links for the music themes... :smallsmile:

@ OP: Sanity is for the weak... There is no grater reward for my job/effort than seeing people going loco during my sessions.

I can't rightly remember what the first one was, but the second, more intense piece of music was this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvnHj3Yje3g&feature=related). I'll take a look through my music library and see if I can't figure out what the first piece was. Just remember, this has a lot morfe effect when you have the tortured voices of the dead (mostly your voice and that of friends edited in a program like Audacity) telling their characters what worthless failures they are, how they'll never see the light again, dredging up old hurts from the past, and that they're doomed to join the other souls lost in this ruin. Get some pitch change, echo, tone shifts, and you can sound like a completely different, and very dead person, effectively making you about seven voices instead of just one. Start it off quietly, then build it up a little at a time, so that you can actually make out what the voices are saying in the very heart of the dungeon. The fighter's eyes were bugging out of his head by the time the session was finished.

hamishspence
2010-11-01, 05:00 AM
This wasn't something in a game, but a thought experiment I did for myself (ironically based on a children's book where something very similar happens to a magically conjured animal as part of a evil magical display). The question raised was

How severe does punishment of an evildoer have to be, to make the beings doing it automatically Evil regardless of how vile the crimes of the evildoer were?

Standing on a pedestal before a crowd, a skeleton covered in blood, with a few organic pieces clinging to its ribcage, uses a knife and fork to carve a tiny piece of flesh off its toe bone and place it into its mouth. It drops through to the pedestal to join the pile of organic material there.

The executioner standing by the skeleton says "Stop!" and the skeleton promptly stops doing so, and remains stationary.

Flesh begins to crawl over the bones of the skeleton, until finally a fully healthy and undamaged person stands there.

The executioner calls out "Day 100 of this man's punishment is over- 900 more days to go."

The crowd applaud.

I found it disturbing.

Psyx
2010-11-01, 05:42 AM
I've seen enough grim things in life that it's safe to say that I never want them to occur in any game. So I avoid rolling around in humanity's depravity in games. If torture or similar needs to be mentioned, it's done without any detail at all, because I -frankly- don't want players to spend ten minutes telling me what horrible things they are going to do and thankfully they aren't the kind of people who want to do so either.

However, a couple of months ago the party got jumped by a few giant spiders. It was supposed to be quite scary, so I was generous with the description detail. Too generous: One of my players is a huge arachnophobe, had gone pale and looked like he was about to flee the room.
I hastily changed them into beetles and he was fine!

hamishspence
2010-11-01, 05:46 AM
If torture or similar needs to be mentioned, it's done without any detail at all, because I -frankly- don't want players to spend ten minutes telling me what horrible things they are going to do and thankfully they aren't the kind of people who want to do so either.

Scary things don't necessarily need much detail. If the description is extremely sketchy, but a moment's thought about the implications will produce an "Arrgh!" moment- it can be all the more effective.

Psyx
2010-11-01, 06:10 AM
I don't routinely want to gross out my players, though. They can fill in details themselves if they want to, but I don't want a churning stomach to be mandatory at the table.

hamishspence
2010-11-01, 06:21 AM
Often emotional horror can be more horrifying than physical horror.

In this post in the Vaarsuvius's Alignment thread:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9662503&postcount=81

I note that the word Familicide normally means destruction of members of one's own family:

and thus, find myself wondering if what the spell actually did, was transfer the power to destroy their whole family to the undead mother dragon, and then dominate her for a moment and compel her to use it.

dsmiles
2010-11-01, 07:00 AM
Too far? Never.

I get into gruesome, gory, vivid detail with every horrifying, evil thing that happens. I don't feel like it's too far.
mwahahhaMwaHaHaHaMWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!

Duke of URL
2010-11-01, 07:58 AM
Not as a DM, but yes, as a mechanics designer. I was working on a campaign setting (currently shelved behind a stack of other projects) where magical items are generally rare and almost universally evil, because they are powered by captured souls.

Common souls are one thing, but I was designing a ritual for extracting soul essence from more powerful beings (read: characters with significant class levels). The process and effects wee simply so "evil" that I felt dirty, and I mean filthy dirty, when I was done. Subconsciously, I had made the backlash effects on a failed/interrupted ritual way overpowered, I think to compensate in some way. (Fortunately, other members of the design team were able to point out how to rebalance it.)

Tetsubo 57
2010-11-01, 08:04 AM
I once ran an adventure where the party discovered a secret brothel being run by a necromancer. It employed zombie 'prostitutes'. My players didn't bat an eye. I guess they fell into the 'hardened' category...

Psyx
2010-11-01, 08:50 AM
Too far? Never.
I get into gruesome, gory, vivid detail with every horrifying, evil thing that happens. I don't feel like it's too far.

Roleplaying is escapism. If you have people around the table who have had to deal with evil, bloodshed, depravity and gore in reality, they prefer their escapist hobby to take them away from that, rather than dwell on details. Especially if they have PTSD!

As soon as someone starts going off on gory details in our games, someone asks if they have a bucket of baby hearts [A reference to an overly gory bit of description a number of years back], and they stop.

Worlok
2010-11-01, 12:24 PM
I was going to relay the tale of the one-shot DM with a thing against religion who ended up making two of his players puke and having the third one dangling him out of a window, but I'm not too sure whether this is the right thread for that. Or the right forum, really, what with that-which-must-not-be-discussed naturally factoring into it.

Also:

As soon as someone starts going off on gory details in our games, someone asks if they have a bucket of baby hearts [A reference to an overly gory bit of description a number of years back], and they stop.
...what? Did that overly gory bit actually have a bucket of baby hearts? I always thought that was too cliché for even the most psychotic of gore-boners... I don't want to agitate any potential PTSD-cases here, but would you mind telling that story?

Psyx
2010-11-01, 12:44 PM
^ It actually pre-dated my arrival, so I'm a bit hazy on the details.

I understand that a LARP character of evil alignment wanted to make a sacrifice or similar, so in great detail told the Refs what he wanted to do in order to appease his dark gods and twisted sense of sadism. The net result was a bucketful of hearts which were then left on an altar, but the way that he got to that point was less than pleasant for all within earshot!

So whenever someone starts to get a bit detailed it's 'Yes, yes... skip to the end... you've got a bucket of hearts!'

Worlok
2010-11-01, 12:58 PM
I see. :smalleek: Sounds like an awesome, if really weird story, by the way - LARPing human sacrifice like that...

Dark_Juggernaut
2010-11-01, 08:00 PM
Was the first song this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A0OztpTh7E

dsmiles
2010-11-02, 04:36 AM
Was the first song this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A0OztpTh7E

Ew. That sounds like just a bunch of discordant...um...stuff (to be nice about it). Not really creepy at all.
Lux Aeterna (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2Ma4BvMUwU) and this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wqrA9IMnUM), on the other hand...

Well, if you watched Cannibal Holocaust, that second one would probably get you a little creeped out. Ew.

Newt
2010-11-02, 04:52 AM
It's a hook for another part of the same adventure. It's about the ghost of a small girl who was driven mad, tortured and brutally murdered.

Depends on your players.

Addendum, I've never played or DM'd, but use common sense.

There's some of us who are really affected by that, anger, depression, etc. So for those people, then no way in hell would you pull that. If instead your players would be fine with it, like the other half of people, then sure, go ahead. But don't overdo it, the games about using imagination, so as another poster said, imply. It allows your players to go as far as they can without pushing it, and generally does the job a whole lot better.

So just say what you said above and leave it at that, getting into details.. Unless your quest demands details? Then again, depends on your players. And you, if you can't deal with it don't expect others to. Simplest solution.



@Tetsubo 57

That would be funny though. :P Ew, but hilarious.

Newt
2010-11-02, 05:25 AM
I once had a "Descent Into Darkness" type of session. the party was following a young man who was running away from his noble parents in a bid for an uncontrolled life so that they could bring him back. anyways, I had him realize he was being pursued, so he found a small ruin to hide in, making the players go in after him. Only, under the first floor, the place got bigger. And darker. I had some creepy music playing the background with barely audible whispers that I used a sound editing program to add in, and it was when the players finally realized that they were hearing voices that they started getting paranoid. when they found the young noble, he was having his life drained away by shadows. Boss fight ensues, and I kick in the second piece of music. slightly more intense but still very creepy, and this time you could hear the voices.

I saw the one female player in the group the next day. She slapped me on sight for giving her horrifying nightmares.

That I like. Creeping them out without sickening them. Well done. :D



lots of text here

That.. That would be too far for a lot of people. Hell, a joke like, how many babies can you fit into a room, depends on the size of your blender, is enough to get to people. Rape, dead babies, torturing small kids, definitely evil (in most cases), and definitely gets to people. The problem is that every now and then those kind of things will get to people in a big way, and they're not the things that people go around telling you about. So go easy with them. Simply because the amount of people it majorly effects is fairly large (from personal experience anyway), and it's one of those things you find out about after you've caused a breakdown. Horror and unimaginable evil, sure, but be a good storyteller and change for your audience.



Ew. That sounds like just a bunch of discordant...um...stuff (to be nice about it). Not really creepy at all.

Wow, not a jazz fusion fan? Herbie Hancock dude. Check out Watermelon Man. The tune does build tension, but you can't hate it. Having said that, it would work better in a cyberpunk setting or around people who like anime. Since if they like anime they'll generally at least tolerate the soundtracks.

hamishspence
2010-11-02, 05:31 AM
Hell, a joke like, how many babies can you fit into a room, depends on the size of your blender, is enough to get to people. Rape, dead babies, torturing small kids, definitely evil (in most cases), and definitely gets to people.

For me, the idea of authorities "torturing people for their crimes who are extremely deserving of it" can get a little disturbing- if it's severe enough- as in one of my above posts:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9674357&postcount=36

dsmiles
2010-11-02, 07:40 AM
Wow, not a jazz fusion fan? Herbie Hancock dude. Check out Watermelon Man. The tune does build tension, but you can't hate it. Having said that, it would work better in a cyberpunk setting or around people who like anime. Since if they like anime they'll generally at least tolerate the soundtracks.

Not a big jazz fusion fan, you're right on that one, and I tolerate very little anime. It comes down to Berserk, The Slayers, Ruroni Kenshin, Chobits, Steamboy, Akira, and Appleseed. That's about it. Mostly The Slayers and Steamboy, those are my favorites.

WarKitty
2010-11-02, 07:53 AM
Here's a question for you all then:

One of my fellow players wrote a detailed backstory involving a brutal gang rape by orcs. The DM approved it and (apparently at the player's request) played it out in the battle with the same orcs in the form of commentary from them making it quite clear what had happened and that they were desirous of doing it again.

I quite honestly hated that session. It was way too much for when I wasn't expecting something that heavy. But I'm not sure how to approach the DM or the player about it; it wasn't really that graphic but I just don't deal with the topic very well if I'm not expecting it. I don't want to be the person who's whining and spoiling everyone else's fun...but I don't want to be caught by something like that either.

(And yes, I do have some ptsd-type symptoms, which neither the player nor the dm are aware of and which I don't particularly want to get into with them.)

dsmiles
2010-11-02, 09:14 AM
Here's a question for you all then:

One of my fellow players wrote a detailed backstory involving a brutal gang rape by orcs. The DM approved it and (apparently at the player's request) played it out in the battle with the same orcs in the form of commentary from them making it quite clear what had happened and that they were desirous of doing it again.

I quite honestly hated that session. It was way too much for when I wasn't expecting something that heavy. But I'm not sure how to approach the DM or the player about it; it wasn't really that graphic but I just don't deal with the topic very well if I'm not expecting it. I don't want to be the person who's whining and spoiling everyone else's fun...but I don't want to be caught by something like that either.

(And yes, I do have some ptsd-type symptoms, which neither the player nor the dm are aware of and which I don't particularly want to get into with them.)

IMO, it's always better to know the limits of the group. I don't like to put players in situations where they're uncomfortable. I know my group, and am little more in-tune with their "squick level," as it were.

Psyx
2010-11-02, 09:17 AM
^Honestly.

"Look, I don't like watching 'Saw', or rolling around in the depths of human depravity in my 'fun time'. Can we please avoid such issues in the future, because they make me feel very uncomfortable in themselves, and it destroys my enjoyment of the game."

If that's not reasonable to your friends, then your friends aren't being reasonable.

If they point out that it's just a bit of fun, then I'd try to bring home to them how such topics affect people and how they are decidedly 'not fun'.

dsmiles
2010-11-02, 09:31 AM
^Honestly.

"Look, I don't like watching 'Saw', or rolling around in the depths of human depravity in my 'fun time'. Can we please avoid such issues in the future, because they make me feel very uncomfortable in themselves, and it destroys my enjoyment of the game."

If that's not reasonable to your friends, then your friends aren't being reasonable.

If they point out that it's just a bit of fun, then I'd try to bring home to them how such topics affect people and how they are decidedly 'not fun'.

That's absolutely reasonable. As a DM, that would be enought for me to not run the squicky campaign, even if I had it all planned out for months. A little adjustment here, a little tweak there, and POOF! Squick becomes high-action, or political intrigue, or comedy, or whatever.

Lycan 01
2010-11-02, 03:47 PM
Some of my players cheer when I give graphic death scenes to certain enemies. I'm talking heads exploding from magic missile, being cooked from the inside out by a magma-covered arrow, bodies bursting into flame or exploding from super-massive damage, et cetera. I've asked them before if I over-do it, and the whole group basically said: "No, we love the brutality!"

Anything besides gore though - sex, abuse, rape, child-deaths, et cetera - I avoid, for my own comfort and for my players'. There was recently a trap I set up though involving a doppleganger posing as a barmaid, attempting to seduce somebody so they could kill and rob them. The player who fell for it thought it was really a barmaid, and we started exchanging notes when they went upstairs so the rest of the team wouldn't know what was going on - and so that when the attack happened, they'd think it was still just frisky time. I made sure that the player understood I wasn't going to cross a line, and it was just going to be very broad and generic statements - just enough to lull them into a false sense of security. She - yes, it was a girl playing a guy character, which made it even more awkward for me - told me she was okay with it, and while she wasn't comfortable with very graphic stuff, she knew I wouldn't cross a line.

Next thing I know, she hands me an explicit description of her character's actions, to my horror and her mischevious glee. :smalleek:

It went downhill from there. I'll spare the details and the rest of the story, for the sake of sensetive readers and not wanting any sort of Warning. Suffice to say, though, I got the last laugh, and the player had to roll up a new character. :smalltongue:

Wings of Peace
2010-11-02, 04:01 PM
I have a tendency to join newbie groups in my area (3.5) and so to help the DMs learn I make mechanically complicated characters and ask for approval on various parts of the character. Typically I then play the characters (if they're approved) with a degree of restraint because I don't want to overshadow anybody but on occasion especially with spell casters I'll forget the skill level of the groups I'm playing with and cripple an entire encounter with an overly well planned spell.

Moofaa
2010-11-02, 05:24 PM
Some of you must play with some really sensitive people. My players wouldn't have batted an eye, or simply laughed and said "AWESOME!" or make some sort of pun out of the situation of any of the descriptions in this thread.

Actually I have had some players do some pretty macabre things to corpses after I finish my description. One time I had a player actually develop a habit of hauling bodies in a horse-cart for a while waiting for a chance to "do something cool". Eventually the rotten, dismembered remains were left outside of some noblemans house as a warning after a failed attempt at hosting a "dinner party" where he planned to use them in some way as revenge against the nobleman. (pretty sure he planned to feed them to his guests).

WarKitty
2010-11-02, 05:27 PM
The issues I found tend not to be how gruesome it is but how realistic it is. The closer you get to realistic crime the higher risk you run of having a player who's been a victim.

Lycan 01
2010-11-02, 06:48 PM
The issues I found tend not to be how gruesome it is but how realistic it is. The closer you get to realistic crime the higher risk you run of having a player who's been a victim.

Hence part of the reason I avoid rape, abuse, and other such issues. I have at least one player who is extremely sensetive regarding the subject of rape, and he will get up and walk out if people start talking about it or cracking jokes. You never know what skeletons are in peoples' closets...

Ragitsu
2010-11-02, 06:52 PM
Anything involving sex automatically "goes too far" in the minds of a lot of D&D GMs/players.

dsmiles
2010-11-02, 06:55 PM
Anything involving sex automatically "goes too far" in the minds of a lot of D&D GMs/players.

Yeah, I don't get that one. Some of that type of player are fine with it in TV and movies, but in a book or RPG, it's taboo.
For others, it's just all-around taboo, but I can understand them, they're consistent. It's the ones who aren't consistently squicked out by sex/sexual innuendo that puzzle me.

Ragitsu
2010-11-02, 06:58 PM
I blame United States culture.

It would be easy, and in some cases, fun, to attribute this to a lack of maturity (violence good/sex or relationships bad), but that's a bit of a broad assumption.

Lycan 01
2010-11-02, 07:06 PM
Part of it is the self-immersion involved with RPGs. Maybe not the right word or term, but I'm sure you get the point. Some players see their characters as an extension of themselves, and the other characters as extensions, avatars, and/or representations of the other players. Some players will even imagine characters as the player, albeit slightly different. Its just... I don't know the proper way to say it... but its just how some players relate characters to players. I know a few people who do it, and I do it myself sometimes. Some people also get really in to their character, to the point of emotional attachment and stuff.

When sex gets brought into the game, it makes people like that uncomfortable. If their friend's character is getting frisky, it may be like having to imagine their friend getting frisky, which would weird a lot of people out. If their character is getting raped, seduced, molested, whatever, it is naturally going to illicit a "WTF?!" response from people like that. It would be like an extension of their own self is being violated.

I know a guy who's girlfriend was in a game with us. Her character was literally a self-insert - herself, just as a vampire, since we were playing Vampire: the Requiem. Well, her character got raped. And dude lost it. He basically had to imagine his girlfriend being violated and used like an item, and the GM was somewhat smug about it, which didn't help. And there was a gerbil involved. Can't forget the gerbil. :smallyuk:

He got up and left. Quit the game and everything. There were other things that arose out of game to make the problem worse, but that's neither here nor there.

Its also worth mentioning that I was also highly uncomfortable with that scene. The moment I realized what was about to happen in the game, I felt uncomfortable. So was my girlfriend. The only person who wasn't uncomfortable with it was the player who sold the BBEG the gerbil. :smallannoyed:



Yeah, we didn't play Vampire again after that. :smallsigh:

valadil
2010-11-02, 07:10 PM
I had nameless NPCs rape a player. I'm still not even sure why. The best defense I've got is that it was my first game and I was entitled to a screw up.

Ragitsu
2010-11-02, 07:12 PM
Part of it is the self-immersion involved with RPGs. Maybe not the right word or term, but I'm sure you get the point. Some players see their characters as an extension of themselves, and the other characters as extensions, avatars, and/or representations of the other players. Some players will even imagine characters as the player, albeit slightly different. Its just... I don't know the proper way to say it... but its just how some players relate characters to players. I know a few people who do it, and I do it myself sometimes. Some people also get really in to their character, to the point of emotional attachment and stuff.

When sex gets brought into the game, it makes people like that uncomfortable. If their friend's character is getting frisky, it may be like having to imagine their friend getting frisky, which would weird a lot of people out. If their character is getting raped, seduced, molested, whatever, it is naturally going to illicit a "WTF?!" response from people like that. It would be like an extension of their own self is being violated.

I know a guy who's girlfriend was in a game with us. Her character was literally a self-insert - herself, just as a vampire, since we were playing Vampire: the Requiem. Well, her character got raped. And dude lost it. He basically had to imagine his girlfriend being violated and used like an item, and the GM was somewhat smug about it, which didn't help. And there was a gerbil involved. Can't forget the gerbil. :smallyuk:

He got up and left. Quit the game and everything. There were other things that arose out of game to make the problem worse, but that's neither here nor there.

Its also worth mentioning that I was also highly uncomfortable with that scene. The moment I realized what was about to happen in the game, I felt uncomfortable. So was my girlfriend. The only person who wasn't uncomfortable with it was the player who sold the BBEG the gerbil. :smallannoyed:



Yeah, we didn't play Vampire again after that. :smallsigh:

Doesn't sound like a problem with sex itself to me, but rather the GM/players themselves (and i've heard SO MANY stories similar to this). Some people shouldn't use it as a storytelling and character building tool. Hey, that's okay. But the very idea should not be outright banned.

Still...I find it funny people have no problem immersing themselves in characters that routinely incinerate, disintegrate, exsanguinate, dominate, impale, decapitate and perforate their enemies, yet shirk at a kiss or passionate embrace.

dsmiles
2010-11-02, 07:19 PM
Doesn't sound like a problem with sex itself to me, but rather the GM/players themselves (and i've heard SO MANY stories similar to this). Some people shouldn't use it as a storytelling and character building tool. Hey, that's okay. But the very idea should not be outright banned.

Still...I find it funny people have no problem immersing themselves in characters that routinely incinerate, disintegrate, exsanguinate, dominate, impale, decapitate and perforate their enemies, yet shirk at a kiss or passionate embrace.

Ditto
Now with obligatory text!

Lycan 01
2010-11-02, 07:31 PM
The GM still took things too far, is the point I'm making. As you mentioned, sex can be used a story tool. I've used it before, as seen in my "doppleganger barmaid" story, though I tried to keep it vague and not cross any lines. The story I mentioned, though, is different. Lines were crossed, consequences be darned, for non-story purposes. And several people were made uncomfortable by it. Hence, the GM went too far.

I was never arguing that sex and mature themes have no place in some games. I play Dark Heresy, dang it. :smalltongue: I was just explaining why some players are uncomfortable with such things, and I included a story of relevance to the matter.

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-11-02, 07:35 PM
I have not yet gone too far for my players, but we usually play a pretty lighthearted campaign. However, I have one player in particular who has essentially dared the world at large to try to squick him out, and even ran a contest to see if anyone could accomplish this. AFAIK, this failed. I would love to try to squick this guy out majorly in the upcoming zombie apocalypse game I'm running. Backstory in Spoilers.
The character in question (Drew) was once a sort of sneaky bodyguard type, who would work for various nobles for a fee. (Basically an anti-assassin assassin.) He soon became a permanent bodyguard for a particular noble named Arin. The two grew fond of each other, and the noble taught Drew about stuff like music, art, etc. During this time, the two fell deeply in love. Later, rogue troops from an enemy city attacked the court, and Arin ordered Drew to leave him and go protect [Noble X], so Drew went reluctantly but did his job well, successfully defending the other noble. When he returned to Arin, however, he was gone, and his chambers showed signs of a struggle. Drew spent the next few years practicing music and searching for Arin, having retired from bodyguarding. In this time, he met and became good friends with the other PCs, but never gave up looking. They are in the tavern owned by one of the PCs when the zombie attack begins.

So. I've begun formulating a plan, but I don't really have anything concrete regarding this. I think Arin is the key to squicking out Drew's player, but I'm at a loss as to how. He pretty clearly doesn't go in for "visceral horror" so whipping up a quick paragraph about his former lover's mutilated corpse shambles towards him won't work. I think he's a good enough RPer to react well to that, but I'd really like to mess with this guy's head and get some psychological terror going in there. I'm considering having Arin somehow be connected to a cult that is one of the causes of the zombie attack, but I'm not sure how.

Any ideas?

(Also, I'm stealing those music ideas. Good finds!)

Tael
2010-11-02, 07:47 PM
I once actually accidentally raped a PC. A female rogue was doing some shady deals, and I wanted to use a thug trying to rape her as a way to let her show what she was made of, and generally be badass. Unfortunately after a short fight the thug got in a lucky crit and dropped her unconscious. It was awkward to say the least.

Me: The thug crits! 20 damage!
Her: Uh oh, I fall unconcious, -2 HP.
Me: Okay. I guess he... uh... yeah...
*awkward silence*



Also, to anyone who doesn't want to cross the line - don't mess with kids. Especially not babies. People are just too naturally protective.

Ragitsu
2010-11-02, 07:50 PM
Also, to anyone who doesn't want to cross the line - don't mess with kids. Especially not babies. People are just too naturally protective.

Yeah: save such plot details for the grownups. A cheaply used child death is more cheesy than tragic.

Ormur
2010-11-02, 08:04 PM
I think I'd be okay with all sorts of horrible stuff including gore, torture, rape etc. so long as it's just mentioned or implied but no actually acted out. It can lend a certain gravity to a plot or a character but I don't want vivid descriptions, that's just exploitation and/or out of my comfort zone.

kyoryu
2010-11-02, 08:08 PM
Yeah, rape's one of those things that is just on my "never do" list in games.

It might be powerful if pulled off correctly, but so are many other things - and most of those other things don't have the possibility of going so disastrously wrong if *not* done correctly, or if you happen to hit upon real-life issues, etc.

Lycan 01
2010-11-02, 08:17 PM
I have not yet gone too far for my players, but we usually play a pretty lighthearted campaign. However, I have one player in particular who has essentially dared the world at large to try to squick him out, and even ran a contest to see if anyone could accomplish this. AFAIK, this failed. I would love to try to squick this guy out majorly in the upcoming zombie apocalypse game I'm running. Backstory in Spoilers.
The character in question (Drew) was once a sort of sneaky bodyguard type, who would work for various nobles for a fee. (Basically an anti-assassin assassin.) He soon became a permanent bodyguard for a particular noble named Arin. The two grew fond of each other, and the noble taught Drew about stuff like music, art, etc. During this time, the two fell deeply in love. Later, rogue troops from an enemy city attacked the court, and Arin ordered Drew to leave him and go protect [Noble X], so Drew went reluctantly but did his job well, successfully defending the other noble. When he returned to Arin, however, he was gone, and his chambers showed signs of a struggle. Drew spent the next few years practicing music and searching for Arin, having retired from bodyguarding. In this time, he met and became good friends with the other PCs, but never gave up looking. They are in the tavern owned by one of the PCs when the zombie attack begins.

So. I've begun formulating a plan, but I don't really have anything concrete regarding this. I think Arin is the key to squicking out Drew's player, but I'm at a loss as to how. He pretty clearly doesn't go in for "visceral horror" so whipping up a quick paragraph about his former lover's mutilated corpse shambles towards him won't work. I think he's a good enough RPer to react well to that, but I'd really like to mess with this guy's head and get some psychological terror going in there. I'm considering having Arin somehow be connected to a cult that is one of the causes of the zombie attack, but I'm not sure how.

Any ideas?

(Also, I'm stealing those music ideas. Good finds!)

Is Arin a dude or a chick? The name sounds gender-neutral. If its a chick, I believe Zeta Kai's zombie description (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9667490&postcount=31) from earlier in this thread may prove handy. Especially since Arin was the PC's lover. Do the math...

Urgh. That makes me uncomfortable just suggesting it...


I once actually accidentally raped a PC. A female rogue was doing some shady deals, and I wanted to use a thug trying to rape her as a way to let her show what she was made of, and generally be badass. Unfortunately after a short fight the thug got in a lucky crit and dropped her unconscious. It was awkward to say the least.

Me: The thug crits! 20 damage!
Her: Uh oh, I fall unconcious, -2 HP.
Me: Okay. I guess he... uh... yeah...
*awkward silence*


Yeah, uh... That's... That's when the town guard shows up, or the thug's boss swoops in from the shadows to claim the girl as his own, thus launching an epic "rescue the rogue from the crime lord's lair" sub-plot. :smalleek:

Ragitsu
2010-11-02, 08:22 PM
or if you happen to hit upon real-life issues, etc.

Violence can be a part of real life issues. Why is that untouchable when it comes to banning?

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-11-02, 08:39 PM
Is Arin a dude or a chick? The name sounds gender-neutral. If its a chick, I believe Zeta Kai's zombie description (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9667490&postcount=31) from earlier in this thread may prove handy. Especially since Arin was the PC's lover. Do the math...

Urgh. That makes me uncomfortable just suggesting it...

It's a guy. I believe there was some stalling involved while the player chose a gender for Arin, thus the gender-neutral name. And yeah, I could just use a gory description of zombified Arin, but he doesn't really go in for squick in that way. Like I said, visceral horror doesn't really work on him.

Lycan 01
2010-11-02, 08:44 PM
Oh. Well, I was going more for the fact that if it was a woman, she's now a zombie, and she was pregnant with his spawn before said zombie-fication.

But if its a dude... Hm.

Cult leader may work. Betrayel is a powerful emotion. Tis quite crushing to know you were being used the entire time... Maybe the vessel for some sort of demony thing? Perhaps there was a dark and grisly ritual in which Arin was forced to become a Daemonhost, or something of the sort, and now his tortured soul is trapped inside his own ravaged body while a powerful and vile entity controls him from within? It would force the player to either kill the one he loves, or try vainly to try and free them, thus extending Arin's suffering...

Tengu_temp
2010-11-02, 08:53 PM
A poop golem. That exploded when defeated. It was supposed to be funny, and it could have been funny, but I think I failed and it was just disgusting. Fortunately I made up for it by some genuinely amusing stuff later (it was a very light-hearted campaign).

Uncertainty
2010-11-02, 09:12 PM
Violence can be a part of real life issues. Why is that untouchable when it comes to banning?

Not sure if this really answers the question... But if you have an issue with violence, you probably would not be playing a game like DnD.

WarKitty
2010-11-02, 09:22 PM
Not sure if this really answers the question... But if you have an issue with violence, you probably would not be playing a game like DnD.

That's part of it. I come to the game expecting things to die at swordpoint or fireball or whatever. That's D&D. I don't come to the game expecting rape, or graphic descriptions of violence.

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-11-02, 11:03 PM
Oh. Well, I was going more for the fact that if it was a woman, she's now a zombie, and she was pregnant with his spawn before said zombie-fication.
:smalleek: Oh my. I didn't realize what you meant when I first read your post. That would be brain-meltingly Too Far. Good show.


Cult leader may work. Betrayel is a powerful emotion. Tis quite crushing to know you were being used the entire time... Maybe the vessel for some sort of demony thing? Perhaps there was a dark and grisly ritual in which Arin was forced to become a Daemonhost, or something of the sort, and now his tortured soul is trapped inside his own ravaged body while a powerful and vile entity controls him from within? It would force the player to either kill the one he loves, or try vainly to try and free them, thus extending Arin's suffering...

Ooh, I like this. I'd been considering having him have been converted somehow, but having been in cahoots with the cult all along is a great idea. I also like the "trapped in his own body" idea. Hmm... decisions, decisions...

Lycan 01
2010-11-02, 11:15 PM
"Trapped in my own body" poses the question of "Do I kill the man I love to free him from suffering, or do I prolong his pain in the vain hope I can actually save him?" Which is quite the delima, especially if they realize afterwards that they made the wrong choice. If he's just a bad guy, its the simple "Oh you betrayed me..." pain, followed by "die by my righteous fury!" bit.

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-11-02, 11:29 PM
"Trapped in my own body" poses the question of "Do I kill the man I love to free him from suffering, or do I prolong his pain in the vain hope I can actually save him?" Which is quite the delima, especially if they realize afterwards that they made the wrong choice. If he's just a bad guy, its the simple "Oh you betrayed me..." pain, followed by "die by my righteous fury!" bit.

Good point. Trapped it is! Now how exactly to go about this... *Thinks*

Lycan 01
2010-11-02, 11:43 PM
Might I suggest a bit of research into Daemonhosts from Warhammer 40,000? They're what I used for reference. Its a human who's body is forced to house a powerful Daemon, though the person is usually dead before their body is used. Usually.

The ritual involves various things, depending on who is doing the binding, how much time and effort they can put into it, and what sort of Daemon it is they're trying to capture. The body must be marked with various runes and glyphs - this can be done with paint, blood, ritual wounds, et cetera - and candles must be burned, along with whatever other fluff you want to add. Some hosts' bodies are pierced, pinned, or otherwise FUBARed with icons, religeous symbols, symbols, wards, and other items used to try and contain the Daemon's power. Then of course there's the binding process itself, which can be anything from a powerful psychic chanting in Latin to a huge blood orgy to conjure the fiend - whatever is needed to bind the specific daemon to the host. In your case, we can say a nice ritual sacrifice or two... or two-hundred and fifty seven. Maybe through zombie feasting on the innocent upon a blood-encrusted altar to a dark pagan god. Fun stuff.

Anyway, once the Daemon is summoned and bond, the host's body undergoes changes. If the host is still alive, their soul is either devoured/shredded/condemned/whatever, or they're forced into the back of their own mind as they must endure being the puppet of a powerful monster -should they survive, it is doubtful their sanity will. The body will also undergo mutations - vestigial horns, serrated talons, leathery bat wings, rotting flesh, extra limbs, scales, feathers, extra eyes, insect hives, internal glowing, spikes, or even nothing more than cat eyes and a creepy smirk. The last one option is perhaps the scariest, IMO.

Oh, and the Daemon can assume the person's identity. Or at least, pretend to be the person begging for mercy. In one story, a Daemonhost started talking and acting like its original host, claiming that he'd momentarily regained control while the Daemon was weak. He then begs that the charms and stuff on him be released, so the daemon will be forced from his body and he can have it back. He puts up a convincing arguement, but then somebody points out that the bloody glyph on his chest was the mark that forced the host's soul from his body - ergo, the only person in the body is the daemon. The host's eyes then flicker back to cat's eyes, and he laments that it was worth a try...



Sounds fun, don't it? :smallbiggrin:

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-11-02, 11:55 PM
[Awesomeness]

That is amazing. Totally using some variation on this. Thank you so much. Muahahahahaaaaaaa!

Lycan 01
2010-11-03, 12:08 AM
No problem. If you like that, you should give Dark Heresy a whirl. :smallbiggrin:

Blaze
2010-11-03, 12:10 AM
There is no too far. :O At least for our group.

We're playing an evil campaign right now, and some pretty nasty stuff has happened. Gruesome deaths involving hundreds of NPC's... some pretty vivid descriptions of blood baths and torture chambers.

All that awesome fun stuff that non RPG'ers think us gamers do in a basement all night.

The closest to going too far was when our party was actually torturing some NPC's as part of a ritual. My character actually charmed people into willingly sacrificing themselves and doing as another PC wanted... and he basically had them do some atrocious things, all in the name of his dark lord :smalleek:

Good ol evil campaigns, so damn ridiculous. We all have strong stomachs, but there are times when we say, "wow that's just ****ed. what the ****?"

dsmiles
2010-11-03, 04:35 AM
No problem. If you like that, you should give Dark Heresy a whirl. :smallbiggrin:

I like that, and I'd love to play some DH, but, alas, no Tau.
[/derail]

On topic: I don't think I've ever touched on rape as a topic in DnD. That would definitely go too far for the group I play with, and may even make me uncomfortable. Graphic violence, torture, murder, gore, etc., is fine for us, but I don't know about rape. Mental "rape" (trapped in your own body, etc) goes over splendidly. The players in my group eat that right up, they love the chance to be "the bad guy that isn't really the bad guy." Forcing tough decisions on the other players. I haven't used it, but the alternate DM has. As a player, I have no problems dominating an NPC, or even another PC, if need be (when I'm playing the evil telepath archetype).

Silus
2010-11-03, 07:20 AM
I'd honestly not be opposed to using abuse (hitting one's spouse or children) or rape as reasons for the PC's to get their stuff into gear. Sure, not gonna rape or abuse the PC's characters, but rather use it to be like "This person is bad, go make them pay" kinda thing without properly stating it. Or have them arrested, depending on their attitude and moral compass.

I do like screwing with people's minds though. Especially with mirrors.

DM: You're walking down a long, moderately ruined hallway. On the floor is a long, moth eaten red carpet. Chandeliers hang from the ceiling, and the right wall is dominated by a mirror that stretches the entire length of the hallway.

PC: We walk down the hallway, looking for traps.

DM: Ok, ok, good...*Observes spot checks, then points at whoever got the highest, regardless of what it is* You spot something.

PC: Oh?

DM: You glance over at the mirror during your search, and you notice something....odd. It looks like your reflection is lagging a bit behind your actions by about a half second, as if it's waiting to see what you'll do before you do it.

PC: Uh...I smash the mirror.

DM: Ok, the section of mirror shatters. Roll another spot check.

PC: *Rolls*

DM: Well, your reflection stopped lagging, but there's still something not right about your reflection in the shattered bits of mirror on the floor. As you look closer, you see something move behind you, slowly. Whatever it is, it's dark, and advancing. You watch as this....thing, comes up behind your reflection, what appears to be a rusty, serrated blade if it's misshapen hand. You watch in horror as the thing plunges the knife through your neck, splattering the mirror with blood. Your reflection's eyes widen in horror as the thing with the blade begins butchering the apparently still living reflection, splattering the mirror with blood and gore. Your reflection reaches out with their blood covered hand and manages to write "Help" backwards on the mirror in their own blood, before their arm trails off, their whole body disappearing from view. The thing with the blade is gone. Make another spot check, DC 5.

PC: *Rolls*

DM: You have no reflection when you look in the mirror now.

Or, better yet...

DM: You enter a large stone room. The only feature in this room are rows and rows of statues, all facing the same way, which is towards the wall in which the door is situated. All the statues are identical, with some slight variations in clothing and hair, but for the most part, they all look the same.

PC: Um, what do they look like? Townsfolk? Terra-cotta soldiers?

DM: No actually. Their general form is that of a winged human, their gender, at times, undetermined.

PC: So, angel statues?

DM: Indeed. Except....all of them, every single one, is covering their face, as if crying.

Psyx
2010-11-03, 07:57 AM
Some of you must play with some really sensitive people. My players wouldn't have batted an eye, or simply laughed and said "AWESOME!" or make some sort of pun out of the situation of any of the descriptions in this thread.

Your players have clearly been fortunate enough to avoid human depravity and its effects first-hand, then. In my experience, people who have dealt with such issues do NOT want them intruding on their hobby. Those who glamorise depraved issues seem to be either essentially naive about them or somewhat mentally disturbed.



Violence can be a part of real life issues. Why is that untouchable when it comes to banning?

Violence is inherent in pretty much every RPG. There's no real way to avoid it. If a player is adverse to all violence, then gaming is not the hobby for them.
And there's a big difference between a somewhat violent action movie and 'Saw'.

kyoryu
2010-11-03, 01:56 PM
Violence is inherent in pretty much every RPG. There's no real way to avoid it. If a player is adverse to all violence, then gaming is not the hobby for them.
And there's a big difference between a somewhat violent action movie and 'Saw'.

Yeah. RPGs are typically Rambo-violence, not Saw-violence.

Kaww
2010-11-03, 02:10 PM
I never went too far with gore. I just screw with people's minds... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=173273)
A lot more fun... Also your job isn't to make people sick. I don't think this will be fun for anybody, me in particular, so I don't do it...

Ragitsu
2010-11-03, 03:05 PM
Violence is inherent in pretty much every RPG. There's no real way to avoid it. If a player is adverse to all violence, then gaming is not the hobby for them.
And there's a big difference between a somewhat violent action movie and 'Saw'.

RPG violence can get very sanitized on an ongoing basis, just like, hey, romance/sex that's occasionally mentioned! The difference is that violence is okay, because combat (even sanitized combat) is, as you said, inherent to pretty much every RPG.

Still, some people DO run campaigns where events are at a 50% combat / 50% other stuff ratio...by other stuff, I mean full on roleplaying/travel/puzzle solving/etc. And, further still, some feature combat during less than 50% of their campaigns.

No, I think that merely having rules for combat doesn't mean you need to exclude the other very real aspect of humanity (or many other living races in fantasy).

Ragitsu
2010-11-03, 03:07 PM
Also your job isn't to make people sick. I don't think this will be fun for anybody, me in particular, so I don't do it...

What makes people "sick" varies a lot. Some will get sickened by a detailed description of an enemy getting stabbed repeatedly as their blood paints the vicinity in a vibrant shade of crimson. Others will get sickened by a description of a PC kissing an NPC.

Callista
2010-11-03, 03:19 PM
I think that leaving things open to question is far creepier than describing them ever could be. Think H. P. Lovecraft.

Silus
2010-11-03, 03:21 PM
I think that leaving things open to question is far creepier than describing them ever could be. Think H. P. Lovecraft.

Or introducing some meta-fear in having the players think you finally found a way to stat out the Weeping Angels from Dr. Who. That'd scare me more than Cthulhu to be honest.

Ragitsu
2010-11-03, 03:23 PM
I think that leaving things open to question is far creepier than describing them ever could be. Think H. P. Lovecraft.

I agree that this can be effective, but it's not the end-all-be-all of storytelling. Use in moderation like everything else.

RanWilde
2010-11-03, 04:05 PM
I try to keep from going into overly detailed depictions of gore, romancing and other visceral things. I try to describe combat much the way R. A. Salvatore does, it keeps it exciting without being over the top and disgusting.

Ragitsu
2010-11-03, 04:07 PM
The guy does do combat well :smallsmile:.

randomhero00
2010-11-03, 04:08 PM
I love going too far. Its what makes evil worth playing :smallamused:

Ragitsu
2010-11-03, 04:15 PM
To (mis)quote John Sheppard,

"I don't think we've gone far enough"

Kansaschaser
2010-11-03, 04:28 PM
I think I went to far one time as a DM. I didn't realize the adventure I had written went to far until I saw the faces of my players once I described the scene. One of my players is a single straight guy, the other single guy is gay, then I had two other players that were a married couple that had a 1 year old daughter.

The scene was concerning the creation of pseudonatural creatures. The adventurers came apon what looked like a hospital ward, but the patients were all women and they were chained to the wall. All the women seemed pregnant and they all appeared to be in constant pain as if they were in labor.

Upon seeing the adventuring party, all the women screamed out for death. Then one of the women gave birth to a pseudonatural half-orc that immediatly ate and devowered the mother and then lunged for the party members.

After I read that scene to the players, they all stared at me as if I was a pseudonatural creature. I didn't know it would have been such a traumatic thing. After the defeat of the psuedonatural creature, the players (as well as the characters) had a difficult time deciding weather to kill the expectant mothers.

One of my players also told me that they thought the women were the victim of rape. I tried to tell them that was not the case, but they said thats how they all saw it. I was shocked that all my plers were so... shocked.:smalleek:

Shademan
2010-11-03, 04:32 PM
I dont get the whole shock thingie... if theres anything shocking happening my CHARACTER reacts. y'know...
Regardless of my views on the matter.
...wait...?

RanWilde
2010-11-03, 04:50 PM
I think I went to far one time as a DM. I didn't realize the adventure I had written went to far until I saw the faces of my players once I described the scene. One of my players is a single straight guy, the other single guy is gay, then I had two other players that were a married couple that had a 1 year old daughter.

The scene was concerning the creation of pseudonatural creatures. The adventurers came apon what looked like a hospital ward, but the patients were all women and they were chained to the wall. All the women seemed pregnant and they all appeared to be in constant pain as if they were in labor.

Upon seeing the adventuring party, all the women screamed out for death. Then one of the women gave birth to a pseudonatural half-orc that immediatly ate and devowered the mother and then lunged for the party members.

After I read that scene to the players, they all stared at me as if I was a pseudonatural creature. I didn't know it would have been such a traumatic thing. After the defeat of the psuedonatural creature, the players (as well as the characters) had a difficult time deciding weather to kill the expectant mothers.

One of my players also told me that they thought the women were the victim of rape. I tried to tell them that was not the case, but they said thats how they all saw it. I was shocked that all my plers were so... shocked.:smalleek:

Was there any hint of the creatures being created in a disgusting and possibly supernatural way? If not, then no wonder they were shocked.

Kansaschaser
2010-11-03, 04:58 PM
Was there any hint of the creatures being created in a disgusting and possibly supernatural way? If not, then no wonder they were shocked.

The Psuedonatural template from the Epic Level Handbook did not say how they were created. I always liked to show the players in my campaign the creation of creatures.

A few game sessions prior to the one with the psuedonatural creatures, the characters came across a circus that had mammoths that were pregnant with tarrasque clones. None of the players seemed to be that shocked when the tarrasques burst forth from the mammoth's stomach (just like in Aliens). so I didn't think much of having the same done to humans.

They also didn't seem too upset when they had to work alongside vampires that kept humans around just for blood sustenance. The humans were stuck in cages about 5ft by 5ft and they were so bloated with blood, they filled their cage.

WarKitty
2010-11-03, 05:06 PM
I dont get the whole shock thingie... if theres anything shocking happening my CHARACTER reacts. y'know...
Regardless of my views on the matter.
...wait...?

You don't react to descriptions in general?


The Psuedonatural template from the Epic Level Handbook did not say how they were created. I always liked to show the players in my campaign the creation of creatures.

A few game sessions prior to the one with the psuedonatural creatures, the characters came across a circus that had mammoths that were pregnant with tarrasque clones. None of the players seemed to be that shocked when the tarrasques burst forth from the mammoth's stomach (just like in Aliens). so I didn't think much of having the same done to humans.

They also didn't seem too upset when they had to work alongside vampires that kept humans around just for blood sustenance. The humans were stuck in cages about 5ft by 5ft and they were so bloated with blood, they filled their cage.

Well the presumption would be that they got there the normal way...

Shademan
2010-11-03, 05:15 PM
You don't react to descriptions in general?



sure i do. I'm just not shocked by them, tough my character is likely to be.

WarKitty
2010-11-03, 05:24 PM
sure i do. I'm just not shocked by them, tough my character is likely to be.

DOES NOT COMPUTE

It doesn't matter if it's a D&D game or a ghost story or what. There are certain things that are just shocking and disturbing to me in any context.

Silus
2010-11-03, 05:28 PM
DOES NOT COMPUTE

It doesn't matter if it's a D&D game or a ghost story or what. There are certain things that are just shocking and disturbing to me in any context.

Undead children. *Shudders* Not even the InstaCourage provided by a shotgun can make those things less scary....

hamishspence
2010-11-03, 05:44 PM
Agreed. The undead child monsters in Libris Mortis:

called Slaymates (warning- creepy)
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/libris_gallery/84772.jpg

remind me a little of some clips I've seen of the movie The Ring, in various collections of horror moments.

Ragitsu
2010-11-03, 06:03 PM
DOES NOT COMPUTE

It doesn't matter if it's a D&D game or a ghost story or what. There are certain things that are just shocking and disturbing to me in any context.

Are you sure you are not confusing yourself, the player, with your character?


Agreed. The undead child monsters in Libris Mortis:

called Slaymates (warning- creepy)
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/libris_gallery/84772.jpg

remind me a little of some clips I've seen of the movie The Ring, in various collections of horror moments.

Aw, it could fit in a Tim Burton movie.

WarKitty
2010-11-03, 06:04 PM
Are you sure you are not confusing yourself, the player, with your character?

But it's not just if it's my character. It's if it's there at all. Or if I'm reading a book and it has that in there.

dsmiles
2010-11-03, 06:05 PM
DOES NOT COMPUTE

It doesn't matter if it's a D&D game or a ghost story or what. There are certain things that are just shocking and disturbing to me in any context.

Some people are just more jaded than others, WK. I'm definitely not saying that this is a good thing, but it is what it is, you know?

Starfols
2010-11-03, 06:18 PM
I think I went to far one time as a DM. I didn't realize the adventure I had written went to far until I saw the faces of my players once I described the scene. One of my players is a single straight guy, the other single guy is gay, then I had two other players that were a married couple that had a 1 year old daughter.

The scene was concerning the creation of pseudonatural creatures. The adventurers came apon what looked like a hospital ward, but the patients were all women and they were chained to the wall. All the women seemed pregnant and they all appeared to be in constant pain as if they were in labor.

Upon seeing the adventuring party, all the women screamed out for death. Then one of the women gave birth to a pseudonatural half-orc that immediatly ate and devowered the mother and then lunged for the party members.

After I read that scene to the players, they all stared at me as if I was a pseudonatural creature. I didn't know it would have been such a traumatic thing. After the defeat of the psuedonatural creature, the players (as well as the characters) had a difficult time deciding weather to kill the expectant mothers.

One of my players also told me that they thought the women were the victim of rape. I tried to tell them that was not the case, but they said thats how they all saw it. I was shocked that all my plers were so... shocked.:smalleek:

Probably because that's directly ripped from the plot of a hentai. :smallsigh: Playing something like that for drama can never end well.

One thing that happens in my group when a dm tries and fails to be "gritty" or "realistic" (usually by simply having big blocks of gory narration) is several of the group shouting mad-libs over the dm's lengthy descriptions. When your scary torture demon is now R'thragh McSpackypants, snuggler of the innocent, wielding a giant serrated toaster that's covered in the spaghetti of his victims, it's an indication that you should stop taking yourself so overly seriously.

Tengu_temp
2010-11-03, 06:31 PM
Once, a long time ago, I made everyone in the game uncomfortable completely by accident: after killing the leader of a band of marauders who attacked a village, the players explored the house where he was hiding and found a young woman in a torn dress in one of the rooms. They quickly left her, assuming she was raped by the gang leader, but the truth was that they interrupted him by their arrival and he didn't really do anything yet. They left her alone before she had a chance to explain it, though.

So yeah. That was way more uneasy than planned because my players were (very reasonably) tactful.

Shademan
2010-11-04, 05:46 AM
DOES NOT COMPUTE

It doesn't matter if it's a D&D game or a ghost story or what. There are certain things that are just shocking and disturbing to me in any context.

Maybe it's because I'm a DM as well and love to throw stuff like that at my players... hmm

Quincunx
2010-11-04, 06:45 AM
Probably because that's directly ripped from the plot of a hentai. :smallsigh: Playing something like that for drama can never end well.

That and it's the pregnancy and birth itself that's torturous and dehumanizing. Tossing demons in on top of that is just overkill.


One thing that happens in my group when a dm tries and fails to be "gritty" or "realistic" (usually by simply having big blocks of gory narration) is several of the group shouting mad-libs over the dm's lengthy descriptions. When your scary torture demon is now R'thragh McSpackypants, snuggler of the innocent, wielding a giant serrated toaster that's covered in the spaghetti of his victims, it's an indication that you should stop taking yourself so overly seriously.

. . .I think I'm in love. :smalltongue: It's even better if you imagine it happening in-character, with the BBEG's expression growing blacker at every interruption, a supporting cultist bending to snicker into his sleeve, and the loyal cultists on either side opening the giggler's throat before he dooms them all--and then realizing they've just volunteered for the position of "Kill ALL the Hecklers, even Those with Class Levels".

Psyx
2010-11-04, 07:00 AM
Still, some people DO run campaigns where events are at a 50% combat / 50% other stuff ratio...by other stuff, I mean full on roleplaying/travel/puzzle solving/etc. And, further still, some feature combat during less than 50% of their campaigns.


It's still there, though and inherent in the game. Heck: My guys have gone up to 6 sessions without combat at times, but they wouldn't be at the table if they objected to force as a means to an end, or the use of violence. RPGs are not good games for devoted pacifists.

Kansaschaser
2010-11-04, 08:04 AM
Probably because that's directly ripped from the plot of a hentai. :smallsigh: Playing something like that for drama can never end well.

One thing that happens in my group when a dm tries and fails to be "gritty" or "realistic" (usually by simply having big blocks of gory narration) is several of the group shouting mad-libs over the dm's lengthy descriptions. When your scary torture demon is now R'thragh McSpackypants, snuggler of the innocent, wielding a giant serrated toaster that's covered in the spaghetti of his victims, it's an indication that you should stop taking yourself so overly seriously.

I've never watched a "hentai" movie. The straight guy player in my group, the one that told me that they thought the girls were raped, has stated in the past that he watches hentai.

The reason I've never watched a hentai is...
I'm gay and I'm not attracted to "skinny" people. Most anime characters are drawn like superman (for men) or school girls (for women). I'm attracted to fat, hairy, men. If you know of a hentai that has that in it, then I would consider watching.

dsmiles
2010-11-04, 09:29 AM
I've never watched a "hentai" movie. The straight guy player in my group, the one that told me that they thought the girls were raped, has stated in the past that he watches hentai.

The reason I've never watched a hentai is...

You're not missing anything. Hentai is nothing if not a waste of time.

kyoryu
2010-11-04, 11:20 AM
It's still there, though and inherent in the game. Heck: My guys have gone up to 6 sessions without combat at times, but they wouldn't be at the table if they objected to force as a means to an end, or the use of violence. RPGs are not good games for devoted pacifists.

Now I want to run a pacifist game.


"Evil goblins are raiding the village! What do you do?"
"Um, hand them food and welcome them?"
"Oooookay. They've just slit the mayor's throat! What now?"
"Ummmmm.. congratulate them on their cutting technique?"

Either that or they'd all be clerics, and every fight would end up like the Team Cleric battle.

WarKitty
2010-11-04, 11:24 AM
Now I want to run a pacifist game.


"Evil goblins are raiding the village! What do you do?"
"Um, hand them food and welcome them?"
"Oooookay. They've just slit the mayor's throat! What now?"
"Ummmmm.. congratulate them on their cutting technique?"

Either that or they'd all be clerics, and every fight would end up like the Team Cleric battle.

Not entirely. If you have spellcasters there are a *lot* of ways to immobilize someone. Have a wizard with sleep and a druid with entangle. Creative melee can use nets or bolas, or make disarm and sunder checks. There's all kinds of ways to make an enemy totally ineffective without ever dealing damage. And that's without even using nonlethal.

dsmiles
2010-11-04, 11:24 AM
Either that or they'd all be clerics, and every fight would end up like the Team Cleric battle.

The 4 white mage party in FFI?

Shademan
2010-11-04, 08:27 PM
You're not missing anything. Hentai is nothing if not a waste of time.

what!? hentai is wonderful and fantastic!
theres just some of them that are really bad, but it's the same in any media

RanWilde
2010-11-04, 08:44 PM
what!? hentai is wonderful and fantastic!
theres just some of them that are really bad, but it's the same in any media

Can we not talk about pornography? I find it pretty disgusting.

Back on topic: A pacifist game sounds like it would easily go to far as the DM tries to get a violent reaction out of the PCs.

CoffeeIncluded
2010-11-04, 08:46 PM
Can we not talk about pornography? I find it pretty disgusting.

Back on topic: A pacifist game sounds like it would easily go to far as the DM tries to get a violent reaction out of the PCs.

And it'll get this thread locked.

FMArthur
2010-11-04, 09:02 PM
I did make the players think I had gone too far once, and I guess that's essentially the same thing. I did make sure they figured out what actually happened within the same session, though. :smalltongue:

I had this big, evil ruler of a huge empire hiring the PCs to do vaguely nefarious or unsavory things for him for a while before they joined the rebels (hey, if I don't make the plot obvious they don't know what to do and stall until I railroad them!).

Right after they'd joined the resistance and didn't think he knew (they were his unsuspecting infiltrators of course), a female party member tried to seduce him in the hopes of killing him in the bedchamber... except she never got to the 'assassination' part. She blacked out and remembered a night of... grossness.

It was this guy, though. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9700261&postcount=16) He's an Erudite / Beholder Mage merely disguised as a human, and is physically incapable of what she thought happened. What really happened was that she was put to sleep magically and had Psionic Modify Memory manifested on her to implant false memories. I did made sure that the memories seemed incomplete and suspicious, with a lack of uh... physical evidence that the events happened. The players didn't lose the accusatory look in their eyes until after the power was dispelled.

On the plus side, he is their most hated adversary ever because of this. All was forgiven, but one guy in my group (not even the player involved) still believes I DM fiat-backpeddled and pretended it was a plan. But the fact was that I had him statted out well beforehand and when the player involved told me what her character was attempting, Psionic Modify Memory just caught my eye on the list of powers/spells I made just for him.

Shademan
2010-11-05, 03:44 AM
Can we not talk about pornography? I find it pretty disgusting.

Back on topic: A pacifist game sounds like it would easily go to far as the DM tries to get a violent reaction out of the PCs.

wasnt planning on starting any discussion. just threw my opinion out there.
liek: it is awesome.

but on topic, indeed: I am planning to have a big reveal later on that one of the PC's is infact a clone of one of the six BBEG's. theres alot of psychologial drama in between so you know... I got no idea how he will take it. MIGHT be pushing it there...

Cerlis
2010-11-05, 04:42 AM
Here's a question for you all then:

One of my fellow players wrote a detailed backstory involving a brutal gang rape by orcs. The DM approved it and (apparently at the player's request) played it out in the battle with the same orcs in the form of commentary from them making it quite clear what had happened and that they were desirous of doing it again.

I quite honestly hated that session. It was way too much for when I wasn't expecting something that heavy. But I'm not sure how to approach the DM or the player about it; it wasn't really that graphic but I just don't deal with the topic very well if I'm not expecting it. I don't want to be the person who's whining and spoiling everyone else's fun...but I don't want to be caught by something like that either.

(And yes, I do have some ptsd-type symptoms, which neither the player nor the dm are aware of and which I don't particularly want to get into with them.)

Personally this thread making me realize that there are plenty of people in this small demographic (DnDers who know someone who reads and posts OotS) that have an issue with such horrible things because they've experienced them is in itself Nightmare Fuel for me. Will check on this threat later possible. Need to go pretend that horrible things dont happen to real people all the time and in great frequency...


happy place happy place...

Callos_DeTerran
2010-11-05, 09:10 AM
happy place happy place...

Your happy place is filled with spiders and the screams of those who've lost hope. :smalltongue:






Hmm...as for going too far...I don't believe I ever have. My RL group is very light-hearted, even about serious stuff, and I'm paranoid as hell about accidentally breaking forum rules with mature content (and thus don't push boundaries there unless I have to).

If anything, my one friend IRL surprised me. It was a short one-off game of D20 Modern and I gave him a choice of games. He picked the one where he got to be the villain/monster from a Slasher horror film (Michael Myers, Jason, etc.) because he didn't like the other options. Where I had expected rather straightforward stalking+violence, he went almost the other way entirely. As in...hmm...torture, implied rape, forced cannibalism, etc. It didn't disturb me, but I wasn't expecting it and he seemed to be expecting me to have rules or plans in place should he have done any of those things to keep the session tense for him as well. I was just kinda stupeified though. XD