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obryn
2014-07-29, 04:01 PM
http://www.vice.com/read/notallroleplayers-a-history-of-rapey-dungeon-masters

Fortunately, I've not seen this kind of awfulness in person - well, not since I was like 12. I run a much cleaner table than that, and nothing like this would ever fly with me. But I'm glad to see a major media corporation bringing the creeps who undermine the hobby into the light of day, because this sort of awfulness does happen. And it needs to stop.

Libertad
2014-07-29, 05:28 PM
It's not just creeper GMs, there are players and fans on message boards who argue for "freedom of speech" to say awful things, game designers and writers who insert inappropriate sexual themes which can be traumatic to readers with no warning beforehand (CthulhuTech, I'm looking at you), and forums with members who cry "political correctness gone mad!" at minority and LGBT representation.

The problem is that it's easy to imagine that such folks are a tiny, insignificant group, but even a small number of dedicated folk can ruin a person's enthusiasm, wreck a message board community, or otherwise have people too afraid to challenge their attitudes. Silence is then seen as a form of consent, that their toxicity is tolerated.

Look at the old late 90s TSR policy that the iconic fighter had to be a white male; (http://montecook.livejournal.com/150303.html) look at the ravings against "Story-Gaming Swine" by one of 5th Edition's paid consultants; look at bloggers who ask why we treat rape worse than murder and assume that the former isn't an act of violence. There's a lot of bad apples in the tabletop fandom who are ignored or treated leniently.

Some of these issues might not be directly related, per se, but they all have the same effect: they can (and do) drive people away from the hobby.

Knaight
2014-07-29, 06:13 PM
http://www.vice.com/read/notallroleplayers-a-history-of-rapey-dungeon-masters

Fortunately, I've not seen this kind of awfulness in person - well, not since I was like 12. I run a much cleaner table than that, and nothing like this would ever fly with me. But I'm glad to see a major media corporation bringing the creeps who undermine the hobby into the light of day, because this sort of awfulness does happen. And it needs to stop.

I've been lucky enough to avoid this entirely, but I know enough people who haven't to have some idea of the prevalence. It's good to see this crap getting slammed, though it's damage control at best given the state of the wider culture.

veti
2014-07-29, 07:27 PM
I'm not sure "this sort of awfulness" can ever be stopped. There will always be new people coming into the hobby, and a significant proportion of those will be people aged 12-14, and a significant, likely dominant, proportion of those will be boys. I think it's frankly unrealistic to invite people in that demographic to create their own fantasy world where anything goes, and then not expect it to include sexual content that would make any sane adult gag.

The game art has been getting a lot less sexualised, and that's a good thing. But there's only so far you can go, without basically neutering the whole game. Would you want to see such well-rooted traditional elements as the succubus, siren, dryad, nymph and satyr written out? How about the minotaur, the offspring of a bull and a human woman? And let's not even discuss the behaviour of certain gods...

obryn
2014-07-29, 07:37 PM
Would you want to see such well-rooted traditional elements as the succubus, siren, dryad, nymph and satyr written out? How about the minotaur, the offspring of a bull and a human woman? And let's not even discuss the behaviour of certain gods...
I think in general it's most important to keep out the rapey stuff. Especially if the new players are, as you say, 12-14 year old boys.

The rest of it is a culture change, and it's not like the books are powerless on that count. Check out the stuff on sex and gender, for example, in the Basic set. Some good advice about "hey, DMing isn't meant for you to live out your power fantasies" would go a ways, too.

Mostly, though, I think it's important for gamers themselves to speak up against sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. when they encounter it.

Super Evil User
2014-07-29, 07:49 PM
This reminds me of a comic where the DM had a pee fetish and was injecting it into the game.

Airk
2014-07-29, 07:55 PM
The game art has been getting a lot less sexualised, and that's a good thing. But there's only so far you can go, without basically neutering the whole game. Would you want to see such well-rooted traditional elements as the succubus, siren, dryad, nymph and satyr written out? How about the minotaur, the offspring of a bull and a human woman? And let's not even discuss the behaviour of certain gods...

So skip those gods. Minotaurs can be a self sustaining race. And I for one don't think the "mythos" or whatever is at all diminished by the absence of the succubus. :P

Is there only so far you can go? Sure. But we're nowhere near that point. And you know, maybe the whole 'half orc' thing should get a little bit of thought put in...

obryn
2014-07-29, 08:00 PM
This reminds me of a comic where the DM had a pee fetish and was injecting it into the game.
No thread about creepy gamers is complete without The Whizzard! (http://gunshowcomic.com/471)

Libertad
2014-07-29, 08:03 PM
I'm not sure "this sort of awfulness" can ever be stopped. There will always be new people coming into the hobby, and a significant proportion of those will be people aged 12-14, and a significant, likely dominant, proportion of those will be boys. I think it's frankly unrealistic to invite people in that demographic to create their own fantasy world where anything goes, and then not expect it to include sexual content that would make any sane adult gag.

Except that a lot of these creeper DMs are grown-ass men. Like those idiots who send out death and rape threats to women gamers, there's a lot of adults engaging in bad behavior, too.

And doom-saying that it can never be stopped is effectively letting it go unchecked. League of Legends has taken strides in banning bigoted players with some success; Pathfinder Society has rules which prevent this kind of behavior as well, complete with threats of expulsion. Stopping these attitudes can be done effectively if game publishers and communities ostracize bad groups.

Airk
2014-07-29, 08:32 PM
And doom-saying that it can never be stopped is effectively letting it go unchecked. League of Legends has taken strides in banning bigoted players with some success; Pathfinder Society has rules which prevent this kind of behavior as well, complete with threats of expulsion. Stopping these attitudes can be done effectively if game publishers and communities ostracize bad groups.

And change in your community starts with you.

Fortunately, there's a super easy phrase that shuts down a LOT of this crap. I suggest: "Not cool, man." in a somewhat disappointed tone. If an individual fails to correct himself after this, well, then, sadly, you may have to escalate.

Knaight
2014-07-29, 10:44 PM
I'm not sure "this sort of awfulness" can ever be stopped. There will always be new people coming into the hobby, and a significant proportion of those will be people aged 12-14, and a significant, likely dominant, proportion of those will be boys. I think it's frankly unrealistic to invite people in that demographic to create their own fantasy world where anything goes, and then not expect it to include sexual content that would make any sane adult gag.

It's hardly fair to blame this sort of creepiness on teenagers. Plenty of adults are involved, and there's a big difference between gross sexual content and the targeted sexual violence described here.

Sith_Happens
2014-07-30, 01:51 AM
Holy crap, that random "encounter" table looked like something out of FATAL.:smalleek:

Kid Jake
2014-07-30, 03:15 AM
Holy crap, that random "encounter" table looked like something out of FATAL.:smalleek:

In all fairness to the table, it seems like 90% of my campaigns have had at least one moment where a player just drunkenly shouts 'To the whores!' and bolts off to the red light district to find someone to mug and/or swap exotic STDs with (like Pokemon, you've gotta catch'em all) so it's nice to know whether they encounter a trollop or a tart before I start calculating CR.

But then I'm an enabler of terrible behavior, so any conversation about decency might be outta my wheelhouse.

Synar
2014-07-30, 03:51 AM
and forums with members who cry "political correctness gone mad!" at minority and LGBT representation.

I think we've seen such a thing on a certain forum discussing a certain comic strip.

:smallwink:

Stuebi
2014-07-30, 03:57 AM
It's allways scary reading stuff like this and never actually walked into one of these people. At least, never to such a degree.



Fortunately, there's a super easy phrase that shuts down a LOT of this crap. I suggest: "Not cool, man." in a somewhat disappointed tone. If an individual fails to correct himself after this, well, then, sadly, you may have to escalate.

Also, I want to point out that I heavily agree with this. If something in your group goes into uncomfortable directions, do this.

Most people snap out of it almost instantly, especially if the group consists of friends. Sometimes people just dont realize that they are going too far with certain stuff, or that they are heading in a weird direction.

It actually amazes me that stuff like this even get's this far. If you pull moronities like that in my groups, i'll probably go haywire.

Super Evil User
2014-07-30, 04:58 AM
Holy crap, that random "encounter" table looked like something out of FATAL.:smalleek:

Now now, let's not be too harsh. Nothing there was on the same level as Coke-can penises.

TheCountAlucard
2014-07-30, 05:28 AM
look at the ravings against "Story-Gaming Swine" by one of 5th Edition's paid consultants...Wait, what? :smallconfused:

Now, I haven't been following the development of 5e, so I haven't seen this; on the other hand, I'm kinda afraid to Google it. Tell me, if I look it up, will it make me want to euthanize the human race?

Airk
2014-07-30, 08:53 AM
Wait, what? :smallconfused:

Now, I haven't been following the development of 5e, so I haven't seen this; on the other hand, I'm kinda afraid to Google it. Tell me, if I look it up, will it make me want to euthanize the human race?

5E has employed "The RPG Pundit" - an individual who you may or may not have encountered on the Interwebs, depending on what sites you visit - as some sort of "consultant"; What degree of input he has is not clear, but in some capacity, he has been paid to work on this product.

This is an individual who routinely rants in savage, degrading ways about, well, basically anyone who likes different games than he does. He refers to them as "Swine". You can get good information on this topic here (http://www.gamethyme.com/2014/07/fifth-edition.html). He's a pretty grotesque individual, and honestly, I can't understand what would have made WotC select him, out of all the people who talk about games on the Internet, to be a consultant on their game.

Segev
2014-07-30, 09:13 AM
In all fairness to the table, it seems like 90% of my campaigns have had at least one moment where a player just drunkenly shouts 'To the whores!'

I've seen this happen, too, though not in quite that many games. The weird thing is, it's female gamers playing the character saying that about half the time, in my experience.

Note that I have not seen too many more female gamers than is statistically probable at my tables. Maybe 1-in-20.

So I've seen about 1-in-20 gamers - half male, half female - make such a "battle cry" in a game. I'm not sure if it's just that gamer girls tend to try to act "even more like one of the boys" or what, but it's certainly not diminishing the perception that this is "acceptable" behavior.


((I should note that I'm not condoning it; I'm actually a remarkable prude about...well, most things. This is pure observation.))

obryn
2014-07-30, 09:14 AM
I can't understand what would have made WotC select him, out of all the people who talk about games on the Internet, to be a consultant on their game.
Probably two big reasons. (1) to get a different set of opinions about D&D, which he's got, no matter how terrible, paranoid, and angry his writing is re: elfgames. (2) Hiring trolls insulates you (at least somewhat) from their trolling, and gets you advocates in communities which might not otherwise give you the time of day. In this case, those are some of the same communities WotC is courting, here. On the downside, you're hiring some of the most toxic voices in the RPG community, so...

In answer to TheCountAlucard, some folks have decided they can't support D&D 5e because of their paid involvement with the game's development. I think a discussion of this probably goes beyond the scope of this article.

obryn
2014-07-30, 09:28 AM
In response to the topic, I had completely forgotten it, but I've actually been in a game where this happened. It was almost 20 years ago, during the 2e days, and I've had a lot of good gaming since, so it completely slipped my mind. But this was from the campaign where I got my username - I was a dwarf fighter/cleric named Obryn, and Obryn I've been ever since.

OK, so there's P. She was a terrible player, and her husband pretty much enabled her terribleness. She had a triple-classed character with about 4x the XP of anyone else at the table, despite all being on the same adventures. She liked to direct what our characters were thinking in response to what her character did ("you are stunned by my beauty"), which was no end of annoying. And she was a humongous spotlight hog who cheated on dice rolls to make sure she was always awesome. She was also - and she proclaimed this loudly to everyone in the game - "polyamorous" along with her hubby, which is fine and dandy until...

Well, our original DM was awful and boring, so eventually she took over running the game. Which we thought was fine, I guess, since she basically stole control from the DM already at every turn, so why not let her run things? (This was a terrible decision.) So her PC became an NPC (ruh roh) and, naturally, the worst DMPC I've ever seen in person.

Now, she had a humongous crush on one of the players, and he was completely uninterested. So once she took over the game, she decided to ... er ... force the issue. I am pretty sure it involved rope, and I'm pretty sure it didn't get totally rapey, just weird and uncomfortably kinky and - frankly - pathetic. But that's it. And that's my story? The game only lasted for one summer, thankfully, and then I started running a much better Earthdawn campaign, minus the sketchiness. :smallsmile:

hamlet
2014-07-30, 09:35 AM
Wait, what? :smallconfused:

Now, I haven't been following the development of 5e, so I haven't seen this; on the other hand, I'm kinda afraid to Google it. Tell me, if I look it up, will it make me want to euthanize the human race?

Wait . . . you don't already want to euthanize the human race? Am I a bad person for having this urge all the time?:smallconfused:


Essentially, the RPGPundit is an example of a really terrible internet personality with lots of exposure considering the topic and target audience. He's an example of what most gamers like to shuffle back into the closet when we present gaming to the general public: a really bad stereotype.




As for the OP topic: yes, this is an issue. Happens all the time, though I'd also add that players are just as bad, sometimes worse. I've had players go this route very quickly and when I tried to drag them out of it I was screamed at for violating player agency and etc. So yeah. It is not tolerated at my gaming table and I've evicted more than one player for it.

The problem is not neccessarily an oversexualization or focus on violence real or implicit. It's that the nature of the game - relatively introspective, quiet, and out of the public eye - tends to attract a disproportionate number of people who have . . . shall we say . . . low social skills and the inability to filter out inappropriate behavior when they feel enabled.

On top of that, it's complicated by a lot of people, the publishers and writers included and maybe especially, confusing "edgy" with "salacious." Blood, gore, and killing and sex make it edgy, right?:smallyuk: The assumption that if somebody isn't grossed out or just flat out offended then it isn't edgy is simply a false assumption and one that has been in operation for a LONG TIME. On top of that, the publishers assume, perhaps correctly, that the vast majority of its audience are straight young males and so include a disproportionate number of sexualized female images to cater to that impression, it tends to feed the already dangerous tendancies of some of the worst of us.

thematgreen
2014-07-30, 10:18 AM
In one game we had a GM who forced a female player to be raped. She was more than capable of defending herself but the NPC had plot armor and did the deed. Nobody liked that becuase it took away control of her character for no game related reason and was out of character for the situation.

The GM was mad that my character discovered this, hunted the guy and chopped off his head, and sent it to the players character in a box (It was his way of defending her).

JadedDM
2014-07-30, 11:52 AM
I'm glad to say I've never had to deal with this sort of thing before in my own games, largely because I am the DM 99% of the time. I wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior from any of my players.

thematgreen
2014-07-30, 01:36 PM
I'm glad to say I've never had to deal with this sort of thing before in my own games, largely because I am the DM 99% of the time. I wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior from any of my players.

I don't tolerate it in my games either. We had a guy join our campaign. He was just a rule lawyering, power gaming, jerk. He was rude to everyone, talked down to anyone who didn't agree with him, and flat out laughed at the new players when a silly idea was brough up. Finally he forced his character on another players female cleric. I was going just not invite him anymore and that act made me get ready to kick him out of the game and my house but she gave me a note which said something like "Remember, I am a priestess of a god of both healing AND disease".

That player was inflicted with excelerated forms of every STD, at once. His character rotted from the crotch, outwards. The only one that could cure him was the cleric who he forced himself on...needless to say he rotted to nothing and then was asked to leave.

sktarq
2014-07-30, 01:52 PM
This part of the game sucks. . . I've dealt with it plenty. I mean dealt with it. What I really hate is how often it is used as a "filtered" version of the relationship between the player and DM (ST, Gm, whatever). That really bothers me. And yes some local version of "Not cool, bro" does work a lot of the time. Do I think it will ever be eradicated? No but with effort it can be significantly reduced and brought to a level that doesn't impinge the game's enjoyment for so many that it is a cultural problem. As for players doing it (which I would say happens MORE than DM's doing it I think it is up the the DM to shut that down (And they usually do TBH). One thing I've noticed is that when the game get railroady about the subject (which is usually where abuses really are the DM's wish) it is best to get other players on board and just go around it any way you can. Even if it means abandoning the story/adventure and looking for new work, but for that to work the other players have to be on board and supportive-which is a big thing to work to set up ahead of time if things get creepy.


Also I've never had a lack of female players in games I run (currently they outnumber the guys in my WoD game) so it is something I've been aware of for longer than I was thinking of girls being more than coodie monsters physically. And I couldn't tell you why (I've always suspected it was having actual female friends to invite but have no empirical evidence)

Airk
2014-07-30, 02:16 PM
I'd love to agree with you, sktarq, but I can't, mostly because I read that three times and still have no idea what you are trying to say. -_-

Lost Demiurge
2014-07-30, 03:28 PM
I've actually gotten compliments from my female players for running a "not-creepy" table, and not treating them differently because of their gender. It was kind of a good/bad compliment, good in that they felt comfy with me GMing, bad in that it made me sad that they'd had bad experiences with a few other people around the local scene.

Honestly, one of the things that attracted me to gaming so many years ago, was that it was a hobby where your age, gender, skin color, physical fitness, or all that really didn't matter so much. It's all about how you play well with others.

But yeah, I've never had any regrets about running a "clean" table. No rape, whether it be initiated by PC's or NPC's, and any in-game hanky-panky is treated as a "fade to black" moment. TBH, I don't even have to spell those rules out most of the time, they just don't come up.

sktarq
2014-07-30, 03:37 PM
I'd love to agree with you, sktarq, but I can't, mostly because I read that three times and still have no idea what you are trying to say. -_-

*snicker* okay point taken. Possibly confusing because it was a mash-up of quickly vented ideas. I'll try this again.

The issue raised in the article is one I am all too familiar with and one I find highly vexing.
While I find the issue to be problematic overall many of these situations are not about the character or story but an issue where what is going on in the game (the sexual harassment or worse of the female character by a NPC) is a stand in for the the relationship between the female player and the DM himself (or herself, or the ST, GM etc). When such harassment is not about the DM/Player relationship it is usually about poor storytelling, bad taste, and immaturity it general and is best handled somewhat differently if initial reprimands etc don't work.
About handling this form of social bulling and emotional abuse somebody has mentioned the line "not cool, bro" as a way of guiding a DM away from something they may not have thought all the way through or whatnot. And I agree some form of this line does the job most of the time (I think every cultural group has some form of this sentiment and using the culturally appropriate one is important to make it sting instead of provoking laughter however).
Others have mentioned that they don't think that this issue can ever be expunged in the culture of the game. I'd agree with the statement but not followup statement I have heard bandied around that such pessimism/realism logically means that no effort should be undertaken to do something about it. I think any time you have a set up where 12-14 year old boys playing a fantasy game get to set their own world sexually inappropriate things are going to happen. That people can and do just buy the game and start playing by themselves means that even if the overall culture of the gaming community is totally against it a new permissive subculture (even a single game group) could recreate it at any time. So I think that the structure of the game inherently means that such problems will arise. That doesn't mean I think that keeping those ideas as fringe ideas and unfortunate rarities can't be none. I think that much of the gaming community is fine with the DM in the article's actions or at least unwilling to stand against them and that should change. "Lucy"'s experience should be rare and aberrant -and I think that is an attainable goal. If that goal is reached I think that the remaining actions of a few bad apples will not longer antagonize large parts (say female, LGTB, minorities, etc) in the way they do now on a community wide level.
I was also trying to point out that this problem is actually more prevalent at the player level in my experience. With PC - on - PC unwanted sexual tension/groping/harassment than it is between a PC and a DM-equivalent. We don't hear about it as much because most DM's are good about shutting that sort of thing down. The power relationship between PC and DM gives the PC no easy way around the problem that the DM provides for PC-PC problems.
I was also trying to toss out what I've found as the most useful general strategy for dealing with this issue in my experience as a player. Absolutely refusing even if it totally messes up the story/adventure. This is best done early as possible and is normally a sign of such harassment when the DM gets railroady about the subject. He (or she) wants the sexual scene and will do whatever to make it happen. That's the point where things have gotten abusive in my opinion and strong measures are called for. Capture and torture the NPC who is demanding the sex-for-aid transaction. Find different allies, do whatever. Run out the clock on the meeting-and the next if you have to. Or even walk away from whatever "mission" is putting this issue in front of the player who does not want it. A line is respected if it is defended. Being willing to walk away from an adventure/path/etc because of highly inappropriate content is one of the only ways to avoid the majority of this male bovine fecal matter (some stuff particularly attacker based rape event can't work with this but most can). The biggest issue with the above strategy is that the other players pay part of the cost in the disruption and so while it can be done alone it is best to get others on board as quickly as possible.

I have to say that parts of what the article talks about are unfamiliar to me. Namely the gender ratios given. Most of the games I've run have had significant female player involvement and even majorities. I have no sure fire way of explaining this discrepancy, even though it has lasted through several changes of social circles. My best running theory is having female friends in general to recommend it to (or their female friends) before play begins. My second theory has to do with the idea I never considered it a male centric hobby until I found myself, uncomfortably, in the game club at uni. I have been thinking about girls as D&D players longer than I have been thinking of them sexually, and that has influenced how I treat female gamers.

okay I think I clarified my previous statements...I hope.

Airk
2014-07-30, 03:49 PM
Yes, thank you! And I agree! Well, mostly. It seems a little strange for you argue about gender ratios. It's almost as if you are saying you don't believe there are large numbers of male only gamer groups out there.

sktarq
2014-07-30, 04:00 PM
Yes, thank you! And I agree! Well, mostly. It seems a little strange for you argue about gender ratios. It's almost as if you are saying you don't believe there are large numbers of male only gamer groups out there.

It isn't that I don't believe it. I just don't understand why. I've had an experience that is, apparently, unusual. The reason why most groups either exclude (purposely or not) or are unable to attract female players is beyond me-though DM's like the one in the article are a sure fire way to drive people (and not just females) away from the hobby.

Arbane
2014-07-30, 04:46 PM
Wait . . . you don't already want to euthanize the human race? Am I a bad person for having this urge all the time?:smallconfused:

have you considered joining the Church of the SubGenius? :smallbiggrin:



As for the OP topic: yes, this is an issue. Happens all the time, though I'd also add that players are just as bad, sometimes worse. I've had players go this route very quickly and when I tried to drag them out of it I was screamed at for violating player agency and etc. So yeah. It is not tolerated at my gaming table and I've evicted more than one player for it.

The problem is not neccessarily an oversexualization or focus on violence real or implicit. It's that the nature of the game - relatively introspective, quiet, and out of the public eye - tends to attract a disproportionate number of people who have . . . shall we say . . . low social skills and the inability to filter out inappropriate behavior when they feel enabled.

This is most definitely a problem, and I think you're pretty spot-on about why. See my sig.

I have a morbid fascination with tales of terrible RPG games (probably to make myself feel better about not getting to play them more often), and I've heard a depressingly large portion of them involve female characters getting raped, and female players ending their tale with "...and I didn't play again for ten years." Which makes me suspect there's about ten times as many stories that ended with "and I never played RPGs again", which depresses me intensely.

Every so often I see a thread started along the lines of "A girl just asked to join our group - ZOMFG WHATDOIDO????"", and I'm always torn between the desire to start my advice with "Don't rape their character" and the thought that I shouldn't even HAVE to say something like that, it should be something any gamer learned in Being a Functional Human Being 101... but apparently way too many gamers slept through that class.

So, yeah. A problem. The 'Dude, not cool" approach is probably as good as any. I've been lucky enough to play with a few women, and I know it's a stereotype, but I do think they help keep things civilized.


It isn't that I don't believe it. I just don't understand why. I've had an experience that is, apparently, unusual. The reason why most groups either exclude (purposely or not) or are unable to attract female players is beyond me-though DM's like the one in the article are a sure fire way to drive people (and not just females) away from the hobby.

I don't understand it, either, but it seems to be happening. I suspect it's a symptom of the same problem that makes idiots at comics conventions get all irate about 'fake geek girls'.

veti
2014-07-30, 04:50 PM
And doom-saying that it can never be stopped is effectively letting it go unchecked.

Rubbish. Saying that it will always be with us is not the same as saying that it can't or shouldn't be challenged. Like murder. I'm predicting, here and now, that we will never reach a point in human history where people completely stop killing one another. That doesn't mean I'm OK with it.


League of Legends has taken strides in banning bigoted players with some success; Pathfinder Society has rules which prevent this kind of behavior as well, complete with threats of expulsion. Stopping these attitudes can be done effectively if game publishers and communities ostracize bad groups.

I don't know what either of those things are, but if they're communities that get to define their own membership, then obviously they can do whatever the heck they like to police it.

But "the hobby", or "D&D", isn't like that. You or I don't get to decide who can play the game, it's open to anyone. in prisons, in private homes. There may be hundreds of sessions going on right now in schools, libraries, private homes, rest homes, offices, factories, railway carriages, caravans, ships, hospitals, prisons, pubs, churches and brothels for all we know. That's "the hobby", and to imagine that you can police all of that is just self-delusion.

obryn
2014-07-30, 05:31 PM
I don't understand it, either, but it seems to be happening. I suspect it's a symptom of the same problem that makes idiots at comics conventions get all irate about 'fake geek girls'.
The comments on the article, once again, justified the article. My "favorite"?



Hmm, in real life people don't get to chose whether they are raped or harrassed or assaulted. Why the hell would players think that their PC's got to any more than they get to decide if they are attacked by a dragon or fall into the pit trap?
Classy!


But "the hobby", or "D&D", isn't like that. You or I don't get to decide who can play the game, it's open to anyone. in prisons, in private homes. There may be hundreds of sessions going on right now in schools, libraries, private homes, rest homes, offices, factories, railway carriages, caravans, ships, hospitals, prisons, pubs, churches and brothels for all we know. That's "the hobby", and to imagine that you can police all of that is just self-delusion.
You know what you can do though? Speak up when you see it. Don't allow it at your table. Speak out when it's praised or considered "business as usual." You might not fix the hobby, but you can sure as hell clean up your small corner of it.

Sith_Happens
2014-07-30, 06:01 PM
So once she took over the game, she decided to ... er ... force the issue. I am pretty sure it involved rope, and I'm pretty sure it didn't get totally rapey, just weird and uncomfortably kinky and - frankly - pathetic.

"Forced the issue" = totally rapey. That's exactly what the word means in the first place.


Yes, thank you! And I agree! Well, mostly. It seems a little strange for you argue about gender ratios. It's almost as if you are saying you don't believe there are large numbers of male only gamer groups out there.

Keep in mind that the most recent number in that article (20%) is from fourteen years ago. Personally, my groups have averaged close to 40% so far.

obryn
2014-07-30, 06:49 PM
"Forced the issue" = totally rapey. That's exactly what the word means in the first place.
Yeah, there fortunately was no sex or anything physical. But there was creepy, inescapable flirting.

Knaight
2014-07-30, 07:16 PM
The comments on the article, once again, justified the article. My "favorite"?

Classy understates it. Then there's the sheer stupidity of the statement - people generally choose not to associate with people who do that stuff*, why should they associate with people who do that through a game.

*With the obvious caveat that sometimes not-associating isn't easily managable, and people end up stuck there.

AMFV
2014-07-30, 07:54 PM
I've been trying to formulate a good response to this for a while. I've had moments where I've uncomfortable descriptions of sex in a game, which actually caused me to leave the game (that and other factors). But there is a tendency here to respond in a few ways, which are not really positive. One is to forbid all adult content from all games, the other response is to compare this to real rape, and they aren't really equivalent.

Clearly pressuring somebody to be involved in sexual content is wrong, but it isn't rape, any more than reading pornographic novels out loud in a public area is rape. It isn't, it's certainly in poor taste, but I would say it's less of an offense than flashing. I don't think it's endemic or is indicative of some deep wound in roleplaying culture that needs to be corrected.

It's something that should be discussed beforehand in the same way that I don't think we should burn all copies of 50 Shades of Gray, or of even more serious pornographic material, I don't think we should forbid out of hand all sexual content from roleplaying. I think it should be discussed in detail beforehand, so that players can leave if they aren't comfortable, or set boundaries if they are close to comfortable. It's again an issue of discussing things beforehand.

As to the creepy DM pursuing the female player, that's certainly unpleasant, but it isn't even stalking, she came to his house, was not detained there, and could leave at any time. If I come to somebody's house for dinner and they start playing a pornographic video, and I stay, and watch, I don't later get the right to act as though as I somehow violated. Now I won't say that his actions weren't in poor taste. But first, we don't have the whole story, it's secondhand, and I wouldn't be likely to point a finger at her, but I would be likely to think that there may be more to the story, or maybe not, I don't know, but I know that we don't have enough information to make a good assessment.

Gamgee
2014-07-30, 08:16 PM
If so it's up to them to defend themselves if there is more to the story. So until we know more we need to make a judgement, because it can be changed later. I would pick the side of the girl in this case, but I'm not going to be an ass and not listen to his own defense if he should ever bring it up.

Your example about pornographic imagery is.... terrible. It doesn't solve the issue at hand and is a completely different situation. I see all of your defense as deflecting the issue and being unwilling to take any kind of stand one way or the other in some attempt to look neutral and unbiased.

Knaight
2014-07-30, 08:21 PM
I've been trying to formulate a good response to this for a while. I've had moments where I've uncomfortable descriptions of sex in a game, which actually caused me to leave the game (that and other factors). But there is a tendency here to respond in a few ways, which are not really positive. One is to forbid all adult content from all games, the other response is to compare this to real rape, and they aren't really equivalent.

Nobody is saying that it is actually rape. That would be dumb. What people are saying is that the specific situation of the GM pushing sexual stuff onto a particular player through their character (which often involves having NPCs rape said character) is creepy.

AMFV
2014-07-30, 08:40 PM
Nobody is saying that it is actually rape. That would be dumb. What people are saying is that the specific situation of the GM pushing sexual stuff onto a particular player through their character (which often involves having NPCs rape said character) is creepy.

The article did compare it to rape, rather than to indecent exposure, which is notably closer. And I'm not arguing that it's not creepy. But I'm arguing that I don't think that merely being creepy is the worst thing in the world. By staying in the game she is consenting to a degree, now I'm not saying that leaving is always easy, but as I said in my analogy, it's like going to somebody's house where they're watching porn, and then complaining about it after you stay for the whole thing.


If so it's up to them to defend themselves if there is more to the story. So until we know more we need to make a judgement, because it can be changed later. I would pick the side of the girl in this case, but I'm not going to be an ass and not listen to his own defense if he should ever bring it up.

Your example about pornographic imagery is.... terrible. It doesn't solve the issue at hand and is a completely different situation. I see all of your defense as deflecting the issue and being unwilling to take any kind of stand one way or the other in some attempt to look neutral and unbiased.


So what should we do? Tell people that NO games can feature sexual content. Many people do that, and there are still games that feature sexual content. We are not in a position to ban things. I view mature topics in games much the same way I view variant rules, or anything that should be discussed beforehand.

Why is that example terrible? It's equivalent.

DawnQuixotic
2014-07-30, 08:57 PM
Clearly pressuring somebody to be involved in sexual content is wrong, but it isn't rape, any more than reading pornographic novels out loud in a public area is rape. It isn't, it's certainly in poor taste, but I would say it's less of an offense than flashing. I don't think it's endemic or is indicative of some deep wound in roleplaying culture that needs to be corrected.


It's not rape or sexual assault, but it *is* sexual harassment to such a degree that it can make a person feel violated.

It's not the same as reading porn aloud. That would be if there was heavy sexual content in the game, but no one was forcing you to be a part of it or take your character in this direction. This person said she did feel she was coerced into her character being a part of it.

And if that happened session after session against her will, it'd definitely be a form of emotional abuse. Almost a borderline threat.

Rainbownaga
2014-07-30, 08:57 PM
I don't understand it, either, but it seems to be happening. I suspect it's a symptom of the same problem that makes idiots at comics conventions get all irate about 'fake geek girls'.

I can think of several reasons, but one of them is threads like this; particularly the ones that are turned up to strawman levels.

Gaming is about relaxing and having fun. If I need to censor everything that I say and worry about anybody else saying the wrong thing, I'm not going to have as much fun as I would otherwise.

I'm guessing the 'fake geek girls' thing is about women that pretend to be interested in things just to get attention from and/or manipulate guys that are actually into it. I don't know how often that actually happens, but I can imagine it would be annoying and I definitely wouldn't want to play with one.


I'm not encouraging guy only groups, but I can understand why some people would prefer that.

AMFV
2014-07-30, 09:03 PM
It's not rape or sexual assault, but it *is* sexual harassment to such a degree that it can make a person feel violated.

It's not the same as reading porn aloud. That would be if there was heavy sexual content in the game, but no one was forcing you to be a part of it or take your character in this direction. This person said she did feel she was coerced into her character being a part of it.

And if that happened session after session against her will, it'd definitely be a form of emotional abuse. Almost a borderline threat.

And nobody is forcing her to participate here. She doesn't depend on it for her livelihood. She's not friends with the people in the game. Sexual Harassment without any threat or coercion backing it up is barely sexual harassment at all. I can say that I felt that I was coerced to drink, but unless somebody is making me drink with some actual coercion then it's my responsibility for participating.

Edit: So the metaphor about having porn playing during dinner is equivalent. Furthermore this is dinner at a complete stranger's house.

Dimers
2014-07-30, 09:04 PM
Gaming is about relaxing and having fun. If I need to censor everything that I say and worry about anybody else saying the wrong thing, I'm not going to have as much fun as I would otherwise.

Gaming is about spending time with good people. If I don't censor what I say and make an effort not to say the wrong thing, I will soon not be welcome to spend time around that group of good people.

I don't think it's wise to use gaming as an excuse to violate normal social rules, certainly not without previous fully-aware consent by all involved with no duress.

AMFV
2014-07-30, 09:06 PM
Gaming is about spending time with good people. If I don't censor what I say and make an effort not to say the wrong thing, I will soon not be welcome to spend time around that group of good people.

I don't think it's wise to use gaming as an excuse to violate normal social rules, certainly not without previous fully-aware consent by all involved with no duress.

Well but requiring somebody to censor what they say beyond what is normal is not exactly encouraging social conversation. A Poker game may have raunchy conversation, and expecting people to change their game around one person is not acceptable to my thinking. I don't think gaming gives you the right to violate social rules, but I don't think that people have any right to apply their social rules to other social groups.

JusticeZero
2014-07-30, 09:18 PM
If glorified non-consensual sexual violence is "what is normal" for you to talk about for FUN, then your definition of normal is well outside of the limits of what is acceptable behavior for the health of the hobby.

draken50
2014-07-30, 09:24 PM
Every woman I've gamed with has a story of being harassed at the gaming table, and if I'm ever at a game or any other situation were that is occurring I will make my displeasure quite clear. Anyone can make whatever little arguments they want, but the fact is, if you are defending someones "right" to sexually harass, assault, or otherwise demean another person because of their gender. YOU ARE WRONG.

huttj509
2014-07-30, 09:24 PM
Well but requiring somebody to censor what they say beyond what is normal is not exactly encouraging social conversation. A Poker game may have raunchy conversation, and expecting people to change their game around one person is not acceptable to my thinking. I don't think gaming gives you the right to violate social rules, but I don't think that people have any right to apply their social rules to other social groups.

It might be a good idea to pay more attention during the poker game, and see if the raunchy conversation is making participants feel uncomfortable/unwelcome. Also see if anyone's bothered by it, but doesn't want to be the one to say anything, for example.

It's not about a banlist of words and gestures. It's about "dude, don't be a jerk, and you probably don't realize you're being a jerk."

Sure, there's various shades of "being a jerk." Harassment, disparagement, ostracism, vulgarity, profanity, threats, "joking" threats, etc. It will vary depending on circumstances and who's around. It's not about accommodating a "special snowflake," it's about not being a jerk.

Arbane
2014-07-30, 09:24 PM
Gaming is about relaxing and having fun. If I need to censor everything that I say and worry about anybody else saying the wrong thing, I'm not going to have as much fun as I would otherwise.


Even in a all-neanderthal all-male group, there's still SOME boundaries. Unless you're playing FATAL. (You're not playing FATAL, are you? please say no...)



I'm guessing the 'fake geek girls' thing is about women that pretend to be interested in things just to get attention from and/or manipulate guys that are actually into it. I don't know how often that actually happens, but I can imagine it would be annoying and I definitely wouldn't want to play with one.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess 'just about never'. If a woman is, for whatever reason, that eager to hook a loser, there are much easier ways to do it than spending 4-6 hours a week pretending to be an elf if they don't enjoy it.

Dimers
2014-07-30, 09:30 PM
Well but requiring somebody to censor what they say beyond what is normal is not exactly encouraging social conversation.

I quite disagree. There's a nigh-infinite wealth of safe topics to converse about, and releasing the whole group from the threat of random minor violation will certainly encourage them to converse. JusticeZero's point is a good response to your wording, but I also find your premise flawed. I speak from personal experience -- when I've said inappropriate things in various social settings, it breaks conversation, and when I've abstained it's been more of a challenge but definitely socially rewarding.

AMFV
2014-07-30, 09:35 PM
If glorified non-consensual sexual violence is "what is normal" for you to talk about for FUN, then your definition of normal is well outside of the limits of what is acceptable behavior for the health of the hobby.

Well it might not be my definition of fun. But I've been in lots of different groups with VERY different standards of conduct. So I can tell you that arguing that any kind of fun is more normal than any other is bunk. Hell, enjoying things that are raunchy isn't bad, and making raunchy jokes on your own time isn't either.


It might be a good idea to pay more attention during the poker game, and see if the raunchy conversation is making participants feel uncomfortable/unwelcome. Also see if anyone's bothered by it, but doesn't want to be the one to say anything, for example.

It's not about a banlist of words and gestures. It's about "dude, don't be a jerk, and you probably don't realize you're being a jerk."

Sure, there's various shades of "being a jerk." Harassment, disparagement, ostracism, vulgarity, profanity, threats, "joking" threats, etc. It will vary depending on circumstances and who's around. It's not about accommodating a "special snowflake," it's about not being a jerk.

Well there's certainly a reason not to be a jerk. I'm just pointing out that people are coming down very hard on the "THIS IS NEVER ACCEPTABLE FOR ANYBODY EVER IN ANY CONTEXT" which is what I have a problem with, and people are arguing that the lady involved had no responsibility in this, which is patently false. Again she has nothing to lose, she isn't friends with the people there, she met them on Craigslist, they don't know her socially and can't spread rumors or affect her reputation. So she has no incentive to stay, she chose to stay. And I'm not saying what the jerk did wasn't jerky, but I'm saying I don't believe it is as jerky as people are suggesting.

Edit:


I quite disagree. There's a nigh-infinite wealth of safe topics to converse about, and releasing the whole group from the threat of random minor violation will certainly encourage them to converse. JusticeZero's point is a good response to your wording, but I also find your premise flawed. I speak from personal experience -- when I've said inappropriate things in various social settings, it breaks conversation, and when I've abstained it's been more of a challenge but definitely socially rewarding.


There is no universally accepted standard for what is appropriate. There isn't, in one group making off-color jokes may be fine, in another group saying any words stronger than "Darn it" may be inappropriate. Social standards are not universal, and that includes standards with regards to sexual discussion. Saying something that is inappropriate for one group is not necessarily inappropriate for another. I can say this as somebody who had to recondition themselves after being in the Military for five years. I cursed every other word, and sometimes more than that. I'd say "Kill" instead of "yes" about half the time, and that's fine in the Military, but not so much in other context. I'm not saying anything is okay in any context, but I'm saying that most things are in some context.

JusticeZero
2014-07-30, 09:44 PM
It runs an extremely high danger of inadvertently damaging people at your table because of factors that you are intentionally not aware of. not characters, players. That alone should be enough to strike it from your table's list of acceptable topics.

AMFV
2014-07-30, 09:52 PM
It runs an extremely high danger of inadvertently damaging people at your table because of factors that you are intentionally not aware of. not characters, players. That alone should be enough to strike it from your table's list of acceptable topics.

And there are other things that do the same thing, children, small spaces, animals, fighting animals, spiders, imprisonment, certain kinds of violence. Sexual topics tend to be given a wider breadth in American culture than they necessarily need to be. Now we should discuss topics beforehand, but you shouldn't spend time with somebody who makes you comfortable, but in the same token, people shouldn't have to alter their own social behavior just to make you comfortable. If I want to spend time with my friends and make off-color remarks, that's completely acceptable, and if you don't want to hang out with us because of that, that's fine too. I'm very tired of people trying to regulate other people's behavior when it is absolutely none of their business. You get to vote with your mouth, and if people don't like that you can vote with your feet. But if you continue to associate with people with no threat of recrimination if you don't, then whatever feelings you get from associating with them are your own responsibility.

Rainbownaga
2014-07-30, 10:00 PM
Gaming is about spending time with good people. If I don't censor what I say and make an effort not to say the wrong thing, I will soon not be welcome to spend time around that group of good people.

I don't think it's wise to use gaming as an excuse to violate normal social rules, certainly not without previous fully-aware consent by all involved with no duress.

Social norms vary depending on the situation. A group of all males will typically have different social norms than a mixed group.

Aedilred
2014-07-30, 10:06 PM
I don't think anyone's saying that raunchy conversation should be banned outright, or that D&D games can never touch on the subject of sex lest they make a member of the group uncomfortable. That would be ridiculous.

But there is a massive difference between bare inclusion of sexual content in a game and perpetrating (and, indeed, detailing) imaginary sexual assaults on their character. Obviously, it's not as bad as real-life stalking, or rape, or whatever is going on in the game, but it's still a game where people have adopted a persona they identify with, and sexually assaulting someone's persona is just downright terrible, and could certainly be argued to constitute sexual harassment itself.

Like people have said, it's not about censorship, it's about not being a jerk.

The same rules apply to normal social interaction too. I have female friends where literally about 80% of what we talk about is sex. There's nothing wrong with that (I hope) and it's consensual and mutually understood. But for me to say some of the things I do to them to someone else where that standard of conversation wasn't already mutually agreed would probably get me arrested, and rightfully so. And even with those friends, there's still a line between what's appropriate and what would be horribly creepy. Different standards apply in different contexts.

If a player has, for some unfathomable reason, requested or freely consented to their character's being sexually assaulted, then that's ok, so long as it stays within the parameters of that consent. But that isn't what's going on in the article.

Airk
2014-07-30, 10:22 PM
I've been trying to formulate a good response to this for a while. I've had moments where I've uncomfortable descriptions of sex in a game, which actually caused me to leave the game (that and other factors). But there is a tendency here to respond in a few ways, which are not really positive. One is to forbid all adult content from all games, the other response is to compare this to real rape, and they aren't really equivalent.

You're doing it again. No one is saying it's comparable to real rape. They ARE saying that regardless of that, it's goddamn inappropriate in 99.99% of cases. The 0.01% is where you have some sort of OOC agreement beforehand (Consenting adults and all that.) That is clearly not what is going on here.


If I come to somebody's house for dinner and they start playing a pornographic video, and I stay, and watch, I don't later get the right to act as though as I somehow violated.

This is such an AWFUL metaphor on SO MANY LEVELS.

Ugh. And this was such a civil discussion before.

AMFV
2014-07-30, 10:22 PM
I don't think anyone's saying that raunchy conversation should be banned outright, or that D&D games can never touch on the subject of sex lest they make a member of the group uncomfortable. That would be ridiculous.

But there is a massive difference between bare inclusion of sexual content in a game and perpetrating (and, indeed, detailing) imaginary sexual assaults on their character. Obviously, it's not as bad as real-life stalking, or rape, or whatever is going on in the game, but it's still a game where people have adopted a persona they identify with, and sexually assaulting someone's persona is just downright terrible, and could certainly be argued to constitute sexual harassment itself.

Like people have said, it's not about censorship, it's about not being a jerk.

The same rules apply to normal social interaction too. I have female friends where literally about 80% of what we talk about is sex. There's nothing wrong with that (I hope) and it's consensual and mutually understood. But for me to say some of the things I do to them to someone else where that standard of conversation wasn't already mutually agreed would probably get me arrested, and rightfully so. And even with those friends, there's still a line between what's appropriate and what would be horribly creepy. Different standards apply in different contexts.

If a player has, for some unfathomable reason, requested or freely consented to their character's being sexually assaulted, then that's ok, so long as it stays within the parameters of that consent. But that isn't what's going on in the article.

But there is certainly a consent present in that she didn't leave. That is consent of a sort. Again you are responsible for how other people affect you if you can leave without recrimination. I'm not saying that creepy DM isn't creepy, or that I think his behavior is socially acceptable. I'm saying that he is not the only person who has blame here.

I'm saying that the article is very quick to place blame for what is really verbal in the first place, not entirely consensual, since she could leave at any time (and unlike an abusive relationship she isn't receiving anything that requires her to be there). Furthermore she willingly chose to sexualize her character for in-game success. As is stated in the article, there is only one way she could be aware that that would be the only solution to problems, and that's if she tried it. I'm not saying that the behavior is appropriate, only that I'm not sure how inappropriate it was.

I think the takeaway should be "Game with friends", not "Gamers are often horrible sexist pigs and we should try to sanction them in some way, but we can't really figure out a way outside of talking trash against them on the internet even though there's only one side to the story presented". We're jumping to conclusions here, as I've said, the only way she could know that sexual solutions would work is if she tried them.


You're doing it again. No one is saying it's comparable to real rape. They ARE saying that regardless of that, it's goddamn inappropriate in 99.99% of cases. The 0.01% is where you have some sort of OOC agreement beforehand (Consenting adults and all that.) That is clearly not what is going on here.


Well maybe this guy doesn't know that, they met him on Craigslist, and apparently don't know him all that well. Maybe in his social circle that's fine.



This is such an AWFUL metaphor on SO MANY LEVELS.


How? I can't think of another equivalent metaphor. It's going to somebody's house and being unhappy with what is being discussed there, and then not leaving. And it's furthermore a strangers house.



Ugh. And this was such a civil discussion before.

When everybody was agreeing and bashing somebody who hadn't had an opportunity in his own defense, I can see how that would be civil. And it's so helpful and productive that you've pointed that out, that you consider my responses to be uncivil. I've not attacked anybody's character, I've merely pointed out that other people were very quick to do so.

Gamgee
2014-07-30, 10:32 PM
I want to be clear AMFV if the group makes it very clear before she joins it is a game with a lot of sexual over tones or even explicit content then she can choose. However to simply join an "ordinary" game and suddenly become pressured into this is not acceptable. It's opt in, not opt out. I'm not saying there can't be a diversification of groups who like that stuff, but it has to be made clear in advance. She was not made aware he would do this. On top of this the behavior is apparently out of the ordinary for himself or it would be mentioned he is a GM of a sexual game. Usually these things are told in stories such as this. So it appears even his regulars weren't normally dealing with this. Also it is a first time situation most likely from the way they all reacted. No one seemed to be sure what to do at the table. I know sometimes people freeze up and don't know how to act or proceed. Some people don't want to cause a scene for others and then will never show again. Just how it is.

At no point did I say we should censor these groups. Just this individual should be punished for his actions.

Opt in, not opt out. Some raunchy jokes hardly compare to sexual harassment.

Edit
Also being someone with some knowledge of these sorts of games I can assure you every single person that hosts one lets people know well in advance what kind of game it will be. And even then what sort of fetishes it could play to since no one person is the same. That's healthy behavior, and common courtesy. What this guy did is not on any level. I'm also not saying he raped her, but it is still sexual harassment.

Edit2
You seem to be playing devils advocate so I'm not going any further.

AMFV
2014-07-30, 10:48 PM
I want to be clear AMFV if the group makes it very clear before she joins it is a game with a lot of sexual over tones or even explicit content then she can choose. However to simply join an "ordinary" game and suddenly become pressured into this is not acceptable. It's opt in, not opt out. I'm not saying there can't be a diversification of groups who like that stuff, but it has to be made clear in advance. She was not made aware he would do this. On top of this the behavior is apparently out of the ordinary for himself or it would be mentioned he is a GM of a sexual game. Usually these things are told in stories such as this. So it appears even his regulars weren't normally dealing with this. Also it is a first time situation most likely from the way they all reacted. No one seemed to be sure what to do at the table. I know sometimes people freeze up and don't know how to act or proceed. Some people don't want to cause a scene for others and then will never show again. Just how it is.

Well she clearly did know how to proceed, or at least went along with it. That's saying something. I'm not saying that he was not in the wrong. But I'm saying we're making pretty big assumptions about him misreading signals, when she did play along with it.



At no point did I say we should censor these groups. Just this individual should be punished for his actions.

Why? What did he do wrong? He certainly made somebody feel uncomfortable, in a social setting. And that's unfortunate. And he discussed a sexual topic, where it wasn't appropriate. But he didn't do anything that's really outside of the bounds of a poor taste conversation.



Opt in, not opt out. Some raunchy jokes hardly compare to sexual harassment.


And this isn't necessarily sexual harassment. Again, because there is no reprisal.



Edit
Also being someone with some knowledge of these sorts of games I can assure you every single person that hosts one lets people know well in advance what kind of game it will be. And even then what sort of fetishes it could play to since no one person is the same. That's healthy behavior, and common courtesy. What this guy did is not on any level. I'm also not saying he raped her, but it is still sexual harassment.

There was no explicit context. I would say that mild discomfort, is the best you could go for. It's not necessarily appropriate but it's not necessarily as bad as we are making it out to be. I wonder if it was an unattractive man that had been made to feel uncomfortable if we'd take the same tack. Of course that's entirely possible. But I doubt it. I had some issues the minute the author chose to include an image of "Lucy", who had her name changed but enough of her face included to probably identify her, I suspect to garner sympathy. I'm not saying that this was okay, I'm saying we are awfully quick to judge a story we only have one side of, and what is not an unbiased side.



Edit2
You seem to be playing devils advocate so I'm not going any further.

I'm saying that we shouldn't string somebody up on the internet without proof, if that's playing Devil's Advocate, then somebody needs to do it.

JusticeZero
2014-07-30, 10:49 PM
But there is certainly a consent present in that she didn't leave. That is consent of a sort."Of a sort". Opening one up to being bashed by the same sort of awful idiocy connected with the original statement, while simultaneously raising the question of why they are so offended (Which is very possibly not merely "not your business" but also injurious to their personal and professional life if known) on a topic which may have traumatic memories associated with them in about 16% of people.
This isn't really something that can just so casually be shrugged off like that.

Again you are responsible for how other people affect you if you can leave without recrimination. "If."
I'm not saying that creepy DM isn't creepy, or that I think his behavior is socially acceptable. I'm saying that he is not the only person who has blame here. This is known as "Victim blaming". It's saying that someone who just had an unasked for helping of misery piled onto them out of the blue was somehow to blame for it. It's not cool.
I'm saying that the article is very quick to place blame for what is really verbal in the first place, not entirely consensual, since she could leave at any time (and unlike an abusive relationship she isn't receiving anything that requires her to be there). Furthermore she willingly chose to sexualize her character for in-game success. As is stated in the article, there is only one way she could be aware that that would be the only solution to problems, and that's if she tried it. I'm not saying that the behavior is appropriate, only that I'm not sure how inappropriate it was. That is some creepy stuff that is normally stated by people who are doing things that are really violent and awful who are trying to justify it as normal. These violent acts, as marked by the non-verbal forms, are committed by a minority of people who generally have attempted to rationalize their violence through that exact form of reasoning. "It's OK for me to inflict some form of violence on someone," and this is a form of violence, even if it doesn't actually involve literal knives and fists, "and they deserve it and asked for it." Not acceptable. No.

Aedilred
2014-07-30, 10:51 PM
But there is certainly a consent present in that she didn't leave. That is consent of a sort. Again you are responsible for how other people affect you if you can leave without recrimination. I'm not saying that creepy DM isn't creepy, or that I think his behavior is socially acceptable. I'm saying that he is not the only person who has blame here.

This chain of reasoning leads down a very dark road, which I think it's best to avoid if at all possible for the sake of the forum rules, but suffice to say I really hope you don't follow it to its conclusion.

But it also misses the point. She shouldn't have to leave. She shouldn't have been subjected to it in the first place. Even if she had left, it would still have happened, and it would still have been a problem.

At least part of the point in the article is that incidents like this bring the game into disrepute: putting people in a position where either they stay in a situation that makes them uncomfortable or they leave is exactly the issue in the first place. No matter what her response to it is.


I'm saying that the article is very quick to place blame for what is really verbal in the first place, not entirely consensual, since she could leave at any time (and unlike an abusive relationship she isn't receiving anything that requires her to be there). Furthermore she willingly chose to sexualize her character for in-game success. As is stated in the article, there is only one way she could be aware that that would be the only solution to problems, and that's if she tried it. I'm not saying that the behavior is appropriate, only that I'm not sure how inappropriate it was.
The article makes it pretty clear that she tried every alternative she could think of; also that the GM was pushing her to make things more and more sexualised. While she allowed it to happen for the sake of the game, it's also pretty clear that it was not willingly on her part and she didn't really want to do it. Also, it seems apparent that the GM made it clear his intentions and it wasn't her who initiated it, so it wasn't a case of "won't know until you've tried it". Specifically:


Jason made it very clear that the only way to get it would be if Lucy's character made like she wanted to do the nasty. Lucy didn't like this idea. But when she tried other techniques to advance the story, they invariably failed.

Yes, she could have left. But that's also a nuclear option that you don't want to do unless it's an absolutely last resort. People go through with things that make them a bit uncomfortable all the time because they think the payoff will be worth it, they don't want to cause trouble, or they think it's just a one-off and it won't repeat itself or escalate. Her reaction to it really isn't the problem: she should never have been put in that position in the first place.

Yes, we've only heard one side of the story. But unless her story (as narrated by a third party who witnessed much of it, as it happens) is a complete fiction, one side of the story is all we need for the purposes of this conversation. There's a temptation in this sort of situation to equivocate and go "well, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other" or "well we'll never know the truth so we can't judge" just because it's easier than admitting there is a problem. If even some of what the article says about the incident is true, it's a problem.


Well maybe this guy doesn't know that, they met him on Craigslist, and apparently don't know him all that well. Maybe in his social circle that's fine.
Even if so, these people aren't in that social circle, so that's irrelevant.

obryn
2014-07-30, 11:07 PM
And nobody is forcing her to participate here. She doesn't depend on it for her livelihood. She's not friends with the people in the game. Sexual Harassment without any threat or coercion backing it up is barely sexual harassment at all. I can say that I felt that I was coerced to drink, but unless somebody is making me drink with some actual coercion then it's my responsibility for participating.
You're basically assuming people are completely rational robots and that there's no such thing as social pressure. Here's what we know from the story: (1) she stuck around apparently that session, and (2) never came back. The latter is easily done. Getting up and leaving in the middle of a game is a weirder social dynamic that an easygoing sort might not jump to right away.

Gaming with a group is a social environment, geeks aren't necessarily the most socially capable sorts, and sometimes this kind of action takes a while to sink in.

In other words, just because a woman sits through the rest of a session after the DM's erotic self-insert NPC rapes her character doesn't mean she was asking for it and it doesn't mean it was okay.


And there are other things that do the same thing, children, small spaces, animals, fighting animals, spiders, imprisonment, certain kinds of violence. Sexual topics tend to be given a wider breadth in American culture than they necessarily need to be. Now we should discuss topics beforehand, but you shouldn't spend time with somebody who makes you comfortable, but in the same token, people shouldn't have to alter their own social behavior just to make you comfortable. If I want to spend time with my friends and make off-color remarks, that's completely acceptable, and if you don't want to hang out with us because of that, that's fine too. I'm very tired of people trying to regulate other people's behavior when it is absolutely none of their business. You get to vote with your mouth, and if people don't like that you can vote with your feet. But if you continue to associate with people with no threat of recrimination if you don't, then whatever feelings you get from associating with them are your own responsibility.
Here's the thing. This sort of crap? It does affect me. It affects the hobby.

You seem to be strawmanning a lot here, either intentionally or accidentally mixing these situations up with stuff they're not. So before we continue, there's such a thing as actual consensual "edgy" RPGing. If a group of adults sits down and all agree, "Hey, we're going to have a grim dark fantasy where everyone's a rapist," then (1) Everyone knows what they're getting into, and (2) I still get to think they're a bunch of juvenile creeps. Regardless, that's not what I'm talking about here and that's not what the article is about.

When it's - as is more often the case - either thoughtlessly dropped in, or a normal game which goes astray due to D&D's inherently unbalanced social power dynamic, that's a different thing entirely. And yes, it affects the hobby. And yes, I will tell them so if I see it. And yes, I think the hobby would be better off without that sort of player or DM, because it makes it more toxic, drives players away, and - by word of mouth - keeps other potential players away, too. That's a problem that affects me. Look at this article - after reading it, would some unnamed person be in a hurry to pick up the newest edition of D&D or find a great new group? Hell no. Harrassment of female players (and LGBT) is a problem for the hobby, and it's one that both companies and players should address.

Friv
2014-07-30, 11:19 PM
Holy crap, I cannot believe that I need to say this, but:

1) A lot of people are socially awkward. Nerds, especially, are socially awkward more often than other people. Socially awkward people are notoriously less than great at leaving situations that make them uncomfortable, or even situations that make them actively and incredibly unhappy. They are doubly less good when no one else present seems upset, because they tend to assume that the problem is theirs. Saying, "Oh, they could have left", is not remotely true. I mean, hell, look at any Bad GM thread, and you will see how people who are incredibly unhappy will hang in there a little longer in the hopes that whatever just made them incredibly unhappy is an outlier and not part of a trend. Certainly, walking out in the middle of a session is typically reserved for acts on a level with attempted murder.

2) Sexual content is a pretty big deal. Including it as a non-optional part of your game without checking with everyone first is, at best, incredibly dumb, and at worst blatantly nasty.

3) Even if you think it is okay to have sexual content in your game, and even if you are tone-deaf enough to include it as a plot-necessary element without asking first, there is no situation in which it is okay to create sexual content between your character and the character of someone you have very recently asked out IRL who then turned you down, because it is utterly impossible for that to not create the sort of real-world bleed-in that ruins groups.

Kid Jake
2014-07-30, 11:21 PM
In other words, just because a woman sits through the rest of a session after the DM's erotic self-insert NPC rapes her character doesn't mean she was asking for it and it doesn't mean it was okay.

From what I read he didn't actually rape her character, he solicited her character. If somebody offers to give me the Lost Orb of Phantasmagoria if I sleep with them (and I really, really don't want to do that) and I give in and sleep with them for the Orb; then they didn't rape me, however unpleasant that might be. I prostituted myself for it.

Yeah, they're a jerk for using the orb to get to my hot bod (only time I'll ever get to say that) and I'm going to rightly resent them for it; but it's not fair to call it rape.

obryn
2014-07-30, 11:31 PM
From what I read he didn't actually rape her character, he solicited her character. If somebody offers to give me the Lost Orb of Phantasmagoria if I sleep with them (and I really, really don't want to do that) and I give in and sleep with them for the Orb; then they didn't rape me, however unpleasant that might be. I prostituted myself for it.

Yeah, they're a jerk for using the orb to get to my hot bod (only time I'll ever get to say that) and I'm going to rightly resent them for it; but it's not fair to call it rape.
"I really didn't want my character to go down that route and have fake sex with this character," Lucy explained to me on that sunny afternoon. But the adventure "didn't get anywhere else unless I let it get more and more sexualized."
...
In any case—the party needed this character's help, and Jason made it very clear that the only way to get it would be if Lucy's character made like she wanted to do the nasty. Lucy didn't like this idea. But when she tried other techniques to advance the story, they invariably failed. Eventually Jason—er, the character—suggested that they go somewhere more comfortable, somewhere more private.

"It was just kind of guided in that direction."

-----------------

There's various kinds of coercion, and this is among them. In this case, there was social pressure on the player - that is, the game you and everyone else came there to play can't progress unless there's creepy elfgame sex.

Alberic Strein
2014-07-30, 11:36 PM
Still does not make it rape.

It's still creepy as hell, still condemnable as hell, but it's not rape.

Gamgee
2014-07-30, 11:43 PM
Well she clearly did know how to proceed, or at least went along with it. That's saying something. I'm not saying that he was not in the wrong. But I'm saying we're making pretty big assumptions about him misreading signals, when she did play along with it.



Why? What did he do wrong? He certainly made somebody feel uncomfortable, in a social setting. And that's unfortunate. And he discussed a sexual topic, where it wasn't appropriate. But he didn't do anything that's really outside of the bounds of a poor taste conversation.



And this isn't necessarily sexual harassment. Again, because there is no reprisal.



There was no explicit context. I would say that mild discomfort, is the best you could go for. It's not necessarily appropriate but it's not necessarily as bad as we are making it out to be. I wonder if it was an unattractive man that had been made to feel uncomfortable if we'd take the same tack. Of course that's entirely possible. But I doubt it. I had some issues the minute the author chose to include an image of "Lucy", who had her name changed but enough of her face included to probably identify her, I suspect to garner sympathy. I'm not saying that this was okay, I'm saying we are awfully quick to judge a story we only have one side of, and what is not an unbiased side.



I'm saying that we shouldn't string somebody up on the internet without proof, if that's playing Devil's Advocate, then somebody needs to do it.

1. Your making as much assumptions as us here. So don't go and try put the spin on me. It's not going to work. As a matter of fact your making far more assumptions. SO much assumptions I've seen nothing but people deriding you for doing it constantly since this thread started.

2. Social punishment. Thankfully it's happening. If there are no consequences to social actions then it would be anarchy.

3. Your a fool if you think there's no reprisal. Society will see to it in an unorthodox manner.

4. There's your assumptions just like the rest of us about her comfort level. However where as we know she felt some sort of discomfort your hoping for the best and assuming she felt only minor discomfort. Not to mention what is minor to you might be major to her. That's a straw man argument. What if it was a 50 year old man? A poodle? A french dinosaur? Or robocop? It's beside the point and an entirely new debate. That debate being the gender politics of males and how they are treated fairly and unfairly in society. A form of sexism rarely discussed. As fascinating as it could be, that is not this discussion.

5. None of us are stringing them up completely, and if they are that would be wrong until both sides have had a chance to speak. However since both sides can't speak and we have a limited amount of information we have to make a call. However at a certain point unless we start making calls this moral relativism could be seriously damning. We could make a case for everybody, and while that's great it takes a lot of time and thinking and we need to keep the gears moving here. Not to mention it can lead to some insane "logic" debates. I'm personally willing to make this call because if later that person is innocent I would apologize if possible and let people know I was wrong. I'm a believer in the truth and can be pretty harsh on others and myself. But that's over the bridge and in the future. Right now we need to make a call until we know more. So we have some preliminary way to guide our further searches for information. Like solving a case.

Kid Jake
2014-07-31, 12:00 AM
There's various kinds of coercion, and this is among them. In this case, there was social pressure on the player - that is, the game you and everyone else came there to play can't progress unless there's creepy elfgame sex.

That's when the campaign devolves into the former heroes retiring and becoming potato farmers while the mighty Mercurios goes and solves the problem off-screen himself since he's so great. :smallbiggrin: Considering it looks like the whole game became centered on a DMPC, that's probably the route I'd have went anyway.

obryn
2014-07-31, 12:01 AM
Still does not make it rape.

It's still creepy as hell, still condemnable as hell, but it's not rape.
I don't think quibbling over the finer details and definitions is really all that crucial? The player felt socially coerced via a railroady plot to grant consent for the DM's self-insert to have imaginary elfgame sex with her character (after being personally rejected as a romantic partner in the real world) and the game wouldn't progress otherwise. I don't think arguing over whether or not this constitutes "rapey DMing" is going to do anything other than derail the conversation. So call it whatever you think it is.

Friv
2014-07-31, 12:02 AM
Still does not make it rape.

It's still creepy as hell, still condemnable as hell, but it's not rape.

This is not a good time to be going for a semantic argument, but sure. Let's correct obryn's post.

"Just because a woman sits through a sequence in which a DM has the entire universe collude with a self-insert NPC to rape her doesn't mean she was asking for it and it doesn't mean it was okay."

*edit* Obryn made the point in a less caustic manner than I did while I was typing.

Alberic Strein
2014-07-31, 12:25 AM
Actually, you will find that some people who went through the ordeal that is rape or some of the people who interacted with rape survivors tend to be rather touchy about what is, and is not, rape.

Since it seems it was not clear enough, I wasn't talking about the fact that it's a fictional character, but about the pressure and coercion Obryn noted. Indeed, this is prime thread derailing material, so if either of you want to elaborate on the subject... PM box!

Also, I don't know what more can be said about the thread.

Yeah, creeper DMs are the bane of our hobby.
DMing tends to create some interisting reaction which can combo rather horribly with the socially dysfunctional.
Not speaking up for a player which seems to be under the pressure is inviting more trouble.
The whole issue is not specific to DMs, as exemplified by the first answer. Luckily, things are starting to change a bit.

Personally, since sexualization was noted a few times, I am all for less overly sexualized characters... But I still like sexualized characters. I think all the range of the sexualization spectrum should be about equally represented, so everyone can get whatever scratches one's itch, while not creating an overly sexualized trend.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 12:38 AM
If glorified non-consensual sexual violence is "what is normal" for you to talk about for FUN, then your definition of normal is well outside of the limits of what is acceptable behavior for the health of the hobby.Take your 'health of the hobby' and stuff it with your stick. Play the game with your friends the way you want to, but don't try to impose the way you play it with your group on the way mine plays it. As far as "Rape is never okay" - I'm of the opinion it's no more or less okay than any other act in D&D. Yes, it does require handling it with some sensitivity if/in case you have someone who will be adversely affected/disturbed by the content, but those aren't always a concern. A fantasy is a fantasy.

If you create a system where people can communally create and engage in all sorts of fantasies, some of those fantasies will be ones you find distasteful. Creepers will be creepers. If you don't like them, get your friends to leave them. But their behavior doesn't actually reflect on the hobby - and I'd hate to see the hobby purged of all sexuality to try and stave off creepers.

Yes, sexual harassment is uncool, as in one of the examples in this thread. This sort of thing should be met with "Dude, not funny/cool", and severance of contact if he doesn't stop (Just like any form of sexual harassment). But, bad gaming is bad gaming, and not everyone has the will to put it aside. But, the problem there is in one of the two people, not the hobby.

And I'm getting a strong "We must protect our women from bad/creepy DMs!" vibe from this entire conversation.

DawnQuixotic
2014-07-31, 12:43 AM
And nobody is forcing her to participate here. She doesn't depend on it for her livelihood. She's not friends with the people in the game. Sexual Harassment without any threat or coercion backing it up is barely sexual harassment at all. I can say that I felt that I was coerced to drink, but unless somebody is making me drink with some actual coercion then it's my responsibility for participating.

Edit: So the metaphor about having porn playing during dinner is equivalent. Furthermore this is dinner at a complete stranger's house.

Please. Just because no one forced her to be there doesn't mean that what the other person wasn't wrong, and wasn't harassment and abuse beyond leaving their porn on. Especially this this situation specifically targets that person. It's directed. Turning porn on is not.

SiuiS
2014-07-31, 12:48 AM
I think in general it's most important to keep out the rapey stuff. Especially if the new players are, as you say, 12-14 year old boys.

The rest of it is a culture change, and it's not like the books are powerless on that count. Check out the stuff on sex and gender, for example, in the Basic set. Some good advice about "hey, DMing isn't meant for you to live out your power fantasies" would go a ways, too.

Mostly, though, I think it's important for gamers themselves to speak up against sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. when they encounter it.

Aye. Although, those kids do that stuff themselves. It wasn't until I was fifteen that I looked back and realized a bunch of nine to twelve year old boys all playing attractive women and getting loot for adventures by prostituting themselves was weird, because it was universal.


And change in your community starts with you.

Fortunately, there's a super easy phrase that shuts down a LOT of this crap. I suggest: "Not cool, man." in a somewhat disappointed tone. If an individual fails to correct himself after this, well, then, sadly, you may have to escalate.

I find that the soft *snkt* of a knife opening somewhere in the room solves this problem when that person just doesn't get it.


Wait . . . you don't already want to euthanize the human race? Am I a bad person for having this urge all the time?:smallconfused:

Technically yes.

obryn
2014-07-31, 12:56 AM
Take your 'health of the hobby' and stuff it with your stick. Play the game with your friends the way you want to, but don't try to impose the way you play it with your group on the way mine plays it.
I am fairly certain that nobody wants to impose their will on what sorts of elfgame sexytimes consenting groups get up to, when everyone knows what they're getting into.


And I'm getting a strong "We must protect our women from bad/creepy DMs!" vibe from this entire conversation.
Well, upthread I mentioned a story wherein it was a female DM harassing a male player. But in general, women tend to be on the receiving end of this kind of harassment in the hobby - there's even a cited 2006 study showing this in the article - so I don't know why that's remarkable or weird, unless you're making broad accusations about "white knighting."

SiuiS
2014-07-31, 01:09 AM
Well she clearly did know how to proceed, or at least went along with it. That's saying something. I'm not saying that he was not in the wrong. But I'm saying we're making pretty big assumptions about him misreading signals, when she did play along with it.

Nope. In ana rticle designed to convey that this was coercion, you disagree that the article conveys coercion? You don't know they even played dungeons and dragons. You can't be sure this only happened once. You can't be sure of so many things you are taking for granted, but a woman was put in a bad situation and reacted as she was best equipped to to her knowledge at the time is what you decide to contest? The only thing presented factually in the article at all can't be trusted bexause that is the anecdote?


That sounds like bias to me. Similar to the elves and dragons and demons are real, but hold up! You can't play a black man, that's weird kinda thing.



And this isn't necessarily sexual harassment. Again, because there is no reprisal.

Being informed beyond shadow of doubt that you have been forcefd to give someone wank material and they will fantasize about you later after you expressly deemed such as Off The Table does indeed constitute harrassment, and of sexual nature.



There was no explicit context. I would say that mild discomfort, is the best you could go for. It's not necessarily appropriate but it's not necessarily as bad as we are making it out to be. I wonder if it was an unattractive man that had been made to feel uncomfortable if we'd take the same tack.

Macro versus micro. On an individual level, yeah, okay, mil;d discomfort. Sure. That's unfortunate but not really a problem. But on the macro level, this is the norm. This is base zero. On the macro level this is what you must be comfortable with if you happen to have breasts and or vagina. On the macro level, a male can say "that's not cool" and it's not cool, but a female cannot say "that's not cool" until after something happens and it's too late to be preventative.

And yes, when this happens with men, it's an issue. There is just as much social pressure telling men to shut up and accept it, and it is just as unacceptable. Take male players, put them in a prisoner situation and make them think that you will reenact the pawn shop scene from pulp fiction, and I guarantee one of them if not all will be uncomfortable, but that they may not be willing to rock the boat and ruin a good thing (Gaming) by saying something.

I'm saying that we shouldn't string somebody up on the internet without proof, if that's playing Devil's Advocate, then somebody needs to do it.[/QUOTE]

Why does somebody have to do it? This is cognitive bias. You are assuming nobody else in this conversation bothered to consider the alternative. I propose instead, most of us considered the alternative and reacted the way we did anyway. Because we are intelligent and free willed agents who have the ability to evaluate this holistically, in light of the presented information, anecdotes, personal history, and our accumulated lifespans of knowledge and understanding. We Don't need someone saying the alternative - We've gone through it already. If you aren only playing devil's advocate for completion, then you're just being distracting because you don't really want to be conviced about an issue, you want to be convinced the other people are convinced about an issue. That is, quite literally, trolling.


I am fairly certain that nobody wants to impose their will on what sorts of elfgame sexytimes consenting groups get up to, when everyone knows what they're getting into.

In which Starry begins to sound like a hypocrite!

Problem here is social inertia. Something as easy as "What consenting adults do behind closed doors is fine" travels down the telephone and becomes "What consenting adults do should happen behind closed doors", and if someone is asked about what goes on back there, they get strung up by the toes and beaten because they dared to have Behind Closed Doors stuff that isn't fit for Behind Open Doors discussion - even though it's supposed to be okay and isn't their fault for being asked.

Some things devolve into stigma pretty quickly, and I feel that it is important to be mindful of the lashing people who bear that 'stigma' go through when evaluating their responses. This was handled well, but it's not a very long, or even medium, leap, to see how the conversation could very well become "No sex, not now, not ever, you criminal scum".

There are people who want to impose their will on others' games. There are people who have had it happen to them. It is important to either be respectful to both sides while discussing it (telling one side, "I understand but please stop rejoining so violently" and the other "I understand, but that's not cool and here is why"), or to step out of the way because you don't have a dog in this fight.

Averis Vol
2014-07-31, 01:14 AM
Man, that is quite a powder keg. Honestly, I'm wondering why in the hell did nobody else say anything. Obviously she wasn't the only player there, or she wouldn't have had to worry about the social obligation of "Not progressing the game" and could have just up and left. Now, I'm not saying, "Oh, it's the other players fault this happened!", but still, what happened to the days when men would take a stand and warn that dude to cut the ****, and if it happened again, well, bad things happen.


I find that the soft *snkt* of a knife opening somewhere in the room solves this problem when that person just doesn't get it.

You would be surprised how oblivious some people are when they're up on their high horse. I once had to do the old bully schtick where you lift the person up by their shirt before the DM got that what he was doing was WAY out of line.

He cut his act while the people in the group were there (I was the least intimidating of the bunch), but I heard that he later invited the girl out to lunch to apologise and proceeded to creep on her in public and got left with a pretty wicked broken nose.

Arbane
2014-07-31, 01:19 AM
Holy crap, I cannot believe that I need to say this, but:

1) A lot of people are socially awkward. Nerds, especially, are socially awkward more often than other people. Socially awkward people are notoriously less than great at leaving situations that make them uncomfortable, or even situations that make them actively and incredibly unhappy. They are doubly less good when no one else present seems upset, because they tend to assume that the problem is theirs. Saying, "Oh, they could have left", is not remotely true. I mean, hell, look at any Bad GM thread, and you will see how people who are incredibly unhappy will hang in there a little longer in the hopes that whatever just made them incredibly unhappy is an outlier and not part of a trend. Certainly, walking out in the middle of a session is typically reserved for acts on a level with attempted murder.

The Sunk Cost fallacy is a helluva drug.

Alberic Strein
2014-07-31, 01:24 AM
And I'm getting a strong "We must protect our women from bad/creepy DMs!" vibe from this entire conversation.

Well, if I happened to have a wife, I very much would want to protect her from bad/creepy DMs! Regardless of her ability to defend herself, even. I don't mean to imply woment can't protect themselves, and I agree with your overall points, but really, I wouldn't let this fly on my watch, at least until the woman in question told me to shut the hell up and mind my own business, she got this.

More seriously, I am always a little... Surprised? By how much sex seems to demand special preparation. I litterally ran a game whose main attracting power was whether or not one of my female players would hook up with the hero NPC bethroted to her sister. I didn't take five minutes to gather my players and say "ok, sex is going to be a thing"... Mainly because I never felt the need too.

Likewise, I really, really like to put Broos (MRQII) as early enemies. Because they are the most disturbing, disgusting, and offensive things ever. Take the beastmen from warhammer and multiply by the creepiness factor of C'thullu.
Namely, these monsters are filled with illnesses and their big enjoyment is catching whatever there is in range, impregnate them no matter the sex, and then let them come back to their families before the gestation kills them and births new Broos.
I find that these monsters elicit a very interesting response from my players, which breaks them from the "door>monster>loot" thing. I have litterally seen one-shot players with pre-created PCs, and thus by definition not very attached to their characters, go "nope" and head as fast as possible towards the nopetrain to anywhere-but-here-ville. Which has gaming value.

And I put these monsters here without warning my players or anything, because the only value for these monsters to exist is their shock value. At no point however, did I think of letting them get captured. Or describing anything sexual. Or have my female players be threatened by anything sexual.

"Okay, X happens. What, you're not comfortable with X? Well lucky you since an Y comes in and eats the X. What? What do you mean it's even WORSE?"

Is more often what I go with rather than "Okay, does any of you have an issue with XYZ?"

I did however once as a DM "force" (and by "force" read "insist on" and with nowhere the tenacity of the DM creep in the OP, if a single "No, I don't want to" was uttered, the whole thing was canceled) somewhat a romantic encounter between a female player and an NPC. First because I knew the player a bit and was confident in my reading of her mood, and was looking very carefully at her reaction, ready to back down if I met too much resistance. And secondly because it was a last ditch effort to interest her in the game. Fighting? Not interested. Really? Really. Social encounters? Not interested. Really? Really. Planning? Not interested. Really? Really. Romance? Not interested. Come on! It's the one thing that works with the others, and we're in the middle of a lenghty scene, are you sure you don't want to participate?

Didn't go much farther than that.

Needless to say, sadly this player wasn't long for this campaign.

SiuiS
2014-07-31, 02:05 AM
Man, that is quite a powder keg. Honestly, I'm wondering why in the hell did nobody else say anything. Obviously she wasn't the only player there, or she wouldn't have had to worry about the social obligation of "Not progressing the game" and could have just up and left. Now, I'm not saying, "Oh, it's the other players fault this happened!", but still, what happened to the days when men would take a stand and warn that dude to cut the ****, and if it happened again, well, bad things happen.

Unfortunately, this isa growing trend amongst people online who have this problem, recognise it for what it is and have the emotional intelligence to reason this out. The ability to walk away from an already blacklisted social group is there, but not always relevant. Sometimes it's not until afterwards you realize how bad it turned out, that leaving would ahve been better.



You would be surprised how oblivious some people are when they're up on their high horse. I once had to do the old bully schtick where you lift the person up by their shirt before the DM got that what he was doing was WAY out of line.

He cut his act while the people in the group were there (I was the least intimidating of the bunch), but I heard that he later invited the girl out to lunch to apologise and proceeded to creep on her in public and got left with a pretty wicked broken nose.

Aye. I trust in my personal reputation and the (presumed on my part) prior warnings that went unheeded before I would do something so drastic. As blase as I am I recognise that there are very very few situations where escalating elfgames to potential lethal harm is okay. In fact, I cannot truly think of any.

Averis Vol
2014-07-31, 02:35 AM
Unfortunately, this isa growing trend amongst people online who have this problem, recognise it for what it is and have the emotional intelligence to reason this out. The ability to walk away from an already blacklisted social group is there, but not always relevant. Sometimes it's not until afterwards you realize how bad it turned out, that leaving would ahve been better.



Aye. I trust in my personal reputation and the (presumed on my part) prior warnings that went unheeded before I would do something so drastic. As blase as I am I recognise that there are very very few situations where escalating elfgames to potential lethal harm is okay. In fact, I cannot truly think of any.

Fair enough, I guess as an impartial reader of this after the fact, I'm seeing a bit of a different situation. I've personally never had a problem just getting up and leaving when things got too bad, but I can also see how some people might (completely misguidedly) think they're being rude and starting problems by doing so.

Also, agreed; Lethal force is only an option if your life is in danger. That doesn't mean you have to be afraid of properly socking some jerk in the jaw. Both the physical and emotional wound will heal at that point, you shouldn't feel too bad (Or too good, that's weird.)

Gamgee
2014-07-31, 02:36 AM
I'm not surprised no one said anything. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Edit
Of course you need to note the closer a group is to someone the more likely a group is to help someone. So it depends on how close this group was. I'm not really big on people these days (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU02FSndbLY). There could easily be other explanations... I hope.

Kid Jake
2014-07-31, 03:41 AM
Also, agreed; Lethal force is only an option if your life is in danger. That doesn't mean you have to be afraid of properly socking some jerk in the jaw. Both the physical and emotional wound will heal at that point, you shouldn't feel too bad (Or too good, that's weird.)

It's fun to say crap like this, but how many times have you socked somebody whether they deserve it or not and they didn't hit you back? Unless you're dealing with some sort of easily cowed doormat (that probably wouldn't be assertive enough to cause these feelings in the first place) then you're looking at things escalating into a fight, and I've never been in a fight that didn't result in injuries far in excess of what I'd call worth it over hurt feelings from an elfgame. Either you break your fist over some guy's face (I can barely hold a pencil anymore because of the ones I've supposedly 'won'.) or you break your face over some guy's fist (I don't smile much in public, thanks to folks out there taking pieces of my teeth home with 'em after the ones I've lost.) or you break your wallet once the guy goes to the authorities and you're ordered to pay for his medical bills.

As bad as 'His orc bad-touched my elf.' makes the hobby look, 'His orc bad-touched my elf, so that's why I hit him in his stupid, stupid face your honor.' makes us look infinitely worse.

Averis Vol
2014-07-31, 03:58 AM
It's fun to say crap like this, but how many times have you socked somebody whether they deserve it or not and they didn't hit you back? Unless you're dealing with some sort of easily cowed doormat (that probably wouldn't be assertive enough to cause these feelings in the first place) then you're looking at things escalating into a fight, and I've never been in a fight that didn't result in injuries far in excess of what I'd call worth it over hurt feelings from an elfgame. Either you break your fist over some guy's face (I can barely hold a pencil anymore because of the ones I've supposedly 'won'.) or you break your face over some guy's fist (I don't smile much in public, thanks to folks out there taking pieces of my teeth home with 'em after the ones I've lost.) or you break your wallet once the guy goes to the authorities and you're ordered to pay for his medical bills.

As bad as 'His orc bad-touched my elf.' makes the hobby look, 'His orc bad-touched my elf, so that's why I hit him in his stupid, stupid face your honor.' makes us look infinitely worse.

Again, absolutely fair. I'm not advocating open violence (though I can see how it might sound like that) but the fear of a fight (whether physical or verbal) stops a lot of people from sticking up for themselves. Sorry if I came off too rash, I didn't mean to sound like as much of a meatheaded punk as I did.

I can say personally all of once have I hit someone and they didn't retaliate. It's probably because I was already in my car by the time he recovered, and he was a little shaken about it, as I sort of snapped and went from jolly to face hitty real fast. I'm not too proud of it, I still see the guy occasionally.

Grinner
2014-07-31, 04:45 AM
Again, absolutely fair. I'm not advocating open violence (though I can see how it might sound like that) but the fear of a fight (whether physical or verbal) stops a lot of people from sticking up for themselves. Sorry if I came off too rash, I didn't mean to sound like as much of a meatheaded punk as I did.

His egalitarian utopia will be ruled with an iron hand, and dissidents will be dealt with through intimidation and thuggery.

obryn
2014-07-31, 08:00 AM
In which Starry begins to sound like a hypocrite!

Problem here is social inertia. Something as easy as "What consenting adults do behind closed doors is fine" travels down the telephone and becomes "What consenting adults do should happen behind closed doors", and if someone is asked about what goes on back there, they get strung up by the toes and beaten because they dared to have Behind Closed Doors stuff that isn't fit for Behind Open Doors discussion - even though it's supposed to be okay and isn't their fault for being asked.

Some things devolve into stigma pretty quickly, and I feel that it is important to be mindful of the lashing people who bear that 'stigma' go through when evaluating their responses. This was handled well, but it's not a very long, or even medium, leap, to see how the conversation could very well become "No sex, not now, not ever, you criminal scum".

There are people who want to impose their will on others' games. There are people who have had it happen to them. It is important to either be respectful to both sides while discussing it (telling one side, "I understand but please stop rejoining so violently" and the other "I understand, but that's not cool and here is why"), or to step out of the way because you don't have a dog in this fight.
Well, here's where I am with this.

Very, very often - intentionally or not - discussions of harassment get sidetracked or derailed by switching focus to consensual games with sexual content. Like the folks complaining about harassment are just some kind of prudes who hate the sexy bits.

The thing I want to emphasize is, these aren't the same thing. There is a massive difference between a normal game getting suddenly terrible, and a game in which all participants have agreed ahead of time that they're willing to explore "adult" concepts.

AMFV
2014-07-31, 08:04 AM
Nope. In ana rticle designed to convey that this was coercion, you disagree that the article conveys coercion? You don't know they even played dungeons and dragons. You can't be sure this only happened once. You can't be sure of so many things you are taking for granted, but a woman was put in a bad situation and reacted as she was best equipped to to her knowledge at the time is what you decide to contest? The only thing presented factually in the article at all can't be trusted bexause that is the anecdote?

I'm saying that the article is clearly designed to evoke an emotional response, the person is female, she's attractive, or at least appears attractive (and we have her picture), the author describes meeting the GM on Craigslist (something which is intended to evoke a certain feeling about him), the author describes the GM as unable to engage in a romantic relationship (also intended to evoke a certain emotional response). Many details are left out, the author did not witness the events firsthand, and was likely already planning on leaving the game. You'll note I've not made direct accusations, and I've at least attempted to coach my statements with 'we can't know.' I dislike the article, because it is clearly propaganda, it's emotional, it skimps on facts, it plays to the need of the internet to defend the honor of a young woman. I'm not saying that it's not true, I'm saying that there really isn't enough information for us to make a fair determination here, and that we should recognize when something is clearly propaganda.

As to the "definition of rape" comment which was mentioned later. That's something that very few groups agree on, and it makes these kind of discussions very difficult to have. Furthermore it was said that the girl may have been too socially awkward to leave, well I posit that if that is the case then she may have sent mixed signals to the DM, who is already described as being potentially awkward. We do not have the information here outside of a hearsay account to make an actual statement. The author did not witness the account, and furthermore, outside of the DM asking the girl out, saw no explicitly creepy behavior from him (the confession of love might count, but I'm not sure), so we have no real proof of anything, and I'm not saying that it's one thing or the other. I'm saying it's clearly emotional propaganda, and that we shouldn't simply accept it without review just because it tugs on the way we feel.


Well, if I happened to have a wife, I very much would want to protect her from bad/creepy DMs! Regardless of her ability to defend herself, even. I don't mean to imply woment can't protect themselves, and I agree with your overall points, but really, I wouldn't let this fly on my watch, at least until the woman in question told me to shut the hell up and mind my own business, she got this.

And THIS is exactly the state that the article wants you in, comparing the poor, shy, nerdy girl to your own wife, or daughter, it's intended to evoke that strong emotional response, and when somebody is trying to butter you up that way, you should start watching for the other shoe to drop, in my experience.

obryn
2014-07-31, 08:27 AM
I'm saying that the article is clearly designed to evoke an emotional response, the person is female, she's attractive, or at least appears attractive (and we have her picture), the author describes meeting the GM on Craigslist (something which is intended to evoke a certain feeling about him), the author describes the GM as unable to engage in a romantic relationship (also intended to evoke a certain emotional response). Many details are left out, the author did not witness the events firsthand, and was likely already planning on leaving the game. You'll note I've not made direct accusations, and I've at least attempted to coach my statements with 'we can't know.' I dislike the article, because it is clearly propaganda, it's emotional, it skimps on facts, it plays to the need of the internet to defend the honor of a young woman. I'm not saying that it's not true, I'm saying that there really isn't enough information for us to make a fair determination here, and that we should recognize when something is clearly propaganda.
And yet, both here and elsewhere, gamers have witnessed or experienced exactly this sort of harassment. I don't know why anyone should find the events unbelievable, given that they've been going on for 40 years, both in this hobby and elsewhere. You're arguing about the example, not the phenomenon.

So expand outwards from here. Let's completely ignore the issue of whether or not this specific event happened exactly as described. Look at the studies done - especially the 2006 one. Check the comments on the article and witness both the awful comments which justify its being written, and the personal testimonials from women who've experienced harassment in-game. In that overall context, is anything in the article so damn exceptional it should elicit doubt?

Yes, it's a persuasive piece. And frankly, it should be. "Don't be creepy to girls (or boys) at your table" shouldn't be a controversial message, and yet ...

ElenionAncalima
2014-07-31, 08:54 AM
I really don't understand the logic of it being her fault for staying. Sure, if she was a confident and assertive person leaving would have been the best choice. Likewise, the other players could have reacted better by standing up for her, before it got that far. However, its not fair to assign blame to people for reacting imperfectly to a situation that should not have happened in the first place. A situation that the DM is to blame for.

BRC
2014-07-31, 09:31 AM
Here's the thing. Social Pressure exists, and while it may be fun, Tabletop Gaming can be a very high social pressure situation, as everybody is counting on everybody else to make the game work. Like with any group activity, if the goal can only be achieved by one member doing something, there is considerable pressure for that member to do something.

So, if a DM says "The NPC will give you the Macguffin if you have sex with him", and makes that the only path to get the Macguffin, there is considerable social pressure for her to give in.

Yes, she could say "No, this is ridiculous", stand up, and storm out. But there's all sorts of social ramifications tied up in such an action. That's the sort of action that can ruin friendships.
It's like if somebody gets mugged at knifepoint, and you say "Well, you could have fought them off". Yes, that was an option, but in doing so the victim risked serious injury, so they handed over their money. It doesn't mean it's not 100% the mugger's fault for putting them in that position in the first place. They didn't "Go Along with" handing over their money, indicating that they were okay with the idea of giving a knife-wielding stranger their money, they were coerced into it.

It's sexual harassment. Sure, they're just sitting around a table talking, and there may be nothing more than her saying "Fine, I take him up to my room and have sex with him, it is now the morning, does he give me the Macguffin", but it's still an abuse of power. It's still the DM using his power to force the player to submit sexually in some way, similar to a boss slapping the butt of a female employee. It's saying " I have power over you, and can use that to make you do/submit to sexual things".
It's one thing for a DM to force PC's to fight a dragon. The Players don't have to deal with dragons in real life, and they probably signed up for some dragon slaying. The Game is built to make dragon slaying a fun and exciting experience. Meanwhile, Women have to deal with men using social pressure and power dynamics to sexually harass them all the time. They probably didn't sit down at the table hoping that some NPC would proposition their character for sex, and there is no dynamic experience to be had with a creepy DM trying to pressure you into participating in some theater of the mind pornography, there's just submitting and letting the game continue, or storming out and suffering the consequences thereof.

Of course, social pressure works both ways. This is where the "Bro, Not Cool" rule comes in for determining the point where things are starting to make people uncomfortable. If the group agrees that nobody should be made to feel uncomfortable while playing, then the moment anybody, DM or Player, crosses the line, anybody can say some equivalent of "Bro Not Cool" and expect the rest of the group to back them up. But that only works if the group has an environment where all the players know that everybody else will back them up.

Red Fel
2014-07-31, 09:53 AM
Regarding the comments on social pressure and the victim of highly inappropriate abuse of DM power staying in the group:

I'd like to share a story. In spoilers for the less-than-kosher bits.

I had a DM once who had a tendency to abuse his DM powers. These were mild examples of the typical abuses - running a DMPC, giving lots of benefits to his girlfriend, and so forth. Annoying, but rarely gamebreaking, and he did a decent job of worldbuilding and rewarding the players, so we went along with it for the most part.

One time, I asked if we could run a Big Eyes, Small Mouth campaign. He explained to me a horror story about how he had played that game once, and, because he took a very high physical attractiveness trait, which came with the attendant disadvantage of receiving unwanted attention, his character was violated one night in his tent by every woman in the military troupe with whom the party was traveling, as well as several of the men. Obviously, this turned him off of BESM.

Why did I tell you that story? So that I could tell you this one. I've often mentioned the evil campaign in which I participated early in my D&D career. This person was the DM of that campaign. I played a male Succubus. (I called him an Incubus, although technically an Incubus is a distinct type of monster. Details.) The DM decided to punish me one evening, probably because I was making light of his campaign. He had the disgruntled tavern owner pay three orcs to break into my character's room, violate him - all three of them, each one while the other two held my character down - and place him in a chastity belt. The encounter was not described in detail, but it was stated explicitly that this was what happened, and I was not given the chance to resist, or call for help, or even roll to escape. I was simply informed of this horrible thing that happened to my (admittedly evil, but that's no excuse) character.

I told you the first story to help emphasize just how disgusted I was. This was somebody who, by his own admission, was so appalled by being on the receiving end of such an encounter that he swore off of a game. And here he was, subjecting a player to the same revolting conduct.

Insult was added to injury when, understandably angry, I announced that the next morning my character was going to torture the innkeeper for what he did, and I was informed that my party - a party of ostensibly evil characters - wouldn't allow me to. They - the characters and the players - thought it was funny and appropriate. Funny and appropriate.

At that point, I was angry over the violation of my character, and frustrated over the fact that the other players did not validate my emotions in any way. And before you start talking about this being the behavior of immature boys, I should point out that one of the players was of a decidedly female persuasion. This was apathy across the board, not just by juvenile man-children.
After an encounter like that, a rational person would leave. A logical, sane person wouldn't stand for it. And I'm still angry about it - I'm trembling a bit as I type this, and it happened almost a decade ago.

My character committed suicide-by-Lammasu shortly thereafter. And the campaign collapsed in the same session. But I stayed with that group, including that DM. Some of these people, despite their apathy during that incident, were my friends. And this DM, when he wasn't being a controlling, psychotic son of a [gun], was actually a capable DM. So I stayed, despite all logic to the contrary.

Two take-aways:

First: Social pressure is a real thing. Remaining in the group is probably not the best choice, but it is in no way consent to further abuse. In my case, this was very early in my D&D career; I hadn't had much success with groups prior to this, and was not confident of finding gaming elsewhere. These people were my friends, for the most part. So I stayed, even after something horrible.

Second: I know a lot of people have mentioned that some DMs use this as a vent for their fantasies, or as a form of highly inappropriate attention towards a given player. But that's not the only reason. This sort of thing is also a power fantasy - a way of exerting control. In the story described above, the DM was very much a control freak - he had to be the most informed, the most in control, the one managing everything. His DMPCs moved us along, the game operated on his whim, and heaven help us if he discovered we were thinking of starting a game independent of his. (We eventually did after he tried to strangle me. Yes, it came to that.) And this particular sort of conduct can just as easily be used to dehumanize, demoralize, and break a person, to convince them that the DM is in complete control, and that mere players lack the power to refuse him. It's not just a question of sick sexual fantasies, it's a question of domination, and it's never okay.

obryn
2014-07-31, 10:06 AM
Great post, BRC. And holy cow, Red Fel, that sounds just awful and I'm glad you stuck with the hobby anyway. I don't think one can emphasize enough how uneven and weird the social dynamic is in D&D and trad-style RPGs.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 10:15 AM
Well, here's where I am with this.

Very, very often - intentionally or not - discussions of harassment get sidetracked or derailed by switching focus to consensual games with sexual content. Like the folks complaining about harassment are just some kind of prudes who hate the sexy bits.

The thing I want to emphasize is, these aren't the same thing. There is a massive difference between a normal game getting suddenly terrible, and a game in which all participants have agreed ahead of time that they're willing to explore "adult" concepts.


Yes, it's a persuasive piece. And frankly, it should be. "Don't be creepy to girls (or boys) at your table" shouldn't be a controversial message, and yet ...And that should be the message. Unfortunately, people take "Don't be creepy/defend people getting creeped on" as some sort of moral crusade "For the health of the hobby!" and make broad statements about cutting out anything that can potentially be used to creepyness (Monsters based around power, dominance, or abuse? Get rid of them because DMs might use them to overpower and rape player characters! Monsters based on sensuality and hedonism? Get rid of them! Monks and sorcerers don't use armor? Get rid of them to keep boys from playing as naked elf chicks!

Red Fel
2014-07-31, 10:23 AM
Great post, BRC. And holy cow, Red Fel, that sounds just awful and I'm glad you stuck with the hobby anyway. I don't think one can emphasize enough how uneven and weird the social dynamic is in D&D and trad-style RPGs.

It's true. In the long run, I'm glad I stayed with the hobby, but I don't know that I've ever fully gotten past that campaign, or that DM.

And you're right about the social dynamic. In my case, which I don't think was atypical, I was a person with a fairly small circle of friends, very trusting, and in a position where this was (from my perspective) the only source of gaming I could get. I was dealing with a DM who was drunk with his own power and perceived authority, to the point that he felt completely authorized and justified to do as he liked with the PCs and with the players. It wasn't okay, it wasn't remotely acceptable, and I doubt it's as uncommon as it should be.

I've seen a lot of stories on these forums of bad gaming experiences - admittedly, not all dealing with grotesque actions like the ones described above, but still bad experiences. In some cases, it's that the player was the recipient of something unpleasant from the DM. In others, it's that another player is particularly unpleasant. And the posters hedge on what to do. Many posters jump on the "Leave, no gaming is better than bad gaming" or "Kick him out, your table doesn't need this drama" bandwagon. In some cases, I agree. But it's not always that easy, is it?

Many of these posters have the same laments. "But these guys are my friends." "But this is the only table in town." "But I worked so hard at this." They want to stay. Despite bad DMs, despite bad players, they want to stay. Against all reason to the contrary. Leaving isn't easy.

And despite tabletop RPGs slowly gaining more mainstream acceptance, we're not fully there yet. There is still the stigma, the gross generalization of gamers being overweight, basement-dwelling man-child mouthbreathers with no social skills. There are still plenty of places where mentioning an interest in D&D will make you a social pariah. And that only increases the insularity of these communities, the self-selecting population and the sense of isolation and desperate dependency. There absolutely is pressure, from within and without, to remain with the group.

obryn
2014-07-31, 10:40 AM
And that should be the message. Unfortunately, people take "Don't be creepy/defend people getting creeped on" as some sort of moral crusade "For the health of the hobby!" and make broad statements about cutting out anything that can potentially be used to creepyness (Monsters based around power, dominance, or abuse? Get rid of them because DMs might use them to overpower and rape player characters! Monsters based on sensuality and hedonism? Get rid of them! Monks and sorcerers don't use armor? Get rid of them to keep boys from playing as naked elf chicks!
Well, this all fits in with the "consent" bits I mentioned above. I don't think there should be much rapey stuff or sexism in mainstream RPGs' main rulebooks. Leave that to individual tables, third-party supplements, or stick some warning labels on it.

It's the same basic idea, really; it should be opt-in, not opt-out, and the mere fact of playing a mainstream RPG shouldn't be considered opting in.

Segev
2014-07-31, 10:47 AM
Social bullying works because people view themselves as having limited alternatives for interaction of the sort they hope to achieve.

I actually blame a lot of our "self-esteem" training in schools, because it really tends to focus on "get along with the group, and nothing you do is wrong unless it makes others feel bad." That may sound like it should discourage the kind of social bullying we see, but really it only disarms those who would be its victims. The bullies already are willing to step outside of "good behavior" to get what they want. When they can use the rules of "good behavior" being enforced on others, it gives them another tool for bullying.

Standing up for yourself is not easy even when you know you're in the right and that you are not a bad person for doing so. Teaching kids that getting along is more important than being right (not "making others acknowledge you are right," but being honestly CORRECT) makes it nearly impossible for all but the most iconoclastic.

JusticeZero
2014-07-31, 11:03 AM
Still does not make it rape.

It's still creepy as hell, still condemnable as hell, but it's not rape.
So, instead of being rape, it is the textbook definition of sexual abuse.
That makes it all better, obviously.
It is not acceptable. Whatever makes people think that it is okay to spring unwanted sexual contact on someone?

Grinner
2014-07-31, 11:29 AM
So, instead of being rape, it is the textbook definition of sexual abuse.
That makes it all better, obviously.
It is not acceptable. Whatever makes people think that it is okay to spring unwanted sexual contact on someone?

I believe he's drawing a distinction between degrees of severity. I will further speculate that he's implicitly advising you all to save the torches and pitchforks for actual rapists. He is explicitly not supporting that sort of behavior.

If this is the case, I kinda have to agree. From where I'm sitting, you all have gotten yourselves worked up into a hysteria over this article. It is fortunate that this is the Internet. Otherwise, I fear a we'd have a good ol' fashioned witchhunt on our hands, stakes and fire and all.

BRC
2014-07-31, 11:33 AM
I believe he's drawing a distinction between degrees of severity. I will further speculate that he's implicitly advising you all to save the torches and pitchforks for actual rapists. He is explicitly not supporting that sort of behavior.

If this is the case, I kinda have to agree. From where I'm sitting, you all have gotten yourselves worked up into a hysteria over this article. It is fortunate that this is the Internet. Otherwise, I fear a we'd have a good ol' fashioned witchhunt on our hands, stakes and fire and all.

We're saying "This is unacceptable and should not happen".

How is that a Hysteria? Who here has proposed anything beyond a discussion about how this is bad, and the importance of fostering an environment where harassment is considered unacceptable.

Psyren
2014-07-31, 11:41 AM
#NotAllRoleplayers, perhaps, but #YesAllWomen all the same, sadly.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 11:48 AM
We're saying "This is unacceptable and should not happen".
But that's ultimately a meaningless sentiment, because there's not a lot that CAN happen. At least not on a hobby-wide level. As it is, all this forum is doing is preaching to the choir.

Grinner
2014-07-31, 11:49 AM
We're saying "This is unacceptable and should not happen".

How is that a Hysteria? Who here has proposed anything beyond a discussion about how this is bad, and the importance of fostering an environment where harassment is considered unacceptable.

Do you know what rape is? Rape, as they say, is a special kind of evil. Sex is heart of the human experience. It's how we live and, for some, the very reason we live. Rape, however, cuts at the heart of humanity. It's a perversion of human pleasure, the desirable made undesirable.

Sexual harassment? For a single instance, the victim's cost is comparatively little. Rape is the sort of thing that haunts people for years.

Don't make the mistake of using the term rape lightly. Ideally, sexual harassment should not happen. But it is not rape, not even close.

BRC
2014-07-31, 11:55 AM
Do you know what rape is? Rape, as they say, is a special kind of evil. Sex is heart of the human experience. It's how we live and, for some, the very reason we live. Rape, however, cuts at the heart of humanity. It's a perversion of human pleasure, the desirable made undesirable.

Sexual harassment? For a single instance, the victim's cost is comparatively little. Rape is the sort of thing that haunts people for years.

Don't make the mistake of using the term rape lightly. Ideally, sexual harassment should not happen. But it is not rape, not even close.
Who has been using the term Rape lightly?

We've talked about characters being Raped in-game. We've talked about Players being Sexually Harassed. We've talked about how DMs and Players who sexually harass are bad and how social pressure can enable or prevent this behavior.

Psyren
2014-07-31, 11:57 AM
But that's ultimately a meaningless sentiment, because there's not a lot that CAN happen. At least not on a hobby-wide level. As it is, all this forum is doing is preaching to the choir.

This strikes me as a "we shouldn't have this conversation" or "this isn't that important/worth discussing" argument. To which I say the obvious, nobody is forcing you to participate.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 11:59 AM
Do you know what rape is? Rape, as they say, is a special kind of evil. Sex is heart of the human experience. It's how we live and, for some, the very reason we live. Rape, however, cuts at the heart of humanity. It's a perversion of human pleasure, the desirable made undesirable.Eh... I'm not sure I follow here. You're trying to get too poetic.

Sexual harassment? For a single instance, the victim's cost is comparatively little. Rape is the sort of thing that haunts people for years.
Try re-reading Red Fel's posts.

Grinner
2014-07-31, 12:10 PM
Eh... I'm not sure I follow here. You're trying to get too poetic.

What I'm saying is "Sex is important".


Who has been using the term Rape lightly?

We've talked about characters being Raped in-game. We've talked about Players being Sexually Harassed. We've talked about how DMs and Players who sexually harass are bad and how social pressure can enable or prevent this behavior.


Try re-reading Red Fel's posts.

Heart-rending, yes, but I'll leave it at this: does the violation of a fictional character constitute the violation of an actual person, and to what degree?

JusticeZero
2014-07-31, 12:10 PM
We are saying "Creeper GMs are committing textbook Sexual Harrassment (definitions.uslegal.com/s/sexual-harassment/) by having characters in game raped." This is bad.
I don't see how it is a valid defense to say "Yes, but it isn't actually a felony.." nor do I see how it is not worth objecting to. The defense of "The GM probably can't be thrown in jail for it, only sued for psychological damage with a good history of successful lawsuits for similar behavior in other contexts" is very weak.

SiuiS
2014-07-31, 12:48 PM
It's fun to say crap like this, but how many times have you socked somebody whether they deserve it or not and they didn't hit you back? Unless you're dealing with some sort of easily cowed doormat (that probably wouldn't be assertive enough to cause these feelings in the first place) then you're looking at things escalating into a fight, and I've never been in a fight that didn't result in injuries far in excess of what I'd call worth it over hurt feelings from an elfgame. Either you break your fist over some guy's face (I can barely hold a pencil anymore because of the ones I've supposedly 'won'.) or you break your face over some guy's fist (I don't smile much in public, thanks to folks out there taking pieces of my teeth home with 'em after the ones I've lost.) or you break your wallet once the guy goes to the authorities and you're ordered to pay for his medical bills.

As bad as 'His orc bad-touched my elf.' makes the hobby look, 'His orc bad-touched my elf, so that's why I hit him in his stupid, stupid face your honor.' makes us look infinitely worse.

Context.

"I am going to put my entire body into a punch to someone's face because they said something mean" is not what's happening here. This is saying, in a context where you know these people well enough that the results of casual violence will be "why did you do that?" And not retaliation, you can do just that.


Well, here's where I am with this.

Very, very often - intentionally or not - discussions of harassment get sidetracked or derailed by switching focus to consensual games with sexual content. Like the folks complaining about harassment are just some kind of prudes who hate the sexy bits.

The thing I want to emphasize is, these aren't the same thing. There is a massive difference between a normal game getting suddenly terrible, and a game in which all participants have agreed ahead of time that they're willing to explore "adult" concepts.

That's true. You personally have been a saint, so it's almost disingenuous to respond to your post with this stuff. I do feel it's necessary to point out though, that we are talking with a furry (I presume) about what's sexually acceptable; is an uphill battle against the rest of the world damning said person for even existing. That why it's important to include a 'not you? You're fine' rider on the message. In my eyes at least.


I'm saying that the article is clearly designed to evoke an emotional response, the person is female, she's attractive, or at least appears attractive (and we have her picture),

We have a picture. A very generic one, subtitled in the same fashion as used in cracked articles. The article begins at that point to speak about a generic classification of woman which the picture illustrates and that the description fits.


the author describes meeting the GM on Craigslist (something which is intended to evoke a certain feeling about him), the author describes the GM as unable to engage in a romantic relationship (also intended to evoke a certain emotional response). Many details are left out, the author did not witness the events firsthand, and was likely already planning on leaving the game. You'll note I've not made direct accusations, and I've at least attempted to coach my statements with 'we can't know.' I dislike the article, because it is clearly propaganda, it's emotional, it skimps on facts, it plays to the need of the internet to defend the honor of a young woman. I'm not saying that it's not true, I'm saying that there really isn't enough information for us to make a fair determination here, and that we should recognize when something is clearly propaganda.

None of this matters whatsoever. It is all irrelevant. This is not a trial to damn the DM. This is not a trial to defend the specific victim. This is an example of behavior to show a formula and why it is bad. You are literally quibbling that because it is written Q + N != 3 instead of A + B != 3, you won't take it seriously.

Who these people are and why these things happened do not factor in. What matters is that this sort of behavior occurs. Quibbling each and every instance as maybe there being more to the story does nothing. Yes there's more to the story. There always is; at least twenty years of life on each person's part. But it doesn't always, or even often, change the verdict.


As to the "definition of rape" comment which was mentioned later. That's something that very few groups agree on, and it makes these kind of discussions very difficult to have. Furthermore it was said that the girl may have been too socially awkward to leave, well I posit that if that is the case then she may have sent mixed signals to the DM, who is already described as being potentially awkward. We do not have the information here outside of a hearsay account to make an actual statement.

Again, irrelevant. Mixed signals mean nothing. She didn't clearly and forcefully say no? That's not a yes. End of story. "Maybe he thought she wanted it" doesn't hold up, logically or morally.



And THIS is exactly the state that the article wants you in, comparing the poor, shy, nerdy girl to your own wife, or daughter, it's intended to evoke that strong emotional response, and when somebody is trying to butter you up that way, you should start watching for the other shoe to drop, in my experience.

It's rhetoric. It is designed to make you reflect. We all reflected. Seriously.

But once we reflect, if we agree with the article, are we still wrong? Are we still just puppets of the man dancing to propaganda? When do you accept agency on our part?


And that should be the message. Unfortunately, people take "Don't be creepy/defend people getting creeped on" as some sort of moral crusade "For the health of the hobby!" and make broad statements about cutting out anything that can potentially be used to creepyness (Monsters based around power, dominance, or abuse? Get rid of them because DMs might use them to overpower and rape player characters! Monsters based on sensuality and hedonism? Get rid of them! Monks and sorcerers don't use armor? Get rid of them to keep boys from playing as naked elf chicks!

Thing is though, Obryn is doing his level best to clearly indicate these two things are separate. People will use hyperbole and thoughtless rhetoric to express support. It's best to not always read that literally.


Social bullying works because people view themselves as having limited alternatives for interaction of the sort they hope to achieve.

I actually blame a lot of our "self-esteem" training in schools, because it really tends to focus on "get along with the group, and nothing you do is wrong unless it makes others feel bad." That may sound like it should discourage the kind of social bullying we see, but really it only disarms those who would be its victims. The bullies already are willing to step outside of "good behavior" to get what they want. When they can use the rules of "good behavior" being enforced on others, it gives them another tool for bullying.

Standing up for yourself is not easy even when you know you're in the right and that you are not a bad person for doing so. Teaching kids that getting along is more important than being right (not "making others acknowledge you are right," but being honestly CORRECT) makes it nearly impossible for all but the most iconoclastic.

This is a fascinating topic that I dearly love discussing but that quickly becomes non-forum safe.


I believe he's drawing a distinction between degrees of severity. I will further speculate that he's implicitly advising you all to save the torches and pitchforks for actual rapists. He is explicitly not supporting that sort of behavior.

When the question is simply "right/wrong?" Severity distinction is a distraction. If someone says this is wrong, and you say it's not as severe as a different wrong thing, your tone of disagreement indicates you do not think it is wrong at all. The follies of binary thought I suppose.


If this is the case, I kinda have to agree. From where I'm sitting, you all have gotten yourselves worked up into a hysteria over this article. It is fortunate that this is the Internet. Otherwise, I fear a we'd have a good ol' fashioned witchhunt on our hands, stakes and fire and all.

Worked up? The only actual work-uppedness I see is against people saying "it's not so bad; it's not real harassment; it's the victim's fault". For the direct topic of creeper people creeping in a tabletop setting, there is very little commotion and more melancholic war stories.


But that's ultimately a meaningless sentiment, because there's not a lot that CAN happen. At least not on a hobby-wide level. As it is, all this forum is doing is preaching to the choir.

That self-validation disseminates.



Heart-rending, yes, but I'll leave it at this: does the violation of a fictional character constitute the violation of an actual person, and to what degree?

A fascinating question, but one that should be it's own thread.

I'll leave a rejoinder I don't expect an answer to; in a hobby where it takes actual practice to not default to a self insert, is "fictional character" truly a distinction at all?


We are saying "Creeper GMs are committing textbook Sexual Harrassment (definitions.uslegal.com/s/sexual-harassment/) by having characters in game raped." This is bad.
I don't see how it is a valid defense to say "Yes, but it isn't actually a felony.." nor do I see how it is not worth objecting to. The defense of "The GM probably can't be thrown in jail for it, only sued for psychological damage with a good history of successful lawsuits for similar behavior in other contexts" is very weak.

Heh.

Red Fel
2014-07-31, 12:57 PM
What I'm saying is "Sex is important".

That's what you're explicitly saying. And with the explicit sentiment (that rape is bad, full stop, no exceptions) I agree.

The problem is the implicit aspect of your statement. The implicit aspect is "and this isn't rape, therefore it's not bad."

So let me stop you there. Is rape of a character the same as actual, physical rape? No. Nor do I think a single person in this forum is or should be willing to equivocate between the two. Real-life rape is a monstrous thing to which there is no equivalent or comparison. Full stop.

But.

But that doesn't mean that what has happened at these tables and others, in these stories and others, is somehow ignorable, or dismissable. Is it the same as real-life rape? Certainly not. But it is a violation. It is painful.

Why do so many threads in this forum talk about player agency? Because we invest our PCs with a certain degree of our person-hood. That's what the "roleplay" in "roleplaying game" is - it's the creation of an extension of the self, a tiny being in which you invest a tiny degree of yourself. And just like we need to feel a certain modicum of control over ourselves and our lives, we need to feel a degree of control over our characters.

Having that control torn away from you, being subjected to something revolting against your will, is disgusting in any context. Certainly, it's monstrous in real life, but it is also painful and, at the very least, highly inappropriate at the gaming table.

You'll notice, in my post, that I didn't use (or at least, I made an effort not to use) the word "rape." I realize that it is a word with a specific, painful meaning, and I don't like devaluing or diminishing words by applying them overbroadly. Did you see what words I did use? "Violation." "Abuse." "Horrible." And these words are true; they are accurate.

Perhaps we shouldn't use the literal word "rape" in this context. But the implicit meaning of your statement seems to suggest - and I should apologize if this meaning was not intended - that somehow these incidents are less worthy of note, less demanding of action, because they do not constitute actual, physical assault. And while, again, I agree that we should not equivocate between in-character violation and real-life rape, I feel, quite strongly, that action should and must be taken in the case of the former, despite it not being of the same severity as the latter.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 01:39 PM
That's what you're explicitly saying. And with the explicit sentiment (that rape is bad, full stop, no exceptions) I agree.Actually, I took issue with the "Rape is bad, no exceptions" part. Sure, it really, really, really sucks for the victim, and rightly really, really, really sucks for the perpetrator if he's convicted (To the point that falsely accusing/convicting someone of rape is the worst thing you can do to someone), but otherwise, it's pretty awesome for the perpetrator. Take away the victim, such as by replacing it with an imaginary creation (NPC, player-willing PC, fictional characters, etc), and it just becomes a pretty thrilling power fantasy.


That's true. You personally have been a saint, so it's almost disingenuous to respond to your post with this stuff. I do feel it's necessary to point out though, that we are talking with a furry (I presume) about what's sexually acceptable; is an uphill battle against the rest of the world damning said person for even existing. That why it's important to include a 'not you? You're fine' rider on the message. In my eyes at least.I don't know if I understand what you're saying here, but I'm probably validating part of it, and making you regret the rest. That said - everyone's a person - it's too easy to dehumanize those who act in ways we find distasteful or undesirable, but they don't stop being a person just because they do those things.


Thing is though, Obryn is doing his level best to clearly indicate these two things are separate. People will use hyperbole and thoughtless rhetoric to express support. It's best to not always read that literally.I strongly agree with all of Obryn's points that I've paid attention to. Mine was more a response to his post in response to mine in response to JusticeZero's, who seemed to say that everyone who uses D&D or other tabletop games for fantasies he finds distasteful (Real living-breathing-thinking people) should be 'removed' from gaming (Which, given the open and flexible nature of the world, means removed from... what?), for the health of "The Hobby" (A tribalistic notion). My response to that is "Creepers gonna Creep", and it's not worth worrying about what other people do with their lives, beyond being aware of creepy behaviors and telling people to cut it out when they see it.


Again, irrelevant. Mixed signals mean nothing. She didn't clearly and forcefully say no? That's not a yes. End of story. "Maybe he thought she wanted it" doesn't hold up, logically or morally.It's not a "no" either. Unfortunately, though (And something that's causes a lot of bad friction between the genders, and no end of personal frustration for me and others) is an inability to understand nonverbal communication. People really need to learn how to read and understand nonverbal cues of discomfort and interest, especially when dealing with subjects that are taboo or awkward to verbally discuss.

Alberic Strein
2014-07-31, 01:46 PM
Thanks for the Devil Advocacy, Grinner ^^

Anyway, could we agree on a few points before continuing?
1) I am NOT blaming the damn victim.
2) That DM as presented is a freaking creep and nothing can excuse his behaviour.
3) DM abusing their "authority" to harass female players happen.
4) Peer/social pressure exists.

That being said:

While I do not agree on most of AMFV's points, yes this article was undoubtedly written and geared to elicit one particular response from us, and has no claim to impartiality. It does not mean it is wrong or overblows the issue, it just means the writer has a goal and is using this article to further said goal. There happens to be worthy goals.

Violence is a ridiculous response. That's it. All that talk about "yeah, just sock him" and broken noses is not badass, it's just ridiculous. If anything, a slap will do the job way better and with lower odds of ending in injuries and/or to the cops. I still saw someone pass out from a slap though.

Rhetoric is not about alerting the reader's thoughts and making him reflect on the situation, it's the art/skill of persuading through words. Truth is irrelevant, only making the message come across as truthful, and making it serve your goals, is important (now re-read point 3).

I am also of the mind that you horribly overshoot the importance of peer pressure. We are confronted with peer pressure every day of our lives, and most of our waking time. Before writing this post, I was subject to peer pressure to sit down, have a drink, maybe a smoke, and get something to eat. And I said no. Peer pressure IS a thing. It does not get to direct our lives, it does not "coerce" us.

In regards to this I am also of the mind that the gravity of coercion is somewhat light in this thread. Someone threatening you, your family, your friends, your way of life or your continued existence is coercing you. Your boss who abuses his authority and your need for a stable job to get away with morally reprehensible actions, is taking your way of life hostage and coercing you. My DM telling me to do X or Y is NOT coercing me to do them. If he threatens to throw me out of the game, he is still not coercing me. He is not, in any capacity, endangering anybody's welfare and/or anybody's way of life.

Now, please re-read point one, as the next paragraph may veer dangerously close to victim bashing. There is a subtle difference, I feel, so please try to keep that in mind in hope of my points getting across to you all correctly.

The DM created a toxic situation, then demanded for the PC of the girl who rejected him to have sex with his DMPC, and made everything so the player would have no choice but to go along with it. This is harassment. Maybe not sexual harassment, but it's harassment. The player got into a very difficult situation, and tried to deal with it, but this left a bitter, very very bitter aftertaste in her mouth, which was the crux of the article.

In this, I don't think we can reasonably consider the player's reaction to be inadequate. It was comprehensible, sensible, and seriously must have made sense at the time. The player is not to blame for the situation, for the way which went, or for the bitter aftertaste. The player, by my reckoning, is not to blame at all. We, sitting down in front of our computers, may think, devise plans, do conjectures, think long about it. She couldn't, so she did what she could. One can't be blamed for not always taking the most optimal choices all things considered in the heat of the moment.

Let's call this "Point 1: The extended version."

However, the DM didn't use his DMPC to rape her character. We had a few examples of very, very bad experiences with DMs going "screw this, you got raped, no save, no roll, just rape." This is not what happened. The DM pressed the issue and closed everything until the player caved in under the pressure and went "fine."

Now, if you will, let me tell you a relevant story of a game with one of the worst players I ever had the displeasure to game with. But my disposition towards her is mainly irrelevant in that story.

It was an Ars Magica game, I was playing a mage who combo'd all my flaws points into being a freaking nymphomaniac, she played a mage with rape as backstory and an abusive master and more importantly, also played a totally generic servant girl.

Because of my character's stupidity, servant girl, my PC and the NPC we were supposed to save ended up in the same cell. Being a total nympho my character devised a plan to escape through liberal use of sex and magic. My fellow player would have none of that. Problem, I had no backup plan. We brainstormed for another plan in vain, I insisted, the DM tried to press the issue so we would close the scenario this night, and she said no. So we packed early and luckily, comes next session and my best friend happened to be here, he got control of the servant girl with permission from both DM and female player, we upped the whole gay thing in real life for a few laughs, and went on with my plan, which worked, and we escaped eventually. My fellow player did not mind the sex, she just didn't want it to happen while she was in control of the PC.

(please refer to point 1)

So, in front of peer/social pressure, "no" is still a valid and respected answer.

(refer to point 1 once again)

What I am trying to say here is that while this tidbit is completely unrelated to the harassment the player ended up victim to and thus is NOT victim bashing, since the harassment happened regardless of the player's reaction. However, and I am quite peculiar about the fact that it does mean that the PC did not get raped.

Who cares? I do. It's semantics, I does not change anything! I believe it does. It does nothing to alleviate the DM's horrible behaviour, it does NOT make the player guilty of anything, maybe it does nothing to change the severity of the harassment, but I believe there is a world's difference between "aha! Even though you rejected me, my totally awesome DMPC did the deed with your PC!" and "aha! Your PC got brutally gang-raped last night because you're EVIL! Also, no retribution accepted. You deserved it." It, subtly maybe, changes the nature of what we're discussing. And I believe that by ignoring that difference you are all collectively jumping the gun.

Which is why I note it.

Kid Jake
2014-07-31, 01:47 PM
Context.

"I am going to put my entire body into a punch to someone's face because they said something mean" is not what's happening here. This is saying, in a context where you know these people well enough that the results of casual violence will be "why did you do that?" And not retaliation, you can do just that.


Ah, I assumed you were referring to a relative stranger like in the article; which as I was saying would inevitably lead to rapid escalation since there's not many people that are just going to sit there and take their comeuppance. Even a half-hearted blow would most likely elicit a physical response from some guy that doesn't know you from Adam and would especially have repercussions if done in his own home, no matter his previous behavior. Under this context someone most likely ends up hurt over a game and that always looks worse on the hobby than any juvenile vulgarities suffered IC.

Among friends things are always different, but even then; a blow in anger is likely to be way less forgivable than the occasional (semi-friendly) game of 'dodge the cigar'.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 02:00 PM
I am also of the mind that you horribly overshoot the importance of peer pressure. We are confronted with peer pressure every day of our lives, and most of our waking time. Before writing this post, I was subject to peer pressure to sit down, have a drink, maybe a smoke, and get something to eat. And I said no. Peer pressure IS a thing. It does not get to direct our lives, it does not "coerce" us."I do not have a problem with some aspect of life, therefore nobody has a problem and if they say otherwise, regardless of their own experience, they are either lying or inept!"

Got it.

Arbane
2014-07-31, 02:48 PM
But that's ultimately a meaningless sentiment, because there's not a lot that CAN happen. At least not on a hobby-wide level. As it is, all this forum is doing is preaching to the choir.

As usual, the comments saying "Why do we even need to say these things?" are proving that yes, we DO need to say these things. If this somehow causes one creep to re-evaluate their behavior, it's worth it.

sktarq
2014-07-31, 02:48 PM
Heart-rending, yes, but I'll leave it at this: does the violation of a fictional character constitute the violation of an actual person, and to what degree?

It can. and to a significant degree. It won't always as there can be many mitgating factors. Rape has come up in games I've run and played without problems. For me the key is that very often in these situations it is not about the fictional character but about using the fictional character as a stand in for the player. It is using the power relationship of the DM to PC and the effort/emotion/selfhood invested by the player in their PC for the DM to gain emotional power over the player. It is emotional and social abuse. Then the idea that nothing is happening to the player directly is often used as a defence against social repercussions. When a DM (and I'll skip the one in the VICE article because while we can argue the details of that case I've seen cases of very similar events where I've been aware of "both sides") does this kind of thing, especially via a DMPC what the target gets is the emotional perspective of their character while the DM hides behinds a fantasy character - so it is not really them saying all these things.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 02:58 PM
As usual, the comments saying "Why do we even need to say these things?" are proving that yes, we DO need to say these things. If this somehow causes one creep to re-evaluate their behavior, it's worth it.

Except it won't, and it doesn't.

White Blade
2014-07-31, 03:00 PM
"I do not have a problem with some aspect of life, therefore nobody has a problem and if they say otherwise, regardless of their own experience, they are either lying or inept!"

Got it.

Nobody is accepting peer-pressure as a reason that the other members of a group should not speak up. If I said, "Man, I was in a situation once where I saw this happen, and I was just so afraid my friends would be mad at me if I spoke up," nobody would accept that. Peer pressure is a mitigating/limiting factor on actions, but it isn't a viable as a whole reason for doing something.

BRC
2014-07-31, 03:07 PM
Except it won't, and it doesn't.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

Your average creep, or creep enabler Dosn't Realize they're being creepy. They may think of themselves as perfectly progressive and 100% against this sort of thing until they sit down at the table at which point "It's all just in-game, why are you freaking out so much".
People may not consciously realize it (because they think of themselves as modern people who would never ect ect), but these dialogues DO help. They make people more aware of these problems and the impact they can have. Somebody could read this thread and go into their next session more aware of how something as seemingly harmless as a little in-character flirtation can be sexual harassment.
Remember, this is about building a CULTURE where harassers are not enabled and victims feel safe calling out those harassing them. Articles and threads like this one can help create that culture.

Sure, it won't be anything as dramatic as somebody saying "Hold On Mister DM! I read an article the other day about this, and now I WILL NOT STAND for you constantly having NPCs proposition [Player]'s character for sex!". It will be somebody reading the article saying "Yes, that is terrible of course it is", and then Keeping that mindset the next time they play.

Social and cultural changes are not sudden dramatic shifts, they're often gradual, so gradual that nobody even notices them happening.


Nobody is accepting peer-pressure as a reason that the other members of a group should not speak up. If I said, "Man, I was in a situation once where I saw this happen, and I was just so afraid my friends would be mad at me if I spoke up," nobody would accept that. Peer pressure is a mitigating/limiting factor on actions, but it isn't a viable as a whole reason for doing something.

I would definitely accept that as an explanation. Social Pressures are HUGE, especially among groups of friends. If everybody else seems okay with something, it can take a lot of courage to disrupt proceedings to express your disapproval.

Autolykos
2014-07-31, 03:26 PM
"I do not have a problem with some aspect of life, therefore nobody has a problem and if they say otherwise, regardless of their own experience, they are either lying or inept!"
If this problem becomes massive enough that the affected person fails to live up to the standards expected of functional adults (like being able to extract themselves from an uncomfortable but not threatening "social" situation), it's first and foremost their problem, and their responsibility to get it fixed (or live with the consequences). I've got my own share of (other) problems, but I don't run around expecting people I barely know to account for them, and I definitely don't blame anyone else for me falling short of reasonable expectations.
That said, it's still a --censored-- move for others to knowingly exploit it.

Kid Jake
2014-07-31, 05:11 PM
Somebody could read this thread and go into their next session more aware of how something as seemingly harmless as a little in-character flirtation can be sexual harassment.


Seems somewhat like a culture where even the most innocuous of actions can suddenly be labeled as abuse.

There are always going to be creepy GMs (and players for that matter) because there's a substantial portion of the general population that are just plain creepy, and there's nothing anybody can do to change that. You can't help those people and it's a genuine waste of time to try because they will NEVER see something that they do as wrong and even if they do they sure as hell won't admit it.

If there's a lesson to take away from discussions like this it's that if you're uncomfortable with something, then speak up right then and there before it snowballs into more of a problem. You don't have to storm off in anger; you don't have to wail and lament; just say that you don't like the direction the game is going and if they're your friends (or just reasonable people in general rather than the aforementioned creepy-folk.) then they should respect that and move on. If they're neither your friends, nor reasonable then it seems like you should be studying on why you're hanging out with these people to begin with; they sound horrible.

If you're too shy, if you're too insecure, if you just don't like confrontation then I'm sorry; but the problem isn't with the rest of the world. It's with you. If you don't care enough about the situation to resolve it, then why should anyone else? Say something if the DM is running Urist McSerialrapist or he's going to stick around. Don't just sit there being quietly offended and wondering why he'd do something so tasteless, because as far as he knows nobody here has a problem with it. If you make an attempt at resolving things and the situation gets worse then it's completely on him; but you can't go through life expecting people to guess where your boundaries are.

One person may be offended by the inclusion of harsh sexual themes and that's fine. Another might be offended if you introduce anything religious or political and that's also fine. Yet another may not like gratuitous violence, IC depictions of prejudice, body horror, etc.... Any of these are fine and dandy and should be respected if applicable, but if you try to avoid everything that could potentially offend somebody then the end result is a bland experience, devoid of grit or character and that becoming the norm is just nine kinds of unpalatable to me.

BRC
2014-07-31, 05:33 PM
Seems somewhat like a culture where even the most innocuous of actions can suddenly be labeled as abuse.

There are always going to be creepy GMs (and players for that matter) because there's a substantial portion of the general population that are just plain creepy, and there's nothing anybody can do to change that. You can't help those people and it's a genuine waste of time to try because they will NEVER see something that they do as wrong and even if they do they sure as hell won't admit it.

If there's a lesson to take away from discussions like this it's that if you're uncomfortable with something, then speak up right then and there before it snowballs into more of a problem. You don't have to storm off in anger; you don't have to wail and lament; just say that you don't like the direction the game is going and if they're your friends (or just reasonable people in general rather than the aforementioned creepy-folk.) then they should respect that and move on. If they're neither your friends, nor reasonable then it seems like you should be studying on why you're hanging out with these people to begin with; they sound horrible.

If you're too shy, if you're too insecure, if you just don't like confrontation then I'm sorry; but the problem isn't with the rest of the world. It's with you. If you don't care enough about the situation to resolve it, then why should anyone else? Say something if the DM is running Urist McSerialrapist or he's going to stick around. Don't just sit there being quietly offended and wondering why he'd do something so tasteless, because as far as he knows nobody here has a problem with it. If you make an attempt at resolving things and the situation gets worse then it's completely on him; but you can't go through life expecting people to guess where your boundaries are.

One person may be offended by the inclusion of harsh sexual themes and that's fine. Another might be offended if you introduce anything religious or political and that's also fine. Yet another may not like gratuitous violence, IC depictions of prejudice, body horror, etc.... Any of these are fine and dandy and should be respected if applicable, but if you try to avoid everything that could potentially offend somebody then the end result is a bland experience, devoid of grit or character and that becoming the norm is just nine kinds of unpalatable to me.
That's why it's about creating a CULTURE where people feel comfortable speaking up when they are being made uncomfortable by the content of the game.

The goal is not to create an experience where nobody runs the risk of offending anybody. Risk is not the problem.

Remember, Sexual Harassment is about Power, it's the Harasser flaunting their Power over the victim.

Let me explain how it should work. If it's a non-creeper DM, it should go something like this:


DM: The NPC invites your character to come up to his room for the night.
Player: I decline
DM: He seems insistent, and he's quite good looking.
Player: You're making me uncomfortable, I'm not okay with this.
DM: I'm Sorry. The NPC looks disappointed, then goes away.
If it IS a creeper DM, it might go something like this.


DM: The NPC invites your character to come up to his room for the night.
Player: I decline
DM: He seems insistent, and he's quite good looking.
Player: You're making me uncomfortable, I'm not okay with this.
DM: Come on, it's just a game. Besides, wouldn't your character want to-
Player 2: DM, he/she said no. Stop It.

In the first case, the DM was NOT trying to make the player uncomfortable. The moment they realized they were, they stopped. Things might be a little awkward for a minute, but if the DM was really just trying to have a game with some more mature themes in it, then their apology will be sincere and they will know where the line is drawn with that particular player.
In the second case, the DM was sexually harassing, using their position of power to force the player to do things they were not comfortable with. However, the player spoke up, and the other players supported them. The Power was taken away from the abuser.

Harassment is about power. If calling out the Harasser leads to them backing off, then they don't actually have the power.

The goal is to create a culture where people feel comfortable speaking up about this sort of thing, knowing that if they do, others will support them.

So no, we're not trying to create a situation where every game cannot offend anybody ever. We're trying to create a situation where EACH GAME does not offend the players at that table, and that if it does, everybody can instantly be on the same page about changing it.

Total Prevention is unrealistic as a goal. What we CAN do is create a culture that is self-correcting about these things. Unintentionally Creepy DMs quickly learn where to draw the line with their players, and Creeper DMs trying to exploit their power find themselves facing social pressure to clean up their acts.

AMFV
2014-07-31, 05:44 PM
That's why it's about creating a CULTURE where people feel comfortable speaking up when they are being made uncomfortable by the content of the game.

The goal is not to create an experience where nobody runs the risk of offending anybody. Risk is not the problem.

Remember, Sexual Harassment is about Power, it's the Harasser flaunting their Power over the victim.


But this guy is a stranger, who is not in her social circle, this isn't about power, since he has no real power. It might be a power fantasy, but it's one that she allowed to happen, and that everybody allowed to happen. Social pressure is not an acceptable excuse for behavior, for either doing things or choosing not to do them, anymore than it would be acceptable for me to not get medical help for an injured person in an accident.


I wouldn't be so sure about that.

Your average creep, or creep enabler Dosn't Realize they're being creepy. They may think of themselves as perfectly progressive and 100% against this sort of thing until they sit down at the table at which point "It's all just in-game, why are you freaking out so much".
People may not consciously realize it (because they think of themselves as modern people who would never ect ect), but these dialogues DO help. They make people more aware of these problems and the impact they can have. Somebody could read this thread and go into their next session more aware of how something as seemingly harmless as a little in-character flirtation can be sexual harassment.
Remember, this is about building a CULTURE where harassers are not enabled and victims feel safe calling out those harassing them. Articles and threads like this one can help create that culture.

Sure, it won't be anything as dramatic as somebody saying "Hold On Mister DM! I read an article the other day about this, and now I WILL NOT STAND for you constantly having NPCs proposition [Player]'s character for sex!". It will be somebody reading the article saying "Yes, that is terrible of course it is", and then Keeping that mindset the next time they play.

Social and cultural changes are not sudden dramatic shifts, they're often gradual, so gradual that nobody even notices them happening.



I would definitely accept that as an explanation. Social Pressures are HUGE, especially among groups of friends. If everybody else seems okay with something, it can take a lot of courage to disrupt proceedings to express your disapproval.

Your average creep has been confronted before. As an adult there is no way to be a creep and have not been talked to about it at some point. Or else they are such a shut-in there's no helping them. The idea that confrontation can cause some kind of dramatic realization is I think a product of films where the bully gets confronted and then goes: "My dad hit me" and he sobs and there's a touching moment. But in real life, people who are jerks, have usually been confronted about it, and confronting people NEVER (I repeat) NEVER, in my experience helps, it makes people defensive and nobody who acting defensively ever changes their mind.

Kid Jake
2014-07-31, 05:56 PM
What I'm saying is that you can't rely on people to have your back to do something, you have to look out for your own interests if you want them looked after. Creating a culture of understanding sounds good and all, but that's all it does. Nothing changes for the individual until they personally decide to stick up for themselves, no matter how super understanding everyone around them is.


DM: The NPC invites your character to come up to his room for the night.
Player: I decline
DM: He seems insistent, and he's quite good looking.
Player: You're making me uncomfortable, I'm not okay with this.
DM: Come on, it's just a game. Besides, wouldn't your character want to-
Player: I said no. Stop It.

Same effect. If the DM is going to ignore you, he'll ignore you and Player 2 just as hard.

Aedilred
2014-07-31, 06:32 PM
But this guy is a stranger, who is not in her social circle, this isn't about power, since he has no real power. It might be a power fantasy, but it's one that she allowed to happen, and that everybody allowed to happen. Social pressure is not an acceptable excuse for behavior, for either doing things or choosing not to do them, anymore than it would be acceptable for me to not get medical help for an injured person in an accident.


Two points:
1. Social pressure is the main reason society actually exists and functions. The government doesn't on its own have the power or resources to maintain society without at least the tacit consent of the governed. It's not a blanket evil, and it's often a perfectly valid reason for doing something. It's not always enough of a reason and the extent to which it is will be largely individual.

2. That the GM (and, it seems, most of the other players) were strangers might well make it harder to take a stand and object, rather than easier. Group dynamics are complicated.

Also, again with the victim-blaming. Seriously, please just... stop with that.

AMFV
2014-07-31, 06:50 PM
Two points:
1. Social pressure is the main reason society actually exists and functions. The government doesn't on its own have the power or resources to maintain society without at least the tacit consent of the governed. It's not a blanket evil, and it's often a perfectly valid reason for doing something. It's not always enough of a reason and the extent to which it is will be largely individual.

2. That the GM (and, it seems, most of the other players) were strangers might well make it harder to take a stand and object, rather than easier. Group dynamics are complicated.

Also, again with the victim-blaming. Seriously, please just... stop with that.


This was an uncomfortable social situation, there is no victim, really. This is the same thing as being told a sexual joke when you aren't comfortable with it. And that sucks, it's crappy. But she wasn't forced to participate, she wasn't even forced to participate in the lead up to what we presume was a simulated sexual encounter. This whole thing was basically PG rating (maybe PG-13), and she could leave at any time, without really any social repercussions. I'm not blaming a victim, I'm saying that to claim a victim status when you haven't been victimized is a serious problem. If you say: "Well he told a racist joke around me and that makes me a victim", then people aren't going to take victims of real racism seriously. The same is true for victims of genuine sexual harassment, acting like a situation in which participates voluntarily with very little social stigma for leaving, people quit games all the time, and there's nobody she knows, that's no stigma at all, that's unfriending possibly four people on Facebook and moving on with your life, with about a 1% chance of a potentially awkward meeting at a grocery store later.

Furthermore there is no productive end to this discussion. There is no solution, you can't get people to stop being *******s, you can't make people behave, you don't get to regulate other people's behavior. You can only change your own behavior. You can leave the game, or refuse to participate, but you don't get to decide how other people behave even if you find their behavior distasteful. If I run a roleplaying game where essentially the point is fulfill racist fantasies about murdering minorities, you might find that terrible and reprehensible, but, you know what, you don't get a say, outside of your own participation or lack thereof.

The reason that I'm so against this kind of social attempt to change things is that, we wind up restricting things that we have no idea what the implications of will be. We wind up neutering things that aught not be neutered in the name of not offending people. And that shouldn't matter, my need to not offend people is enough to not offend my friends, and to not get in trouble at my work, and that's all it ever needs to be.

Lastly, if you can't stand up to a group then you need to learn. "I can't stand up to a group" is what creates a situation where lynch mobs can happen, where "I was just following orders" becomes an acceptable defense rather than one that is unacceptable. My friends made me do it, becomes something that is valid. And that should never happen, because that's not true, nobody controls your behavior but you, nobody.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 06:53 PM
That's why it's about creating a CULTURE where people feel comfortable speaking up when they are being made uncomfortable by the content of the game.

The goal is not to create an experience where nobody runs the risk of offending anybody. Risk is not the problem.

Remember, Sexual Harassment is about Power, it's the Harasser flaunting their Power over the victim.

Let me explain how it should work. If it's a non-creeper DM, it should go something like this:

If it IS a creeper DM, it might go something like this. Except there's not much we can do to create the culture - You're Preaching To The Choir. We have enough "Horror Stories" around here to convey the message without getting sanctimonious about it. No matter how much we blow words around here, it's not doing any good for the hundreds of people who buy the game, hang out with their social group at home, and create their own Culture. The "Gaming Hobby" is not a monolithic culture - it's a bunch of little individual cultures that are reflections of their surrounding local cultures.

Furthermore, as AMFV is demonstrating clearly, people will not change their behavior or though pattern if they're 'called out on it.'

People preaching to the choir about how to treat women properly is how we get overly-conscientious people to take to the message too strongly, and we end up with "Nice Guys" (Which are nothing more than a mess of suppressed emotions/desires and dissatisfaction all around).

BRC
2014-07-31, 06:55 PM
Alright, let me give you an example of Social Pressure and Power Dynamics in a game of dungeons and dragons.

You are playing a game, when the DM announces that you see an ECL appropriate group of Orcs have set up camp outside the tomb you intend to plunder.
Suddenly, one of the players starts complaining. They are playing a Ranger with Favored enemy: Goblinoids wielding a Goblinbane bow, having taken the "Best At Killing Goblins" feat. "I'm missing out on a TON of bonuses if we're fighting orcs" they say, "Stop that! Turn those Orcs into Goblins".
Do you and the other players throw in on his side, arguing that the DM should throw out everything he has planned in order to satisfy the player's need to get every possible bonus in combat?

Or do you tell the player that maybe he shouldn't have overspecialized so much, that the DM gets to make the adventure, and to shut up, he's still got plenty of ability to contribute in combat even without his absurdly specific goblin-killing bonuses. The Player is holding up the game and disrupting the experience for a stupid reason.

You are now making the player feel Shame over disrupting the game, and in doing so giving the DM Power to overrule the player's objections.
Social Presusre and Power Dynamics, do you see how that works? The player objected, you Shamed the player, and the DM had the power to enforce their will on the table.

Now, imagine that instead of the DM putting a bunch of orcs in front of the tomb, they're putting an "irresistibly Charming and Sensual" NPC, who will only give the PCs access to the tomb if one of the PCs has sex with him. The Player is objecting, not because they built an overspecialized character and are mad that the DM isn't playing to their speciality, but because they are not comfortable with the idea of having their character have sex with the NPC.

The basic mechanics of the situation are identical, the DM wants something to happen, the Player is objecting, and in doing so disrupting the game.

However, in this case the player has a very good reason for objecting.
As the rest of the group, you have the same power you had with the ranger above. You can take one side or the other, shaming the person you are disagreeing with and lending support to the person you are siding with.

People don't like to be shamed, they don't like to feel like an outcast. If the culture is such that a player being harassed feels that if they speak up, the other players will side with the DM, they are more likely to stay silent due to fear of the shame and social pressure. If they feel that the other players will back them up if the speak out, they are more likely to do so.

AMFV
2014-07-31, 07:02 PM
Except there's not much we can do to create the culture - You're Preaching To The Choir. We have enough "Horror Stories" around here to convey the message without getting sanctimonious about it. No matter how much we blow words around here, it's not doing any good for the hundreds of people who buy the game, hang out with their social group at home, and create their own Culture. The "Gaming Hobby" is not a monolithic culture - it's a bunch of little individual cultures that are reflections of their surrounding local cultures.

Furthermore, as AMFV is demonstrating clearly, people will not change their behavior or though pattern if they're 'called out on it.'

People preaching to the choir about how to treat women properly is how we get overly-conscientious people to take to the message too strongly, and we end up with "Nice Guys" (Which are nothing more than a mess of suppressed emotions/desires and dissatisfaction all around).

I'm not sure what behavior I've been "called out" on. Except for not quite buying that story at face value. For a lot of reasons, and not exactly being as sympathetic as you would like. But no, I'm not changing my opinion on this, because nobody has presented anything, there's no solution presented, just emotional stuff.

No, we shouldn't have a person doing that in a game. But you choose to participate, and that means that you are sanctioning what happens in the game, and that means you lose victim status, sorry. I have a very strong view about personal responsibility and agency.


Edit: And the things I don't like about the story: It's second-hand, we are hearing the story from a biased party through another biased party (so it's doubly biased), the person includes details that are not normal to note, like the NPC's name, which is typical for people who are being mildly dishonest, they add extra details to things which would be considered superfluous because they believe it will make them believable. Also the story is written to inflame emotional response, not to convince, not from a position of reasoning. I'm not saying that the DM behaved well, but I'm saying we have no idea what actually happened, and we can't excuse the fact that she participated, she wasn't forced, or even really coerced. And her claiming that status makes it very hard for people that are genuinely forced or coerced to do things they don't want to to stand up.



People don't like to be shamed, they don't like to feel like an outcast. If the culture is such that a player being harassed feels that if they speak up, the other players will side with the DM, they are more likely to stay silent due to fear of the shame and social pressure. If they feel that the other players will back them up if the speak out, they are more likely to do so.

Well then they need to get over that, because that is NOT an excuse. I'm sorry I've been in environments where I've had to think about what I would need to do if people asked me to do things I consider questionable. And I've seen and heard about what happens when people don't stand up, there are lynch mobs, there are people killed because of that. That is not acceptable, and arguing that peer pressure made me do it, is not an excuse for any behavior, it's just not to me.

And yes, what happened to this girl is creepy, but it's a creepiness that she participated in, when she could have left. This isn't the spouse that doesn't leave an abusive spouse, there is no net loss as I've pointed out. If you can't deal with that, then it's really your problem.

BRC
2014-07-31, 07:13 PM
Well then they need to get over that, because that is NOT an excuse. I'm sorry I've been in environments where I've had to think about what I would need to do if people asked me to do things I consider questionable. And I've seen and heard about what happens when people don't stand up, there are lynch mobs, there are people killed because of that. That is not acceptable, and arguing that peer pressure made me do it, is not an excuse for any behavior, it's just not to me.

And yes, what happened to this girl is creepy, but it's a creepiness that she participated in, when she could have left. This isn't the spouse that doesn't leave an abusive spouse, there is no net loss as I've pointed out. If you can't deal with that, then it's really your problem.
So, basically "If social pressure stops you from speaking up, it's your fault, therefore we shouldn't do anything to reduce the pressure against people speaking up."
People should speak up, I agree, but the fault lies less with the people to afraid to speak than it does with the culture that makes them afraid.

The goal is to REDUCE harassment by ENCOURAGING people to speak up.

AMFV
2014-07-31, 07:21 PM
So, basically "If social pressure stops you from speaking up, it's your fault, therefore we shouldn't do anything to reduce the pressure against people speaking up."
People should speak up, I agree, but the fault lies less with the people to afraid to speak than it does with the culture that makes them afraid.

The goal is to REDUCE harassment by ENCOURAGING people to speak up.

That's not what people have been doing though, we haven't been talking about how to empower the woman to speak up, we've been talking about how to depower the DM, we've been talking about how he should have been physically assaulted (at one point), how he should be essentially banned from gaming. Encouraging people to speak up is not accomplished by trying to push everybody down, it doesn't work. I've been through military boot camp, and when you push everybody down, when you control what people can say, what they think, it doesn't create a level playing field by creating assertive people, it puts everybody into the same box of not being able to speak up.

So the solution is not to attempt to educate, punish, or otherwise damage the DM (who we really don't know how in the wrong he was), certainly she didn't communicate that she said "No" in the context of the roleplaying game (that was to dating), in fact she complied of her own volition, so for him, she's saying "okay", we need to teach people how to say "That isn't okay with me" because we have no evidence that happened, that's where the breakdown is and where it ceases to be exclusively the DM's responsibility.

Aedilred
2014-07-31, 07:37 PM
I'm not sure what behavior I've been "called out" on.
Well, I can't speak for Sartharina, but the victim-blaming is the obvious one.

It's sexual harassment. It might be sexual harassment it's harder to take seriously than some varieties, because it's in a RPG context, but that's what it was all the same (assuming at least some of the details are accurate, but that's such a pointless argument to have that I'm not going to bother with it - let's just assume for the purposes of this point that it's all 100% true). She was a victim of sexual harassment. She was clearly upset by it, given she ended up in tears in someone else's house. It's not a massive "net loss" in the grand scheme of things but it's not something to write off either.

Now, is your argument that sexual harassment, leaving aside the specifics of this case, is the victim's fault if they have the opportunity to leave and don't?

Let's make a comparison. I invite a group of people over for dinner, and, after the starter, I pick up a knife and turn to one of the guests. I say "I'm not going to serve the main course until I've stabbed you." I make no attempt to stop him from leaving. He is surprised and taken aback, and nobody else says anything to object, so he just sits there a bit frightened, intimidated and confused. Perhaps initially he's not sure if I'm serious, so just says "I'd rather you didn't; can't we come up with another way of dealing with this?" I then stab him. He still doesn't leave, so I stab him again and keep stabbing him until he dies.

Following your logic, my guest isn't a victim, and I'm not really to blame for this totally unprovoked and unnecessary murder, because he "allowed it to happen" by not leaving when he had the opportunity to do so, and therefore can be presumed to have consented. There was nothing in my dinner invitation that indicated I wouldn't stab him, so he should have been prepared for the possibility, and although he said he didn't want to do it he still cooperated at the end of the day so his attempt to talk his way out of it doesn't matter. Really, all the consequences are on his head.

I'm not sure it would fly in court, to be honest.

Mr Beer
2014-07-31, 07:53 PM
I'm not sure it would fly in court, to be honest.

It didn't the last time I murdered one of my dinner guests, but I think the judge was quite unfair about the whole thing.

JadedDM
2014-07-31, 08:00 PM
To all the people insisting that this problem can't be solved and so there's no point in even discussing it, why do you keep participating in this discussion? If you are right, nothing can be done, so there's no point in trying to convince us to stop having this discussion. Right?

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 08:05 PM
To all the people insisting that this problem can't be solved and so there's no point in even discussing it, why do you keep participating in this discussion? If you are right, nothing can be done, so there's no point in trying to convince us to stop having this discussion. Right?Discussions like this tend to create "Nice Guys" trying to go too far to correct problems beyond their power, and getting frustrated and vindicative over their impotence.

I'm starting to see more of AMFV's side here, as much as I abhor his victim-blaming.

obryn
2014-07-31, 08:08 PM
AMFV, you're victim-blaming left and right.

The point isn't whether or not a woman should leave a harassing game environment. The point is that the game shouldn't have a harassing environment in the first place. You're giving creeper DMs and players a free pass, and putting all responsibility on the victim for her actions or lack thereof. And on the other hand, I've seen vanishingly little approbation on the DM's actions from you.

For all your talk of being unable to criticize or change bad behavior, you're in an awful hurry to criticize and try to change a harassment victim's behavior for not living up to your standards.

If I'm swinging my fists around and someone gets hit, it's not their fault for being in the way of my fists.

Red Fel
2014-07-31, 08:09 PM
I think that focusing on the DM is a mistake. That's not to say a creeper DM shouldn't be held responsible; far from it. But the DM is only part of the problem.

It is the tolerance of creepiness that contributes, both to the presence of creeper DMs and to the victimization of players.

Let me explain this one. We all deal with hurtful or offensive things in our daily lives. Unless you live in a bubble, you deal with insults, rudeness, bad behavior. You deal with crazy drivers on the road, jerks making catcalls from across the street, coworkers who think it's hysterical to talk about your political or religious views. But we're usually able to take this, because many of us have a support network, a person or persons to whom we can speak who will say, "It's okay, you didn't deserve that. That guy was a jerk."

There are creeper DMs. This thread alone is proof of that; others merely add more proof. But if a table full of players is willing to say, as has been suggested in this thread, "Dude, not cool," that can have a profound effect. The problem isn't just that the tables don't target the DM. The problem is that, in many cases, the victim is made to feel in the wrong.

If someone walked up to you, a total stranger, from out of nowhere, and slapped you in the face, you might be shocked. I know I would be. But if you then looked around, you would expect those around you to be shocked as well. You wouldn't necessarily expect any of them to leap to your rescue, or even say anything, but you would expect them to at least look surprised. You would expect that emotional validation.

What would happen if nobody batted an eye? If they treated it as business as usual? Your hurt would be compounded. That's when the pain worsens - when people you thought were your friends are no longer saying, "It's okay, you didn't deserve that." When people you thought were your friends say nothing, you feel alone.

And if everyone treats it as though it was nothing, you might feel compelled to do the same. "Maybe it's just me. Maybe this is what's supposed to happen. Maybe it was a fluke." Maybe, maybe, maybe. You learn to make excuses, because after all, everyone else seemed to be okay with it. And so they stay - because, after all, they don't want to be the one who makes a big deal. Nobody else did, so why should they? Maybe it's just oversensitivity.

Perhaps the creeper DMs will change if confronted. Perhaps they won't. But the burden isn't just on them. The burden is on the entire table. And it's not just to challenge the creeper DMs. It's to remind the victims that, no, what just happened was not okay. It's to give them that emotional validation - it's okay to feel hurt, what just happened was not acceptable. Nobody should be made to feel that this kind of behavior is acceptable, or ordinary, or to be expected.

If you see something, say something. Speak up.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 08:14 PM
If I'm swinging my fists around and someone gets hit, it's not their fault for being in the way of my fists.Maybe it's my defensive driving instincts kicking in, but while it may not be their fault, it doesn't make them less punched, and they should have stood clear if they could. Ultimately, people's lives are in their own hands, and the rest of the world doesn't give a **** about who is 'at fault'. Other people might as well be indifferent forces of nature.

JadedDM
2014-07-31, 08:17 PM
Discussions like this tend to create "Nice Guys" trying to go too far to correct problems beyond their power, and getting frustrated and vindicative over their impotence.

I'm starting to see more of AMFV's side here, as much as I abhor his victim-blaming.

Let us, for the sake of argument, say you are 100% correct here and this is absolutely going to happen if we continue this conversation.

Are you then arguing that this is somehow a worse outcome then letting creepy DMs sexually harass players?

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 08:19 PM
Let us, for the sake of argument, say you are 100% correct here and this is absolutely going to happen if we continue this conversation.

Are you then arguing that this is somehow a worse outcome then letting creepy DMs sexually harass players?
DMs sexually harassing players have a much smaller area-of-damage than Nice Guys who suffer and resent being unable to figure out how to talk to women without fear of the world jumping down their throats for sexual harassment, then switching to 'binary male - jerk mode', and making everyone around them suffer because they're now a jerk.

AMFV
2014-07-31, 08:24 PM
Well, I can't speak for Sartharina, but the victim-blaming is the obvious one.

It's sexual harassment. It might be sexual harassment it's harder to take seriously than some varieties, because it's in a RPG context, but that's what it was all the same (assuming at least some of the details are accurate, but that's such a pointless argument to have that I'm not going to bother with it - let's just assume for the purposes of this point that it's all 100% true). She was a victim of sexual harassment. She was clearly upset by it, given she ended up in tears in someone else's house. It's not a massive "net loss" in the grand scheme of things but it's not something to write off either.

Now, is your argument that sexual harassment, leaving aside the specifics of this case, is the victim's fault if they have the opportunity to leave and don't?

That isn't what I said, I only discussed the specifics of this case because it is what was the subject of discussion. There are scenarios where a victim could have done something, are you denying that there are scenarios where victims of assault or murder or rape have responsibility, or are you saying that in all circumstances they are blameless, because that's what you've said.



Let's make a comparison. I invite a group of people over for dinner, and, after the starter, I pick up a knife and turn to one of the guests. I say "I'm not going to serve the main course until I've stabbed you." I make no attempt to stop him from leaving. He is surprised and taken aback, and nobody else says anything to object, so he just sits there a bit frightened, intimidated and confused. Perhaps initially he's not sure if I'm serious, so just says "I'd rather you didn't; can't we come up with another way of dealing with this?" I then stab him. He still doesn't leave, so I stab him again and keep stabbing him until he dies.

Following your logic, my guest isn't a victim, and I'm not really to blame for this totally unprovoked and unnecessary murder, because he "allowed it to happen" by not leaving when he had the opportunity to do so, and therefore can be presumed to have consented. There was nothing in my dinner invitation that indicated I wouldn't stab him, so he should have been prepared for the possibility, and although he said he didn't want to do it he still cooperated at the end of the day so his attempt to talk his way out of it doesn't matter. Really, all the consequences are on his head.

I'm not sure it would fly in court, to be honest.

Actually I have an equivalent scenario... How To Host a Murder. The DM didn't say, "I'm going to violate you now", and then she didn't speak up and he raped her. He said "My character takes yours behind the bushes and they get busy." This is the equivalency of somebody saying, "I'm going to describe how I would plan to murder you." And that's acceptable, How to Host a Murder is a fun party game, and isn't real murder, just like this isn't real rape.


AMFV, you're victim-blaming left and right.

The point isn't whether or not a woman should leave a harassing game environment. The point is that the game shouldn't have a harassing environment in the first place. You're giving creeper DMs and players a free pass, and putting all responsibility on the victim for her actions or lack thereof. And on the other hand, I've seen vanishingly little approbation on the DM's actions from you.

For all your talk of being unable to criticize or change bad behavior, you're in an awful hurry to criticize and try to change a harassment victim's behavior for not living up to your standards.

If I'm swinging my fists around and someone gets hit, it's not their fault for being in the way of my fists.

Why is there an onus against saying that there is some responsibility on the part of a victim. Frankly, just because the other person is responsible doesn't remove responsibility. I'm not saying that there if there were legal liability that the DM should be excused. But there isn't so that's not really a salient point. What I'm saying is that she has some responsibility as well. Being a victim does not mean that what happens before isn't your fault. If I go into a bar, and I punch somebody, or slap somebody, and he stabs me. Then yes, I'm a victim, I've been stabbed, but I still hit somebody. Now that isn't equivalent, since she did not initiate, but she certainly didn't stop what was going on.

I'm not criticizing her behavior, I'm saying we aren't a position to be aware of her behavior, we have her side of the story, and it's fishy, it's intended to evoke an emotional response. She may have behaved in a very good way, I don't know. But I have known people who have had situations where they thought the other person was consenting to something, and the other person later changed their mind, and that is not permissible. I don't know if that's what happened, but neither do you, the only people who know, didn't even tell the story, it was second-hand, from one of them.

Being a victim does not give you a clean slate. Victim blaming is when somebody makes the act the responsibility of the victim, for example, the rapist couldn't help himself because she dressed provocatively. But I'm not absolving the DM. He did something that was socially irresponsible, and in poor taste. It's like again, reading erotica out loud, it's in poor taste, but it isn't rape. And she was under no obligation to tolerate it.

I'm not excusing his behavior, I'm saying we don't know what happened, hell the author of the article doesn't. An as Aedilred said, "That wouldn't hold up in court", you wouldn't even be able to discuss that in court, because it isn't a credible account.

Edit:


Let us, for the sake of argument, say you are 100% correct here and this is absolutely going to happen if we continue this conversation.

Are you then arguing that this is somehow a worse outcome then letting creepy DMs sexually harass players?

So what do you propose we do? We aren't letting anybody do anything. Our discussion on the internet is doing exactly jack squat to stop any of this from happening, we're only speculating about something we don't even know about first hand, we don't even have a first-hand account, we have a second-hand account. So how are we letting anything happen, if I can't do anything to stop something, then it isn't my responsibility. Again you don't get to be responsible for other people's behavior. Unless they are your subordinates or your children and you have a direct ability to influence them, then their actions are not your responsibility.

obryn
2014-07-31, 08:28 PM
Maybe it's my defensive driving instincts kicking in, but while it may not be their fault, it doesn't make them less punched, and they should have stood clear if they could. Ultimately, people's lives are in their own hands, and the rest of the world doesn't give a **** about who is 'at fault'. Other people might as well be indifferent forces of nature.
People aren't forces of nature, though.

If we accept as a given - as AMFV evidently does - that people are responsible for their own actions, why in the world are we (well, he) focusing on a harassment victim's actions instead of the harasser's? Why treat his actions as the "force of nature" instead of hers?

That's like opposite world, from where I'm standing.

AMFV
2014-07-31, 08:30 PM
People aren't forces of nature, though.

If we accept as a given - as AMFV evidently does - that people are responsible for their own actions, why in the world are we (well, he) focusing on a harassment victim's actions instead of the harasser's? Why treat his actions as the "force of nature" instead of hers?

That's like opposite world, from where I'm standing.

What should we do? Find somebody and beat him up because of hearsay? If we want to address his actions we need to have a standard of proof for them. I can't change a creepy person's actions, if I was there, I would probably tell him that I didn't think it was acceptable, frankly. But I'm not, and you're not, so what are you proposing? How do you or we hold him responsible? We don't even have a first-hand account of what happened.

Edit: I feel like we're in opposite world, or at least a world where people feel very comfortable declaring guilt without having a good examination of what is going on. What do you want us to do in the game, even? I mean outside of leaving, what are you going to do when the creeper doesn't change his behavior, and most of them won't, honestly.

Edit 2: Furthermore the reason I'm focusing on the victim's behavior, is because we are not likely to be the creeper DM, I hope. So we need to look at how she should have behaved, because that is the role we are likely to be in, hers or that of a bystander.

obryn
2014-07-31, 08:37 PM
What should we do? Find somebody and beat him up because of hearsay? If we want to address his actions we need to have a standard of proof for them. I can't change a creepy person's actions, if I was there, I would probably tell him that I didn't think it was acceptable, frankly. But I'm not, and you're not, so what are you proposing? How do you or we hold him responsible? We don't even have a first-hand account of what happened.

Edit: I feel like we're in opposite world, or at least a world where people feel very comfortable declaring guilt without having a good examination of what is going on. What do you want us to do in the game, even? I mean outside of leaving, what are you going to do when the creeper doesn't change his behavior, and most of them won't, honestly.
You're very, very focused on the specific example in the article rather than looking at the big picture - that it's an example of what can happen in the hobby.

I don't know why you're so fixated on that event, but at this point it's almost like it's a diversion. Nobody is going to hunt down the DM guy or convict him of being a creeper.

AMFV
2014-07-31, 08:40 PM
You're very, very focused on the specific example in the article rather than looking at the big picture - that it's an example of what can happen in the hobby.

I don't know why you're so fixated on that event, but at this point it's almost like it's a diversion. Nobody is going to hunt down the DM guy or convict him of being a creeper.

Because the article is what is being discussed, if the article has issues, it will not convince people, it will make them angry, furthermore I don't even think that there's really that can be done hobby-wide. There's aren't roleplaying police, and the places where there are regulations (conventions and such) are already regulated. What should we do? How should we change things?

There is no solution to this problem, it doesn't get better.

Edit: And furthermore any attempts at solving it, are likely going to wind up causing more harm than good. The only solution that would help is teaching people to stand up for themselves, and that is not the responsibility of the roleplaying community,

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 08:43 PM
People aren't forces of nature, though.

If we accept as a given - as AMFV evidently does - that people are responsible for their own actions, why in the world are we (well, he) focusing on a harassment victim's actions instead of the harasser's? Why treat his actions as the "force of nature" instead of hers?

That's like opposite world, from where I'm standing.Except people, along with everything else in life with energy, are forces of nature. We have the ability to control ourselves if we care. However, not every person cares to control themselves.

It's the victim who's well-being we are concerned about. We don't care about the well-being of forces of nature. We cannot get the harasser to change his behavior, because he either doesn't care, or is ignorant of his own flaws and actions (Yes, there are people that self-deluded/ignorant). It's almost always the victim that comes seeking help - which we can only do by offering advice for what they can do to try and fix their situation.

We'd treat the harasser as the person and victim as the force of nature if it was the harasser who came to these forums or posted an article asking for help about how to deal with a crush on one of his players, and admission of creepy behavior toward her - At which point we point out his creepy behavior and tell him to cut it out (While possibly offering better relationship advice), while treating the harassed person of desire as something we can't directly interface with or change to accommodate the issues of the harrasser calling for help.

JusticeZero
2014-07-31, 08:52 PM
"Nice Guys" are only troubled when they don't communicate what they want to people, which is completely not what is being discussed. Indeed, the entire discussion has been about the need to communicate and negotiate for non abusive stuff, and that not communicating and instead dictating actions that are simply problematic and potentially destructive is bad. I have no idea why you are even bringing "Nice Guys" up. Nobody is doing anything that would encourage that issue.

Aedilred
2014-07-31, 08:56 PM
That isn't what I said, I only discussed the specifics of this case because it is what was the subject of discussion. There are scenarios where a victim could have done something, are you denying that there are scenarios where victims of assault or murder or rape have responsibility, or are you saying that in all circumstances they are blameless, because that's what you've said.

OK, first off I should point out that what I was trying to do in the last post was to separate the details of the case from the abstract principles to an extent, to illustrate the argument you're actually making, whether it's the argument you're meaning to make or not.

The murder analogy was deliberately overblown for the same reason. How To Host a Murder isn't the point; the point was to compare the murder to the sexual harassment that took place in the described scenario, with a roughly analogous chain of events leading up to it. Obviously murder is a much more serious crime, and that is the point: it goes to demonstrate how the logical process works in a case where the act is more serious. Nobody in this thread has ever said it was real rape - please try to forget about that, because it's a totally inaccurate representation of the perceived problem. What I was talking about was real sexual harassment. If the principle is sound it should work for (real) murder as well as it does for (real) harassment: I was trying to avoid getting bogged down in different considerations like whether sexual harassment is something to get worked up about or whether this was sexual harassment at all.

Now, the DM didn't (afaik) use the precise words I did, but again: analogy. The point was that his intentions were made clear verbally before he proceeded and the victim in both cases tried to talk out a different solution which was ignored.

But to answer the question at the end: in the cases of assault and murder the victim may bear some responsibility. Rape - well, I don't want to get into a contentious and off-topic discussion about what constitutes rape, but using the minimum generally agreed standard - then no, the victim never bears any responsibility. However, I really do recommend not pursuing this line of discussion for the sake of keeping the thread open.

Irrespective, however, whatever the crime, principal responsibility always always always rests with the perpetrator. Except in instances of self-defence (reasonable force, etc.) contributory responsibility of the victim should only be taken into account when determining how high to hang the perpetrator, not to give them a pass.

Now that isn't equivalent, since she did not initiate, but she certainly didn't stop what was going on.

She failed to stop what was going on, but she did try. She may not have done everything in her power, but what she did should have been enough.


I'm not criticizing her behavior, I'm saying we aren't a position to be aware of her behavior, we have her side of the story, and it's fishy, it's intended to evoke an emotional response. She may have behaved in a very good way, I don't know. But I have known people who have had situations where they thought the other person was consenting to something, and the other person later changed their mind, and that is not permissible. I don't know if that's what happened, but neither do you, the only people who know, didn't even tell the story, it was second-hand, from one of them.
But none of this is really relevant to the discussion at hand. Perhaps the whole thing is a complete pack of lies. But even if so, it's clear that this sort of things does happen, given the thread, and discussion over that has occupied much of the thread.

The other topic of conversation has been over the specific instance in question and whether she bears responsibility for it. In this case we can only form opinions based on the facts available, and that's what the discussion has done. Fudging and equivocating by querying the specifics is just unhelpful obfuscation.


I'm not excusing his behavior, I'm saying we don't know what happened, hell the author of the article doesn't. An as Aedilred said, "That wouldn't hold up in court", you wouldn't even be able to discuss that in court, because it isn't a credible account.

What should we do? Find somebody and beat him up because of hearsay?
You couldn't use it because it's hearsay (although you could use it as evidence of consistency if her own account was challenged). Credibility is for the court to decide. But if this were going to trial she'd have to make her own statement anyway.

Yeah, this article isn't enough on its own to form a solid judgment of the specifics of this instance and demand retribution against the DM in question, but that's not what this thread is actually about, and nobody has suggested that anyone should do anything of the sort, apart from you. The thread has been for the most part a discussion of the general culture of this sort of thing in gaming and how to try to change it, not a witch hunt against the DM described in the article. So the second-hand nature of the account is a red herring.

AMFV
2014-07-31, 09:02 PM
She failed to stop what was going on, but she did try. She may not have done everything in her power, but what she did should have been enough.


You are mistaken...


My wife and I missed a session for the first time, and Jason made his move. He introduced a new character that he would get to control. The character, "Mercurios," was rugged and handsome, with "red wavy hair that seems to move like a flame covers a slightly tan face of man," as Jason would later write. All the "ladies" in the "town" fawned over Mercurios relentlessly, a weird piece of auto-erotic exhibitionism when one considers the fact that both the ladies and the man depicted were being controlled by Jason himself. In any case—the party needed this character's help, and Jason made it very clear that the only way to get it would be if Lucy's character made like she wanted to do the nasty. Lucy didn't like this idea. But when she tried other techniques to advance the story, they invariably failed. Eventually Jason—er, the character—suggested that they go somewhere more comfortable, somewhere more private.

There is no "attempt to stop" at all in that story. She may have used the sexual action as a last resort, but it was still a point of resort for her.

Furthermore, being a victim doesn't mean that you have no responsibility in events. I'm not saying "somebody in a dark alley deserves it" but it might be a good idea not to go down dark alleys, and if I choose to do that, and I'm aware of the risks, then I'm accepting the possibility that might happen.

The reason why I'm against this was very well stated:


Seems somewhat like a culture where even the most innocuous of actions can suddenly be labeled as abuse.

We are labeling something as abuse that really doesn't fit that criteria. And that's what is concerning to me, there is no threat, there is no control, there is not social obligation, it does not meet a standard to be abuse. There's not even a circle of friends to judge her if she refuses, since it's game of acquaintances. This is not tantamount to being abuse, it's creepy, it's in poor taste, but it's not abuse.

Edit: The problem here is that this isn't really abusive, being a DM is no longer even considered a position of genuine authority in most games. So we don't have that. This does not qualify as abuse, it's creepy, and I'd agree with that, it's possibly stalking of a sort, I'd agree with that given more details, but it's not abuse.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 09:09 PM
"Nice Guys" are only troubled when they don't communicate what they want to people, which is completely not what is being discussed. Indeed, the entire discussion has been about the need to communicate and negotiate for non abusive stuff, and that not communicating and instead dictating actions that are simply problematic and potentially destructive is bad. I have no idea why you are even bringing "Nice Guys" up. Nobody is doing anything that would encourage that issue.And they tend to not communicate their intentions out of a socially-induced fear of being accused of harassment, labeled as a creep, and shunned from society, because they read a lot of the horror stories like this, and try to compensate/follow the advice given to make themselves as unlike the Creeper DM as they can. It's a result of overexposure to vociferous preaching to the choir about sexual harassment/abuse/assault and a need to 'not be this guy' over and over and over when they're already not being that guy, so look in on themselves to see any trace of them being 'like that guy' and avoiding expressing it (Because they're constantly being told to).

It's a self-image problem I see in a lot of facets of life, and it's not incomparable to other socially-induced behavioral disorders.

obryn
2014-07-31, 09:09 PM
Because the article is what is being discussed, if the article has issues, it will not convince people, it will make them angry, furthermore I don't even think that there's really that can be done hobby-wide. There's aren't roleplaying police, and the places where there are regulations (conventions and such) are already regulated. What should we do? How should we change things?

There is no solution to this problem, it doesn't get better.

Edit: And furthermore any attempts at solving it, are likely going to wind up causing more harm than good. The only solution that would help is teaching people to stand up for themselves, and that is not the responsibility of the roleplaying community,
The creeper is responsible for his (or her!) own actions, and the community is responsible for collectively saying, "dude, not cool."

It is fixable. It's a cultural change, where the harassers are called out for being harassers and we don't collectively shrug and tell the victim, "well, stand up for yourself next time." Where we don't just say, "eh, it's just something that will happen."

(And a quick note - a group of folks who've consented to a night of elfgame sexytimes or super-serious WE R EDGY gaming aren't creepers. That's a sideshow.)

AMFV
2014-07-31, 09:10 PM
The creeper is responsible for his (or her!) own actions, and the community is responsible for collectively saying, "dude, not cool."

It is fixable. It's a cultural change, where the harassers are called out for being harassers and we don't collectively shrug and tell the victim, "well, stand up for yourself next time." Where we don't just say, "eh, it's just something that will happen."

(And a quick note - a group of folks who've consented to a night of elfgame sexytimes or super-serious WE R EDGY gaming aren't creepers. That's a sideshow.)

Again, the problem is that we're moving towards things being treated too gently, innocuous things being called creepy, and things that are merely creepy being called abuse.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 09:35 PM
The creeper is responsible for his (or her!) own actions, and the community is responsible for collectively saying, "dude, not cool."

It is fixable. It's a cultural change, where the harassers are called out for being harassers and we don't collectively shrug and tell the victim, "well, stand up for yourself next time." Where we don't just say, "eh, it's just something that will happen."Except people are extremely bad at expressing their intentions, and tend to overblow their own side of a story. A non-answer may not be a yes, but it's not a No either. If everyone assumed my lack of commitment to a course of action was a 'no', my life would be a lot more boring and unsatisfying.

It ISN'T fixable, because new creepers are always coming into the hobby, new players are always picking up the game, and most of them don't have access to our GiantitP Culture - they have their own little cultures all over the place, perpetuating 'problem behaviors' far beyond our Culture Police desires. The message we want to send is confined to our internet echochamber.

The best we can do is tell people to stand up for themselves (And others if they can see it happen), when they come to us - otherwise, we're just preaching to the choir, and causing the anti-abuse message to echo and tighten, and remind people that yes, sometimes these things DO happen, then offer support.

Aedilred
2014-07-31, 09:41 PM
It ISN'T fixable, because new creepers are always coming into the hobby, new players are always picking up the game, and most of them don't have access to our GiantitP Culture - they have their own little cultures all over the place, perpetuating 'problem behaviors' far beyond our Culture Police desires. The message we want to send is confined to our internet echochamber.

The best we can do is tell people to stand up for themselves (And others if they can see it happen), when they come to us - otherwise, we're just preaching to the choir, and causing the anti-abuse message to echo and tighten, and remind people that yes, sometimes these things DO happen, then offer support.
We can try to lead by example: many people here have real-life games with people who aren't members of this community and may be members of others. By upholding values in those games it might help to cause them to disseminate. People here might also be members of other communities themselves, and can attempt to sway the discussion there.

We can't fix the problem, it's true, and certainly not by ourselves. But that doesn't mean we should do nothing and give up all hope. I'm all about making the perfect the enemy of the good, but I'm enough of a hypocrite to say in this instance that's probably a mistake.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 09:47 PM
We can't fix the problem, it's true, and certainly not by ourselves. But that doesn't mean we should do nothing and give up all hope. I'm all about making the perfect the enemy of the good, but I'm enough of a hypocrite to say in this instance that's probably a mistake.
Not going out of our way to do anything isn't the same as giving up hope. We already lead by example, and provide support for those who do end up with uncomfortable gaming sessions. We don't need people yelling at us to do "Even more" when we're doing the best we can, and are at a point where doing more risks causing more harm than benefit.

BRC
2014-07-31, 09:47 PM
Again, the problem is that we're moving towards things being treated too gently, innocuous things being called creepy, and things that are merely creepy being called abuse.
So what do you propose, do nothing at all?

obryn
2014-07-31, 09:50 PM
own[/i] little cultures all over the place, perpetuating 'problem behaviors' far beyond our Culture Police desires. The message we want to send is confined to our internet echochamber
The gaming community is not THAT large. I'm thinking there's fewer than six degrees of separation amongst all gamers.

So, be an example, don't tolerate crappiness, and go from there.

Ideally, a thread like this - or an article like that - changes maybe a handful of minds, and maybe gets people to look at their own behavior. The more people willing to say, "dude, not cool," and the more people aware that harassment in a game is not okay, and the more people examining themselves and their groups... Well, it may never be eradicated, but small changes can snowball.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 09:55 PM
The gaming community is not THAT large. I'm thinking there's fewer than six degrees of separation amongst all gamers.Yes, it is. There are millions of gamers out there. We've got fewer than six degrees of separation among those of us within our echochamber.


So, be an example, don't tolerate crappiness, and go from there.We already do that to the best of our ability.


Ideally, a thread like this - or an article like that - changes maybe a handful of minds, and maybe gets people to look at their own behavior. The more people willing to say, "dude, not cool," and the more people aware that harassment in a game is not okay, and the more people examining themselves and their groups... Well, it may never be eradicated, but small changes can snowball.
The problem is when it changes the minds of the wrong people (As in, those who don't need to change) and causes them to look at their own behavior, and interpret healthy and normal social interaction as potentially abusive/harassing, and leave everyone involved in their lives, including themselves, bland, frustrated, and dissatisfied (I have seen this happen!) It's kinda like screaming that our culture needs to eat less, work out more, and lose weight, and a not-insignificant number of people who are actually healthy keep hearing the message over and over, and start developing eating disorders, overworking, and emaciating themselves because of the din. (While the people the message is intended for exclude themselves from it, ignore it, or get defensive about it)

AMFV
2014-07-31, 09:59 PM
So what do you propose, do nothing at all?

Well if there's nothing productive that can be done, then yes, nothing at all is the best option.

White Blade
2014-07-31, 10:08 PM
I propose growth and maturity from everyone. Not rules, not conferences. Maturity. People looking out for people, watching people to see if they feel uncomfortable, not avoiding all potentially uncomfortable topics without a Fifteen Minute TALK. People speaking up for themselves and being respected when they do. Wallflowers need to watch out for themselves, creeps need to watch that they don't creep people out. And everybody needs to learn to treat everybody else like respectable moral agents. There isn't a Thing That Is Creepy And Unacceptable In All Circumstances. That thing don't exist. We also can't only do things by a complex set of consents, because I've done that.

I've Been To The Other Side. I've moved in circles where every relationship was an eggshell game based around not upsetting the social norm or appearing any way suspicious. I've been condemned for being friends with a girl. I've been told that no woman would ever go out with me because I loved and cared (not romantically) about a woman who was not her. In fact, by this point, we had been friends and only ever friends for three years. We are, sincerely, the most platonic non-related opposite gender pair of people I know. We had Defined The Relationship as Just Friends, I had defined the relationship as just friends. I had sung the song every few weeks for three years, that no, I wasn't interested in Emily. And it was a pointless slog. It was five times the work for half the reward. Most of the other guys in that circle don't even have a single female friend and that's terrible. Its much worse than a little bit of discomfort as we work out how to express our needs and desires appropriately.

You may not be able to imagine what Sartharina is saying and how it looks in reality. BUT I CAN.

Gamgee
2014-07-31, 11:24 PM
So what do you propose, do nothing at all?

There are alternatives to doing nothing. Societal rules don't change, adapt, and overcome things like this by being static and doing nothing. Simply doing nothing is the cowards way out and no one learns anything. Now I'm not proposing radical punishment, but social reinforcement to negative behavior is usually sufficient. Hell there is even some redeemers out there, but they're a rare lot.

If we always choose to do nothing then nothing would ever change. We would be lesser as a society. Less able to overcome challenges. It's not a healthy way to think. Now on the other hand if no one had challenged anyone in this thread? If we let it die. We would all be lesser as people. Except we're here debating. So someday we might have an inkling and be prepared for something like this. Conflict is sometimes the best teacher one can have. It refines knowledge.

Except we did choose to challenge. We did choose to think. Regardless of where our opinions end up at the end of this we're all a little bit stronger. I'm not a big fan of passiveness when I know I shouldn't be. There are always alternatives.

Sartharina
2014-07-31, 11:49 PM
There are alternatives to doing nothing. Societal rules don't change, adapt, and overcome things like this by being static and doing nothing. Simply doing nothing is the cowards way out and no one learns anything. Now I'm not proposing radical punishment, but social reinforcement to negative behavior is usually sufficient. Hell there is even some redeemers out there, but they're a rare lot.

If we always choose to do nothing then nothing would ever change. We would be lesser as a society. Less able to overcome challenges. It's not a healthy way to think. Now on the other hand if no one had challenged anyone in this thread? If we let it die. We would all be lesser as people. Except we're here debating. So someday we might have an inkling and be prepared for something like this. Conflict is sometimes the best teacher one can have. It refines knowledge.

Except we did choose to challenge. We did choose to think. Regardless of where our opinions end up at the end of this we're all a little bit stronger. I'm not a big fan of passiveness when I know I shouldn't be. There are always alternatives.But we're NOT doing 'nothing' - We're faceless goons on the internet, so there's not a lot we can do. But we do offer advice, support, and emotional validation for those who do find themselves being harassed by others (Or any other gaming situation!). We don't need topics like this to do so, though - if you look around, we've got lots of support for people of all types and experiences.

I've seen the "Do something! Anything!" moral panic mentality cause a lot of damage by trying to change society without regard for collateral social damage. And - a lot of the genuine abuse at tables is caused by far, far greater and deeper-rooted cultures than we are even capable of dealing with, and would require violating at least 3 board rules to try to get to the bottom of.

icefractal
2014-07-31, 11:57 PM
Wow. It certainly looks like there's some concern trolling going on.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, though. But ... we can't discuss things, on a discussion board, because it might "warp someone into a Nice Guy"? Maybe we shouldn't talk about game rules because it might warp someone into a rules lawyer? Or talk about powerful characters because it might warp someone into a munchkin?


Anyway, tangent aside. Practical question - someone's being a creep, you called them on it and they don't care, they're proud to be a creep. What can you do, besides leaving?

Make them leave (if they're not hosting). Bring the game to a halt and make things awkward - they don't just get to slide this in under the radar. Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Put it up to the group - is this something they want in the game? A lot of people who would sit by while something creepy happens would nonetheless balk at actively endorsing it.

Basically, if they want to have a good time at someone's expense, make it be a bad time instead. Hopefully, they learn not to do this ****, and at least it doesn't happen this time.

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 12:08 AM
Wow. This certainly looks like concern trolling.
Perhaps I'm mistaken, though. But ... we can't discuss things because it might "warp someone into a Nice Guy"? Maybe we shouldn't talk about game rules because it might warp someone into a rules lawyer? Or talk about powerful characters because it might warp someone into a munchkin?It's not the discussion that's the problem - it's the call to action (Being rebounded repeatedly at those who it doesn't apply to).

And yes, I've seen discussion of the rules convert people into rules lawyers (Usually as a futile attempt to cling to a source of power and validation against controlling DMs), and assumptions/discussions of optimization creating munchkins (Usually caused by optimization races at tables to try and overcome challenges - guy starts out ineffective, tries to figure out how to make himself better, reads a handbook, and suddenly finds himself the most powerful character. The DM then ramps up the challenge, others in the party optimize themselves... and a few sessions/campaigns down the line, they find themselves unable to bring themselves to NOT consult optimization guides and minmax their characters. It's kinda sad to see happen). However, these forums also have enough voices to provide validation for lower-op play and looser rules styles. Campaign journals and memorable moments with rule-breaking and suboptimal characters tend to send some pretty strong messages.

SiuiS
2014-08-01, 12:10 AM
DMs sexually harassing players have a much smaller area-of-damage than Nice Guys who suffer and resent being unable to figure out how to talk to women without fear of the world jumping down their throats for sexual harassment, then switching to 'binary male - jerk mode', and making everyone around them suffer because they're now a jerk.

So, "allow existing issues because the possibility of a different issue exists, don't fix things because you might make them worse"? That's silly.

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 12:28 AM
So, "allow existing issues because the possibility of a different issue exists, don't fix things because you might make them worse"? That's silly.It's not silly - but if your attempt to fix something might make a problem worse, it means you need to think of a different way to fix it. Same with if it creates a different problem. Especially since the 'fix' doesn't actually fix the problem it's trying to.

Gamgee
2014-08-01, 12:34 AM
But we're NOT doing 'nothing' - We're faceless goons on the internet, so there's not a lot we can do. But we do offer advice, support, and emotional validation for those who do find themselves being harassed by others (Or any other gaming situation!). We don't need topics like this to do so, though - if you look around, we've got lots of support for people of all types and experiences.

I've seen the "Do something! Anything!" moral panic mentality cause a lot of damage by trying to change society without regard for collateral social damage. And - a lot of the genuine abuse at tables is caused by far, far greater and deeper-rooted cultures than we are even capable of dealing with, and would require violating at least 3 board rules to try to get to the bottom of.

I think you misunderstand me a little. I mean we can't directly help them, but as people we can grow to learn not to do these things. I suppose we can offer these specific people our advice, but without crucial context and trust it's unlikely they would listen to it let alone follow it.

We always need to discuss as much as possible, even though that may be contradictory to what I said earlier in the thread. Or how else could we grow? Even if we learn how not to do something, we learned. These topics can help with that kind of change, a slow and gradual one. Not perceptive to most people, and maybe not even indicative of a larger situation. Still it's something.

The talking about it is doing something. I never said where the actions would go then. But to do absolutely nothing and sit in silence is not okay. Even if its just a quick "not cool" type of thing then that's all that might be needed. I never said we had to make sweeping changes every time something happens. Just that its crucial we don't sit there like bumps on a log. It's just crucial to not accept this, even if all your doing is making your voice heard. That's all it can take sometimes. But to do absolutely nothing and remain silent... is folly.

Edit
In some situations an "outrage" could be started that isn't so legitimate. If you just sit there and let that movement grow it could be bad. If your willing to run counter voice to it and let people have some alternate opinions that is conflict. Growth through conflict. But sitting in silence, doing nothing, and hoping it resolves itself? Fools work.

Too much people seem to think conflict is violence and anger. :smile: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZFThsHMC5w)

Kid Jake
2014-08-01, 12:51 AM
I never said where the actions would go then.

The actions won't go anywhere because this is a game forum, not an anti-bullying PSA and the sort of people who actually need a good long talking to are also the sort of people who aren't going to listen.

It makes an interesting discussion, but let's not act like it's accomplishing anything.

Gamgee
2014-08-01, 01:06 AM
The actions won't go anywhere because this is a game forum, not an anti-bullying PSA and the sort of people who actually need a good long talking to are also the sort of people who aren't going to listen.

It makes an interesting discussion, but let's not act like it's accomplishing anything.

That seems pretty foolish to make such a large assumption. Every action has a reaction even if you can't see it. I never said by having this discussion that the world would change tomorrow. I merely said it is one discussion in the right direction.

Serpentine
2014-08-01, 02:26 AM
Shout out to Red Fel, BRC, and Obryn (and probably someone else I've forgotten) for being particularly articulate, reasonable and well-spoken. Your posts have been a pleasure to read. :cool:

Mockery for the claim that thinking that having a PC raped or sexually harassed in-game in a way that makes a player extremely uncomfortable out-of-game means that you're for the complete and unrelenting removal of all sex and darkness in every game ever and constantly walking on eggshells lest anything offend the most sensitive of sensibilities, despite exactly zero people saying anything of the sort. :smallbiggrin: If you find the idea of people thinking it is not cool nor acceptable to have extreme nonconsensual in-game sexual violence or harassment that most people would not reasonably assume to be a likely feature of a game to be a threat to your ability to play the game without being "censored", I think that says a lot more about you than about them.
Oddly enough, I've managed to be in a number of games that included some sort of sexual event without that sexuality being either rape or just "unavoidable". None of my games have featured rape, yet no one has ever mentioned feeling "censored" - we have just, oddly enough, not felt the need to include it, and if someone wanted to they would bring it up beforehand to check whether everyone was okay with it. How shocking. I have even managed to play in a number of games in which sex and sexual violence didn't turn up at all, again without even the merest hint of "censorship", because there's roughly a million other things to cover instead. The scandal.

Coidzor
2014-08-01, 02:43 AM
Discussions like this tend to create "Nice Guys" trying to go too far to correct problems beyond their power, and getting frustrated and vindicative over their impotence.

I think you're looking for the term "White Knight."

"Nice Guys" may or may not be the kind of creepers who would spring in-game rape on their players, but I would hazard a guess that the kind of creeper DMs who would do that sort of thing would have a fairly high chance of being "Nice Guys" themselves.

Though I rather doubt even with the correct term that this statement of yours would be very accurate at all.


Maybe it's my defensive driving instincts kicking in, but while it may not be their fault, it doesn't make them less punched, and they should have stood clear if they could. Ultimately, people's lives are in their own hands, and the rest of the world doesn't give a **** about who is 'at fault'. Other people might as well be indifferent forces of nature.

You have to miss the point pretty damn hard to say that it's someone's fault for not dodging that they got punched and that they deserved it as a result. Which is the only thing you can really be doing after you've missed the point this hard.

No one said that it being the fault of the puncher made the punchee any less punched, because that wouldn't make sense.


But we're NOT doing 'nothing' - We're faceless goons on the internet, so there's not a lot we can do. But we do offer advice, support, and emotional validation for those who do find themselves being harassed by others (Or any other gaming situation!).

You said that rape was a great power fantasy at the gaming table instead of in a very specific and careful context in bedrooms between fully informed and consenting adults.

By taking such a position, you've at best hamstrung your ability to provide support and emotional validation, at worst, you've severed them completely. You've similarly damaged your capacity for this by aligning yourself with someone who advocates victim blaming.


Same effect. If the DM is going to ignore you, he'll ignore you and Player 2 just as hard.

Maybe, but he also signals that he doesn't respect his players and loses currency and, eventually, the group as a whole or a significant portion of it. To some extent this is the case with a single player vs. DM, though sometimes DMs can just spin it off as the other party being nothing more than a "problem player."

OTOH, creeper DMs like that and players who enjoy or have no problem or capacity to see a problem with that sort of thing deserve one another anyway as long as they stay away from everyone else.


You are mistaken...

And you are also mistaken and have been since you decided that victim blaming was the height of wisdom and a position to cleave to with all of your might.

Autolykos
2014-08-01, 02:46 AM
If we accept as a given - as AMFV evidently does - that people are responsible for their own actions, why in the world are we (well, he) focusing on a harassment victim's actions instead of the harasser's? Why treat his actions as the "force of nature" instead of hers?

That's like opposite world, from where I'm standing.Mainly because it's not reasonable to expect unreasonable people to change. They may be guilty as hell, but that's a question for lawyers and priests to be concerned about. Everyone else is better off discussing solutions. And those should mainly include the people you can actually reach with rational arguments. Those are the bystanders as well as the victim.
I'd definitely expect all other players at the table to go "Dude, not cool." in such a situation. But barring that, the second best thing would be helping the victim understand how they can avoid ending up in such a situation, or at least solve it by themselves. It's going to do a lot more good in the long term than telling them "you did everything perfectly right, it was just that evil guy, and you had no way of getting out of this by yourself". Sure, telling them that may make them feel better for a while, but it doesn't help them dealing with messed up situations in the future. And, the way humanity is, there are plenty to be expected.
This has nothing to do with "victim-blaming" and everything with SOLVING THE EFFING PROBLEM.

@Sartharina, Re: Nice Guy problem:
Been there, done that, bought the T-Shirt. Luckily I noticed the mistake quickly enough to keep the resulting bitterness to a minimum*. Still, that was my mistake, and it is my responsibility to get it out of my system. I might still be somewhat caught in the "YFYP"-counterreaction to that (so I might come over as a bit too callous right now), but I think that's a necessary step to return to normality and finding a proper balance.

*Imagining what "waking up" must feel like after decades of believing such BS probably explains a lot about some MRAs, though...

Kid Jake
2014-08-01, 04:33 AM
That seems pretty foolish to make such a large assumption. Every action has a reaction even if you can't see it. I never said by having this discussion that the world would change tomorrow. I merely said it is one discussion in the right direction.

And no amount of discussion is going to stop an a-hole from being an a-hole. I agree that there needs to be a serious discussion on this subject, but a forum isn't the place for it. Talk to your kids, teach them to stand up for themselves and to treat their neighbors like actual human beings; then in 20-30 years when they have kids, make sure they teach them the same thing. That's how you make a difference.





Mockery for the claim that thinking that having a PC raped or sexually harassed in-game in a way that makes a player extremely uncomfortable out-of-game means that you're for the complete and unrelenting removal of all sex and darkness in every game ever and constantly walking on eggshells lest anything offend the most sensitive of sensibilities, despite exactly zero people saying anything of the sort.

I don't think that a single person has been in favor of making a player uncomfortable OOC through rape or any other means, but only that it's the player's job to let people know once they get uncomfortable in the first place. In the example given in the article (which most of our tangents have centered around) the girl went along with the DMs advances to progress the plot and reinforced his bad behavior; rather than simply saying "I'm not doing that." She never let anybody know that she was uncomfortable with what was happening until it was over.


If you find the idea of people thinking it is not cool nor acceptable to have extreme nonconsensual in-game sexual violence or harassment that most people would not reasonably assume to be a likely feature of a game to be a threat to your ability to play the game without being "censored", I think that says a lot more about you than about them.

It's not a question of censorship, it's a matter of personal boundaries. Everyone has one and it's not the DM's place to guess what it is. BRC mentioned that 'harmless in-character flirtation' could be sexual harassment, and that's fine. But it needs to be spelled out for people.

If the brawny stable boy offers sexy time to a female PC while mucking the stalls and she feels like I'm trying to get into her pants vicariously through him. so she decides not to come back to the game, then things have broken down on a fundamental level and I don't believe that I'm to blame for that.

If Mr. Brawny Stable Boy starts working his mojo at Ms. PC and she says to me(not the character, but ME) "I want no part of this." then Mr. BSB gets put away or I'm rightfully responsible for any problems that follow. I don't believe I'm wrong to introduce the stable boy to begin with (sometimes you're feeling swarthy and cheesy and you just want to unleash a poo-covered Fabio on the world) but I'd definitely be wrong to press the issue once an objection's been raised.

The criticism wasn't that "If we can't rape players then we might as well play checkers." it was "If we try to guess everything that offends people then we'll never get anything done."

Coidzor
2014-08-01, 04:44 AM
And no amount of discussion is going to stop an a-hole from being an a-hole. I agree that there needs to be a serious discussion on this subject, but a forum isn't the place for it. Talk to your kids, teach them to stand up for themselves and to treat their neighbors like actual human beings; then in 20-30 years when they have kids, make sure they teach them the same thing. That's how you make a difference.

Yeah, it's not like discussing this and how to deal with it could ever help people talk about this sort of thing in meatspace with their groups and hypothetical offspring. :smalltongue:


I don't think that a single person has been in favor of making a player uncomfortable OOC through rape or any other means, but only that it's the player's job to let people know once they get uncomfortable in the first place.

Wrong. It is the DM's job to check and make sure everyone's ok with certain topics. Rape is one such topic. If a DM doesn't check with their players in advance before springing rape on them, at best they're woefully negligent and irresponsible. At worst they demonstrate a lack of respect for the seriousness and gravity of rape and sexual assault.


It's not a question of censorship, it's a matter of personal boundaries. Everyone has one and it's not the DM's place to guess what it is.

It's the DM's place to establish a consensus about the general boundaries of their players before beginning play if they want to take the game off the beaten track, or at least before they actually start dealing with sensitive subjects.


If Mr. Brawny Stable Boy starts working his mojo at Ms. PC and she says to me(not the character, but ME) "I want no part of this." then Mr. BSB gets put away or I'm rightfully responsible for any problems that follow. I don't believe I'm wrong to introduce the stable boy to begin with (sometimes you're feeling swarthy and cheesy and you just want to unleash a poo-covered Fabio on the world) but I'd definitely be wrong to press the issue once an objection's been raised.

...I don't think swarthy (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/swarthy)is quite the word you wanted there.


The criticism wasn't that "If we can't rape players then we might as well play checkers." it was "If we try to guess everything that offends people then we'll never get anything done."

I have good news for you, then. Taking reasonable steps not to skeeve out your players by taking them into sexual situations they want no part of doesn't fall under trying to guess everything that offends people. :smalltongue:

Gamgee
2014-08-01, 04:51 AM
Every action has a consequence kidjake. Maybe someday you'll come to understand that. Maybe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfkiJXnSRM8#t=8m18s).

Lioness
2014-08-01, 05:36 AM
This was an uncomfortable social situation, there is no victim, really. This is the same thing as being told a sexual joke when you aren't comfortable with it. And that sucks, it's crappy. But she wasn't forced to participate, she wasn't even forced to participate in the lead up to what we presume was a simulated sexual encounter.

Actually, participation is what makes the difference between D&D and some guy sitting at a table telling his friends a story.

Rape and sexual assault within the context of a story can be triggering, traumatic, and hard for someone to deal with. Coercing a player into roleplaying such an encounter is on a whole other level. It's no longer just a listening experience. When you listen, you can distance yourself from things that make you uncomfortable. Playing it is completely different. I can tolerate passing mentions of rape...there's no reason it wouldn't happen, abstractly, in the backstory of a character, etc. but to include my character in sexual scenes without my consent is forcing me to participate.

Story time.

There have only been a few times where I've been explicitly uncomfortable within a story. Those times were all with people I played with regularly...otherwise good DMs or players who just didn't understand that there are certain things that don't need to be detailed. I had some implied sexual assault in the backstory of one of my characters...one of the other players thought it was appropriate to make rape jokes at every opportunity. Even after I pretty much did the "please stop, this is making me uncomfortable"
Another instance was when my character was tied up, beaten, and assaulted by an NPC. I was given no opportunity to make rolls to escape, and had no choice in the matter. The DM went in to more detail than I would consider ever necessary for a casual game. It came across as a huge power fantasy from a dude who is usually really clued in on stuff like that...but I found it really hard to distance myself from an incredibly uncomfortable situation. I expressed that I was uncomfortable and he apologised, but that didn't change the fact that it was a really difficult session for me to play in.

The third DM I had was good at handling sensitive topics. She actively said "at the moment, I could potentially introduce sensitive and violent topics. I tend to run gritty campaigns. But let me know if there's anything you're uncomfortable with and I have no problems avoiding that topic"

And look, at the end of the day, I play D&D to relax and enjoy myself with a group of friends. Introducing clearly sensitive topics that have the potential to make people uncomfortable isn't cool. If people could be affected by discussing it in real life, there's no reason to include it anyway because "it's only a game". The participation element takes it up a whole other level. IMO, there's no reason to ever include or coerce a PC in any sort of sexual roleplaying, unless they've indicated that they're ok with it. I'm not sure why it would ever be something that a DM would need to include. Traumatising your players isn't cool.

Kesnit
2014-08-01, 07:46 AM
The actions won't go anywhere because this is a game forum, not an anti-bullying PSA and the sort of people who actually need a good long talking to are also the sort of people who aren't going to listen.

It makes an interesting discussion, but let's not act like it's accomplishing anything.

Directly, no. But (as has been pointed out), the people who read this forum also play. It's not impossible to imagine someone who is reading this thread later being in a game session where they (or another player) are uncomfortable with an event. Knowing about this discussion could lead that player to speak up and say "dude, not cool."

And that is what this thread (and others like it) is accomplishing.


Mockery for the claim that thinking that having a PC raped or sexually harassed in-game in a way that makes a player extremely uncomfortable out-of-game means that you're for the complete and unrelenting removal of all sex and darkness in every game ever and constantly walking on eggshells lest anything offend the most sensitive of sensibilities, despite exactly zero people saying anything of the sort. :smallbiggrin: If you find the idea of people thinking it is not cool nor acceptable to have extreme nonconsensual in-game sexual violence or harassment that most people would not reasonably assume to be a likely feature of a game to be a threat to your ability to play the game without being "censored", I think that says a lot more about you than about them.
Oddly enough, I've managed to be in a number of games that included some sort of sexual event without that sexuality being either rape or just "unavoidable".

My wife's favorite 3.5 book is a 3rd party book called "Book of Erotic Fantasy." (It's actually 3.0, I think.) As you can probably guess, the book deals with sexual themes - base classes, PrC's, weapons, spells, etc. I was in a game where players have used things from that book, and it even involved the party owning and running a brothel. No one had a problem with it because the sexual themes were secondary and everyone knew going in that the book was in play. (Buying the whorehouse came up IC, but the party discussed it and everyone was fine.)

obryn
2014-08-01, 08:09 AM
Mainly because it's not reasonable to expect unreasonable people to change. ...
This has nothing to do with "victim-blaming" and everything with SOLVING THE EFFING PROBLEM.
If an unrepentant creeper DM or player finds him- or herself without a group to play with, as it seems might have happened in the article once three players hit the road, I tend to think even the most unreasonable creeper will get the hint.

That's also part of what this discussion is about. It's one thing if one player tells them, "dude, not cool." If half a table or a whole table does? Well, now we're getting somewhere.

White Blade
2014-08-01, 08:26 AM
Introducing clearly sensitive topics that have the potential to make people uncomfortable isn't cool. If people could be affected by discussing it in real life, there's no reason to include it anyway because "it's only a game". The participation element takes it up a whole other level. IMO, there's no reason to ever include or coerce a PC in any sort of sexual roleplaying, unless they've indicated that they're ok with it. I'm not sure why it would ever be something that a DM would need to include. Traumatising your players isn't cool.

Okay. No. The word traumatizing has meaning, and it reflects things that dramatically and permanently shape us in hideous ways. Not to things that make us uncomfortable or unhappy.

Chronic bullying, with or without violence, can be traumatizing. Being made fun of once is not. Even if it is harsh and or painful.

And I'm against both those things. But don't use rhetoric in a way that over magnifies the significance of a thing. If what happened to you was traumatic, I think it certainly would have changed your life. I don't know if, for you personally, it was traumatic. Clearly you spoke up and, in some instances, were heard. That's as much as I could ask of anyone. I do however oppose turning things into universalizing bans because they make someone unhappy/uncomfortable. People need to approach all topics with concern and care - But there really isn't a way of getting consent that isn't equally as coercive as just doing it and listening for a response.

In life, I believe that there are three really important things and I prioritize them like so Freedom/Agency->Goodness/Virtue->Happiness. This is really a dispute of the third against the first. Turning it into a Law of Never Speaking About These Topics Without Explicit Consent inhibits intimacy and the opportunity for growth and virtue. I'm not really down with that.

But if you were traumatized by something that happened in a game, then I'm sorry. Truly.

AMFV
2014-08-01, 08:51 AM
Actually, participation is what makes the difference between D&D and some guy sitting at a table telling his friends a story.

Rape and sexual assault within the context of a story can be triggering, traumatic, and hard for someone to deal with. Coercing a player into roleplaying such an encounter is on a whole other level. It's no longer just a listening experience. When you listen, you can distance yourself from things that make you uncomfortable. Playing it is completely different. I can tolerate passing mentions of rape...there's no reason it wouldn't happen, abstractly, in the backstory of a character, etc. but to include my character in sexual scenes without my consent is forcing me to participate.

Absolute bunk. I'm sorry but you aren't being forced to participate in the game, any more than a rape scene in a movie is forcing to watch the movie, when you could turn it off. Now I'll accept that there is some social impetus that might not exist within the context of watching TV, but I don't accept that social impetus acts as coercive force, else "I was just following orders" would be a legal defense and there'd be no such thing as a war crime.



Story time.

There have only been a few times where I've been explicitly uncomfortable within a story. Those times were all with people I played with regularly...otherwise good DMs or players who just didn't understand that there are certain things that don't need to be detailed. I had some implied sexual assault in the backstory of one of my characters...one of the other players thought it was appropriate to make rape jokes at every opportunity. Even after I pretty much did the "please stop, this is making me uncomfortable"
Another instance was when my character was tied up, beaten, and assaulted by an NPC. I was given no opportunity to make rolls to escape, and had no choice in the matter. The DM went in to more detail than I would consider ever necessary for a casual game. It came across as a huge power fantasy from a dude who is usually really clued in on stuff like that...but I found it really hard to distance myself from an incredibly uncomfortable situation. I expressed that I was uncomfortable and he apologised, but that didn't change the fact that it was a really difficult session for me to play in.


Yes, we're not arguing that the DM may have (depending on the veracity of the story) behaved inappropriately. But you could have left. You didn't have to include sexual assault in your backstory, staying in a game where content becomes something you disapprove is tacitly opting-in to the content. Of course you did bring things up, but you still stayed, which is approval, for example there is a certain chain store I disapprove of, vehemently, if I shop there I am tacitly expressing approval for their practices. So I don't, even though it would make my life, much, much easier. If I watch NFL I am expressing an approval for how they do things, through my participation. Participating in a system that isn't going to change is roughly (not exactly) equivalent to saying that it's really okay, or at least that you are willing to tolerate it.



The third DM I had was good at handling sensitive topics. She actively said "at the moment, I could potentially introduce sensitive and violent topics. I tend to run gritty campaigns. But let me know if there's anything you're uncomfortable with and I have no problems avoiding that topic"

And look, at the end of the day, I play D&D to relax and enjoy myself with a group of friends. Introducing clearly sensitive topics that have the potential to make people uncomfortable isn't cool. If people could be affected by discussing it in real life, there's no reason to include it anyway because "it's only a game". The participation element takes it up a whole other level. IMO, there's no reason to ever include or coerce a PC in any sort of sexual roleplaying, unless they've indicated that they're ok with it. I'm not sure why it would ever be something that a DM would need to include. Traumatising your players isn't cool.

I'm saying that bringing up rape in D&D is not abuse, it's not really harassment. I've never said that it isn't in poor taste, or that it's cool. But that it's not rape, or abuse, or harassment. It's not cool to do that. I'm also saying that there is some responsibility on the part of the players to change things. The DM is not God, he's not the boss of you, his word isn't law (in any real sense), that means that all of the players have exactly equivalent responsibility to fix any problem in the game.





You have to miss the point pretty damn hard to say that it's someone's fault for not dodging that they got punched and that they deserved it as a result. Which is the only thing you can really be doing after you've missed the point this hard.

No one said that it being the fault of the puncher made the punchee any less punched, because that wouldn't make sense.


But I'm saying that if the punchee, later came on the internet and claimed to have been beaten within an inch of their life after having been hit once, then we would need to address the claim. Because it's false. Or in this case, if the puncher didn't actually hit the victim but rather said: "My imaginary friend is going to hit your imaginary friend" and the punchee then acted as though that was tantamount to being punched we need to take a step back and evaluate that since it's going to make it more difficult for genuine victims of being punched to defend themselves, legally and socially. Because to many observers, that story appears ridiculous.



You said that rape was a great power fantasy at the gaming table instead of in a very specific and careful context in bedrooms between fully informed and consenting adults.

By taking such a position, you've at best hamstrung your ability to provide support and emotional validation, at worst, you've severed them completely. You've similarly damaged your capacity for this by aligning yourself with someone who advocates victim blaming.


That's definitely a good stance, attack the person making an argument rather than their position, using charged words like "victim blaming" to shame them into complying with the position held by you. I'm pretty sure that's not moving the discussion in a productive direction.



Maybe, but he also signals that he doesn't respect his players and loses currency and, eventually, the group as a whole or a significant portion of it. To some extent this is the case with a single player vs. DM, though sometimes DMs can just spin it off as the other party being nothing more than a "problem player."

OTOH, creeper DMs like that and players who enjoy or have no problem or capacity to see a problem with that sort of thing deserve one another anyway as long as they stay away from everyone else.

And you are also mistaken and have been since you decided that victim blaming was the height of wisdom and a position to cleave to with all of your might.

But not factually mistaken, no? Being a victim does not abdicate your responsibility as a human being. If I'm assaulted and then I claim that the assaulter had STDs, in public and it affects their business and I'm lying, I've slandered them. It doesn't matter that I'm more sympathetic, or that I was their victim, slander and libel are still slander and libel.

Furthermore, we are discussing ways to prevent being a victim, the same way that I would tell a woman who is concerned about her safety, "avoid dark alleyways at night". And if somebody, knowing the risks, chooses to do something, then they accept those risks. If I go around insulting bikers till somebody punches me, after they'd threatened to do just that, then I'm at least partly at fault, and yes, it's true that I'm still a victim, but to say that the matter was entirely out of my fault is at best erroneous and at it's worst, it makes it seem as though the victim is in all cases powerless.

Lastly, saying "I think that story sounds a little fishy" isn't blaming the victim, just because a story is emotionally wrenching and contains volatile topics, does not mean we should simply accept it as true. I'll go further and state, especially when a story is intended to evoke certain emotions and deliberately brushes against volatile topics we should question it. Is a lawyer defending somebody accused of rape, victim blaming? Does that term have any veracity to it outside of a slogan, I think not. Just because our emotions are raised does not mean we should simply accept all the facts of a particular scenario.


Shout out to Red Fel, BRC, and Obryn (and probably someone else I've forgotten) for being particularly articulate, reasonable and well-spoken. Your posts have been a pleasure to read. :cool:

Mockery for the claim that thinking that having a PC raped or sexually harassed in-game in a way that makes a player extremely uncomfortable out-of-game means that you're for the complete and unrelenting removal of all sex and darkness in every game ever and constantly walking on eggshells lest anything offend the most sensitive of sensibilities, despite exactly zero people saying anything of the sort. :smallbiggrin: If you find the idea of people thinking it is not cool nor acceptable to have extreme nonconsensual in-game sexual violence or harassment that most people would not reasonably assume to be a likely feature of a game to be a threat to your ability to play the game without being "censored", I think that says a lot more about you than about them.
Oddly enough, I've managed to be in a number of games that included some sort of sexual event without that sexuality being either rape or just "unavoidable". None of my games have featured rape, yet no one has ever mentioned feeling "censored" - we have just, oddly enough, not felt the need to include it, and if someone wanted to they would bring it up beforehand to check whether everyone was okay with it. How shocking. I have even managed to play in a number of games in which sex and sexual violence didn't turn up at all, again without even the merest hint of "censorship", because there's roughly a million other things to cover instead. The scandal.

And we have no way of knowing that this game contained "unavoidable" sexual contact, the article writer explicitly DID NOT say as much, he said, that she said, "It just seemed like it was going that direction" Which is hardly indicative of coercion.


So, "allow existing issues because the possibility of a different issue exists, don't fix things because you might make them worse"? That's silly.

No, don't knee-jerk and amputate your arm just because it itches. Big solutions to problems that are demonstrably fairly small tend to create a lot more problems than they solve. There are very few people who are being harassed in roleplay, we have only a few examples on the internet of people reporting (and internet reporting is much more likely to be dishonest, since there is no penalty for being so). It would be ill-advised to create a world wide solution that is more likely to cause problems, since problematic people aren't likely to be fixed by it, and instead you'll have players who use it as a tool to bully DMs who would like to do the right thing, you'll have people so afraid of saying the wrong thing that they don't say anything at all and the game slowly devolves into nothing.


If an unrepentant creeper DM or player finds him- or herself without a group to play with, as it seems might have happened in the article once three players hit the road, I tend to think even the most unreasonable creeper will get the hint.

That's also part of what this discussion is about. It's one thing if one player tells them, "dude, not cool." If half a table or a whole table does? Well, now we're getting somewhere.

Ah, but what's to stop a table from then oppressing their DM. Saying, "Combat is traumatic for me" and then causing it to be banned, "not getting all the treasure I want is traumatic for me" and then getting all the treasure, making the game miserable for the DM. I'm not saying at all that this is what happened in the story, mind. But it's certainly something I see as likely, it is much more likely that the type of thing you're trying to create would be coopted by people who would abuse it than used by people who were already not likely to stand up in the first place.

obryn
2014-08-01, 08:56 AM
So.... let me see if I get this straight. Right now, a gamer's personal experience of harassment is getting minimized, criticized, and picked apart in a thread about how harassment is a problem in the hobby.

Huh.

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 09:08 AM
I think you're looking for the term "White Knight."

"Nice Guys" may or may not be the kind of creepers who would spring in-game rape on their players, but I would hazard a guess that the kind of creeper DMs who would do that sort of thing would have a fairly high chance of being "Nice Guys" themselves.

Though I rather doubt even with the correct term that this statement of yours would be very accurate at all.I find White Knights and Nice Guys to overlap a lot, and come from the same degree of being told they have a problem they don't. It's like some sort of social anorexia.


You have to miss the point pretty damn hard to say that it's someone's fault for not dodging that they got punched and that they deserved it as a result. Which is the only thing you can really be doing after you've missed the point this hard.

No one said that it being the fault of the puncher made the punchee any less punched, because that wouldn't make sense.The point is that the person who has the social awareness to dodge doesn't end up getting punched. No, it doesn't make them at fault or liable for the situation, but it also doesn't mean they're always powerless to change their fate (From being punched to Not Being Punched). There's a reason when we have people come here talking about problem players, DMs, and Groups, we focus on telling the person what they can do about it instead of merely stick to talking about how wrong the people in the group are and how they need to change - because we do not have the power to change their behavior, and often when we call the problem players on it, they get defensive and ignore the possibility that they're the problem. By advising people on what they could have done or what they can do, we try to empower them to get out of or avoid bad situations. People are like forces of nature - you can't always do anything about them, but you can do your best to get out of their way.

Whenever these sorts of situations come up, I'm reminded of an extensive case of an abusive relationship

You said that rape was a great power fantasy at the gaming table instead of in a very specific and careful context in bedrooms between fully informed and consenting adults.

By taking such a position, you've at best hamstrung your ability to provide support and emotional validation, at worst, you've severed them completely. You've similarly damaged your capacity for this by aligning yourself with someone who advocates victim blaming.My gaming table is more private than most, and everyone who plays at it is aware of and enjoys the content. As far as aligning myself with AMFV - My opinions and stance are my own (And are more aligned with Kidjake's anyway).


Maybe, but he also signals that he doesn't respect his players and loses currency and, eventually, the group as a whole or a significant portion of it. To some extent this is the case with a single player vs. DM, though sometimes DMs can just spin it off as the other party being nothing more than a "problem player."And if you can't get through to the problem DM/Player that their being a problem, then blaming them (Without trying to empower others to take their own actions to get away from them) does nothing more than stroke your own self-righteousness and indignation, which accomplishes nothing.


OTOH, creeper DMs like that and players who enjoy or have no problem or capacity to see a problem with that sort of thing deserve one another anyway as long as they stay away from everyone else.And if they do keep that behavior away from people who don't want it, while mutually enjoying it, they're not problem-people. It's not a problem if people aren't getting hurt/uncomfortable about it.


Shout out to Red Fel, BRC, and Obryn (and probably someone else I've forgotten) for being particularly articulate, reasonable and well-spoken. Your posts have been a pleasure to read. :cool:

Mockery for the claim that thinking that having a PC raped or sexually harassed in-game in a way that makes a player extremely uncomfortable out-of-game means that you're for the complete and unrelenting removal of all sex and darkness in every game ever and constantly walking on eggshells lest anything offend the most sensitive of sensibilities, despite exactly zero people saying anything of the sort. :smallbiggrin: If you find the idea of people thinking it is not cool nor acceptable to have extreme nonconsensual in-game sexual violence or harassment that most people would not reasonably assume to be a likely feature of a game to be a threat to your ability to play the game without being "censored", I think that says a lot more about you than about them.
Oddly enough, I've managed to be in a number of games that included some sort of sexual event without that sexuality being either rape or just "unavoidable". None of my games have featured rape, yet no one has ever mentioned feeling "censored" - we have just, oddly enough, not felt the need to include it, and if someone wanted to they would bring it up beforehand to check whether everyone was okay with it. How shocking. I have even managed to play in a number of games in which sex and sexual violence didn't turn up at all, again without even the merest hint of "censorship", because there's roughly a million other things to cover instead. The scandal.As kidjake said, you have different personal boundries than others. You are a 'normal' person with 'normal' sexual interests/etc. I, on the other hand, am a deviant. I know I'm a deviant. I don't care that I'm a deviant. My interests are my own, and telling me that I shouldn't have them results in me dismissing you on the internet, and stuffing a sock in your face in a face-to-face meeting. Fortunately for me, I have deviant friends of similar interests I can play with, and we all get together and have a good time that wouldn't be socially acceptable if we were anyone else, but we're all fine with it, and can enjoy our elfgame time with each other, and enjoy more normal games with others without contaminating those other games with the deviancy we can get up to during our own games.


Directly, no. But (as has been pointed out), the people who read this forum also play. It's not impossible to imagine someone who is reading this thread later being in a game session where they (or another player) are uncomfortable with an event. Knowing about this discussion could lead that player to speak up and say "dude, not cool."

And that is what this thread (and others like it) is accomplishing.I find the other threads do a much better job, because it's using showcasing a direct example of the support and advice we can offer, as well as showing off (Often multiple!) cases of abuse/harassment that can get people to stand up and say 'not cool!' about. (But getting up and saying "Not cool" is something you have to do - the person not being cool won't stop on their own, and might not ever, no matter how much their fault it is)

RabbitHoleLost
2014-08-01, 09:09 AM
We've also been told that rape and subsequent possibilities of being triggered by mention or RPing is not traumatic, only upsetting and uncomfortable
and how dare we rape victims call it traumatic
and how dare we ask for consideration in terms of subject matter, or atleast a heads up with the option to opt out, because DM/GM's have a right to play whatever sexual situation out in their game that they like

Sorry, I'll try to remember that being raped was my choice and that I have to live with the consequences if I decide I'd also like to play a table top rp game-
Because my presence signifies consent.

(in all my years on this forum, in so many topics regarding rape, I have never once confessed to this.
That's how sick some of you make me.)

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 09:16 AM
So.... let me see if I get this straight. Right now, a gamer's personal experience of harassment is getting minimized, criticized, and picked apart in a thread about how harassment is a problem in the hobby.

Huh.Well, even I'm finding AMFV's stance to be "WTFery", even when I almost agree that not properly expressing . However, he seems ignorant of human nature to a point that's offensive.

Something else blowing his argument out of the water - The Nuremburg Defense ("I was just following orders!") is a no-win legal situation, and since it's popped up, in any case short of genocide it is a legal defense.

AMFV
2014-08-01, 09:24 AM
Well, even I'm finding AMFV's stance to be "WTFery", even when I almost agree that not properly expressing . However, he seems ignorant of human nature to a point that's offensive.

Something else blowing his argument out of the water - The Nuremburg Defense ("I was just following orders!") is a no-win legal situation, and since it's popped up, in any case short of genocide it is a legal defense.

It is not a legal defense at all for anything. Warfighters are required to disobey illegal orders. If your boss tells you to launder money, that does not make it okay, even legally. It is absolutely not a legal defense and its the stance of spineless cowards who can't even bear responsibility for their own actions

Lioness
2014-08-01, 09:32 AM
Okay. No. The word traumatizing has meaning, and it reflects things that dramatically and permanently shape us in hideous ways. Not to things that make us uncomfortable or unhappy.

And maybe if I had been raped or assaulted, as a large number of women have been, I would find roleplaying similar scenarios actually traumatising rather than just uncomfortable. Sexual assault is common enough IRL that introducing it to a roleplaying scenario has a pretty high chance of affecting someone.


If what happened to you was traumatic, I think it certainly would have changed your life.

And who are you to say that it didn't?


I do however oppose turning things into universalizing bans because they make someone unhappy/uncomfortable. People need to approach all topics with concern and care - But there really isn't a way of getting consent that isn't equally as coercive as just doing it and listening for a response.

Who's talking universal bans? I'm just wanting DMs to treat sensitive topics with care, and not just include them in a game because of some messed up power fantasy or unrequited desire.


But if you were traumatized by something that happened in a game, then I'm sorry. Truly.

Yeah that's not really the impression I'm getting.



Absolute bunk. I'm sorry but you aren't being forced to participate in the game, any more than a rape scene in a movie is forcing to watch the movie, when you could turn it off. Now I'll accept that there is some social impetus that might not exist within the context of watching TV, but I don't accept that social impetus acts as coercive force, else "I was just following orders" would be a legal defense and there'd be no such thing as a war crime.

Just because I have the option to walk away doesn't change that something problematic happened in the first place

In good D&D games, players shouldn't feel like they have to walk away from the group in order to not feel uncomfortable and continue having a good time.

The things we're discussing here aren't things that would come up in ordinary conversation. So why are they coming up so frequently in games? This shouldn't even be an issue, but bad DMs with power fantasies are making it one. I wouldn't go into a D&D with the expectation that my character might be raped. And movies have content warnings for a reason...if I'm distressed by violent scenes, I know to avoid that movie.



But you could have left. You didn't have to include sexual assault in your backstory, staying in a game where content becomes something you disapprove is tacitly opting-in to the content.

1) why would I leave a game full of my friends? An event that makes me uncomfortable is not the same as continued in-game sexual harassment. If it had continued, I certainly would've left, but it was relatively isolated.
2) my backstory has nothing to do with what sort of content is feasible in-game. I shared it with only the DM, and he saw fit to make passing comments that invited crude jokes from the other players. Not cool.


Of course you did bring things up, but you still stayed, which is approval, for example there is a certain chain store I disapprove of, vehemently, if I shop there I am tacitly expressing approval for their practices. So I don't, even though it would make my life, much, much easier. If I watch NFL I am expressing an approval for how they do things, through my participation. Participating in a system that isn't going to change is roughly (not exactly) equivalent to saying that it's really okay, or at least that you are willing to tolerate it.

Yeah, that's victim blaming. It's not my fault that I had an uncomfortable experience. I don't hate that DM, or those players, and I've chosen how I deal with it, but it's not my fault it happened. It's the DM's responsibility to run a game that their players enjoy, and that includes being mindful of any potentially sensitive issues. I've managed to run several games so far without making my players uncomfortable or distressed.


I'm saying that bringing up rape in D&D is not abuse, it's not really harassment.

I don't think you're seeing the difference between "bringing something up" and "forcing a player to roleplay". Yada yada forcing you can leave etc...doesn't change the fact that the DM is putting their players in an in-game unavoidable uncomfortable roleplaying situation. Whether or not the players can avoid it out of game, there is no way for their character to avoid it, and that seems a hell of a lot like a forced interaction when everyone's roleplaying together and working to keep things running smoothly.

Irish Musician
2014-08-01, 09:33 AM
As I read this discussion there seems to be a lot of finger pointing and assumptions going on about what dictates harassment, if this discussion matters, if what we are doing right now will change anything, etc, etc, etc.

Stop it. Just stop it. Unless you are the person making the statement (this is just the closest example so I am sorry, White Blade, not trying to single you out) much like "I am traumatized by this" and then telling that person that they weren't really traumatized because "being made fun of once is not" is not an acceptable response to someone saying that something effected* them in such a profound way.

Same with "nothing said here is going to change anything". This statement assumes that you know how things that are said effect* everyone who reads them. But, again, you cannot possibly know that.

The bottom line is this: If there is a creeper DM doing things that make someone uncomfortable, tell them. If they don't know there is a problem, how can they stop it? But also, if a DM is going to be introducing themes into their game that are more disturbing and they do not know their players very well, tell them this. If someone is uncomfortable with a particular theme, then it is really easy to exclude it from the game and rewrite a little bit to keep it out. And no, bringing up rape in a game is not harassment.....unless someone speaks up and says it makes them uncomfortable and the DM keeps bringing it up, then yes, that would be harassment. If you knowingly bring up something that makes someone feel like crap and they have told you to stop, then that is harassment.

You should be a decent human being enough to know when something makes another person ask yo to stop, it is time to stop it. Unfortunately, as it has been said, not everyone is like this. That does NOT mean that we should just not discuss it or stop because "the right people won't change their minds about it." To make a change, even people who agree with us need to hear this information. It is one things to agree with it and never talk about it. It is very much another to read it, get fired up about it, and then the next time it happens actually say something to said DM (or whoever really) and tell them that isn't a cool thing to do. The things we say and do always mean something, and nothing is ever done in vain. It will effect* someone out there......we just don't have any idea how.

I would also like to say that I apologize for all my fellow human beings on here that seem to want to shame victims. They probably think they are correct and just cannot see the way they are hurting people, even if it is obvious to us. I hope in the future this discussion will change the way at least some people think about their fellow human beings and how their actions effect* them.

edit: My number 1 rule for D&D is to have fun, that is the whole point of the game. So if someone isn't having fun due to what the DM does, then the DM needs to change it so that everyone is having fun. Otherwise what the hell are we doing here, yeah?



* I am no good at deciding which one to use, so apologies if I used the incorrect one. Damn English has to be so complicated :smallamused:

Morty
2014-08-01, 09:42 AM
Absolute bunk. I'm sorry but you aren't being forced to participate in the game, any more than a rape scene in a movie is forcing to watch the movie, when you could turn it off. Now I'll accept that there is some social impetus that might not exist within the context of watching TV, but I don't accept that social impetus acts as coercive force, else "I was just following orders" would be a legal defense and there'd be no such thing as a war crime.

They shouldn't have to avoid participating. That's the whole point, which you spend a considerable amount of effort dodging. A player shouldn't be put in a situation where they're no longer comfortable playing through no fault of their own. If the DM is forcing sexual situations on a player who is extremely uncomfortable with it, they should stop it or leave. Not the player.


Ah, but what's to stop a table from then oppressing their DM. Saying, "Combat is traumatic for me" and then causing it to be banned, "not getting all the treasure I want is traumatic for me" and then getting all the treasure, making the game miserable for the DM. I'm not saying at all that this is what happened in the story, mind. But it's certainly something I see as likely, it is much more likely that the type of thing you're trying to create would be coopted by people who would abuse it than used by people who were already not likely to stand up in the first place.

What a beautiful slippery slope fallacy. Nothing "stops" players from oppressing the DM, but in the same, extremely technical, view, nothing stops a DM like the one in the article from being a creep, either. Nothing, that is, other than everyone being mature and respecting each other's boundaries. Which is, you know, the thing that was postulated in the first place.

Aedilred
2014-08-01, 09:48 AM
Absolute bunk. I'm sorry but you aren't being forced to participate in the game, any more than a rape scene in a movie is forcing to watch the movie, when you could turn it off. Now I'll accept that there is some social impetus that might not exist within the context of watching TV, but I don't accept that social impetus acts as coercive force, else "I was just following orders" would be a legal defense and there'd be no such thing as a war crime.
Sarathina's point about "I was just following orders" aside, there is a big difference between encountering a rape scene in a film and experiencing a rape scene in a RPG. The former is a neutral presentation of something happening to a third party. The latter is a personalised, directed presentation of something happening to a representation of you.

A better comparison would be going to someone's house and watching a film they've directed, which includes a rape scene of a character based on you.

Nobody has been saying this was actual, real-life rape no matter how many times you try to make out that's what's going on. But nor was this a casual conversation or arbitrary film/TV scene about rape which the player happened to encounter or overhear, which is what you're trying to present it as. You're missing the personal element which is what makes the scenario creepy and harass-y in the first place.


Furthermore, we are discussing ways to prevent being a victim, the same way that I would tell a woman who is concerned about her safety, "avoid dark alleyways at night". And if somebody, knowing the risks, chooses to do something, then they accept those risks.

This is a contentious area, but to me this approach runs a bit too close for my liking to treating crime as an unavoidable force of nature, a random occurrence that nobody can control, and all you can do is manage the risk. Perhaps on a macro level that's the case. But in individual cases it's still the choice of an individual person to commit that crime. Women should be able to walk down dark alleys without fear of being assaulted, and that some people take actions or risks that make themselves more vulnerable to crime, doesn't mean it's not ultimately the criminal's fault.

Not to mention that "should have known better" is only a very short hop away from "was asking for it".


Lastly, saying "I think that story sounds a little fishy" isn't blaming the victim, just because a story is emotionally wrenching and contains volatile topics, does not mean we should simply accept it as true.

Again, you're confusing two different issues and obfuscating the debate. Whether the scenario actually happened as described, and whether the victim in the scenario as described is to blame, are two separate things.

If we're discussing, say, whether Dumbledore is to blame for what happens in Order of the Phoenix, the statement that "this story is fictional so we can't judge" is both true and entirely irrelevant. In this instance, we might as well be discussing fictional characters called Lucy and Jason or whatever, and querying the truth of the account is beside the point. If this were a kangaroo court or we were trying to organise some sort of campaign against the DM in question, then yes, whether it was true would be important. As it stands, it's really not.

The issues people have with your apparent blaming of the victim have nothing to do with your saying the story sounds fishy, and everything to do with your judgment of the situation as presented.



* I am no good at deciding which one to use, so apologies if I used the incorrect one. Damn English has to be so complicated :smallamused:
In this instance, it's "affect". I would explain the difference, but I can't think of an easy way of doing so. In common parlance, "affect" is the verb, "effect" is the noun... There is a verb "to effect" but it's rather less common.

obryn
2014-08-01, 09:51 AM
First off, thank you Lioness, RabbitHoleLost, and Irish Musician. And a bunch of folks upthread, sorry if I'm not mentioning you by name. And I'm very sorry to hear about your personal experiences.


Ah, but what's to stop a table from then oppressing their DM. Saying, "Combat is traumatic for me" and then causing it to be banned, "not getting all the treasure I want is traumatic for me" and then getting all the treasure, making the game miserable for the DM. I'm not saying at all that this is what happened in the story, mind. But it's certainly something I see as likely, it is much more likely that the type of thing you're trying to create would be coopted by people who would abuse it than used by people who were already not likely to stand up in the first place.
Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and take your strawman. Let's say there's a group for which combat is traumatic. (Don't believe this is possible? Fine. Take it as a thought experiment.) What's the proper way for the DM and players to reach agreement on a game they want to play?

If you ask me, it'd be to run a game where there's no (or minimal) combat. Ryuutama, say. Or a narrative RPG like Fate Core with different fundamental game assumptions than D&D. Games where the challenges aren't all about fighting monsters. The proper response is not for the DM to say, "Suck it up, players, I'm running whatever game I want to run." If you want to game in a group together, you reach agreement about the type of game you want to play.

Otherwise the whole situation is pretty laughable, and it's pretty amazing you think it's "more likely."

draken50
2014-08-01, 09:59 AM
The fact is, no one is saying that all games must be absolutely devoid of sexual themes. What is being said, is that some consideration needs to be paid before those themes are brought up.

Instances of rape and sexual assault are sadly common, and even if you aren't aware of it players in these games may have had to deal with it. The response of "Deal with it" to someone who has had to deal with that sort of issue is callous, immature, and in mindset ignorant. I have personally known suffers of abuse of that nature and they are not particularly inclined to share their story with people who make them feel violated.

Most of what people seem to ask is that if you see creepy, skeezy, or inappropriate behavior, to call the person on it. While you personally may not have been horribly effected, I would imagine it's much easier for someone who is to "Deal with it" when their friends/comrades are willing to step forward and say "That's messed up, knock it off."

I have not personally had to experience sexual assault, however, in any game I am in I will absolutely call a stop if that sort of thing begins to occur, excepting the case where the issue was discussed beforehand and all players joined the game knowing those themes would be present.

I am not asking for people to reshape their personalities and views, but I will ask that you have some consideration and compassion for people who have dealt with, or are currently dealing with sexual assault, even when you don't personally know about it.

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 10:03 AM
This is a contentious area, but to me this approach runs a bit too close for my liking to treating crime as an unavoidable force of nature, a random occurrence that nobody can control, and all you can do is manage the risk.I'm sorry reality doesn't match up to whatever fantastic utopia you believe the world should function like.
Perhaps on a macro level that's the case. But in individual cases it's still the choice of an individual person to commit that crime. Women should be able to walk down dark alleys without fear of being assaulted, and that some people take actions or risks that make themselves more vulnerable to crime, doesn't mean it's not ultimately the criminal's fault. While it may run too close to that, it's the truth of the matter. On the macro level, yeah, the criminal's at fault - but on the individual level, you can only control your own actions, not the actions of others - your well-being is ultimately your own responsibility, because those that seek to make you a victim don't give a damn about how you feel. Sure, people should be able to walk down dark alleys without fear of being assaulted, but the reality is they can't, and should take as many reasonable precautions as they can. No, they won't be the ones on trial if something does happen to them - but it won't stop the Bad Thing from happening to them regardless of whether they're "At Fault" or not. Crime, Injury, and Trauma don't give a damn about liability or responsibility.


Not to mention that "should have known better" is only a very short hop away from "was asking for it".It may be a short hop away, but it's still away, and not the same thing. That said, "Should have known better" also implies "Didn't know better" - which means no liability.

Segev
2014-08-01, 10:28 AM
Let us, for the sake of argument, say you are 100% correct here and this is absolutely going to happen if we continue this conversation.

Are you then arguing that this is somehow a worse outcome then letting creepy DMs sexually harass players?
I believe the issue is that those who are objecting to the hard-line "how dare that DM even try something like this" stance are not saying "what the DM did was obviously okay." What they're saying is that the line may or may not be clear as to what IS okay and what is not.

Obviously, physical assault at the gaming table - real person to real person - is totally over the line. I don't think anybody disagrees with that. It's also pretty clear, from the outside, that the situation described that started this whole thread is poor behavior. It looks to us like a DM exercising in-game a fantasy involving the player when the player rejected his advances for even the start of that road out-of-game.

However, in the DM's mind, he may - and I'm not justifying, but simply hypothesizing - have thought he was simply creating a believable creep of an NPC (or even a suave and debonaire one that he played poorly). People do not always recognize their behavior as poor when they're doing it. It doesn't justify it, but it does make it ring more hollow when others, after the fact, call him a horrible person while they stood around and did nothing to mitigate, prevent, or stop it.

I agree, what we should be doing is encouraging people to stand up for themselves. Moreover, everybody should take some time, either deliberately or as part of growing up, to determine what their standards, their limits, their boundaries, and their expectations are. They should check those against the social norms of their community and the moral standards of their personal beliefs, and figure out for themselves what they think is acceptable behavior, what is "acceptable-with-consent," and what is unacceptable.

They should stand up and speak out if they see unacceptable behavior going on, and they should also stand up and speak out if they see what they think is absolutely acceptable behavior being treated as unacceptable. That latter is critical, because it is the bulwark against the problems people are having with the whole "how dare you blame the victim!?" mentality.

If I am understanding AMFV correctly, here...

Again, the problem is that we're moving towards things being treated too gently, innocuous things being called creepy, and things that are merely creepy being called abuse.
...he is alluding to the weaponization of victim-status that has become prevalent in modern American culture. I have often referred to it as being "professionally offended."

Anything the professionally offended person doesn't like - including things which don't actually effect him, or which he could handle by choosing a different group of friends - is personally offensive to him. And, as such, he is now the (very loud) victim. How dare anybody disagree with him? They're horrible people who are being insensitive and bigoted/sexist/racist/homophobic/abusive/creepy/mean and therefore are deserving of whatever criticism, shaming, bullying, or aggression the weaponized victim chooses to inflict until they comply with whatever demands the weaponized victim makes.

You can claim the "what stops the players from bullying their DM" thing is a slippery slope fallacy, but there is a very specific way you refute a slippery slope argument: you draw a line in the sand where you say, "this is where I agree it will have gone too far."


We have slipped down the slippery slope in many cases. Internet arguments alone provide ample evidence of the professionally offended dictating that disagreement with them constitutes harassment, bigotry, or some other disqualifying adjective, and thus they're "right" because anybody saying otherwise is a bad person.

Spoilered here because it veers slightly off-topic:

Much as I would never, ever defend sexual abusers, we HAVE gone too far in some ways in our legal and social systems. Completely innocent men (and women) get put on the sexual predator lists because of accusations or an overzealous judge deciding that the 18-year-old dating a 16-year-old is a "child molester" because he didn't think his behavior that was perfectly legal yesterday, when he was 17, is statutory rape on his birthday. They then cannot be taken off, because the rules say that you cannot be removed.

Worse, this means that, as people become aware that there are innocents whose lives are ruined by improper placement on this list, it starts to allow the list itself to become devalued. It gives ammo to genuine predators who might claim a false story about how they got unfairly put on the list. Which starts to give the benefit of a doubt to those who do not deserve it, and thus can put potential, legitimate victims at risk.

There is a huge gray area of "what is acceptable in certain company" which needs to NOT be villified as "automatically creepy if somebody decides they're not the right company." The most mature way to handle it is to determine, again, for yourself what is unacceptable. Then TELL people when they cross the line, as firmly but gently as you can. Not judgmentally, not in condemnation. Simply, "This is not something I would like to pursue. Please stop."

The mature response from them is one of two things: Either they agree to stop, OR they explain that this is something that's going to happen, and that if you're not comfortable with it, this may not be the game/event/group for you.

If a man goes out bar-hopping, looking to "pick up chicks," and finds himself unwittingly at a gay-and-lesbian bar, he has every right to tell a guy who hits on him that he doesn't swing that way, and that he'd rather get the number of that girl over there. Upon having it explained to him that this is a gay-and-lesbian bar, and that he's likely to be hit on by guys and to offend the girls if he hits on them, he should choose to accept this if he wishes to stay, or to leave and find a venue more to his taste. He would absolutely be in the wrong to demand that the bar's patrons stop "being gay" around him because he deserves to be comfortable with the situation.

Similarly, if one finds oneself at a gaming table where sexual themes are considered accetpable, and darker elements come into play, one is absolutely within one's rights to state one's discomfort, and even to ask if the game could avoid those subjects and topics. The gaming group is, however, also within their rights to say, "No, we like those things in our game. If you don't, then this probably isn't the gaming group for you."

Alternatively, if you're all friends rather than strangers, "this is likely not a game in which you should play." They might, as friends, decide to run a different game which you could comfortably join. Or they may even decide having you around for this game is more important than having their salacious and disturbing elements in their game, and remove them. All of these are mature, acceptable resolutions.

But if you say nothing, and the behavior might be considered acceptable by others who have been in your position, then no, the DM and his table aren't being jerks. You might find them creepy - "creepy" is rather subjective - but they're not doing anything wrong if they have no good reason to suspect you're uncomfortable.


The "I'll stab you before I serve dinner" scenario fails because we all agree that stabbing people unprovoked is wrong.

If it was, "Before the vampire serves dinner, he demands that each of you allow him to draw some of your blood for his own meal," that wouldn't be nearly so wrong. Even if the DM had some sort of (weird) blood-drinking fetish.

Heck, even if it was, "Before the orc serves dinner, he demands that you let him stab one of you to sate his bloodlust," there is nothing wrong with the DM for making that declaration. Despite the fact that we can all agree the orc is in the wrong in standard American social settings. (And most others, too, though I suppose one could write a warrior culture that demands something like that for some weird symbolic reason that would seem otherwise innocuous in context.)



So, my central point is: know your limits and speak up when they're crossed. Do not demand everybody else conform to yours when you have the choice of leaving. And certainly do not sit idly by and then complain later when you didn't even make it known that you objected.

There ARE recourses available in modern American culture if you find yourself in a situation you do not like. The less people respect your desires, the less likely they are your friends. The less they respect your right to leave an unpleasant situation, the more bad they are (and likely, the more criminal).

But maturity requires communication. It cannot be incumbent upon everybody else to guess where your lines are. There may be certain social norms, but even those are vague and fuzzy until you get waaaaay into the "bad" zone or waaaay into the "always okay" zone. So speak up without recrimination.

Stand up for yourself no matter whether you're feeling offended or you feel like what you're doing should not be offensive. ALWAYS respect others' right to extricate themselves from a situation they don't like, and be willing to bend to their comforts if it does not cause you to have to bend out of yours. Be willing to extricate yourself if you find that you are the "oddball" that is causing the discomfort. If you don't, you're the jerk, not the others who you're trying to control (unless, again, they act to make it harder to impossible for you to extricate yourself).

ElenionAncalima
2014-08-01, 10:39 AM
I can understand the idea that encouraging players to stand up for themselves and each other is much more likely to create change than trying to convince a creeper to not be creepy.

However, what is difficult to stomach in this thread (and is causing the discussion to go in circles) is the attitude that the targets and/or the bystanders deserve the blame due to their failure to stand up for themselves. Just because the players could have responded better, doesn't make it any less the DMs fault. Just because the DM is socially incapable of understanding what he/she did wrong, doesn't make it any less the DMs. Perhaps those faulting the girl for staying are skimming over the DM's fault because they feel it goes without saying. Personally, I feel it is an important distinction to make.

Absolving the DM and blaming the victim is promoting a horrible mindset that only feeds into why someone would be uncomfortable to speak up and leave. If being sexually harassed by your DM isn't automatic grounds for community support against the DM, is it any wonder why some people would be afraid to stand up for themselves? Do you know how hard it is to take a stand on something when it doesn't look like anyone is going to stand behind you?

There is an important distinction between empowering people to stand up for themselves vs. assigning people with unnecessary blame.

Instead of saying:
"You should have left or said something. Because you didn't, you deserve what happened"

We should be saying:
"You should have left or said something, because that DM is a creep and you deserve better than to be treated that way"

Also, I really can't get behind this whole "its unfair that I have to censor myself and figure out what offends people". This is, once again, is placing blame on other people for having arbitrary standards, instead of taking responsibility for your own behaviour. There is not really a good excuse to make someone uncomfortable while playing RPGs.

First, many gaming guides recommend that players establish ground rules for adult themes on Day 1. This is easy to do and eliminates a ton of problems. If you cross a line that you didn't establish ahead of time, it may be unintentional...it doesn't make you blameless. Second, when a DM doesn't realize that their players are bored or frustrated, we are pretty quick to label them as a bad DM. Why does a DM who doesn't realize his players are uncomfortable get a free pass?

Frankly, its a little unsettling that people are simultaneously implying that having rape scenario forced upon a player isn't something that should effect them in a serious way...and yet are also implying that being forced to adjust their gaming in order to risk causing offense would ruin the gaming experience for them. You can take the opinion that this is game and shouldn't be taken so seriously or you can take the opinion that the hobby has a lot of meaning to people...but you can't have it both ways.

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-01, 10:55 AM
I think in general it's most important to keep out the rapey stuff. Especially if the new players are, as you say, 12-14 year old boys.


Yeah, not going to happen. Because even if you don't bring up any creepy stuff, your teenage players themselves will. It's a common habit of new players, especially young ones, to try and push the boundaries of the game as far as they can. This involves trying everything they can within the game to squick out you and each other, and the first one to lose his nerve loses the contest.

Those kind of players usually aren't the problem, though. Firstly, they tend to be fairly detached from their characters, so any horrible violence befalling their characters won't be traumatic - it'll be comedic. It's perfectly akin to watching a splatter movie or playing GTA and shooting everything in sight. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VideoGameCrueltyPotential) They know the violence is fictional and not targeting of any real victim. Eventually, wanton violence loses its luster and they move to play something else.

So there's a distinction between players who like creepy content (for whatever reasons), and players who are actually creepy - just like there's a distinction between people who commit violence in GTA and those who commit it in real life.

Because I mostly play at conventions and with new players nowadays, God only knows what kinds of players the lottery will throw at my table. My response to this to crank my tolerance for weird crap to eleven and roll with it. I can take being called various nasty things to my face - if someone makes a character based on me and calls that nasty things, that's barely shrug-worthy. (Also not a hypothetical situation; it's happened.) If I feel some possible game actions are worth critiquing, I lampoon them when they happen, I don't ban them.

Also - funny anecdote time - my first RPG character ever (who was female, mind) was forced into prostitution and subsequently raped. The game was Cyberpunk 2020. My 11-year-old self felt pretty peeved at the event, but none of that anger was directed at my actual game master. (It may have helped that all other characters got a raw deal too - one was made to shovel **** 'til he drowned in it.) It didn't scare me away from playing RPGs or even female characters.

What are the actual creepy gamers like, then? Like in the article, they're those who have too much interest in one of the players, and the game becomes a vessel for influencing that player. It is several degrees more personal, than young players just trying to weird each other out. The comical example of the GM injecting his pee fetish into a game ("The Whizzard!") wouldn't even count in my books, because the only real-life person it targets is the GM himself. It's odd, but it isn't any worse than what's already part of the default power fantasy - physical violence and murder. It wouldn't bug me anymore than the weak kid who always plays a muscle-bound barbarian does. There pretty much has to be some bad interpersonal juju between two or more people at a table before they (rather than the game) feel the slightest bit creepy to me.

Of course, again, my experiences of conventions have increased my tolerance for weird stuff. It is entirely possible for my players to show at the table wearing gimp gear. Or for some of them to be underage girls in lingerie. Or bronies. I just take off my glasses and pretend they're all people. :smalltongue:

Segev
2014-08-01, 10:57 AM
Instead of saying:
"You should have left or said something. Because you didn't, you deserve what happened"

We should be saying:
"You should have left or said something, because that DM is a creep and you deserve better than to be treated that way"I'd rather say, "Not knowing how this group normally operates, I can only suggest that you should have spoken up for yourself, and left if they didn't agree with you. Neither you nor they deserve to have to suffer through that kind of discomfort."

The problem is, too many people take, "You should have spoken up for yourself" as blaming the victim, no matter how you couch it. We are an over-sensitive society, and expect too much telepathy from each other. Or, more sinisterly, use the fact that we can be offended to try to control each other, rather than respecting each other and assuming the best intentions until proven otherwise. Which would still require standing up for oneself, with the expectation that others will respect that.


Also, I really can't get behind this whole "its unfair that I have to censor myself and figure out what offends people". This is, once again, placing blame on other people for having arbitrary standards, instead of taking responsibility for your own behaviour. There is not really a good excuse to make someone uncomfortable while playing RPGs.Not really. It only place blame on them if they sit there in silence and take it, giving no reason to believe they're not enjoying it.

Yes, if I DO realize somebody is uncomfortable, it's on me if I don't try to find out why. But if I honestly don't know any better, to call me a bad person for running an adventure where the party has to swim through peanut butter when one of the players has a brother who died of severe peanut allergy when he was younger...and that player never says anything until later when he talks about how I "triggered" him so callously...

That's a jerk move. On his part.

Yes, sexual themes are something we as a culture all know are potentially problematic. Therefore, we should generally check with our fellow players before we bring them into a game. But even that's fuzzy; is a PG rating "too sexual?" PG-13? R? Or is it not until NC-17? My personal line is PG-13 for "expect people to be comfortable," and R for "ask first," with NC-17 being "I am uncomfortable here and would ask that we stop, and leave if we don't."

But that's me. I cannot know where others draw the line. If I am to avoid being "a creep" I would have to assume G-rating is all that's acceptable...AND I'd have to pull a "dude, not cool" if others even stepped into PG territory. That would be, in my mind, me being a jerk, however.

There IS a responsibility to stand up for oneself. There is also a responsibility to be as aware of others' needs as one can, but we are not perfect, and we are not psychic. Stand up for yourself before you decry others, unless they're breaking actionable laws (i.e. assault or battery or worse). It is quite reasonable to expect that nobody will violate the commonly-known laws of the land in interaction with each other. (And no, sexual harassment laws are NOT "commonly-known." Yes, people know of them, but I bet it would be less than 30% of people who could accurately discuss the specifics and not mistake behaviors as (il)legal that are not.)


First, many gaming guides recommend that players establish ground rules for adult themes on Day 1. This is easy to do and eliminates a ton of problems.Indeed. And it's good advice. Unfortunately, unless you have a codified list and can point to something specific that crosses the line, it doesn't absolve you of responsibility to say "hey, we agreed none of that."

If somebody is mugged, never reports it to the police, and then later tries to get the police in trouble for failing to do their job for not even trying to go after the mugger, he's got no leg on which to stand. Yes, he's a victim, no, that doesn't make it somebody else's responsibility.

It's hard. I know it's hard. I have a hard time with it, myself, at times. That's why you NEED to have a personal knowledge of where your limits and boundaries are. Train yourself to speak up when they're crossed. And to leave if they're not respected (or a group says they respect them, but that they will keep doing it anyway because they like it that way and suggest that you leave to avoid it). Only when you have NO CHOICE but to participate do you have a right to start making demands for accommodation of your different preferences. And even then...be ready to compromise as much as possible, because they likely don't have a choice, either.


Frankly, its a little unsettling that people are simultaneously implying that having rape scenario forced upon a player isn't something that should effect them in a serious way...and yet are also implying that being forced to adjust their gaming in order to risk causing offense would ruin the gaming experience for them. You can take the opinion that this is game and shouldn't be taken so seriously or you can take the opinion that the hobby has a lot of meaning to people...but you can't have it both ways.I'm not sure I've seen both positions taken by the same side. I could be mistaken, though.

My position is that it is just a game. If it is affecting you in so harsh a way as rape scenes might, and the group won't stop, then leave. DO speak up and ask them to stop. It's within your rights to do so. It is within their rights to decide whether keeping you around is worth modifying their preferred mode of gaming or not.

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 10:59 AM
Assigning people with unnecessary blame... such as by blaming/socially ostracizing someone for engaging in behavior that you find distasteful but never communicate as such, never hint to a problem, and act as though you are okay with/seem to enjoy?

People have different standards. Without communicating them, we get confusion and other problems (I can't remember how many years it took me to realize that it's NOT socially acceptable to express my sexual orientation as "Tiger-striped"), and it leads to marginalizing people for arbitrary reasons without giving them any indication on why.

We want people to stand up for themselves, not remain sitting and assume that everyone else will take care of their problems for them. However, people are notoriously bad at communicating (I can't tell if there's a gender divide - it's more obvious when a woman fails to communicate intentions to a male, but that requires the male to communicate intentions first, which doesn't always happen. We're not gender-equal yet.) - but there's a heck of a lot of miscommunication, especially between sexes (You think you're conveying interest, but are projecting indifference. You think you're providing a rejection, but are sending a request for more) The only thing that means 'no' is 'no' (Or some variant thereof).

EDIT: Segev explained it much better than I did.

Segev
2014-08-01, 11:10 AM
We want people to stand up for themselves, not remain sitting and assume that everyone else will take care of their problems for them. However, people are notoriously bad at communicating (I can't tell if there's a gender divide - it's more obvious when a woman fails to communicate intentions to a male, but that requires the male to communicate intentions first, which doesn't always happen. We're not gender-equal yet.) - but there's a heck of a lot of miscommunication, especially between sexes (You think you're conveying interest, but are projecting indifference. You think you're providing a rejection, but are sending a request for more) The only thing that means 'no' is 'no' (Or some variant thereof).

I can more or less agree with this. Though I will say that we also have a double-standard against us guys: spontenaiety is supposedly attractive, as is assertiveness.

I don't know for sure, as I've not really had much experience in pursuing the fairer sex, but I strongly suspect that bluntly stating, "I am interested in you. May I sit here?" "May I hold your hand?" "May I hug you?" "May I walk you home?" "May I kiss you?" would do a lot to drain the romance as well as the drama from the situation. Sadly, draining the romance means nothing happens.

Bad communication stinks. I know I wouldn't personally lean in to kiss a girl without being very certain she was willing. I don't know that I would say, "I'm going to kiss you now, is that okay?" That seems stilted and awkward even compared to how stilted and awkward I get in unfamiliar social situations.



To bring this back to gaming... I have to agree with another poster: it's only truly creepy behavior when it's personal. It can be personal even if you don't know each other, as long as it's you using the vehicle of the game to act out what you'd like to do with/to that person - on any level - in real life, but know or suspect wouldn't be okay IRL.

If you've got an OOC issue - positive or negative - handle it OOC.

("Positive" issues might include asking the cute gamer girl out sometime. If she says "no," do NOT use the game as a vehicle for that. That is the part that makes this DM guilty of being creepy - that he knew she'd rejected him IRL, and that he singled her out for this treatment IC thereafter. Heck, I'd probably give him a pass if he directed it to all of the PCs, and their players were okay with it. That's no longer creepy. Now, of course, we can't read his mind; if he directed it at all of them to excuse directing it at her, that's creepy...but assuming that's what he's doing is grossly unfair without more evidence.

From what we're told, he WAS singling her out, and that's what makes this situation creepy. She still should have spoken up and probably not returned. Knowingly and intentionally placing yourself or remaining in a vulnerable situation doesn't absolve the aggressor, but it DOES make you less deserving of sympathy.)

Serpentine
2014-08-01, 11:17 AM
As kidjake said, you have different personal boundries than others. You are a 'normal' person with 'normal' sexual interests/etc. I, on the other hand, am a deviant. I know I'm a deviant. I don't care that I'm a deviant. My interests are my own, and telling me that I shouldn't have them results in me dismissing you on the internet, and stuffing a sock in your face in a face-to-face meeting. Fortunately for me, I have deviant friends of similar interests I can play with, and we all get together and have a good time that wouldn't be socially acceptable if we were anyone else, but we're all fine with it, and can enjoy our elfgame time with each other, and enjoy more normal games with others without contaminating those other games with the deviancy we can get up to during our own games.Nice try, but I didn't actually say anything you're accusing me of. I never said you "shouldn't" have those interests, any more than I - or literally anyone else in this thread who isn't strawmanning - has said that there must be a total blanket ban on sexual violence or content in gaming. So you know, your whole little bout of self-righteousness there is a puff in the aether.
What I - and everyone else here not throwing around the victim blaming - am saying is that if you want to run a game with furry porn or someone being raped by an antelope or whatever - or a character being put into the situation where it's either have sex with an NPC or literally have to leave the game entirely - that is not something that the overwhelming majority of gamers could nor should reasonably expect in a D&D game,* and therefore the DM should be upfront about its inclusion at the beginning of the game (or at least in advance of its appearance) and sensitive to the response of their players to make sure they are actually still okay with it during (or if it arises spontaneously somehow, pausing the game to check with everyone, making sure that everyone knows it is okay to not be okay with it). If everyone is, and continues to be, fine with it, jolly good, have at. Be as deviant as you want. But if they're not, then you either adapt accordingly or you make it clear that they can and should not play your game because that stuff's gonna be there, while being very careful to not shame or alienate them for that. Depending on your sources, anywhere from 1/5 to 1/3 of people have experienced sexual violence, and none of you have any way of knowing who at your table has or has not unless they outright tell you.^ Throwing in that stuff without warning - as in the story in the OP, or in innumerable other cases which it resembles - is a **** move, and is... Okay, maybe we can be kind and say that it's not necessarily straight-up creepy if the person isn't aware of the problem and respectfully stops as soon as they're made to realise, but if they don't stop, and/or if, as in the story in the OP the people involved have a history like that, then yeah, it's creepy, and yes, it can potentially herald some more serious harassment.


*As opposed to "killing people and taking their stuff", which is extremely well-established as A Thing That Will Pretty Much Definitely Happen In A D&D Game Unless Stated Otherwise. Someone who has had a loved-one be brutally murdered may or may not be okay with playing a violent RPG, but it is very unlikely that that they wouldn't be aware before playing that it's almost certainly going to be a feature. This is not true of sexual violence and coercion - I feel fairly safe in saying that it is not actually a common, much less usual, feature in D&D. If you're playing something like, say, FATAL, then maybe you could get away with not having to say ahead of time that your game is going to be a rape simulator, assuming that everyone involved is aware of FATAL's reputation.

^You also, incidentally, have no way of knowing who at your table might have perpetrated sexual violence. Make of that what you will.

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-01, 11:25 AM
Something I noticed a few pages back: there was some discussion on how harassment can haunt a person for years.

Reality check: anything unpleasant can haunt a person for years. Trauma temporarily heightens our ability to commit things to memory. This mechanism doesn't particularly care about the quality or quantity of the unpleasant thing, it's subconscious and irrational. Completely ridiculous things can lead to post-traumatic stress or burn-out.

Zero tolerance, ie. never having to face an unpleasant thing again, is not a particularly good tactic. This has been tested with electric shocks - people who were given a jolt once were more traumatized and more bothered by the memory later on, compared to people who were given another shock later on. Similarly, a person who has met one, violent dog will be more afraid of dogs than a dog breeder who's faced vastly more violent dogs, but has also faced dogs of docile or intermediate behaviour.

In practice, this means that the less different people you've played with, the more easily you will be creeped out by unfamiliar or edgy players and playstyles. Which is undesireable, because it will cause you to mistake violations of social norms that are intended as comedy with actual malignance. (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/the-humor-code-book-review)

Serpentine
2014-08-01, 11:28 AM
Soooooo having a person's character brutally raped in-game without any warning or their okay is now good for them? How very noble of you. Yeah, good luck with that angle.

Segev
2014-08-01, 11:34 AM
Soooooo having a person's character brutally raped in-game without any warning or their okay is now good for them? How very noble of you. Yeah, good luck with that angle.

I actually liked your prior post, but this one's such a straw man that I have to call you out on it.

Pretty much ANY "and now this happens to your character with you having no agency in the matter" is unacceptable. That it's "brutal rape" makes it worse in some ways (though not all, as there ARE worse things that can happen to you), but that doesn't invalidate the point you so swiftly swept aside in your haste to burn the scarecrow.

The point is that getting out and being willing to risk it is healthier than telling everybody who does anything approaching your area of discomfort that they're awful people.

In other words, being mature and speaking up when you're uncomfortable is better than telling people they should never do anything that might make you uncomfortable, and then telling them they're bad people for having made you uncomfortable by not correctly guessing where your boundaries are.

Autolykos
2014-08-01, 11:37 AM
Instead of saying:
"You should have left or said something. Because you didn't, you deserve what happened"

We should be saying:
"You should have left or said something, because that DM is a creep and you deserve better than to be treated that way"
Ah, now I start to see where we're talking past each other. What I (and probably a few others here, but I can't speak for them) are saying is a third option:
"You should have left or said something, because that's what actually works."

I, for one, don't care much for putting blame around. That's almost always a waste of time and often an excuse for not doing something productive instead.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in this thread I see nobody so boneheaded as to claim that the target is to blame for anything that happened or the "creeper DM" was behaving correctly. So there's no point in beating that horse any more. It's dead, decomposed and fossilized.

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-01, 11:40 AM
Soooooo having a person's character brutally raped in-game without any warning or their okay is now good for them? How very noble of you. Yeah, good luck with that angle.

More like having random nasty things happen to your characters more than once, with no real harm to you, the player, will alleviate and eventually stop you from being traumatized by such things.

Case in point: old-school D&D, for example Tomb of Horrors, was full of gotcha-traps that came completely out of the left field unless the players were making their characters act full-blown paranoid. That didn't kill the hobby, on the contrary, it created several generations of gamers who consider such a normal and acceptable part of gaming, and may infact take joy in trying to "beat their GM" via predicting or pre-empting such.

Aedilred
2014-08-01, 12:00 PM
I, for one, don't care much for putting blame around. That's almost always a waste of time and often an excuse for not doing something productive instead.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in this thread I see nobody so boneheaded as to claim that the target is to blame for anything that happened ...
I present you Exhibit A:

... I'm saying that [the DM] is not the only person who has blame here.

Now, maybe that's not what he meant. But it's what he said.

AMFV
2014-08-01, 12:12 PM
I present you Exhibit A:


Now, maybe that's not what he meant. But it's what he said.

And you'll note that isn't saying the DM isn't responsible, rather that there is responsibility on the part of allSo participants. All I've said is that we don't have evidence to make a judgement either way. And you're repeating the same error, saying that the girl has a responsibility to speak up if she was bothered does not remove the responsibility of the DM to stop if he was aware she had an issue.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-01, 12:14 PM
I find it quite amazing how controversial the stance of "sexually harassing your players is wrong" seems to be in some circles. If you've ever wondered why nerds have the reputation of creepy neckbeards, here's your answer right there.

obryn
2014-08-01, 12:23 PM
I find it quite amazing how controversial the stance of "sexually harassing your players is wrong" seems to be in some circles. If you've ever wondered why nerds have the reputation of creepy neckbeards, here's your answer right there.
Crazy, ain't it? I'm juuust about done here, because I am certainly not going to waste more precious minutes of my life responding to a lengthy dissertation about how harassment isn't really all that bad compared to the poor fellows who might need to check their behavior sometimes; or how creepy DMs getting rapey with PCs is actually a life-affirming and valuable experience; or any more about how creepers are just gonna creep and there's nothing to be done so why even try; or deconstructing a victim of harassment's experiences to prove that it wasn't actually harassment at all.

draken50
2014-08-01, 12:23 PM
I find it quite amazing how controversial the stance of "sexually harassing your players is wrong" seems to be in some circles. If you've ever wondered why nerds have the reputation of creepy neckbeards, here's your answer right there.

Damn Straight.

To those of you who don't get that point, are you so proud and confident of your beliefs? Show this thread to your mom, point out your posts. Let her be proud of how strongly you proclaim that rape and harassment are non-issues.

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 12:24 PM
I find it quite amazing how controversial the stance of "sexually harassing your players is wrong" seems to be in some circles. If you've ever wondered why nerds have the reputation of creepy neckbeards, here's your answer right there.That's because nobody can agree on what amounts to sexual harassment (The case in the article certainly being presented as such after the fact.)

Where I work and hang out, a lot of stuff some people get their panties in a twist about doesn't even register as mildly uncomfortable.

Serpentine
2014-08-01, 12:24 PM
More like having random nasty things happen to your characters more than once, with no real harm to you, the player, will alleviate and eventually stop you from being traumatized by such things.You are not your players' counsellor. You do not get to decide what will or will not help someone heal. If you're going to try and say that you have any right to do something like that, well... I can only hope you never get an opportunity to "help" someone like this. Sorry Segev, I stand by my statement and as far as I can see it's not even a strawman.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-01, 12:36 PM
Damn Straight.

Are you so proud, and confident of your beliefs? Show this thread to your mom, point out your posts. Let her be proud of how strongly you proclaim that rape and harassment are non-issues.

You seem to have mistaken me for someone else, because the post you quoted was my very first in this thread.

Aedilred
2014-08-01, 12:38 PM
You seem to have mistaken me for someone else, because the post you quoted was my very first in this thread.

I got the impression it was agreement with you, followed by a general address.

draken50
2014-08-01, 12:38 PM
You seem to have mistaken me for someone else, because the post you quoted was my very first in this thread.

Oh crapola, Sorry the second part was not directed at you. Let me go figure out how to clarify that better. My apologies for that. I actually quite agree with your point.

Segev
2014-08-01, 12:40 PM
I find it quite amazing how controversial the stance of "sexually harassing your players is wrong" seems to be in some circles. If you've ever wondered why nerds have the reputation of creepy neckbeards, here's your answer right there.

Nobody is saying that, but it is unsurprising when social bullies decide to start slinging that accusation around that the reputation for it is built.


See how ad hominem works? Start with a straw man, vilify it, then call anybody who disagrees with you "just like it," and ignore anything they're actually saying.


Seriously. Nobody is saying sexual harassment is okay. What we are saying is that expecting everybody to mince around and hope they correctly guess what YOU consider sexual harassment is unreasonable and immature.

That "people should be encouraged to stand up for themselves and extricate themselves from situations that cannot be made bearable" is a controversial stand is disturbing to me. It's basically saying, "Whoever can whine the loudest, first, is the victim and thus can demand anything they want." If you feel that is an invalid slippery slope argument, then tell me where you draw the line. At what point is the person who is uncomfortable with the situation responsible to say so? Is everybody in the hypothetical gay bar a creeper if one straight guy unwittingly walks in and is uncomfortable being hit on by all the guys? When does it become HIS responsibility to say, "Hey, thanks, but I'm not interested," rather than expecting the patrons of the bar to figure it out rather than assuming he's just shy and needs to be given some attention?

Yes, the DM in the story that started this thread was being a jerk. Yes, that was almost certainly textbook sexual harassment, because of the background of IRL interaction and the way he singled her out.

But if a guy gets mugged every time he walks through a particular dark alley, at what point do you stop owing him sympathy for willingly going back to said alley every week?

Nobody is excusing the creeper DM in this story. But we are questioning if she did anything to put a stop to it, and if she kept willingly returning. If she didn't try to put a stop to it and kept putting herself back into his metaphorical hands of her own accord, our sympathies get a bit strained.

draken50
2014-08-01, 12:44 PM
Nobody is excusing the creeper DM in this story. But we are questioning if she did anything to put a stop to it, and if she kept willingly returning. If she didn't try to put a stop to it and kept putting herself back into his metaphorical hands of her own accord, our sympathies get a bit strained.

This is called Victim Blaming. It's very common, and very messed up, as it puts the onus/blame on the victim rather than the perpetrator.

In a rape example, it would be things like "Look what she was wearing." I don't give a damn if a woman is completely naked, nobody has the right to raper her, and anyone who does is COMPLETELY at fault.

Segev
2014-08-01, 12:48 PM
You are not your players' counsellor. You do not get to decide what will or will not help someone heal. If you're going to try and say that you have any right to do something like that, well... I can only hope you never get an opportunity to "help" someone like this. Sorry Segev, I stand by my statement and as far as I can see it's not even a strawman.
No, it's very much a straw man. Nobody is defending sexual harassment, but you accuse anybody who questions whether the victim thereof did anything to put a stop to it of condoning it. You accuse anybody who does not agree that failing to be a telepath equates to sexual harassment if the victim thereof decides they feel it...even if they make no effort to let the perpetrator know they're uncomfortable.

Yet, your statement is implying - very heavily - that anybody who dares suggest that we may not wish to be sympathetic to a man who continues to go to the alley where he gets mugged every time. It's not condoning the mugging to tell the guy, "You should do something to prevent it."


I get so riled up about these debates because I DO see the supposed slippery slope happening. People decide that, since being the offended party makes you "right," they will CHOOSE to be offended on some sort of deeply wounding level in order to dictate to others what may or may not be done. No responsibility to extricate themselves if they don't like it is assigned to them. No acknowledgement is made that they might be hurting others who are just more willing to accept some discomfort in the name of "being nice." Professional offense is used as an ad hominem or a straw man to dictate the terms of discussion and attempt to invalidate any disagreement as inherently coming from a bad person.

And frankly, your straw man is doing just that: it is falsely identifying anybody who disagrees with your side of the argument as condoning sexual harassment.

Segev
2014-08-01, 12:50 PM
This is called Victim Blaming. It's very common, and very messed up, as it puts the onus/blame on the victim rather than the perpetrator.

In a rape example, it would be things like "Look what she was wearing." I don't give a damn if a woman is completely naked, nobody has the right to raper her, and anyone who does is COMPLETELY at fault.

You're missing the point. Not surprising, as it is a little subtle.

There's a difference between "look what she was wearing!" and "...she went to her rapist's house AGAIN wearing the same thing? ...for four weeks in a row, and got raped each time? ...and is planning on doing it again tonight? ...and she's not even told him to stop, not once?"

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 12:56 PM
This is called Victim Blaming. It's very common, and very messed up, as it puts the onus/blame on the victim rather than the perpetrator.On the other hand, taking the inverse too far disempowers people from being aware of what risks they're subjecting themselves to, and empowers criminals while disempowering LACs who assume everybody's playing by the rules. I liken this to Defensive Driving - yes, it can be the other guy's fault, but you're the one that's out the car, especially if the other guy doesn't have insurance.

And, a lot of this also reminds me of one of the most horrific car-on-pedestrian accidents I've seen - a woman pulled her child into the street to cross right in front of a moving car - the woman was seriously injured, the kid was killed. The driver was one of the two victims. The mother wasn't. I think the driver was cited as at-fault anyway. The driver still could have prevented the collision had he been psychic enough to know that the woman didn't know how to safely cross a street. The mother could have prevented the accident by noticing that there was a car coming her direction 10 feet away.

I've also seen a lot more routine accidents where someone tries going through an intersection without first checking to make sure someone else wasn't about to blow a freshly-changed light.


In a rape example, it would be things like "Look what she was wearing." I don't give a damn if a woman is completely naked, nobody has the right to raper her, and anyone who does is COMPLETELY at fault.This assumes that the perpetrator gives a damn. Sure, perpetator's completely at fault, and you can hit him with all the might of the law - but it doesn't negate what happened. I will not disarm myself of my defenses against people who try to force their will on me just because society says those people shouldn't do so.

Ultimately, a person is responsible for their own safety.

Irish Musician
2014-08-01, 12:59 PM
You're missing the point. Not surprising, as it is a little subtle.

There's a difference between "look what she was wearing!" and "...she went to her rapist's house AGAIN wearing the same thing? ...for four weeks in a row, and got raped each time? ...and is planning on doing it again tonight? ...and she's not even told him to stop, not once?"
Either way you are blaming the victim.

draken50
2014-08-01, 01:00 PM
You're missing the point. Not surprising, as it is a little subtle.

There's a difference between "look what she was wearing!" and "...she went to her rapist's house AGAIN wearing the same thing? ...for four weeks in a row, and got raped each time? ...and is planning on doing it again tonight? ...and she's not even told him to stop, not once?"

Actually, you are missing the point. Because you are basically saying, in your example: "It's not the rapists fault he raped her again. It's her fault for wearing specific clothes and going somewhere she could be raped."

In that example, the woman wouldn't have been raped, if a rapist hadn't raped her.

SiuiS
2014-08-01, 01:00 PM
And no amount of discussion is going to stop an a-hole from being an a-hole. I agree that there needs to be a serious discussion on this subject, but a forum isn't the place for it.

Why not? What magically makes a forum an unacceptable arena for this? I do not understand your objection to a standing body of intelligent and articulate people laying out the fundamental problems and best supposed-solutions to a social issue for others to see. I do not see how that's meaningless and unable to help people grow.



Ah, but what's to stop a table from then oppressing their DM. Saying, "Combat is traumatic for me" and then causing it to be banned, "not getting all the treasure I want is traumatic for me" and then getting all the treasure, making the game miserable for the DM. I'm not saying at all that this is what happened in the story, mind. But it's certainly something I see as likely, it is much more likely that the type of thing you're trying to create would be coopted by people who would abuse it than used by people who were already not likely to stand up in the first place.

What is to stop a table from complaining about being poor or being in combat causing trauma is that you, as a human, have the ability to make rational decisions without resorting to rules or ultimatums. You as a human can recall prior knowledges and experiences and use those to inform your decisions.

You as a human can recognize that a person who is uncomfortable with a recognized social issue is not the same as a person who is uncomfortable with an unrecognized non-social non-issue.


I'm sorry reality doesn't match up to whatever fantastic utopia you believe the world should function like. While it may run too close to that, it's the truth of the matter. On the macro level, yeah, the criminal's at fault - but on the individual level, you can only control your own actions, not the actions of others

The trouble with this as it is present in the thread is that you are not recognizing a trait in the world, you are actively encouraging it. You are telling people not to encourage better behavior, but to accept bad behavior.

We cannot control the actions of others. We can create an environment with encourages not only actions, but thoughts, in line with ethics or morals.


Assigning people with unnecessary blame... such as by blaming/socially ostracizing someone for engaging in behavior that you find distasteful but never communicate as such, never hint to a problem, and act as though you are okay with/seem to enjoy?

This is a non-issue. You are complaining that the first time someone communicates something should be prefaced by a different, sooner first time trying to communicate something.

If the first time you mess up and people are mad at you, they are not allowed to tell you because they didn't warn you getting mad was even possible and why, then all social interaction breaks down. We have a social contract in place. That contract involves averal circles of plausible, possible and probable things to avoid. Sexual harassment is supposed to be in there. Being told you are crossing a line is not supposed to be in there.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-01, 01:09 PM
Oh crapola, Sorry the second part was not directed at you. Let me go figure out how to clarify that better. My apologies for that. I actually quite agree with your point.

Okay, after posting that I realized that was supposed to be a hypothetical "you", not me specifically.

Segev
2014-08-01, 01:10 PM
I suppose the best way to put it is this:

I have every sympathy for a victim who - even through his own foolishness - unwittingly got caught in a bad situation. The more he endeavored to extricate himself, the more sympathy I have for his victimization.

I lose sympathy when a victim lies there and takes it. Not all of it, but my sympathy does diminish. Refusal to attempt to extricate oneself or prevent the harm makes you, yes, partly to blame for what's happening, since you COULD change it and don't bother.

I lose more sympathy when the victim is victimized by an aggressor who isn't aware he's doing anything to discomfit the victim, and the victim doesn't even ask his aggressor to stop. I certainly start to absolve the aggressor in this situation, unless the aggressor is so far over the line of acceptable behavior that he really, really should have known better. Our sample creeper DM, here, is not absolved of blame, as he likely knew what he was doing and that it was not in accordance with his target's wishes.

I lose all sympathy for the victim if the victim willingly and knowingly puts themselves in exactly the same position again, and does nothing to prevent the same outcome from happening. I don't necessarily absolve the perpetrator, mind; in our mugging example, the muggers know what they're doing is wrong. In the "...and she went there again? ...and hasn't told him to stop!?" example, it starts to be reasonable to assume that the perpetrator thinks she LIKES it. (And yes, I know that sounds like accusing her of asking for it. But...really? Deliberately setting it up to happen again and again? Doesn't that sound like asking for it? Note that we're talking about her not only taking no steps to stop it, but actively taking steps which make it more likely.)

Seriously, she should at least say "stop it" and not go back.



I retain all sympathies for a victim who did his or her level best to make it clear they didn't want whatever was happening and to extricate themselves. I retain all sympathies if they continue to try to stay out of that situation, or if they have no choice but to put themselves in it (and at least do whatever they can to mitigate the hazards of repetition).

I get mad at the so-called victim if they try to use victim status to force others to conform to their desires while refusing to stop being in a situation from which they could freely extricate themselves. (e.g. the straight guy in a gay bar who tries to claim he's being sexually harassed and shut it down because he won't stop showing up.)

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 01:16 PM
Actually, you are missing the point. Because you are basically saying, in your example: "It's not the rapists fault he raped her again. It's her fault for wearing specific clothes and going somewhere she could be raped."

In that example, the woman wouldn't have been raped, if a rapist hadn't raped her.Right. But that's not saying there weren't actions she couldn't have taken to avoid letting the rapist rape her. Sure, after the fact she's blameless and the perpetrator deserves the weight of the social hammer - but that won't take back what happened, while a woman using the tools and power available to herself to keep the rapist from getting power over her does stop it from happening. Sure, she's not at fault if she fails to do so, but her situation isn't improved.


The trouble with this as it is present in the thread is that you are not recognizing a trait in the world, you are actively encouraging it. You are telling people not to encourage better behavior, but to accept bad behavior.

We cannot control the actions of others. We can create an environment with encourages not only actions, but thoughts, in line with ethics or morals.Telling people that they need to deal with bad behavior properly, not encouraging better behavior (Because those that you're trying to encourage don't give a damn about your moral high horse). You are advocating disarming people of defenses against bad behavior in the hopes that people who'd otherwise engage in bad behavior don't.


This is a non-issue. You are complaining that the first time someone communicates something should be prefaced by a different, sooner first time trying to communicate something.

If the first time you mess up and people are mad at you, they are not allowed to tell you because they didn't warn you getting mad was even possible and why, then all social interaction breaks down. We have a social contract in place. That contract involves averal circles of plausible, possible and probable things to avoid. Sexual harassment is supposed to be in there. Being told you are crossing a line is not supposed to be in there.I'm not talking about being told you crossed a line. I'm talking about crossing a line you didn't know you crossed, never being told about it, and only find out later that the person who's line you crossed has been bitching about it to everyone else and talking about how terrible you are to other players without ever letting you know there was ever a problem, until you stumble across their blog/forum post/they blow up in your face about something that's been going on for the past 5 years that they've seemed to play along with and enjoy while in your presence.

Segev
2014-08-01, 01:16 PM
Actually, you are missing the point. Because you are basically saying, in your example: "It's not the rapists fault he raped her again. It's her fault for wearing specific clothes and going somewhere she could be raped."

In that example, the woman wouldn't have been raped, if a rapist hadn't raped her.

Where did I say it wasn't the rapist's fault? I said I lose sympathy for her when she keeps going back to the rapist's house and won't even tell him to stop it.

...actually, if she never tells him to stop, I don't think it IS rape. He probably thinks it's consensual. But let's assume he KNOWS she considers it rape, for argument's sake. That way, he knows he's raping her.

But she keeps willfully putting herself in his hands when she could trivially avoid the situation.


Recall that we're discussing, at the heart of this, roleplaying. Typically, a once-a-week (or so) event. People have to attend on purpose and willingly. So if our metaphorical rape-victim keeps returning to the game to be sexually harassed by our creeper DM, I stop having sympathy for her. If the DM knows that he's making her uncomfortable, I in no way absolve him of any blame for his actions. But if she's not even telling him to stop, I question whether he KNOWS. People can be pretty dense.



If it's one session, and she never goes back, I can retain a certain amount of sympathy. I'd encourage her to discuss it in a safe environment with the whole group, but refusing to go back without assurances that it won't happen again is the right move. And, if it happens again, to tell him to stop it and, if he doesn't, leave and not return.

If it's multiple sessions, and she keeps going back, the guilt of the others revolves around whether they know they're making her uncomfortable and whether they willfully continue to do so. It has nothing to do with whether she keeps coming back. But if she keeps coming back, I stop having sympathy for her. She's a willing participant in her own victimization at that point.

(This all assumes she has a choice. Which, with gaming, she does. Other situations remove that choice of not being in the situation; I retain sympathy at that point, and would even try to come up with solutions they might be able to try. "Stand up for yourself" is always the first one I'd suggest.)

Irish Musician
2014-08-01, 01:19 PM
I lose sympathy when a victim lies there and takes it. Not all of it, but my sympathy does diminish. Refusal to attempt to extricate oneself or prevent the harm makes you, yes, partly to blame for what's happening, since you COULD change it and don't bother.

You know that one of the things special victims police say to do, in cases of rape, is to just survive it. Fighting back an attacker put them in more danger, so they say to just get through it and survive it. Basically, to "lie there and take it" until said attacker is done and gone.

I don't know what made you have such a cold outlook on victims and fellow human beings, but I hope you find some closure there and I am sorry for whatever it is that did happen.

Segev
2014-08-01, 01:22 PM
Telling people that they need to deal with bad behavior properly, not encouraging better behavior (Because those that you're trying to encourage don't give a damn about your moral high horse). You are advocating disarming people of defenses against bad behavior in the hopes that people who'd otherwise engage in bad behavior don't.Worse, the attitude represented by this "encourage better behavior through scolding" mentality leads to picking easier targets. The creeps and jerks won't care and won't heed. So, to feel "successful," the "moral" crusader will seek innocent deeds which can be construed as offensive and castigate the well-intentioned perpetrator of that "offense."

Thus, the crusader gets to feel heroic for beating up an innocent peasant he claims was an ogre in disguise, while tut-tutting in the safety of his keep at the behavior of the real ogres over there. And obviously, any peasant who disagrees with his actions is an ogre in disguise, so they get beat up, too, as evil beings. After all, they're supporting the ogres!


I'm not talking about being told you crossed a line. I'm talking about crossing a line you didn't know you crossed, never being told about it, and only find out later that the person who's line you crossed has been bitching about it to everyone else and talking about how terrible you are to other players without ever letting you know there was ever a problem, until you stumble across their blog/forum post/they blow up in your face about something that's been going on for the past 5 years that they've seemed to play along with and enjoy while in your presence.This is largely my point. TELL PEOPLE that they're making you uncomfortable, and how and why. Discuss it like grown-ups, and then the two of you (and the rest of the group) can decide whether this calls for a change in behavior or for one or the other of you to leave the situation.

Remember, just because you're uncomfortable doesn't give you the right to tell the rest of the group how to behave. It DOES give you the right to ASK them to alter their behavior, and a right to leave if they do not wish to.

Kalmageddon
2014-08-01, 01:25 PM
Right. But that's not saying there weren't actions she couldn't have taken to avoid letting the rapist rape her. Sure, after the fact she's blameless and the perpetrator deserves the weight of the social hammer - but that won't take back what happened, while a woman using the tools and power available to herself to keep the rapist from getting power over her does stop it from happening. Sure, she's not at fault if she fails to do so, but her situation isn't improved.

Telling people that they need to deal with bad behavior properly, not encouraging better behavior (Because those that you're trying to encourage don't give a damn about your moral high horse). You are advocating disarming people of defenses against bad behavior in the hopes that people who'd otherwise engage in bad behavior don't.

I'm not talking about being told you crossed a line. I'm talking about crossing a line you didn't know you crossed, never being told about it, and only find out later that the person who's line you crossed has been bitching about it to everyone else and talking about how terrible you are to other players without ever letting you know there was ever a problem, until you stumble across their blog/forum post/they blow up in your face about something that's been going on for the past 5 years that they've seemed to play along with and enjoy while in your presence.

What are you even trying to say? That people should try to defend themselves from bad things? Sure, it makes sense, so what?
This doesn't change the fact that people can't live in constant fear of being assaulted and take precaution accordingly. By this logic, we should all wear bulletproof vests 24 h a day on the off chance that someone could shoot us.



This is largely my point. TELL PEOPLE that they're making you uncomfortable, and how and why. Discuss it like grown-ups, and then the two of you (and the rest of the group) can decide whether this calls for a change in behavior or for one or the other of you to leave the situation.

Remember, just because you're uncomfortable doesn't give you the right to tell the rest of the group how to behave. It DOES give you the right to ASK them to alter their behavior, and a right to leave if they do not wish to.

I think it's safe to say that this is implied. If someone comes to me and says "I've been raped" I'm not going to ask him "have you asked him to stop?". :smallsigh: If you are a victim of something you WILL send signals that make your discomfort obvious. You will be scared, uneasy, disgusted, whatever... These are not emotions that are easy to conceal or, from the other side, to miss. Just because a girl doesn't tell you to stop if you try to have sex with her it doesn't mean she isn't sending you another 100 signals that say "stop now!". :smallannoyed:

Segev
2014-08-01, 01:26 PM
You know that one of the things special victims police say to do, in cases of rape, is to just survive it. Fighting back an attacker put them in more danger, so they say to just get through it and survive it. Basically, to "lie there and take it" until said attacker is done and gone.

I don't know what made you have such a cold outlook on victims and fellow human beings, but I hope you find some closure there and I am sorry for whatever it is that did happen.

I said "extricate." If you honestly feel in danger of your life if you try to fight back, I'm not blaming you for not fighting back.

There's a reason I keep trying to remind everybody that this discussion started over a GAME situation. Tell me, was the woman in the story in danger of her life, to the point that she had to "lie back and take it" by letting the DM continue to sexually harass her? Or could she have said, "No, this is not acceptable," and left?

You're still trying to paint me as a bad person by using straw men, rather than addressing my points.

I doubt special victims units would tell a woman who had been raped to go back to her rapist's house and "lie back and take it" again. They'd tell her, I'm sure, to avoid going there if it was at all reasonable to do so.

If she went back, would that make her rapist any less guilty the second time he raped her? No. But it does make her less worthy of sympathy when she deliberately and knowingly put herself into his power once again.

Arbane
2014-08-01, 01:27 PM
(Edited, because me am bad at connumikatingness.)

It does come off to me like some of the people in this thread are saying "This solution is not total and perfect, therefore we MUST NOT TRY IT AT ALL."


Worse, the attitude represented by this "encourage better behavior through scolding" mentality leads to picking easier targets. The creeps and jerks won't care and won't heed. So, to feel "successful," the "moral" crusader will seek innocent deeds which can be construed as offensive and castigate the well-intentioned perpetrator of that "offense."

Thus, the crusader gets to feel heroic for beating up an innocent peasant he claims was an ogre in disguise, while tut-tutting in the safety of his keep at the behavior of the real ogres over there. And obviously, any peasant who disagrees with his actions is an ogre in disguise, so they get beat up, too, as evil beings. After all, they're supporting the ogres!


I missed the part where the RPG Morality Squad tarred and feathered the Creep GM. Really, asking people to tell Creeps "dude, not cool" does not strike me as too terrible a responsibility to burden our fellow gamers with, and is unlikely to make them become drunk with power. Yes, it won't change their behavior instantly, yes it might not work. It's still better than the current crappy situation.

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 01:28 PM
You know that one of the things special victims police say to do, in cases of rape, is to just survive it. Fighting back an attacker put them in more danger, so they say to just get through it and survive it. Basically, to "lie there and take it" until said attacker is done and gone.

I don't know what made you have such a cold outlook on victims and fellow human beings, but I hope you find some closure there and I am sorry for whatever it is that did happen.While that guideline's good for Rape due to the extreme difference in power (One has absolute power over the other), it's not as applicable to lesser forms of sexual harassment.

Segev
2014-08-01, 01:32 PM
What are you even trying to say? That people should try to defend themselves from bad things? Sure, it makes sense, so what?
This doesn't change the fact that people can't live in constant fear of being assaulted and take precaution accordingly. By this logic, we should all wear bulletproof vests 24 h a day on the off chance that someone could shoot us.

Once again, economics would be useful, here. There is a risk/reward function. The rewards of being comfortable and not having to always wear protective gear outweigh the risks of being shot in much of the USA. It's just not expected that we have even a remote chance of being assaulted.

The more risky your area or the area in which you're traveling, the more reasonable it becomes to take increasing precautions against danger.


When the danger is "being uncomfortable or 'triggered' by events at a gaming table," the steps to proactively protect yourself are pretty straight-forward: speak up about it, discuss it like adults, and leave if it doesn't stop. Further defenses include not returning if you don't have good reason to risk it happening again.

Our hypothetical straight guy who wound up unwittingly going to a gay bar loses any sympathy for his discomfort if he a) doesn't speak up, b) remains at the venue where he knows he'll be hit on, and/or c) keeps going back every week.

He should, at a BARE MINIMUM, not return OR grow a thick enough skin to laugh off being hit on and tell guys who do that he's straight and is just there to...whatever he's there for. Maybe the pretzels are awesome or something.

Segev
2014-08-01, 01:33 PM
I missed the part where the RPG Morality Squad tarred and feathered the Creep GM. Really, asking people to tell Creeps "dude, not cool" does not strike me as too terrible a responsibility to burden our fellow gamers with. Yes, it won't change their behavior instantly, yes it might not work. It's still better than the current crappy situation.

But it does come off to me like some of the people in this thread are saying "This solution is not total and perfect, therefore we MUST NOT TRY IT AT ALL."

I actually agree with you here. Perhaps you missed that my first piece of advice is to SPEAK UP. "Dude, not cool," is a very reasonable way to speak up.

Kalmageddon
2014-08-01, 01:36 PM
Our hypothetical straight guy who wound up unwittingly going to a gay bar loses any sympathy for his discomfort if he a) doesn't speak up, b) remains at the venue where he knows he'll be hit on, and/or c) keeps going back every week.

He should, at a BARE MINIMUM, not return OR grow a thick enough skin to laugh off being hit on and tell guys who do that he's straight and is just there to...whatever he's there for. Maybe the pretzels are awesome or something.

It's quite possibile for a straight male to go to a gay bar without being raped... I'd say it's even probable that he'll be ok.
Poor choice of words aside, what I'm trying to tell you is that nobody is saying that a victim should conceal his discomfort. You are burning a strawman, no victim will be entirely passive and uncommunicative when subjected to something they don't want. Unless they happen to be comatose. Which I think invalidates your criticism anyway.

Irish Musician
2014-08-01, 01:38 PM
I said "extricate." If you honestly feel in danger of your life if you try to fight back, I'm not blaming you for not fighting back.

There's a reason I keep trying to remind everybody that this discussion started over a GAME situation. Tell me, was the woman in the story in danger of her life, to the point that she had to "lie back and take it" by letting the DM continue to sexually harass her? Or could she have said, "No, this is not acceptable," and left?

You're still trying to paint me as a bad person by using straw men, rather than addressing my points.

I doubt special victims units would tell a woman who had been raped to go back to her rapist's house and "lie back and take it" again. They'd tell her, I'm sure, to avoid going there if it was at all reasonable to do so.

If she went back, would that make her rapist any less guilty the second time he raped her? No. But it does make her less worthy of sympathy when she deliberately and knowingly put herself into his power once again.
Not up on the internet lingo, so you will have to excuse my questioning of "straw men." :smallconfused:

I am not trying to paint you as a bad person, nor have I said that. I merely am at a loss reading what you are writing and wondering how could someone not have sympathy for a person of harassment or abuse, despite the details. These things happen to real people, actual people with feelings and emotions that can be broken and hurt. I don't see how you can just dismiss them as idiots (which is how it is reading to me) and write them off. I am not calling you a bad person, I am just saying I cannot understand your point of view in the least.

As for why she stayed at the game, as far as I am aware from the article, it happened once in one session and then she stopped going, after trying to get our of the situation in game and sayings he wasn't comfortable with this. I don't know where you are getting she kept going back to it, but she did not. She tried her best to make the best of the situation, but in the end she left and didn't come back. But even if she had gone back....it wouldn't have been because she wanted more abuse. She wanted to hang out with her friends, see them, talk to them, because she cares about them. Just because someone does something again that harms them, doesn't mean they had a choice in the matter. What if, in the mugging example, the attackers took the man's wallet, now having his address, and threatened his family's life if he didn't walk down that alley every day at the same time, only to be mugged again. He keeps going back, but it is out of fear for his family. Does your sympathy wain then, too?

Segev
2014-08-01, 01:39 PM
I think it's safe to say that this is implied. If someone comes to me and says "I've been raped" I'm not going to ask him "have you asked him to stop?". :smallsigh: If you are a victim of something you WILL send signals that make your discomfort obvious. You will be scared, uneasy, disgusted, whatever... These are not emotions that are easy to conceal or, from the other side, to miss. Just because a girl doesn't tell you to stop if you try to have sex with her it doesn't mean she isn't sending you another 100 signals that say "stop now!". :smallannoyed:

That's the problem. We're dealing with, in theory, some of the LEAST socially aware people out there. I know I am bad at picking up on subtle cues as to people's comfort level. I have found out after events that somebody was having a miserable time and that my bad puns were a contributing factor...and I had no idea I was upsetting them. (I make a lot of bad puns in person. I love puns. Most people groan and grin and shake their heads, possibly throwing small objects at me in response. If asked to stop, I generally do.)

Let's stop talking about actual rape, because it involves power dynamics that are not present in what started this conversation and is extremely emotionally charged.

Let's instead focus on the IC rape of a PC, which is reportedly as traumatic to some as actual rape, but which lacks the threat of actual physical harm.

Yes, I will ask somebody who says they were a victim of a creeper DM's behavior if they ever said "stop." Because unless I know there is good reason for the DM to know he was being a jerk going into it, it's rather unfair to assume the DM isn't just as socially awkward and blind as the nerd stereotype claims, and thus had no clue he was upsetting the real person running the PC in question.

But, moreover, I have more and more trouble retaining sympathy for the player of the PC-victim when the player stayed in the situation despite having every ability to leave. And if they keep RETURNING to that situation, I find my sympathy all but gone.

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 01:43 PM
no victim will be entirely passive and uncommunicative when subjected to something they don't want
Unfortunately, this is not true. It is, however, very frustrating to deal with, and causes a lot of problems.

Again - some people are very bad at communicating/picking up on other's communications.

Irish Musician
2014-08-01, 01:43 PM
Once again, economics would be useful, here. There is a risk/reward function. The rewards of being comfortable and not having to always wear protective gear outweigh the risks of being shot in much of the USA. It's just not expected that we have even a remote chance of being assaulted.

The more risky your area or the area in which you're traveling, the more reasonable it becomes to take increasing precautions against danger.


When the danger is "being uncomfortable or 'triggered' by events at a gaming table," the steps to proactively protect yourself are pretty straight-forward: speak up about it, discuss it like adults, and leave if it doesn't stop. Further defenses include not returning if you don't have good reason to risk it happening again.

Our hypothetical straight guy who wound up unwittingly going to a gay bar loses any sympathy for his discomfort if he a) doesn't speak up, b) remains at the venue where he knows he'll be hit on, and/or c) keeps going back every week.

He should, at a BARE MINIMUM, not return OR grow a thick enough skin to laugh off being hit on and tell guys who do that he's straight and is just there to...whatever he's there for. Maybe the pretzels are awesome or something.
This is all very black and white advice, though. And the world doesn't live in black and white.....it lives in shades of grey (and please do not make a pun about this anyone). So to say, "well they should just speak up about it", is a little arrogant and it isn't always as simple as that. Sometimes the victims have trouble talking about what happened to them, or even broaching the subject.

Yes, we should be adults and talk about, but people should also be adult enough to not force someone's character to have sex with an NPC if they don't want to and are obviously trying to find other ways to get said NPC to help them.

Arbane
2014-08-01, 01:49 PM
I actually agree with you here. Perhaps you missed that my first piece of advice is to SPEAK UP. "Dude, not cool," is a very reasonable way to speak up.

Yeah, I just thought you were getting a bit hyperbolic I edited my post.

Segev
2014-08-01, 01:49 PM
Not up on the internet lingo, so you will have to excuse my questioning of "straw men." :smallconfused:A "straw man" is a form of logical fallacy most commonly seen in debate/argument. It is where one side frames an easily-vilified or easily-defeated argument and ascribes it to the other side. The straw man is the manufactured, easily-destroyed argument; the idea is that the guy constructs a straw man to debate and pretends it is his opponent, expecting his opponent to thus seem discredited by the poor ability of the straw man (which is a stuffed scarecrow and nothing more) to defend his position.

When "easily-vilified," it becomes ad hominem (or "attack on the man") as well: "Because this straw man is so reprehensible, anybody who agrees with him is. And my opponent, by not agreeing with me, agrees with him. Therefore, my opponent is reprehensible, and should not be listened to. I am therefore obviously right."


I am not trying to paint you as a bad person, nor have I said that. I merely am at a loss reading what you are writing and wondering how could someone not have sympathy for a person of harassment or abuse, despite the details. These things happen to real people, actual people with feelings and emotions that can be broken and hurt. I don't see how you can just dismiss them as idiots (which is how it is reading to me) and write them off. I am not calling you a bad person, I am just saying I cannot understand your point of view in the least.I don't enjoy seeing them suffer, but there comes a point where it hurts too much to watch people willingly put themselves in positions to be hurt, for no reason at all.

Worse, I have watched people who deliberately put themselves in positions they CLAIM hurt in order to raise the flag of righteous victimhood and use it as an attack against others. Call it a slippery slope, but I have WATCHED people do things like claim they're being "sexually harassed" at the gaming table, yet keep going back...and as they use their claimed offense to get concessions, their demands become less and less reasonable, until anything they don't like is "retaliation" against them and reason to take offense.

Thus, I become suspicious of the motives of those who claim to be victims but repeatedly knowingly put themselves right back in a position where they might be victimized. Weaponized "victimhood" is too common, these days.





As for why she stayed at the game, as far as I am aware from the article, it happened once in one session and then she stopped going, after trying to get our of the situation in game and sayings he wasn't comfortable with this.In which case, I have every sympathy for her. It was a shame.

Though my reading indicated it seemed an ongoing problem, and she took a while to finally quit the game.


Now, maybe she thought it would get better. From the context of this particular story, the DM probably DID know what he was doing, but thought it "okay" for some reason that any serious analysis would reveal as a flimsy justification for his bad behavior. Which is to say, he knew it wasn't okay, but could pretend to himself that he thought it was. Hence, I do think this DM likely a creep.

But we have had pages and pages of people trying almost to argue that it's the fault of the offender if somebody takes offense, no matter what the reason for said offense is and no matter whether the offender was even aware it had been taken. That is what I argue against, because I have watched too much bullying under the guise of weaponized victimhood and professional offense-taking.

Segev
2014-08-01, 01:58 PM
This is all very black and white advice, though. And the world doesn't live in black and white.....it lives in shades of grey (and please do not make a pun about this anyone). So to say, "well they should just speak up about it", is a little arrogant and it isn't always as simple as that. Sometimes the victims have trouble talking about what happened to them, or even broaching the subject.

Yes, we should be adults and talk about, but people should also be adult enough to not force someone's character to have sex with an NPC if they don't want to and are obviously trying to find other ways to get said NPC to help them.I'm not saying "speak up; that's all you have to do." I'm saying "speak up as a first recourse." Use the power you do have, and act like an adult. If the others won't, then leave. If they do, but you can't come to an agreement, leave.

Yes, I know there are shades of gray. (Far more than 50 of them...sorry, couldn't resist.) My advice has been to know your boundaries so you KNOW when things have crossed from gray to black.

If you find yourself in the murky shades of gray, speaking up still is a good idea. Work it out with the others, decide if it makes you uncomfortable or not. That's the mature, responsible thing to do. If you decide you can tolerate it after all, good for you! I think we all could do with thicker skins, honestly. I'm not advocating accepting things you find utterly wrong or reprehensible; that's where your known boundaries should lie. You should always stand up against those things, and leave if you can't convince the group to not engage in it.

But if it's gray, decide whether you should develop a thicker skin or determine that your boundaries actually mark this as "black" after all.



Conversely, you should know what you think is truly always acceptable, and you should very much be willing to stand up for it if somebody takes offense at it and calls it wrong. Else, you risk permitting weaponized victimhood to attack that which you value and make it evil in others' eyes just because the professionally offended have decided they want to eliminate it.

For the LGBT-and-friends out there, imagine if homophobes took offense every time homosexuality came up, and insisted it could never even be mentioned without being offensive. Obviously, you'd stand up and tell them where to shove it, right? ...er, no pun intended here. That's why your boundaries have to include what is always okay and worthy of defense, as well as what is always unacceptable and in need of being decried.


Yeah, I just thought you were getting a bit hyperbolic I edited my post.Fair enough.

draken50
2014-08-01, 02:12 PM
Right. But that's not saying there weren't actions she couldn't have taken to avoid letting the rapist rape her. Sure, after the fact she's blameless and the perpetrator deserves the weight of the social hammer - but that won't take back what happened, while a woman using the tools and power available to herself to keep the rapist from getting power over her does stop it from happening. Sure, she's not at fault if she fails to do so, but her situation isn't improved.

Okay.. So first off. I teach martial arts to women and often for both their piece of mind, and with direct lessons related to rape attempts ect. I absolutely understand the statistics that during a rape attempt a woman who fights back is far less likely to be a victim statistically.

The thing of it is, that doesn't provide a solution to the problem. I'd love to teach every woman how to fight with a knife, so that if they find themselves in that situation statistically its less likely to result in a rape. The problem isn't. Women aren't stabbing enough rapists. The problem is that there are too many men assaulting women.

Sexual assault and rape is a widespread issue. Some statistics report as high as 1 in 5 women who go to college get sexually assaulted. I have not seen anything reporting numbers nearly that high for men. While it certainly happens, it is not nearly at the level that occurs for women.

The worst of it is, as some of those situations have been recounted to me, the stories I've gotten of women who describe being in that moment, and wanting to tell the guy to **** off, or punch him in the **** or do, something... anything, other than have what is occurring continue. I've had women describe the shame they feel over the fact that they couldn't do any of the things that came to mind and make it stop aside from sometimes retreating as quickly as they could.

In emergency situations, high-stress situations, people freeze. I've read about it. Its something that requires training and experience for someone to be able to react rationally in situations they are unprepared for. You can look it up, there's books on it.

The thing is, between that, and meeting knowing a girl who had her teeth beaten in and stayed with her husband because she feared if she wasn't there he'd beat their son. I cannot say, "Well, you didn't do enough about stopping it, so you deserve no sympathy."

And frankly... I think it's a very ignorant stance to take.

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-01, 02:21 PM
You are not your players' counsellor. You do not get to decide what will or will not help someone heal. If you're going to try and say that you have any right to do something like that, well... I can only hope you never get an opportunity to "help" someone like this. Sorry Segev, I stand by my statement and as far as I can see it's not even a strawman.
Your error is the thought that trauma from bad things happening to your character is some horrible, horrible thing that will require a psychology degree to treat. It isn't. It's comparable to someone being startled by a dog, and then made to pet the dog to see it really isn't dangerous. People do this as part of normal social interaction.

Another similar situation: rollercoasters. The first time in a rollercoaster is the worst. Subsequent rides are more likely to take the edge out of the experience and make it less traumatic, and more fun. Ditto for ghost trains, horror movies and spicy foods - stuff people do for their own entertainment.

The whole point here, and the reason why "second verse, same as the first" can be expected to work, is that no matter what happens to a player's character, the player is not at any real risk. Even if the player is invested to the character, the experience is homologous to watching a horror movie, not being actual target of violence.

The reason why the original example in the article is creepy at all is because there's an out-of-game, interpersonal element. The analogue would be knowing the rollercoaster's handler knows you slept with his wife, and might decide to not pull the brakes for reals. The reason why most RPGs can handle murder, rape and seven shades of other bad things is because that "for reals" part is completely missing - there is no risk of any real violence befalling any of the players.

BRC
2014-08-01, 02:25 PM
The strawman you're using is the thought that trauma from bad things happening to your character is some horrible, horrible thing that will require a psychology degree to treat. It isn't. It's comparable to someone being startled by a dog, and then made to pet the dog to see it really isn't dangerous. People do this as part of normal social interaction.

Another similar situation: rollercoasters. The first time in a rollercoaster is the worst. Subsequent rides are more likely to take the edge out of the experience and make it less traumatic, and more fun. Ditto for ghost trains, horror movies and spicy foods - stuff people do for their own entertainment.

The whole point here, and the reason why "second verse, same as the first" can be expected to work, is that no matter what happens to a player's character, the player is not at any real risk. Even if the player is invested to the character, the experience is homologous to watching a horror movie, not being actual target of violence.

The reason why the original example in the article is creepy at all is because there's an out-of-game, interpersonal element. The analogue would be knowing the rollercoaster's handler knows you slept with his wife, and might decide to not pull the brakes for reals. The reason why most RPGs can handle murder, rape and seven shades of other bad things is because that "for reals" part is completely missing - there is no risk of any real violence befalling any of the players.

That dosn't give you the right to play therapist.
If a player is made profoundly uncomfortable by something that happens in-game, it's not your job to "Fix" them through repeated exposure. It's your job to make the game fun for everybody, not to repeatedly make them uncomfortable until it "Takes the edge off". If somebody is scared by a horror movie, the proper response isn't to force them to attend a SAW Marathon until they get over it.

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 02:28 PM
I cannot say, "Well, you didn't do enough about stopping it, so you deserve no sympathy."

And frankly... I think it's a very ignorant stance to take.I'm not the one proposing no sympathy. I am keenly aware of the limitations of the mind and how a person can be coerced into doing things beyond their will through abuse (Even if AMFV can't comprehend that, and Segev seems to be ignorant of the nature of what's going on). My stance is that the guys doing bad things won't go away just because you want them to stop existing, and it's a good idea to do everything reasonable and within your power to stop/prevent Bad Things when you can. I don't like it when attempts to arm someone to defend themselves against or get through bad experiences are equated to 'victim blaming', though.

Irish Musician
2014-08-01, 02:32 PM
*straw man snip*
Oh alright. Didn't mean to do that, if I did. I just tend to try and think how people think to better understand them. I really do my best not to vilify people in arguments, but I am only human and do make mistakes.

I don't enjoy seeing them suffer, but there comes a point where it hurts too much to watch people willingly put themselves in positions to be hurt, for no reason at all.

Worse, I have watched people who deliberately put themselves in positions they CLAIM hurt in order to raise the flag of righteous victimhood and use it as an attack against others. Call it a slippery slope, but I have WATCHED people do things like claim they're being "sexually harassed" at the gaming table, yet keep going back...and as they use their claimed offense to get concessions, their demands become less and less reasonable, until anything they don't like is "retaliation" against them and reason to take offense.

Thus, I become suspicious of the motives of those who claim to be victims but repeatedly knowingly put themselves right back in a position where they might be victimized. Weaponized "victimhood" is too common, these days.
I mean, they are still victims. But in these cases people use their status as victims to shame others into doing what they want....which isn't right in and of itself. But I think that is a separate issue than the one we are facing here, with this girl, or with most gamers who get harassed. I would say most of them want to just hang out with their friends and do something they love.


In which case, I have every sympathy for her. It was a shame.

Though my reading indicated it seemed an ongoing problem, and she took a while to finally quit the game.


Now, maybe she thought it would get better. From the context of this particular story, the DM probably DID know what he was doing, but thought it "okay" for some reason that any serious analysis would reveal as a flimsy justification for his bad behavior. Which is to say, he knew it wasn't okay, but could pretend to himself that he thought it was. Hence, I do think this DM likely a creep.

But we have had pages and pages of people trying almost to argue that it's the fault of the offender if somebody takes offense, no matter what the reason for said offense is and no matter whether the offender was even aware it had been taken. That is what I argue against, because I have watched too much bullying under the guise of weaponized victimhood and professional offense-taking.
The author said he and his wife were gone for one session and the "GM made his move." I gathered he was too chicken to do it while they were there, so he waited until they were gone so he could get away with it and they know nothing about it.


I'm not saying "speak up; that's all you have to do." I'm saying "speak up as a first recourse." Use the power you do have, and act like an adult. If the others won't, then leave. If they do, but you can't come to an agreement, leave.
And I am saying that sometimes even speaking up in the first place isn't do-able. Sometimes victims of certain things just can't speak up or broach the subject due to crippling fear or trauma. Something that should be considered.


If you find yourself in the murky shades of gray, speaking up still is a good idea. Work it out with the others, decide if it makes you uncomfortable or not. That's the mature, responsible thing to do. If you decide you can tolerate it after all, good for you! I think we all could do with thicker skins, honestly. I'm not advocating accepting things you find utterly wrong or reprehensible; that's where your known boundaries should lie. You should always stand up against those things, and leave if you can't convince the group to not engage in it.
But if it's gray, decide whether you should develop a thicker skin or determine that your boundaries actually mark this as "black" after all.
You miss my meaning about the grey. I meant that your advice is black and white. "You have to speak up because it is the mature thing to do." That is a black and white piece of advice, it doesn't take into account all the legitimate factors that might be stopping someone from broaching the subject. That advice isn't grey enough. You can't make one advice template and make everyone fit into it, the world is much larger than that. You have to treat each situation as it comes to you differently. Sure some will be the same, but you can't keep a narrow view of "If they don't speak up, no sympathy"(which is a much more simple version, I know, but I am making a point) is a fairly narrow view on life and how it works.

And I do agree you should know your own boundaries, but not everyone has figured those out yet, so it is harder on them when they do figure out what those boundaries out. And it may take a few times for them to figure them out, too. There just seems to be a hard line in the sand for what a victim should be doing, but it is honestly different for everyone so why make it a hard line?

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-01, 02:39 PM
"Playing therapist" continues to be an exaggeration. Teaching new players the rules of the game and how to handle bad things happening to their characters is explicit duty of the game leader. This has *always* included introducing players to shocking elements, often literally from a horror movie, because that's one place from where RPGs take their inspiration.

The idea that you're not allowed to make anyone uncomfortable, ever, is a bunch of baloney, and falls apart if you contrast it with other hobbies. In martial arts, I'm literally allowed to punch people and cause them pain until they learn to deal with it. The social contract of the situation obliges a person to tolerate certain level of discomfort, because that discomfort is necessary to facilitate learning and making the situation fun. The same applies to any potentially horrifying elements of an RPG. What we refer to as "fun" is, partly or wholly, a result of the relief we feel after the initial tension. I already linked to a helpful Venn diagram on this.

If you're saying my task as a game leader is to make a game "fun", yet I'm not allowed to make anyone uncomfortable in the slightest way, you have given me conflicting orders.

Sartharina
2014-08-01, 02:43 PM
Most TTRPGs don't include sexual assault. Losing a character is one thing. Being virtually sexually assaulted is another. ... unless it's one of my personal sessions (Not the gaming I do here)

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-01, 03:01 PM
But is that conceit of the rules, or the players? D&D included from the start succubi, incubi, nymphs and dozen other sexual creepy-crawlies of human myths. Then there's Whitewolf's World of Darkness and Exalted. Considering inspiration for early RPGs and lot of modern fantasy and horror fiction (Conan, Lovecraft etc.), I feel rather safe in saying the possibility has always been there and has been capitalized on regular basis. The desire to either implicitly or explicitly ban such content came later on.

In any case, to me it's a laughable idea to treat sexual assault as a no-no when vast majority of fantasy games still involve and glorify murder and thievery.