Bringing serious IRL topics into Roleplaying : Dealing with the drama.

[Dezea]

Hey guys,

Looking for some advice here, as I'm sure some of you encountered the same problem I just did. So, let me first explain the context :

I'm dm'ing 5 guys, most of them I don't really know since I just moved in another part of the countries. Most were met or recruited trought the local game shop (Bless you, all you, RPG-shop, by the way). All of them looked quite nice, really, and we had 8 really good session full of adventure and fun.

I wouldn't say I got to know them well, and the personnal conversation has been kept relatively low, but still, they are starting to be people I spend quite a lot of time with.

Anyway, let's get to the point : Last session was to be spend mostly in town after a big dungeon, and was expected to be roleplay heavy, as a way to have some relief and fun between the fight. We also had one of the guy - Playing a Female human Skald - having some private time with another player, a male human wizard. They roleplayed the beginning of a romance quite well from the start of the adventure, and did it in a way that made nobody feel akward (Wich is sadly something i'm a bit used to). Party spend then some month in town as the crafting rules in PF require SO-MUCH-TIME, and, when ready to go back adventuring, wizard guy has this strange question :

"Just before we leave, could we just check If Shael (The skald girl) is pregnant ?"

Sooooo : I'll admit it, as a dm, I always considered that a player who decide to be sexually active but doesn't tell me he wants children, kind of.... magically never get pregnant. I'll agree it's probably a bit stupid, and maybe you guys found way around it, but let's just say it was not my case (As of now.)

So I'm surprised, but after all why not, so I ask the Skald if he want to check. Guys says yes, visibly quite surprised by the wizard question, roll a D20, and...Pregnancy.

Things started to get seriously downhill from there.

Skald first take it with a grin, and tell us he'll have to leave the group for some days then, to find a "Cure for that particular matter".

Everyone nod and I'm about to resume to the play when wizard guy say : "No".

Skald : "Uh... Yes ?"

Wizard : "I think I got a word to say in this matter".

I'll spare you the whole discussion, but for 5 long, loooong, loooooooong minute we had what looked way to closely to an IRL debate about abortion.

I step in to say that this need to stops, and we'd all like to resume the play. Both of the player seem unable to stop arguing...We spend some time trying to get them back in the play, but It just doesn't work, and we decide to cut the game here for the night.

After that, I decide to send a mail to both of them, telling them that I'll need to have a phone call with them to get the situation sorted oud. I receive two mail the day after :

Wizard tell me that he feel that abortion is wrong, but that it's not the main problem, wich is that it shouldn't be a topic of roleplaying game, and that he felt we crossed a dangerous line. He offer the solution to rollback his romance with the skald, and act as if the pregnancy never happend, so this debate can simply dissapear.

Skald tell me that he felt deeply attacked, and that not only is he dissapointed by the player, but also feel like his character has been taken hostage. He sound really kind of traumatized by the event, and tell me that it's basically him or the wizard, I have to choose.

Here is my problem : I feel like the wizard guy have been acting like an idiot here, by bringing this topic on the table and making a big problem out of something we could just have let slipped. I must admit that I'm also having some bias against him, as I'm deeply pro-choice, but I try my best not to let this get personnal. That being said, he is the only one of the two with a solution that doesn't imply to have someone get kicked, wich is something I really appreciate and see as mature.

What would you do in my situation ?

Thanks for the help and the time you took reading all of this. You'll probably know it by reading all of it, but I'm not fluent in english, and It probably shows !

[dascarletm]

I've not had to deal with player IRL infighting in a long long long time. I will say this, ignore the topic at hand completely. I have a personal thought on this matter as well, but keep political morality out of DnD. I doubt many people come to DnD to deal with hard-call political matters the RL media rams down our throats. DnD for many people is an escape from this sort of stuff.

That being said, I would tell both players the same thing:

Guys, I'll admit I did not expect this sort of thing to happen, and I apologize for not seeing it sooner. That said I'm going to do this: (Explain the in-game solution to the problem of your call). If anyone doesn't like that, we can work together to find something everyone finds appropriate. However, I'm running a DnD game, not an IRL political/moral/religious/etc. debate game. If you guys want to argue about anything like that feel free to do it on your own time. If you can both be civil and bury the hatchet, great. If not I'm sad things didn't work out, and you are welcome back any time.

This is assuming no one was hostile or anything to one another.

[ComaVision]

What would you do in my situation ?

Find new friends. I just can't imagine anyone I've ever played with getting incensed by something like this, on either side of the issue.

But I suppose that isn't great advice. Since it's the first time anything like this has happened, I would try to smooth it over and retcon it like the wizard suggested. If something like this occurs again with the wizard I'd let him know he is no longer invited. If the skald player can't be calmed down and sticks to the ultimatum, I would let the skald go because that kind of stubborn behaviour will probably cause later problems.

Please note that I absolutely ignored the whole abortion debate because I don't think their personal beliefs should play any role in the resolution.

[Telonius]

I've not had to deal with player IRL infighting in a long long long time. I will say this, ignore the topic at hand completely. I have a personal thought on this matter as well, but keep political morality out of DnD. I doubt many people come to DnD to deal with hard-call political matters the RL media rams down our throats. DnD for many people is an escape from this sort of stuff.

That being said, I would tell both players the same thing:

Guys, I'll admit I did not expect this sort of thing to happen, and I apologize for not seeing it sooner. That said I'm going to do this: (Explain the in-game solution to the problem of your call). If anyone doesn't like that, we can work together to find something everyone finds appropriate. However, I'm running a DnD game, not an IRL political/moral/religious/etc. debate game. If you guys want to argue about anything like that feel free to do it on your own time. If you can both be civil and bury the hatchet, great. If not I'm sad things didn't work out, and you are welcome back any time.

This is assuming no one was hostile or anything to one another.

That's pretty close to how I'd deal with it.

Pregnancy - and sexuality in general - is something that shouldn't appear in the game unless everybody playing is clear with how it's going to be handled, before it happens. It's possible to have a great experience roleplaying it. It's also possible to have a horrendous, group-breaking disaster.

[Gallowglass]

well, hopefully, you've figured out your tolerance levels for what belongs in the game and doesn't belong in the game.

Sounds like the Skald started the romance.
Wizard insists on pregnancy check. What the hell is a pregnancy check anyway?
Skald agrees.
You make some kind of roll (what did you give it? 50% chance? 5% chance?)
Skald makes off hand crack about abortion.
Wizard goes militant MRA pro-lifer. Skald goes militant pro-choicer.
Argument. You try to cut if off to get back to the game, they continue, you stop the game.

Now with cooler heads:

Wizard thinks "abortion has no business at the table" despite the fact he's the one who started the whole pregnancy **** in the first place. Wants to roll back without admitting his own part in the problem.
Skald wants the wizard gone or he's leaving.
You just want the problem to go away and get back to the game.

So here's some questions:

Where is the game? Your house or at the shop or at someone else's house?

Because what you CAN do changes depending on that answer.

Here's frankly, what I would do in your situation and, keeping in mind, I'm working off JUST the information you have shared with us here.

I would not talk to the two players until the next session.
I would go to the next session and say...

"This is a game. I'm enjoying playing with all of you. I think one of the great things about this as a social pasttime is that it proves that people with different political, religious or social beliefs can still be friends and still enjoy a pasttime together. This is a game of escapist fantasy that served to take us away from the bull**** of real life for a while. I want to continue the game and that's what I'm here to do. So we are starting from where we were, starting to leave town, and will be ignoring everything after that from the last session and moving on. If either of you two feel that you cannot put your differences to the side and play a game with the other because of your differing beliefs, then you are, of course, free to leave. I certainly can't stop you. But you have to know that that is your choice, not my choice, not the other's choice, not anybody else's choice but your own. Now if you choose to stay and play and the argument continues or reforms or you display resentment that starts affecting the game, or the game stops being fun because of your behavior, then i -will- be telling you to leave. And that will STILL be your choice and not my choice because you will be the one acting with bad behavior."
"We are adults, we are playing a game, not having a debate. If you can't handle that, then that's on you."

Wait a few seconds to see if anyone leaves

"Okay. Three days out from town you have left the dusty farmer's trail and are deep into the rocky wilderness. Thomas, as your character is scouting ahead you hear sounds from out of a deep cut canyon that sounds like the squealing of pigs and the slaughter of a charnal house...."

And move on.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Firstly, don't pick sides. NEVER pick sides, unless one player is making another player's life difficult.

Secondly, tell the Wizard's player that they shouldn't have brought the whole pregnancy thing up, without asking the other player how they felt in the first place. This really applies to a lot of stuff at the table. If you're going to do something that gets other players involved (be it robbing a local wizard, or trying to shank the king) ASK THEM FIRST. Don't just wing it, and assume everyone involved is going to be cool with whatever dumbass great idea you've had.

That said, the Skald can just take a trip to the Church of (insert appropriately maternal Goddess' name here), and prays for the budding life within to be taken, and given to whatever follower she has that is wishing for a child, but for whatever reason, cannot conceive herself.

Problem gone for the player, problem gone for whoever wanted to get the baby, probably a bit of divine favor gained with previously mentioned Goddess, Wizard can shut up, because when you have the right magic, there isn't a problem like abortion.

Guys. Magic. Magic can fix just about everything.

And if it can't, then switch to Psionics. :smalltongue:

[Boci]

I'd side with the skald player here. The only thing they did wrong was put you into the uncomfortable position of choosing between them, and based on the wizard's 5 minute rant, it seems like the skald may very well be justified in this. The wizards seems to be the problem. He started it by bringing up the pregnancy, and then made it into an issue by arguing with the quick fix.

Obviously its better if you can get the skald to allow the wizard back on the condition he keeps such opinions to himself in future, but based on what you've said it sounds like the skald is in the right, or at least, way less in the wrong.

[OldTrees1]

Wait:

Who would be upset if you just retconned the pregnancy check (either by changing the result or by changing it so the roll never was made)?
The Wizard offered this solution so they are obviously okay with it.
You asked the Skald before calling for the check so I think you would have been okay with not having had a roll.
The Skald player is feeling "deeply attacked" and "feels like his character has been taken hostage" but also suggested the abortion so they seem okay with their character not being pregnant.


The only leftover is that the Skald player feels "deeply attacked" over the argument and the Wizard player is upset with the topic of abortion coming up in the game. These are concerns of not retconnable events. I sympathize with both and suspect neither meant any harm. I would just ask them to put it aside and all agree to avoid this topic in game in the future.

[dascarletm]

I'd side with the skald player here. The only thing they did wrong was put you into the uncomfortable position of choosing between them, and based on the wizard's 5 minute rant, it seems like the skald may very well be justified in this. The wizards seems to be the problem. He started it by bringing up the pregnancy, and then made it into an issue by arguing with the quick fix.

Obviously its better if you can get the skald to allow the wizard back on the condition he keeps such opinions to himself in future, but based on what you've said it sounds like the skald is in the right, or at least, way less in the wrong.

To be fair the OP said there was a 5 minute debate, not a 5 minute rant by one player.

It takes two to argue, and I'd strongly caution against picking sides. I'd need much more information about what happened, and I'd rather not ask Dezea to write up a transcript. :smalltongue:

[Boci]

To be fair the OP said there was a 5 minute debate, not a 5 minute rant by one player.

It takes two to argue, and I'd strongly caution against picking sides. I'd need much more information about what happened, and I'd rather not ask Dezea to write up a transcript. :smalltongue:

Yes it takes too to argue, but that doesn't mean blame is shared equally. Me telling an immigrant to "get back to your country" could quite easily result in an argument, yet blame would not be equally applied. The wizard brought up pregnancy, if they didn't see that potentially leading to abortion than they are at best clueless.

I'm not 100% sure the Skald is in the right, but based on what I've read, they have my sympathies more than the wizard.

[Segev]

I have definite opinions about the real-world issue involved here, but the real solution is to dodge it entirely, for purposes of your game.

If the Skald doesn't want to play out a pregnancy and a kid, and the wizard is highly uncomfortable with his kid being aborted, then retcon the "pregnancy check" and don't make another one.

There. No abortion, because the Skald was never pregnant. Any "signs" of it that have occurred were coincidences.

Pregnancy isn't an important part of your game; if it isn't going to be nothing but fun for the players at the table, just don't have it happen.

[Gallowglass]

...Nine months of real time later, have a horrible cthulhuan creatures appear out of nowhere one day, attack the party, drag the wizard and skald into its horrible pocket dimension and, once there, its pitiful screeches resolve to words in the non-euclidian geometry of its home. And scream at them "MOMMY DADDY WHY DIDN'T YOU WANT ME!"...

[dascarletm]

The realest solution is to just force the players to roleplay the argument in game, and make the other players watch. FORCE THE TENSION. If they didn't want to experience the realness of your game world, they should have never played! This isn't about fun, this is about the DRAMA. Bring in their parents and society etc. Perhaps next time they'll think twice before entering your game for such base goals as "having fun." Disgusting, any two bit hack can make a game fun. You're an artist, this game is your art.

That was a joke in case you didn't get it

[Gnaeus]

Wait, I've seen Angel and Dr. Who, I know this one.

Some cultists have a prophecy about the wizard and/or skald (or they come back in time from the future). They attack the skald, and use a mcguffin of power to steal the fetus. They train the baby to be the nemesis of the wizard and skald (in the future, or a fast time plane) and then send it back as a BBEG or lieutenant. If they want to argue about moral issues, let them wrestle with how to deal with their child the deranged wizard-killer.

[Gallowglass]

The realest solution is to just force the players to roleplay the argument in game, and make the other players watch. FORCE THE TENSION. If they didn't want to experience the realness of your game world, they should have never played! This isn't about fun, this is about the DRAMA. Bring in their parents and society etc. Perhaps next time they'll think twice before entering your game for such base goals as "having fun." Disgusting, any two bit hack can make a game fun. You're an artist, this game is your art.

That was a joke in case you didn't get it

http://i.imgur.com/qnG7AIm.gif

[Gallowglass]

Wait, I've seen Angel and Dr. Who, I know this one.

Some cultists have a prophecy about the wizard and/or skald (or they come back in time from the future). They attack the skald, and use a mcguffin of power to steal the fetus. They train the baby to be the nemesis of the wizard and skald (in the future, or a fast time plane) and then send it back as a BBEG or lieutenant. If they want to argue about moral issues, let them wrestle with how to deal with their child the deranged wizard-killer.

//What a mcguffin of power may look like

https://obpmedical.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/vaginal-specula-graeve-69880-115349.jpg

[CharonsHelper]

Another vote to retcon it.

If 'magic' isn't a good enough answer, say that the skald had been way too physically active in the dungeon. (it can happen to female athletes)

Frankly - I never touch upon the romance in the first place (especially sex side of things) in my RPGs to avoid this, with the only exception being a married couple who vaguely were 'together' in game too, but no specifics.

[AvatarVecna]

First point of order: the wizard player needs to understand that while they don't feel abortion is appropriate to D&D, the other player doesn't feel pregnancy is appropriate to D&D, and is feeling quite put upon by the wizard forcing the pregnancy issue in the way the Skald is forcing the abortion issue. This should give them some clarity on the other player's feelings that I think they might not be considering.

OoC problems need to be dealt with OoC; the best solution IMO is just to retcon it and then not give things like this an opportunity to happen in the first place. It's a problem that requires a lot of effort, but it will head off arguments like this before they happen by not giving them the opportunity to start. Now, because this situation has already happened, there's things that can be done if you don't want to retcon or lose players, but questions must be asked.

For starters, find out why the Wizard player is set against abortion; if they are against the abortion because they like for actions to have consequences, and they think the Skald is just trying to dodge responsibility, they're not going to be satisfied with a solution other than "the baby is carried to term by the Skald", which means that you either need to retcon, or one of those players will be leaving. Now, a more interesting solution is if the wizard is against the abortion because he's pro-life: while IRL "baby lives" and "baby isn't carried by Skald" would be mutually exclusive goals, in the game, you have ****ing magic. This dude is a wizard; give him enough time to research and he can alter reality to his whims. Have him research a way to transport a fetus from one womb to another without harming the baby or either child-bearer; if the Skald thinks this is a neat idea, it could lead to an interesting sub-plot of locating a suitable mother for the child (perhaps a barren woman who's always wanted a child to care for or something). If the wizard player is iffy on this idea, you can point out how unlikely it is that the child will live long enough to be born in the belly of a melee-er, or how inefficient the Skald will be as an adventurer while pregnant (this particular argument is more convincing if your mission is of particular importance the the city/nation/world, where offing the child in the womb could potentially save hundreds/thousands/millions due to the Skald not being hampered during their quest), or how a life on the road isn't a suitable life for a baby.

Once again, I think the best solution is a retcon, but the OOC problems need to be addressed.

[the_david]

...Nine months of real time later, have a horrible cthulhuan creatures appear out of nowhere one day, attack the party, drag the wizard and skald into its horrible pocket dimension and, once there, its pitiful screeches resolve to words in the non-euclidian geometry of its home. And scream at them "MOMMY DADDY WHY DIDN'T YOU WANT ME!"...Funny, I would have gone for incorporeal undead. That is, if the situation was a bit more lighthearted. The situation as described, I probably would have said no when the wizard's player would have brought up the pregnancy.

[icefractal]

Definitely retcon it (OOC, not some IC explanation), and make no reference to it in future. It seems like both players would be ok with that, and it's really the best way to go here.

That just leaves the issue of whether the players involved now have too much negative feeling to play with each-other. Hopefully not, but you really can't force this. I feel like the Wizard was more at fault here (bringing the subject up without checking whether the other player was ok with it, and while not himself being ok with all the outcomes), but that's secondary.

For the future, this is a good example of when to take things OOC:
Wizard: "Did the Skald get pregnant?"
DM: *to Skald player* "Do you want your character to have children at this point?"
Skald: "No."
DM: "No then."

[Âmesang]

Now I see why the FORGOTTEN REALMS® Campaign Setting book has those alchemical drugs/herbs that prevent fertility. :smalltongue:

[Boci]

For the future, this is a good example of when to take things OOC:
Wizard: "Did the Skald get pregnant?"
DM: *to Skald player* "Do you want your character to have children at this point?"
Skald: "No."
DM: "No then."

That's a good aproach, but it may not always work so smoothly. The skald character could answer "No, but I can always get rid of it", which could still lead to the drama. That would likely be my asnwer as an RP-er, because I would want to deal with it. So maybe skip even asking the skald and just do what the DM says they normally do "Sorry, I don't do pregnancies in my game, no roll, she isn't pregnant"

[Segev]

That's a good aproach, but it may not always work so smoothly. The skald character could answer "No, but I can always get rid of it", which could still lead to the drama. That would likely be my asnwer as an RP-er, because I would want to deal with it. So maybe skip even asking the skald and just do what the DM says they normally do "Sorry, I don't do pregnancies in my game, no roll, she isn't pregnant"

If the Skald player said that, and the Wizard player objected, the DM could and should just say, "Okay, we're not even checking, then. She's not pregnant."

Because if it's going to cause needless, unfun tension in the group, there's no point in making it happen.

[Boci]

If the Skald player said that, and the Wizard player objected, the DM could and should just say, "Okay, we're not even checking, then. She's not pregnant."

Because if it's going to cause needless, unfun tension in the group, there's no point in making it happen.

My point is that merely asking risks opening that jar of worms. So whilst it is certainly an option, a better one may be a flat out rule of: - "PCs never get pregnant"

[Segev]

My point is that merely asking risks opening that jar of worms. So whilst it is certainly an option, a better one may be a flat out rule of: - "PCs never get pregnant"

It's not a bad one, if you don't want to deal with it at your table.

[Shackel]

There are a few ways to go about it from my point of view:

OOC - Don't take any sides(contrary to what some in the thread are saying, this merely sounds like a couple small statements without any political or moral intent in them spiraling out of control: I doubt the wizard's player saw it as anything beyond some fun and an interesting path to go down, and I doubt the Skald expected there to be any OOC problems with abortion), first off. I'd go with the wizard's idea and make it a rule to basically never mention this again. Retcon it, and all the problems just happen to vanish.

OOC+IC: Although it's from Pathfinder, night tea is a contraceptive that notes that drinking it regularly post-initial pregnancy can stop it then and there, much like a morning after pill. Check with the wizard OOC just to make sure and, if it's agreed upon, you can retroactively have her be drinking that.

Pure IC: I would not recommend this unless you believe both players are mature enough to handle IC events that may entirely flow with their personal beliefs, but I admit there does seem like some interesting plot seeds in the "god(ess) of fertility transfers the seed of life to another who wishes for a child".

[TheYell]

I would tell the wizard that he cannot retcon the romance. His character has had a bad false pregnancy scare and can expect to check pregnancy every month he fools around with a woman.

I would tell the Skald that you're all learning to get along and you are running the game and you can respect an ultimatum to end a situation but not one to bounce another player. Tell him that rather than getting very upset later, he should object to the first roll when asked if he objects. Tell him he will not be pregnant.

I would tell all the other players that a major fertility goddess has agreed to interfere and spare the baby without making the Skald carry the baby, if they will all take a pledge not to bang each other because they are not suited to be a family together.

[Zanos]

Pro-choice here too, for whatever that's worth.

It's pretty weird to ask for a pregnancy check. What even is the roll for that? However, the Skald agreed to the check, so I'm assuming both of them wanted something interesting to potentially roleplay off of. The in character debate could have potentially been interesting, but it's kind of spoiled by the OOC tension.

At this point it seems to me that the Skald is being pretty immature. Was the wizard being extremely vitriolic? Saying that you felt personally attacked and that your character is being held hostage, then throwing the DM an ultimatum that either the Wizard goes or you do is not the mark of exceptional conflict resolution. That's extremely petulant.

If anything to me it seems like the Wizard player has the right of it. He didn't foresee the potential consequences, and is now admitting that a line was crossed that he and other players weren't comfortable with, and wants to make the issue go away. I'm not sure that retconning the entire romance was necessary, but making the problem go away by just saying the Skald wasn't pregnant is probably fine.

[Boci]

If anything to me it seems like the Wizard player has the right of it.

I'd skeptical calling mature the person whose insistence brought the issue about and now wants the whole thing swept under the rug without acknowledging the role he played in it (the OPs paraphrasing of the wizards words imply he doesn't take any more responsibility than the group as a whole, despite him absolutely being responsible by insisting on the pregnancy role and then objecting to the quick fix the player and DM, scratch that, the entire gaming group apart from him, had just agreed to).

The skald problems are the way the wizard player treated them, whilst the wizards problems are largely his own doing, so it is easier for him to offer a solution that keeps both players in the group.

And: if he wasn't willing to entertain an abortion, what the hell was he insisting on a pregnancy role for? "Hey, let's roll for a random chance that a fellow PC will be severely inconvenience for the next 9 months?" I can totally see how the skald interpreted that as their character being taken hostage.

[Zanos]

I'd skeptical calling mature the person whose insistence brought the issue about and now wants the whole thing swept under the rug without acknowledging the role he played in it (the OPs paraphrasing of the wizards words imply he doesn't take any more responsibility than the group as a whole, despite him absolutely being responsible by insisting on the pregnancy role and then objecting to the quick fix the player and DM, scratch that, the entire gaming group apart from him, had just agreed to).

The skald problems are the way the wizard player treated them, whilst the wizards problems are largely his own doing, so it is easier for him to offer a solution that keeps both players in the group.
I suspect we're reading the opener in a different ways. It doesn't seem to me like the Wizard was "insistent", just that he asked, and he broached a topic that he didn't foresee would cause the drama that it did. Not sure how anyone could not realize their own fault in that, and I didn't read that he was trying to sweep his own involvement under the rug in the post either. The "quick fix" was deeply offensive to his morals, as much as I do and you may disagree with them.


And: if he wasn't willing to entertain an abortion, what the hell was he insisting on a pregnancy role for? "Hey, let's roll for a random chance that a fellow PC will be severely inconvenience for the next 9 months?" I can totally see how the skald interpreted that as their character being taken hostage.
A child, probably? Keep in mind the PCs just spent several months in a town, and it wasn't a big deal. If his beliefs are as strong as the argument indicates, I doubt it was something he strongly considered. Not trying to invalidate the Skald's belief that his character was taken hostage, that's a perfectly legitimate response. But delivering an ultimatum about it is pretty ridiculous when the other person is trying to make the issue go away.

Between the person who tells me they HAVE to kick someone they had an argument or they're out, and the person who says that it was distracting from the game and making people uncomfortable and wants to just forget about, I know who I'd keep in my group.

[digiman619]

Definitely retcon it (OOC, not some IC explanation), and make no reference to it in future. It seems like both players would be ok with that, and it's really the best way to go here.

That just leaves the issue of whether the players involved now have too much negative feeling to play with each-other. Hopefully not, but you really can't force this. I feel like the Wizard was more at fault here (bringing the subject up without checking whether the other player was ok with it, and while not himself being ok with all the outcomes), but that's secondary.

For the future, this is a good example of when to take things OOC:
Wizard: "Did the Skald get pregnant?"
DM: *to Skald player* "Do you want your character to have children at this point?"
Skald: "No."
DM: "No then."

My 2 cents: I agree with this point. Unlike real life, the only difference if you retcon this is that your RPG story will be a bit different, rather than an actual person not existing. Also, since it's primarily going to impact the female PC, (and depending on how long/often you game, this pregnancy could conceivably take either a few sessions or a year or longer), it's primarily her choice.
I'm pro choice, and I agree it's ultimately the mother's choice, but the father's opinion has got to have some weight. If he's going to be part of the child's life, he's gotta have some say.

[Boci]

A child, probably? Keep in mind the PCs just spent several months in a town, and it wasn't a big deal.

If that's not taking the skalds character hostage, its at the very least hijaking their characters. If he wants a child, there are NPCs. And the downtime was just over, so no, you can't brush it away as not a big deal. Once again, the only conclusion I see is that the skalds problem is the wizards, and the wizards problems is also the wizard, so him being the one to offer to leave things behind doesn't neccissarily make him the more reasonable.

[Sith_Happens]

Wait, so the Skald player agreed to roll for pregnancy... And then immediately wanted to abort when the roll came out positive? ...Why? I am not seeing the logic in this sequence of decisions.:smallconfused:

[Boci]

Wait, so the Skald player agreed to roll for pregnancy... And then immediately wanted to abort when the roll came out positive? ...Why? I am not seeing the logic in this sequence of decisions.:smallconfused:

From the OP: "Guys says yes, visibly quite surprised by the wizard question" it seems like they were caught offguard and just decided to go ahead with the wizard's request.

[Satinavian]

If that's not taking the skalds character hostage, its at the very least hijaking their characters. If he wants a child, there are NPCs. And the downtime was just over, so no, you can't brush it away as not a big deal. Once again, the only conclusion I see is that the skalds problem is the wizards, and the wizards problems is also the wizard, so him being the one to offer to leave things behind doesn't neccissarily make him the more reasonable.
there is no indication, anyone wanted to introduce pregnancy against the skalds players will. The player was asked and went for the roll. if the skald player had said he didn't want pregnancy and then the wizards player insisted on the roll, then the hijaking argument would be a valid one. But that is not, what happened. That the possibility pregnancy entered the game was a decision of both of them regardless who brought it up.

Then the skald went for abortion and players discovered to have very different real world morals regarding that topic. One proper way to solve that is to take it out of the game and retcon everything - which is exactly the solution the wizard player proposed. (Another possible way would be to use the disagreement which seems to be shared by the characters for ingame-drama. But i would only do that with certain groups of method actors who basically crave in-party-conflict and drama and are mature enough to not let it affect OT-relations ... so certainly not this group)


But yes, don't play the blame game but use the one possible resolution where the group stays intact (retconning) and if the skalds player insists one one player getting kicked, well, it should be him who has to leave.

[Ashtagon]

Minimum-drama outcome...

"Okay, guys, it turns out that it was a false positive. She's not pregnant after all. Also, in future, we aren't rolling for this stuff."

In all seriousness, it's normally at least a month before anyone can tell, even with the best of modern science.

[Boci]

there is no indication, anyone wanted to introduce pregnancy against the skalds players will. The player was asked and went for the roll. if the skald player had said he didn't want pregnancy and then the wizards player insisted on the roll, then the hijaking argument would be a valid one. But that is not, what happened.

Except everyone was caught offguard by the wizards request for a pregnancy role. The DM said he was surprised, didn't know what to to, asked the skald player, who was visible surprised, so I don't think "well, they said yes" settles it. Have you never agreed to a request that came completely out of the blue and caught you offguard that you later regretted? I know I have.

It seems obvious to me that the skald said yes to the pregnancy roll on the assumption that abortion would always be an issue. The wizard asked for a pregnancy roll knowing but not telling the others that abortion would be contested by him. So yeah, hijacking another characters seem like an apt description of the wizard's actions.

I'd be hesitant to side with the wizard simple because he is the one who isn't forcing the DM to make a choice, because the wizard cannot force the DM to make a choice, since he's the one who caused the problem to begin with. Its easy for him to offer a solution which doesn't involve losing a player.

[Andezzar]

Wait, so the Skald player agreed to roll for pregnancy... And then immediately wanted to abort when the roll came out positive? ...Why? I am not seeing the logic in this sequence of decisions.:smallconfused:Besides being caught off-guard he probably didn't want to shut down the role-playing opportunity.

I'm still wondering how that situation played out in character. It is one thing to decide the Skald is pregnant, but two totally different things to know to be pregnant and to tell the potential father. Did the Skald tell the wizard? Did the wizard use some divination? Did the Skald actually "I need a few days to make myself not pregnant anymore"? Taking care of the problem can mean a lot of things, not all amount to an abortion."


Minimum-drama outcome...

"Okay, guys, it turns out that it was a false positive. She's not pregnant after all. Also, in future, we aren't rolling for this stuff."

In all seriousness, it's normally at least a month before anyone can tell, even with the best of modern science.That would be my suggestion as well.

[JyP]

Talking as a guy there : the most popular story on literotica is Surfacing, which is a D&D style story about dark elves adventurers - with the main protagonist being a pregnant dark elf female. It shows that pregnancies have a big potential as story hooks, but you definitely need to know the comfort zone of your players to pull such tricks.

I feel there is a much a risk as a possibility :
- you can stay in the comfort zone for both players saying nothing happened
- you can challenge their comfort zones, which can increase their engagment and enjoyment in the game - but it's a double-edged sword. Especially so if they already were not able to bypass this point in the previous meeting...

[Sith_Happens]

Besides being caught off-guard he probably didn't want to shut down the role-playing opportunity.

The opportunity for what though? To say "BRB gonna go nom some nasty herbs" and then never speak of it again? Because that is precisely the full extent of the "role-playing" the Skald player intended to do... In which case what was even the point of rolling?

[Stewzors]

The opportunity for what though? To say "BRB gonna go nom some nasty herbs" and then never speak of it again? Because that is precisely the full extent of the "role-playing" the Skald player intended to do... In which case what was even the point of rolling?

It's a shame if that is their attitude as there is the potential for some amazing mature RP in this scenario...

Take real life as an analogy

Woman A gets pregnant by whatever circumstances but woman A never had any intention of getting pregnant and decides she doesn't want to take pregnancy to full term.
Man B wasn't expecting pregnancy either but wants to continue with it for whatever reasons.

They are 2 people who are supposedly deeply involved with each other - whatever they eventually choose to do with the pregnancy there would be plenty of heartfelt discussion and soulsearching. Possibly some anger and maybe even an eventual break up.

Throw magic into these circumstances and pretty much anything could be possible.

Now it might not be everyones cup of tea - and it certainly seems that at least one of these players is having a knee jerk reaction to the situation - but it could certainly make for some amazing RP

[Dezea]

Well, thanks guy, there are a lot of good answer there.

(And some who made me have a very good laugh, you lovecraftian monsters.)

To answer some of you :

For the context, we'r playing at my place, and the guy are not exactly my friend (And sadly are not on the path to becoming it, I should say)

Some of you sugest turning this into a plot point : I must admit I'm reluctant. I could be a really cool stuff, as It does indeed involve the players deeply into it, but I'm not sure you can force a plot on someone when that someone feel it like an aggression.

It's also true I should have reacted sooner, and saw it coming when he asked for the pregnancy roll, but I was taken completely by surprise. For those curious about the roll, I simply handwaved a "20% chance to get pregnant, roll dice". (Silly me, indeed.)

The 5 minutes debate was basicaly : "You just can't do it" vs "Don't tell me what I can or can't do". To be frank, I'll admit that the Skald got a quite more aggressive than the wizard, but I can understand how he felt kind of trapped into something he didn't see coming.

I kind of like the idea of going all "Magic-Godess-Anything" and abracadabra, babies is into another women wombs, but I'm afraid this open the door to to much more debate at the game table. (Ie : You can't do this, I'm the father, I don't want my children adopted, and so on). Also, out of respect for the other player I'm really reluctant to give it the chance this eat more games times.

All of this being said, I'm feeling more and more toward the side of telling the wizard to go away. I don't like it, It's probably a bit unfair since he's been kind of the "Grown up" after the session, but I feel like he broke a "Gentlemen aggreement" by venturing on pregnancy ground in an RPG table with people he doesn't really know or even inquired about their "Mental safe zone", and then acting like he's the one offended by the skald reaction.

This is definitely a bit sad, but It will be a great lessons for me as a DM at what should and shouldn't happens during a game.

[Boci]

All of this being said, I'm feeling more and more toward the side of telling the wizard to go away. I don't like it, It's probably a bit unfair since he's been kind of the "Grown up" after the session, but I feel like he broke a "Gentlemen aggreement" by venturing on pregnancy ground in an RPG table with people he doesn't really know or even inquired about their "Mental safe zone", and then acting like he's the one offended by the skald reaction.

This is definitely a bit sad, but It will be a great lessons for me as a DM at what should and shouldn't happens during a game.

As I think I've made clear, this is what I support as well. If you have to choose between 2 players, choose the one who didn't start mess that led to the situation, who didn't go against the group.

That said, the best solution is still obviously to keep both players. How long has it been since the incident? I ask, because I once got angry at a fellow player between sessions and emailed the DM saying that I had no wish to continue in a group with that player, and so I would withdraw. A day or two later, I emailed the Dm saying I had over reacted and would skip the next session to cool down, but would after that would still be interested in playing, and I continued to be part of the group until the game ended with the DM moving to Switerland.

Has the skald elaborated on their feelings since saying they have no wish to continue playing with the wizards? Have you talked about it any further with them?

[Falcii]

I despise retconning deeply, but some times its just necessary. Depending on how defined your plot is, you could make it a hook that the child was magically stolen post conception by whatever bigbad youve got that feeds off the souls of babies. Give the wizard who is obviously attached to this child a reason to fight, mommy dearest gets a free scrambled egg, badabing badaboom.

But no seriously just retcon and if it ever comes up again throw the boot at whoever brings it up. btw how revolting is the phrase "scrambled egg" here...

[Segev]

Also, since it's primarily going to impact the female PC, (and depending on how long/often you game, this pregnancy could conceivably take either a few sessions or a year or longer), it's primarily her choice.

I disagree with this.

It is something that should not happen without both involved PCs' players' consent. If either is against it, it shouldn't happen. No "primarily" involved.

The game is meant to be fun. If isn't fun for a player of a female PC for her to be gravid and inconvenienced, then the female PC shouldn't be pregnant. If it isn't fun for a player of a male PC to have the female character with whom he's mated be pregnant, and all the issues about responsibility etc. involved, then she shouldn't be pregnant.

If you don't want to deal with the moral question about whether killing an innocent baby or freeing a woman from the chains of a parasitic pile of unviable tissue is acceptable, don't bring it into the game.

It is no more fair to make the male PC's player have to choose between playing a deadbeat jerk who loves 'em and leaves 'em or "being a jerk" for wanting to take care of his offspring than it is to make the female PC's player have to choose between "being a jerk" and "killing the male PC's kid" and being saddled with an unfun pregnancy plot complication.

So, to reiterate: there is no "primary" choice-maker. Both have veto power, but the veto power happens at whether or not there IS a pregnancy. If any part of the potential pregnancy plot - including its early (and potentially tragic) end - that is not fun for both players, don't do the pregnancy plot at all.

[WesleyVos]

Note: I'm very, very pro-life, which probably tints my comments, but nevertheless...

There are two problems here, and they are very different problems. Problem #1 is the easy one to solve, and that's the one about what to do IC.

As I see it, you have several options, most of which are good.

Option #1 (probably a bad one): Make a judgment call. Morality in D&D is absolutely black and white. In a world where gods are present and regularly speak to priests, if not to the common man, and in which a spell can determine whether an action is good or evil, then abortion is either right or wrong. For me, I'd say that if the Skald wants to commit an evil act (murder of a child), then she should go ahead. Otherwise, the player shouldn't have agreed to a pregnancy roll. On the other hand, you could say that the wizard is performing a (albeit more minor) evil act by preventing the Skald from aborting the child. Either way, this is probably a bad idea, as you're almost certainly going to lose a player over it.

Option #2 (best option): This is D&D where magic can do anything. Have the wizard and Skald come to an agreement where she agrees to carry the child until the wizard can research a spell to transfer the child intact and healthy to another womb. Problem solved.

Option #3 (second-best option): Retcon the whole mess out of existence, and deal with the OOC problem separately.

Option #4 (probably a bad idea considering the maturity level of the Skald player): Have the players game it out as is. This would normally be a good option (at least with my group), but with your group, I wouldn't suggest it. They don't seem capable of handling it.


Once that's dealt with, then you have the OOC problem to deal with. This is the stickier problem, because it gets into real-world politics and morality and into the maturity of the players you're dealing with.

Frankly, were this my group, Skald player would be asked not to return. It's one thing for players to have arguments around a table. It's quite another to demand that a person be put out of the group because of their personal beliefs, which is essentially what the Skald player is demanding. That would be unacceptable. Particularly if a player requires that other people respect their "mental safe spaces," which (unless you personally are the victim of some terrible trauma) is pretty much a load of crap.

That said, the very last thing I would do is ask the wizard player to leave. He sounds like the more mature player (at least among the two), as he recognizes that bringing the whole mess up was a mistake and is willing to retcon it. Sharing the wizard's personal views, I can see how he would not consider abortion as a possible option when asking for a pregnancy roll. If abortion were an option, the obvious thing would be for the Skald player to have refused the roll. To accept the roll and then to immediately try to negate it in a way that most people understand to be a hotly-contested moral issue is asking for trouble. The wizard wasn't pushing for the roll - he just asked for it. As a role player, it seems (at least to me) that he's asking for actions to have consequences, which is a reasonable role-playing view. That the Skald and the DM agreed implies an agreement that the results would be properly gamed out. To then have the Skald try to fiat away the results of the roll, and by a way that is morally questionable (in the sense that it is hotly debated), seems to me to be both bad role playing and a bit immature.

That said, when the thing blew up, the wizard player was mature about it and asked for you, the DM, to resolve the issue in the way that would cause the fewest waves. The Skald player, on the other hand, pulled an ultimatum on you - either he goes or I go. That's like a two-year-old's argument, and it would probably be the last argument he made at my table.

You are the DM. It's up to you to make sure issues like this don't cause this sort of problem at the table. It sounds to me like the wizard's player is willing to let things like this go, while the Skald's player is not. Unless you're playing with all like-minded individuals, it sounds to me like the Skald player will continue to cause this sort of problem in the future until he's the only one left in the game.

[Boci]

Particularly if a player requires that other people respect their "mental safe spaces," which (unless you personally are the victim of some terrible trauma) is pretty much a load of crap.

The OP used that phrase, whilst talking about the wizard. I'm not sure why you are attributing this to the skald.


To then have the Skald try to fiat away the results of the roll, and by a way that is morally questionable (in the sense that it is hotly debated), seems to me to be both bad role playing and a bit immature.

The entire group agreed to "fiat away" the result (a weird phrase for an IC solution), the wizard was the only one to object to the proposed solution.


It sounds to me like the wizard's player is willing to let things like this go, while the Skald's player is not.

You are praising the wizard, for being more willing let go of a problem they caused in the first place. This is an important distinction. The wizard brought up pregnancy, and then objected to the abortion, there problem if a result of their actions. The skalds problem is a result of another's action (the wizard).

[WesleyVos]

The OP used that phrase, whilst talking about the wizard. I'm not sure why you are attributing this to the skald.

The entire group agreed to "fiat away" the result (a weird phrase for an IC solution), the wizard was the only one to object to the proposed solution.

You are praising the wizard, for being more willing let go of a problem they caused in the first place. This is an important distinction. The wizard brought up pregnancy, and then objected to the abortion, there problem if a result of their actions. The skalds problem is a result of another's action (the wizard).

To address the points, in order:

1) There is a reason the OP used that phrase. If it was misused, and simply the OP making a statement, then my mistake. But the impression given by the Skald's player is that he requires everyone to agree with him or he will feel attacked. I put two and two together.

2) And it is an understandable objection, given what the Skald player had just agreed to. The Skald player agreed to the roll, and should be willing to abide by the result of the roll. The wizard understandably objected to a morally questionable solution, and then once he realized that he caused a problem, he asked for the whole thing to be retconned.

3) Except that he didn't cause the problem. The wizard brought up pregnancy, yes. The Skald agreed to the possibility of pregnancy. The DM rolled. The Skald didn't like the results, so decided to not only propose a solution that was extremely morally objectionable to the wizard player, but then stated that he refused to play with the wizard again. On the other hand, the wizard, while in the moment having a bit of a hot temper, tried to find a solution that would be acceptable to everyone and give everyone except him what they wanted (as I presume he wanted the child carried to term, and possibly to RP fatherhood) while avoiding the morally objectionable issue.

[Boci]

1) There is a reason the OP used that phrase. If it was misused, and simply the OP making a statement, then my mistake. But the impression given by the Skald's player is that he requires everyone to agree with him or he will feel attacked. I put two and two together.

Except the DM, who was actually there, said "and then acting like he's the one offended by the skald reaction", implying the wizard is the one with the problem.


2) And it is an understandable objection, given what the Skald player had just agreed to. The Skald player agreed to the roll, and should be willing to abide by the result of the roll. The wizard understandably objected to a morally questionable solution, and then once he realized that he caused a problem, he asked for the whole thing to be retconned.

Not only did the DM emphasis how much they and the skald were caught offguard by the wizards request, thus making it a little dishonest to simplify it to "th skald agreed", they were willing to abide by the result. Abortion is a medical practice that would be available in a D&D setting.


3) Except that he didn't cause the problem. The wizard brought up pregnancy, yes.

And the skuld agreed (though above, whilst taken aback by the whole thing), on the assumption that abortion was an option, which makes sense, its an in game option that had not been discounted. Burden is on the wizard to set that parameter himself. Plus, bringing up pregnancy whilst knowing (but not telling) that abortion will be contested, is an attempt to hijack another players character.

So, yes, the wizard did cause the problem. No, the skald did not cause the problem, by seeking an ingame remedy that would logically be available to their character.

[OldTrees1]

The entire group agreed to "fiat away" the result (a weird phrase for an IC solution), the wizard was the only one to object to the proposed solution.

I thought the Wizard Player's PM was that they suggested retconning the result away.


I receive two mail the day after :

Wizard tell me that he feel that abortion is wrong, but that it's not the main problem, wich is that it shouldn't be a topic of roleplaying game, and that he felt we crossed a dangerous line. He offer the solution to rollback his romance with the skald, and act as if the pregnancy never happend, so this debate can simply dissapear.

Also remember that the two mails were written without reading the other's, so I think the Skald player's PM is unaware that the Wizard player is suggesting a retcon.

Really it sounds like the retcon is a solution everyone would accept to removing the source of the grievance. Then you just need to see if the grievance about their having been a grievance can be overcome.

[Boci]

I thought the Wizard Player's PM was that they suggested retconning the result away.

Yes it was. "Fiat away" is in quotations marks because that was WesleyVos's way of referring to the abortion, which as I said in my post, was an odd choice of words for an IC action.

So, yes, the wizard brought up pregnancy, opposed the otherwise group and DM agreed solution of the abortion, and then decided to retcon the mess he had caused. So yeah, I'm not too impressed with that, especially since the DM has given no indication that the wizard has acknowledged his culpability in the debate, despite bringing up pregnancy, whilst not informing the others that he would oppose an abortion.

And what you just quoted about the wizard just makes it worse. The skald's player felt attacked, and even if they didn't, this is firmly OOC problem, its not going to dissapear just because the IC spark for the OOC debate is retconed. So yeah, the impression I get from the wizard is "Okay guys, I at least am willing to move on from the mistake I made, except I don't explicit acknowledge that I made a mistake,"

[Sith_Happens]

murder of a child

I think this is a bit of an aside, but while the truth or falsehood of the above IRL is obviously not something we can or should get into here, in-game a DM can totally decide whether beings in their setting get their souls at conception, birth, or somewhere in between, and have that information be widely known. Ambiguity gone.

(Personally I'd recommend "at birth" if only because this is 3.X we're talking about, meaning there's definitely some spell or rule somewhere that would give extremely weird results if an unborn fetus/child had to be treated as a separate creature from its mother.:smalltongue:)

[OldTrees1]

Yes it was. "Fiat away" is in quotations marks because that was WesleyVos's way of referring to the abortion, which as I said in my post, was an odd choice of words for an IC action.
Oh, nevermind. I agree that is an odd choice of words.

@The rest
I don't think that is relevant to solving the 1st problem (with the retcon being the overwhelmingly suggestion) but might be relevance to the 2nd problem (any remaining grievance about their having been a grievance). As always I will presume ignorance before malice simply as a good rule of thumb:

Both players were surprised at their being a grievance. There was surprise at the pregnancy roll, surprise at bringing up alternatives to continuing the pregnancy, & surprise at an objection to those alternatives. Both players have & had incomplete information about the other's thoughts (demerits to both) and thus could easily perceive themselves as being the first to be surprised. Obviously both can't be the first but it is reasonable for both to conclude they were first.

We have not seen evidence about if either player acknowledges they contributed to the problem. It can be rather easy to pick one side and only look for acknowledgement from the other side, however we have not seen evidence of either side. However we are working under our reading of someone's reading of what part of a person's thoughts they decided to write. So while I will not conclude there was acknowledgement without seeing it, I will not conclude there was not acknowledgement from the limited view I have been given.

I feel the pull towards siding with the player that appears to be hurt more (and I trust that appearance) and the pull towards siding with the player that was surprised first. In the abstract I don't like that that player offered an ultimatum, however in the context (how hurt they felt & their not knowing about the other player accepting an acceptable solution) I am glad they preferred an ultimatum over just rolling over. Not all cases that look to the player like this one does will have a consensus solution like this one looks like it has, so the ultimatum in cases like this is a good defense mechanism against toxicity. However in this case I think the GM should respond to the ultimatum with the 3rd option (the retcon solution everyone seems agreeable to). If the ultimatum continues after that then I would have to reconsider in light of that new information.

[Boci]

(Personally I'd recommend "at birth" if only because this is 3.X we're talking about, meaning there's definitely some spell or rule somewhere that would give extremely weird results if an unborn fetus/child had to be treated as a separate creature from its mother.:smalltongue:)

Plus the unholy scion has the special ability to act whilst in their mother's womb.

[WesleyVos]

I think this is a bit of an aside, but while the truth or falsehood of the above IRL is obviously not something we can or should get into here, in-game a DM can totally decide whether beings in their setting get their souls at conception, birth, or somewhere in between, and have that information be widely known. Ambiguity gone.

(Personally I'd recommend "at birth" if only because this is 3.X we're talking about, meaning there's definitely some spell or rule somewhere that would give extremely weird results if an unborn fetus/child had to be treated as a separate creature from its mother.:smalltongue:)

That was the idea of bringing it up. Bad way to solve the problem, since it's probably going to cause a player to leave anyway, but it's within the rights of the DM to declare one or the other a morally evil or morally good act. Which is why I brought up both sides of the moral debate - either could be considered an evil act - from one perspective/morality, you're killing an innocent, which in D&D is firmly on the evil side of the axis; from the other perspective, though, you're preventing a character from acting freely, which while much more of a gray issue certainly could fall on the lawful evil side of things (tyranny over others).

[Sith_Happens]

Plus the unholy scion has the special ability to act whilst in their mother's womb.

That would actually have to be the exception, I think.

[Boci]

That would actually have to be the exception, I think.

I know. Hence "special ability".

[dascarletm]

All of this being said, I'm feeling more and more toward the side of telling the wizard to go away. I don't like it, It's probably a bit unfair since he's been kind of the "Grown up" after the session, but I feel like he broke a "Gentlemen agreement" by venturing on pregnancy ground in an RPG table with people he doesn't really know or even inquired about their "Mental safe zone", and then acting like he's the one offended by the skald reaction.

This is definitely a bit sad, but It will be a great lessons for me as a DM at what should and shouldn't happens during a game.

It's your game table and your decision, and I hope it works out well for you.

I will say that giving into an ultimatum, for me, has always turned out to be the wrong decision. People make mistakes, and the important thing is being able to understand when you did and be willing to fix the situation.

Anyway good luck.

[Elkad]

Another Idea.

Hand-wave a custom spell to move the baby to a NPC female.
Either fort-save baby-stealing by an evil entity, or a "pre-birth adoption" to a poor hapless member of the local fertility goddess temple.

[TheYell]

And what you just quoted about the wizard just makes it worse. The skald's player felt attacked, and even if they didn't, this is firmly OOC problem, its not going to dissapear just because the IC spark for the OOC debate is retconed. So yeah, the impression I get from the wizard is "Okay guys, I at least am willing to move on from the mistake I made, except I don't explicit acknowledge that I made a mistake,"

Except the OP is trying to keep the table together.

I think that as the Skald agreed at table to a pregnancy roll he cannot claim the idea of pregnancy is a trap foisted upon him against his will. If he sincerely regrets his agreement then he has cause to be mad at himself not the Wizard.

Again I see a big difference between "I will not play if this is not resolved" and "I will not play if X is in the game". One is just and the other is passive aggressive.

[Boci]

I think that as the Skald agreed at table to a pregnancy roll he cannot claim the idea of pregnancy is a trap foisted upon him against his will.

Except they almost certainly agreed on the assumption that abortion was an option, which was a stipulation the wizard failed to specify when they asked if pregnancy was going to be brought into the game.

So, I still see the wizard being in the wrong. Springing information like that after the agreement was made can absolutely be seen as a trap.

[dascarletm]

Except they almost certainly agreed on the assumption that abortion was an option, which was a stipulation the wizard failed to specify when they asked if pregnancy was going to be brought into the game.
So, I still see the wizard being in the wrong. Springing information like that after the agreement was made can absolutely be seen as a trap.
I would agree if we were talking about a contract agreement between two parties.

Conversationally people generally don't discuss and divulge every possible scenario they think of and whether it is right or wrong if they make a suggestion. He probably didn't think through what would happen, and thought, "oh, hey I wonder if that character is pregnant."

Your bias is putting far more weight on his shoulders than he deserves imo.

[TheYell]

I don't see that there are any trumps in unstated suggestions. If your agreement has reservations then you should express them openly. When you don't you get chaos not a clear win over the other guy's unstated assumptions.

Wrong: "I only agreed because of my assumptions which are logical and obvious, so, you're attacking and tricking me into something I didn't want to do."

Right: "Wow I hadn't thought that's what you meant. Let's change it."

@Dezea If you want to remove the wizard it will resolve this issue but I hope it is the only landmine you have lurking out of sight waiting to explode. I am sorry to hear that none of the 5 are looking to become friends.

[Boci]

I would agree if we were talking about a contract agreement between two parties.

Conversationally people generally don't discuss and divulge every possible scenario they think of and whether it is right or wrong if they make a suggestion. He probably didn't think through what would happen, and thought, "oh, hey I wonder if that character is pregnant."

Your bias is putting far more weight on his shoulders than he deserves imo.

I don't agree. If you want to bring pregnancy into a game but don't think abortion is appropriate, you need to think of that. That's not the wizard player failing to "divulge every possible scenario", that is the first scenario you think of.


I don't see that there are any trumps in unstated suggestions. If your agreement has reservations then you should express them openly. When you don't you get chaos not a clear win over the other guy's unstated assumptions.

Wrong: "I only agreed because of my assumptions which are logical and obvious, so, you're attacking and tricking me into something I didn't want to do."


No.
"Can we use diseases in this swamp?"
"Sure"
(later)

"you got a disease"
"Oh well, off to a temple to get cured"
"no curse disease in this land"
"What? That's outrageous!"
"Hey don't blame me, you should have expressed such conditions when you agreed"

What the wizard did was only ever so slightly less unacceptable. It is the responsibility of the person bringing it up to set the parameters, not the one accepting it.

[Sith_Happens]

Except they almost certainly agreed on the assumption that abortion was an option, which was a stipulation the wizard failed to specify when they asked if pregnancy was going to be brought into the game.

Once again, I fail to see how it makes any sense to roll for pregnancy in the first place if you have no intention of carrying the child for more than a scene or two. Much easier to have just stuck with the default 0% chance.

[Boci]

Once again, I fail to see how it makes any sense to roll for pregnancy in the first place if you have no intention of carrying the child for more than a scene or two. Much easier to have just stuck with the default 0% chance.

An willingness to acknowledgement the potential consequence, a agree able nature combine with being caught offgaurd (as the OP noted of both himself and the skald player) spring to mind.

[dascarletm]

I don't agree. If you want to bring pregnancy into a game but don't think abortion is appropriate, you need to think of that. That's not the wizard player failing to "divulge every possible scenario", that is the first scenario you think of.

I mean, coming from our position I agree it is a scenario you think of, but at the gaming table, speaking as a person who lives very much in the moment, that's not always the case. I'm saying it is possible he didn't even think about what the outcomes may have been. I know first hand this can be the case, I do it all the time. It doesn't matter for me because my gaming group is comprised of close friends and my wife so it's fine.

Is he devoid of blame? No. Is he solely to blame? Also no.

But we can disagree, neither of us were there so this is all speculative.

[Boci]

I mean, coming from our position I agree it is a scenario you think of, but at the gaming table, speaking as a person who lives very much in the moment, that's not always the case.

My reading of that is still that's he's to blame. Its mitigates it certainly, and my assumption had been that he hadn't thought of it on the moment, but there's no evidence of this, but then he tried to introduce pregnancy, a contentious topic at best, into a game on the fly without thinking it through. Its better, but he's still the cause of all this.

But I still don't see how this translates into blame on the skald though. They agreed to a roll, on the unspoken assumption that a readily available medical procedure would be able to fix any undesired out come, which seems very reasonable, as any standard D&D setting is advanced enough to have a non-magical abotion method, and possible a better developed magical one two. When they tried to follow through with this though, with the agreement of the DM and the rest of the group, one player objected.

I don't see how they are to blame.

[dascarletm]

My reading of that is still that's he's to blame. Its mitigates it certainly, and my assumption had been that he hadn't thought of it on the moment, but there's no evidence of this, but then he tried to introduce pregnancy, a contentious topic at best, into a game on the fly without thinking it through. Its better, but he's still the cause of all this.

But I still don't see how this translates into blame on the skald though. They agreed to a roll, on the unspoken assumption that a readily available medical procedure would be able to fix any undesired out come, which seems very reasonable, as any standard D&D setting is advanced enough to have a non-magical abotion method, and possible a better developed magical one two. When they tried to follow through with this though, with the agreement of the DM and the rest of the group, one player objected.

I don't see how they are to blame.

The after-the-fact reaction of him or me. I'm all for the skald up until that point, and it may be my personal experience swaying my opinion. However, anyone I've met that has been the type to give ultimatums like that has been utter human garbage. The exception is if the person did something truly terrible to them.

There's nothing wrong with the skald player no longer wishing to play with the wizard player, however the mature thing to do in this situation (again barring the wizard doing something actually terrible to them) is to bow out. Giving an ultimatum to Dezea is shifting the responsibility to her in a very unfair and very uncool way. I mean, Dezea needed to come here and get help after-all.

EDIT:
I use her as Dezea's pronoun because of the female avatar.

[Boci]

The after-the-fact reaction of him or me. I'm all for the skald up until that point, and it may be my personal experience swaying my opinion. However, anyone I've met that has been the type to give ultimatums like that has been utter human garbage. The exception is if the person did something truly terrible to them.

There's nothing wrong with the skald player no longer wishing to play with the wizard player, however the mature thing to do in this situation (again barring the wizard doing something actually terrible to them) is to bow out. Giving an ultimatum to Dezea is shifting the responsibility to her in a very unfair and very uncool way. I mean, Dezea needed to come here and get help after-all.

I can't bring myself to blame them for that. If I've feel attacked by another player and they are in the wrong, yeah I'm not going to feel like voluntarily bowing out of a game I presumably enjoy because of a wrong doing from another player. I get that its tough on the GM, but if there is a clearly one problem player, I can't blame the skald for asking, especially since they did so in private rather than in front of the group making a scene.

We've only heard back once from the OP, so the best outcome if that the skald player calms down and decides they can continue with the wizard, but if they don't, I go with them, because whilst hard, I don't automatically side against ultimatums when they are issued by players who are wronged, and we both seem to agree the skald was.

[TheYell]

I don't agree. If you want to bring pregnancy into a game but don't think abortion is appropriate, you need to think of that. That's not the wizard player failing to "divulge every possible scenario", that is the first scenario you think of.

Declaring your POV is the norm is drifting into real world politics.

I continue to maintain that there are NO trump unstated assumptions.

Looking at your swamp disease analogy, you continue to look to see who's to Blame for the disagreement, then do it their way because they were victimized.

I think most of us are looking at how to walk back the disagreement without fixing blame on one side or the other for a MUTUAL disagreement. Both of them expressed themselves badly. Both of them don't want to be where they're at. That is a basis for discussion not a case for trial.

[Elder_Basilisk]

All of this being said, I'm feeling more and more toward the side of telling the wizard to go away. I don't like it, It's probably a bit unfair since he's been kind of the "Grown up" after the session, but I feel like he broke a "Gentlemen aggreement" by venturing on pregnancy ground in an RPG table with people he doesn't really know or even inquired about their "Mental safe zone", and then acting like he's the one offended by the skald reaction.

This is definitely a bit sad, but It will be a great lessons for me as a DM at what should and shouldn't happens during a game.

DM is a member of tribe 1. Players who are members of tribe 1 and 2 have a disagreement. Player from tribe 1 posts, "kick that rotten member of tribe 2 or I'm leaving." Player from tribe 2 posts, "let's see if we can work out a way to play together." DM writes, he hopes that he can find a solution that shows that members of tribe 1 and 2 can at least enjoy a game together. Next day, DM says he's sad about it, that the tribe 2 member was the grown up mature one after the session... but that he's going to kick the member of tribe 2 out of the group.

Political tribe trumps everything. Evidently members of tribe 1 hate tribe 2 members so much that they can't even enjoy a game unless members of tribe 2 hide their identity and pass as members of tribe 1.

[dascarletm]

I think most of us are looking at how to walk back the disagreement without fixing blame on one side or the other for a MUTUAL disagreement. Both of them expressed themselves badly. Both of them don't want to be where they're at. That is a basis for discussion not a case for trial.

This is how I see it as well. In interpersonal relationships (friend or non) finding blame and affixing it is not as important as willingness to move past disputes.

EDIT:

DM is a member of tribe 1. Players who are members of tribe 1 and 2 have a disagreement. Player from tribe 1 posts, "kick that rotten member of tribe 2 or I'm leaving." Player from tribe 2 posts, "let's see if we can work out a way to play together." DM writes, he hopes that he can find a solution that shows that members of tribe 1 and 2 can at least enjoy a game together. Next day, DM says he's sad about it, that the tribe 2 member was the grown up mature one after the session... but that he's going to kick the member of tribe 2 out of the group.

Political tribe trumps everything. Evidently members of tribe 1 hate tribe 2 members so much that they can't even enjoy a game unless members of tribe 2 hide their identity and pass as members of tribe 1.

I wasn't going to point this out but I'm glad someone did :smalltongue:

[Boci]

I think most of us are looking at how to walk back the disagreement without fixing blame on one side or the other for a MUTUAL disagreement. Both of them expressed themselves badly.

I disagree, and so does dascarletm evidently. Their only problem with the skald player was the ultimatum, not what they did during the session.


DM is a member of tribe 1. Players who are members of tribe 1 and 2 have a disagreement. Player from tribe 1 posts, "kick that rotten member of tribe 2 or I'm leaving." Player from tribe 2 posts, "let's see if we can work out a way to play together." DM writes, he hopes that he can find a solution that shows that members of tribe 1 and 2 can at least enjoy a game together. Next day, DM says he's sad about it, that the tribe 2 member was the grown up mature one after the session... but that he's going to kick the member of tribe 2 out of the group.

Political tribe trumps everything. Evidently members of tribe 1 hate tribe 2 members so much that they can't even enjoy a game unless members of tribe 2 hide their identity and pass as members of tribe 1.

Abusive and manipulative personality types start problems, and are always the first to offer to move on without in any way repenting, to make themselves seem like the victim.

See? I can post anecdotes that support my interpretation of events, and that story I just posted bears a resemblance to how the DM perceived the situation (they specifically said the wizard started it and then acted like a victim).

[Ashtagon]

Regarding that ultimatum...

Decide what you would have done without an ultimatum. If that happens to be acceptable to all involved then you have not given in to any ultimatuma.

[Gallowglass]

DM is a member of tribe 1. Players who are members of tribe 1 and 2 have a disagreement. Player from tribe 1 posts, "kick that rotten member of tribe 2 or I'm leaving." Player from tribe 2 posts, "let's see if we can work out a way to play together." DM writes, he hopes that he can find a solution that shows that members of tribe 1 and 2 can at least enjoy a game together. Next day, DM says he's sad about it, that the tribe 2 member was the grown up mature one after the session... but that he's going to kick the member of tribe 2 out of the group.

Political tribe trumps everything. Evidently members of tribe 1 hate tribe 2 members so much that they can't even enjoy a game unless members of tribe 2 hide their identity and pass as members of tribe 1.

http://ci.memecdn.com/182/9217182.jpg

[Sith_Happens]

It could also be the fact that the Wizard player was technically the one who started the argument in the first place, though personally I'd be more interested in who escalated it to the point where it got out of control (which we haven't been told).

[Segev]

Except they almost certainly agreed on the assumption that abortion was an option, which was a stipulation the wizard failed to specify when they asked if pregnancy was going to be brought into the game.

So, I still see the wizard being in the wrong. Springing information like that after the agreement was made can absolutely be seen as a trap.And while the wizard may have seemed harsh initially, if he's already said, "You know what, the best way to handle this is to simply retcon it, so that the Skald doesn't have to go through a pregnancy plot her player doesn't want, and I don't have to consider my PC's moral choices regarding abortion," then if the Skald is STILL claiming "him or me" on the grounds that the Skald's player can't bear to be in the same game as somebody who disagrees with the Skald's player's stance on this moral issue...

...that's not the wizard attacking. That's the Skald declaring the Wizard to be an unacceptable person for disagreeing with the Skald on this issue.


It could also be the fact that the Wizard player was technically the one who started the argument in the first place, though personally I'd be more interested in who escalated it to the point where it got out of control (which we haven't been told).
What I am getting - though I could be wrong - is that the wizard player suggested the retcon and the skald player doesn't yet know that.

If that's the case, bring it up with the skald, and see if he's okay with the retcon and continuing to play.

If the skald's player feels "attacked" even after that, then the skald's player is, in my opinion, the one being the bully by insisting "him or me," since the wizard clearly has backed off any possible "attack" vector as soon as he cooled down enough to realize why it came off as such.

But this is all second- and third-hand analysis; we're not there.

I do suggest that if your objection is that the wizard's player is pro-life, then you should either acknowledge your intolerance of different opinions and let him go, or you should be tolerant of different opinions and simply agree the issue has no place at your table, and simply don't have pregnancy come up again.

I personally think that last is the mature response; I wouldn't kick somebody out of my table for holding the opposite view from me if there was a way to avoid the issue. And since "pregnancy" and "abortion" are not key issues to most D&D games, I'd leave it at that.

[Boci]

And while the wizard may have seemed harsh initially, if he's already said, "You know what, the best way to handle this is to simply retcon it, so that the Skald doesn't have to go through a pregnancy plot her player doesn't want, and I don't have to consider my PC's moral choices regarding abortion," then if the Skald is STILL claiming "him or me" on the grounds that the Skald's player can't bear to be in the same game as somebody who disagrees with the Skald's player's stance on this moral issue...

...that's not the wizard attacking. That's the Skald declaring the Wizard to be an unacceptable person for disagreeing with the Skald on this issue.

But the DM has said that


1. They understand why the skald player felt attacked. This won't go away if the IC sparking incident is retconned.

2. That they feel the wizard player is trying to paint themselves as the victim, they the opposite is the case.

[TheYell]

They understand why the skald player felt attacked.

So what he feels that way? If he is not under attack his feelings are wrong.


This won't go away if the IC sparking incident is retconned.

It ought to. If he won't let it go, he is the problem. I think he will prove that over the course of the game now that he won.


That they feel the wizard player is trying to paint themselves as the victim, they the opposite is the case.

Pretty sure that is entirely your idea and not in the OP posts.

[Boci]

So what he feels that way? If he is not under attack his feelings are wrong.

You weren't there, the DM was, ans they said

"but I can understand how he felt kind of trapped into something he didn't see coming."


Pretty sure that is entirely your idea and not in the OP posts.

You're right, the word the DM used wasn't victim, but they did feel the wizard was trying to twist things around:

"I feel like he broke a "Gentlemen aggreement" by venturing on pregnancy ground in an RPG table with people he doesn't really know or even inquired about their "Mental safe zone", and then acting like he's the one offended by the skald reaction. "

[Segev]

But the DM has said that


1. They understand why the skald player felt attacked. This won't go away if the IC sparking incident is retconned.

2. That they feel the wizard player is trying to paint themselves as the victim, they the opposite is the case.

If the DM has already decided the wizard is a bad seed, then obviously he should not keep the player around.

I do think the wizard was a bit weird for asking without first asking the other player how they felt about it. I can see it happening innocently on all sides, however.

As for the Skald feeling "attacked," I can see that, too, but at the same time, if the Skald's player didn't want to deal with the results of the roll, it's curious that he didn't mention that his PC wouldn't stay pregnant long. I can equally see the Wizard feeling "attacked."

Imagine if it had, instead, been a belt that the wizard had put on, that the skald asked if it was a belt of masculinity/femininity. The wizard agreed it would be funny to see, and lo and behold, now the wizard's a girl. The wizard mentions the tragedy of having to postpone their wedding until the curse is removed, and the skald insists it can go forward. The wizard feels "attacked" by the pressure to get married in a gay wedding, which (s)he finds morally objectionable.

The wizard gives an ultimatum about not wanting to be in the game with the Skald's player anymore. The Skald's player later suggests retconning the whole thing. Is the Skald just trying to paint himself as the victim?



Again, though, I'm not there, and don't know these people. If the DM really thinks the wizard is trying to stir trouble, then sure, ditch him over this.



Remember that, to the pro-life side of the argument, the aborted baby is a living human being that's being murdered. Regardless of whether you agree with them or not, consider how much they're swallowing for civility's sake. How willing they are to accept that the pro-choice side of the debate DOES NOT BELIEVE THAT in order to accept that they're not monsters on par with the worst of humanity.

I'm 100% positive that nobody on this board who is pro-choice believes that the aborted fetus is a living human being prior to the abortion. Just as I'm 100% positive that nobody on this board would advocate strangling a newborn infant just because it's inconvenient to the mother.

Nobody here is a monster who likes murdering innocent people IRL. (Even if we do like a nice fun dungeon-smashing crawl to slaughter monsters, or enjoy playing evil monsters who kill villages to raise as our undead minions, ourselves, in RPGs.)

[Boci]

If the DM has already decided the wizard is a bad seed, then obviously he should not keep the player around.

Not so much already decided he's a bad seed, so much as leaning towards kicking him, for the two reasons mentioned. Its right there in their second post.



Imagine if it had, instead, been a belt that the wizard had put on, that the skald asked if it was a belt of masculinity/femininity. The wizard agreed it would be funny to see, and lo and behold, now the wizard's a girl. The wizard mentions the tragedy of having to postpone their wedding until the curse is removed, and the skald insists it can go forward. The wizard feels "attacked" by the pressure to get married in a gay wedding, which (s)he finds morally objectionable.

The wizard gives an ultimatum about not wanting to be in the game with the Skald's player anymore. The Skald's player later suggests retconning the whole thing. Is the Skald just trying to paint himself as the victim?

Assuming all factors are the same..yeah. The skald started this mess, they didn't allow the wizard a quick fix to something that clearly made them uncomfortable, the DM can understand why the wizard feels attacked, and now the skald wants to to move away from their mistake without acknowledging them being the one

Yeah, I can understand the wizard giving an ultimatum there.

I'm bisexual in case you are wondering.


Just don't automatically assume that somebody who has a different political view than you on a moral issue is inherently evil. That IS intolerance.

Didn't plan to. Don't murder people, that's also bad.


As for the Skald feeling "attacked," I can see that, too, but at the same time, if the Skald's player didn't want to deal with the results of the roll, it's curious that he didn't mention that his PC wouldn't stay pregnant long.

The DM pointed out how surprised both they and the skald player were by the whole pregnancy things, which typically doesn't lead to stellar communication.

[Gallowglass]

But the DM has said that


1. They understand why the skald player felt attacked. This won't go away if the IC sparking incident is retconned.

2. That they feel the wizard player is trying to paint themselves as the victim, they the opposite is the case.

Boci, I seriously doubt you are going to listen to this because we only recently had a disagreement in a different forum, but I feel compelled to try...

You have to understand that you are reading certain things into this that simply weren't details provided by the OP's narrative.

For example: Your very first post in this thread said this: "The only thing they did wrong was put you into the uncomfortable position of choosing between them, and based on the wizard's 5 minute rant, it seems like the skald may very well be justified in this." Except the original post didn't say anything about a 5 minute rant from the wizard it said "I'll spare you the whole discussion, but for 5 long, loooong, loooooooong minute we had what looked way to closely to an IRL debate about abortion. " A statement that IN NO WAY attributes the escalation or "ranting" to one party over the other.

Another example: "the OPs paraphrasing of the wizards words imply he doesn't take any more responsibility than the group as a whole, despite him absolutely being responsible by insisting on the pregnancy role and then objecting to the quick fix the player and DM, scratch that, the entire gaming group apart from him, had just agreed to" Yet there really ISN'T any indication whether the wizard player accepted responsiblity or not in the conversation where the wizard suggested just rolling back the whole ordeal and there likewise ISN't any indication that "the entire gaming group" agreed to the "quick fix". In fact, in the OP its presented as an off-color joke with a bunch of awkward fellow players staying silent (probably hoping to move on with the game)

Final example: "Abusive and manipulative personality types start problems, and are always the first to offer to move on without in any way repenting, to make themselves seem like the victim" There is NO, I repeat, NO indiciation in ANY of the OPs posts that the wizard EVER painted himself a victim. And there is no clear indication if the Wizard repented or not. This is VERY much you forming an opinion based on your painted picture, not on the scenario.

You have a strong opinion on this and, that's great, that's what the OP is asking for, but I just want to point out that you are painting this with your own prejudices and perceptions and, now, while defending your point of view, you are really creating attribution that wasn't there.

And to top all of that off, from the OP: " I must admit that I'm also having some bias against him" the OP himself is making it clear that his post and how he phrases it is painted with his own point of view. In fact, this very line from the OP is why I take everything else with a grain of salt.

Look, to me the Wizard player was acting a jerk, sure. But if I kicked out every person I've played with who was a jerk at one point or another, I'd regret it. Things get heated, things cool down. From the OP: "we had 8 really good session full of adventure and fun. " That's what the DM wants to get back to and so does the wizard's player. I, and some others, feel that the Skald, when they calm down, can probably get over their knee-jerk ultimatum request so they can do just that.

And, frankly, if the skald can't that's really sad for the Skald. Then the skald can make the personal decision to leave. That's his right.

And, frankly, if the wizard can't get over -his- hurt feelings and not bring this back to the table, THEN it would be right and justified to kick him. But to kick him based on ONE arguement? well that seems like bad play to me.

[Boci]

"Abusive and manipulative personality types start problems, and are always the first to offer to move on without in any way repenting, to make themselves seem like the victim" There is NO, I repeat, NO indiciation in ANY of the OPs posts that the wizard EVER painted himself a victim. And there is no clear indication if the Wizard repented or not. This is VERY much you forming an opinion based on your painted picture, not on the scenario.

Not quite. You did see the very next line there right? "See? I can post anecdotes that support my interpretation of events". That was me deliberately things, since the post I quoted was, in my eyes, doing it in the opposite direction. If I thought the wizard were that, I would have said so sooner. I was simply

1. pointing out its easy to twist things
2. giving a heavy handed example of what I had been saying all this thread: the first who is ready to move on isn't automatically the more reasonable, an extreme example of which being an emotional abuser.

As for the wizard not painting himself as a victims...ummm, okay the DM didn't use the word victim, but did say:
"I feel like he broke a "Gentlemen aggreement" by venturing on pregnancy ground in an RPG table with people he doesn't really know or even inquired about their "Mental safe zone", and then acting like he's the one offended by the skald reaction. "

I'd say that's an indication if nothing else. You're free to disagree. And yes you're right, I did missread that rant bit. My bad. It didn't change my overall opinion. You just misread my anecdote, it happens.

[Extra Anchovies]

If someone says something along the lines of "either they leave or I leave", the first thing to do is present alternative options (e.g. "let's forget what happened in the last fifteen minutes of last session and move on"). If they refuse to accept those options and stick to their ultimatum, kick them out. A player who threatens to leave in order to get their way once can be expected to threaten to leave in order to get their way again. The only people with any right to decide whether player X is allowed to play are player X themselves, the DM of the game, and the host of the game (who is often also the DM).

So if it comes down to removing a player in the group, kicking the Skald is the most reasonable thing to do. First, though, it is best to try to resolve this in a way that doesn't involve anyone's expulsion. I recommend a table-wide gentleman's agreement to keep reproduction tucked away like Hollywood tends to - i.e. people only have children when they want to. Human reproduction is a very complicated topic with a very long and very messy and uncomfortable history, so it's the sort of thing that really needs to be agreed on OOC before it's touched on IC. I would say that as far as the initial argument goes, you, the wizard, and the skald are all responsible for its occurrence - the wizard for assuming pregnancy was part of your game, the skald for assuming abortion is part of your game, and you for not pausing the game to have a short talk about whether the group as a whole wanted the game to involve reproduction. Being responsible for it doesn't mean any of you meant to cause trouble, so there's nobody to "blame" for the initial incident; the wizard and skald both acted unreasonably during the incident (each of them should have turned to you and the rest of the table to discuss whether they wanted detailed reproduction in the game), and if the wizard has accepted a reasonable proposed resolution but the skald refuses to do so, then the skald is the only one still being unreasonable.

The most important thing to do is to propose a resolution to everyone in the group that does not remove any current players and that helps ensure this argument will not happen again. Do that before considering assigning blame to or removing any one or more players. The best resolution, I think, would be to keep the game out of reproductive details beyond someone or their partner becoming pregnant when both of them want to have a child.

[Satinavian]

Except they almost certainly agreed on the assumption that abortion was an option, which was a stipulation the wizard failed to specify when they asked if pregnancy was going to be brought into the game.

So, I still see the wizard being in the wrong. Springing information like that after the agreement was made can absolutely be seen as a trap.
If i make a wrong decision, that is on me and no one else.

If i make a wrong decision under false assumptions/informations, i am not really to blame. But if i can revert my decision and all consequences, after finally getting the new context, then the issue should be seen as resolved to my liking.

There is no "trap" if the wizard player is willing to retcon the whole affair after realizing the skald player is not happy anymore with the outcome.

[Segev]

I still think the most mature and likely to work approach, provided all parties can agree that they liked the game prior to this debacle, is to retcon the "pregnancy check" and just assume no pregnancies occur.

And never try to bring them into the game again.


If it's really just one incident, and everybody can be grown-up and self-possessed enough to put it behind them, then retcon it and put it behind you. It hasn't DONE anything, in-game, that would require extensive retroactive changes. It just is an undetectable event that was determined one way when it could be the other, and has yet to impact even the KNOWLEDGE of the PCs, IC.

[Boci]

If it's really just one incident, and everybody can be grown-up and self-possessed enough to put it behind them, then retcon it and put it behind you. It hasn't DONE anything, in-game, that would require extensive retroactive changes. It just is an undetectable event that was determined one way when it could be the other, and has yet to impact even the KNOWLEDGE of the PCs, IC.

Is that even relevant? This was never about the IC conflict. As was pointed out, IC neither even knows the skald is pregnant. An IC conflict, which two players staying completely amicable OOC, would never have resulted in a thread by the DM.

[Sith_Happens]

"I feel like he broke a "Gentlemen aggreement" by venturing on pregnancy ground in an RPG table with people he doesn't really know or even inquired about their "Mental safe zone", and then acting like he's the one offended by the skald reaction. "

In context though it sounds like it was an offhand, spur-of-the-moment idea/remark rather than a deliberate effort to introduce the topic. So, you know, not the sort of thing it's really fair to judge someone harshly for.

[Boci]

In context though it sounds like it was an offhand, spur-of-the-moment idea/remark rather than a deliberate effort to introduce the topic. So, you know, not the sort of thing it's really fair to judge someone harshly for.

Maybe? I dunno. I can however read the DM saying the above quote, I have the DM saying they understand why the skald felt attacked, with not much praise for the wizard, other than his solution, which as I said I don't value too greatly because to me, he's clearly the one in the wrong.

And then there's the DM admitting he's may be bias towards the skald. Again, something I don't know what to do with. Should I favour the wizard to compensate for the DM's bias, even though I don't agree with them? The Dm said they were biased, so they know, which means they can also tell that any opinions from me are from a potentially biased perspective.

[dascarletm]

At this point I don't think kicking him is a terrible idea. If people are willing to remove him from the activity because they don't hold the same political beliefs that's a sign of close-mindedness and he is probably better off in the long term. I don't see playing in a game where people are judging you based on your beliefs to be a particularly great way to spend time.

It is particularly unfair, but hey that's life.

[Gallowglass]

At this point I don't think kicking him is a terrible idea. If people are willing to remove him from the activity because they don't hold the same political beliefs that's a sign of close-mindedness and he is probably better off in the long term. I don't see playing in a game where people are judging you based on your beliefs to be a particularly great way to spend time.

It is particularly unfair, but hey that's life.

No, no. We have to kick him while PRESERVING the belief that it's because of HIS intolerance and Judgy-ness. That's essential. That way we are not the jerks. That's why we gotta paint him with black colors when re-framing the narrative.

/is tribe 1
//still recognizes bull**** when its on my shoe

[A.A.King]

First point of order: the wizard player needs to understand that while they don't feel abortion is appropriate to D&D, the other player doesn't feel pregnancy is appropriate to D&D, and is feeling quite put upon by the wizard forcing the pregnancy issue in the way the Skald is forcing the abortion issue. This should give them some clarity on the other player's feelings that I think they might not be considering.

OoC problems need to be dealt with OoC; the best solution IMO is just to retcon it and then not give things like this an opportunity to happen in the first place. It's a problem that requires a lot of effort, but it will head off arguments like this before they happen by not giving them the opportunity to start. Now, because this situation has already happened, there's things that can be done if you don't want to retcon or lose players, but questions must be asked.

For starters, find out why the Wizard player is set against abortion; if they are against the abortion because they like for actions to have consequences, and they think the Skald is just trying to dodge responsibility, they're not going to be satisfied with a solution other than "the baby is carried to term by the Skald", which means that you either need to retcon, or one of those players will be leaving. Now, a more interesting solution is if the wizard is against the abortion because he's pro-life: while IRL "baby lives" and "baby isn't carried by Skald" would be mutually exclusive goals, in the game, you have ****ing magic. This dude is a wizard; give him enough time to research and he can alter reality to his whims. Have him research a way to transport a fetus from one womb to another without harming the baby or either child-bearer; if the Skald thinks this is a neat idea, it could lead to an interesting sub-plot of locating a suitable mother for the child (perhaps a barren woman who's always wanted a child to care for or something). If the wizard player is iffy on this idea, you can point out how unlikely it is that the child will live long enough to be born in the belly of a melee-er, or how inefficient the Skald will be as an adventurer while pregnant (this particular argument is more convincing if your mission is of particular importance the the city/nation/world, where offing the child in the womb could potentially save hundreds/thousands/millions due to the Skald not being hampered during their quest), or how a life on the road isn't a suitable life for a baby.

Once again, I think the best solution is a retcon, but the OOC problems need to be addressed.

I must say I find the solution of: "Have someone else carry the baby" to be the most creative solution. Also, if we assume that the wizard is pro-life rather than 'pro-consequence', it is the solution which should make everybody happy. The only problem I have with this solution is that isn't quite creative enough. Like you said, you have ****ing magic, so why not let the Wizard carry the baby?

[Segev]

Is that even relevant? This was never about the IC conflict. As was pointed out, IC neither even knows the skald is pregnant. An IC conflict, which two players staying completely amicable OOC, would never have resulted in a thread by the DM.It's only relevant to point out that there IS no game-related reason to object to the retcon, because it requires absolutely zero change in history of the game nor how players play their characters.

i.e., I agree with you. I was trying to make this very point as to why it's a purely OOC issue, and if everybody can be mature and tolerant, there's no reason it can't be retconned and the problem go away entirely.


No, no. We have to kick him while PRESERVING the belief that it's because of HIS intolerance and Judgy-ness. That's essential. That way we are not the jerks. That's why we gotta paint him with black colors when re-framing the narrative.

/is tribe 1
//still recognizes bull**** when its on my shoeIt's not often I wish there was a "like" button or something on this forum, but this post made me wish there was.

[Elder_Basilisk]

No, no. We have to kick him while PRESERVING the belief that it's because of HIS intolerance and Judgy-ness. That's essential. That way we are not the jerks. That's why we gotta paint him with black colors when re-framing the narrative.

Absolutely. And don't forget to add a questionaire for future potential gamers: "Are you now, or have you ever been a member of a political group I dislike? And do you now hold or have you ever held an opinion I disagree with?" Be exhaustive. There's no telling what monsters could be hiding their true colors under a mask of civility and fun-wanting.

[AvatarVecna]

I must say I find the solution of: "Have someone else carry the baby" to be the most creative solution. Also, if we assume that the wizard is pro-life rather than 'pro-consequence', it is the solution which should make everybody happy. The only problem I have with this solution is that isn't quite creative enough. Like you said, you have ****ing magic, so why not let the Wizard carry the baby?

Exactly. If you go a route like this, you'll find that magic is pretty certifiably bull****. You can teleport the fetus out of the womb, stick it in a magic house that keeps anything inside unconscious and healthy, and stick the house in a fast time plane. Cook for 10 minutes, remove to let cool, and you have a baby grown to full adulthood! No long pregnancy, no abortion, no dirty diapers, and no teenage angst! Just a fully grown person with a mind untouched by the ravages of time (you'll wanna build a personality for them, but that shouldn't take long). Presto!

[CharonsHelper]

No, no. We have to kick him while PRESERVING the belief that it's because of HIS intolerance and Judgy-ness. That's essential. That way we are not the jerks. That's why we gotta paint him with black colors when re-framing the narrative.

/is tribe 1
//still recognizes bull**** when its on my shoe

Lol. I'll just leave this here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U

[Name1]

For my uneducated opinion:

How IC is handled doesn't matter at this point. Someone messed up, it happens.
Skald made a rash decision, and upon being forced to play it out, threw a tantrum like a... female canine.
Wizard asked Skald for his decision, the result was what he wanted(?), but he didn't understand the implications of that, cue him throwing a tantrum like a female canine.
Personally, I feel like they should talk it out IC. I can see why the Wizard feels cheated, since he offered the Skald a choice where the Skald refused him one, but while it's a **** move on the Skalds part, he reserves every right to do so (though, should this ever come up, I would like to point out that the Wizard should simply bail on the pregnant Skald, 'cause the Skald could have expected that the same way as the Wizard should have expected the abortion).

OOC is the real problem.
They are both total fu**-ups, I want to make this clear.
The Wizard is an idiot for not expecting abortion to be a option. You kill things all the time, one TN child more or less matters only in alignment. Murder clearly is possible, that was never hidden, so expecting murder not to occur is naive. Spending five minutes to argue, over something as insignificant as abortion no less... Breaks my brain, really, but then again, I've had (one-sided) discussions with people over goddamn jeans, so I guess my road of life just desensitized me to stuff like that.
The Skald, however, really looses sympathy-points here for one reason: He HAD the option to deny it. He WAS given a choice. If you think split second decisions can be taken back because you don't like them, then I'd really like to live where you live, 'cause I've got at least 20 years to "take back". He should have seen resistance coming from a mile away, if only IC. However, that's also the thing that justifies him: Again, IC, murder is possible, it's in the rules, so stabbing her stomach is a simple possibility. However, trying to kick out a player for something like this... That is just not acceptable. He could just have accepted the retcon (well, unless he didn't know about it at that time). He himself could have proposed one. However, he wants the Wizard to be gone because the Wizard felt cheated when Skald pulled a **** move on him.

On what you should do... Kick the Wizard.
The Skald being uncomfortable is one thing, but if you as the DM can't be impartial to the Wizard, you should tell him to leave. If you try to screw him over during the game because you are intolerant towards him, he won't have fun anyway.

Sorry to sound so offensive about it, but you yourself admitted that you have already taken a side, and if you can't be swayed anyway, it is pointless to argue beyond the simple sake of arguing.

[Dezea]

Well well well...

How naïve of me to post something dealing about abortion and expect it not to go into hell, right ?

I feel like I should apologize for bringing this up, wich is kind of sad. I also feel like I should start to defend myself, wich is also kind of sad when I came sincerely for advice.

So : It's true that i'm pro choice and wizard is pro life. It's true that, being human, I can't help but have a bias. It's also true that, because of this, I came here to ask for advice of people who wouldn't have one.

Advice of those people : Since you'r biased, kick him => Yeah, thanks ?

You must understand something, if I'm kicking the wizard it's not out of personnal hatred for his belief or because of Skald ultimatum, it's because I deeply feel he has been the problem player here, with not wanting to let go of a topics when everybody else wanted to resume playing.

We are all 40+ people, mostly with wife and children. We have few night we can afford to playing, and those night are precious and to be enjoyed. Having someone bringing up this kind of stuff, resulting in the game having to be cancelled...Is really a bad point in my book.

Now, I did something else, seing that this debate on Giantitp was turning into "War tripe", wich, to say the least, I didn't expected. I asked the other players, those who witnessed the scene. I didn't ask for personnal belief on the abortion matter, only about how they felt about it : All (the 3) of them told me they felt trapped by the wizard into an argument noone wanted to have, and resented him at some level for ruining what everyone expected to be fun in good company.

Once again, even if I resent the skald too for the kind of childish ultimatum, I can't help but feel that what ruined the night was the wizard not wanting to let go after someone proposed what is a universally available option in Pathfinder : Abortion. I also feel, as I said earlier, that he broke some kind of Gentlemen agreement when he enforced a roll for abortion.

So, please, I appreciate the help, but please, don't turn this into tribe war. I'm a grown up with belief, that's true, but I think that me posting here, admitting the said belief, Is rather a mark of good faith that a proof of how biased I am.

Once again, thanks for the help and sorry for my poor english.

[OldTrees1]

It's true that, being human, I can't help but have a bias. It's also true that, because of this, I came here to ask for advice of people who wouldn't have one.

Advice of those people : Since you'r biased, kick him => Yeah, thanks ?

-snip-

So, please, I appreciate the help, but please, don't turn this into tribe war. I'm a grown up with belief, that's true, but I think that me posting here, admitting the said belief, Is rather a mark of good faith that a proof of how biased I am.

The initial advice of those people: Since there is a perfect solution, use that perfect solution
Then you said you were going to kick the Wizard instead
The advice changed to: Since you'r biased, kick him

Your reaction was surprising, and while it might not be because of your bias, the most likely case from our perspective was that you were minimizing the Wizard player's distress as an unconscious result of your bias.

(Sidenote: The position of the Gentleman's agreement line was not clear between your 2 players. There is a difference between crossing a line you know of and crossing a line that you thought was still ahead of you or that you thought someone had already crossed a while ago. Both players crossed such lines.)

However you have access to more details than you have shared with us so we will hope that you are making the right choice even if it might be in doubt from the limited slice of information we were provided.

[Boci]

The initial advice of those people: Since there is a perfect solution, use that perfect solution

There was never a perfect solution OOC. There was a perfect IC solution which would have led to a smooth OOC experience, provided all parties could successfully quell the OOC emotion that was unleashed on both sides during the session.

That's a big if, so I don't think its fair to call the initial solution "perfect".


I also feel, as I said earlier, that he broke some kind of Gentlemen agreement when he enforced a roll for abortion.

This may just be a mis communication due to your english as you mentioned, but why do you say "enforce"? That's typically what a DM does, not a player.

Has the skald change their mind, or are they still uncomfortable continuing too continue playing in the same game as the wizard? What about the other players? You say you spoke to them and they too found the wizard to be the problem. Are they all willing to continue playing with him despite this?

[Segev]

I stand by my advice: Retcon the pregnancy roll. There is no pregnancy. No child/baby/fetus/unviable-tissue-mass/parasite/unholy-spawn-of-all-that-is-wrong-with-the-multiverse to worry about.

I don't know how the "debate" or what-have-you went, and it really isn't any of my business. From what I've read in this thread, I don't see how reasonable people feel "trapped" by the wizard's player, but again, I have an extremely narrow window with a highly limited and multi-layer-insulated perspective, so I can't tell how the wizard's player's behavior really looked, nor how anybody else's did.

If he really was that over-the-top malignant, sure, kick him.

But ask yourself if he really was or if he's just on the "wrong" side of a political issue over which most people are sensitive one way or the other.

I personally think, though, that retconning it and instituting a special note to the rules for your game: If the DM feels a topic has derailed the game uncomfortably, the elements bringing it into play will be retconned and the issue removed.

Keep it pure DM discretion, so it doesn't become a tool for players to (wittingly or un-) try to retcon things that are just bad for them in-game.

[Name1]

Ok, what I have said may came off a bit too aggressive:

Listen, the Wizard did wrong, yes, but objectively the Skalds Ultimatum is a bigger **** move.
Does it matter who of the two is wrong though? You already made up your mind, the entire group apparently wants the Wizard gone, so even if kicking him would generally be the wrong decision, for your group, it is the better one.

You came here for an objective view. In that objective view, an Ultimatum has more gravity than a 5-minute bitching.
But you aren't objective. Neither is your group. That's nothing to judge you by, it's just a fact and you said so yourself. And thanks to that, the objective choice would be the wrong one for your table.

So my advice still is: Kick the Wizard, tone down the setting-rating to 16+ to ensure stuff like that never comes up again ('cause at least the Skald can't deal with conflicting opinions on such matters) and continue onward.
The Wizard is the problem, if only because he doesn't fit.

[TheBrassDuke]

I'd like to point out that the PC "Mental Safe Zone" bit is all RUBBISH. It's a damn game, guys. As the DM, this is your world, not theirs; they are simply inhabitants of your setting, and only you can decide what is what in this scenario.

I don't give a **** that you and the Skald were "taken aback" by the Wizard's suggestion. You let it HAPPEN after the fact. So the both of you were quite curious. And y'know what? No. Obviously, it's not something that would be on everyone's mind, there being a solution to just get rid of the pregnancy, because it's A DAMN GAME. The suggestion, I'm sure, was because of a neat role playing opportunity for two characters, who had a romantic relationship for quite some time.

Look. To the Skald, I'm sorry if you suddenly feel attacked after the allowance of such a roll. That's on you and your DM, okay? Unfortunately, you all let it happen. It's not the wizard's fault he wanted to see if your two characters, assumed to be in love--otherwise their casual baby-making wouldn't occur--could start a family. Why accept the roll if you're just going to **** it up for everyone at the table and then turn into a petulant child. At "40+" years of age? This is ridiculous. You're obviously an ADULT. Yet I've been reading you all as teenagers or something.

The DM, your bias is a problem here. Nix it quick, before everyone else finds out it can kill your whole game.

The Wizard. Okay, yeah. Why? Shouldn't you have asked the Skald's player if this was an acceptable question? For crying out loud, that's one of the first things you should do, OoC. Not just suggest a roll. But still, they did say yes, so they'll share their blame. But don't think you're off the hook for making a silly play.

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

I'm exhausted, so my little rant is coming to an end; it was poorly-written and it's embarrassing, but I wanted to say something.

A big thing is, remind your player that their Safe Zones? Yeah, that's a load of **** in a fantasy game where anything can happen. If you're all adults, you know this, and you should have been prepared. And the Skald shouldn't have gone out of "her" way to make it a bigger problem than necessary, by suggesting a quick fix. Just retcon the damn thing and grow the hell up. All of you. Jesum!

[Segev]

*eloquent and direct rant*

Well put, good sir. Well put.

[Boci]

Well put, good sir. Well put.

Sarcasm? Cuz,

"A big thing is, remind your player that their Safe Zones? Yeah, that's a load of **** in a fantasy game where anything can happen."

Means you cannot object if your character is raped, since its a fantasy game and anything can happen. And if you think that is "eloquent and direct", well then...I vehemently disagree with not only your argument, but also your definition of eloquence and well put.

[Dezea]

I'm frankly surprised indeed that the mere idea of having a "Safe zone" at a Rpg table is seen as so stupid.

To be honest, It has always been usual in my - Now quite long - experience as a tbt rpg player that some topics are not to be spoken of without a mutual - And primary - agreement.

Those include rape, unwanted pregnancy, excessive gore, and some other stuff. After all, not everybody want his playtime to be the darkest, and I can totally understand it.

It's also true that those hard moment can led to great roleplay opportunities, but it should come after a serious discussion about what every player feel comfortable with.

I'm also quite surprise at the whole rant, wich, to be honest, look quite childish in his tone to me, furthermore when it start by telling us we are acting like child instead of the - Terribly old and boring - adult we are.

Once again, thanks for the answer.

Edit : I could go on with a longer answer explaining that even if it's my world indeed, acting like I'm the only captain on board and every body else is just there to sit and listen - even if it's something terribly uncomfortable to them - is awfully wrong and far from the idea I have of a game. But well, whatever.

[The Glyphstone]

Ignoring the 'kick him cause you're biased' trolls, getting second and third opinions was the right idea, since it shows that if you do have bias, you're not letting that unilaterally decide your opinion. Asking the other players, the ones who were actually involved and affected, should probably have been the first group to poll instead of the dispassionate strangers, but since you got both groups eventually you're all good there.

That said, listen to the people who suggested the retcon first and try that strategy. The Skald should be totally okay with that, since they didn't want it to begin with. The Wizard should be okay with that, since it means no abortion. If they still cause an issue, then you've got multiple justifications for booting them - they're continuing to disrupt your game, and the other players resent them for it - none of which let your own personal feelings into the matter except to make you feel better about doing the 'right' thing for the situation.

[TheBrassDuke]

Sarcasm? Cuz,

"A big thing is, remind your player that their Safe Zones? Yeah, that's a load of **** in a fantasy game where anything can happen."

Means you cannot object if your character is raped, since its a fantasy game and anything can happen. And if you think that is "eloquent and direct", well then...I vehemently disagree with not only your argument, but also your definition of eloquence and well put.

Apparently the two Characters were in a physical relationship. Pregnancy is a possibility. I don't see anywhere the word "rape". No one even suggested this.

Also, you actually can object if your character is being/is raped. Because you as the player can actually stop it from happening, and I'm sure no one asked if they could make a "rape roll". You'll probably be in control of your character at that point of play, unless someone is railroading you. But unfortunately, you can't control pregnancy unless you're actively trying to bring about a certain outcome.


I'm frankly surprised indeed that the mere idea of having a "Safe zone" at a Rpg table is seen as so stupid.

To be honest, It has always been usual in my - Now quite long - experience as a tbt rpg player that some topics are not to be spoken of without a mutual - And primary - agreement.

Those include rape, unwanted pregnancy, excessive gore, and some other stuff. After all, not everybody want his playtime to be the darkest, and I can totally understand it.

It's also true that those hard moment can led to great roleplay opportunities, but it should come after a serious discussion about what every player feel comfortable with.

I'm also quite surprise at the whole rant, wich, to be honest, look quite childish in his tone to me, furthermore when it start by telling us we are acting like child instead of the - Terribly old and boring - adult we are.

Once again, thanks for the answer.

Edit : I could go on with a longer answer explaining that even if it's my world indeed, acting like I'm the only captain on board and every body else is just there to sit and listen - even if it's something terribly uncomfortable to them - is awfully wrong and far from the idea I have of a game. But well, whatever.

If it was "unwanted pregnancy", your Skald should have said so, comfortable with the roll question or not. It should have also fallen on YOU as to whether or not it was okay to begin with. I'm not childish for pointing all this **** out to you. The fact you're handling it like Millenials with all this "Safe Zone" crap in the first place is rather childish.

You know, you should have been involved more heavily in the discussion before even making a damn roll. Obviously you have prior bias, and that would have helped with vetoing the roll at the start.

I'm also going to ignore all these hypothetical rape scenarios, because they're unfounded in this topic and a little pathetic. The two characters were having a relationship founded on (I presume) love, and pregnancy is an obvious consequence of the physical action. You and the Skald shouldn't have made the stupid choice to agree to a roll if 1) you weren't comfortable, and 2) the Skald was going to just **** on the whole ordeal.

Good luck with everything, but I don't think you should rally the whole group against the wizard. They should both stay, especially if you've had--what, eight fun sessions prior to this? Just retcon it or force a play based on the PCs' actions. There is no safe zone in play, otherwise we couldn't fight dragons because "their strength outweighs my own, and that feels like a personal attack on me!"

I know the example is shallow and baseless to the topic, but this is how I'm seeing it. Just because you're all adults doesn't mean you have to be boring and dull, or however you put it. Just don't make mountains out of molehills. It's ridiculous.

[Gallowglass]

I'm frankly surprised indeed that the mere idea of having a "Safe zone" at a Rpg table is seen as so stupid.

To be honest, It has always been usual in my - Now quite long - experience as a tbt rpg player that some topics are not to be spoken of without a mutual - And primary - agreement.

Those include rape, unwanted pregnancy, excessive gore, and some other stuff. After all, not everybody want his playtime to be the darkest, and I can totally understand it.

It's also true that those hard moment can led to great roleplay opportunities, but it should come after a serious discussion about what every player feel comfortable with.

I'm also quite surprise at the whole rant, wich, to be honest, look quite childish in his tone to me, furthermore when it start by telling us we are acting like child instead of the - Terribly old and boring - adult we are.

Once again, thanks for the answer.

Edit : I could go on with a longer answer explaining that even if it's my world indeed, acting like I'm the only captain on board and every body else is just there to sit and listen - even if it's something terribly uncomfortable to them - is awfully wrong and far from the idea I have of a game. But well, whatever.

I expect this will fall on deaf ears.

OP, you are still reframing the narrative. In fact, now you are reframing the narrative of THIS conversation. There is no tribal war going on in this conversation. There has been exactly ONE person identified as pro-life and his advice was mostly reasoned and well-formed, if biased toward his tribe. Everyone else has professed no tribal affiliation or, like me, admitted to be in your tribe (pro-choice), so the people disagreeing with your decision are not doing so out of tribal warfare. We are doing it because we feel you are making a biased decision based on YOUR tribal affiliation.

Look, take the abortion debate out of this. Pretend that you had 8 great sessions with this group then, in session nine, you captured a bunch of goblins. player 1 says "hey, lets maximize our profit here and take the goblins to that town we passed and sell them as slaves". Most of hte other players nod or shrug but player 2 says "what? no way! I'm not becoming a slaver!" and a 5 minute conversation ensued "slavery isn't wrong in this world" "but I'm a good cleric and its wrong in my god's belief system!" "fine, but you don't want to slave them you give up your share of the rest of the loot to compensate" "what? no way" almost culminating in PvP before you call it for the night.

Now, in this case, I would HOPE that there would be no "kicking" of player 2. Rather, you'd let heads cool down and come back at it. Because you should only kick someone for repeated behavior after warnings, not for one bad night fueled by having a trigger go off or having a bad day at work and rolling it over into the game. The guy had a bad night and you, the DM, made a terrible and admittedly regretful decision of playing into it.

That's what we are "attacking" you on. We arent' attacking you along pro-life/pro-choice lines, we are attacking you because you are letting your bias on those lines cause you to make an unfair decision.

But, regardless, you said you came in here to get opinions, but you apparently were only looking for confirmation of your own opinion. You got a couple people to do that like Boci, guess you got what you wanted. *shrug*

This whole safezone thing is a strawman arguement and I'll demonstrate why it is. (And, yes, I am aware that I am painting MY bias into this narrative based on my belief of what you are saying and not saying in what you shared)

Because in this narrative, no matter how you paint it, the first victim who had their safe zone desecrated was the wizard, not the skald.

Seriously.

Two bros are roleplaying. They have a romance between their two characters. Okay, good so far.

Its a lighthearted game, lots of joking around, I'm sure there was plenty of "I'll show you my wizard staff" and "I'll put my ranks in perform: woodwind to good use" jokes. ha ha. good so far. everybody's happy.

As we are wrapping up a role-play heavy session and getting ready to move on, the wizard continues to light-hearted role-play with "Hey, we should roll to see if you got pregnant." I'm quite sure he was joking around, continuing the back and forth that had been going on all session.

"Ha ha, okay, sounds good."

GM: "uh okay... yup looks like you got her pregnant"

Ha ha, everything's good.

Bard, continuing what he sees as the light hearted narrative "Ha, ha. guess i"ll have to take a few days off to take care of that."

BOOM. trigger warning.

By YOUR own words "the Skald got more aggressive" in the resulting arguement.

Now, its all well and good to paint the wizard in dark colors here because he happened to say "we should see if you got pregnant." but its bull****. Self-gratifying, blame-shifting bull****.

Now, I should just stop posting because its obvious that you already made your decision and you've succeeded admirably in hearing what you wanted to here to feel justified and like the good guy and now this is going no where. But you know what. I have a trigger warning about bull****. So I'm going to call it when I see it.

[TheBrassDuke]

SNIP

Far more eloquent than what I was going to say next. :)

[dascarletm]

I just want to make it clear to anyone who may think I was being aggressive or "trolling" by saying you should kick him, I wasn't. I do think that it is important to understand one's own bias. In my line of work you need to be very cognisant of it. Reading further it sounds as though you think of W (my short for the wizard player I'll be using from here on out, and S for the Skald player) is being a problem.

There isn't anything wrong or mean to understand your own bias and act on it, in this sort of setting. The fact that he is also a problem player makes the decision even easier.

I agree with you on the mental safe space bit, and I think the blowback comes from the same knee-jerk reaction that I had upon hearing it. As much as the terminology makes me want to roll my eyes (see I'm understanding my own bias:smallbiggrin:) I don't think that most games lack lines which you don't cross. Rape is usually such a line, in my games at least. This isn't because I think that if I as a DM caused a character to be raped I'd think they'd actually feel violated. It is more because it wouldn't be fun.

I hope I didn't come across as calling you or anyone childish, but I too was under the same impression. (That these people were younger) If I was in your shoes I wouldn't play with either of them mostly because I wouldn't play with the type of person that would get into a heated debate with people who are to my understanding acquaintances at best. This of course is negated if people were hungry, tired, were having an especially bad day, or had some personal reason to have a strong interest in this.

Either way I do think it was good for you to get alternate viewpoints. I hope I didn't say anything to put you off. I do hope that your game returns to the fun it once was.

[Dezea]

Well, thanks Glyphstone, actually what you say made me reconsider. I'll have a chat with the Skald and we'll see about retconning, even if retconning is one of the things I hate the most.


To Gallowglass :

I still feel like the whole problem erupted because the wizard decided that "No", the session could not go on because he wouldn't let the skald player go with his decision to "Deal with the problem".

I'm also not trying to be the good guy and starting to feel quite irritated at the tone this discussion is taking. (Wich is probably the last thing to say when you hope for the tone to get better, it's true)

And, since we are talking about Strawman, please Brassduke, don't use rape as a Strawman either. We never said that what happend was relative to a rape, simply that some topics - Including rape - should be discussed before being used in game.

With all that being said, I'll hope we can all agree to get a bit more "Easygoing" ? When I can't read an answer without half the word being "****" or "####" I feel like I'm asking my teenage daughter to tidy her room. (And guys, she could teach you some serious stuff about being insulting).

Once again, thanks for the answer.

Edit : And my thanks to dascarletm for his good answer ! It's true that my wording might have been bad, and I apologize for it.

[A.A.King]

I'm frankly surprised indeed that the mere idea of having a "Safe zone" at a Rpg table is seen as so stupid.

To be honest, It has always been usual in my - Now quite long - experience as a tbt rpg player that some topics are not to be spoken of without a mutual - And primary - agreement.

Those include rape, unwanted pregnancy, excessive gore, and some other stuff. After all, not everybody want his playtime to be the darkest, and I can totally understand it.

It's also true that those hard moment can led to great roleplay opportunities, but it should come after a serious discussion about what every player feel comfortable with.

I'm also quite surprise at the whole rant, wich, to be honest, look quite childish in his tone to me, furthermore when it start by telling us we are acting like child instead of the - Terribly old and boring - adult we are.

Once again, thanks for the answer.

Edit : I could go on with a longer answer explaining that even if it's my world indeed, acting like I'm the only captain on board and every body else is just there to sit and listen - even if it's something terribly uncomfortable to them - is awfully wrong and far from the idea I have of a game. But well, whatever.



You say "unwanted pregnancy" as something that is not spoken off without an agreement, but the skald never mentioned a pregnancy would be an unwanted one and the wizard didn't have any reason to assume either. This means that the wizard brought up "pregnancy" which is not against your gentleman's agreement. If anything the one who brought up the unwanted pregnancy was the Skald, for up until the suggestion of a 'solution' was brought up, it wasn't yet unwanted.

The main reason that this whole problem happened, is that everyone had 8 sessions of fun and started to asusme that their new found buddies where just very much like themselves. You shared at least one hobby and that went really well and all of a sudden you all lost that little warning sign inside your head that says: "People might disagree with you". The wizard, an avid pro-lifer, thought that the idea of a possible pregnancy may be fun and never considered that the Skald, if 'she' agreeed to the role, might not keep it (because that's not something he would ever have done). Similarly, the Skald, didn't seem the harm in taking the pregnancy role 'bet' because he assumed there was no actual risk. As a strong believer in the right to choice, he never considered the possibility that the 'father' might have objections. The simple truth is they are both equally to blame for this argument for neither stopped to consider the other might have a different view.



I still feel like the whole problem erupted because the wizard decided that "No", the session could not go on because he wouldn't let the skald player go with his decision to "Deal with the problem".


This is where you lose me and why others blame you of kicking the Wizard out of biased reasons. Just like you I am in tribe 1 and so disagree with the Wizard problem, but I don't think you can fault someone for standing by his believe even in game. Yes, technically he may have been the reason that the session ultimately ended, but do you image that the skald would have reacted differently if instead he had been playing with a GM that said: "Actually, there is no such solution that you want. You agreed to the role, you're pregnant now. Don't worry, you won't notice it for atleat 6 months and the campaign won't last that long."

The argument should never have happenend, but once it did you can't blame someone for having a strong believe. That's the whole reason why these arguments are usually avoided.

[OldTrees1]

And, since we are talking about Strawman, please Brassduke, don't use rape as a Strawman either. We never said that what happend was relative to a rape, simply that some topics - Including rape - should be discussed before being used in game.

With all that being said, I'll hope we can all agree to get a bit more "Easygoing" ? When I can't read an answer without half the word being "****" or "####" I feel like I'm asking my teenage daughter to tidy her room. (And guys, she could teach you some serious stuff about being insulting).

Once again, thanks for the answer.

Edit : And my thanks to dascarletm for his good answer ! It's true that my wording might have been bad, and I apologize for it.

Gentleman's agreement or excluded topics is probably a better way to describe "here are areas that we either agreed to not go or we assumed we would not go". Such limits certainly have a place in D&D just like other Gentleman's agreements like optimization level have a place. You had a mismatch between what the players assumed the agreement was (no abortion vs no childbearing) which regardless of your resolution to this problem you are amending that agreement to be (no pregnancy).

As for the wording, while the term you used is at fault, I think the blame lies in the reaction to that term rather than your use of that term. So we should be the ones apologizing, and I do apologize for my part in that reaction.

[Gallowglass]

To Gallowglass :

I still feel like the whole problem erupted because the wizard decided that "No", the session could not go on because he wouldn't let the skald player go with his decision to "Deal with the problem".

I'm also not trying to be the good guy and starting to feel quite irritated at the tone this discussion is taking. (Wich is probably the last thing to say when you hope for the tone to get better, it's true)

And, since we are talking about Strawman, please Brassduke, don't use rape as a Strawman either. We never said that what happend was relative to a rape, simply that some topics - Including rape - should be discussed before being used in game.

With all that being said, I'll hope we can all agree to get a bit more "Easygoing" ? When I can't read an answer without half the word being "****" or "####" I feel like I'm asking my teenage daughter to tidy her room. (And guys, she could teach you some serious stuff about being insulting).

Once again, thanks for the answer.

Edit : And my thanks to dascarletm for his good answer ! It's true that my wording might have been bad, and I apologize for it.

Agreed. I apologize for my harsh language and tone.

I was disappointed that you seemed to ignore all the legitimately good advice I saw on the first couple pages and appeared, to me, to be making a bad decision.

For what its worth, I -do- believe that there are certain topics better left off the table and that there certainly ARE safezones that should be respected. I don't think that doing so is millennial bull****.


//unrelated side note: While I ultimately regret the many minutes I've spent in this thread, as part of this discussion, it was worth it for the "I'll put my ranks in perform: woodwind to good use" joke. That's classic. I'm saving that one for the future.

[Segev]

Sarcasm? Cuz,

"A big thing is, remind your player that their Safe Zones? Yeah, that's a load of **** in a fantasy game where anything can happen."

Means you cannot object if your character is raped, since its a fantasy game and anything can happen. And if you think that is "eloquent and direct", well then...I vehemently disagree with not only your argument, but also your definition of eloquence and well put.

While I will admit I was more focused on the notion that everybody should take a step back, breathe deep, and recognize that the solution is just to retcon it and hold no grudges (because, seriously, if you've got a grudge, it's over somebody disagreeing with you, and...well, I will let that speak for itself)...

..While I'll admit that, I do think "safe spaces" are silly. You do, absolutely, have a right to say, "Hey, that's not a topic with which I'm comfortable." But to move on to say, "And you've now victimized me by bringing it up, you monster; kowtow and acknowledge that you're a villain and I'm your victim" is obnoxious at best.

It usually is also used as a weapon to declare your position sacrosanct by default: one cannot do aught but agree that you are right on the issue without being a bad person for "violating your safe space."


Mature people will still stumble into uncomfortable zones with each other. Everybody is different. Mature people will say, "Hey, can we not discuss this issue? It's not relevant to the game (or whatever), and it makes me uncomfortable." Equally mature people who are not jerks will typically reply, "Oh, sure. Let's move on." In the context of something like this situation, an agreement to retcon it so the troublesome point just doesn't happen is perfectly reasonable and will solve any problem that is not one rooted in immaturity and jerkish behavior on at least one party's part.

The absolute worst thing that remains within a realm of mature response would be something like, "Actually, I think it's relevant, but if you can come up with a way to dodge the issue, I'm game. Otherwise...we may need to discuss this. IS there a way to put it off so it won't interrupt the game right now?"





As to the OP's assertion that the Wizard is the one who caused the major problem of disrupting the game by insisting they deal with the plan to "solve the problem" IC (via abortion)... no.

That's definitely your bias showing. I will grant that you probably don't realize it, as it's easy to forget in cases like this. So I will frame it more clearly for you:

<S> "Oh well, I'll just solve the problem by killing all the goblin kids."
<w> "What!? No! We aren't murdering the children!"
<S>"How dare you call me a murderer? They're just GOBLINS; totally okay to kill."
<W>"I'm not being a party to it, and I can't see my character standing by and letting it happen!"
<DM> "Okay, well, we need to move on with the game. So just go kill the goblin kids so we can do so."


You've essentially voiced "do the thing to which W objects" as the "compromise."

Imagine you go to a restaurant and order a meal. They serve you the entrée, but not your drinks or the sides it comes with. They charge you for your drinks and full price for the entrée. You complain, and it becomes an argument as the waiter insists he brought you all of it. The store owner shows up and says, "Okay, well, we just want to end this unpleasant scene being played out here. How about you just pay your bill, and we'll let you continue with your day?"

And then they call you a bad customer because you won't take that "compromise."

[Name1]

I remember a "safe space"-game I was part of: A 12 year old was in our group (we were all like... I think around 16, but he was the little brother of someone, so why not?) The catch was that his cat had died, so his brother was all like "can we play without anything dying?"

So we played a session of pacifist D&D. I was a Kender Rogue/Apostle of Peace. Good memories^^

So yeah, while safe spaces don't make much sense, they can be fun to play with. For one incident where rape was banned, we had an IC Cleric that banished rape from the world via a Miracle, cue to him waking up to find about 70% of the population of the world gone because they had an incident of rape in their bloodline. So the party had to try to ensure that humanity wouldn't die out or get incestious due to the lack of available pureblooded partners.

On the topic of me and others being trolls: He asked a question, he got an answer. I still think if the DM and the players are uncomfortable because someone on the table doesn't share their opinions, the game would be better without that person.
If you think that's not the case, that's your thing.

[CharonsHelper]

On the topic of me and others being trolls: He asked a question, he got an answer. I still think if the DM and the players are uncomfortable because someone on the table doesn't share their opinions, the game would be better without that person.
If you think that's not the case, that's your thing.

By that logic - one shouldn't hang out with anyone who ever disagrees with them on major issues?

No can simply agree to disagree on that issue, and move on?

[Name1]

By that logic - one shouldn't hang out with anyone who ever disagrees with them on major issues?

No can simply agree to disagree on that issue, and move on?

Well, that would be the IDEAL solution, but the Skald player is clearly not capable of that (IIRC) and from what I could gather, the DM and the table don't seem ready to do so either.

EDIT: Of course I'm assuming that a person that could agree to disagree and move on would not feel inherently uncomfortable around someone who disagrees.

[OldTrees1]

Well, that would be the IDEAL solution, but the Skald player is clearly not capable of that (IIRC) and from what I could gather, the DM and the table don't seem ready to do so either.

Citation needed.

The last were heard from S was after a session had just be ended by an argument. Their perception of events would be something like "Other player is trying to force my current character to be burdened with pregnancy & Other character was casting moral judgement on me for my personal beliefs on this topic". Now we, the forum, are detached enough from the scenario and know about W's PMing the DM about a retcon solution that S does not know about so we can see solutions from a better vantage point than S can at this point with their limited and incomplete information.

Now many there might be grievance about their having been a grievance and that may or may not be something S, W, & DM are capable of dealing with (Ex: if people said certain things that they can't take back). However I see insufficient evidence to draw that conclusion.

[Shackel]

After a certain point, I feel like if the wizard was about to be kicked essentially for having political affiliations that don't match with the GM after, once things officially stopped being IC, he served as the more mature one willing to step down and just retcon the entire situation... maybe he should leave anyway.

It sounds like more problems will show up involving that wizard, and right now it isn't sounding like it'll be his fault, either. From my point of view, it looked like there was IC that inadvertently stumbled into some areas people view uncomfortable(pregnancy, abortion, unwanted pregnancy) without knowledge of such. An OOC-IC argument breaks out. Afterwards, one side calmly recognizes that they've crossed the line into this OOC zone and offers a retcon to the incident so it doesn't come back up.

The other side, on the other hand, is much more aggressive, has gotten extremely emotional and is calling for the other player's head by demanding they be kicked out or they leave.

The DM then decides due to bias against the other player's viewpoint(which they said was not the problem) that the calm player should leave. Afterwards repeatedly showing disdain for the first player even when it is argued maybe that shouldn't be the case.

So, you know what? I think you should kick him. For his sake.

(If it means anything, I'm pro-choice but highly sympathetic to pro-life because I can understand their viewpoint while still viewing pro-choice as the more pragmatic option.)

[Zanos]

I've skimmed the thread, and mostly have been reading the OP's responses.

@Dezea, it seems like you feel the Wizard player is in the wrong to objecting to an easy solution to the pregnancy. You should keep in mind that from his PoV, the pregnancy isn't the problem, the abortion itself is. While perhaps he didn't mention it, it's pretty clear that abortion is deeply offensive to his moral compass. I suspect that if you shared the Wizards PoV, you may consider the Skald to be at fault for bringing up an offensive and potentially divisive topic. You don't see it that way, because to you abortion isn't offensive. To him, it's probably tantamount to murdering a baby. Instead, you only see the wizard player objecting to an obvious "solution."

Again, I don't actually think the Wizard player is correct in his views, but it's important to consider it from multiple viewpoints.

I'll chip in one last time that I think kicking the Wizard player is the wrong thing to do. I have serious reservations about "my way or the high way" types of people, and it seems like the Wizard is actively trying to defuse the problem.

[The Glyphstone]

I'll chip in one last time that I think kicking the Wizard player is the wrong thing to do. I have serious reservations about "my way or the high way" types of people, and it seems like the Wizard is actively trying to defuse the problem.

You know...I missed this bit the first time around, and it does actively start to turn me against the Skald despite agreeing with them otherwise. Being issued ultimatums tends to instinctively put my back up, especially when the other player is looking to defuse the situation (as of our last bit of info).

[Name1]

Citation needed.

The last were heard from S was after a session had just be ended by an argument. Their perception of events would be something like "Other player is trying to force my current character to be burdened with pregnancy & Other character was casting moral judgement on me for my personal beliefs on this topic". Now we, the forum, are detached enough from the scenario and know about W's PMing the DM about a retcon solution that S does not know about so we can see solutions from a better vantage point than S can at this point with their limited and incomplete information.

Now many there might be grievance about their having been a grievance and that may or may not be something S, W, & DM are capable of dealing with (Ex: if people said certain things that they can't take back). However I see insufficient evidence to draw that conclusion.

"Skald tell me that he felt deeply attacked, and that not only is he dissapointed by the player, but also feel like his character has been taken hostage. He sound really kind of traumatized by the event, and tell me that it's basically him or the wizard, I have to choose."
^From OPs first post.

Skald could have suggested a retcon himself. Skald could have retired his character. Skald could just have asked the DM to intervene on his behalf. Skald could have said they agree to disagree and be the bigger person. Skald could have just IC removed the child, because he can do that even if it pisses off the Wizard. Skald could just have not agreed to the roll in the first place, as to not open this can of worms.

Could have, could have...
But he didn't. He immediately jumped to the most dramatic and destructive solution possible, without preseting alternative solutions, without trying to talk it out with the DM and without compromise.

It doesn't matter if Skald knew the Wizards said to retcon it. He himself could have asked for it instead of pulling this. Even if he percieved the event as you said, it is still far from a justification for his actions. If he were just willing to agree to disagree, that PM would never have happened in the first place.

About the other players, I just got that general feeling from all of OPs posts, though I admit I could have made that decision too early.

As for the rest, Shackel said everything better than I ever could.
The solution of "kick the Wizard for his own good" is what I feel too.

[Segev]

Honestly, I think we're tending to be overly judgmental. I don't mean that in the typical hotbutton sort of way; I mean that I think we're looking at this through a narrow lens with limited information and making a lot of assumptions about people's motives and emotional states. I see where we're coming from with these assumptions, but I can construct in my head - with different assumptions that don't violate what the OP has written - a scenario where some people may have been overly emotional, and others haven't quite heard all the cool-down negotiation points yet, but everybody is capable of being a reasonable human being.

Which is why I suggest just retconning it, per the wizard player's suggestion.

If that's "not good enough" for anybody, then those people are the ones I suspect are the real problem players, unless the wizard is doing more than we've been told to exacerbate and incubate problems.

[OldTrees1]

"Skald tell me that he felt deeply attacked, and that not only is he dissapointed by the player, but also feel like his character has been taken hostage. He sound really kind of traumatized by the event, and tell me that it's basically him or the wizard, I have to choose."
^From OPs first post.

Skald could have suggested a retcon himself. Skald could have retired his character. Skald could just have asked the DM to intervene on his behalf. Skald could have said they agree to disagree and be the bigger person. Skald could have just IC removed the child, because he can do that even if it pisses off the Wizard. Skald could just have not agreed to the roll in the first place, as to not open this can of worms.

Could have, could have...
But he didn't. He immediately jumped to the most dramatic and destructive solution possible, without preseting alternative solutions, without trying to talk it out with the DM and without compromise.

That is the same thing I read but I reached a milder conclusion than you did.

S felt attacked. Normally someone that feels attacked they believe the only ways to end the attack are "the other person stops attacking", "the other person leaves", or "I leave". S jumped to the 2 options they have the power to offer since they might not believe they have the power to control W's actions.

As such I do not consider S's lack of suggesting a retcon indicative that they would not be open to W's idea to "stop fighting, retcon, and continue". On the contrary I think S would eagerly accept what they might perceive as W suggesting W stops attacking S.

All in all I think both after session mails were 60-80% reasonable given the perspectives of the person sending the mail.

[Name1]

That is the same thing I read but I reached a milder conclusion than you did.

S felt attacked. Normally someone that feels attacked they believe the only ways to end the attack are "the other person stops attacking", "the other person leaves", or "I leave". S jumped to the 2 options they have the power to offer since they might not believe they have the power to control W's actions.

As such I do not consider S's lack of suggesting a retcon indicative that they would not be open to W's idea to "stop fighting, recon, and continue". On the contrary I think S would eagerly accept what they might perceive as W suggesting W stops attacking S.

Hmm... I guess I can see where you are coming from. I may have been overreacting a bit there :/

[Gallowglass]

Hmm... I guess I can see where you are coming from. I may have been overreacting a bit there :/

Hug it out, bitches.

[Boci]

You know...I missed this bit the first time around, and it does actively start to turn me against the Skald despite agreeing with them otherwise. Being issued ultimatums tends to instinctively put my back up, especially when the other player is looking to defuse the situation (as of our last bit of info).

As I said before, whilst I too dislike ultimatums, I think I dislike people who cause issues at a table through thoughtlessness/selfishness and then offer that everyone move on and forget about it without acknowledging that the problem happened because of them. The DM has yet to mention any sense of responsibility coming from the wizard, and whilst again I don't actually think the wizard is an emotional abuser, that is an extreme example of someone who is typically the first to offer to move on, yet isn't the one being reasonable, despite how it may seem so to others.


Apparently the two Characters were in a physical relationship. Pregnancy is a possibility. I don't see anywhere the word "rape". No one even suggested this.

You suggested rape, when you said:

"A big thing is, remind your player that their Safe Zones? Yeah, that's a load of **** in a fantasy game where anything can happen."

"Rape" of "anything". Your response makes it clear this is not what you intended to say, but you did. If you argue "anything can happen" then there cannot be any exceptions.

[Shackel]

As I said before, whilst I too dislike ultimatums, I think I dislike people who cause issues at a table through thoughtlessness/selfishness and then offer that everyone move on and forget about it without acknowledging that the problem happened because of them. The DM has yet to mention any sense of responsibility coming from the wizard, and whilst again I don't actually think the wizard is an emotional abuser, that is an extreme example of someone who is typically the first to offer to move on, yet isn't the one being reasonable, despite how it may seem so to others.

Perhaps the reason there hasn't been an explicitly mentioned sense of responsibility is because there... really shouldn't be? I don't think either the skald or the wizard have(let alone share a majority of) any blame for the argument starting. It's clear the wizard didn't see a line at being curious about pregnancy, and it's equally clear the skald didn't see a line at abortion. It is the actions out of game that blame should be placed on, when both sides now clearly know the situation at hand.

[Boci]

Perhaps the reason there hasn't been an explicitly mentioned sense of responsibility is because there... really shouldn't be? I don't think either the skald or the wizard have(let alone share a majority of) any blame for the argument starting. It's clear the wizard didn't see a line at being curious about pregnancy, and it's equally clear the skald didn't see a line at abortion. It is the actions out of game that blame should be placed on, when both sides now clearly know the situation at hand.

You're welcome to think that, but I disagree. Asking to bring pregancy into the game without considering how easily this could lead to abortion which you are opposed to, is in no way equivalent to assume that a common if controversial medical option would be available in the absence of any indication that it would not be.

As I said early, I find the position the skald found themselves in only a tad less unreasonable than agreeing to use diseases for the black swamp section of the game, and then only later being informed cure disease spell/ability won't be a thing.

Its great that pro-choice people are siding with the wizard, that's an important skill and one I like to feel i have myself. You see, I feel confident my distaste for the wizard is less to do with him disagreeing with me, and more him forcing an issue on his own at a table. I'm English raised and live in Hungary, there have been plenty of times when I have had to swallow my own beliefs because no one at the table agrees and I don't want to raise a hugely controversial topic solely because I believe its right.

[Shackel]

You're welcome to think that, but I disagree. Asking to bring pregancy into the game without considering how easily this could lead to abortion which you are opposed to, is in no way equivalent to assume that a common if controversial medical option would be available in the absence of any indication that it would not be.

As I said early, I find the position the skald found themselves in only a tad less unreasonable than agreeing to use diseases for the black swamp section of the game, and then only later being informed cure disease spell/ability won't be a thing.

Its great that pro-choice people are siding with the wizard, that's an important skill and one I like to feel i have myself. You see, I feel confident my distaste for the wizard is less to do with him disagreeing with me, and more him forcing an issue on his own at a table. I'm English raised and live in Hungary, there have been plenty of times when I have had to swallow my own beliefs because no one at the table agrees and I don't want to raise a hugely controversial topic solely because I believe its right.

I believe that equating pregnancy and abortion to disease and cure disease is more than a little far from the point. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a strawman, but I will say it's irrelevant since it carries no OOC baggage or even varying IC opinions.

However, you're making this sound like the wizard pressed on or put a lot of thought into a deliberate act to force upon this skald a pregnancy, which is where, I think, our core disagreement lies. It sounds like, to him, it was an innocuous question. Basic cause and effect, consequence, progression of a relationship, etc.

And unfortunately, he just didn't think that the skald might instead choose to abort the child instead. His request to retcon the situation only further confirms, to me, that forcing someone else into a pregnancy was not his intended goal from the word "go". I may agree that his character's demands for her to keep the child might sound like that, but, that sounds a lot more like a product of a pro-life character/opinion(it's too unclear to say for sure whether or not the character was just a mouthpiece) rather than the other way around.

Maybe if the attitudes were switched, and it was the wizard who was forcefully demanding the skald take the child or leave, and that he was being personally assaulted by abortion being in the game, I'd be able to agree, but that just doesn't look like the case.

I think Hanlon's Razor best describes my point, here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." It's unfair, to me, to try and mark down the wizard as this selfish, malicious person when it's a lot easier explained by just not knowing this would happen.

[Boci]

I believe that equating pregnancy and abortion to disease and cure disease is more than a little far from the point. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a strawman, but I will say it's irrelevant since it carries no OOC baggage or even varying IC opinions.

I don't think OOC baggage is relevant for determining how reasonable it is to bring pregnancy into the game without considering that this could naturally lead to abortion.


I think Hanlon's Razor best describes my point, here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." It's unfair, to me, to try and mark down the wizard as this selfish, malicious person when it's a lot easier explained by just not knowing this would happen.

No, I acknowledged that earlier, hence saying the wizard brought this trouble about by thoughtlessness or selfishness. Either way, I would expect an apology from them for disrupting the play session, especially since he then single handed opposed the abortion fix, when the rest of the group was fine with it. I've swallowed plenty of opinions I've felt strongly about at a gaming table because I knew I was the only one in the room who felt so.

[OldTrees1]

No, I acknowledged that earlier, hence saying the wizard brought this trouble about by thoughtlessness or selfishness. Either way, I would expect an apology from them for disrupting the play session, especially since he then single handed opposed the abortion fix, when the rest of the group was fine with it. I've swallowed plenty of opinions I've felt strongly about at a gaming table because I knew I was the only one in the room who felt so.
Yes, both an explicit apology and swallowing deeply held moral beliefs can be better responses than what W did so far (W could still apologize). Sometimes people are not at their best.

[Segev]

Hug it out, bitches.
Because I read the web serial "Twig" (by an author who goes by 'Wildbow' online), I can't help but picture "hugging" being done by Helen. It's generally quite fatal.

You're welcome to think that, but I disagree. Asking to bring pregancy into the game without considering how easily this could lead to abortion which you are opposed to, is in no way equivalent to assume that a common if controversial medical option would be available in the absence of any indication that it would not be.

Actually, no. And you're showing your bias.

Even if abortion is "a thing," generally speaking, if one brings up the possibility of a pregnancy as if it is actually worth bothering to check, one is not thinking it's going to be something that can/will be ended "trivially." I doubt anybody rolls to see if they happen to have forgotten breakfast (which can be fixed by eating then and there).

The assumption that the roll is near-meaningless on the part of the Skald should have been brought up when S agreed to it. Springing "and it doesn't even matter because I can do this controversial thing that you probably didn't think of" is a crappy move.

The text in green is less than sincere; it's meant to illustrate how biased your position is, because it's the same logic applied with equal but opposite bias.


The most innocent way to read it is probably the most accurate, absent other evidence. That is: W was thinking of the potential for a plot surrounding the complication/joy/stress of a pregnancy; S thought the question a little quirky but didn't think it a big deal because S 'knew' it would be moot when the Skald took a trivial solution to the "problem."


I will confess that I was shocked by S's response simply because I never expected somebody to agree to an optional roll for something they would plan to negate if it came up positive. But I can see why S might've thought it was just a random amusing thing to check, in retrospect. W being horrified by it tells me more that he's responding with a lot of IC investment, since he was thinking of the baby as "real" and his wizard as actually having an interest in him or her.

I mean, I'm anti-baby-murder, as I hope everybody here is. The difference, I hope, between "pro-choice" and "pro-life" is whether those who hold the positions believe there to be a blob of parasitic, inhuman tissue or a baby in the womb prior to the abortion. But I'll bet most of us would have little problem in concept with an Evil-aligned character being just fine with murdering babies. W being horrified indicates that he feels his wizard is not the sort to support murdering babies, and views abortion as baby-murder.



In short, W may be in the wrong for suggesting the roll without discussing the potential plot arc with S first, but it's hardly an "attack." S may be in the wrong for agreeing to it when S's "solution to the problem" if it came up "pregnant" was something so controversial. Both may be in the wrong for their aggressive, affronted reactions and heated OOC debating.

But really, I think neither of them are "wrong" so much as there being a serious mismatch in expectations, and that once the shock wore off on both sides, I hope they will calmly and maturely retcon the problem that need not be part of the game and move on with things.

The only way I see anybody as being "in the wrong" in this is if they can't let it go.

[dascarletm]

Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology that you never got.
:smallwink:

[Shackel]

I don't think OOC baggage is relevant for determining how reasonable it is to bring pregnancy into the game without considering that this could naturally lead to abortion.



No, I acknowledged that earlier, hence saying the wizard brought this trouble about by thoughtlessness or selfishness. Either way, I would expect an apology from them for disrupting the play session, especially since he then single handed opposed the abortion fix, when the rest of the group was fine with it. I've swallowed plenty of opinions I've felt strongly about at a gaming table because I knew I was the only one in the room who felt so.

I definitely think it is; cure disease is, to anyone playing the game, a completely reasonable, if not the most logical conclusion(if not only logical) to "my character has a disease".

Abortion is not the most logical, if not only logical conclusion to "my character is pregnant." Not to mention that the less time you have to think about it(like, say, if a fun idea just springs to your head when there's only a few seconds time for you to say it without it coming off as awkward, misplaced or simply too late, like normal conversation or in a D&D group) the less you're obviously going to think it through. Even in your proclamation that it could be from thoughtlessness you needlessly tack on a negative connotation to it, which, admittedly, leads me to believe there is indeed some bias going on in terms of what you think a pro-life person actually is like.

In this case, ignorance is not an insult. It is the meaning and nothing more: he didn't know. He didn't know pregnancy might step over any boundaries. He didn't know abortion would be the first thing the other character goes to. He didn't know that the other player would get so emotional about it. So on and so forth.

Would you not say, then, that the skald was being "thoughtless" in agreeing to it rather than recognizing that the road this was traveling down would just end in what is a pretty well-known to be controversial act? Wouldn't you say the skald was being "thoughtless" in not just offhandedly mentioning it, but all but playing coy, which would undoubtedly lead to negative reactions if someone wasn't fond of it? I severely doubt it. So why should the wizard be considered selfish or thoughtless in asking about something considered a lot more innocent(pregnancy in a steady, well-built, romantic relationship)?

I don't see anything in the OP saying that the rest of the group was fine while the wizard's character was not, but feel free to show me where if it's somewhere else in the thread and I missed it.

[Boci]

The assumption that the roll is near-meaningless on the part of the Skald should have been brought up when S agreed to it. Springing "and it doesn't even matter because I can do this controversial thing that you probably didn't think of" is a crappy move.

No. The skald was surprised when they agreed, the DM have this clear. Burden is on the wizard, the one who brought it up consciously and was not surprised, rather than the one on the receiving end of a request that caught everyone else offguard.

I disagree with you, which is fine, but am started to get a little tired of your insistance that the only possibly way I can hold this view is because of some bias. I disagree, I think you are wrong, but I do not thing you are biased, and would apreciate it if you could return the favour.


Would you not say, then, that the skald was being "thoughtless" in agreeing to it rather than recognizing that the road this was traveling down would just end in what is a pretty well-known to be controversial act?

No, the person bringing the discussion up sets such pre-maters as a commonly available medical fix is not available, not the person agreeing. D&D is about acting in a world, unless otherwise specified, it will include all things you'd expect to find in that world, and a way of getting an abortion is absolutely one of them.


I don't see anything in the OP saying that the rest of the group was fine while the wizard's character was not, but feel free to show me where if it's somewhere else in the thread and I missed it.

"Everyone nod and I'm about to resume to the play when wizard guy say : "No"."

[Segev]

Frankly, by turning to S to ask if S wanted to make the check, and W not pressing it beyond simply asking the question, S has little reason to feel "attacked." S had every opportunity to turn it down before it got to that point.

By asking "should we roll for it?" W indicated that he was interested in the possibility. It hardly is forcing anything on S when S could have said "I'd rather not."

So while I do see how suggesting it might be somewhat out of line, the fact that it was agreed to and that W wasn't PUSHING it (by any indication, anyway) means that it's not really so.

It's not an illogical, improbable plot line to come from a sexually active romance. Voicing interest in it and tacitly asking by suggesting a roll for it is not pushing it on anybody; there was no indication that "no, we don't want to go that way" couldn't have been raised by anybody.

So no. Anybody saying W was out of line and is the one who owes an apology is being biased, and really just wants him to apologize for disagreeing with them, I think. It is no less reasonable to feel S owes an apology for bringing abortion into it.

In fact, it might be slightly more reasonable, since S could have deflected it at any point prior, even going so far as to say, after the roll, "Eh, I don't want to do this after all."

But I won't fault S or W, here, for everything leading up to the argument. I will fault them for the argument, but only slightly and no more than I would anybody else who makes a bad, rectifiable choice in the heat of the moment.

Seek reconciliation and act like grown-ups, and all should be forgiven. Nobody's hurt anybody here, and if your feelings are so hurt that you can't reconcile if the "other side" is willing to, then that says more about you than the person you claim has "attacked" you.

[Shackel]

No. The skald was surprised when they agreed, the DM have this clear. Burden is on the wizard, the one who brought it up consciously and was not surprised, rather than the one on the receiving end of a request that caught everyone else offguard.

I disagree with you, which is fine, but am started to get a little tired of your insistance that the only possibly way I can hold this view is because of some bias. I disagree, I think you are wrong, but I do not thing you are biased, and would apreciate it if you could return the favour.



"Everyone nod and I'm about to resume to the play when wizard guy say : "No"."

Admittedly, Boci, you aren't leaving too many other possibilities for why you would be keeping the wizard so firmly in a negative light while simultaneously brushing off everything the skald does or even the idea of neutrality for it. I hold doubts that you've never been in a game where no one ever had a spur of the moment thought they voiced. You keep placing so much emphasis on this burden, like the idea of suggesting a pregnancy existing at all(not even with certainty) in a steady, romantic relationship is some taboo that must never be crossed.

Thank you for pointing out the part in the OP, and I understand where I went wrong. You see, I was expecting some kind of voice from the group when the argument already started or when there were sides or even the smallest sign of dissent. This is not that case. This is everyone who is not involved with the situation OOC or IC just going along, and then the father of the unborn child IC voicing a negative opinion.

The idea that voicing any IC opinion to the contrary of the passive agreement of group is some kind of "opposition"(in the negative sense, not its pure definition, as you are making very clear) that places you at fault or makes you, the OOC player, selfish, is a... worrying one.

[Boci]

So no. Anybody saying W was out of line and is the one who owes an apology is being biased, and really just wants him to apologize for disagreeing with them, I think. It is no less reasonable to feel S owes an apology for bringing abortion into it.

Probably not. I mean, I don't feel that way, but the nature of disagreement, the position the others holds seems less reasonably than your own. Disagreements can still be debated, but not when one side is convinced that they aren't biased by the other side definitely is.


The idea that voicing any IC opinion to the contrary of the passive agreement of group is some kind of "opposition"(in the negative sense, not its pure definition, as you are making very clear) that places you at fault or makes you, the OOC player, selfish, is a... worrying one.

I don't see why, look what happened: bad things. What would have happened if the wizard hadn't gone against the passive agreement of the group? The wizards feels uncomfortable and the games goes on. That seems like like a much better out come, its not as if the wizard was spared much discomfort by not bottling his moral objections.

Oh, and just to (hopefully) clear up this "you're obviously bias thing":

If the wizard apologizes for causing the trouble and the skald still sticks to the ultimatum, then I would find the wizards slip up preferable to the skald's stubborness over feeling attacked.

[Vogonjeltz]

I stand by my advice: Retcon the pregnancy roll. There is no pregnancy. No child/baby/fetus/unviable-tissue-mass/parasite/unholy-spawn-of-all-that-is-wrong-with-the-multiverse to worry about.

The quandary is that the argument was out of character, so it's not a question of hurting the character, it's a question of hurt feelings by the players. Retconning is not going to unhurt feelings.

If you win the lottery and decide you want to donate the funds to charity, and then get into an argument with your spouse over spending the money on home improvements to the point that she wants you to move out, the state suddenly telling you that 'oops! We goofed, and shouldn't have given you the money in the first place...now it's gone!' will do absolutely nothing to change your feelings towards each other. She's still going to want you to move out.

The skald player is no longer willing to play with the wizard player. That must change if both players are to remain.

If that isn't possible then it's pretty much the wizards problem.


While I will admit I was more focused on the notion that everybody should take a step back, breathe deep, and recognize that the solution is just to retcon it and hold no grudges (because, seriously, if you've got a grudge, it's over somebody disagreeing with you, and...well, I will let that speak for itself)...

I'd agree, except the exact interaction as outlined by Dezea was:


I still feel like the whole problem erupted because the wizard decided that "No", the session could not go on because he wouldn't let the skald player go with his decision to "Deal with the problem".

That's not just a disagreement, that's the Wizard's Player stopping the game session because they weren't getting their way and wanted to control the Skald Player's roleplaying.

Not the characters disagreeing, the players. The wizards actions were completely inappropriate start to finish.


You've essentially voiced "do the thing to which W objects" as the "compromise."

Imagine you go to a restaurant and order a meal. They serve you the entrée, but not your drinks or the sides it comes with. They charge you for your drinks and full price for the entrée. You complain, and it becomes an argument as the waiter insists he brought you all of it. The store owner shows up and says, "Okay, well, we just want to end this unpleasant scene being played out here. How about you just pay your bill, and we'll let you continue with your day?"

And then they call you a bad customer because you won't take that "compromise."

Completely mis-states the issue at hand which, just to remind you is:

Player 1 wants to have their character pursue a course of action.
Player 2 stops the game to try and argue that Player 1 should not be allowed to decide their characters actions in game.

That's the heart of it: Do you think One player should get to force another player to roleplay a character in a specific way for completely out of game reasons?

Player 2s behavior towards Player 1 is totally predatory and should not be tolerated.

I would never countenance that kind of behavior from another player or let another player try to dominate another out of game as a DM.

[dascarletm]

Completely mis-states the issue at hand which, just to remind you is:

Player 1 wants to have their character pursue a course of action.
Player 2 stops the game to try and argue that Player 1 should not be allowed to decide their characters actions in game.

That's the heart of it: Do you think One player should get to force another player to roleplay a character in a specific way for completely out of game reasons?

Player 2s behavior towards Player 1 is totally predatory and should not be tolerated.

I would never countenance that kind of behavior from another player or let another player try to dominate another out of game as a DM.

The answer to this depends on what the course of action is. This is why the situation is not so cut-and-dry.

EDIT:

I'm sure we could both come up with scenarios that cause both P1 and P2 to be in the wrong. The question however is if this situation specifically falls on P1 or P2.

[Shackel]

The answer to this depends on what the course of action is. This is why the situation is not so cut-and-dry.

Indeed. The problem is that trying to just cut it all down to a perfectly logical chain of events is meaningless when the issue at hand has a lot of basis in emotions and morals.

[Segev]

No. The skald was surprised when they agreed, the DM have this clear. Burden is on the wizard, the one who brought it up consciously and was not surprised, rather than the one on the receiving end of a request that caught everyone else offguard.Like I said in a post after the one I'm quoting, S could have stopped it any time short of "she'll get an abortion." But sure, I am inclined to assume innocent intent and total lack of thought about how controversial abortion is.

What I am saying is that W owes no more apology than S. He clearly does regret bringing the question up if he's suggested retconning the roll to come up negative.


I disagree with you, which is fine, but am started to get a little tired of your insistance that the only possibly way I can hold this view is because of some bias. I disagree, I think you are wrong, but I do not thing you are biased, and would apreciate it if you could return the favour.If you insist you're not biased, I will simply point you to the equally-logical reasoning I gave as to why it's S that owes the apology for their clear intent to spring abortion on an unsuspecting W.

After all, S could have refused to do the roll. S could have said, in accepting, that S felt a positive result was still a non-issue due to the ease of getting an abortion to "take care of the problem." S could have said "you know what, now that it's come up positive, I realize I don't want to do this plot line." S instead waited until there was a baby on the metaphorical table to spring a highly controversial "solution" to the "problem" of pregnancy out as if it were no big deal, despite the fact that pro-life people view it as something no less horrific than somebody smothering a newborn baby.

Note that I think whatever degree of apology is owed is owed by both S and W to each other for their parts in contributing to the misunderstanding and for thoughtlessly bringing up something which is a hot-button for the other. Therefore I do not attribute that level of fault to S. I just think it less fair to attribute similar levels of fault to W as would be attributed to S above.

An objective analysis would indicate that both are equally likely guilty when it comes to doing something purposefully (or thoughtlessly) offensive to the other. Either they both owe an apology and should have known better, or neither do nor should have.

[Segev]

Player 1 wants to have their character pursue a course of action.
Player 2 stops the game to try and argue that Player 1 should not be allowed to decide their characters actions in game.

That's the heart of it: Do you think One player should get to force another player to roleplay a character in a specific way for completely out of game reasons?

Player 2s behavior towards Player 1 is totally predatory and should not be tolerated.

I would never countenance that kind of behavior from another player or let another player try to dominate another out of game as a DM.Okay.

Let's say that the events happened thusly:

The results of the roll were, because the DM has a whimsical streak, that a magical fairy delivered a newborn baby to them, which she turned to stone (and said would stay that way for 9 months).

S says "let's smash it; I don't want to deal with this problem."

W says "I can't stand by and let you do that!"

Is W still "predatory?"




...thinking on this, I have a lengthy discussion I would have regarding this issue, but I believe it would violate forum rules as we're actively getting into real-world issues of who has responsibilities, choices, and rights when it comes to children.

So I'll break it off here by saying that W was reacting with a strong investment in how his character would feel about the situation. Accusing him of being "predatory" is, itself, veering into real-world discussions, and I strongly suggest you retract such accusations when there are perfectly innocent ways of attributing his behavior.

[Boci]

Note that I think whatever degree of apology is owed is owed by both S and W to each other for their parts in contributing to the misunderstanding and for thoughtlessly bringing up something which is a hot-button for the other. Therefore I do not attribute that level of fault to S. I just think it less fair to attribute similar levels of fault to W as would be attributed to S above.

An objective analysis would indicate that both are equally likely guilty when it comes to doing something purposefully (or thoughtlessly) offensive to the other. Either they both owe an apology and should have known better, or neither do nor should have.

Isn't that potential the golden mean fallacy? The belief that the middle ground is automatically the most reasonable?

And you may have missed my edit: does this convince you I'm not biased:
"If the wizard apologizes for causing the trouble and the skald still sticks to the ultimatum, then I would find the wizards slip up preferable to the skald's stubborness over feeling attacked."

As for logic, yeah I don't agree with it. You think you're works, I don't. Its happens something. Logic is one of the closest things humans have to universal reasoning, but it is not perfect and just because you think you've constructed an equally logical premise, doesn't mean it is.

The Wizard, at best, went -
"Pregnancy! Now there's a totally fun, uncomplicating thing I can ask to bring into the game without setting any parameters for it. What could possibly go wrong"

and

"No one else has any obvious problem with the abortion, but I'd better speak up anyway"

The skald was not that unreasonable, so I reject your premise of an equally logical counter apology claim.

[Shackel]

Isn't that potential the golden mean fallacy? The belief that the middle ground is automatically the most reasonable?

And you may have missed my edit: does this convince you I'm not biased:
"If the wizard apologizes for causing the trouble and the skald still sticks to the ultimatum, then I would find the wizards slip up preferable to the skald's stubborness over feeling attacked."

As for logic, yeah I don't agree with it. You think you're works, I don't. Its happens something. Logic is one of the closest things humans have to universal reasoning, but it is not perfect and just because you think you've constructed an equally logical premise, doesn't mean it is.

Throwing around the names of fallacies does not automatically disprove anything: he is not saying that just because there are two points there must be some moderation in between. He is saying that if one of them is wrong, then they're both wrong because they have done similar acts.

Obviously you would be willing to see the wizard's slip up as preferable to the skald's stubbornness if he apologized: even someone with bias would see an apology to one negative act as preferable to an unapologetic negative act because they are, thus, "right". That only proves that you are not nigh-on fanatical about your position, not "unbiased".

[Boci]

Throwing around the names of fallacies does not automatically disprove anything: he is not saying that just because there are two points there must be some moderation in between.

I know, hence why I said potentially. My point was that although I could argue he was being fallacious, I saw no benefit to doing so, as a discussion of our conflicting opinions would work better if I assumed he had legitimate reasons for supporting the abandonment of individual blame, whilst I had legitimate reasons for believing the wizards to bear more of it.

But if everyone here thinks that I must be biased but they couldn't possibly be (or fallacious), then...cool I guess? Can't really do anything with that.

[kellbyb]

Okay.

Let's say that the events happened thusly:

The results of the roll were, because the DM has a whimsical streak, that a magical fairy delivered a newborn baby to them, which she turned to stone (and said would stay that way for 9 months).

S says "let's smash it; I don't want to deal with this problem."

W says "I can't stand by and let you do that!"

Is W still "predatory?"

I would argue that this situation is vastly different as a petrified infant presents many more options for being quickly and discreetly removed from the campaign without bringing up ethical arguments, but I do agree that this topic does run the risk of running into forbidden discussion content.

[Segev]

The Wizard, at best, went -
"Pregnancy! Now there's a totally fun, uncomplicating thing I can ask to bring into the game without setting any parameters for it. What could possibly go wrong"

and

"No one else has any obvious problem with the abortion, but I'd better speak up anyway"

The skald was not that unreasonable, so I reject your premise of an equally logical counter apology claim.

The Skald, at best, went -

"Pregnancy! I hadn't thought of that, but even if it happens, I can just negate it. No need to set any parameters on my acceptance of the notion of a roll. What could possibly go wrong when either way my character isn't pregnant?"

and

"Abortion is a controversial issue, but I'll just throw it out there casually because I'm okay with it."

The wizard was not that unreasonable, so I reject your premise that the wizard owes an apology.


((In case it's not obvious, I am simply demonstrating why your argument is biased by reversing it.))

[dascarletm]

But if everyone here thinks that I must be biased but they couldn't possibly be (or fallacious), then...cool I guess? Can't really do anything with that.

I don't think that, for what it is worth. I believe everyone is biased, no exception. Except The Ruler of the Universe from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[Boci]

The Skald, at best, went -

"Pregnancy! I hadn't thought of that, but even if it happens, I can just negate it. No need to set any parameters on my acceptance of the notion of a roll. What could possibly go wrong when either way my character isn't pregnant?"

and

"Abortion is a controversial issue, but I'll just throw it out there casually because I'm okay with it."

The wizard was not that unreasonable, so I reject your premise that the wizard owes an apology.


((In case it's not obvious, I am simply demonstrating why your argument is biased by reversing it.))

I disagree. The skald at best went:
"What? That came out of no um. Ummm, sure?"

""I am not having this put out of action for IG month. Abortions are a thing. Lemme check with the DM, the one who handles the rules"

So no, I reject that you handled that as you said you did. Feel free to pretty up the wizard's thought process if you think I was unfair, but that's the best I could bring out from what I'd read.

Incidentally, since you're saying:
Boci you are obviously biased, but I'm not

And I'm saying:
Let's assume neither of us are biased and engage each other as if the positions are legitimate readings of the OP's posts

Does that make me more reasonable? My offer has us being equal, whilst you're stance is that your argument can only be better than mine.

Obviously this is not the case, well, certainly not automatically. But if you can believe that, can you see why I'm skeptical of the wizard's offer to forget things is a little hollow without an apology?

[OldTrees1]

I don't think that, for what it is worth. I believe everyone is biased, no exception. Except The Ruler of the Universe from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Didn't the ruler prefer cats?

[Boci]

Didn't the ruler prefer cats?

Just because you prefer something doesn't make you bias. I prefer long walks on the beach to going to the dentists. Doesn't make me biased against dentists. :smallbiggrin:

[Segev]

Incidentally, since you're saying:
Boci you are obviously biased, but I'm not

And I'm saying:
Let's assume neither of us are biased and engage each other as if the positions are legitimate readings of the OP's posts

Does that make me more reasonable? My offer has us being equal, whilst you're stance is that your argument can only be better than mine.

Obviously this is not the case, well, certainly not automatically. But if you can believe that, can you see why I'm skeptical of the wizard's offer to forget things is a little hollow without an apology?
Actually, you're engaging in the fallacy of the false middle. You stake out your position, declaring that your argument is the middle, reasonable one that treats us as "equal," and thus any other position must be unbalanced and unfair.

I stand by my position as being the true middle because the two extremes are what you've outlined, and my reversal of what you've outlined to make S look like the sole guilty party.

If you wish to claim that S is, "at best," totally innocent, then so is W.

Because W is, "at best," thinking, "Hey, our PCs have been having sex; maybe she's pregnant. I'll ask the DM, who is the arbiter of such things. Oh, he asked S, and S is cool with it. ---wait, wha--huh? Abortion? Where did that come from!? No! We're not murdering my PC's baby!"

So no, your position is not "treating us both as equal." Your position is treating a bias against W, attributing negative, predatory, vile motives to him even in your "best case" scenario and then insisting that reversing it on S is unfair because S has a "best case" scenario wherein he's innocent.

W has a reverse-case scenario to your "best case" for S.



Now, if you're just offended that I say you're biased against W, I can retract that and simply be confused as to how an obviously intelligent, well-thought-out person such as yourself would miss that W has an innocent "best case" as reasonable as S's "best case."

[Boci]

Actually, you're engaging in the fallacy of the false middle.

I specifically said I don't actually think that, so no, no I'm not.

I think this is the end, we've probably long past any meaningful discussion on this. I disagree with you, but I respect your opinion, you evidently don't respect mine, that's fine, no one can respect every contrary opinion they hear.

[FearlessGnome]

After a certain point, I feel like if the wizard was about to be kicked essentially for having political affiliations that don't match with the GM after, once things officially stopped being IC, he served as the more mature one willing to step down and just retcon the entire situation... maybe he should leave anyway.

It sounds like more problems will show up involving that wizard, and right now it isn't sounding like it'll be his fault, either. From my point of view, it looked like there was IC that inadvertently stumbled into some areas people view uncomfortable(pregnancy, abortion, unwanted pregnancy) without knowledge of such. An OOC-IC argument breaks out. Afterwards, one side calmly recognizes that they've crossed the line into this OOC zone and offers a retcon to the incident so it doesn't come back up.

The other side, on the other hand, is much more aggressive, has gotten extremely emotional and is calling for the other player's head by demanding they be kicked out or they leave.

The DM then decides due to bias against the other player's viewpoint(which they said was not the problem) that the calm player should leave. Afterwards repeatedly showing disdain for the first player even when it is argued maybe that shouldn't be the case.

So, you know what? I think you should kick him. For his sake.

(If it means anything, I'm pro-choice but highly sympathetic to pro-life because I can understand their viewpoint while still viewing pro-choice as the more pragmatic option.)
I think you're giving the wizard too much credit here. Sure, it's great that, once removed from the situation, he thought to suggest a ret con. But don't forget that he's the one who started it. The Skald didn't mean to cause any conflicts, but the wizard jumped in and started wanting to dictate what another player should do with his character for the next nine in-world months. This in a fantasy world where it's perfectly fine to run around butchering goblins (Most of them are evil anyway, so just cut them down) and orcs and monsters. It's great when the person who starts a fight backs down, but I hardly think the wizard deserves praise or this ridiculous sentiment:

So, you know what? I think you should kick him. For his sake.



That is the same thing I read but I reached a milder conclusion than you did.

S felt attacked. Normally someone that feels attacked they believe the only ways to end the attack are "the other person stops attacking", "the other person leaves", or "I leave". S jumped to the 2 options they have the power to offer since they might not believe they have the power to control W's actions.

As such I do not consider S's lack of suggesting a retcon indicative that they would not be open to W's idea to "stop fighting, retcon, and continue". On the contrary I think S would eagerly accept what they might perceive as W suggesting W stops attacking S.

All in all I think both after session mails were 60-80% reasonable given the perspectives of the person sending the mail.
I basically agree with this. When attacked out of the blue, you're allowed to be annoyed/feel attacked.

I'm not saying kick the wizard player, but I am saying that if a rift arises now that just won't go away even after the ret con, I'd probably drop the player who started the argument. Especially if the same player is fine with wanton slaughter of NPCs that are not fetuses, as most PCs seem to be.

Of course, if the ret con works, great. Just move on.

[TheBrassDuke]

I think you're giving the wizard too much credit here. Sure, it's great that, once removed from the situation, he thought to suggest a ret con. But don't forget that he's the one who started it. The Skald didn't mean to cause any conflicts, but the wizard jumped in and started wanting to dictate what another player should do with his character for the next nine in-world months. This in a fantasy world where it's perfectly fine to run around butchering goblins (Most of them are evil anyway, so just cut them down) and orcs and monsters. It's great when the person who starts a fight backs down, but I hardly think the wizard deserves praise or this ridiculous sentiment:

---

I basically agree with this. When attacked out of the blue, you're allowed to be annoyed/feel attacked.

The Skald didn't mean to--WHAT? She didn't mean to cause any conflicts?

The characters. Have been having. Sex.

They have been in a relationship that's bloomer over (about eight?) sessions, and while it hasn't come up, they could have been thinking of getting married and settling down eventually. Who knows?

Pregnancy is a staple of regularly having sex, you know. Unless you prefer alternatives~~some of us prefer it.

You are playing with someone and they suggest your two characters, who've been together, try to make a baby. And then you up and flip the result after agreeing to it in the first place--which you didn't have to--by causing problems?

For the record, I'll point out that I'm pro-choice. I let science sort out the rest, okay? So my opinions on the matter detract into real world issues. I'm not going into any of that further.

But I stand firmly when I say that the Skald started the problem. It wasn't even a problem to begin with unless the DM specifically said "no pregnancies in this game". But no. He asked if the Skald wanted to play this out. And took her side. And caused this war to start on the Internet.

Skald player is going to be a problem in further games, mark my words. "My Way or the Highway", you'll see.

Apologize to the group, not to the Wizard or DM, because you forced the problem on them all by bringing the most ludicrous action to the table.

Done.

[Boci]

The Skald didn't mean to--WHAT? She didn't mean to cause any conflicts?

The characters. Have been having. Sex.

They have been in a relationship that's bloomer over (about eight?) sessions, and while it hasn't come up, they could have been thinking of getting married and settling down eventually. Who knows?

Sarcasm? The rest of your post makes me think you are being serious, but I had to check.

[Extra Anchovies]

Skald player is going to be a problem in further games, mark my words. "My Way or the Highway", you'll see.

I have to agree with this. A player who attempts to control the group's membership once will attempt to do so again, because they consider themselves of sufficient importance to demand that others leave. And next time it won't be over something you happen to agree with them on.

Talk to the wizard and the skald. Tell them both that you won't be removing any players against their will, and that games at your table won't be going into the details of reproduction again. If either of them wants to leave, let them do so. If either of them whines about you letting the other stay, tell the whiner to accept that you, not they, have authority over your game's membership, and that if they deal with that then they should leave.

Or you can kick the wizard over their OOC political opinion if you really want to. It's your game, so you have the power to do it. It wouldn't be justified, but there's nothing anyone can do to stop you.

[Boci]

I have to agree with this. A player who attempts to control the group's membership once will attempt to do so again, because they consider themselves of sufficient importance to demand that others leave. And next time it won't be over something you happen to agree with them on.

There's a danger of that sure, but its harder a cold hard fact.


Or you can kick the wizard over their OOC political opinion if you really want to. It's your game, so you have the power to do it. It wouldn't be justified,

Two posters on this page disagree with you on this point (me and FearlessGnome), and Glyphstone (not in his capacity as a moderator, merely as a forum poster) instructed the DM on a previous page to disregard the troll "kick him cuz your bias post". Hardly conclusive proof, but if that at least enough to make you consider that this attitude may be wrong? Because you seem fairly confident it isn't.

[Dezea]

Well guys, this has been really interesting, on many more topics than the one intended.

It's always a good surprise when you come with a formal problem and you get the chance to talk about ethics, concept, and so on.

That being said, as of now here is what I'm thinking :

I still think the wizard is at fault for the In-game event. I feel indeed that he has been kind of abusive on the skald, not for having political views and expressing them, but for trying to enforce them on the skald player. Had he went "Damn it, I'm furious about your decision of aborting, our relationship is over" would have been fine, probably a good opportunities for roleplay and, as someone probably offended IRL, a way to show disapointement without trying to seize control of the other action.
Saying on the other hand that "No, you can't do THIS with your character, even if all the tacit rules of the games should allow it", is, at least I feel, wrong.

Now, you are right with something : The Skald ultimatum is pretty bad, and it does indeed show some abusive behaviour on his side also. But does his wrongdoing cancel W wrongdoing ? No, and even less when you know that none of them saw the other guy mail.
Still, I should thank the forum for this : I was probably not hard enough on the Skald player, that is entirely true.

This is what I'm about to do then, after reading all your post and thinking about it :

I'm about to send a mail to both of them, telling them exactly that : For the wizard that I disprove his in game action, for the Skald that I won't give in to the ultimatum. I'll be expecting of the W the assurance that he won't try to enforce his personnal belief - Whatever they are - in the game in a way that prevent other people from playing, and I'll tell the Skald that I don't wish him to leave, but that I won't force the W departure if the wizard can comply with the forementioned rules. If they both agree, we'll resume playing, as I hope will be the case...

I'll tell you what happend, and will thank you all for your participation, even those I disagree with, for taking the times to express their view.

[TheYell]

So, please, I appreciate the help, but please, don't turn this into tribe war. I'm a grown up with belief, that's true, but I think that me posting here, admitting the said belief, Is rather a mark of good faith that a proof of how biased I am.

Once again, thanks for the help and sorry for my poor english.

Well my advice wasn't based on my tribe, I don't think.

Let us know how it turns out.

GAH swordsaged by OP

[The Glyphstone]

Here's hoping that all's well that ends well, I guess.

[Kesnit]

The characters. Have been having. Sex.

That doesn't automatically lead to pregnancy.


They have been in a relationship that's bloomer over (about eight?) sessions, and while it hasn't come up, they could have been thinking of getting married and settling down eventually. Who knows?

None of that was discussed IC or OOC.


Pregnancy is a staple of regularly having sex, you know. Unless you prefer alternatives~~some of us prefer it.

And perhaps S was assuming the PCs were using birth control.


You are playing with someone and they suggest your two characters, who've been together, try to make a baby.

Except that isn't what W did. Without discussing it with S or the DM, just drops a question about pregnancy in the middle of game. It wasn't during a down-time (IC or OOC). The DM said he was about to send the party out of the city and had begun the next plot arc when W asked about pregnancy.


And then you up and flip the result after agreeing to it in the first place--which you didn't have to--by causing problems?

S didn't refuse to accept the result. His answer came down to "OK, so my PC is pregnant. Let me go take care of that, and we can get back to the game." The DM and the rest of the players (except W) all nodded, and the DM was about to start the plot arc again. That's when W stepped in and said he wouldn't allow S to get rid of the pregnancy.


But I stand firmly when I say that the Skald started the problem. It wasn't even a problem to begin with unless the DM specifically said "no pregnancies in this game".

Is that something you specifically lay out at the start of your campaigns?

I admit, I own the BoEF, and do allow players to pull from it. But before I let anyone build using it, I clear it with the other players and limit what can be used. (There's some interesting classes and templates.) All of that is done out of game. Unless a player specifically comes to me away from game and says they want to bring something like pregnancy into the game, I assume it's off-limits.


He asked if the Skald wanted to play this out.

Skald did play it out. The reaction was "oops. Guess I have to deal with this."


Skald player is going to be a problem in further games, mark my words. "My Way or the Highway", you'll see.

All we have about Skald's reaction was a single message sent to the DM. We don't know when the message was sent. We do know that Skald sent that message before knowing that Wizard brought up ret-conning the whole thing.

I can't remember who said it, but someone up-thread pointed out that the message could have been Skald saying he did not want to deal with the on-going battle (not knowing W had agreed to ret-con). To me, that makes perfect sense - there's an OOC issue and S does not want to have to deal with that issue at every game.


Apologize to the group, not to the Wizard or DM, because you forced the problem on them all by bringing the most ludicrous action to the table.

W brought up the whole pregnancy thing, not S.

[TheBrassDuke]

That doesn't automatically lead to pregnancy.



None of that was discussed IC or OOC.



And perhaps S was assuming the PCs were using birth control.



Except that isn't what W did. Without discussing it with S or the DM, just drops a question about pregnancy in the middle of game. It wasn't during a down-time (IC or OOC). The DM said he was about to send the party out of the city and had begun the next plot arc when W asked about pregnancy.



S didn't refuse to accept the result. His answer came down to "OK, so my PC is pregnant. Let me go take care of that, and we can get back to the game." The DM and the rest of the players (except W) all nodded, and the DM was about to start the plot arc again. That's when W stepped in and said he wouldn't allow S to get rid of the pregnancy.



Is that something you specifically lay out at the start of your campaigns?

I admit, I own the BoEF, and do allow players to pull from it. But before I let anyone build using it, I clear it with the other players and limit what can be used. (There's some interesting classes and templates.) All of that is done out of game. Unless a player specifically comes to me away from game and says they want to bring something like pregnancy into the game, I assume it's off-limits.



Skald did play it out. The reaction was "oops. Guess I have to deal with this."



All we have about Skald's reaction was a single message sent to the DM. We don't know when the message was sent. We do know that Skald sent that message before knowing that Wizard brought up ret-conning the whole thing.

I can't remember who said it, but someone up-thread pointed out that the message could have been Skald saying he did not want to deal with the on-going battle (not knowing W had agreed to ret-con). To me, that makes perfect sense - there's an OOC issue and S does not want to have to deal with that issue at every game.



W brought up the whole pregnancy thing, not S.

1) You're right, but guess what happens when a man and a woman get busy on a regular basis, at least a lot of the time? (Why else would our own planet be overpopulated?)

2) I'm well aware of that, otherwise I wouldn't have said "who knows?".

3) Under no circumstances, even in the real world, are you just allowed to assume such a notion. And it's obvious they hadn't. Otherwise no one would have rolled for the pregnancy, now would they?

4) And yet they allowed it to happen. Shocking.

5) Why derail a good story just to push your agenda in the first place? The two are in a relationship and are having a good time. Now they roll for pregnancy. You know, the assumed reaction in a lot of fiction is "great! A baby!", and that's probably what the wizard was going for, so both characters could bond. You'd have to be an idiot to think that just choosing to "get rid of it" wouldn't cause a problem, in one way or another.

6) I don't cater to a damn safe zone with my players, and they don't fall into those traps. We've had plenty of strange things happen in our games, but nothing to make players throw a fit over.

7) I do not own, nor have I read, the BoEF.

8) Playing out in the most passive-aggressive way possible, derailing the situation. You know why everyone else was quiet there? They probably got uncomfortable and didn't want to intervene.

9) The emails are irrelevant right now. If she wants to make a scene and imply she doesn't want to play with the Wizard anymore, that's fine. She doesn't have to come back either. I don't think it should have come to any of this, but there you have it.

10) Regardless of who brought it up, the Wizard wasn't trying to cause a problem. The Skald obviously was. You took the roll, and then you pulled a nasty stunt.

----

Also, if there are rules for birth control and abortions, then the DM must enforce other issues, too; I can think of one big one: the father's rights. Does it matter? It damn well should. Skald took the roll. Deal with it or retcon the whole thing. Because this is just stupid, and W had every right to oppose her solution.

[Name1]

Also, if there are rules for birth control and abortions, then the DM must enforce other issues, too; I can think of one big one: the father's rights. Does it matter? It damn well should. Skald took the roll. Deal with it or retcon the whole thing. Because this is just stupid, and W had every right to oppose her solution.

Okay, I'd like to point something out: While I am totally on the Wizards side in this debate, primarily because an Ultimatum is always damnable, the Wizard kinda went the wrong way about this.

The Skald was trying to do something he considered damnable, but he was trying to do so IC. The correct response wouldn't have been "Abortion is bad, and here's why", it would have been "Skald, Will Save". Dominate Person lasts for days, and if the Wizard suspected something before he get's access to it (he's likely to have the higher Int, whereas a Skald Warrior is Cha-based), he is still at least level 7 (assuming everyone levels about evenly), which means that if he really cares that much about the kid... A Mindrape-casting officially costs only about 1530 gp, and casting an Evil-spell to save the life of his own flesh and blood might be an acceptable IC reaction. Programmed Amnesia isn't even Evil, if he's willing to pay 500 gp in addition to that, and the Persona Rebuilding-option might give him better results.

Heck, he could just tell the Skald IC about him not wanting her (Skald's character) to kill the kid. So if Skald still does it, the d6 of Fireball he will eat in response will be clearly foreshadowed.

So IMO, the Wizard has every right to attack Skald IC, but not OOC.
...The Ultimatum is still a **** move, I stand by that.

EDIT: I'd also like to point out that while dominate eats a Wizards move action... when was the last time you've seen a low-level Wizard use a Full-Round action in a life-threatening scenario? I haven't in a long time...

[OldTrees1]

Okay, I'd like to point something out: While I am totally on the Wizards side in this debate, primarily because an Ultimatum is always damnable, the Wizard kinda went the wrong way about this.

The Skald was trying to do something he considered damnable, but he was trying to do so IC. The correct response wouldn't have been "Abortion is bad, and here's why", it would have been "Skald, Will Save".

PvP, especially to that extent, is also frequently breaking a group's Gentleman Agreement. One of the Skald's player's concerns was that they felt the Wizard's player was trying to take the Skald character hostage. Using PvP would have made that concern founded in truth rather than merely an unfortunate perception. The Wizard did go about things imperfectly, but suggesting using Mind Control on the Skald would have been an even worse move.

[Dezea]

Okay, I'd like to point something out: While I am totally on the Wizards side in this debate, primarily because an Ultimatum is always damnable, the Wizard kinda went the wrong way about this.

The Skald was trying to do something he considered damnable, but he was trying to do so IC. The correct response wouldn't have been "Abortion is bad, and here's why", it would have been "Skald, Will Save". Dominate Person lasts for days, and if the Wizard suspected something before he get's access to it (he's likely to have the higher Int, whereas a Skald Warrior is Cha-based), he is still at least level 7 (assuming everyone levels about evenly), which means that if he really cares that much about the kid... A Mindrape-casting officially costs only about 1530 gp, and casting an Evil-spell to save the life of his own flesh and blood might be an acceptable IC reaction. Programmed Amnesia isn't even Evil, if he's willing to pay 500 gp in addition to that, and the Persona Rebuilding-option might give him better results.

Heck, he could just tell the Skald IC about him not wanting her (Skald's character) to kill the kid. So if Skald still does it, the d6 of Fireball he will eat in response will be clearly foreshadowed.

So IMO, the Wizard has every right to attack Skald IC, but not OOC.
...The Ultimatum is still a **** move, I stand by that.

EDIT: I'd also like to point out that while dominate eats a Wizards move action... when was the last time you've seen a low-level Wizard use a Full-Round action in a life-threatening scenario? I haven't in a long time...

I'm pretty sure it is, so forgive me in advance for asking, but you are indeed being sarcastic here ?

Just please tell me you are, and you are not in fact advocating that the right way to deal with a player feeling trapped in a situation he didn't wanted is to dominate and mindrape his character in front of him in order to enforce him to do as you wanted. Including having his character carry a pregnancy he didn't wanted.

Pretty please ?

[TheYell]

Including having his character carry a pregnancy he didn't wanted.

On the scale of outrage, having a fake woman carry a fake baby comes somewhere below getting a copyright denied.

[Boci]

On the scale of outrage, having a fake woman carry a fake baby comes somewhere below getting a copyright denied.

Yet its unfair to subject the wizard to a fake abortion? There were mechanical considerations for the skald's character. None for the wizard.

[Dezea]

On the scale of outrage, having a fake woman carry a fake baby comes somewhere below getting a copyright denied.

Yeah. So since everything is fake, it obviously carry no weight whatsoever, and I guess we spend 6 page arguing instead of Just saying : Comon, this is not REAL.

Because you know, the point of an rpg have always been to be the least emotionally involved.

Here I'm starting to feel stupid for not understanding what must be basic irony.

[Name1]

I'm pretty sure it is, so forgive me in advance for asking, but you are indeed being sarcastic here ?

Just please tell me you are, and you are not in fact advocating that the right way to deal with a player feeling trapped in a situation he didn't wanted is to dominate and mindrape his character in front of him in order to enforce him to do as you wanted. Including having his character carry a pregnancy he didn't wanted.

Pretty please ?

He asked for a roll, Dezea. All I'm saying is, if the Skald really didn't want this, he could have denied it outright. Now he wants to kill a family member of the Wizard... Now ask yourself: Is it IC reasonable to assume the Wizard will just see someone happily plans his childs murder right in front of him without doing anything?

Sure, I prefer the Fireball to the face as retribution, it IS more reasonable, but if the Skald wants to be able to deal with the situation in every way he considers reasonable, including against the IC Wizards wishes, it would not be unnatural for the Wizard to IC prevent him from doing so in any way he considers reasonable.

Because now he traps the Wizard in an uncomfortable situation, because now the Wizard has to pretend IC and (to an extend) OOC that killing children is a great thing, something he feels uncomfortable with. To deny the Wizard the right to act IC is forcing his character "to do as you wanted", how you put it.

OOC attacks in any way because of this are wrong. They just are, and I hope we can agree on this. But IC, there has to be a confrontation if both characters are opposed to a matter so strongly.

For mechanical reasons, well, you have timeskips. Then just give it into the care of a commoner for like 1 gp/week and continue on with your adventure. There are no mechanical complications for like a month after conception, that should be enough time to get to a town.

[Boci]

Because now he traps the Wizard in an uncomfortable situation, because now the Wizard has to pretend IC and (to an extend) OOC that killing children is a great thing, something he feels uncomfortable with. To deny the Wizard the right to act IC is forcing his character "to do as you wanted", how you put it.

But there's no mechanics to that, its purely ideology, which has no place at the game table. The skald's however, even if you remove ideology, still had the mechanical reason of being an adventurer who would be hindered by pregnancy, to seek the abortion. Time skips could work but only messily, but what are the other players during? Plus they just had a time skip didn't they? And that is ofcourse assuming there is no in game story reason a time skip won't work.

[OldTrees1]

On the scale of outrage, having a fake woman carry a fake baby comes somewhere below getting a copyright denied.

1) That is not the concern being discussed

2) How outraged you would be is irrelevant to judging if Name1's idea would have made Player S more or less distraught than what did happen

3) A part of Player S's distraught was perceiving another Player(Player W) as trying to take their (S's) Character hostage. Name1's suggestion was that Player W's mistake is that they did not actually take S's Character hostage. When phrased clearly the answer is obvious: Name1's suggestion would have resulted in Player S being more distraught than what did happen.


He asked for a roll, Dezea. All I'm saying is, if the Skald really didn't want this, he could have denied it outright. Now he wants to kill a family member of the Wizard... Now ask yourself: Is it IC reasonable to assume the Wizard will just see someone happily plans his childs murder right in front of him without doing anything?
You missed everything I said about PvP, force, and Gentleman's Agreements didn't you?

Sometimes the IC actions are subject to the OOC realities that these are a bunch of people that sat down to play a game together.

[Ashtagon]

Out of curiosity, how did the characters know, in-character, that the skald was pregnant? And how much game-time passed between the sexual activity and the check?

[Name1]

1) That is not the concern being discussed

2) How outraged you would be is irrelevant to judging if Name1's idea would have made Player S more or less distraught than what did happen

3) A part of Player S's distraught was perceiving another Player(Player W) as trying to take their (S's) Character hostage. Name1's suggestion was that Player W's mistake is that they did not actually take S's Character hostage. When phrased clearly the answer is obvious: Name1's suggestion would have resulted in Player S being more distraught than what did happen.


You missed everything I said about PvP, force, and Gentleman's Agreements didn't you?

Sometimes the IC actions are subject to the OOC realities that these are a bunch of people that sat down to play a game together.

I did, as a matter of fact, not see your comment there. Though, now we have a different problem: The Wizard is forbidden from interacting with the Skald and HAS to sit back and watch his child die. Now don't get me wrong here, I know that his objections to abortion are OOC, but there is no reason we can not assume that his character has the same characteristic in the same way Skald was ok with abortion, but his character might not be.
Now the one who can't act the way he wants is the Wizard, because he has no say in the matter, even if he has the power and every reason to interfere. You see what I'm getting at? The situation, as it is evolving right now, is holding the Wizard hostage, because the Wizard is not allowed to act.


Out of curiosity, how did the characters know, in-character, that the skald was pregnant? And how much game-time passed between the sexual activity and the check?

Do they? I thought they weren't aware IC...

[Boci]

I did, as a matter of fact, not see your comment there. Though, now we have a different problem: The Wizard is forbidden from interacting with the Skald and HAS to sit back and watch his child die.

There are miles and miles between "cannot interact" and "cannot chain dominate a fellow PC for 9 IG months.

[Name1]

There are miles and miles between "cannot interact" and "cannot chain dominate a fellow PC for 9 IG months.

Ok, how about this: Cannot interact in any way that would allow him to influence the situation he is in. Does that sound better?

[Boci]

Ok, how about this: Cannot interact in any way that would allow him to influence the situation he is in. Does that sound better?

Except they can, or at least could potentially. As people pointed out, D&D could easily have a womb surrogacy through magic.

[Name1]

Except they can, or at least could potentially. As people pointed out, D&D could easily have a womb surrogacy through magic.

...Wait, now you got me confused: Didn't the Skald want the child aborted? As in "not only gone, but dead and gone"? 'Cause that was what I was taking away from this?

Did I totally miss a post about that? :smalleek:

[Boci]

...Wait, now you got me confused: Didn't the Skald want the child aborted? As in "not only gone, but dead and gone"? 'Cause that was what I was taking away from this?

Did I totally miss a post about that? :smalleek:

No, this was other posters in the thread. We do not know for sure, but I'm fairly certain the skald wanted the baby gone, the death wasn't a vital component. An abortion was simply the easiest way to do that rather than asking if there is such a thing as a homebrew magical spell that would keep the baby alive, and the wizards offered no such option, merely opposed their choice to have an abortion.

[FearlessGnome]

The mindrape thing could work in a minority of games. Personally I'd probably put up with it if another player had genuine IC reason to control my mind for a while and the player wasn't being a git OOC (though of course there'd be serious IC hell to pay once I broke free). But many player would absolutely not be ok with it, and with the Skald here already feeling like their character was being held hostage, that could not possibly have ended well.

TheBrassDuke: I think you are being unnecessarily aggressive. It's clear that there are a lot of posters on both sides and in between, so it's not fair to oversimplify and vilify with comments like
Playing out in the most passive-aggressive way possible, derailing the situation. You know why everyone else was quiet there? They probably got uncomfortable and didn't want to intervene.
Especially when you ascribe motives out of thin air. What on earth makes you think Skald at this point was inclined to be passive aggressive? Why would every single other person around the table think it was so awkward they just couldn't speak?

It seems entirely clear that neither player planned on getting into an argument. Wizard player went "Hey, pregnancy?" and Skald went "I guess we can roll for it. Oh, looks like I'll have to have an abortion." They had different assumptions and perspectives, and I think it's dishonest to say that either one was malicious at that point. Now, when the conflict appeared, sure, both parties reacted less than appropriately. Wizard shouldn't have started the whole thing, Skald shouldn't have come with an ultimatum (though it seems to me it wasn't quite an ultimatum, just almost. What he said was basically "I don't see any other solution than one of us leaving." I sent a similar PM once in what eventually turned out to be my favourite campaign ever, because there was a guest player (who it turned out had Aspergers) who just wouldn't stop acting suspicious as hell around a mysterious ancient weapon or explain his actions, and would get OOC angry when we kept watching him and asking why he did things.)

[Name1]

No, this was other posters in the thread. We do not know for sure, but I'm fairly certain the skald wanted the baby gone, the death wasn't a vital component. An abortion was simply the easiest way to do that rather than asking if there is such a thing as a homebrew magical spell that would keep the baby alive, and the wizards offered no such option, merely opposed their choice to have an abortion.

Oh damn, well in that case sorry for the previous posts :smalleek:
Yeah, that IS a better solution. I somehow understood that the death of the child was vital for the Skald. Yeah, if that's the case, this goes on my, sorry.

[OldTrees1]

I did, as a matter of fact, not see your comment there. Though, now we have a different problem: The Wizard is forbidden from interacting with the Skald and HAS to sit back and watch his child die. Now don't get me wrong here, I know that his objections to abortion are OOC, but there is no reason we can not assume that his character has the same characteristic in the same way Skald was ok with abortion, but his character might not be.

That different problem did exist. I was only commenting on how your PvP alternative reaction would have made matters worse (and the specific manner it would make it worse). Continuing the situation was going to be bad no matter what.

If I were in Player W's shoes at the table at that moment but was not caught up in the moment I would have suggested the retcon right then and there. Player W's initial reaction of causing a heated argument(which takes 2 to tango) is not the best reaction but has less fallout than attempting to breach PvP to force his position.


I know we can find lots of fault in both player reactions. However I have a small part of respect for both player's after session mails.
Player W still sees the introduction of abortion as the turning point in the session, but offered a solution that would violate neither player's beliefs
Player S felt attacked and, focusing on what they could control, made a plan that would offer them an escape from the perceived attacks
Neither of these reactions perfectly fits the actual situation they were in but they do fit the situation they perceived themselves in.

[TheYell]

Yeah. So since everything is fake, it obviously carry no weight whatsoever, and I guess we spend 6 page arguing instead of Just saying : Comon, this is not REAL.

Because you know, the point of an rpg have always been to be the least emotionally involved.

Here I'm starting to feel stupid for not understanding what must be basic irony.

No, I'm serious. Offending people's sensibilities within the rules is a subjective fault that can be moderated away. Demanding somebody be kicked is objectively wrong and deserves a flat no.

Whatever your personal opinions, it wasn't real, he didn't actually harm anybody, and he did ask for a roll to set up the scenario. You can reject his scenario without carrying the imagination further to thinking he did something as bad as throw dice in someone's face and accuse them of incest.

[Segev]

For crying out loud, are people really suggesting that "Dominate the Skald to force her not to abort" would have been better? Please tell me I'm misreading the last two pages, because the logical leap to get there eludes me and kind-of horrifies me by its implications.


I still think the wizard is at fault for the In-game event. I feel indeed that he has been kind of abusive on the skald, not for having political views and expressing them, but for trying to enforce them on the skald player. This is showing your bias. To you, it's "political" to stop somebody from having an abortion, and the "apolitical" option is to let them have it. Essentially, "My position is not political, because it's just the right one. Yours is political and therefore wrong."

You have to remember, from the perspective of a pro-life individual, the Skald's player just said, "Oh well, I'll just kill our PCs' baby as soon as a convenient method presents itself." The notion that it is perfectly acceptable and that everybody should just nod and go along with it is inflicting political views.


But there's no mechanics to that, its purely ideology, which has no place at the game table. The skald's however, even if you remove ideology, still had the mechanical reason of being an adventurer who would be hindered by pregnancy, to seek the abortion. Time skips could work but only messily, but what are the other players during? Plus they just had a time skip didn't they? And that is ofcourse assuming there is no in game story reason a time skip won't work.You're again showing your bias. "It's purely ideology?" Sure. And it's purely ideology that killing random NPCs in town to take their stuff is Evil. It's purely ideology that killing another PC's family members is Evil and unacceptable. It's purely ideology that killing another PC's steed is Evil and unacceptable.

I am fairly sure that, in W's mind, the conflict arose that his PC would suddenly have to choose between condoning watching the Skald murder his baby, and playing a non-Evil, heartless monster of a character. Would you be so "it's all W's fault" if the scenario was W saying, "Hey, no, I am not allowing you to murder these goblin kids that surrendered to our PCs?"

There's a huge amount of blindness or hypocrisy (I'll let you decide for yourselves which you're showing) when it comes to "W is a bad man because he's probably fine with killing kobolds and goblins but objects to abortion."

D&D is generally run around the assumption that goblins, kobolds, etc. are evil and need killing. In fact, most of the time, killing them happens because they're trying to kill the PCs. The PCs are called in to halt banditry, to stop the murder of miners, or other such things, and the murderous monsters are the kobolds, goblins, or what-have-you.

To a pro-life person, that "fetus" is a baby. An innocent. The only way you can really draw a parallel is to ask if W is okay with his party riding into a town and murdering the children.


Imagine if you knew that every time somebody hit "submit" on the gitp message board, a live, squirming puppy was chopped up by the server room's butchery machinery. You'd want to stop people from posting here! But you also know that those who are "pro-posting" honestly think you're full of it when you say that a puppy is being chopped up with each post. You wouldn't consider them monsters; you'd consider them tragically misguided. But that wouldn't stop you from desperately trying to keep somebody from hitting that "submit" button if you were right there in the room with them as they were about to do it.

And if you knew it was your puppy that was next on the chopping block?


So no. W isn't any more "guilty" of something than S. W was as shocked by S's stated plan as S apparently was that W would object to it. If W is supposed to assume that abortion is on the table, S should equally have to assume that abortion might be objectionable.

To claim otherwise is to show bias towards a particular viewpoint, in the form of assuming that it is the default and that anybody who objects to that default is the weird one "imposing" his views on others.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hey guys,

Looking for some advice here, as I'm sure some of you encountered the same problem I just did. So, let me first explain the context :

I'm dm'ing 5 guys, most of them I don't really know since I just moved in another part of the countries. Most were met or recruited trought the local game shop (Bless you, all you, RPG-shop, by the way). All of them looked quite nice, really, and we had 8 really good session full of adventure and fun.

I wouldn't say I got to know them well, and the personnal conversation has been kept relatively low, but still, they are starting to be people I spend quite a lot of time with.

Anyway, let's get to the point : Last session was to be spend mostly in town after a big dungeon, and was expected to be roleplay heavy, as a way to have some relief and fun between the fight. We also had one of the guy - Playing a Female human Skald - having some private time with another player, a male human wizard. They roleplayed the beginning of a romance quite well from the start of the adventure, and did it in a way that made nobody feel akward (Wich is sadly something i'm a bit used to). Party spend then some month in town as the crafting rules in PF require SO-MUCH-TIME, and, when ready to go back adventuring, wizard guy has this strange question :

"Just before we leave, could we just check If Shael (The skald girl) is pregnant ?"

Sooooo : I'll admit it, as a dm, I always considered that a player who decide to be sexually active but doesn't tell me he wants children, kind of.... magically never get pregnant. I'll agree it's probably a bit stupid, and maybe you guys found way around it, but let's just say it was not my case (As of now.)

So I'm surprised, but after all why not, so I ask the Skald if he want to check. Guys says yes, visibly quite surprised by the wizard question, roll a D20, and...Pregnancy.

Things started to get seriously downhill from there.

Skald first take it with a grin, and tell us he'll have to leave the group for some days then, to find a "Cure for that particular matter".

Everyone nod and I'm about to resume to the play when wizard guy say : "No".

Skald : "Uh... Yes ?"

Wizard : "I think I got a word to say in this matter".

I'll spare you the whole discussion, but for 5 long, loooong, loooooooong minute we had what looked way to closely to an IRL debate about abortion.

I step in to say that this need to stops, and we'd all like to resume the play. Both of the player seem unable to stop arguing...We spend some time trying to get them back in the play, but It just doesn't work, and we decide to cut the game here for the night.

After that, I decide to send a mail to both of them, telling them that I'll need to have a phone call with them to get the situation sorted oud. I receive two mail the day after :

Wizard tell me that he feel that abortion is wrong, but that it's not the main problem, wich is that it shouldn't be a topic of roleplaying game, and that he felt we crossed a dangerous line. He offer the solution to rollback his romance with the skald, and act as if the pregnancy never happend, so this debate can simply dissapear.

Skald tell me that he felt deeply attacked, and that not only is he dissapointed by the player, but also feel like his character has been taken hostage. He sound really kind of traumatized by the event, and tell me that it's basically him or the wizard, I have to choose.

Here is my problem : I feel like the wizard guy have been acting like an idiot here, by bringing this topic on the table and making a big problem out of something we could just have let slipped. I must admit that I'm also having some bias against him, as I'm deeply pro-choice, but I try my best not to let this get personnal. That being said, he is the only one of the two with a solution that doesn't imply to have someone get kicked, wich is something I really appreciate and see as mature.

What would you do in my situation ?

Thanks for the help and the time you took reading all of this. You'll probably know it by reading all of it, but I'm not fluent in english, and It probably shows !

:sigh: Too late to do anything about it now but I'm reminded by your story of an old saying: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. -Never- get into serious IRL topics with people you don't know reasonably well unless you're okay with the possibility of the relationship going sour fast.

The correct answer to the wizard's "can we check if she's preggers" question was "no." How could you have expected anythig -good- to come of making that check? Now look where you've landed. Knee deep in BS, that's where.

:sigh: There's probably not much you can do about this other than prepare to lose a player in the worst case scenario. Decide which of them you'd rather keep in the group (or which the rest of the group would rather keep if there's a clear leaning [leaning toward the Wizard myself, since he's willing to retcon and let the whole thing drop]) and be prepared to ask the other to leave if they make you choose. Otherwise, step back, watch the fireworks, and hope that they can resolve this between themselves. I don't know which you agree with (if either) and I don't want to but I -do- know that it's certainly not your place to try and convince the other guy that he's wrong. You're just some dude he met in the FLGS and you don't want it to be weird if you run into him there again. Trying to sell politics to someone you don't know well and who's already in a heated "discussion" with someone else will just get defensive and shut down any kind of rationality as he protects himself from being "ganged up on."

Seriously, let this resolve itself as far as it's going to and don't stick your nose into it unless you have no other choice.

[Boci]

For crying out loud, are people really suggesting that "Dominate the Skald to force her not to abort" would have been better? Please tell me I'm misreading the last two pages, because the logical leap to get there eludes me and kind-of horrifies me by its implications.

You are misreading the last 2 pages. One poster suggested that, and then withdraw it when it was clarified to them that the death of the baby probably wasn't important to the skald, they just wanted it gone.


To claim otherwise is to show bias towards a particular viewpoint, in the form of assuming that it is the default and that anybody who objects to that default is the weird one "imposing" his views on others.

Its wonderful that you think, but as I feel I've made it pretty clear that I disagree with your interpretation of whether or not my stance is biased. And I still do. So well done for having one last attempt, but I still disagree and whilst I can debate with someone who disagrees with me, I cannot with someone who is convinced I am biased but they aren't.

[TheYell]

When you declare that Forbidden Topic is normal, usual, and obviously implied to be available whenever a subject is raised, we are forbidden to argue against your position.

[Boci]

When you declare that Forbidden Topic is normal, usual, and obviously implied to be available whenever a subject is raised, we are forbidden to argue against your position.

No, you are free to argue against me, full stop, there are now special requirement there. But, if you want me to respond and engage with you, then you will need to grant me the respect I do to you: that my argument, whilst you believe it to be wrong, came from a legitimate reading of the OP's post, rather than my own biases.

Convinced I'm bias and won't budge on that? That's fine, you can think that, but I won't debate with you then.

[CharonsHelper]

Its wonderful that you think, but as I feel I've made it pretty clear that I disagree with your interpretation of whether or not my stance is biased. And I still do. So well done for having one last attempt, but I still disagree and whilst I can debate with someone who disagrees with me, I cannot with someone who is convinced I am biased but they aren't.

I'm sorry - but you yourself stating that you're not biased proves nothing. Virtually no one actually thinks they're biased - they think they're right.

[Boci]

I'm sorry - but you yourself stating that you're not biased proves nothing. Virtually no one actually thinks they're biased - they think they're right.

I'm well aware. But equally so, stating that the person who disagrees with your assessment is biased proves nothing either.

[FearlessGnome]

Gonna have to side with Boci here and say he's not being 'biased' compared to anyone else. Obviously everyone has some degree of bias, but he keeps it under wraps as well as anyone else here, to the point where it's silly to dismiss him and call him in particular out as 'biased'.

It's fair enough to say that the wizard could legitimately have strong moral objections to abortion/the murder of innocent babies, but in the vast majority of countries where DnD is a thing, including the US, where WotC is situated, abortion is legal and available, even if in some states you may have to travel several hours to get access. Pretending to be shocked that someone has access to it just seems dishonest. Access is most certainly the default.

Now, in a fantasy world, I guess you could even use magic to determine when/whether the fetus gains a soul (which would have to be decided by a DM and would just be a house rule, obviously), as well as determine where the souls of the unborn go if they die in the womb.

[Name1]

Now, in a fantasy world, I guess you could even use magic to determine when/whether the fetus gains a soul (which would have to be decided by a DM and would just be a house rule, obviously), as well as determine where the souls of the unborn go if they die in the womb.

From the SRD:
"Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral rather than good or evil. Even deadly vipers and tigers that eat people are neutral because they lack the capacity for morally right or wrong behavior."

and

"Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral. Dogs may be obedient and cats free-spirited, but they do not have the moral capacity to be truly lawful or chaotic."

I do not think that a child is capable of moral action while in the womb (and for quite some time thereafter) unless they are an unholy Scion... so wouldn't a child dying in the womb go to the TN afterlife?

(On that note, wouldn't insane people go there as well?)

[TheYell]

Pretending to be shocked that someone has access to it just seems dishonest. Access is most certainly the default.

No. Most people celebrate pregnancy as leading to a baby. It is why people have baby showers and invite folks from the office to join in the fun. Pretending that believing a pregnancy will lead to a baby is an "offense", or "trapping" somebody, or "breaks a gentleman's agreement", is biased and unfair.

The smarter option would be to ban sexual roleplay between strangers because it obviously can't go anywhere good.

[Boci]

No. Most people celebrate pregnancy as leading to a baby. It is why people have baby showers and invite folks from the office to join in the fun.

That...in no contradicts what FearlessGnome said where you quoted him. He's talking about "access", whilst you're talking about the end result.

[TheYell]

And the topic of this thread is whether to slam a guy for objecting to that choice.

You voted yes.

[Boci]

And the topic of this thread is whether to slam a guy for objecting to that choice.

Not quite sure how you got to there from me explaining how your rebuttal to FearlessGnome missed what he was talking about, but sure, that's a not terrible single sentence summary of the thread.

I mean, I did say that the best option was to keep both players, but yes, I did say if you had to choose, keep the skald.

[TheYell]

Player A wants to have a cooperative deal with Player B. He asks for a roll to set that up. Player B and the GM agree to the roll. Player B announces he will kill the deal. Player A objects.

If the subject weren't abortion I think you'd have a different approach to the issue.

Instead you have argued that Player A is out of line to even object, that he was really outrageous for proposing a cooperative deal, and the agreement to roll for it has no meaning whatsoever because it only furthers a sinister plot to subjugate B.

If you are capable of taking abortion politics out of it, then what's the basis for slamming A for proposing a cooperation on fluff?

[Boci]

If the subject weren't abortion I think you'd have a different approach to the issue.

When Segev gave me an alternate scenario which had the wizard objecting to gay marriage I sided with him in that scenario despite also being pro-gay marriage, so I don't think so.


If you are capable of taking abortion politics out of it, then what's the basis for slamming A for proposing a cooperation on fluff?

Because in my view he started the problem, and so I wasn't too impressed that he offered to move on and forget about the incident.

[Ashtagon]

At first, I thought this thread was going to be "How can I salvage this hot mess of a social faux pas?".

Unfortunately, it seems to have become "Using the evidence presented, which player was more justified in being outraged at the situation, thereby justifying the removal of the other?".

Can we go back to the first proposition please?

[Name1]

At first, I thought this thread was going to be "How can I salvage this hot mess of a social faux pas?".

Unfortunately, it seems to have become "Using the evidence presented, which player was more justified in being outraged at the situation, thereby justifying the removal of the other?".

Can we go back to the first proposition please?

OP already said that he had already made his decision.


I'll tell you what happend, and will thank you all for your participation, even those I disagree with, for taking the times to express their view.

So the salvage-part is done already, I think.
Now we've kinda moved on to the stage of discussing who's wrong and who's biased (like me, for example).

In case of a TL;DR: The most commonly suggested ideas resulted in "The Wizard has no right to decide, thus he should be kicked" and "They should try to get the child transferred via magic to another person that wants children". There also were some cases of "The Skald is responsible for his own actions", but that has been bashed into oblivion by now.

[prufock]

The DM, wizard player (WP), and skald player (SP) all share blame here, and trying to decide who is more at fault is a fool's errand. Neither has owned up to their mistake, as far as I can tell. However, WP is being more reasonable, while SP is attempting to force DM to make the decision.

This could have been avoided easily.
WP: Can we check to see if S is pregnant?
DM: Sure, S, are you pregnant?
SP: No.

[dascarletm]

I know we're all trying to find out who is the least biased, but can I throw my hat in the ring for most biased? I mean, I even admitted to my bias about the bias, because I'm biased about bias. That's some biased bias of my bias right there.

[Extra Anchovies]

I know we're all trying to find out who is the least biased, but can I throw my hat in the ring for most biased? I mean, I even admitted to my bias about the bias, because I'm biased about bias. That's some biased bias of my bias right there.

I consider this claim overly biased and will be discounting it accordingly. dascarletm's biased bias about bias is clear evidence of his impartiality.

[TheIronGolem]

Imagine if you knew that every time somebody hit "submit" on the gitp message board, a live, squirming puppy was chopped up by the server room's butchery machinery.

They fixed that in PHP 6.

[Fizban]

One significant advantage of DnD over real life is that there is no reason to argue over this: In DnD you can straight up ask the literal Gods of GoodnessTM weather or not abortion is okay and get an answer. Not sure if any of the books go so far as to make that call though, so it's up to the DM/group to decide. When things aren't decided beforehand you have to just go with what happens.

Furthermore, things like poison are automatically Evil and thus are illegal in civilized lands under Good and usually even Neutral rule.

Assuming they're not living in an Evil society, then abortion being easily available means that it's not Evil, so clearly no one is being harmed.

And so the result is simple: the skald responded to a pregnancy with an abortion plan which she obviously assumed would not be a problem, and since this piece of world building had not been considered previously it must default to the least hostile resolution. Evidently you're playing in a world where abortion is easily available and it doesn't cause harm to anyone.

No need to explain why unless you actually want to step in it, but since apparently the wizard did make a stink, we get to define the next bit of the world. The wizard wants people to be people as soon as the pregnancy is detected, thus abortions are clearly done via some sort of magic. The problem is that the more he presses (and I do feel that the wizard player is the problem here), the more you're going to need to define how the magic works. Sends the soul back to the upper planes to wait for a new vessel? He'll complain how "his" baby just got soul drained out of it's body. It seems clear he wanted this baby to exist, so the only abortion magic he would accept is one that lets him raise the baby on his own.

Which means that in the end it's easiest to pretend it never happened. The wizard player most likely offered that solution since he knows that there isn't any other that will satisfy him, so it's best to take the offer and run. I can't tell from the first post (and I'm not reading the whole thread) if the skald isn't aware of the retcon, or is refusing it on general principle, but I think it's supposed to be the latter.

That brings us to the either/or. While it might be easier to say the skald is the problem here for refusing to compromise, I can't say I totally agree. It was the wizard who freaked out first instead of letting it be a game, compromising, or invoking rule of magic, and if the skald doesn't want to play with that kind of person that's a valid point. Agree or disagree, it's legal here IRL and the wizard is the one who decided this was a problem, which puts him in the wrong first. Meanwhile the skald was interested in a romance, and okay with bringing up the resultant effects, but having the wizard at the table means that even pursing it with another character may cause problems.

They should both be able to stay if you simply retcon it and ban the topic, but without strong enough ties it may be better to drop someone. The question of who depends on weather you value the wizard's offer to back up or the ranger's views already aligning with yours (the group's?). It's nice to try being high-minded and keep people with whom you disagree because they have other good qualities, but at the end of the day most people prefer like-minded individuals. DnD is only so many hours a week though, more room for high-mindedness than other places.

Addendum: most of this is informed by the default assumption of pregnancy not being an unexpected problem. It seems more likely that the wizard did not think this was the case, that having that relationship would lead to pregnancy and a child. If I may skew back into IRL terms for brevity, the wizard thinks abstinence first and that having sex will result in babies, so the skald's accepting that relationship meant that was okay. The skald was working from the more standard position of not worrying about it, so to they felt they were suddenly being forced into something. The wizard most likely had no malicious intent, just ignorance, which is why I wouldn't advocate straight kicking them. Now that they know what the expectations are for that it won't be a problem again, and maybe they'll get more info before starting something else that they might disagree with.

[Ashtagon]

The wizard needs to a) craft a girdle of masculinity/femininity, then b) invent a spell to transfer the foetus to their own body.

Anything less is simply not throwing enough magic at the problem.

[FearlessGnome]

The wizard needs to a) craft a girdle of masculinity/femininity, then b) invent a spell to transfer the foetus to their own body.

Anything less is simply not throwing enough magic at the problem.

This is most definitely the best possible solution, and I hope OP sees it.

[Boci]

A spell to transfer a fetus should already exist, or at least people should have tried to develop it, since most D&D settings typically have at least one nation with the monarchy system, and that required the ruling family to produce heirs. Assuming they can determine that womb surrogacy does not influence the child's paternity (and they should be able to to), transferring the fetus has 3 major advantages:

1. Multiple pregnancies. The King and Queen could have up to 3 children gestating at once. This is useful since you can't have to many heirs. A spare is always nice, and even non-inheritors can be married off for connections.

2. Removes the risk of the Queen dying in child birth. Sure with healing magic this arguably shouldn't be a thing already, but its nice to have the option completely ruled out.

3. Quality of life for the Queen. Maybe not as important as the above 2, but I'm sure the Queen approves.

[prufock]

The wizard needs to a) craft a girdle of masculinity/femininity, then b) invent a spell to transfer the foetus to their own body.

Anything less is simply not throwing enough magic at the problem.

Congratulations! You win Greatest Post Of The Thread!

[TheBrassDuke]

A spell to transfer a fetus should already exist, or at least people should have tried to develop it, since most D&D settings typically have at least one nation with the monarchy system, and that required the ruling family to produce heirs. Assuming they can determine that womb surrogacy does not influence the child's paternity (and they should be able to to), transferring the fetus has 3 major advantages:

1. Multiple pregnancies. The King and Queen could have up to 3 children gestating at once. This is useful since you can't have to many heirs. A spare is always nice, and even non-inheritors can be married off for connections.

2. Removes the risk of the Queen dying in child birth. Sure with healing magic this arguably shouldn't be a thing already, but its nice to have the option completely ruled out.

3. Quality of life for the Queen. Maybe not as important as the above 2, but I'm sure the Queen approves.

While we've disagreed here a few times now, I'm inclined to bump this entire reply. You make excellent points.

In my campaign, I know this is a non-issue, because one of the largest religions in our play area is the Church of Creation--a faith based on the worship of a goddess by the same, unCreative name. The priesthood are predominantly female, with the highest authority beneath the Divine being the Queen Mother herself...

"In Creation's country, the women rule...men follow."

"A Cornelian Queen will remain in power until she can no longer carry children; at which time her eldest, or most fertile daughter shall take the throne."

There is a reason we call Lai-Nia the "Pregnant Queen", because immediately after a prince or princess is born and baptized, she's already pregnant again.

In my setting, I normally do not allow abortions, even if I'm pro-choice. Rather, PCs and NPCs alike will petition their local Church of Creation, where mothers and daughters, and barren women all go, praying to Creation for fertility.

More than likely, if you wish to give up your child, it shall be given to one of the petitioners, with or without contracts of anonymity.

The Wizard would have even been allowed to carry the child, if he so wished it.

Doesn't really help their relationship going any further from there, however. We don't know how they feel IC about one another at this point, unless the DM retcons this issue. Then they can just keep engaging one another without any worries.

For your 2), in mine, they're typically never at risk of dying during the process. Unless they've been afflicted by a certain arcane plague.

And yes. Lai-Nia is super happy.

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

K, endrant. :) I am pretty glad some of the issue has been taken to heart by the OP, whether or not he agrees. I hope the three of you can move on and play more sessions and have a blast!

[Segev]

Boci, the reason I say you're biased is because you're not meeting anybody halfway. you're not applying the same standard to both parties. You're granting S a pass and saying W is to blame, based solely on your assertion that W is somehow predating upon S and ignoring that S had every opportunity to avoid bringing up the controversial issue, as well.

A fair, unbiased reading of the scenario requires assuming the same level of expectations and blindness-due-to-beliefs on both sides.

Both W and S being naïve enough to think that there would be no problem (W because "if S agrees to the roll, S clearly is okay with a pregnancy/child-rearing plot in our romance plot;" S because "obviously abortion is a thing and nobody in their right mind objects to it, so even if it happens I'll just get rid of it") is an unbiased and fair reading of it.

Both W and S being trolls looking for a chance to spring something on the other (W by springing this "should we roll for preganancy?" question with the intent to inconvenience S and 'control' S's PC; S by coyly agreeing, knowing that springing "abortion!" is a 'clever' way to dodge W's attack) is an unbiased and fair reading of it.

The moment you attribute malice to only one of them, you're being biased against that one.

Without evidence showing intended malice, or a means of really demonstrating that, given the viewpoints held, the naïve or malicious interpretations of one or the other are unreasonable, it is biased to assume that one must have been malicious while the other probably wasn't.

You show further bias by the implication that, once both (perhaps naively) arrived at "oh, Skald's pregnant, Skald will abort," the "right" thing to do is just to go along with the Skald's plan to abort and that any objection makes W and the Wizard the bad guy. "My belief is the default one, so we should just go with it" is not a compromise, and is not an unbiased solution.

[Ashtagon]

Boci, the reason I say you're biased is because you're not meeting anybody halfway. you're not applying the same standard to both parties..

That should NEVER be a standard for impartiality. If one party says "I think $ethnicgroup should be removed from history", impartiality should NEVER involve meeting such a party halfway.

It's an extreme example, I know. But it does demonstrate the point. And I guess the inverse corollary of that point is that all positions on any subject are inherently political.

[Segev]

That should NEVER be a standard for impartiality. If one party says "I think $ethnicgroup should be removed from history", impartiality should NEVER involve meeting such a party halfway.

It's an extreme example, I know. But it does demonstrate the point. And I guess the inverse corollary of that point is that all positions on any subject are inherently political.

Fair. Read the rest of my post; I'm more pointing out how he's automatically assuming that one side has malicious intent while the other did not, when there are equally reasonable naïve places for both to be coming from.

Also equally reasonable malicious ones.

An unbiased reading attributes the same level of malice or naiveté to both sides, as long as one can reasonably do so.

In your "historical genocide" example, "I want to remove these people from history" is fairly automatically malicious.

I've outlined both naïve and malicious motivations which could be attributed to W and S; all are fairly reasonable (in that it doesn't take twisting one's head into a pretzel to imagine somebody coming from there), so it is biased to attribute malice to one but not the other.

[Boci]

Fair. Read the rest of my post; I'm more pointing out how he's automatically assuming that one side has malicious intent while the other did not

Nope, already said I still side with the skald even if the wizard wasn't being malicious and when you came up with an alternate scenario about the wizard objecting to gay marriage (another case I support), I sided with him. So...shrug?

[Segev]

Nope, already said I still side with the skald even if the wizard wasn't being malicious and when you came up with an alternate scenario about the wizard objecting to gay marriage (another case I support), I sided with him. So...shrug?

Honestly, I'm puzzled by that and think there's still bias there, too.

I don't think either of them is "at fault" here. I think it was totally innocent on both parts, and both were shocked/horrified at some point and reacted accordingly. What we know is that W has, upon calming down and reflecting, realized that the best solution is to just remove the source of contention entirely. We do not know if S is equally reasonable afterwards; I will hope he is.

I'm sure there's something there to apologize for in how people handled it at the table. I refuse to point a finger and say "it's your fault for starting it" at either W or S, since I can attribute equal malice or naiveté to both. It would be biased of me to attribute more to one than the other.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to explore a "start a family" plot with another player whose PC has been romantically involved with yours. We have no indication that W tried to force this on S. S could very easily have said "no, I don't want my Skald to be pregnant." And that would've been the end of it. (If W is being a bad person, then here's where it would show, if he tried to force it. Since he's demonstrably offered to retcon it, he probably wouldn't have.)

[Boci]

Honestly, I'm puzzled by that and think there's still bias there, too.

So I'm biased in favour and against my beliefs? I sided with which player I judged to not have started the trouble. In the OP's scenario, I judged it to be the skald. In your alternate scenario, I judged it to be the wizard.

[TheYell]

All our alternatives would not be explored if the Wizard had not objected to abortion.

We'll have to see how it turns out with the OP's party.

[Segev]

I just don't see how W "started the trouble" any more than did S. From W's perspective, S started it by proposing a "solution" that is offensive, when non-offensive ways to avoid the "problem" were present all along. From S's perspective, W started it by objecting to S's "perfectly reasonable solution."

Replace "pregnancy" with "baby delivered by a stork." S suggests just offing the baby. W objects, horrified. Does that change your view of who's "to blame?"


All our alternatives would not be explored if the Wizard had not objected to abortion.

I'm not sure I follow this statement to any particular point. What are you trying to say, imply, or suggest?

[TheYell]

The OP suggested that Wizard objecting to a quick abortion was viewed by him and the party as delaying the game unnecessarily and broke some gentleman's agreement. I'm saying if he hadn't acted the action would have been an abortion not a search for a divine/arcane transfer.

[Name1]

I'm not sure I follow this statement to any particular point. What are you trying to say, imply, or suggest?

I think the idea is to say that the Wizard could have stood back and accepted it just as easily as the Skald could have.

[Segev]

I think the idea is to say that the Wizard could have stood back and accepted it just as easily as the Skald could have.

Which suggests to me that neither is more to blame than the other. I've actually been making this point: either could have "backed off" and let it go; both objected to being asked to do so.

The correct solution, to me, is to retcon the undesired pregnancy so it never happened.

[CharonsHelper]

OP already said that he had already made his decision.

Frankly - it sounds like he made his decision before he started this thread - which seems pretty common in similar threads.

They've already made a decision which they realize is a bit controversial and then come online for morale support of their decision, and are then shocked by the split viewpoints.

[FearlessGnome]

Which suggests to me that neither is more to blame than the other. I've actually been making this point: either could have "backed off" and let it go; both objected to being asked to do so.

The correct solution, to me, is to retcon the undesired pregnancy so it never happened.

Honestly, I really like the solution where they homebrew a spell to make the wizard carry the baby. Force him to deal with the complications of having a baby in his belly. A ret con works too, but if the Wizard feels like it's fine to force someone to deal with a pregnancy, then he can deal with it and they can just keep playing. After all, to him it's apparently not a problem, and he's the one who suggested introducing pregnancy in the first place.

[dascarletm]

This thread has at least done one thing very successfully: It has made me appreciate my gaming group. :smalltongue:

[Boci]

Frankly - it sounds like he made his decision before he started this thread - which seems pretty common in similar threads.

They've already made a decision which they realize is a bit controversial and then come online for morale support of their decision, and are then shocked by the split viewpoints.

They claimed Glythstone's argument had them rethinking, so its also possible other people were a bit too harsh in their critic of his leanings (and it was leanings, he never said he had made a decision).

[OldTrees1]

Frankly - it sounds like he made his decision before he started this thread - which seems pretty common in similar threads.

They've already made a decision which they realize is a bit controversial and then come online for morale support of their decision, and are then shocked by the split viewpoints.

The latest decision by the OP

This is what I'm about to do then, after reading all your post and thinking about it :

I'm about to send a mail to both of them, telling them exactly that : For the wizard that I disprove his in game action, for the Skald that I won't give in to the ultimatum. I'll be expecting of the W the assurance that he won't try to enforce his personnal belief - Whatever they are - in the game in a way that prevent other people from playing, and I'll tell the Skald that I don't wish him to leave, but that I won't force the W departure if the wizard can comply with the forementioned rules. If they both agree, we'll resume playing, as I hope will be the case...

I'll tell you what happend, and will thank you all for your participation, even those I disagree with, for taking the times to express their view.
So regardless of if the OP came with a decision, they were open to changing that decision.

[CharonsHelper]

They claimed Glythstone's argument had them rethinking, so its also possible other people were a bit too harsh in their critic of his leanings (and it was leanings, he never said he had made a decision).

My bad - I missed that post. My apologies to the Dezea. (Though I still stand by the statement that most such thread starters have already made their decisions.)

[Name1]

They claimed Glythstone's argument had them rethinking, so its also possible other people were a bit too harsh in their critic of his leanings (and it was leanings, he never said he had made a decision).

I do believe he said on page 6 that he had made a decision. Though, I could be misreading that...

[Segev]

Honestly, I really like the solution where they homebrew a spell to make the wizard carry the baby. Force him to deal with the complications of having a baby in his belly. A ret con works too, but if the Wizard feels like it's fine to force someone to deal with a pregnancy, then he can deal with it and they can just keep playing. After all, to him it's apparently not a problem, and he's the one who suggested introducing pregnancy in the first place.

If they want to go that route, sure. Realize that there's no "forcing" S to have his character undergo it. S was asked if he was okay with rolling for it. At least as far as W was concerned, that was synonymous with asking if S was okay with the possible pregnancy and whatever complications would arise. Unless we have evidence that W would have tried to force the roll even if S had objected, the "W's forcing S to do something S doesn't want to!" argument fails. S had an option to say "no." With retconning on the table, S still does. W objected to, IC, killing his PC's baby (which is what abortion is from his perspective).

Again, replace "pregnancy" with "baby delivered by a stork." S says, "Oh well, we'll just have to feed this little problem to a troll or something." W objects, horrified. Is it still W's "fault?" Is W still the one who owes an apology?

[dascarletm]

I do believe he said on page 6 that he had made a decision. Though, I could be misreading that...

Seems to be the case. I'm just waiting to see what happened.

[FearlessGnome]

Again, replace "pregnancy" with "baby delivered by a stork." S says, "Oh well, we'll just have to feed this little problem to a troll or something." W objects, horrified. Is it still W's "fault?" Is W still the one who owes an apology?

I don't think this is a fair comparison at all. If the stork delivers a baby, then it can easily be given up for adoption immediately. One Gather Information roll and boom, you find a family looking to adopt. With pregnancy, even granting the fetus is a baby with a soul and legal rights same as any other baby, you are saying quick adoption v murder is the same as nine months' pregnancy + adoption v murder.

[Segev]

I don't think this is a fair comparison at all. If the stork delivers a baby, then it can easily be given up for adoption immediately. One Gather Information roll and boom, you find a family looking to adopt. With pregnancy, even granting the fetus is a baby with a soul and legal rights same as any other baby, you are saying quick adoption v murder is the same as nine months' pregnancy + adoption v murder.

You're dodging the question.

I could contrive any number of reasons why the baby being given up for adoption isn't a viable option in the short term, and each would create a far greater burden in the short term on the whole party than an as-yet-not-showing pregnancy, simply because a baby IS a drain on all sorts of resources. The simplest being that the stork delivers the baby at an inconvenient time and place, far from civilization, so finding "adoptive parents" would be an adventure in and of itself. And they're ON an unrelated adventure right now.

The fact that you're dodging the question, though, reveals your answer:

You recognize that, if it's legitimately a baby that is the son or daughter of the Wizard and the Skald, the Wizard has every right to be horrified that the Skald wants to kill it rather than deal with the inconvenience. Do you also agree that the Wizard has as much right to say, "No, I want to take care of this baby," as the Skald does to say, "No, I don't want to take care of this baby?"

Yes, I get that there's the hypothetical problem of the pregnancy being born "solely" by the Skald, or that the Skald can't divest herself of all inconvenience related to it during that time period even if the wizard wanted to. But that's dodging the point.

The point is that the wizard is NOT being unreasonable when he reacts with horror to the idea that his baby will be murdered.

The rest of it is secondary to his primary reaction. And easily reflected in the fact that W's fine with the whole thing being retconned. W is in no way trying to force something on S to which S didn't (seem to) agree. Now that W knows S doesn't want that storyline, W is willing to drop it; he just doesn't want to have "there was a conception, and it was aborted" in HIS character's personal storyline.

Remember: to W (and his wizard), the stork-delivered baby and the baby in the skald's womb are not different. They're both his baby (and the skald's, of course); he's the baby's father.

All the rest of the "W's being unreasonable" arguments are answered trivially by his willingness to retcon the whole thing.

That you have to dodge the thrust of the alternate scenario to cling to your "W's in the wrong" point demonstrates this.

[Boci]

You're dodging the question.

I could contrive any number of reasons

When you have to use the word "contrive", that typically means you know what you're saying isn't a valid counter point.


That you have to dodge the thrust of the alternate scenario to cling to your "W's in the wrong" point demonstrates this.

He didn't dodge it, you, by your own words, dismissed his solution because you could "contrive" a reason they don't work. You've just set up a moral dilemma where solution that don't fit into your argument are brushed aside, and only the one you want to use is valid.

[Segev]

When you have to use the word "contrive", that typically means you know what you're saying isn't a valid counter point.



He didn't dodge it, you, by your own words, dismissed his solution because you could "contrive" a reason they don't work. You've just set up a moral dilemma where solution that don't fit into your argument are brushed aside, and only the one you want to use is valid.

The point of the alternate scenario is to illustrate that, when it's a live baby, nobody objects to the father being horrified that the "solution" to the "problem" such a thing poses for the mother is to kill the baby.

Or am I wrong? Is the father not justified in being horrified by that "solution?"

The need to "contrive" a reason "give it up for adoption immediately" isn't an option is simply because yes, there is a period of pregnancy in a pregnancy (tautology obvious).

The fact that you have to resort to "there are other solutions in that case" rather than addressing the root of the analogy - that there IS A LIVING BABY - indicates that you don't actually have an answer that allows you to continue to vilify W.

The reason for the "contrivance" is to make the analogy as close as possible while still leaving one thing inarguable: in the analogy, there is indisputably a baby that is the wizard's child.



But... okay. Let's approach this another way.

Let's say the wizard's the woman and the skald's the man in this relationship. W proposes the roll, and the DM asks S if he's okay with that. S agrees, and the roll comes up that the wizard is pregnant. S's immediate reply is exactly the same as before, possibly with him even revealing that he knows a spell that will do it safely for the wizard (so there's no "invasive" or "risky" aspect to it).

W reacts with horror. Is W wrong for reacting with horror? Is S wrong for feeling attacked and/or tricked into a plot he doesn't want? Why? S doesn't actually want to deal with a "your paramour is pregnant" plot beyond a simple abortion-spell. Why should W get to saddle S with such a thing?




"Because it's the woman's choice" seems to be the root of your answers. Which is why I say you're arguing from a biased place. You're assuming your pro-choice position is the "right" one. The "default" one. And thus all fault lies with anybody who objects to it as the acceptable solution. Because they're the ones "creating" a problem where you don't see one.

If your argument is NOT ultimately "because it's the woman's choice," and you're arguing from a position where W is at fault for objecting to this that doesn't rely on him accepting killing his character's baby, then please explain it. Because all the "W's the one who caused the problem" arguments are either countered by "S agreed to it" or seem rooted in the assumption that objecting to abortion is the aggressive, viewpoint-inflicting action (but that assuming abortion is fine as a unilateral decision by the woman is not inflicting any viewpoint on anybody).



And I am struggling very, very hard to avoid discussing right or wrong about pro-live or pro-choice. I am simply pointing out that, from an objective understanding of what a pro-life position entails, the question is about killing W's character's baby. I acknowledge, from an objective understanding of what a pro-choice position entails, the question is really only about W insisting that S's character be put through something with which S does not wish to deal.

But that is also why I am convinced that "W is at fault" is rooted in a pro-choice bias: because that's the conclusion that my best objective analysis of a pro-choice position would come to.

When I objectively analyze both positions, I can see why S feels attacked. I can also see why W feels betrayed and horrified. Both of their reactions are perfectly sensible and come from places of feeling hurt and betrayed by the other "springing" something "political" on them to hurt THEM and THEIR CHARACTER.

I also, therefore, understand that neither meant harm, and that neither "started it" in any intentional way. Both were blindsided by the other's feelings on the matter. And it is therefore neither's or both's fault, equally. Apologies and forgiveness should probably go all around, but saying "It's W's fault for starting it" is very much showing a bias against W's reasons; it requires delegitimizing his reasons and his position to come to the conclusion that he "started it" by his objection to the abortion.

(If you conclude he "started it" by suggesting the roll, then the counterargument is that S "started it" by coyly consenting to the roll with the intent of springing "surprise abortion" on W.)

[Calthropstu]

Ok guys roll initiative. Whover wins, wins.
Loser rolls new character.

[Segev]

Ok guys roll initiative. Whover wins, wins.
Loser rolls new character.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b87/LBDNytetrayn/Misc/goodnighteverybody.png
Good night everybody!

[Boci]

Ok guys roll initiative. Whover wins, wins.
Loser rolls new character.

I think this approach might favour the skald...

[dascarletm]

I think this approach might favour the skald...

Someone saying that a wizard won't win in a straight up fight on GitP?!?! *Ducks for cover*:smalltongue:

[Segev]

I think this approach might favour the skald...

A rare time when the Endurance feat and a high Con may help reduce one's chances of going first. >_> <_<

[A.A.King]

The point of the alternate scenario is to illustrate that, when it's a live baby, nobody objects to the father being horrified that the "solution" to the "problem" such a thing poses for the mother is to kill the baby.

Or am I wrong? Is the father not justified in being horrified by that "solution?"

The need to "contrive" a reason "give it up for adoption immediately" isn't an option is simply because yes, there is a period of pregnancy in a pregnancy (tautology obvious).

The fact that you have to resort to "there are other solutions in that case" rather than addressing the root of the analogy - that there IS A LIVING BABY - indicates that you don't actually have an answer that allows you to continue to vilify W.

The reason for the "contrivance" is to make the analogy as close as possible while still leaving one thing inarguable: in the analogy, there is indisputably a baby that is the wizard's child.



But... okay. Let's approach this another way.

Let's say the wizard's the woman and the skald's the man in this relationship. W proposes the roll, and the DM asks S if he's okay with that. S agrees, and the roll comes up that the wizard is pregnant. S's immediate reply is exactly the same as before, possibly with him even revealing that he knows a spell that will do it safely for the wizard (so there's no "invasive" or "risky" aspect to it).

W reacts with horror. Is W wrong for reacting with horror? Is S wrong for feeling attacked and/or tricked into a plot he doesn't want? Why? S doesn't actually want to deal with a "your paramour is pregnant" plot beyond a simple abortion-spell. Why should W get to saddle S with such a thing?




"Because it's the woman's choice" seems to be the root of your answers. Which is why I say you're arguing from a biased place. You're assuming your pro-choice position is the "right" one. The "default" one. And thus all fault lies with anybody who objects to it as the acceptable solution. Because they're the ones "creating" a problem where you don't see one.

If your argument is NOT ultimately "because it's the woman's choice," and you're arguing from a position where W is at fault for objecting to this that doesn't rely on him accepting killing his character's baby, then please explain it. Because all the "W's the one who caused the problem" arguments are either countered by "S agreed to it" or seem rooted in the assumption that objecting to abortion is the aggressive, viewpoint-inflicting action (but that assuming abortion is fine as a unilateral decision by the woman is not inflicting any viewpoint on anybody).



And I am struggling very, very hard to avoid discussing right or wrong about pro-live or pro-choice. I am simply pointing out that, from an objective understanding of what a pro-life position entails, the question is about killing W's character's baby. I acknowledge, from an objective understanding of what a pro-choice position entails, the question is really only about W insisting that S's character be put through something with which S does not wish to deal.

But that is also why I am convinced that "W is at fault" is rooted in a pro-choice bias: because that's the conclusion that my best objective analysis of a pro-choice position would come to.

When I objectively analyze both positions, I can see why S feels attacked. I can also see why W feels betrayed and horrified. Both of their reactions are perfectly sensible and come from places of feeling hurt and betrayed by the other "springing" something "political" on them to hurt THEM and THEIR CHARACTER.

I also, therefore, understand that neither meant harm, and that neither "started it" in any intentional way. Both were blindsided by the other's feelings on the matter. And it is therefore neither's or both's fault, equally. Apologies and forgiveness should probably go all around, but saying "It's W's fault for starting it" is very much showing a bias against W's reasons; it requires delegitimizing his reasons and his position to come to the conclusion that he "started it" by his objection to the abortion.

(If you conclude he "started it" by suggesting the roll, then the counterargument is that S "started it" by coyly consenting to the roll with the intent of springing "surprise abortion" on W.)

I just want to say that this and your other posts explain very well why assigning blame to either can only be done by showing your own colours; by not properly considering what someone with the opposing viewpoint may be thinking. Sadly I doubt that at this point you'll actually convince anyone who hasn't already reached the same conclusion which is why I just wanted to voice my appreciation for voicing it so well.

[Dezea]

Hey,

Since they have been so much comment and advice, I feel that I kind of owe you the result of our little affair...

So, after some e-mailing, where I basicaly told the wizard that I felt he overstepped a common "Gentlemen Agreement" but agreed with the retconning, and where I told the Skald about the Recton, telling him that I wont get into any Ultimatum, here what happend :

Wizard sent me a long and accusating mail - But polite and clear, that's something - telling me that he doesn't see the situation as his responsabilities, that the skald overreacted and that we are the one being offensive about his belief here. He says that If abortion is an option, he should have been noticed by me when their romance started, and that I hold responsabilities about this matter for witholding (I hope that word even exist) information to him. He agrees about the retconning but offer another option that he says got his preference, and that, I must admit, didn't foresee : Saying that they didn't spend 3 month in town but 9, and doing it in the off-time between session, with the matter of the child being dealt with before we even get together to play again. (By trying to get him adopted). He offer to cover the group expense for the 6 more month spend idling - Wich to be honest isn't much, as they are high level enough to not really care anymore about those cost...)

I must admit that I see that solution as really poor, since even if it actually deal with the pregnancy, it doesn't deal at all with the skald not wanting to have a babies, and I definitely see it as a way to get his way without any concern for the matter the skald pointed up (Feeling trapped into the wizard agency).

That being said, he would "consent" to a retcon, so, his ranting set aside, it's kind of "Okay-ish".

For the Skald : He was surprised by the retcon and told me he didn't think about it. He agreed he was kind of heated by the event and overreacted a bit...But telling me that the wizard has been acting like a total douche. I must admit that his mail was...really less polite, and French is such a wonderful tongues for insult (Wich I won't really try to translate, my bad).
He still hold grudge, to say the least, and feel like playing at the same table with the wizard would be probably kind of akward. That being said, he agree to the retcon, at the condition that the wizard never ever bring the topics or anything ever remotely political again, or else he'll leave definitely (Wich kind of bother me, because I dislike having someone at the table that can just randomly leave at any moment)

He's also telling me that he'd like the wizard to apologize, and that he feel like he won't be able to be really friendly with a guy he feel offended him.
That being said he agrees to the retcon, and offered - I can appreciate the gest - apologies to me for having to interrupt the gaming night.

TL;DR : Wizard is probably a problem player and skald have a bad temper that doesn't help at all. At least, we should be able to resume playing.

[TheBrassDuke]

What did the email say? We don't all need translations here.

As an aside to that, I'm glad that you'll be able to move forward a bit now! :) Barring the unpleasantness of their responses, I'm hoping things can go back to normal for you.

[Shackel]

I'm still a little worried that after the skald sends a less than polite, still emotional, still aggressive email that shows he wants to continue the problem into OOC and even has his little underlying threat that he'd take off at a moment's notice,

Versus the wizard being polite albeit annoyed(something I'd imagine you would be prepared for considering this entire thread has had a lot of "wizard shouldn't need to apologize" versus "wizard started it") that he's being called an agitator, and then providing a second solution,

That the wizard is still being called the problem player, here. Are you absolutely sure he'll really be welcome, there?

EDIT: That being said, I do find it bizarre that the wizard is placing some kind of responsibility to inform him of abortion at the beginning. It's not exactly uncommon, if not controversial.

[Boci]

That the wizard is still being called the problem player, here. Are you absolutely sure he'll really be welcome, there?

EDIT: That being said, I do find it bizarre that the wizard is placing some kind of responsibility to inform him of abortion at the beginning. It's not exactly uncommon, if not controversial.

Well yeah, not only the point you immediately raised about the wizard expecting the DM to inform them that abortion existed when the romance started, but the skald also apologized for disrupting the game. The wizard didn't. I'd say absolutely the wizard is the problem now. The skald apologized whilst the wizard sent a long email blaming others. Yeah it was polite, tone matter less than what is actually being said.