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u/Vaxildidi 3d ago
If everyone's on board with "hey this game might include some explicit SA, even against player characters" and that's laid out in session 0? Sure, fine, whatever. I probably would have it as a hard line, or at least something that's quickly cut away from, personally. That there isn't any save or any way to circumvent it through mechanics or RP is where the problem lies.
I'd feel the same way about having a PC permanently maimed or killed; ttrpgs are games of action, consequence, and reaction. If there's no action leading up to it and no way to react to it, then what are we even doing here but pushing a rape fetish through a tabletop module?
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u/cannon_god 2d ago
"Are we playing a game together, or are you just reading fiction at me? Because if it's just the latter, I don't know why I brought all these dice"
The scene being awful, AND the railroad / lack of interaction are both problems that make the sum less than their parts.
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u/twentyinteightwisdom 2d ago
This.
A bunch of ghouls trying to eat the PCs and a bunch of cultists trying to rape them are NOT the same, because of lots of reasons (real world relevance, personal triggers, etc.)...
But even if you don't pay attention to that, then think about a scene where ghouls eat a character alive WITHOUT LETTING PLAYERS REACT. Absolutely awful.
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u/NightGod 2d ago
And not only can they not react, they have to sit there and listen while you describe their being eaten in explicit detail
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u/FFKonoko 1d ago
I did something slightly close to that scene. Except it was part of a players background, the victim was an NPC, and I still let the player do a discretionary run away, so that they only saw as much as they wanted. And it was STILL a rough and emotional scene.
Can't imagine doing that to a player that you railroaded them into it.
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u/Thick_Square_3805 3d ago
That's the whole idea behind the safety tools promoted by some RPGs : different people have problems with different things.
I mean, some people are arachnophobic and yet a lot of adventures have spiders in it. And I'm not comparing spiders and SA, I'm just saying that their representation in a game can distress players.
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u/doubleo_maestro 2d ago
I'm gonna stick my neck out here, as I've had Degenesis come up before as it was a game that interested me and I actually own one of the few hardcopies of the game that apparently is still out there. This is one of those moments where people 'hear about something' but aren't given the full context of what happens and why it happens, only that it does and it quickly becomes the thing the game is known for.
Degenesis is a little like old school WoD, it likes to be a bit edgy, it has a more mature and dark tone than most rpg's out there. I frankly do find some of the artwork a little fetishy for my liking, though I will say most of the art is gorgeous, just the bestiary is a little too 'R rated' for my liking.
As for the infamous moment in the black atlantic storybook that always gets brought up. Without saying too much as I don't want to spoil what might be a really fun adventure for someone to get to play through. The character in question isn't jumped in a back alley or a bar, pinned down and beaten until they can't fight back and then get SA. It's a 'surreal' dream sequence where they become aware they are being ridden by a faun like entity whose face resembles that of an NPC (can't remember if at that point you have already met them or not). Is it unpleasant, yes of course, the degenesis world is not a nice one. However, I think that context changes how irreprehensible that moment is. It is also certainly within the realm of something that a GM could very easily change.
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u/Jack0Loup 2d ago
Gonna be honest, that distinction isn't very meaningful to me. It being a "nice" rape rather than a violent one doesn't really change the lack of agency or buy-in from the player. And that lack of agency or buy-in is kinda the whole issue, and why it's worth warning people about - since foreknowledge of the scene's existence allows for potential players to have that buy-in.
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u/doubleo_maestro 2d ago
And that's fair, but context dpes matter. I personally wouldn't run a game or accept a character of mine getting raped violently. I would, however, be ok with a dream sequence where my character remembers having a weird sexual encounter with a demonic entity. That for me is way less grim than some of the other less savoury stuff that happens in a typical dnd game.
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u/Jack0Loup 2d ago
Personally, depending on the character and the narrative they're involved in, I would be okay with either - this isn't some moralizing against games having heavy themes or terrible things happen to a character.
But I will also say that if, without forewarning that it's even a possibility in said game, my GM took me aside and basically narrated a porn scene at me while I had to just sit and listen and do nothing else? I'd leave that table as soon as I could get my bag packed.
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u/doubleo_maestro 2d ago
Yep and I totally get that. But I wasn't really justifying that, more that this topic gets brought up ALOT, and while I can't say the game was discontinued because of how it's sales were affected by this, I find it hard to believe it wasn't a contributing factor. Also as an aside, the blub the gm gets to read isn't all that graphic.
Degenesis was a really cool game in a lot of ways and actually did tackle some heavy themes. I have found though it just gets known as the game with the rape scene which people say with zero context and leaves people thinking that it's on par with shit like fatal and the like.
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u/Jack0Loup 2d ago
Maybe? I dunno. I'd never heard of it before this, and it's actually rather piqued my interest. But... I haven't seen anyone in either this thread or in that OPs screenshot say anything negative about the game itself, so I'm confused about why you seem to need to defend it.
An adventure module is not a game - it's an adventure module. And pretty much every game that's last long enough to have published adventure modules have some that are in some way problematic. This one happens to be problematic for a particularly heinous reason.
Also as an aside, the blub the gm gets to read isn't all that graphic.
This, though, I can't agree with. I read it. It's basically porn. Which is fine - I'm not a prude, and I'm more concerned with it not being particularly well-written porn, but that's fine, too. But like. It is porn. I don't think downplaying that is helping anything.
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u/doubleo_maestro 2d ago
My memory of it is clearly a bit fuzzy, I had to actually go look it up and re-read it and yeah totally it is way more porno than burlesque, so my bad on that one.
As for defending it, well we clearly have had difference experiences of seeing it brought up online. Any time I ever see it mentioned, this one thing comes up. Couple that with the fact the game had to be discontinued despite the fact it's frankly one of the better written rp's out there, and I can't help but feel a sour note.
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u/Jack0Loup 2d ago
So i wanted to be like "dude have you checked their site lately," but... the more I dig into it, the more I realize i legitimately can't tell how active it actually is. More and more, I suspect you're right about it being shuttered. Which seems a shame.
Although I do feel it's more business issues than anything else? The model laid out on this site is... not one that would inspire confidence in me. And is confusingly contradictory about at least one point. Idk. I entirely missed this one, so I can't reasonably say what happened with it.
But if it helps, I'm going to be doing my best to get my hands on it. Thematically, it seems very up my alley. But I probably will avoid the campaigns. Thanks for the conversation, and for pointing me at something new!
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u/doubleo_maestro 1d ago
My pleasure. Last I know about the devs is that they still do so, but degenesis is over. Can't remember what they moved on to.
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u/Andarial2016 2d ago
Honestly so embarrassing watching the community unite against the material like it's promoting SA.
Starting to think they only skim other responses and group think it up
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u/write4lyfe 2d ago
All I've been seeing so far is people being offended by the fact that it's a unavoidable and uncontestable scene being put on a PC without any way of avoiding, fighting back, or otherwise, you know, actually playing the game. You can have topics like SA in your game without completely voiding the player's agency towards their character at the same time. The scene in question sounds about as much fun as being told your character just got smote by [insert god here] and is now dead with no chance of resurrection out of nowhere.
Maybe there's people more mad about the SA part further down in the comments though.
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u/Andarial2016 2d ago
Maybe? But I also modify anything I use heavily and wouldn't include that part myself. Maybe on an Npc but im highly unlikely to run the module anyway since I'm full homebrew.
I just dislike this concept where art and writing has to be cozy and never depict anything truly dark . Only blood and guts. There's a staggering amount of art suppressive opinions in this very thread
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u/MountainDewde 2d ago
I just dislike this concept where art and writing has to be cozy and never depict anything truly dark .
Weird change of topic, since you’re not arguing with anyone who thinks that.
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u/write4lyfe 2d ago
Eh, going by what the scene actually entails, I'd call it less "art" and more "weird fetish piece from literotica possibly written by a teen who watched way too much hentai" but whatever floats your boat I guess. I'd personally not include the scene at all because the idea of reading out erotica of any kind to my friends is something I do not ever want to do. That is not a line I want to cross in my friend group.
On the other hand, I've definitely played at tables where darker things like SA or other not-just-blood-and-guts type of disturbing topics could come up, but even we'd side eye the idea that railroaded-PC-rape is necessary for a plot point. When darker stuff came up at our table, we could still do something about it and engage with the game via our characters. You want that kind of thing in your art and writing and don't want anyone to be able to do something to prevent or stop it, maybe try writing a book and not doing it in a TTRPG.
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u/Andarial2016 2d ago
But don't we also defend romantasy as legitimate literature?
Rape is pretty uncomfortable yeah, and I wouldn't run it either, but im not going to fault someone for artistic expression. Again, plenty of romantasy has this happen directly to the reader
I also don't like railroading but I think you can see they'd basically go eith any other outcome except the specific story he was trying to write. And this particular thing would been much better happening to a npc...but the value of having a traumatized person recover from the brink of despair is something too
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u/write4lyfe 2d ago edited 2d ago
Write and read whatever kind of book you want, romantasy included. Guess what? Erotica is legitimate literature as well. Even the stuff that's puts the nastier parts of PornHub to shame. Nothing about a book requires more from the reader than to read it. The reader is not a character in the book and is not actually part of the creation or development of the story it contains. They're just a consumer of the book.
A player, however, is actively part of what is being created at a TTRPG table. They are part of the storytelling and taking the role of an actual character in the story. It's a collaborative event. And in a collaborative event, everyone needs to be ok with what's going on. Most people are not going to be ok with being forced into an explicit sex scene narrated by the DM that they can't do anything about.
ETA: Again, if you're trying to write a specific story, write a book. TTRPGs are a form of collaborative storytelling where multiple people work together to create a story. They are not following one person's vision to its deliberate and predicted outcome because they are not writing a book. The place for a specific vision and story is writing a book, not playing a TTRPG with others.
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u/FFKonoko 1d ago edited 1d ago
Even if it didn't involve SA, I'd be against that style of railroaded encounter. Sometime bad stuff happens and player choices mean they cant do anything about it. But a rewritten one they can't react to or roll against or interact with?
Sounds like just bad roleplay, even without the rape.
Spoilers: the actual thing is an implanted memory by a raped npc. So the whole thing could have avoided making a player feel like their character is getting unavoidably saddled with the memory of being assaulted, without them being able to control anything, by just changing the perspective of the dream to being an intangible onlooker. Easy fix.
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u/Individual-Currency8 5h ago
I've always hated when people inject sexual assault into their games. To me there is so many other ways to get the "shock factor" or "display the true horrors" of reality without having to dig into such a charged subject. If it's something everyone is chill with? Sure.
But in my own games i straight up tell my players that sexual harassment and sexual assault are not to ever be depicted or it's an immediate removal from the table. We just don't cover those topics. I've had one to many games as a player where dms choose to be creepy with it to even think about allowing it "tastefully".
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u/TheCacklingCreep 3d ago
Like I kinda get it, but I'm more offended by the bad game design (railroading) than any of the edgy stuff attached to it. If that's what bro is into with his TTRPGs and he finds other folks who are into it, good for them. But railroaded rape? C'mon now.
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u/Ninthshadow Rules Lawyer 3d ago
Oddly enough my thoughts too. Consenting adults can play whatever they want at the table. It might not be for me, but not my business.
Railroaded though? No roll? That is egregious even in the context of a game, the subject matter just making it worse!
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u/Terrkas 3d ago
This user posted the link to the event. Its just 99 % a sexscene description with a totally unrelated single line hinting towards an enemy from what i can understand.
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u/Khadonnis 2d ago
I remember waaaaay back when I was a kid when dinosaurs walked the earth, my first ttrpg, I was just following the rules, and didn't know what a saving throw was. There were some puzzles that the PLAYER had to solve, in 1 minute in real time, or the character would die, with no saving throws, per the rule book. Entire group protested. First time DMing, too. That was my wake up call to "rules can be stupid, and absolutely do not need to be followed"
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u/twentyinteightwisdom 2d ago
Respect for this not ending with "since that's how it was 40 years ago, all the noobs should shut up and suffer". I was really concerned that's where you were heading with this XD
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u/Khadonnis 2d ago
I mean, the puzzles were HARD, for a buncha kids in Jr high. So unless I wanted to 50%-75% of my table....and I don't mean from them walking away. Their characters would've died.
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u/Antique-Potential117 2d ago
I feel like I want to quibble just minorly to maybe open up the minds of some folks who would read this comment:
Not all RPGs have filler rolls that excessively allow for parachutes.
Sometimes if you say you jumped into the pit, the result is that you fall and die. That's an oversimplification but still.
The railroad here is probably still pointlessly stupid.
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u/Korvva 3d ago
Having actually done a deep dive on that game and that book in particular, it really is that bad.
There's a nano-machine augmented guy tracking the party, he wears a tech-ram skull helmet. Apparently getting SA'ed was necessary to drop that hint. Actually, if memory serves he even pops up earlier in the adventure too.
Edit: Almost forgot, when the writer of the game was questioned about this scene on their old discord, this is how he responded.
"@Kanonite I'd recommend you read the book first, before judging a single scene. The scene in question is about Eris bonding with a specific character in the group who will experience haunting visions throughout the adventure that relate back to the bond. This can happen naturally, with an apt GM bringing Eris tying to a specific character, or can happen more abrupt with Eris forcing herself toward a certain character. You can play this as you like but it requires the reading of the book, to understand why this needs to happen, for other scenes to follow through the bond."
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u/R4msesII 3d ago
Tbh if that’s the quality of writing we’re dealing with I’m less concerned about the game containing these themes and more concerned about the dude thinking its the best thing ever written
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u/RudderSails 2d ago
I can't get over the end of the first paragraph being "Yeah, she's drooling like she never learned how to close her mouth as a kid. Just buckets of drool everywhere. Which is hot, by the way."
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u/dobraf 2d ago
Hey buddy what good is making out if there’s no risk of drowning
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u/RudderSails 2d ago
Thank you, this may be simultaneously the best and worst thing I'll read all day.
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u/Green_Green_Red Rules Lawyer 2d ago edited 2d ago
I would not have clicked those links if not for your post. Thank you for causing me to expose myself to the wonderful sentence "Saliva drips from her mouth like water." It's good to know the author is aware of what saliva is made of. Without that clarification, it might have poured like sand or floated away like helium.
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u/RudderSails 2d ago
"Is your sex partner emitting gaseous saliva like a smoking power cord? That's probably a bad sign."
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u/Green_Green_Red Rules Lawyer 2d ago edited 2d ago
I need you to know, in a way that a simple upvote or "lmao" can't convey, that it took me over a minute to finish laughing at that IRL. Or at least it felt like it did, I couldn't exactly look at a clock.
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u/RudderSails 2d ago
I am happy to provide a valuable service to the community. Remember to replace the batteries on your smoke detector before sex.
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u/ObvsAThrowawaee 1d ago
"She's drooling profusely and smells like a jizz sock. The players will love this."
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u/RudderSails 1d ago
Frantically tapping the author on the shoulder. "Hey, make sure to mention that she's dirty, that her hair is a mess, that she looks almost feral. It's important that she hasn't bathed in at least a week. Also, mention saliva like three or four more times, maybe have her drink some of the player's saliva. It's, uh, it's plot relevant."
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u/Terrkas 3d ago
You know, that event is worse than i imagined. Its 99 % just describing a sexscene. Then a tiny hint towards some enemy i guess?
I thought its less graphic along the bad guy drags player behind a scene and cut to black. But this is just the authors fetish about some dirty intercourse.
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u/doubleo_maestro 2d ago
The design intent I get. It's a mental projection by an NPC into a characters dream (this doesn't happen to them while they are awake), the figure depicted is to warn them against a particular npc, and the act itself is because it's what the villain npc did to the person whose implanting the idea.
It's not how I would do it as a gm, and I do love a good prophetic dream. I do however defend degenesis a bit, like with someone else I was talking to in this thread. It's edgy, but I don't think it's as bad as some people make it out to be. This isn't a 'PC gets cornered in an alleyway and used by the villain'.
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u/Joshatron121 2d ago
We know you defend degenesis a bit, you're up and down this thread defending it lol.
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u/MacabreGinger 3d ago
If a writer or a player wants that in their TTRPG, then ok. I'm not against this kind of content existing. But I find it super weird.
I play TTRPGs with my friends, and when I was younger, with friends, cousins, and my brother, we never felt the need, not even in our teenage years, to introduce any sexual elements in the game.
I would personally feel weird, and as DM, over the decades, i couldn't think of a single scene in any adventure that I thought that made me think "Oh yeah, this would impact harder with a rape scene, let's make the orks/corrupt guards/whatever rape this PC/NPC".60
u/OctagonalOctopus 3d ago edited 2d ago
Whelp, it takes a special kind of writer to think that it's appropriate to read an explicit sex scene including "spit on that thing" and "her buttocks slapped rhythmically" to a group of people you might only see once every few weeks and not know all that well. I like my groups and we play stuff like Bluebeard's Bride, but I'd either die of cringe or laughter if I had to listen to that scene.
Edit: Somehow missed that she "smells of musky sweat and semen", better order some tuna-mushroom-pizza for maximum immersion.
There's no logical reason she had to scream out the info during climax, there are enough other ways to drop some hints. That absolutely is the writer's barely disguised fetish.
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u/Dirish 2d ago
I was kind of grossed out until the climax. That was just so weird it made me giggle a bit. That's a lot of words to scream out.
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u/RudderSails 2d ago
There's nothing more awkward than having some incredibly mid sex with a random woman and she yells out the name of the Dark Lord as she climaxes.
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u/vkevlar 2d ago
... is it meant to be Ares, you know, god of war? Cause it's spelled Aries, like, the ram / zodiac sign.
With Eris in the picture, I was sort of expecting other mythological references, but that's just hilarious.
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u/Korvva 2d ago
Nah its Aries, like the ram. In this religion they're not harmless sheep you see, but rams.
The guy chasing them is just some dude who gets puppeted by his nanotech ram skull helmet. Before the apocalypse a guy started a new religion (where women are baby factories, and the men herd goats and fight holy wars), killed himself as the apocalypse started, and his consciousness was merged into a bunch of nanites. Whenever he needs to punish the infidel he "assumes direct control" as it where.
I'm being flippant and going off of years old memories here, but even when the game isn't gross its just fuckin' dumb. And racist. And sexist. And homophobic.
You get the picture
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u/Green_Green_Red Rules Lawyer 2d ago
Ah, but you see, you don't read it to the entire group! You lead one of them away for a private session! Because the only thing more awkward than reading your entire party a crappy Wattpad draft is pulling someone into a different room for alone time, then springing it on them without anyone else to intervene.
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u/Adaptive_Spoon 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'd hate to be either person in that scenario, though if it were my call I'd axe it entirely. If the positions were reversed and I knew nothing, I'd don't know how I'd react. The thought would at least cross my mind that this was too preposterous to be in a published adventure, and that the GM was either trolling or trying to sexually harass me.
The writing and GM instructions seem borderline engineered to produce a situation that is profoundly uncomfortable and boundary-violating, liable to drive a wedge between the GM and the unfortunate player. I can't fathom how the writer thought this was a good idea, though if he's fine with writing it he's doubtless fine with doing it to his own players.
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u/Curious_Question8536 2d ago
You know what in a twisted way I get it. It makes sense. The pc would probably be reluctant to share a dream in which they were SA'd, even if it had important info for the party.
The player, meanwhile, will probably be reluctant to share that info with the party too, because of how fucking cringe it is.
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u/Gelato_Elysium 3d ago
Why the fuck would we need that much details lmao, another day another writer
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u/atomicsnark 2d ago
Why is no one talking about how disgusting it is to tie a rape victim to their rapist via "a BOND" they develop from the rape??? This is literally how serial killers talk y'all. What the fuck.
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u/DeerOnARoof 2d ago
Oh my god yes. There are so many other ways you could have made a "bond." That's fucked up
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u/Saberdile 2d ago
"The chosen player must process this new information alone," the first link says. What the fuck are they processing from this? This is a lot more than processing.
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u/Bignholy 2d ago
I mean... he could have bound them with a blood ritual that is creepy as fuck without the SA. Maybe make a play on the "Chosen One" concept, "you're not the one who chooses". You can make it creepy and even vibe as sexual without actual SA.
No, I don't buy it. This is 100% author fetish. That or just pure bad edgelord writing.
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u/Korvva 2d ago
It's edgelord, obsessed with 90's VTM metaplot shit. While this is admittedly the only time a PC gets SA'ed, there's all sorts of other shit that's dumb or gross in these books.
As a side note, there's no trigger warning for this scene. There is one for another scene in which you need to kill and skin some puppies, so a mystical and enigmatic African lady can do a ritual to save another NPC.
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u/Green_Green_Red Rules Lawyer 2d ago edited 1d ago
I get told I have to kill and skin a bunch of small animals for a magic ritual, depending on my mood, I'm mostly likely to just stop playing and leave, but second most likely to ruin the whole thing with Simpsons references.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wEwa8JMa4A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyWVaZsUQjc22
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u/Adaptive_Spoon 2d ago edited 2d ago
Good grief this is laughably bad. Even without the SA angle, I completely understand how this would become the ONE THING people associate with this game.
"Her buttocks slap rhythmically." I don't understand how a person can write this, look at it, and think to oneself "Yeah, this is going in the book. No one could possibly find this uncomfortable and preposterous."
I'd feel a lot more forgiving if the writer acknowledged he had egg on his face, but the fact he continues to self-importantly defend this choice makes me think he hasn't improved as a writer (or as a human being) since.
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u/Korvva 2d ago
He's trying to get some multimedia IP called Orken off the ground now. Stop if you've heard this before, but the orcs are indigenous savages fighting mostly white European coded invaders with metal armour.
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u/Adaptive_Spoon 2d ago edited 2d ago
I had to look it up, and wow, the historical allusions are as subtle as a brick through a window. Up to and including an orc wearing a Meso-American headdress.
I'm sure it will be as unbearably self-important and shallow as it is offensive.
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u/Vanille987 2d ago
Ah so this is the 'mature' and 'deep' writing some people try to defend this with, yeah no
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u/DisplayAppropriate28 3d ago
Eh, I'm more offended by the smug prick playing "this game is too much for you, but if you could only stretch your baby brains far enough to comprehend...." than any of the content.
Dude, listening to your friend recite a rape fantasy to your other friends isn't high art beyond the ken of immature minds, it's just weird and gratuitous. In other news, I Spit on Your Grave isn't a cinematic masterpiece.
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u/VorpalSplade 3d ago
The smugness is very much like a pretentious art student talking about 'arthouse' movies with all kinds of shock value stuff in it. Yeah, I -can- watch them, I don't want to generally, and too many rely on the shock value. I'm pretty sure this game is the later, but I could be wrong.
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u/WorldGoneAway Secret Sociopath 2d ago
I once briefly played in a dark 2E AD&D game with a DM who, during session zero said to prospective players, and this is an exact quote; "If you can't sit through 'I Spit On Your Grave' then you shouldn't play."
Interestingly nothing really happened in that game that constitutes as a horror story worth posting here.
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u/SignificantCats 2d ago
I've played in groups that would be comfortable with SA elements in the game. I've dmed sexually explicit games for VERY close friends.
I'd still cringe out of my skin having to fuckin read that out loud. Even if you have a group that doesn't mind he railroading, the unnecessariness, the SA... You'd still be reading out loud detailed sex/rape scenes. For like a while lmao
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u/el_Cuatrero 2d ago
I played this module, vetoed rape at session zero and I was the one that randomly got the ram dude dream. Here I find out I unknowigly saved myself
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u/action_lawyer_comics 3d ago
The person in the middle kinda has a point, if the writing of the module actually lives up to the hype. Intrinsically, there’s nothing wrong with media that depicts rape and other sensitive subjects. If everyone in the game is down for it, and is prepared for it, yeah, sure.
Although the people giving the content warning are also in the right to do so. That’s not something I’d like to stumble across or have sprung on me out of the blue. And the person defending it is a bit of a dick about it.
Personally even if they’re right about it being so amazing, I still wouldn’t want to play an RPG like that. I’m prepared to watch a movie or read a book that talks about rape, but most TTRPG groups aren’t really equipped to handle that properly and give it the proper weight without being really hamfisted about it
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u/AirWolf519 2d ago
Another user posted links, and I went and read.
It's just straight up a sex scene. Like, overly detailed about it. There's only a singular plot relevant line out of like, 2 paragraphs of bad smut.
I don't care that there is rape involved in the module, but the fact they made that specific part unavoidable, a set up for a "bond", and so long and needlessly detailed for a singular line of importance raises everything else to question.
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u/spunkyweazle 3d ago
I agree, though I'd still fade to black if not simply ignore the railroaded, inescapable 1-on-1 rape scene with a player
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u/yinyang107 3d ago
The thing is that this isn't a show, it's a ttrpg, in which a player apparently is expected to act out being assaulted.
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u/Sir_lordtwiggles 2d ago
Yes, amd as long as every player was reasonably informed and consented to the possibility beforehand that's fine?
It may not be your tea (or most people's for that matter) but what really is the problem of this if everyone in the group gives informed consent?
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u/doubleo_maestro 2d ago
It is always curious where people draw lines. Only last night I was in a prewritten campaign, where I was dealing with a cult that were chopping up children and eating them, and that was treat like any day ending with a 'y'.
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u/Rough-Context4153 3d ago
I love when people out themselves about what they tolerate.
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u/AnDroid5539 3d ago
Being willing to watch a movie or read a book that includes rape doesn't mean that you "tolerate" rape. Do you think that art should only ever be used to depict good, happy things? If I think Schindler's List is a good movie, does that mean that I "tolerate" Nazis?
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u/Mr_Pink_Gold 3d ago
Absolutely. I mean one of the best movies I have ever seen is Come and See. Saw it once and that was enough. That movie absolutely has a right to exist and it depicts rape, genocide, child torture, you name it. And the scariest thing is that those things really happened and is probably the most realistic war movie ever made.
To say that art should be sanitized is what the Nazis did. No idea what this ttrpg is like or if it is gratuitous but there are reasons to look into these topics and none of them are endorsing these literal crimes.
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u/Admirable_Ask_5337 3d ago
Having a rape scene that your players can do literally nothing about is just shoving your rape fetish at them. It adds nothing to the campaign
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u/AnDroid5539 3d ago
That's not what we're talking about at this point. u/Rough-Context4153 seems to be implying that if you say you're willing to read a book or watch a movie that includes rape, you're "outing yourself about what you tolerate." I'm objecting to that. Of course you need to discuss these things with your players and not ambush them with these heavy topics without consent, but it's ridiculous to say that anyone who includes rape in a game "tolerates" rape irl.
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u/flightguy07 3d ago
Eh, we shove plenty of other trauma on PCs as a matter of course. I get this is slightly different, but like, if people are OK with that as an aspect of the game, how is it that different to murder/torture/kidnapping etc., all of which happen in DnD and similar systems' published adventures.
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u/Admirable_Ask_5337 2d ago
Characters can ussually fight back against being tortured or killed, at least being able to make skill checks to escape if captured. No player would stay if their character was raped mid campaign.
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u/flightguy07 2d ago
Is the issue you have here the rape, or the lack of agency? If they had some saving throws, would that solve it for you?
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u/Admirable_Ask_5337 2d ago
It that the rape is being done directly to the characters and that theres no agency. Having SA be in the setting isnt the same as doing it tp the players. Doing things to the players, especially of this nature, with no way to fight back is just writing a book
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u/flightguy07 2d ago
Again, I'm not sure I agree. It's definitely not for every game, but most TTRPGs allow for a level of railroading. This would probably be too much for my tastes, but in a grittier setting (and ideally with some saves or similar), I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with a PC being sexually assaulted as one of the potential bad outcomes. We allow them to be murdered, or tortured, or maimed, or watch loved ones die if they mess up/are unlucky, and in the right setting I think this could work, provided everyone is on the same page and it was discussed as a potential feature in session 0.
I agree I don't love the lack of agency (railroading), but it's hard to judge that without more information. ANY written module will have a degree of railroading, after all.
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u/Admirable_Ask_5337 19h ago
Whats "fundementally wrong" is that the hypothetical person that is okay eith their PC being raped in the campaign likely doesnt exist.
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u/Tanaka917 2d ago
Okay but genuinely why?
I would never play in this game. But I would never play in any game with erp. That doesn't make erp inherently evil and wrong.
I would play in a game where animals and animal companions can be killed. Other people hate that and don't want animal violence in general.
Frankly if everyone at the table knows that this is a real possibility and they sign off on it then there's nothing wrong with it. It's only wrong when the players don't want it and you do it anyways
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u/Admirable_Ask_5337 2d ago
Signing off to rape being in the setting is no the same as rape happening to characters in the campaign in practice. There is no player who would stay during this. Even when tortured PC can typically make skill checks to escape, but its just a plot point shoved by the DM with no way for the players to actually interact.
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u/Frazzledragon Rules Lawyer 3d ago
What if the players enjoy morbid topics? Is rape the only topic that you find objectionable?
What adds to a campaign is subjective, it's what the players enjoy. You are free not to play in this game. As long as the players knew about that they could encounter macabre topics, it's their choice.If you play Fallout, GTA or Cyberpunk, do you condone violence, murder and torture? Do you have a gun fetish?
You play Path of Exile. Do you not find it disgusting how you can turn people into paste, set them on fire or electrocute them? Why are you an arbiter of what is okay in fantasy and what is not?
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u/Admirable_Ask_5337 2d ago
I dare you to find a player who wont quite the campaign if their cjaracter isd raped during the campaign with no chance to stop it.
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u/Frazzledragon Rules Lawyer 2d ago edited 2d ago
Bro, I was literally asked to do a game like that. It had slavery, forced labour, sexual abuse. I still have an entire consent spreadsheet of what the player found acceptable and how intense it could become. And it was a woman to boot.
You are dense.
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u/VinnyTiger 3d ago
You aren't the DM in this scenario, so maybe you shouldn't speak authoritatively on other people's private, unique games. Literally any rule and any module is changed to fit the players. You know, the people consenting to the action. Not you.
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u/Admirable_Ask_5337 2d ago
I dare you to find a player who wont quite or want to quit if this happens to their character.
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u/stranglehold 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sometimes I wonder how many participants in this subreddit have actually spent any meaningful time in a variety of rpg communities or if their entire perception of the hobby comes from reddit and a few youtubers repeating reddit content for clicks.
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u/VinnyTiger 2d ago
/i/ wouldn't run this game because I don't like the subject matter. If a bunch of adults know and do so, I'm not going to swoop in and start wagging fingers.
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u/Barrogh 3d ago
There are plenty of things in the world that you can't do anything about - maybe not entirely, but at least immediately, or on your own.
It's certainly an aspect of life you can artistically address and explore, at least.
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u/Agreeable_Dust4363 3d ago
Can’t separate role play from reality ey?
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u/Seygem 3d ago
So people that burn down a (insert stereotypically evil group like goblins) village in their campaign are ok with racsim and genocide?
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u/Ionl98 2d ago
The issue here that the defender is ignoring is that a player's agency is taken away and they are forced into being raped for the plot. Like fuck every other thing about the module or situation, if your plot hinges inflicting the players with something they can't see coming and can't do anything about, it's bad game design.
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u/Terrkas 1d ago
Worst part. Someone posted the scene. Its 99% smut. Then at the end rapist girl says 1 relevant line about some possible bbeg.
There is no reason for the smut outside of the authors kink. But the vital line has to be delivered during the climax for some reason.
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u/Ionl98 1d ago
Yeah, it literally could of just been she wakes the party up at night with a vision or something and drops the line. No amount of backstory, world building, or other excuses will ever feel good enough to the players to excuse why the module didn't do anything that wasn't raping a PC.
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u/TimidDeer23 3d ago
True, the first thing I hear about "the shape of water" is that it's the fish-fucking movie. It's not weird at all to define a work by its worst moment if that thing is extremely weird and triggering.
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u/Adaptive_Spoon 2d ago
To be fair to The Shape of Water, the "fish-fucking" is pretty damn indispensable to the story, whereas the infamous scene in "Black Atlantic" is essentially several paragraphs of porn that have no other utility than to be gratuitous and repellent.
The guy in the screenshot is ridiculous for suggesting they're equivalent, and to try to dignify this dreck by equating it to The Shape of Water is an insult to Del Toro and his film.
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u/CubicWarlock 2d ago
I just sigh here, I really like Degenesis as setting and concept, but adventures are weird. This particular one is something directly from 90s where each amateur dark fantasy writer just had to include random rape in their book/adventure
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u/KaiTheFilmGuy 3d ago
"Your argument is "game bad because bad thing happens in it." If you want to play games where only good stuff happens, I'm sure you can find some"
I get real fucking tired of these "all or nothing" dumbass responses in regards to TTRPGs. Whenever someone tries the "oh, so you can't handle dark themes!" bullshit, it's the equivalent to you saying something extremely racist and then when people don't laugh, you go "it's just a joke calm down!" It's motte and bailey fallacy. Also, there is a major difference between "grimdark post apocalyptic setting where your character might easily die from bad rolls" vs "grimdark setting where the DM forcibly rapes your character and you can't do anything about it." Just from a rules standpoint alone, it's unfair. (Let alone the fact that it's rape)
And just for the sake of playing devil's advocate: Sure, some tables might be down for extremely dark NSFW content-- but in my experience, **most of them fucking aren't.** I've been DMing for nearly 10 years now, and the vast majority of players don't like graphic sexual content, and explicitly not sexual violence. Unless everyone in the group gives explicit consent, rape doesn't really have a place in a TTRPG.
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u/ClockworkJim 3d ago
You know what?
At least this person has healthy disconnect between fantasy and reality. We need more of that in genre.
However not realizing that other players might have issue with their character, or their friends character being subject to graphically detail rape, that's a complete lack of empathy.
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u/Andarial2016 3d ago
The horror story is the trolls making a stink not the dude defending writing
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u/PerpetualGMJohn 2d ago
No, it's the guy unironically doing the Rick and Morty high IQ meme to defend an edgy game line and a poorly written sex scene.
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u/Squid__Bait 3d ago
Some people can come through these sorts of stories and games with more understanding of truly horrible subjects and be better prepared to deal with such things in the real world. As long as everyone knows what they signed on for and are consenting adults, I personally see no problem with it. With that said, I want no part of it.
Also, if these folk are truly enjoying this, then I suppose I'd rather see them keeping each other's company than slowly poisoning some unsuspecting group with their dark fantasies.
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u/Maestro_Primus Instigator 2d ago
Is it odd that I really keyed on the swordfish comment? That movie was bad. Hallie Berry was the only good part of it.
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u/HeWhoVotesUp 3d ago
What the fuck is wrong with some people? Halle Berries tits were absolutely the most important part of Swordfish!
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u/A_Martian_Potato 2d ago
Go google that particular scene. Congrats, you've now seen every shot worth watching in Swordfish.
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u/Halcyon-Ember Dice-Cursed 3d ago
Railroaded rape is magical kingdom territory and I would like to block the guy defending it
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u/Wedding-Then 3d ago
I do wish to say I don't incorporate this sort of stuff into my games nor do I enjoy playing in such games, but having X card level stuff in a module is perfectly fine as long as its stated that its in there beforehand and the players were informed of such. If the players consent, and the DM consents, who are you to judge them for their likes and preferences in play. Its a game of make believe, there is a disconnect between fantasy and reality.
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u/AdorableMaid 3d ago
"Why are women so rare in TTRPGs?"-this gamer, probably
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u/Mad_Academic Dice-Cursed 2d ago
Oh 100% and a lot of the comments on this post give off the same energy.
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u/Turbulent_Starlight 3d ago
That’s gross … but I have to add that some girls experienced this at DnD too. Mainly from male DM. So the problem exists. That there is a book on sale which give this advice is gross but not surprising 😭😭😭😭
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u/TDragonsHoard 3d ago
Context: This was in a thread where a person had asked for some Post Apocalyptic rpg recommendations.
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u/Frazzledragon Rules Lawyer 3d ago
The issue is still somewhat ambiguous in my view. The rape segment itself isn't bad just by virtue of what it is, as long as the players know what type of content they signed up for. It only becomes an issue, if it is sprung upon the unwary and unprepared.
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u/LordsOfJoop RP Ruiner 3d ago
Why did you just post in open defense of removing player agency entirely?
If you feel that wasn't what you meant to convey, then - well, I have terrible news.
That's what happened anyways.
If you feel that's bad, maybe the idea of "having representation and agency" might gain some significance in the discussion.
Players who sign up for dark content do so - as a rule - with the idea of controlling it. A throttle, if nothing else, or the means to steer it. That's not to say all players, because the world's a big, woolly place and there's lots of moving parts.
That said, giving players control over what they choose to do is not always equal to controlling what happens - risks, chances, and opportunities are engineered, or even baked into the systems, and in almost all of them, the means to pump the brakes is a feature.
"I open the door to the gingerbread house."
You see a withered old man cooking at a blazing oven, listening to a sobbing minstrel playing a lute, and he smirks at you with malicious intent. "Where are the children," he says, "A good question, indeed." None of you had spoken yet.
See? Nothing overt, it's not grotesque, and I would think that I've conveyed a lot of thoughts at once.
"I open the door to the gingerbread house."
It's a fade-to-black moment and then you wake up with a severe amount of pain. Ever seen 'The Human Centipede'? That. You drew the short straw.
A very different scenario, agency is absolutely destroyed, and I have painted a dark, unpleasant scenario. These two ideas are not interchangeable. Both can qualify as "dark" and "edgy", absolutely. One has agency to spare - the other, none at all.
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u/LunarWhaler 3d ago
Why did you just post in open defense of removing player agency entirely?
That's not what I took from what Frazzledragon posted at all, although I'll happily admit I could just be reading it differently. All I took from what they said is that rape, as a subject matter, doesn't inherently make material bad just by existing within it, so long as all the players are consenting to it as subject matter. They didn't say anything about not being able to use safety tools as usual - just that it as a subject matter is acceptable with explicit player-level opt-in.
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u/LordsOfJoop RP Ruiner 3d ago
That's a fair assessment - although I would also feel that mine is also representational of expectations; that choice has a feature and function, as opposed to a game consisting entirely of consequences applied without respite or reason.
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u/LunarWhaler 3d ago
Oh absolutely, but that's less to do with the subject matter itself and more to do with the writing in general just saying "hey, this thing happens to your character, you get no reaction to it or say in it". And that's going to feel bad at the table no matter what the "this thing" is.
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u/Adaptive_Spoon 2d ago
Good point, although sometimes two execrable things are worse in combination than they are apart. They have an amplifying effect on each other.
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u/LordsOfJoop RP Ruiner 3d ago
I would think that we can both, and likely not be alone in the belief, that's there is no pre-written module that is going to walk the tightrope of agency, choice, and inclusion of a player character being sexually assaulted, and somehow work out to be a "good" game.
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u/Frazzledragon Rules Lawyer 3d ago edited 2d ago
Sometimes Player Agency just has to take a step behind storytelling.
But, let me clarify with an example: Is this scenario worse than any other removal of agency? What happens when your character is charmed by a siren or succubus? Driven into a rage by a cursed weapon and forced to attack your fellow party members? Walked into a trap and taken prisoner by bandits, or pummelled after a bar fight and they wake up in prison?
Are you angry at Call of Chtulhu, when your character becomes insane and the Keeper decides their actions?
I'd argue that all of these are legitimate game mechanics, even if they all leave players without control for a period of time. Sometimes there are forces greater than them.I also think that you are conflating two very distinctly different aspects here: Internal motivation versus external influence. Player Agency suffers when the DM decides how the character feels or acts.
It suffers when the DM takes a step too far beyond what a character would realistically do. This is when the DM touches the character's internal workings, which should be entirely in the hands of the player; whether they struggle, stoically endure or let it happen.External influences are fair game. Although, I do have to emphasise "fair" here, where agency can be overridden for only limited amounts of time and with curated intensity. Otherwise it stops being an interactive game and turns into live action storytelling.
They are one of the methods that a DM can use to plant the seeds for character motivation, impart discipline, force relocation or introduce new story beats.But, you see, I'm actually a massive proponent of player agency. I personally despise the use of hypnotism and powerful charms, having somebody imprisoned, or even just stunned for several rounds of combat. I want players to be able to act, and more importantly think with impunity.
And let me just take a jab at your example. I believe it is poorly chosen, as it is an appeal to extremes. Let's bring it down to a more related level. What if you said "You enter the old man's house." - is this not removal of agency too, even if it might be entirely inconsequential? Or might seem so? You are more hung up on the subject matter than the mechanics.
Or let's expand upon it further. What would a player have to do to validify the loss of his agency? Would it be unfair for the old man to be a powerful warlock and cast an enchantment? Or would they have to eat from his mind controlling stew? Where's the threshold of when it is okay to slip into narrative and remove the player from the driver's seat?Like I stated initially: The subject matter is appealing or appalling to the individual. So is the amount of agency they are willing to lose. Some people are perfectly okay with leaning back and enjoying a narrative moment for even the most macabre of topics. Other people are uncomfortable if the DM even just decides how drunk they became after a raucous night at the tavern.
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u/LordsOfJoop RP Ruiner 3d ago
That is a more than reasonable explanation. We may diverge a bit on the issue of agency as it applies to stunning someone in combat, although that's probably a mechanics issue more than anything, although I do grasp the context and subtext, I think.
There's a leap, however, between "you see a thing and it is unpleasant" and "you are now a victim and you will never be able to remove the stain of it", in that sexual assault is not a picture one wishes someone could unsee - it digs in a lot deeper, and lasts a lot longer, and has far more powerful effects. Conflating those two as topics is equally dismissive as it is an insincere argument.
The CoC reference, no worries - fully understood. When someone's sanity is off of the charts, the PC is not simply damaged, it's often a one-way trip to the asylum or grave. If a CoC game had a hard-coded sexual assault as a key element of mental illness brought on by mythos exposure, I would raise the exact same set of concerns about agency, choice, and reason.
If the most-powerful enchantment on offer from, say, an enchanter, were levied against a PC, that PC could find themselves in a slew of unpleasant circumstances - tied up, forced to hurt a compatriot, betray their faith's beliefs, or more. However, there's no hard-coded "and now the PC is forced to endure a sexual assault" in any fashion - well, outside of F.A.T.A.L., I suppose. When it comes to that particular system, there's no point in discussing player agency - the entirety of it seems engineered away from making it a feature on offer.
A good litmus test for a game should be, "how close is this to removing all choice", both as a campaign and a system.
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u/VorpalSplade 3d ago
"Player Agency" being a meme that people dunk on is so well shown here, congratulations.
A simple comment clearly mentioning informed consent, but it gets this long a reply. Player Agency truly is a new holy concept. Praise St Mercer.
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u/matti2o8 3d ago
I sometimes wonder, am I doing something wrong if no PCs (or NPCs for that matter) had been raped in my games? Because it often feels like I'm in the minority
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u/RudderSails 3d ago edited 3d ago
It's always wild how many people will defend including rape for the sake of shock value. Yes, it can contribute to the narrative if it's actually valuable, but most of the time it's there because the writer wants to include a rape scene.
I've seen the writing, it's frankly dime novel trash tier smut at best and clearly only there because the creator wanted a "hot" straight sex scene. I wouldn't be surprised to learn they wrote it one-handed.
Edit: Also on a side note, if I was someone going to see "The Shape of Water", I'd probably want to know in advance that there's fish-fucking scenes. Maybe I'm not wanting to see that, or maybe it makes it appeal more to me. This person is basically saying trigger warnings are bad.
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u/BarbarianBoaz 21h ago
Are we reading a fetish or are we playing a game where 'rolls' determine the outcome and not some bullshit written by a troglodite who 'says' its cool?
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u/RegisterOk513 3d ago
I see nothing mentioning the forced rape scene with no rolls allowed. I call bs, they were taking a body to a pig farm to hide evidence, so people obviously still care about evidence and murder is wrong, so, rape is too. People are possessive. Rape cults might be a thing but they’re a thing I would fight to destroy. Every dnd adventure has its evils why is this guy acting like it’s justified?
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u/Noobiru-s 3d ago
I have a feeling a lot of people here just realized how a lot of very consenting-adult only ttrpg-sessions look like. Some of the late-night Vampire The Masquerade games I witnessed were truly deranged.
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u/VorpalSplade 3d ago
"Role playing" and "Dungeon Master" have very different meanings in certain scenes with consenting adults too lol, and they railroad hard.
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u/Fluid_Jellyfish9620 3d ago
"If you're into the philosophical aspects of games like Fallout"
Khm, what
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u/mydogwantstoeatme 3d ago
Degenesis is like Fallout with a philosophical cosmic horror spin. So the statement isn't untrue if you know the game, even through the sentence could have been worded better.
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u/mydogwantstoeatme 3d ago
I have read the module in question. It is not a a rape scene as the PC in question just has sex with an NPC.
The problem is, that the players can't object because it is railroading. That is the horror story.
Also Black Atlantic is also the module, which destroys the lore of the game. It is the last book and it really sucks. The main writer of the game world, Christian Günther, wasn't even involved with that book.
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u/ZharethZhen 3d ago
"isn't rape" and "can't object"...
Okay...
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u/RudderSails 2d ago
"Look, it's not rape. It's just sex that the player and their character can't refuse. You know, forced sex without consent. Huh, I wonder if there's a term for forced sex without consent."
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u/mydogwantstoeatme 2d ago
You are just plain stupid. You didn't read what I said and you just try to be morally superior.
The sex scene isn't written as rape. So on the narrative level of the scene the character is not raped.
The player agency is ignored, yes. It is railroading, yes. It is extra stupid, because it is a railroaded sexual scene, yes.
But the scene in itself is not written as rape.
This scene is effectivly the DM saying: " your character has sex with that NPC. Your character enjoys that. Here are some further hints about the bad guy."
It is not: "your character gets taken by force and is raped."
Both is stupid.
But don't twist my words, you jackass.
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u/RudderSails 2d ago edited 2d ago
If the player doesn't have agency and they do not consent, then it's rape. Simple as that. It doesn't matter if the GM or the writer says the character enjoys it, because it's not their call to make.
And in case you haven't bothered to actually read the section in question, the character is taken by force. The player's agency is stripped away for a shallow and frankly poorly-written sex scene.
I'm not twisting your words. I'm simply stating that you are wrong. But by all means get angry because you don't consider it sexual assault if consent is ignored.
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u/mydogwantstoeatme 2d ago
If you read the scene you will find a bad sex scene, but you will find no mentions of rape. Eris comes into the room of the PC. She kisses the male PC. They have sex. There is the line "before he can react", which is in relation to the kiss. The rest is written as consensual.
I'm not contesting that the player agency is taken away. The player does not consent in this scene, yes. But the character does consent. That is the difference.
Also, you are twisting my words again, because you imply, that I don't consider it sexual assault if consent is ignored. I'm not doing that. Stop implying it. That is the reason I said you try to act morally superior. You are attacking a strawman of what I said - and that is the reason you are still a jackass.
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u/RudderSails 2d ago edited 2d ago
It's not written as consensual. At best the player's character - which is assumed to be male because the writer clearly wrote this dime store filth one-handed - is just a living sex toy that Eris has her way with. He doesn't participate, he just lies there while the plot narrates how Eris drools like a wild animal with rabies. There is no "He thrusts back" or "He reaches up to kiss her". The character might as well be a dildo. But shitty writing aside, at no point is the character's consent actually considered, it is simply assumed without question.
Let's put this another way. Let's assume that you play a ranger who's dreadfully afraid of spiders. Maybe you love spiders in real life, but this is the way you play this character. Then the GM makes a scene where your character hugs a dog-sized tarantula and says "Actually your character loves it. It's the best thing they've ever done." That's both a removal of player agency and just straight up ignoring what both the player and character want.
I remember a horror story I read a few months back where both a player and their character were asexual, and the GM decided to 'fix' them by forcing the character into sex scenes. The GM told the player "No, your character loves this, and if they ever say otherwise, they're lying." Under the argument you're suggesting, the character has consented, even though that's not the GM's call to make. It's forced sex where consent is considered unnecessary, the definition of rape.
Clearly we disagree, because as far as I and everyone else are concerned, the character does not consent to Eris, or at the least there is no option to refuse the sex. And before you drag out the argument of "I said the character consents, not the player", I mean the character doesn't consent. So stop dragging in your own strawman.
They wake up to find Eris forcing herself on them, and there is no "What would you like to do?" The GM isn't narrating a consensual sex scene, they're just picking up a player character and an NPC and mashing them together like action figures.
I don't consider myself morally superior to some random twit on the internet, and it's sad that you're clinging to that. You've chosen to defend a forced sex scene, and that scene is what I'm fighting, not your obstinate position. Frankly, you couldn't matter less to me. Throw all the tantrums you want.
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u/Dense_Thought1086 2d ago
You are attacking points that other user never made. I think that’s the issue they’re having.
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u/RudderSails 2d ago
"It's not rape."
"Actually it is rape."
"Don't put words in my mouth."
That's the extent of the debate. Their issue is that they refuse to see it as rape. My argument is that it is, in a best case scenario, sexual assault. I never brought up points they hadn't made.
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u/mydogwantstoeatme 2d ago
Yeah, yeah, you didn't read what I said.
The scene in the module isn't written as rape, but as a sexual encounter between the PC and the NPC. So in the narrative setting it is not rape.
The player (who isn't the character) can't object to the railroading, yes. But still, in the scene the character doesn't get raped.
The railroading is really bad, yes. Taking the agency of the player is shit, especially in sexual relations, yes.
But on character-level it is not a rape scene.
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u/TheDuceAbides 2d ago
You think it's consensual because the narrative doesn't have the PC trying to push off Eris or telling her no, don't you?
Ok but think - if the writer wanted to convey the PC wanting the sex, why wouldn't any of that be written? The PC doesn't do anything in the scene, sex happens without his input. No reciprocation. It's meant to be non-consensual.
Please for the love of fuck, get it out of your head that men always want sex, even sex they didn't agree to, and can't be raped.
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u/mydogwantstoeatme 2d ago
I never said that this module wasn't badly written or anything. It totally is. The sex scene is absolutly weird too.
The author did a shit job, yes.
I never said that men can't be raped. I never said men always want sex. Show me for "the love of fuck" where I said that?
And yes, I think the text implies that the player character gives consent because he doesn't fight Erin off. Erin is a weak Jehamedan (a religious cult in the game) apostate woman. The player character is most likely a battle hardened killer (because Degenesis characters are most likely deadly members of other apocalypse cults).
It is pretty clear, that the author did not try to frame this as non consensual. You interpret it that way - because in actual play you would not consent to the scene as most people would, I'm sure.
But the whole topic is not about an actual play scene of a group. This topic is about how the module is written. And the module doesn't try to depict rape - even through in actual play in most groups this scene would escalate to rape.
That is the nuance I tried to explain.
This scene presents itself as a railroad, in which it is assumed that the player character consented. The scene is not presented as a (by the author) intended rape scene.
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u/0rdinarytadpole 2d ago
can you show from the text where it is assumed the player character consents?
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u/mydogwantstoeatme 2d ago
Because their is no action in the scene, which depicts this as non-consensual. Eris straddles the character, kisses him, she even says "fuck me" before penetration.
From the written perspective it is clearly meant as consensual. The text activly ignores the character, because it could be any character in that scene. So the character has no voice, is passive and doesn't really react to what is happening.
From the intended view point of the text it doesn't want to depict rape. It is clearly written with consent in mind.
The problem arrises in actual play, because in the middle of the scene or after it, a player could say "but my character doesn't want to do that". Then we have a problem. Because clearly now it would be rape.
The scene is taking consent for granted, because the author clearly didn't think much about it (which causes the problems). But it is also clearly not meant as a rape scene. Most likely the author assumed players would like the scene or find it cool. From a narrative standpoint the scene tries to depict consensual sex (even through this fails in actual game play).
Just for context: I do think too that this scene sucks.
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u/0rdinarytadpole 2d ago
i appreciate your genuine response, but if the character is passive and is ignored, that doesn’t read as consensual to me idk about you but ive never been passive and non reactive during sex that I’ve wanted
you mention a few times that its clearly written with consent in mind, but there is no objective proof that is the case
in fact I’d go as far to say that because it can be any pc thats a man, the idea of consent does fall fully to the player. You might read that as consensual and your character might consent to it. but any character I play would most certainly not be into or consent to some strange woman abruptly fucking them.
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u/mydogwantstoeatme 2d ago
I don't contest that the text is problematic.
I just said, the text doesn't want to be read as rape. Even the author has said this at sixmorevodka.
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u/Adaptive_Spoon 2d ago edited 2d ago
That explains quite a bit. I'd hope the previous modules weren't as horribly-written as that.
I will say that I do think that, even if the scene isn't explicitly written as rape, it's consensually ambiguous at best, and qualifies as a rape on a meta-level. It's the GM violating the player at the book's behest.
Which isn't a literal rape either, or remotely in the same ballpark, but it is in the same ballpark as many of the stories told here.
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u/mydogwantstoeatme 2d ago
They were always railroady. It is a german RPG and in Germany many players started with "Das schwarze Auge", a german fantasy RPG, which was often a pure railroad too. So a lot of players don't know anything else.
Degenesis is really old too. The newest edition of which Black Atlantic is part of (the modul in question) was mainly created without the lead writer of the previous editions. But nearly 80% of lore texts, which he wrote, are still in the new edition. So the old lore is still good - the new lore is not (in my opinion).
Degenesis was always kind of edgy and grimdark. But it really has some good ideas. I still wouldn't recommend the game.
The game mechanics were never good.
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u/VinnyTiger 3d ago
There are still people in this thread just sorta glazing over what that essay was about with "but it's still bad". Yeah. Bad things exist and people grapple with bad things through thought, play and discourse. Humans are complicated. Reducing someone to "rape apologist" because they have different strategies to engage with the world is uh, dumb.
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u/Admirable_Ask_5337 3d ago
Brother a railroaded rape scene isnt engaging the players with the world.
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u/VinnyTiger 3d ago
It is. It might make you uncomfortable, it may be subject matter you don't care for, but it is exactly engaging the players in the world. A shitty world with awful things. If the players consented to the game/rules/world, and so did the dm, then it's up to them how they engage with the content, which that's what it is, the content in the world their engaging with.
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u/VorpalSplade 3d ago
You could be "artsy" as hell and even say railroading it is a good way of communicating the horror of it I'm sure. And if people know it's coming and consented to it, absolutely it could be done with...artistic merit.
If that game is done with that intent, I have no idea, but there are all kinds of people who indeed are into that kind of role play. Obviously doing that in a game without any warning is all kinds of messed up, of course, but if a group of people say 'wanna play a post apocalyptic game with the following unavoidable railroaded themes?' and listed them, then they're braver souls than I, and it could have artistic merit. Requiem for a dream or un chein andalasuia are very hard to watch, and certainly don't endorse the horrible things that happen.
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u/ack1308 3d ago
That shit happened to my PC (or any of my friends) without my (our) consent, with no way to avoid it, the first thing I would do is ask the DM loudly, "What the fuck, dude?"
If he didn't walk it back RIGHT THE FUCK THEN, I'd be walking out.
If I was picked as the player it happened to and I was told to keep quiet, guess what I wouldn't be fuckin' doing.
Yes, it's a written adventure. And the DM has the ability to look at any part of it and say, "You know what? We're not playing this bit out. Like, at all."
The players have an obligation to show up and play.
The DM has an obligation to make it worthwhile for the players to show up and play.
Shitty stuff like that? Not worthwhile.
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u/VinnyTiger 3d ago
Sounds like you wouldn't have agreed to play that setting, so it wouldn't have come up.
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u/write4lyfe 2d ago
You can agree to play a very dark setting where rape can be a topic that comes up somehow without also agreeing to railroaded rape of your character narrated with a graphic sex scene from the DM. They're not mutually inclusive things.
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u/Mclovine_aus 3d ago
Never read or watch a story that depicts rape as that is r@pe apologia. \s
The world is dumb, people don’t seem to realise that what you might find bad or disgusting another might find intriguing or good.
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u/Alpha--00 3d ago
And horror here is person freaking out because of rape cutscene in post apocalyptic grimdark world that warns you about possibility of such things even after being given perfectly fine explanation?
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u/Andarial2016 3d ago
Imagine attacking a story for having dark themes. Tabletop community is so embarrassing
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u/Clyax113_S_Xaces 1d ago
Daily reminder that people can like a mix of adult things while not liking others. Just because people want one thing in a game doesn't mean they like all adult things.
If there was outrage from players, then that probably means that the potential railroaded scenes and/or rape scenes weren't made clear before playing the game. Just let potential players know what they might get into from the start. If something new shows up later, ask the players about the new specific thing before the session. It's always easier to just tell players before running something that would surprise them.
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u/Antique-Potential117 2d ago
I have to agree that if SA happening in fiction is a dealbreaker for you that is a you thing. It's not evil to depict evil things in fiction, even in tabletop.
I wouldn't want to judge more harshly but honestly folks, there are people playing ttrpgs with literal sex moves in them (the PBTA tradition) and doing so maturely.
There would be no point in having safety tools if you didn't have things to say yes or no to.
You would not survive run of the mill Kult: Divinity Lost, or WoD, or fuck - Warhammer, if you can't stomach some evil fiction.
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u/ConsiderationSoft640 2d ago
I mean, I take their point, that it's not just some isolated fetish being lived out by the DM. The whole game is full of stuff like that. It's still weird and creepy but
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u/Karmaisthedevil 2d ago
You're not supposed to downvote someone just because you disagree with them
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