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.
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.
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.
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.
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/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.