Violence and sexuality in games, Do we see them differently? Why? Options

[Talia Invierno]

I recognise that both of these can overlap into each other (rape, frequent sexual undercurrents in violent acts), and that there are also other themes which overlap into both (addiction/drugs/BTLs, organ-legging, prostitution within organised crime).

I also recognise that legalities surrounding both change from country to country, and moralities from person to person. Killing can happen in wartime, in an act of terrorism, through assassination, in "collateral damage" (planned or unplanned), in individual acts of violence, in self defence from someone trying to do the same to you in your home. Similarly, different acts of sexuality even between consenting adults are seen as drastically different in permissability or acceptability in different cultures.

What I'm asking is the question in as pure a manner as possible: how do you approach the concept of (possibly minimal, possibly extreme) violence in your games; how do you approach the concept of sexuality - and why. For this reason I'm going to leave legalities out of it, but individual morality cannot but be a factor in answers.

Edit: There is a certain baseline of violence more or less expected in a Shadowrun context. When I ask about your take on in-game violence, I'm actually asking about those stories/actions/descriptions that exceed the "average".

[Ed_209a]

Violence wise, that is just the nature of the game. SR centers around elite professional criminals after all.

Sexuality wise, It's hard to be comfortable with sexuality in games, because at one level, all my friends are watching.

It is also hard RPing characters having feelings for other characters/NPCs. You can't help seeing the player/GM along with the character, ESPECIALLY when the player/GM is the same gender as you.

[Drain Brain]

Dude, you stole my idea!! ;)

[Talia Invierno]

Half right, Brain Drain. I did steal an idea, only it's a bit older than your thread and had a rather different thrust. I was curious as to how it would play out on this board with a somewhat more global, but differently slanted, group. (Edit: your thread probably reminded me of the earlier one.)

But Ed_209a, you're absolutely right: I should have mentioned that a certain baseline of violence was more or less expected in this context, and that what was being asked was for game stories/actions/descriptions that exceeded the "average" of a gritty world (and am about to edit the first post accordingly). Would anyone's vote have changed as a result? (Come to think of it, what is that average anyway?)

Only: what is there in the concept of "elite criminal" that automatically implies violence?

[Ed_209a]

Unless you are talking about white collar crime like embezzlement and hacking-related crimes, criminal behavior and violence are closely connected.

From my experience with people of that mindset (thanks, Uncle Sam...) being a successful criminal requires you to be able to always place your needs or desires over the needs or desires of anyone else.

I feel that attitude makes it inherently easier, morally speaking, to commit violence against another person.

[Drain Brain]

Since nobody, criminal or otherwise wants to die, I think that preservation of self would incite all of metahumanity to avoid violence wherever possible (unless they're deranged). This means that someone who lives their life by way of criminal activity should also try to avoid violence.

Ipso facto, an "Elite Criminal" would never get into a potentially violent situation.

Even mugging - the "Elite Mugger" would intimidate someone into giving up their cash, not actually beat them up for it.

An "Elite Murderer" would kill stealthily, from a distance, where there is little or no chance of being attacked themselves.

Only problem is crimes of passion like revenge or things which are inherently violent like GBH or rape. These things, whilst criminal, would not generate an "elite" since they are not vocational disciplines, but rather the physical manifestation of various psychological deficiencies.

Edit: It's Drain Brain, not Brain Drain... as in "His mind is in the sewers..."

[Adarael]

Before every campaign (or whatever the hell you wanna call it) I try and figure out how much violence should be a part of the theme. Some movies can be incredibly dark and gritty, brutal and nasty - yet have very little violence in them (Blade Runner). Others, by virtue of the sorts of characters in it, can simply use violence as another tool in their arsenal of things to get what they want (Ronin)... I as a player and a GM don't put any limiters on how much violence or sex is *too* much, though - I just try to encourage players to stay within the thematic bounds. If they go outside, no problem - that's their choice. It does mean that within the game, those characters that don't like that so much tend to say, "Dude. Chill, or we're not running with you any more. You're a psycho."

Of course, this isn't an issue with the current game, considering it's essentially a mercenary game set in africa and southeast asia. They have the propensity to gun down a hell of a lot of people, and that's just fine, because that was the setup for the theme.

As for sexuality or romance, hey. It comes and it goes; it's usually something tied to the characters, not the plot itself - whereas violence is inherently tied to the plot of Shadowrun itself. It does make for some good runs, though - Tick Tick's done things for her man a number of times, and Atkinson went hell-bent on hunting down a Toxic Shaman after the toxic poisoned a friend of his who he thought had 'pretty eyes' and later decided was a bitch because she didn't even say thank you to him for his efforts. That kinda stuff adds dimensions to the PCs - even if it's not tied to the main plot.

[Backgammon]

I have no problem inflicting violence directly to the players, as well as having them witness it. I can also have the players witness sexuality sorta, but i can't inflict it upon them. I mean, we're all guys, so I don't want to roleplay a female NPC on a date with them, cause to roleplay you have to be. I'm not gay, so I'm not prepared to to pretend to be a woman and hit on a guy, just as I'm not prepared to have my player hit back on me. This also links up with my "no cross playing" policy. I do not know what is to be a woman, nor do I think or feel like a woman. Any NPC I play would therefore not feel real, so I limit female NPCs to non-sexual roles and to limited interactions of "just business". It's too bad, I admit, but those are my limits.

And on the rare occasions where girls have been playing with us, I don't go into sexual territory because I don't want to offend them or make them uncomfertable, since it's usually 1 girl surrounded by 4-5 guys...

[Adarael]

[Lucyfersam]

While I do include both in some storylines, violence/cruelty is much more common and easier to deal with (I run a horror aspected campaign, so there is regularly extreme violence which occasionally includes sexuality, but very rarely in any sort of erotic fashion and never directed towards a player). I think it is mostly the idea Ed_209a suggested, that it is virtually impossible to express sexuality between characters without seeing the player behind the character, making it difficult and frequently undesirable to attempt to roleplay. We've had a few intercharacter sexual interactions, but those still require some depth of emotion between the players in order to happen, and are thus restricted to specific player/player interactions, whereas horrific violence only requires a somewhat deranged mind to have a serious emotional impact on the character/player. Overall to a horror campaign, violence simply gets more milage for less investment.

[Reth]

I include both sex and violence regularly in my game, and by now the sex part is not a problem any more, it was a little strange in the beginning but it was actually amazing how fast the strangeness disappeared. This was several years ago now, so now it sort of just comes across as an inherently natural part of the game. And no, i'm not gay, and i have never had any problem disassociating from the players, i guess it really is a question about being comfortable with the other gamers. Also i don't think it is that big a problem to act ( in game ) and think like a woman, it just takes some consideration. Ofcourse i won't claim to do it a 100%, but i have become considerably better at it during the years.

If one was of a philosophical nature, one could speculate as to why we males have such an easy time relating to violence and not sex, at least beyond: Hrrr great knockers on that one Haw Haw.

[Thansal]

violence?
meh, I am a white middle class american, I am ussed to fictional violence. (I also play alot of online multiplayer games, with alot of violence.)

It is rather esay to seperate real violence from game violence.

Now sex/sexuality/gender are alot harder to deal with.

Personaly I prefer keeping them from any game I am in simply b/c alot of people I game with are not mature enugh to handel it seriously.

Some think that they are but what is actualy happening is them making afool of themself/offending some one/just getting it all wrong.
Sex/sexuality/gender are all to real animportant to me to be taken into a game as anything other then the off hand stupid joke (my mind rarly raises to the level of the gutter, thus most of my humour is stupid BUT it is only humour, never serious).

So yah, What I am trying to say:
Sexuality is a serious matter, throwing it into someplace that I am trying to have fun just aint cool.
note I ussed to play alot of WoD and still know alot of people who do, and these are generaly the types of people that bother me.
It does NOT MAKE YOU A GOOD ROLEPLAYER IF YOUR CHAR IS THE OPPOSITE GENDER/SEX! (I appologize to those who do this and do it properly, just regularly I have seen stupid people try and pull it off and be rather insulting...)

[Dragoonkin]

Violence is fine as long as it's not stupid violence...game example:

Mafia Don screws the players over, so they go 'take him out' which involves him fainting and them carting him off. So one guy gets the idea, "I'm going to cut him open and pull out his guts, then cut off his head...etc etc etc" so I say "You notice something blinking on his wrist." "I look, what is it?" "It's a DocWagon Platinum bracelet."

Another guy who knows more about Shadowrun than the others goes "OH HELL" and forces them to get into the van and take off. :D "I take the severed head with me!" the one guy says. "Okay, Docwagon is chasing you now...it's hard to revive someone sans-head. You see a pop-up turret on the van..." "FINE I drop the head. Jesus."

Violence is fine as long as it's not stupid violence, as I said.

This particular guy seems to get a lot of pleasure from violently dismembering and the like NPCs. :sleepy: It's kind of creepy and I try to hint at him not to, when it's pointless. Just kill the guy and move on, unless you really really need it permanent. It's not even an IC-thing. I've asked around a bit and it seems to be a theme running through his RPing...overdone ways of inflicting violence on NPCs for no actual gain.

Sexuality we haven't gotten to yet. We'll see.

[CirclMastr]

"Come see the violence inherent in the system!"

We're talking about a game that published an entire book based solely on how to make people and/or their organs go squish. Violence is a part of the game. Gruesomeness, on the other hand, is give or take depending on the group. If it's what you want, go for it. None of my games have ever gotten to that Evil Dead level of gore, though.

Sexuality is tough. I'd say that sexuality is one of those areas where online role-playing (which is pretty much the only way I can play SR) outshines tabletop. Online, it's much easier to dissociate from the player and focus on the character. Maybe because of that, my games seem to have more sexuality in them than most. Either way, however, sexuality is a part of the 'real' SR world as much as it is (if not moreso) in the real world. Even if you don't get into sexuality with the PCs, failing to at least touch upon it from an outside perspective is (again, just my opinion) failing to depict the game world properly.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find out where I left my flame-retardant ruthenium jumpsuit :P

[Kagetenshi]

Anything and everything. My games usually have disclaimers, and if any players object to the material I will do what I can to make sure their characters aren't present and then kick them out of the room for a few minutes.
I'm here to create a world, and the world, as all creations do, reflects its creator. While my campaign settings can be nice places sometimes, other times they really, really aren't.

~J

[Ronin Soul]

My take on violence (and to a lesser extent sexuality) in my games is this:
I describe it based upon its importantance. If it's a large gunfight with bullets flying and people falling I just tend to describe it along the lines of "he falls like a puppet whose strings have been cut, his uniform stained by red". The consequences of violence in such a large scale situation are secondary to simply surviving so I tend to keep the whole instinct thing going where your own hearbeat is the only thing you can hear.

Where violence is singular, where a single person gets shot in a non-combat situation, my description of it is in turn much more detailed because this act of violence has an enormity that is greater than in a combat situation; it is unexpected so it tends to dominate all other things.

Sexuality is more complicated but the same thing in general. I would for example describe an act of intimacy with much more detail than I would an orgy (not that I've had to do either) with even less detail if a PC was involved because once again you have instinct instead of higher reason. I'd describe it in terms of feelings rather than what is seen.

[DR.PaiN]

Sex and rpgs don't mix... unless its between me and your mom! :love:

[Anymage]

I have to admit, I'm a wuss. I'll do things like "you hit him, he takes a serious wound" or have a character's contact be a stripper, but I try to avoid overt gore or gratuitious sexual detail. I'm hard pressed to think of times when that much information has ever helped a game.

Let's be honest with ourselves here. Sex, violence, drugs, and other things of that ilk aren't labeled "mature issues" because including them in your game makes you mature somehow, or because if you don't include them, that means you're not a mature person. They're labeled that way because it's easy to royally mishandle them unless you use extreme care. And to be frank, I don't know if I've ever played with a group that could handle those issues without either downplaying or glamorizing them.

And as a side-rant, why is it assumed that mature people actually enjoy bringing these issues up? I'd like to think that I'm a mature person, and I've never had a drug-fueled orgy. I'd hope most DS'ers are in the same boat I am. So while I'm cool with playing a career criminal, does he somehow need to be a Springer candidate in order to be "mature"? Can't I play a character who's mature enough not to give himself all these complexes?

[CirclMastr]

[Talia Invierno]

[Drain Brain]

NP, Talia.

A wee bit off topic, but:

[Kagetenshi]

I've known a few (very few) genuinely asexual people.

~J

[Siege]

My two bits:

Inter-character sexuality: dating, sex, whatever. Generally speaking, we all have an imagination. All the gaming groups I've played with have been happy to say, "Ok, you go out on a date." and leave it at that.

Only once did we roleplay a "Date" and that was because my character (a bard) was setting up a fellow player (a fighter) with an elven Lady. "Setting up" being along the lines of "I hide in the bushes to whisper lines" or "I play mood music" or "I cast a spell to make a rose bloom in her hands" -- that sort of thing.

I have had hookers, escorts and whatnot as contacts -- but there was never a need to describe in any particular detail of what they looked like or go in-depth into their profession.

I suppose "deviant" sexual activity is a matter of opinion -- my last crew had two homosexuals with a leather attraction and a bdsm enthusiast. With that in mind, there was never a need to go into detail about sexual content or relationships -- (interesting aside: the fighter in the above story was on of the gay guys)

The biggest problem is not with violence in the game -- we tend to imagine standard tv violence. Rarely do we imagine "Saving Private Ryan" violence.

Sexual violence in the context of the story is much the same -- we know the words, but rarely do we have the proper context to color in the rest of the picture.

It becomes a little disturbing when players want to actively role-play things that we feel are personal or don't need to be explored. I refer any readers to the latest "pedophiles" thread for more thoughts on the matter. I suppose that's because most of my peers don't mind being evil but psychotic and grotesque is another matter.

-Siege

[Dr Komuso]

One thing I've never understood about Shadowrun is how the sourcebooks will alternately describe some of the most depraved, sickening acts of violence (Anyone remember the Master Shedim story in SOTA? *shiver*), and establish in very clear terms that there are places like Bangkok, or the Manilla brothels, where men, women, children, and farm animals are sexually enslaved practically as part of government policy, and then turn around and use words like "frag" and "drek" in place of their real counterparts.

Anyway, it's very clear once you get beyond the BBB that Shadowrun is designed to be run pretty much as dark or as squeaky clean as the GM and players desire. They've long given us information on things that many people, myself included, find quite disturbing, but always included a disclaimer. Honestly, I don't think anyone can fault FASA/WK's/FP's handling of the different age groups who may be playing their game.

Myself, I'm in the rather odd position of having been running the same campaign for about a decade, with generally the same group of players (Many others have come and gone, but there's always been a core of 4.), and our game has gone from possessing a 12 year old's thematic understanding of sex and violence to a 22 year old's. I, and the other member of our group who GM's, have made full use of nearly everything presented in the sourcebooks: From blood mages and Toxic Avengers, to shedim and the Manilla brothals.

I will freely admit that their have been times when the game has become so bloody that I've been asked to tone it down, and within reason I have done.... after all, we're playing for everyone's enjoyment, not simply mine. My view on sexuality is a little less charitable, as I see it as a far more natural thing to include in human interaction than violence of any kind. Shadowrun is, as I see it, an extremely dark world, with predators who profit from prostitution, slavery, and snuff BTL's, and to not include that is to deny a very real and vital part of the game. This is not to say that when it comes to hot button issues such as those, however, that I don't think a GM should be willing to compromise with his players.... basically, normal sex = good, but abnormal sex should be viewed the same as violence.... strike a balance between staying true to the world and making sure everyone is comfortable.

For the record, yes, all of us play several male and female characters who, at various times, have been sexually involved with both NPC's and one-another. Honestly, a relationship with a PC is one of the quickest ways for an NPC to crossover into becoming a PC themselves.

I'm not saying you're not a "mature roleplayer" if you steadfastly refuse to play either violence/sex, or a PC of the opposite gender, but I honestly think you're denying something which can be one of the most rewarding aspects of roleplaying. It's understandable you may feel uncomfortable at looking into the eye's of a friend and saying "I love you.", so I offer a tactic we have used for many years: During the majority of the game focus on the nitty gritty, the planning, the excecution, all of that.... but afterwards, the GM and the PC's should go outside (or simply stay in and turn off the lights) with drinks, snacks, and comfortable seating. Let those of you who smoke go ahead and do so. And then, as your characters, just start talking.... reflect on what just happened, discuss what's going to happen, or just shoot the breeze. It doesn't matter so much what you talk about, as long as you do talk. I guarantee that if you try this you will not only begin to see the relationships, romantic and otherwise, blossom amongst your characters, you will begin to become more comfortable with them, and eventually you'll be able to do the exact same thing while looking across the table at a friend.

But, then again, maybe we're ALL just crazy. :eek:

[Anymage]