*shudder* "Gender-bending" is one of my RPG pet-peeves. I know you're allowed to play whatever you want but seriously, if you're a dude, don't play a chick PC. It's really creepy and makes everyone else in the room uncomfortable.

We had a new player (GM's little brother) who wanted to play a chick character. After only 5 minutes of play our GM couldn't take referring to his little brother as a chick and had his character changed to a dude. I had warned the GM and his brother just before we started that if he really wanted to play a chick I was going to make sure he knew how uncomfortable I was going to make it for him. Luckily the GM stopped before I could make his little brother rue his decision...

I had to check to see what my players would say...

I voted on how my personal game goes not the ones I run at cons.

My "rating" varies based on the players and me. Most of the time it is either M or higher. Drugs, violence, cussing (I try to keep this to a minimal), sex, etc. Youngest person at my table now is mid-20s and most are in the 30+ range. So M(+) is an acceptable level. If I played with a younger crowd, then I would reduce the rating.

I'd never play with people such as you. I wouldn't even run a game for you - my shadowrun world is populated by male and female NPCs, which I portray.

I wouldn't be comfortable at all playing a violent roleplaying game with people who cannot separate a character from the player.

Seconded, and remember I run a game where PC Rape/Murder is perfectly acceptable, but OOC Bullshit like this is crossing the line.

For those wondering about the FBI games, that is what I rated mine. We go into detail about everything that happens. One 13 year old female troll had a tendency to horn rape people, usually in the ass but from what I understand she would sometimes swing and when having a normal sex session with another female she would just use it like a penis. Also we go into great detail about bombs and torture especially. For instance, all at the same time one player got mostly skinned by the pavement(severe dermal wounds to the face, torso, both arms and a fractured left leg) from riding a motorcycle that had it's front wheel mostly shot off(burst fire from a Barret), two people are standing outside a tank waiting for transpo and there is a genuine Deliverance moment gearing up as they are in the woods in the middle of nowhere and they are being approached by two very hillbilly looking guys, a fourth player is driving his shiny limo back into NYC when a Bulldog pulled up next to him, rammed him, and a firing port opened with a grenade launcher sticking out at him, the fifth player in my game drove this bike he was going to deliver to a contact of his and found what looked like most of the skin from his contacts(or someone with the same skin tone) back with a message branded into the skin and the skin nailed to the door leading to the inside of the compound by a knife he recognized from his career in the Russian Special Forces(Spetsnaz). This was the last 5 minutes of a session that involved trafficking a MBT across national borders, drowning like 10 people, shooting up a matrix club in the middle of Berlin, and botching an assassination. This was done while cursing a lot and generally making off color jokes about racism, pedophelia, and sundry other amusing topics. We basically shut down any social controls we have in our brains and just say all the dark things inside that people normally repress. It is very cathartic.

Chris

"Her full ample breasts are barely covered by a sheen of magical elven chainmail."
"I want to have sex with her."
"Okay, uh, give me a roll."
- Fear of Girls, Episode 1, 1:30

I have five women in my gaming circle. Being a rapist wouldn't fly. Males playing female NPCs is fine, which I do as a GM, but going beyond that induces well-deserved eye-rolling and snickering.

You know, I've heard people say things like this before but I've found that women are no more squemish than men.

That's fine. I can be squemish for those tough, ball-crushing broads.

*chuckles*

No, I'm talking about normal everyday women.

Yeah. I've pretty much always had women in my gaming group, and have never had to tone things down for them.

Got a lot of rapist PCs in those gender diverse gaming groups...?

As I said earlier, my games are rated FBI (per this poll). I have had all kinds of PCs, doing all kinds of nasty things.

That's cool. I wouldn't want to game with you either. We've agreed one like what... one topic? Nothing? Different opinions and different play styles. If that's supposed to demonize me or insult me you fell a little short.

As far as male and female NPCs? yeah, we've got them, and I interact with them like normal. as a player I don't go raping and killing them like others indulging their fantasies, I play in character and within the tone of the setting we run. If you're playing a campaign where you want to have rape and death be an over the top theme in your game, then do it because it's what's agreed upon and have fun. I've played games like this, and they're great. But don't be the lone player who takes these fantasies to an extreme when they don't fit with the feel or setting of the game. I did this when I started RPing and it takes a few times to realize that taking things out of context is not only awkward for the group as they watch you do this, but unbalancing to the tone of the game as others try to get into it and it completely derails campaigns.

I just didn't want to have to deal with our GM's little brother heading down the path of "If there's chicks in there I want to do them!" like so many players end up doing. Nothing's more sad than watching the repressed sexual tensions of virgins come out in the form of a character actions (great link to "Fear of Girls" BTW Wesley). Hell, our GM didn't want to deal with it and set the tone for all of us not wanting to deal with it. He dealt with it before I could have fun with the situation though.


So the blurred lines between a player's sexual fantasies and repressed violent outbursts and his characters very similar shared traits are ok but the player who thinks this is crossing the line and does something about it by using in character actions to prove a point is wrong? I don't quite see where you have a case to argue here.

One sounds like spectulation on your part since I very much doubt the younger brother openly said, "Hey, I am going to play a chick so I can roleplay all of my sexual fantasies and repressed violent urges while demeaning women in general!"


Where-as on the other hand you openly admit that you were going to piss all over his character for purely OOC reasons. Hell, genderbending is hardly a requirement for the playstyle you claim you were going to save him from in the first place so I don't see where your case has a leg to stand on.

My preferred range so far as a fairly inexperienced GM is probably around M- due to drug use and violence but a relatively small amount of sexual situations and cussing. Basically, I have my hands full as it is keeping a game moving right now much less playing characters outside of my slowly expanding range, (my range seems wider as a PC, really; I guess I can just pick one set of motivations and stick with them better than I can swap back and forth between roles) so I've kept things fairly light so far grit wise, at least in terms of cruelty for cruelty's sake. I'd say if I had to choose just one theme to describe my games, so far it's been the bleeding edge and how far people are willing to go to stay on it; when I said drug use earlier, I primarily meant combat drugs. For example, the major Fixer my PCs dealt with last campaign was a retired Street Samurai who got out of the game when he just couldn't keep up with the street wide arms race anymore and nearly died for his troubles. My games aren't really chock full of violence either, really, but I don't belong to the "bullets always magically kill the bad guy painlessly in one shot" school of thought you see in a lot of movies. Being shot at should be scary.

What you said was, quite short: "Guy wants to play a girl, that creepes me out, so I wanted to ruin the game for him until he felt as creeped out as I do." If you don't want to be labelled as plotting, dishonest "I cannot stand men playing women", then state your case with more details/excuses next time. It is telling though that you go on about rape, death and fantasies.

So, I don't even want to read your posts anymore. /bye

It isn't like a game is neccesarily "better" as it marches it's way up the ESRB ratings. I wouldn't set it as a goal unless you have reason to go there.

Also I'd strongly advise against regularly hanging out in AO or higher territory. People become desensitized, and when the medium is purely written or spoken the shock wears off fast. And then it just loses punch.

Though if the PCs want to go there and you're comfortable with it I suppose there you are.

Those said OOC reasons being that our GM (his brother) wasn't comfortable with it. I probably should have said "While discussing our GM's displeasure with his younger brother's character choice I decided to show our new player how uncomfortable he'll feel as my character tries to have sex with him just to make a point. When the GM approved my idea as a lesson to his younger brother and looking forward to see the intended result, I set my plan in motion but didn't get a chance to fully enact it because the GM chickened out and couldn't deal with referring to his little brother as a female.

I'd say that acting on the side of guy who's running the campaign in order to ensure that future games will run smoothly and without problem is charity work, not villainy.



I'll give you that point. Most were mistaking what we were talking about to begin with, because my real problem isn't the gender bending, but the derailing of campaigns due to the off-handed events that spawn off of some player taking things outside of the tone of gameplay. I'd have just as much of a problem with a player killing everyone with their character when the rest of the group is trying to be sneaky and ghost everyone leaving no dead. Trolls just aren't any fun.

But to be honest, if a dude wants to play a chick, or visa versa, that's not my problem with the situation. In my original post that started this, I said nothing is more awkward than one dude roleplaying trying to hook up with another player who is playing a chick. The problem isn't with the player playing the chick, it's what happens when other players take that as a "free awkward moment" card and make passes at the character.

It's when they assume that role to fulfill their weird fantasies by having their character interact with PCs and NPCs in such a manner to destroy the game, either intentionally or unintentionally. It's just as bad if a dude plays a guy who still has sex with guys on the team to make the players uncomfortable. No Genderbending there, but same problem.

Done in above post. Next?



Once again, trying to imply something about my character when taking examples out of context. Being that this thread has been about things in the nature of rape, death, torture, drug use and other acts of depravity, I'd say my mention of such acts is warranted and not taken out of context as implied. Being that my original statement came to the reply of someone mentioning a player's fantasies and his displeasure having to deal with it, I'd say that I am once again I haven't stepped outside the bounds of the original discussion.


Good. If you don't read my posts than I don't have to worry about you taking things out of context, making underhanded comments about the integrity of my character, and more or less giving me a reason carrying on having to explain myself and derail topics. The forum just got a bit better off.

Ok, so you were going to piss all over his character for purely OOC reasons with the DM's blessing, not really seeing how that is supposed to be "better". If the DM didn't want his brother to play a chick then he is entirely within his rights to veto the character before the game started, not drag his table into some weird passive-aggressive sibling rivarly moment.

What I find most amusing with your latest post is that it wasn't really the brother playing a chick that bothered you, it was the fact that you were going to try to have sex with the brother's character to create an awarkward moment that was the problem.

Amen. Dark places can go to darker places which can kill the fun. Beware the masks you wear and all that...

Ravor, TKDNinjaInBlack, Fuchs. Zip up your pants and back the frag away.

We all have a nice little discussion thread going here, so lets not let an off hand comment lead it astray. NEH?

I don't see any "mod" title next to you, so can your attitude. I already stated I am ignoring him, so not only is your "order" arrogant but also unneeded.

And if you don't want some off hand comment to lead a thread astray, how about following your own advice, and not stroking the flames yourself?

Thanks.

I disagree, the genre of cyberpunk is supposed to be dark and gritty and becoming numb to the depths of decay as morality itself rots into a withered husk should be a goal that is embraced, not avoided.

Bull's sticky anti venom thread.
And Ravor good luck with that, as long as you enjoy it its all good.

Totally agree. Adult themes will pump the rating right up to M, but it's the level of detail that will carry it on over into AO. You can still have your dark and gritty game at a nice M rating without giving the specifics and traveling into the AO area. Like in On the Run, mention it's a Atzlan snuff BTL of torture and execution of political prisoners, just like the book says. Mature theme for a mature game. If your players really want to know how they are being tortured and how they die, that description is going to take it up to an AO rating, but let the players decide if it's going there. Give a rich and dark theme by letting them know the type of things they are exposed to, but leave the detail hidden and don't beat them over the head with it. If a character really wants to know, then enlighten them.

Actually you can't use Bull's sticky as a badge of authority, considering that it was a general reminder to play nice and not a call to deputize various Dumpshockers.

As for the main debate though, perhaps not surprisingly, I disagree, because the dehumanizing of society is what cyberpunk is supposed to be about so to do anything less is quite simply not living up to the ideals of the cyberpunk genre. Luck has nothing to do with it.

I wouldn't be so sure that we're not already past or post cyberpunk.

What matters is what the specific group has fun with. Shadowrun can accomodate a variety of playstyles and concepts, from CSI:Seattle to P2.0 90210 to Curse of the Neon Pearl to the Matrix Falcon etc. All the "big themes" of Shadowrun can appear in a campaign, although usually to varying degrees.

Some very good points. Cyberpunk has the whole desensitizing thing going on.

Though it could be easily argued the Shadowrun is squarely "post cyberpunk" in genre.

But either way all of the major cyberpunk and post cyberpunk works have been M or lower rated stuff. Usually lower actually.

I don't know, but I certainly want my cyberpunk grim and dirty. Now, tact is still implicit in the role of GM, but give me brutal sadistic bastards as the enemy, people you love to hate, that's for me what makes the genre. Yes, off camera the stuff, but don't get so vague that it looses it's impact. There has to be something that makes the PLAYER angry, or disgusted or just saddened.

The reason that published works are decidedly M instead of AO, is quite simply and only audience appeal. Most people (and by this I do NOT mean most gamers) are too easily offended for an AO piece to have a chance in Hell of selling well. So, not only the author, but usually the publisher (and almost always the publisher much more strongly) self censor the hell out of anything meant to appeal to a broader audience.


Isshia

Well, remember you can get away with quite a bit under M+. There isn't a single game for a console rated higher than that to give you an idea. All the AO games are for computers and have names like "WET - The Sexy Empire " because it's fairly hard to have enough violence to get the upgrade.

Yeah, I'm not in a rush to take my game into darker territories. I'm just saying that I have a hard enough time as it is staying in character and keeping the proper mindset when I'm just juggling gangers, Mr. Js, corp suits and houngans. Bringing in the Ted Bundys of the world into things as any more than a cardboard cut out villain is frankly beyond me, so I don't really see the point in trying. We have had Tamanous though, but they're easy since you can just play up the fact that for those guys it's all biz, gruesome as it may be.

Cyberpunk is "high tech (cyber) and low life (punk)". The dehumanization of the individual is a theme of some works but is hardly a requirement for inclusion in the dated subgenre.

Agreed. Why play "just another run" when you really want to do something that stands out. After all, it's like telling a story or watching a movie. There has to be something special that's a good reason why you're investing the time into it and experiencing it. Our group either does this by canonical story elements we play through, dealing with typical but elite cyberpunk/shadowrun themes and icons (like cyberzombies, cyborgs, AI's, Shedim, Bug Spirits, etc.) or dealing with and eliminating the darker aspects of society. When players find out they're running opposite a Humanis troll hating neo racist and they're mostly playing metahumans, then they have a really good reason to hate the bad guy and want to succeed beyond the cash. I mean by the books, they give tons of organizations that NPCs can be members of that the players can love to hate. I try to make my campaigns one third iconic involvement, one third dealing with bad dudes who players should want to be dead, and dropped across a one third canonical backdrop.

If the players get too out of line and start doing stuff that is worse than the people they should be wanting to kill, the impact of how morally broken their baddies are is lost. They will start thinking, "So what, we beat him in that category." Likewise if everyone else in the world is doing things that are just as bad as the target or nemesis. The players forget why he's any worse than the rest of society.

Bingo. THAT is precisely where the limit lays. Violence and decadence are elements of the game, but they are NOT what you WANT to promote in your Player Characters. The books present, pretty clearly, heroes. They are almost always flawed heroes, but they are heroes. They can be brutally rough at times, like the guy we had who very personally gelded the kiddie porn/slavers, but, and that but is the important thing, it was because it hit the Player in the bread basket. It made the Player angry and feel (it was plain on his face) a certain grim satisfaction, but mixed with disgust at what he himself had done. More recently we have a guy who is playing a character who is VERY religiously inclined, actually acting as, among other things, an Exorcist for the Gladius Dei, who really agonizes over some of the things he does, IC, but only when away from the group.

It's amazing to see the weirdness he has incorporated into this character that all hangs together in the dehumanized, cyberpunk tradition, without becoming a monster himself. That is the aim, and it fits here as well as in VtM, "Monsters we are, lest monsters we become." And he has managed it. The exorcist presently has three very minor free spirits he sees as Quasits (through the lens of his obsession) who he is actively trying to CONVERT or save. His methods are bizarre too. For anyone who remembers the thread, we talked about Captain C-Bucks (He was utterly materialistic before he "saw the light".) trying to keep three quasits happy by, among other things, finding hookers to keep them tired and passive. It isn't as weird as it sounds (though I personally think he's crazy, that seems to be part of the point) and hangs together and is all off camera...well, look up the thread.


Isshia

Hey we got a Japan. (FYI I think the difference in US and Japan is primarily the difference in the age at which girls are "legal". In Japan it's 13. You can also get away with slightly more messed up stuff there I believe).

Actually most places in Japan it's 16 to 18, just like in the states. Under the strange but true heading there are certain US states where 12 is legal age if another minor is involved and in many 14 is legal as long as the partner is less than three years older.


Isshia

Because there's a complete separation of church and state but societal repression in the form of conformity, the Japanese are known for their bizarre sexual appetites. It's an attitude of, "You can do what you want to who you want as long as it doesn't affect your productivity." Though what we see exported to the US and Europe in the way of video and animation tends to focus more on the violent aspects (as we live in cultures of violence) which gives us in the West a distorted view. On the flip side, the creation of child pornography wasn't outlawed there until 1999 though possession is still legal and it still flourishes on the Internet and in the semi-underground as lolicon. Check out the Transformers: Kiss Players for an especially disturbing portrayal of how this attitude has even infiltrated the toy industry.

The sex industry in Japan equals 1% of its GDP and is equal to its national defense budget. According to Interpol, the age of sexual consent in Japan is 13 while the age of a child is anyone under 18. Men can legally marry at 18 and women at 16 without parental consent.

Japanese censorship laws have always amused me, especially in how they've caused mutations in the adult entertainment industry, though those have relaxed since the 1990s. Tentacle-porn came about as it was illegal to show male genitals.

It was also illegal for years to show the genitals of any woman under the age of eighteen and even in drawings and representation. According to one of my Players who has a penchant for this stuff, some sites still have oddly blanked or distorted genital shots, especially in animes. Be careful about age of consent too. Most of the prefectures have their own internal laws which over ride the national laws (just like in the different US states) and many of them adopt much higher ages of consent, including all the way up to 18.


Isshia

Ok. I don't actually know this. But I thought since the national age was 13 and it was just local laws that upped things higher that stuff like porn or games could generally operate without getting sued using 13 year olds. Whereas that won't fly anywhere in the US.

I tend to avoid the sex but the violence, drug use and language are all there in spades. One character is a BTL dealer and most are criminals with little compunction about killing. Besides, one visit to the Body Mall in Redmond gets you an M rating by itself...

Boobs bad, guts good. What a world.

I'll use tits and ass in my setting descriptors when appropriate but my players don't role-play sexual situations.

It's not the world, thank god, Allah to Zeus and take your pick.

Sexual repression runs deep in the US. For a nation that claims to be (and in some ways still is) a leading light in the world, the still to this day sexual puritanism that was handed down from the earliest colonial days is an object of shame for many of us. Would that it were so for more of us, for then more rapid change might come about. What the Flappers started in the roaring twenties is now eight decades behind us, almost four generations and we still, in many ways, far too many, cling to the same out modded, repression centered values that most of the rest of the world laughs at. We are no longer a young nation. We aren't even a "teenager" as a nation any longer. We may even be moving into middle age as a nation. It's time to stop with the adolescent attitudes concerning sex, machoism and our place in the world community.

May one day it will even occur.

Well, I can dream can't I?



Isshia

seeing how unenlightened the majority of us are over here in the states, I don't think we'll see this day in our lifetime. We've got too many fat rich white men keeping things status quo so they can profit while in power before we'll see any kind of intellectual, sociological or psychological revolution. But hey, ages of enlightenment come and go about every 300 years, and historically, we're about due for one... Unfortunately they always come after some kind of massive plague or life altering event that changes things as-we-know-them.

*weak laugh* Please don't now type the words "Lucifer's Hammer".

Isshia

All nations have their puritanical origins and the US is still in its Pax Americana Imperialist phase. But we're starting to slide a bit into our own late quasi-Victorian era. When we choose to (or are forced to) leave the rest of the world alone and when we decide that we might make better use of our resources shoring up own infrastructure and making sure our own citizens are taken care of rather than proselytizing our way of life to the rest of the world... then "teh boobiez" will be free.

We will never be Brazil but I can foresee the US following in the footsteps of the United Kingdom.

Oh but the crazy sex parties that would follow if we were...

Unless you're talking about gay buttsex, I don't think the shame thing and "sexual repression" is still around so much in the US. Even if the parents are trying their best.

I live in the midwest, and I can tell you that sexual repression still runs really deep. There are no sexually liberated individuals like you see on the coasts. While teenagers and college aged individuals still have their fun, there is a still huge overhanging cloud of religious oppression that implies they will be struck down if they act too much outside of doctrine. When I was in college, the number of kids I saw that were engaged to be married and were holding out until then was sickening. Funny thing is that most of their marriages are falling apart now because they were basing the whole marriage step in their relationships as a prerequisite for intercourse and to get closer to each other. Once that's done and over with, they have sex, they realize they don't want each other any more and are stuck unhappily married. They should have just had sex to begin with and realize it was time to move on.

This of course isn't taking into consideration the hypocrite bible thumpers that are lying about their sexual experiences, but if someone is lying about sexual experience, I'd say they pretty much are repressing their thoughts and ideas on the matter.

I'll second that. The amount of push for Abstinence Only education where I live in the Midwest is maddening and disheartening as it's been an abysmal failure. Teen pregnancy is actually on the decline in the United States... except for the teenage children of conservative religious types/anti-contraceptive which are statistically on the rise (just look at the stats in any red state). I've attended five weddings, all for friends of a semi-conservative religious leaning, in the past three years and four of the five marriages are completely on the rocks after only a year or two. Plus I knew way too many pregnant girls at my church and in high school.

It sounds crass to say "just have sex and get it over with" but if that's your primary motivator for marriage (not that anyone would ever admit it), you're well and truly boned. And not in the good way.

Tying that back into Shadowrun, I think you can see a direct correlation between players of games who are squeamish about sexuality but not so much with violence and where they live in the world.