Discussion of Rape being banned from plotlines

[greasygemo]

***withdrawn as he edited it in previous post****

LOL. Can corpses be considered non-consenting in all cases? What if they would have totally be down while alive and you have it on good authority?

...Man such a weird christmas thread. I feel like a heathen. xD

[bcw81]

Sooooooo if my PC gets drunk / high / is a retard with an IQ of 5 and does unspeakable, deviant things with a dwarf/elf/gicker/breed/half-giant(...not sure even even possibly could work but you get the idea..) and gets caught, it can no longer be assumed that it was non-consensual and that PC can't go UH UH UH ..NO IT WAS TOTALLY RAPE I WOULD NEVER DO THAT! *shifty eyes* Because.. rape doesn't.. exist?

Also, what about if you're PC is really violent and eating the flesh of his/her enemies is akin to a sex act for them as it makes them all aroused on the inside, as some psychos get off on pure, terrific violence.. does that count? Bloodlustiness? Even if no boobies or wee wees are shown or touching of ones self occurs?

Oooooor what about gelding someone for torture / revenge purposes? Or stabbing someone in the boobs to disfigure them? Is this all considered "rapey" because there are boobs / testicles being referenced though not in a sexual way?

And I haven't read the whole thread yet but ... are all half-breeds now born of loving elf and human parents who defied traditions and expressed their passion for one another through a lovechild?

I can still get drunk, high and swear while pissing myself, in a bar, followed by puking on someone, then be disembowled publicly by the milita and crap myself when I die, as long as I don't have a nip slip right? So long as consent is provided for graphic, terrible, disgusting, clockwork orange levels of violence by parties present?

I'm going to try and sum up what staff said so far in answer to your questions, at least, to the best of what I'm seeing on this topic:

No, you can't say it was rape if you fucked a breed because rape is no longer a thing in the PC-world. It doesn't happen. You don't talk about it. Done.

I think Eurynomos has made a point saying that things like bloodlust, gelding, stripping someone nekid and leaving them out in the sands, ect. is not considered rape... On a case by case basis that you should wish up before you do something in the heat of the moment to make sure is okay.

As for the half breed thing - Rape is still a thing in the vNPC world, just not something anyone ever has to worry about as a consequence in the PC world. Also, you can't talk about it. So you can say your breed was a rape-baby in your bio, but you can never say it in game. Your parents were loving, dammit!

A nip slip wouldn't be considered rape, I don't think, and while I get the basis of the facetious question yes - Basically you can have every other bit of gruesome, curmudgeon, spratling-genocide, cock-mongering-idolitor, shit-drenching-horror, bloodbathing sadist, pedophilic, inix-kanking scene you want, but if there's non consent you're banned. Also: You might get a link to The Mud Connector and told to look elsewhere for your raping ways.

I don't like this change, I think it could be worded better and made more appropriate if it absolutely needs to be put in. As it is, it's -way- to broad and it's way too constricting. Adhira has said that, while yes, you can talk about rape on a broad scale (Such as soldiers from the south saying the want to rape, pillage, and burn the north.), but staff would rather you didn't. (At least, that's what I took from it, feel free to read back on page three or so for direct words) This just feels like too much legislation over what doesn't need to be legislated.

[lordcooper]

Guys, it's Christmas.  Focus on something other than fictional rape for today, yeah?

[evilcabbage]

Some of us aren't having a good christmas.

[greasygemo]

Well, epic, critically acclaimed works of fantasy and drama in literature have been written and read by consenting adults and they and their characters never mention or are influenced by ra-.. er, well... hum.

Yeaaaaah, I don't know how to not allow a view of the world to be shaped by a past action as severe as rape. It seems really weird and too restrictive to be a rape-baby breed and then never be affected or ever cry about it to a friend in a hysterical / needy fit (before you reject their condolences and flee to the wilds to reassert your independence that is, of course!)

Iunno, I'm probably just over thinking it, it's not something that comes up too often or that I've dealt with all that much, though I've played a few PC's who were like, "I will shave my head and attempt to be ugly, smear poop on myself and be as unscrewable as possible because I was virtually raped before and never again!" or something to that effect. It was just a personality point that developed the character more, gave them an extra layer of action/thought/behaviour, but it would be absolutely unexplainable in the new setting. I don't see what the harm is in just being like, "Got raped once. So now I wear heavy clothes and make myself look disgusting all the time so it maybe doesn't happen no more."

Also, I have heard of dudes being raped ICly by other dudes. This is a sexism free society after all. We do have dudes who like to go cowboy on other dudes.

[greasygemo]

Some of us aren't having a good christmas.

Christmas is being a jerk. True Story.

[Harmless]

No longer being able to RP the act out, ask for consent to rape a PC, and no longer being able to accuse someone of raping a PC are all a good place to start. Why don't we revise the changes to just start there, and see how the community handles it? Why do we have to do everything in one step?

I'm not saying that it isn't possible that the other censorship rules would be useful and helpful, too, but as it is so far, this is a very poorly-designed experiment. If you want to know which parts of the changes are having a beneficial effect, it makes the most sense to implement them in a stage-wise fashion.

The community here has spoken and quite clearly, there is a lot more agreement on the rules I stated first here than the ones bolded in Culinary Critic's post, for example.

I know staff doesn't discuss their future actions on the GDB, so I don't need nor want a reply. (I speak to Desertman's complaint that a response came to his post in 11 minutes.) Instead, my one post on this thread is a plea to you. Reconsider implementing everything at once. Censorship is new to the community. I think the community is willing to apply it to the physical scenes they RP starting today and to change their consenting habits immediately. But I don't hear willingness to go forward with everything.

I ask you all to redact or place some of the less popular moves on hold and give the community some time to see if this has a positive effect. The staff may be sure we need every rule, but the community isn't, so let's see together if they all are.

[evilcabbage]

I'm against all of them. If I'm a player who wants to rp out a sick twisted individual, and another pc wants to be part of that, I don't feel like I should be hogtied and forced to change how my character might have been just because some people don't want to deal with the situation.

[FreeRangeVestric]

To weigh in one more time before this inevitably gets locked, and before I get to my holiday shenanigans:

From my humble player's perspective, entirely OOC restrictions on our creativity are 100% always a bad thing. This and the ban on PC slavery come to mind. One of the reasons Armageddon is so endearing to me is because anything that seems like it would be possible in the game world actually is possible for me to do as a player, or at least has some illusion of possibility. This and the previous example emphatically break said illusion. Now, I'll admit to not being quite a twisted enough bird to have any really good concepts floating around that are stopped by this ban, but as the d-elf/templar thing someone brought up shows, they certainly exist. Both this and the previous example stop concepts and in character events in a way that is entirely out of character, which doesn't sit well with me.

On an entirely related note, Merrrry Christmas to all my fellow Armagedonners. 

[Kalai]

I'm quite happy with a blanket ban on rape plotlines. I am entirely uncomfortable with not allowing background events to shape a character's actions, and in fact have no idea how to even do this if such a thing happened to a character. It ... it doesn't not impact people. Primary or secondary survivors. If rape's virtually not uncommon most characters are going to be impacted by it in some way. Men, women, and otherwise equally since it shouldn't be tied to gender. I'm fine with refraining from giving any description that could accidentally tie someone to a virtual rapist ... glad to prevent confusion but ...

... would any of the following would be unacceptable?
- Sexual reservation, hang-ups, promiscuity, lack of self-respect due to prior trauma.
   - Talking with a sexual partner about this? I mean ... yeah. That's kinda necessary.
- Flashbacks triggered by specific circumstances: smell of spice, particular phrase, etc ...
   - Letting someone know this disturbs you and they shouldn't get you sweet as a gift or trade.
- Difficulty trusting a (nongendered) subset of the population due to past trauma, or difficulty trusting in general? (Without any accidental accusation)
- Fear they'll do something like that, or indeed they have done something like that, potentially to someone they care about, and later agony over what effect that had on life of (background vNPC)?
- Admitting the experience at all, as part of a test of trust, because you're close enough to someone that it's part of being honest about yourself, or reaching out to try and get help with the impact on you?

If any of these are unacceptable (and probably a few more, but this is a decent representative subset), I will feel really uncomfortable with actually playing someone with rape in their background, because, well, I would have to basically treat it as a lot less serious than it is, and that's a dark road in itself. I am only a secondary survivor, but sweeping under the rug the experience of someone I am close to would not in any way fix that it happened in the first place. That's where they lived for years and talking about such is healing them. Including a bit of sexual trauma, gender dysphoria, violent tragedy, nonconforming relationship orientations, and so forth in the background of my written or roleplaying characters is sometimes part of how I safely explore such concepts and their effects on someone's psyche and behavior when I, myself, am struggling to deal with understanding such.

I really wouldn't be comfortable with being dishonest with such an attempt in any way.

Kind of hoping I just misunderstood the clarification. But, that's why I'm asking.

[LittleLady]

Kalai's post summed it up really well. I don't think the losing the ability to accuse or commit the act is a bad thing, but I feel that it could be an important part of a background. It would impede character development to have such a big event in your past, and not be able to work through it in game to resolve it/heal from it. I think it's important to curb the accusations and the act if it is effecting players and staff. I don't think it needs to be stopped and blanketed in a virtual, this is my past, kind of way.

[Lizzie]

It sounds like the entirety of half-elves would be missing out on on, very defining, very significant behavioral, personality, and social roleplay. That is, the circumstances which led to their existence.

It sounds like no one is allowed to ask a half-breed anything about their parentage, and the breeds are not allowed to bring it up in conversation. A half-elf is not allowed to act out or discuss anything related to the trauma of their birth. No one is allowed to act disgusted around a breed, if that disgust is because they know the breed was the result of rape.

Or is half-breed roleplay the exception? And if it's an exception, why would it be? Either people are allowed to RP this kind of thing, or they're not. If they're not, and if the reasoning is staff issues, then it should extend to ALL roleplay, and not just "all rape and discussions of rape except for half-elves, who are exempt." Because if you exempt half-elves, then you're inviting the exact same issues that you're saying you don't want.

[Cutthroat]

Rape can still be an important part of your PC's background. The staff aren't stopping anyone from making that the case.

What staff are very specifically stopping players from doing now is turning your background into a plot by externalizing it. Adhira gave the example of giving a vague description of a vNPC rapist that happens to match a PC.

For the example of a half-elf, the idea that one parent raped the other can still be in the background. It's still common knowledge that half-elves are typically born from rape. I would imagine that the half-elf PC can still say as much, because it is common knowledge. No plot comes of it because saying "yeah, that happened" doesn't actually start a plot, it in fact signals the end of an event that happened previously in the character's life. What the PC can't do is describe the tall, muscular elf with purple eyes and a mohawk that raped his caring mother or give other people some sort of bait that would allow them to pursue a character for one reason or another.

Ultimately, I'm for this change not because rape is heinous or offensive, and even though it is I was not personally affected or bothered by such things. What irks me is that based on this thread and staff commentary alone (nevermind what I may or may not have seen IG), it was starting to become a theme in the game where rape-related plotlines were pursued to the exclusion of other kinds of plots and activities in game. I realize that not everyone has the same perspective and some will actually find this premise ridiculous but it seems likely that different parts of the game were experiencing different events. I genuinely think that this rule will actually make the game more "harsh" because it will return the focus of the game to the kinds of plots that were a mainstay in the game for years. It also incidentally brings us in line with other RPIs, though there are not a lot of them, just about all of the others ban rape related plots anyway.

[manipura]

Hmm, I had intended to post in this thread yesterday morning when it was still on page two of replies...but then Christmas stuff took over and schedules got changed and I never got a chance to post.  Twenty-four hours later the thread has exploded into eight pages of discussion.

I haven't read through the whole thread yet, just skimmed over it, but I'm fairly certain the issues I have with this ban have been touched on already by a number of folks.

Even though I personally never had an issue with PC on PC rape plotlines, if it fit the characters involved, I can see how banning this won't be a particularly bad thing.  I always thought that the consent rules took care of the problem of someone having to RP something they didn't want to be involved in, however I guess these rules were problematic for some people?

The way I always saw it was this:
Player 1 (the villain) : OOC s/he is making the choice to rape your PC, do you consent to this?

Player 2 (the victim) has a couple of options at this point:
option 1 OOC Yeah, I consent and we'll RP the whole thing out.
option 2 OOC I consent, but let's FTB all the details and get to the aftermath.
option 3 OOC No, I don't consent to that in any way.

If player 2 chooses the last option, then a rape scene is off the table.  Also, player 1 is not able to change their tune and decide "Alright, then my PC will just kill yours then."  If they were not planning to try to kill the victim, they can't decide that they're going to do that now as a result of consent not being given.  And if this is the course of action that player 1 tries to take, this warrants wishing up for staff assistance, or filing a complaint.  It always seemed pretty clear-cut to me.

That being said, I can understand how banning rape plotlines between PCs alleviates any sort of issues that are caused by people either not following or not understanding the consent guidelines.  What I do have a problem with is rape being banned virtually.  For one thing, this presents a huge problem for half-elves and their character development.  Rape is allowed to be mentioned in a background, but is not to be discussed in game in anyway, even if in reference to one's past?  

So my breed can have rape in their background, but they can't properly react to this event in game?  When my breed is sitting alone in a tavern and someone finally comes to talk to them, what does s/he say when the discussion turns to my upbringing and my life thus far?  "Oh, well my mother knew my father and then uh...a few months later I was born.  So uh...how 'bout those sandstorms, huh?"

Or when another PC wants to know why I won't travel to a certain place anymore or why I don't like being out at night or why I hate the smell of spiced mead or why I've always got my guard up or why whatever other triggering sort of thing you can imagine is a problem for me...what does my character say then?  "I just don't like going to that bar, because of stuff and things and yada yada yada.  So, did ya see the Arena games last week?"

Not only does extending this ban to the virtual world essentially wipe out a lot of opportunity for the personal development of PCs of a whole race, it makes it even more difficult for those PCs to RP accordingly when it comes to relationships with others.  Not just sexual relationships, but relationships in general.

Anyway, sort of a random post with random thoughts.  Like I said, I had a better post in mind yesterday and then the thread exploded  
I'm sure most of what I said has been touched on already, in fact now I'm going to go back and better read these last six pages or so of discussion.

Oh, and Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays, fellow Armers!

[Adhira]

Geez. Merry Christmas everyone.

The rule banning rape from in game play is going to stand (I saw someone ask for staff to make a statement on this). It's likely that some of the wording around what you can say, or how your virtual backgrounds can be played out by your character might be refined.  Some things are lost in translation (or my wording).  As to half-elves, sure, feel free to say they're rape-spawn to your hearts content.  

For a more definitive answer on this you'll need to wait till after the holiday day. Sorry, staff aren't that inclined to spend their holiday sitting around discussing rape in a game world. Feel free to keep on discussing, you will notice we've left this thread open for you to discuss your feelings on this. Several people have commented on staff not wanting to hear what you're saying, untrue, that's why this thread is open, but please play nice, you've asked us not to police your threads so much, we ask that you return the favor by keeping things civil. (To add - I think things are civil so far, I just want to state this so it doesn't dissolve into more chaos while I'm off eating turkey).

Happy Holidays.

[Barzalene]

I think more than just allowing the thread to stay open, we would like minds to remain open and the question of refinement to remain open. Clearly nothing needs to be decided today or tomorrow. Ultimately you may decide to go with this as it stands.

If I were in charge of the game, the gdb, the universe I'd table all discussion till Friday then have everyone come back to the conversation with some cool down time.

People keep telling me I am not in charge.

[Adhira]

It's likely that some of the wording around what you can say, or how your virtual backgrounds can be played out by your character might be refined.  Some things are lost in translation (or my wording).  

For a more definitive answer on this you'll need to wait till after the holiday day.

Yup, that's what I was trying to say.  We're going to post after the holidays when we have had a chance to talk things over and give you all some more info. The rule in and of itself isn't going to change, sorry. But hopefully we can word things in such a way that it's a little clearer and you aren't all hating on us for taking away your freedom etc etc etc.

[lordcooper]

It's likely that some of the wording around what you can say, or how your virtual backgrounds can be played out by your character might be refined.  Some things are lost in translation (or my wording).  

For a more definitive answer on this you'll need to wait till after the holiday day.

Yup, that's what I was trying to say.

I'm glad you could reach a consensus on this

[Dakota]

Frankly I never understood why ppl made such a big deal about X PC got raped by Y PC in a world such as Arm.

[Desertman]

The rule banning rape from in game play is going to stand (I saw someone ask for staff to make a statement on this). It's likely that some of the wording around what you can say, or how your virtual backgrounds can be played out by your character might be refined.  

I think this is all everyone really wants.

I think I saw one person who didn't want rape to go away at all.

Most people just want pc's to still be able to talk about rape, reference rape in general, and play out the atmospheric existence of rape in the world, without actually raping anyone or accusing anyone of rape on the PC to PC front.

So long as PC's aren't getting raped, and so long as PC's aren't accusing other PC's of rape, there is no extra staff workload.

Everything beyond that bothers people because then we are thought policing the game and censoring just to censor without a measurable payoff. (The decreased staff workload.)

[Yasbusta]

This bothers me right now, why, not because I can't deal with it being removed, but well.

My current char is involved in a rape plot.

So am I just supposed to forget it happened? Cease the plot entirely?

*pulls his hair out in frustration*

[Rathustra]

This bothers me right now, why, not because I can't deal with it being removed, but well.

My current char is involved in a rape plot.

So am I just supposed to forget it happened? Cease the plot entirely?

*pulls his hair out in frustration*

Concerns like this should be put into a request. We'll work with you to resolve everything. We don't want to 'trap' anyone who might be involved in stuff like this at the moment.

[evilcabbage]

I'm fairly sure Staff are going to resolve any outstanding plots as well, they just also don't want any NEW ones to start.

[Incognito]

- You cannot ask someone for consent to rape their pc.
- You cannot accuse an PC, NPC or VNPC of raping your character.
- You cannot sit in a tavern and tell the story of your PC being raped.
- You cannot play out a rape storyline even if the other person you are playing with is consenting.
- You cannot persecute another PC, NPC or VNPC for rape, because rape should not be part of an active storyline.
- If you include rape in your pc's background it should remain as that, background.  You can use it to shape your pc's world view, you cannot use it as a motivation to kill all tall, muscular men because they have reminded you of a terrible situation.

For the sake of clarity and to avoid any storage or stricter actions against players, could a similar guideline of what IS allowed in reference to rape be posted in a sticky and possibly in the helpfiles too?

For example:
Yes - you can allude to getting raped if you do something stupid (walk into the rinth, attack a mek, spit on a templar etc etc)
Yes - you can use the term in a humoresque or jocular manner without alluding to an actual PC, NPC, VNPC, event etc.

I dont wanna sound childish or anal, but if we're taking the step to do away with this concept once and for all, we might as well just lay out the guidelines of what's allowed and what's not allowed, so everyone is aware of them, and there are no grey areas. That's all.

[Mood]

can my gypsies still fuck gwoshi? it's 100% consensual, man, stay out of my bedroom.