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Comment by causality0 | Hacker News Reader

The dichotomy of sex and violence in tabletop roleplaying is always fascinating. If Steve the Rogue breaks into a house, slaughters an entire family, and then makes lawn decorations with their entrails, his tablemates will probably be exasperated with him. If Steve the Rogue breaks into a house and rapes one of the NPCs, he's probably getting ejected from the game and most likely the friend group.

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The difference is that people (usually implicitly, sometimes explicitly) consent to some topics and not others. Most tabletop roleplaying groups have an understanding about what topics and behavior are appropriate with that group. There are also more formal tools/mechanics to help groups agree on what sort of stuff is too unpleasant to include in the game.

Most tabletop roleplaying games have mechanics about killing things but no mechanics about sexual violence, so that tends to set expectations too.

Doesn't seem that fascinating to me. In real life, one's likelihood of being brutally murdered isn't that high. But the likelihood of being R-worded is uncomfortably high. Hence people's aversion to the subject. And it's a form of torture. I wouldn't be terribly happy playing a session where Steve the Rogue is going around torturing an entire family.

Why did you you use the term 'R-word' for the word 'rape but not 'T-word' for 'torture' or 'M-word' for 'murder'?

The glib response is that if you're trying to avoid triggering someone, I'd wager more people reading it have been raped than have been murdered.

> if you're trying to avoid triggering someone...

...then you probably won't succeed anyway, as triggers tend to be random associations.

> I'd wager more people reading it have been raped than have been murdered.

Source?

Ummm, murdered (dead) people probably can't read anymore, thus wouldn't be triggered?

And a murder-victim-to-be still probably wouldn't be triggered, since s/he hasn't "experienced" it yet.

That's how I interpreted the comment anyway :)

Are you suggesting these people are reading from beyond the grave?

That dichotomy exists in American society broadly. I remember an episode of Hannibal had to cover the butts of two dismembered corpses up with blood as to avoid a higher age rating for nudity

People don't mind role playing violence with friends but they don't want to role play sex with friends; I don't see this as unusual.

Sometimes players justify their actions with "but that's what my character would do"; there is a popular rpg.stackexchange post about it: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/37103/what-is-my-guy... .

It is interesting. I've played bad online games where the instant you generate someone kills you. I've played poker games where the board always freezes so you lose. The rape thing feels like the same thing. Bad game play and cheating.

I think you expect fighting but rarely sex in a game.

My thought is that there are many rape survivors, but there are no murder survivors.

But then again, what about the second-order effects on friends and family as a result of either sexual abuse or violence? Maybe the trauma belonging to the survivors themselves simply overpowers the rest (or not). What about people who survive murder attempts? Maybe being taken advantage of and treated as powerless applies more to sexual than physical trauma, since there are many cases where physical violence is the result of both sides retaliating in equal measure, or sometimes honorably, like for sport. I'm not sure.

It's sometimes philosophically interesting to try to define them explicitly, but let's start from an honest basis: the differences are obvious.

Also, I don't agree with the example: Steve wouldn't be invited back after either act. YMMV.

Are they obvious? From a logical standpoint, it's quite odd that actual murder is considered a worse crime than actual rape, but fantasy murder is much less objectionable than fantasy rape. It extends beyond roleplaying with other people. Fantasy murder is a feature of most videogames, but fantasy rape is limited to low-budget niche titles not offered on most digital or physical storefronts. I'd be interested in the psychology behind that. Could it perhaps be related to a perceived permanence? That is, maybe resetting the game more effectively un-murders the characters than it would un-rape one? Maybe it's relatability. Most of us have fantasized unseriously about murdering someone, be it in traffic or at work, but fewer of us regularly fantasize about raping someone. Other immoral acts such as animal abuse have some of the same taint as virtual rape and are similarly rare in the daily fantasies of the average person.

I think it's really a lot simpler. Most fantasy RPGs have combat and death simply because there is a conflict where there is no mediating authority. This is kind of central to the genre. So, "murdering" NPCs is a very small diagonal step from killing them in combat. It does not stand out.

Rape, on other hand, could hardly serve any acceptable in-game purpose (or real life purpose for that matter). Its purpose is to terrorize and psychologically maim -- something you never need to do to an NPC. An ally who rapes someone in-game is not furthering the quest, and moreover is doing something that is well outside the bounds of typical PC behavior.

In books, I really struggle to get through scenes where people are tortured and sometimes have to abandon stories because of it, whereas I have very little trouble with characters dying. I don’t think this is unusual.

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