Dungeon Master Ethic's

[Desertrising]

Call it the philosopher in me but I was wondering if the great member's of this board could help me with a couple of questions regarding the ethic's of DMing?

How much evil is to much? Don't get me wrong I think the Darklord's are all extremely evil individual's and should be ran as such but is there a line you should not cross? What about the case of other non-darklord evil NPC's? Do you allow a villian to torture/rape/defile a player character if they get caught in their clutches? Or do you find a way to create a heroic rescue (and in so doing destroy the heart of gothic adventure)?

How about treating Player character's with a great deal of prejudice such as in the case of demi-human's and Calibans? Can this be taken to far? I feel that as long as it remains in the game it's all good but is there and ethical line I should consider?

I love Ravenloft for it's darkness and the element's of Gothic story telling, but can you take the pursuit of this darkness in the game to far?

Is it okay to portray the victimization of children? The abuse of both men and women? or should this remain in the background?

Let me know what you all think.

[Dark Whisper]

How much evil is to much?

This is something, that has to be decided by each group for itself; if a group consists of persons under the age of - say - 14, it would definitely be inappropriate to include rape. If you and your players are mature enough and agree, that you can accept such things and maintain the distinction between game and reality, you can do it. I would strongly recommend you to take with your players about such topics.

And there is one other thing to consider; it makes big difference, if something like torture or rape is inflicted upon a NPC or a PC; many players will accept (or, in small measures, even "like") such events if to happen to an NPC but won't be able to accept it happening to their PC.

How about treating Player character's with a great deal of prejudice such as in the case of demi-human's and Calibans?

Again, it depends on your group. As long as it is clearly ingame and not used too much (so that it is no longer special), it should be ok.

Is it okay to portray the victimization of children? The abuse of both men and women? or should this remain in the background?

I can only repeat myself; it depends on your DMing style, your groups playing style and the overall opinion of your group. I suggest you talk about this with your players, after you have asked yourself those questions and answered them for you; how far are you able and winlling to go in DMing ? Where are the lines, that you would not/never cross ?

[Scott C. Bourgeois]

These are all good questions, but ultimately they boil down to two questions that every GM should ask themselves before they start running the game.

1) How comfortable is my group with such adventures?
2) Is my group mature enough to handle it?

A good way to find out is to discuss the campaign with them before hand, and poll them about how squeamish they are. It totally sucks the fun out of the game is they group starts getting too uncomfortable with the games your running.

If you think your players are mature enough to roleplay through and enjoy the character development that such things as incest/racism/rape/torture/child killing/etc. can produce than feel free to add such elements to your game.

Personally, I only touch lightly on these more mature themes. I prefer to keep my games more gothic, yet heroic. Bad things will and do happen to the PC's, but nothing that would make my palyers uncomfortable, and nothing that would outright ruin a character.

Notably, my group is mature enough to handle such situations and probably enjoy them, but that's not quite the tone I look for in my Ravenloft games.

So, to recap, know your players, know their limits, and know the kind of campaing you want to run.

[Jennifer]

Hi all,
I can only agree with the other posters, check out the opinions of your players and yourself on these subjects.

Personally I feel Ravenloft is not suited to too explicit descriptions of abuse/ rape/ etc. I myself have some of these themes in my current campaign (the deceased mother of one of the characters told him in a letter he received after her death that he was the result of an assault by a not so noble nobleman). But I never state things too explicitly.

In the source material on which ravenloft was based these matters are also touched upon in very discreet words. bram Stokers dracula is brimming with all sorts of repressed sexual urges and tensions, but these all remain below the surface and are never named as such.

Jennifer

[Jester of the FoS]

Deal with the after effects but don't describe the attacsk unless the players are witnesses of some form. Leave some things obscure or mysterious, don't explain to the players exactly what happened but leave it clear.

As for the bad things happening to the players always make them occur on a time delay, slowly happen if the rest of the group can't act. Always give a potential for escape.

[Stygian Inquirer]

I find with my players (who are more of a hack 'n slash group) that I have to be much more evil than the average DM. Many of the players are not scared when they should be or are too immature about mature situations therefore, I have found that I have to play to the extreme much more often than I have had to in the past. Examples would be capitalizing on the party's weaknesses to almost an insane degree to get the same experience across.

[Fido]

If I were a player in a campaign with all these rape/torture/... things, I wouldn't feel comfortable in the gameworld. I think I wouldn't want Ravenloft to be more than the classic 'Weekend in hell'.

I'd say, watch out with these things, as maybe, after a few sessions, your players would urge for a return to Forgotten Realms or wherever they played before. You'd be playing out the misunderstanding of Ravenloft of a lot of people who think it's a PC-killing-device.

[alhoon]

These are all good questions, but ultimately they boil down to two questions that every GM should ask themselves before they start running the game.

1) How comfortable is my group with such adventures?
2) Is my group mature enough to handle it?

To recap, know your players, know their limits, and know the kind of campaing you want to run.

I agree wholeheartedly. With some groups, I have done these, while other players don't enjoy it and as a game it is meant to be enjoyed by the players as much as by the DM.

[Troile]

I'd say, watch out with these things, as maybe, after a few sessions, your players would urge for a return to Forgotten Realms or wherever they played before. You'd be playing out the misunderstanding of Ravenloft of a lot of people who think it's a PC-killing-device.

There is always this assumption that people come to Ravenloft from other d&d backgrounds.

Personally I will never play any d&d that isn't Ravenloft.

I came from a V:tm background myself so I guess I'm looking at things the other way around.

My players don't come from a gaming background at all but all is good.

I'm pretty sure they'd quickly become extremely bored with traditional d&d.

Personally I find all these conflicts to be too much with V:tm thats why I play Ravenloft now...But some of it is entirely acceptable. Especially considering the subject matter.

Pretending things aren't as bad as they are isn't the way to go in my games...

[Steve Miller]

Do you allow a villian to torture/rape/defile a player character if they get caught in their clutches?

Never.

How about treating Player character's with a great deal of prejudice such as in the case of demi-human's and Calibans? Can this be taken to far?

Yes to both, but make sure the player understands that you're running a racist/speciest game setting before they choose to play a character hated by most of those around him. And make sure that you give him the opportunity to change some NPC hearts and minds if he tries.

Is it okay to portray the victimization of children? The abuse of both men and women? or should this remain in the background?

I've done both with great effect. Make sure you know who's at your table before you let things like that into the campaign.

[AlterEgo]

It should also be noted that certain topics may make people feel uncomfortable due to events in their lives or even their family's lives. Don't forget how much horror and prejudice goes on out there in the real world. You may never know about a person's past and it may be a tough topic for them to discuss openly.

[Faust]

Well as a dm , i play only with players i know a lot: I know their taboos and what make them uncomfrotable... and i use it... I mean ravenloft if a mix of horror and heroism right? And i want the player to feel wrong when I do my quest.. hard to explain but lets just say that I often ressort to gruesome and sick stuff even when I play normal dnd.

Some people will argue that subtelity is better but trust me read an interview with a serial killer... he is far form subtle in any way but he is disturbing...

As for traumatised people... well before playing my game people know me from out of game so they know before hand that I can bring really distrubing and sick stuff.

"I love Ravenloft for it's darkness and the element's of Gothic story telling, but can you take the pursuit of this darkness in the game to far? "

Can you amke a comedy that is to funny? Same thing with horror trust, people in the begining considerit sick and thye feel uncomfortable, but after that they want to feel the same again even if its negative emotion... why? I dont know , I am neither a psychologist or a sociologist, but I know people seem to search for this feeling, if not the whole horror genre would have gone bankrupt a long time ago...

[Hrtofdrkns]

This reminds me of my first (and still going) campaign. My players are an odd bunch. One actually asked me if I could have his male character be raped by demons as a child. He wanted that to be his reason to hunt demons. I said no, I didn't think I could handle that. Eventually we worked out a compremize(sp?).

He decided that his character hated elves because an elf killed his father. At the begining he would threaten to kill an elf he saw in his favorite bar. Little did he know that he had a half-elf brother. Now he has rexamined his predjudices and decided that mabey elves are not vermin.

What I'm trying to say is that I agree with what has been said. However dark your campaign is, don't smother hope. The horrific can be endured if there is hope.

To give an example, while any rape in my campaign will take place off screen, I make frequent use of murder and human sacrifice. In a recent session my players stumbled onto a group of cultists in the middle of a sacrifice. Over twenty people had already had their throats cut. Except for one eight-year-old girl. They arrived just as she was being tied to the blood-soaked altar.

After the cultists were dead, the question of what to do with the girl came up. I assumed that they would take her to the nearest good-aligned temple and leave her in the care of the priests. Instead, the players wanted to keep her and raise her as their own. I thought about this for a second and realized that this was the perfect end to the session. Hope had returned.

Sorry. Sometimes I ramble on.

[Hrtofdrkns]

Also, remember that no matter how gothic your campaign, a little humor can go a long way.

In one of my first sessions the players were hunting an undead creature that had been terrorizing the forest. I told them that they heard a noise in the bushes. A player immediatly attacked the sound, and hit for 2 points of damage.

When they parted the bushes, they saw a nude woman with a nude man who was rubbing his head and cursing loudly. I thought the players would never stop laughing!

[Manofevil]

I think the best way to handle rape and any other sexual aspect would be for the DM to first watch a few episodes of 'Law & Order, SVU'. In this show, the detectives are always confronted with the victims of the crimes, always sexual in nature, and have to reconstruct what happened from the evidence and whatever testimony they get from witnesses or (unique to this show) the traumatized victims. I should think that this last part would be the most difficult role for a DM to put forward. The show however can be a good resource for this. There are lots of usable details that can be applied to game play, like having the victim so traumatized that all the PCs have to leave the room except one female PC who must question her very gently. Course' an NPC might be necessary to get them to think of it.

Also, this entire exchange makes me feel the need to share my very first (literallly) Ravenloft session. Not long after I first bought and read the Black Box, I attended a convention. A friend of mine, a couple we met there, and I all had a hallway session. No maps. No sourcebooks. Not even any dice. Just our imaginations. The girl we met wanted to play a psychotic sexually obsessed homicidal seductress. The rest of us were just characters powerful enough to stay alive. Needless to say, the girl began to fail powers checks left and right. She sprouted horns, claws, fangs, glowing eyes... then she grew scales on her arms. She was a magic user and tried everthing she could to get rid of those scales. She had a regular complex about them. In the end she became a darklord who lived in a castle surrounded by various kinds of reflective surfaces, mirrors, polished tiles and tabletops, anything that might give her the slightest reflection of herself, which she saw as the horrible scaly monster that she so loathed. We actually got pretty inventive with her curse. The castle became a sort of personal whorehouse for her in which she would seduce and bed victims and while they were 'going at it' as it were, she would change into her monstrous self and devour said victims and then for a short time see herself in her former gorgeous humanity. So I guess, in the end, horror comes from hitting the right buttons in your players .