Ya know, over in North America, we kinda see RPing as a form of "social contract".
As in: "We are all in this to have fun."
And by extension, that usually includes:
"Don't solve anything IC in OOC."
"Don't bring grudges OOC into OC."
"Don't gross other players out by doing something disgusting. - Unless everyone are into it
AND have said yes to it
before the session started."
What is a "Role Playing Game" really? I don't mean the advertisements we use to sweet talk others to join. "What is a Role Playing Game in essence?"
It's
"A bunch of people doing one thing for fun together."It doesn't have to be dragons and spells, you can do that with a football, a good LAN setup, or a bunch of brooms and some semi-round rocks. (BTW: Curling is a great game you know. The chess with the sweat so to speak.
)
So when in-game rape or baby-killing or Hitler-level-craps come up in game, VERY, VERY FEW times would we defend it, because it
grosses people out.Whereas your regular plain-ole-violence gets a pass? It's because its is almost always included when we get into it. It is part of the system, part of the game, and also most importantly
part of the expectation of playing a game.
For example:
Let's say you get someone who knows absolutely nothing about Roleplaying Games to play a game. Said person is religiously against violence of ANY kind in ANY form. You did not tell him you are playing a (for example) DnD game that involves a large amount of killing, and he did not know that.
So, the game starts with your group in the middle of a kill-or-be-kill fight. You as the GM is literally handing him a bloody cleaver and said: "Go right at it chap."
Can you blame the player to get angry and walk off at that point? You literally just challenged him on his bottom line without him ever being aware of it until that point. You might think "It's just a game! He got no cause to be that angry!"
But the fact is there is a social contract, where there are expectation of what to do and what not to do... You either didn't know about his bottom line, which makes both of you at fault... Or you knew about it and thought "it's gonna be finnnnne." which in that case makes you the one who sucks.
Either way, you're not gonna come out of that smelling like roses.
Most people are decent people. Seriously, I work in social service. There's a good side for 99.99% of the people out there.
(BTW: I am NOT saying anyone are not decent here, just that sometimes we all do forget "my kink is not your kink" and stuffs... That's called "Being human".)
In my line of work there are "Triggers" you don't spring on people.
Rape being one.
Baby-killings.
Graphic tortures.
Child Abuses.
Discriminations of all kinds.
When things like that comes up, most of the time you CANNOT expect people to have a good reaction to them. Because people are basically decent. - Or failing that, understands what is allowed and what is not in everyday life.
So when you use one of them, and people complains, you can't just go back to say, "It's just a game! Why so serious? I have my freedom of speech!" Because it is something that involves many people. Once you start doing that, you drag everyone into those things whether they like it or not: You essentially put
your personal freedom over
other's personal freedom of not getting involved in these things --- A more extreme example being: Claiming "you have a right to kill people" and at the same time ignoring other people's "right of not being killed by you."
Rights work both ways. And there are
always responsibilities for having those rights.
(Rights without responsibilities are just "entitlements"... That's another thing altogether.)
Carelessly using it, in this case, ended up ruining others' fun and causing another bunch of arguments.
Or even if you have the right to, let say, do what it is you did that led to this thread.
Other people will also same the same rights to
call you out on it.
Again, Rights work both ways.
The ONLY time when people shouldn't call you out on the fault is: During recruitment the GM
explicitly tells the players that "there might be things involving baby-killing, raping, torture, abuse, and pretty nasty stuffs you don't usually see in a game. You sure you wanna join?" In that case, you completed the social contract, and only liked-minded people should be playing in it... If some people later found themselves to be otherwise, that'd be their own problem. Nobody forced them to join in the first place. v=_=v
But with what's been done here in this case... It's just bad form.
