BattleMaster Community
BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Miriam Ics on April 23, 2013, 10:40:06 PM
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Since yesterday we have a long discussion at Thalmarkin, basically after Cat said she wouldn't rape, by any means.
There were other events but this was what started it.
For me, rape is a word that solely brings only bad feelings. It is maybe, the worse fear of most women and currently a problem that is beginning to be discussed around the world, due to some tragic events, such as the suicide of some women who could not bear the consequences (I really don't think we need to discuss details).
Of course this is a game and I should not bother with this, but I have been in many battles during all those years and every time we were allowed KRB, it showed the worst actions and role plays of players too. Yesterday it was not different. A simple order to KRB began a series of comments that could/should not have been made. Nothing too bad but I wonder how the girls/women there feel when we have order to KRB. No one said anything yet. Only one that I think is a girl started a referendum.
Text of the referendum:
We, the nobles of Thalmarkin, acknowledge it is both just and militarily necessary to kill and plunder foreign lands.
We will perform such severe actions only under proper coordination by recognized leadership. Our brutally in doing so, will be unmatched. To ensure the utmost of ruination upon our foes, we shall restrain ourselves and our men from the distraction of seizing carnal treasures. Victory is not to be found in stolen carnal booty.
Our victims will be slain in great numbers, yet with their, and more importantly our, honor intact.
So I think I would like to know how other players feel about this and why do we have this option in a game where we have kids playing.
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Although I agree that rape is a touchy subject, it is appropriate for the game. If you order a band of men to kill civilians and perform wanton destruction where they can, it implies that they will commit all kinds of modern-day war crimes. We as players should abstain from being graphic, our characters as nobles shouldn't personally engage in such behavior (and we can enforce this IC with the vulgarity report option), but it is a viable option for the game setting.
The "Kill, Rape, Burn" should be a hot button topic between realms, though. Your men may kill a few guards who wouldn't stand down while pilfering tax gold (how I always saw a few villager deaths with less aggressive options), but to order your men (or for a general/marshal to order the armies) to slaughter the innocent should spark outrage and hatred. CHARACTER hatred, not player.
We play a game where we create villains and heroes. Sometimes villains do dark things.
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Tom, and to some extent the rest of those on the dev team, do not believe that it is our job to shield children from the realities of the world.
I would not, in any way, support graphic roleplays of rape or other gruesome scenes being posted publicly. None of us here condone rape, or believe that it is good to glorify it in any way.
However, as unfortunate and unpleasant as it is, in the milieu in which BattleMaster is set, rape of peasants in war was commonplace, and I don't believe it's appropriate to trivialize it by simply ignoring its existence, either.
There is very little that the particular option is better at than other looting methods. If someone orders it, then they should have a very good reason why they choose it rather than the other methods. If they don't, then raise holy hell about it.
I think that provoking heated, completely in-character discussions about the validity of such actions is totally acceptable, and something that I would hope to see options like this do within the game.
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You have a problem with raping, but not killing or burning. This is related to Hollywood style conditioning which glamorizes violence and abhors female sexuality. Essentially you have been conditioned to uphold a certain set of moral standards which, like all moral standards, can not be justified on a basis of reason. Given that there is a propensity for moderns to share these views, this is not a problem. The goal of a service provider, after all, is not to justify what it does on a moral basis, but rather to placate it's patrons.
Given that the need is solely to satisfy the fanbase, the fact that the fanbase at large has not indicated interest in this is enough to dismiss it.
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I've spoken out strongly before on the forum against RPs that contain rape. Personally, I don't think its an appropriate subject for gameplay and I don't like to see it. But, equally, I'm not going to force my sense of morality on someone else playing in a fictional virtual world if they want to create a really evil villain.
Like Anaris said, in the sort of era of time that Battlemaster is set, rape was fairly common between rival nations/tribes (the Vikings being the obvious example, but also all sorts of other peoples). Characters (or realms) that choose to send their troops to rape should be a hot topic in-game/IC. They should also face lasting consequences of it personally or diplomatically (as characters, that is). Where there's a real problem is when it just happens and there's no IC response to it at all.
It's worth noting that our characters can do many other very grim acts in the game. Many of the looting options can be likened to acts of genocide but, again, that is the sort of era of time with which we're dealing and there are historical grounds for it (e.g. after the Norman conquest of England in 1066 AD, King William murdered 90% of the Saxon population of northern England in the worst act of genocide ever to be carried out on British soil).
Still, miriam, if you're saying that some of the comments that were made IG seemed to glorify rape, I think that's something that might need to be looked into, but it's impossible to say without knowing what the comments were.
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I've spoken out strongly before on the forum against RPs that contain rape. Personally, I don't think its an appropriate subject for gameplay and I don't like to see it. But, equally, I'm not going to force my sense of morality on someone else playing in a fictional virtual world if they want to create a really evil villain.
Why? I think the contrast between the brutality of medieval warfare and life and the chivalrous code is a large part of what makes the setting interesting.
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You have a problem with raping, but not killing or burning. This is related to Hollywood style conditioning which glamorizes violence and abhors female sexuality. Essentially you have been conditioned to uphold a certain set of moral standards which, like all moral standards, can not be justified on a basis of reason. Given that there is a propensity for moderns to share these views, this is not a problem. The goal of a service provider, after all, is not to justify what it does on a moral basis, but rather to placate it's patrons.
Given that the need is solely to satisfy the fanbase, the fact that the fanbase at large has not indicated interest in this is enough to dismiss it.
Go back to Reddit. Rape has nothing to do with "female sexuality" and everything to do with disgusting physical and mental torture. We can be pro-soldiers killing our enemies and against them torturing our enemies.
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Why? I think the contrast between the brutality of medieval warfare and life and the chivalrous code is a large part of what makes the setting interesting.
That's true enough. In fact, one of the reasons that chivalry was created was to put restraints on what a person could and couldn't do in terms of violence. One theory is that part of why the chivalric code came into being was to protect noblewomen from male violence.
Specifically in terms of the game, I don't think it's appropriate because having an option to rape is just an arbitary choice, and many modern players (women, in particular) will feel uneasy about it. Equally, saying character's soldiers have the option to rape because it happened in history will only carry the argument so far. For example, there's the 'Kill, rape, and burn' option. But there isn't an option that says 'Kill babies' or 'kill everyone with a different skin tone'. Both of those things happened in medieval times (and are still happening) but there are no options to do that in the game, presumably for moral reasons.
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That's true enough. In fact, one of the reasons that chivalry was created was to put restraints on what a person could and couldn't do in terms of violence. One theory is that part of why the chivalric code came into being was to protect noblewomen from male violence.
Specifically in terms of the game, I don't think it's appropriate because having an option to rape is just an arbitary choice, and many modern players (women, in particular) will feel uneasy about it. Equally, saying character's soldiers have the option to rape because it happened in history will only carry the argument so far. For example, there's the 'Kill, rape, and burn' option. But there isn't an option that says 'Kill babies' or 'kill everyone with a different skin tone'. Both of those things happened in medieval times (and are still happening) but there are no options to do that in the game, presumably for morale reasons.
Rape happened a lot more than racial genocide or infanticide, though. This was an era where rape was considered a spoil of war - even if knights wouldn't participate in it themselves, most would turn a blind eye to it. It boosted morale.
This was an era where actually attacking a castle was an almost suicidal proposition. The best thing to do was to roam around the countryside, committing as many atrocities as possible in order to force them out of the castle to attack you, either because you were destroying their food source or because they were legitimately disgusted. Rape was a large part of it.
I don't deny that it's a disgusting thing, but I think ignoring it does a disservice to exactly how barbaric and awful this era actually was.
Obviously some people don't want to read disgusting things, but you can just skim over a RP if you're getting hints that it's of a less-than-tasteful nature.
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Rape happened a lot more than racial genocide or infanticide, though. This was an era where rape was considered a spoil of war - even if knights wouldn't participate in it themselves, most would turn a blind eye to it. It boosted morale.
This was an era where actually attacking a castle was an almost suicidal proposition. The best thing to do was to roam around the countryside, committing as many atrocities as possible in order to force them out of the castle to attack you, either because you were destroying their food source or because they were legitimately disgusted. Rape was a large part of it.
I don't deny that it's a disgusting thing, but I think ignoring it does a disservice to exactly how barbaric and awful this era actually was.
Obviously some people don't want to read disgusting things, but you can just skim over a RP if you're getting hints that it's of a less-than-tasteful nature.
I think you ignored the whole latter part of the argument that specifically said "because it happened in history" will only carry the argument so far. By including the option to do so, you're alienating part of the potential player base.
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I think you ignored the whole latter part of the argument that specifically said "because it happened in history" will only carry the argument so far. By including the option to do so, you're alienating part of the potential player base.
I think the brutalilty of the setting is an integral part of it. We risk alienating people whose families have suffered genocide by including genocidal actions, or alienating veterans with PTSD by including war, or maybe allowing our soldiers to hire prostitutes will alienate the former prostitutes among us. If seeing the words "x has raped, pillaged, and marauded" in a report brings you flashbacks, maybe it's time to get a therapist and stop blaming an online text-based strategy game.
I don't want to play a game that's sterilized and clean. For me, that's an integral part of the game. I think it gives it substance and makes the world more real. The devs obviously agree. Just skim over the distasteful RPs.
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Hell, Norrel, I like you and I get where you're coming from, but by your logic I should be able to post sexually-explicit roleplays involving cattle and people should just "skim over" it without saying anything.
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I think the brutalilty of the setting is an integral part of it. We risk alienating people whose families have suffered genocide by including genocidal actions, or alienating veterans with PTSD by including war, or maybe allowing our soldiers to hire prostitutes will alienate the former prostitutes among us. If seeing the words "x has raped, pillaged, and marauded" in a report brings you flashbacks, maybe it's time to get a therapist and stop blaming an online text-based strategy game.
I don't want to play a game that's sterilized and clean. For me, that's an integral part of the game. I think it gives it substance and makes the world more real. The devs obviously agree. Just skim over the distasteful RPs.
You mean how we just 'skimmed' over Glaumring's Swastika role plays?
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Hell, Norrel, I like you and I get where you're coming from, but by your logic I should be able to post sexually-explicit roleplays involving cattle and people should just "skim over" it without saying anything.
First of all, I would find that hilarious. But that's just me. I don't think anyone's going to get traumatized by reading that and yeah, just skim over it if it's disturbing. Obviously the guy writing it is a bit of a prick and you're well within your rights to call him out on it, just as he's within his rights to keep on truckin'.
You sign an invisible contract when you get on the internet, and that's that you might have to interact with people you don't want to. Ignore lists exist for those extremely rare few who do actually post disgusting crap like that.
Rape's more offensive than cattle !@#$ery, at least to me, anyways.
There's a difference between being sick and edgy for the sake of it and writing well. We shouldn't punish the latter because of the chance of the former occurring.
I also don't think that people should be explicit in their public RPs, and it's far more tasteful (and better writing) to just hint at it, or at least to not describe it vividly. Why does this mean we should restrict it, though? Some people are !@#$ty writers.
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You mean how we just 'skimmed' over Glaumring's Swastika role plays?
Swastikas are just Glaumring trying to be edgy. They don't build up the world, they don't develop the character, they're just him being a dickhead. If he wanted to build up a fascist regime and start a campaign of genocide, I'd be down with that. I might even join him. Swastikas are just immersion-breaking and exclusively inflammatory.
Rape and other atrocities build the world and they build characters. Cow !@#$ing and swastikas don't. Arguments to absurdity only work if the two things are mutually comparable.
Before you say anything else, please differentiate between why rape should be removed and genocide, whoring, and war should not be.
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Pretty sure there were plenty of cow-!@#$ers in medieval times.
The real problem, where this all snowballs, is those pricks you mentioned, the malefactors that we as denizens of the world wide web all have to deal with. Once rape gets introduced into the meta someone is gonna get way too into it, and ignoring it isn't always an option. I trust good writers like you to be careful with it but again as you pointed out some people are just !@#$ty writers. There's nothing we can do about that other than head them off at the pass and not be a bunch of weirdos that sit around reading rape RPs.
I sure as !@#$ don't want my significant other to think I'm over here playing nasty rape games with strange men on the internet. That's not what BM is about, which is a sentiment I'm sure you can agree with.
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Why not remove genocidal actions? People might get too into it in RPs as well, since it's part of the meta. Or what about prostitutes? Wouldn't want people to think you're playing a virtual Pimp Hitler simulator either, right?
I don't see an epidemic of gruesome rape RPs. Once it exists, then maybe something should be done. But rape's been in the game forever and I don't see rivers of bodily fluids running down the streets. Nor do I see people dressed in all purple sieging their heils.
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I feel like we are all taking this out of proportion. First of all, It's an internet game. A game! You don't see this same reaction of torture or the murder of peasants or starvation or executions. Rape is just another grim reality of life. it happens. Second, I feel like we should all be adult enough to put this in perspective. It isn't as if the game is vividly describing it and if an RP goes to far report it for vulgarity.
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Why not remove genocidal actions? People might get too into it in RPs as well, since it's part of the meta. Or what about prostitutes? Wouldn't want people to think you're playing a virtual Pimp Hitler simulator either, right?
I don't see an epidemic of gruesome rape RPs. Once it exists, then maybe something should be done. But rape's been in the game forever and I don't see rivers of bodily fluids running down the streets. Nor do I see people dressed in all purple sieging their heils.
Are you mad that I didn't answer your tangent? Ok. Genocide is not presented within the game in the same context that would offend people. There's no racially-motivated genocide, there's no religiously-motivated genocide, there's stabbing every human being in the throat genocide.
If I told my mother, my boss, my friends that I played a game where I'm a knight and I do !@#$%^& knight things like burn down villages that's fine. If I mentioned there was a specific option to seek out and rape women then suddenly things look very different.
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I don't think looting options are BM's major selling points.
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Are you mad that I didn't answer your tangent? Ok. Genocide is not presented within the game in the same context that would offend people. There's no racially-motivated genocide, there's no religiously-motivated genocide, there's stabbing every human being in the throat genocide.
If I told my mother, my boss, my friends that I played a game where I'm a knight and I do !@#$%^& knight things like burn down villages that's fine. If I mentioned there was a specific option to seek out and rape women then suddenly things look very different.
It's equally as tangential as bestiality.
You choose which regions to commit genocide in. You can roleplay that it's religiously or racially motivated. Just like you can roleplay that it's women your character is permitting the rape of.
Nowhere in the game does it say that women are the only targets. Unit commanders can be male or female, soldiers can as well, and I don't believe the targets are at all mentioned, by the game, as being women. You are committing "raping every human being" pillaging, as far as the game's concerned.
I don't want my entire world to be sterile and politically correct and I want to be able to roleplay in a world that's realistically grounded, not one that's been wiped clean by the PC police. I read books that have rape in them and I'm not publicly ashamed about that, it's part of the setting. It makes it interesting. Should we ban Game of Thrones because a preteen gets raped in one of the opening chapters? Because it has an anti-war theme that says that war isn't knights in shining armor, it's innocent people being brutalized in the name of politics they don't comprehend? As long as it's not glorified or celebrated, wtf is wrong with it?
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If I mentioned there was a specific option to seek out and rape women then suddenly things look very different.
Yeah, but there isn't. It's an option to Murder, Rape, and Pillage. It's like a blanket 'baddie' option. There is no specific emphasis on rape, actually contrary. You get a report of people you killed, stuff you took, but not how many women your men enjoyed.
So long as people aren't graphic, the mere mention of horrible things should be fairly benign. If someone is too graphic for your taste, the ignore function is there for your convenience. If it is exceptionally bad, report it to the magistrates (possibly a PM rather than fully posting it). We can have our characters do uncivil things, so long as we as players are civil about it.
You have a problem with raping, but not killing or burning.
I understand what you mean, but I admit you do sound like a dick when you say it. Rape is strangely more taboo than murder, yet murder is the foulest thing possible. Sex has a strange way of eliciting stronger responses from people than life and death.
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I understand what you mean, but I admit you do sound like a dick when you say it. Rape is strangely more taboo than murder, yet murder is the foulest thing possible. Sex has a strange way of eliciting stronger responses from people than life and death.
I disagree. Murder can be justified, rape cannot. Also Kwanstein implied that rape is an expression of female sexuality, so he clearly doesn't just sound like a dick.
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Game of Thrones
!@#$ Game of Thrones. Apart from the numerous other reasons anyone might not like the series, it commits the ultimate sin of being boring as hell.
Sex has a strange way of eliciting stronger responses from people than life and death.
Rape is not about sex. People are not offended by rape because they're being prudes.
Aaaand I'm out. *Drops mic on stage.*
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!@#$ Game of Thrones.
How about any other medium that includes rape? History books? The Saxon Stories? The Vikings TV show? The news? The Bible? Shakespeare? Are you embarrassed to speak to your (dickishly judgmental) friends about that? Should they be banned? Would your wife dump you for reading Titus Andronicus? You're just being a creeper reading a creepy story by some creepy old guy about rape, after all.
Pretending you've won this argument because Dishman said something stupid and offensive is pretty disingenuous. I think rappers are only allowed to drop the mic if they kick ass.
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To address the "slippery slope" argument (which I will remind everyone is a classic logical fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope#Fallacy)):
If someone posts a specific roleplay that you feel goes too far, then please take the appropriate actions, to wit, first talk to them OOC, and if they stand behind what they've done, report it to the Magistrates. That sort of thing would pretty clearly fall under the "playing with friends" clause.
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So I think I would like to know how other players feel about this and why do we have this option in a game where we have kids playing.
I started playing this game when I was thirteen, this medieval simulation game where there is genocide, murder, starvation, torture, and yes, rape. Don't think I'm suffering from any permanent effects.
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there's no religiously-motivated genocide,
Yes there is. There is a game mechanic specifically intended as religious persecution. I believe the option is titled something like "Persecute Heretics". It often causes the deaths of multiple hundreds, and potentially thousands, in religous riots.
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Or consider the auto da fé.
More to the point: yes, raping is abominable.
So treat it as such. IC movements to shun characters known for such actions or to villainize realms that are known to make a practice of KRBing do in fact occur. Witness how wary most realms are about deploying KRB-style looting, and how, nearly every time it is used on a large scale, it provokes some degree of diplomatic outcry.
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On Dwilight, when Caerwyn attacked Astrum, they used a lot of KRB. When their general later seceded Itau to form Itaulond, his use of KRB is what caused us to reject his formation of his new realm, even though it basically killed Caerwyn and brought the end of the war very close. In fact, that player's entire family is well known for the use of that tactic.
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I have to agree with Norrel here.
I see BM as a collaborative story. A story that has heroes and villains. A story that depicts horrible acts and honorable ones.
Some players might take this too far and get too personal and that might prove problematic but I have not had such issues here. Heck, I have personally written a few RPs that might be considered borderline. I like to think they were tasteful, but others might disagree. Generally, such RPs are just contributions to the story in my opinion. They add flavor and depth to this collaborative work we all enjoy.
Additionally, I have no problem with works of fiction depicting rape, so I have no problem seeing it depicted in character, in game. Just as I do not automatically consider an author who writes a rape scene as a twisted freak, I will likewise not assume the same of a player that writes a RP about rape.
If i feel that someone is getting out of line, I will talk to them OOC, report it, ignore them or all of the above. There are ways of dealing with this both in character and out of character.
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In SMA KRB should be the only loot option that doesn't incur a morale penalty.
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In SMA KRB should be the only loot option that doesn't incur a morale penalty.
I agree that it should have some effect on morale (maybe by giving it to KRBers instead of taking it away from people who don't), but I get the feeling that a lot of people would go nuts.
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Yeah unfortunately neckbeards are both middle ages enthusiastic and massive white knights.
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Anaris said a lot of my thoughts, and Kwanstein has rounded it up.
One, I don't think we need to be overprotective, even of children. The world isn't all nice and fluffy and by the time they can read and play a game like this, they already know that. Having people deal with these subjects in a safe way like a game, book, play, etc. is probably the absolute best option we have, definitely better than 1st hand experience.
Two, rape is horrible. If you think it is the most horrible thing that people are capable of, think again - we are a lot more creative than that. Do NOT follow this link if you are squeamish or want to sleep tonight, and that's even though the one image in it is perfectly SFW: http://www.mintpressnews.com/court-taylor-responsible-for-sierra-leone-crimes/ -- quite honestly, if I were given a choice between that and being raped, I'd take the rape any day. And I'm a man, you know what that means. Nevertheless, all these things are horrible and the world could use a lot less of all of them.
Three, rape is part of the game because it is part of war in the setting of the game. From the bible to at least WW2, rape was an official part of the doctrine of warfare, with official orders of mass-rape existing. After WW2 I think it pretty much became officially disliked, but you'd have to be living in a fantasy world to think it's not very much a part of war today.
And finally, I do believe that if this inclusion triggers some in-character interaction and some out-of-character thinking about the matter, we've all done ourselves a service. Ignoring evil things by pretending they don't exist is the worst way of handling them. Unfortunately, it's become the modus operandi of the western world.
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That's true enough. In fact, one of the reasons that chivalry was created was to put restraints on what a person could and couldn't do in terms of violence. One theory is that part of why the chivalric code came into being was to protect noblewomen from male violence.
Specifically in terms of the game, I don't think it's appropriate because having an option to rape is just an arbitary choice, and many modern players (women, in particular) will feel uneasy about it. Equally, saying character's soldiers have the option to rape because it happened in history will only carry the argument so far. For example, there's the 'Kill, rape, and burn' option. But there isn't an option that says 'Kill babies' or 'kill everyone with a different skin tone'. Both of those things happened in medieval times (and are still happening) but there are no options to do that in the game, presumably for moral reasons.
Odds are the TLs aren't doing the raping, but the troops are. And the chivalric code was far from universally adopted... raping certainly existed back then, as it does today. Warfare always generates a lot of it.
Maybe there should be a "kill babies" options. As for skin tone, I don't think that medieval europe had quite a lot of that. Different skin tones were in foreign lands. At which point any case of killing was killing different skin tones.
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Odds are the TLs aren't doing the raping, but the troops are. And the chivalric code was far from universally adopted... raping certainly existed back then, as it does today. Warfare always generates a lot of it.
The reason this thread was started was, I believe, the amount of graphical rape-related RP in Thalmarkin, where it was the nobles who portrayed their bloodlust. Not just their soldiers.
Maybe adopting the habit of adding a [NSFW] tag to any RP containing graphical imagery would be enough to satifsy all parties?
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No...I think that strongly discouraging "graphical rape-related RP" is actually a good way of going forward, personally.
I don't see any good reason to want that kind of thing in BattleMaster. There's quite a long distance from "this is something that happened in the period, and it would be foolish to try to ignore it" to "yes, please describe your heinous, brutal acts in as much detail as possible, please."
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No...I think that strongly discouraging "graphical rape-related RP" is actually a good way of going forward, personally.
I don't see any good reason to want that kind of thing in BattleMaster. There's quite a long distance from "this is something that happened in the period, and it would be foolish to try to ignore it" to "yes, please describe your heinous, brutal acts in as much detail as possible, please."
I would be on board for this.
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No...I think that strongly discouraging "graphical rape-related RP" is actually a good way of going forward, personally.
I don't see any good reason to want that kind of thing in BattleMaster. There's quite a long distance from "this is something that happened in the period, and it would be foolish to try to ignore it" to "yes, please describe your heinous, brutal acts in as much detail as possible, please."
Yeah, I don't think people want to read that, and even if they do, this is not the place to find it, or write it...
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If it is that bad, start reporting it to the Magistrates.
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When I started this, I really wanted to know what people think about this, specially the women that play this game, but I guess we are too few. I wanted also to know why we have this option, and Tom and Anaris answered it, so thank you.
I had no formed opinion about this and that's why I posted it here. It was something that was bothering me and that I think cannot be treated slightly as it has been.
Kill, rape and burn is terrible and need to be treated as terrible, is my opinion. There are other things worse than rape, indeed and Sierra Leona is only one of them. This doesn't mean everything less terrible can be accepted.
My conclusion about this is that from now on I will deal with it in a different way IC. Cat will still refuse to KRB (and I still don't see how we can send women to KRB) and deal with the consequences of it.
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It may surprise some of you that similar discussions were had ... by actual medieval nobles!
The salient points here:
- It is true that we have a really hard time imagining the brutality not just of war but of everyday life in the middle ages. There is a reason why one of the seminal books on the subject is called 'the calamitous 14th Century.' Not the 'mostly pretty bad' - but calamity. Disaster. Oh !@#$ bad.
- Nobles would be hardened to this kind of thing in wartime, and to some extent even women, at least the ones who went along for long campaigns - but 'hardened to' doesn't mean 'accepting.' Chivalry regulated the behavior of nobles, not your regular guy in the army, and for the bulk of the middle ages armies were not professional soldiers with discipline but levies. One of the unwritten rewards for going on campaign was that you could help yourself to whatever loot and ladies you could get. 'Sacking a city' meant 'stealing everything that wasn't bolted down, kidnapping or at least borrowing all the womenfolk, and burning part or all of it down.'
- Some resistance to this sort of thing is not ahistorical. Henry V famously forbade his army from this kind of thing, but it was a really big deal that he did and that he was able to enforce it. Shakespeare mentions this in the arc between Henry IV and Henry V when then-Prince Hal has a bunch of unsavory drinking buddies who go on campaign with him to France in Henry V as soldiers. One of them does 'loot'. Prior to that:
(Henry IV Act I. ii)
FALSTAFF: Yea, and so used it that were it not here apparent
that thou art heir apparent--But, I prithee, sweet
wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when
thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is
with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do
not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.
PRINCE HENRY: No; thou shalt.
This is interpreted (by Falstaff) as a big joke, like 'you'll be in charge of hanging thieves,' but the double entendre is that Falstaff will himself be hanged as a thief, which (** SHAKESPEARE SPOILERS **) is exactly what happens - in France while on campaign.
The repugnance of the issue is not new. Nobles that were inclined to do it would probably be more likely to do it at home with the villager's daughter than on the warpath - remember that peasants were 'dirty' so it's not like other nobles would high five you for running around the city you'd just sacked and helping yourself, though I'm sure there were exceptions as chivalry was hardly universal. Particularly the Albigensian Crusade where you had French people killing other French people, women and children included - if you were going to burn them at the stake anyway, probably your usual social mores might get suspended, since the guys doing the killing in that one were not your Round Table types.
I thought that Jenred went about this the right way on the FEI. He presented it as a question of self-interest: anything that damaged food production damaged the realm - somebody's realm - so by burning farmland or bushels you might be hurting yourself (and this idea was helped by a long starvation period).
One issue with BM's implementation of this is that the motivation for letting your soldiers get away with that stuff isn't present in BM. If you were a 12th century noble with a thousand guys under your command and you were five hundred miles from home, you had better be paying them a lot (unlikely) or else giving them a lot of distractions, of which this was one. BM's 'troop morale' sort of takes this into account but even being the historical nut that I am I would have a hard time writing code for 'push rape button, get morale bonus.' And I'm fine with that disconnect.
My only complaint on the subject is when people write RPs about it involving their nobles. Not that it couldn't happen because it certainly could, but because frankly we're just not good enough writers to address that kind of thing and have the result be anything other than vulgar. RP can do a lot of things - it can narrate a story, enhance a setting, or reveal something about a character or characters that is applicable somehow to the game. Rape is just one of the third rails of writing fiction and I have never, ever seen it employed to good effect in BM. It's tough to make policy based on that idea but if it were up to me, I'd just have it on the list of things you probably just shouldn't RP, ever.
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As for skin tone, I don't think that medieval europe had quite a lot of that. Different skin tones were in foreign lands. At which point any case of killing was killing different skin tones.
You're wrong. It was pretty widespread inside medieval Europe too. Jews were often identified by skin tone, and it wasn't that unusual for them to be massacred wholesale. See, for example, the Clifford's Tower massacre in York: http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/norman/the-1190-massacre (http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/norman/the-1190-massacre).
There's also the gypsies/roma who migrated to Europe during the Middles Ages and have been persecuted ever since (often being identified by their skin tone: http://euroheritage.net/gypsieshistory.shtml (http://euroheritage.net/gypsieshistory.shtml)).
I know that's getting away from the main point of this thread, but I thought it was good to point it out.
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I dont think we need to stay strict to the point.
I have my answer yet. We can go deep in any other discussion related to the main point. Scarlett said it beutifuly. We are not writers, every RP end up just being vulgar.
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When I started this, I really wanted to know what people think about this, specially the women that play this game, but I guess we are too few. I wanted also to know why we have this option, and Tom and Anaris answered it, so thank you.
I think this is an absolutely legitimate concern, and one where the modern era should take precedence over ideological purity to the period in which BM is set.
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I agree only in the sense that graphic rape RP is just generally distasteful. Rape occurs in BM every day.
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It may surprise some of you that similar discussions were had ... by actual medieval nobles!
Scarlett, that entire post was just fantastic. Thank you very much.
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No...I think that strongly discouraging "graphical rape-related RP" is actually a good way of going forward, personally.
I don't see any good reason to want that kind of thing in BattleMaster. There's quite a long distance from "this is something that happened in the period, and it would be foolish to try to ignore it" to "yes, please describe your heinous, brutal acts in as much detail as possible, please."
There's a difference between graphically RPing it, and putting it in RP. I'd have to view the RPs in question to make a judgement, but indeed, if someone spends 20 lines to describe a rape before passing on to the next, no, that's not really desirable. Briefly writing that a character indulges himself is another matter, however.
You're wrong. It was pretty widespread inside medieval Europe too. Jews were often identified by skin tone, and it wasn't that unusual for them to be massacred wholesale. See, for example, the Clifford's Tower massacre in York: http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/norman/the-1190-massacre (http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/norman/the-1190-massacre).
There's also the gypsies/roma who migrated to Europe during the Middles Ages and have been persecuted ever since (often being identified by their skin tone: http://euroheritage.net/gypsieshistory.shtml (http://euroheritage.net/gypsieshistory.shtml)).
I know that's getting away from the main point of this thread, but I thought it was good to point it out.
Identified by skin tone does not mean killed for it. Medieval Christians had plenty of "reasons" to loathe Jews. And from what I know of the roma, without in any way justifying enthic persecution, their skin tone wasn't the reason cited for discrimination. I do not believe either of these cases compare to modern-day recism, where people are categorized by skin tone, and not merely identified by it. A Jew is a "Jew", not a "differently skin-toned person". It's not the same as defining someone as "black" or "nigger", regardless of his cultural ties and origins.
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I do not believe either of these cases compare to modern-day recism,
The easy explanation here is that it was pretty unusual to see mixed races in one place. A black dude in London in 1099 would draw a lot of attention.
On the other hand, after the Norman Conquest, you had a lot of Saxon/Norman racism. I am not sure I fully grasp your distinction between 'identified' and 'categorized,' but even talking about two groups of white people from Northwestern Europe, the racial enmity was pretty serious. The two cultures eventually merged into 'English' - aided in part by the rise of a vernacular language (Middle English) and a national identity encouraged by the likes of Ed III and Henry V (or at least a Better than French identity).
If you are suggesting that medieval racism was less pervasive than modern racism (and I'm not sure that you are) then I wouldn't be ready to accept that: I would say that it's exactly the same but with fewer restrictions on what you could get away with doing about it. The Albegensian Crusade mentioned earlier was largely religious window-dressing on a Frankish/Occitan cultural cleansing. If you were an Irishman in mainland England you could probably expect that you wouldn't be trusted and you'd have a hard time finding work. But then you probably didn't go to England from Ireland unless you had money, which alleviates that sort of thing anyway.
I guess the thing that sounds odd to me here is the notion that any medieval person would 'cite' a reason for discrimination. Imagine for a moment where the impulse to discriminate (in the literal sense) comes from, whether you're discriminating in favor of or against someone. It's just human pattern recognition, the same thing that says 'eat this berry but not this one' or 'little kitty OK, big kitty with teeth not OK.' The trouble is that pattern recognition operates on a local level and if you meet, say, three white dudes from Texas in an afternoon, you will (no matter how enlightened you are) form an opinion about Texans, particularly white male Texans, even though your sample size is 2.31*10^-7. The farther away you are from Texas yourself, the more likely you are to identify whatever behavior you observe as a general trait, even if you do turn out to be enlightened enough to then (correctly) categorize your opinion as a handful of data points insufficient to draw any conclusions. Medievals would take a big risk by doing so: the only real difference between a medieval Duchy and a pre-medieval Frankish tribe or Viking clan is two things: the greater influence of the church and the feudal hierarchy providing a veneer of civilization. They certainly had choice words for people of other cultures just as we do today and there was no motive whatever to take an enlightened stance and help somebody out just because they were a minority. The gypsies had a hard time then for a lot of the same reasons they have a hard time today: here you had a nomadic people, many with few qualms about helping themselves to the fruits of other people's labor, entering society where it took everybody's labor just to make it through the winter. If I were a medieval peasant and some gypsies showed up, I'd exercise some discrimination too. That is is hypothetically the case that 49% of gypsies who would rob me blind are giving 51% of them a bad name didn't really matter in the 14th century: there's no incentive for medieval peasant me to even roll the dice on that gamble. It's not like I win something if I happen to get one of the nice ones. He's not like me, so lock the doors.
The means by which your average medieval person would define their identity was almost entirely local - not even 'French' or 'English' but by their town or region. Words like 'nation' or 'country' were not really medieval terms and the small extent to which they became medieval terms was because of nationalism and jingoism under guys like Henry V where it was less 'define us as xyz' and more 'define us as NOT THEM.'
You see similar discussions come up in histories of Native Americans. There is a sense that (white) people two hundred years ago were these awful, thieving, rapacious villains who swindled these guys out of all their land and aren't we so much more enlightened today. Maybe they were, but nobody - of any color - is different today. We've just built rules and restrictions into our system that make it much harder to get away with that sort of thing, though of course there aren't really any comparable scenarios of 'that sort of thing' in the West today so it's pretty easy to pretend that our rules and civilization are so much superior to how things were two hundred years ago. But the more I read about medieval history, and BM often bears this out, the more I think that the human animal has not changed very much in a thousand years except that he is bigger and smarter than he was and he has built a lot of cultural scaffolding to distance himself from the vulgarity of his ancestors. And for good reason - I'd much rather be alive today than in 1317. The one and only symptom of a species that has really moved beyond this intervention by pattern recognition into their affairs is a species that can honestly admit to being blind to such things: a state where they really do not matter. We use race, gender, and wealth as clubs to get what we want or to feel better about ourselves or to advantage one group at another's expense all the time. We justify it by saying it's meant to right past wrongs, and that's certainly an honorable motive. The outcome, however, is that we spend a lot of our lives pointing out that this group is different than that group and favoring one over the other on an arbitrary basis. This is not more or less racist than a thousand years ago: it's the same sort of Battle of Peopled Grouped Differently dressed up with a lot of intellectual sophistry.
To tie all this back into BM, one of the really neat things about BM is that you can see how similar we really are, even with our 21st century attitudes toward a lot of medieval notions. And that's with the added restriction of having to write and read complete letters: there is no analog for the heated argument in a room full of your peers where you have to save face. We may not have tribes anymore, but we have the same tools nature gave us to identify people as 'same = trustworthy' or 'different = suspicion.' And even as we point out some awful consequences of this kind of discrimination in the past, we'd be naive to shut down our mechanism for discrimination entirely.
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I wasn't really saying it was better or worse, I just don't tend to consider them to be quite the same.
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I think an "Adult" checkbox could be placed next to the "send anonymously" checkbox, and people could check it if they think their RP could offend others. Then, people could edit their preferences to hide the Adult posts, the same way they can hide OOC posts.
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But we have adult themes all the time. Are we then going to police people who don't check it based on our idea of what's adult and what isn't? Or get annoyed when we miss something because it was checked adult?
I have no problem with the vast majority of adult content. I wouldn't check a box that says 'hide me from adult content.' I've also run into a couple people who have posted stuff about rape before and I just don't read it. I am my own checkbox.
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I think an "Adult" checkbox could be placed next to the "send anonymously" checkbox, and people could check it if they think their RP could offend others. Then, people could edit their preferences to hide the Adult posts, the same way they can hide OOC posts.
No.
There's content that's appropriate for everyone in BattleMaster, and there's content that's appropriate for no one in BattleMaster.
Graphic depictions of rape fall in the second category.
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As a woman and since mostly women suffer this crime it is needless to say i dissaprove it.
Someone mentioned something about " it's ok to kill and burn but not rape"
Although you have a valid point it is considered harsher yes. I happen to be a lawyer in real life and i will say to you that rape is considered the ultimate sin even in prison.Rapists and Pedofiles most of the times die in prison in the most cruel way , killed by fellow prisoners. It is a prison law and they show no tollerance against such people.I faill to understand why although i have thought of it extensively.
When it comes in game, as many others said earlier rape was rather common in Medieval Times.All kinds of nasty things were common in such era.Even in my country that had no medieval period in the same terms when it was invaded by some countries itgot pillaged, burned and the women got raped.In fact this is why countries that had conquerors for extended periods (mine had them for 400 years) you cannot consider them pure blooded not only because some did mix at will, but because raping was common and having children from their rapists was common as well. It is history and not Game of Thrones or any other fictional book.
In game the burn pillage and rape is an option. By pressing that button you perform one of these actions and all of them are considered cruel and unfit for nobles.Choosing to rp rape is a different story. I do not believe that players who do it should be reprimed ooc but put down in character, if of course your own character dissaproves of such actions.
I have played a barbarian in the past, she killed many for fun, she dueled almost everyday and enjoyed blood a lot.She enjoyed burning enemy families and she would remain neutral and unintrested against people who raped.
The rest of the characters i played so far would seek to behead such person, if he had a position they would protest him and would make sure he suffered their protests forever. That kind of discourage i approve.
It is a cruel action but in game it should be dealt in game. If your character dissaprove it make sure he never does it, make sure he refuses to follow such order and hunt down those who perform such actions.
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Hunting down someone for allowing their men to rape enemies would be like atheism tbh.
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Hunting down someone for allowing their men to rape enemies would be like atheism tbh.
No, it wouldn't.
Atheism is something that simply did not happen (in public) in the age.
Moral standards were something that DID happen, even if it was the exception.
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Then again I'd think public atheism mostly didn't occur because of the very real political power of the church. And BM doesn't really have dominant religions in the way medieval Europe did.
But let's not make this a thread on atheism
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But let's not make this a thread on atheism
We certainly wouldn't want that to happen. :P
So did anyone actually do a really graphic RP, or is this all just theoretical?
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I haven't seen any recently but I have seen maybe 2-3 over the years.
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I'm guessing in Thalmarkin, but I'll leave it up to Miriam to find and point out what offends her?
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I haven't seen any recently but I have seen maybe 2-3 over the years.
same
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Alitoth Himoura's vow to forcibly impregnate Maya might be part of this picture. That shocked even her.
I don't think a character's unique moral sense is disallowed by SMA. It's part of human nature to have different opinions and different levels of chivalry/barbarism. It's part of what makes this game so dynamic and interesting, imo. You have some bloodthirsty heroes butchering peasants and some high-moral cavaliers who will fight an enemy army but not touch a woman. It's not black and white, it's complex and there are a lot of shades of gray... maybe like 50.
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I don't think a character's unique moral sense is disallowed by SMA.
And SMA is only directly relevant on Dwilight.
It's part of human nature to have different opinions and different levels of chivalry/barbarism. It's part of what makes this game so dynamic and interesting, imo. You have some bloodthirsty heroes butchering peasants and some high-moral cavaliers who will fight an enemy army but not touch a woman. It's not black and white, it's complex and there are a lot of shades of gray... maybe like 50.
Well, that's as may be, but from what I've heard of the book, I would very strongly discourage any attempts to pay tribute to it in RP within BattleMaster.
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Well, that's as may be, but from what I've heard of the book, I would very strongly discourage any attempts to pay tribute to it in RP within BattleMaster.
That was a joke, not him saying he wants to pay to it.
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That was a joke, not him saying he wants to pay to it.
Maybe he wouldn't, but knowing the crowd we get around here, I wouldn't be surprised if someone saw that and thought it would be a great idea...whether sincerely or as a troll.
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I think Alice Arundel and Hendrick Madigan already did that reenactment.
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Has it already been mentioned yet that Rynn explicitly stated that Alice could secure peace by spreading her legs? I'm not trying to derail things, but I've seen mentions of SMA, etc, and I think this is a relevant touchstone since both players also have characters in Melhed and Thalmarkin, which are also engaged in a war.
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Himoura's RP was what started my rebellion IC, and I personally disliked it, thats why I had opened this thread.
As I said, at Thalmarkin it was not that bad, but made me think about this matter. I saw worst RP's at Asena, probably because of the harem allusions. I think some people go a bit too far in what they think is a joke. Some jokes simple doesn't make anyone laugh.
Also, I don't think in medieval times any Lord would tell the Queen to open her legs or to bare his children without having his head off his neck.
But, I probably was only too protective and, even if I can understand this, doesn't mean I really agree to it. Personally, I would not like if one of my kids were exposed to something like this in a age they were building their character but this is me and I really don't think that there is any point in a discussion about education.
To tie all this back into BM, one of the really neat things about BM is that you can see how similar we really are, even with our 21st century attitudes toward a lot of medieval notions. And that's with the added restriction of having to write and read complete letters: there is no analog for the heated argument in a room full of your peers where you have to save face. We may not have tribes anymore, but we have the same tools nature gave us to identify people as 'same = trustworthy' or 'different = suspicion.' And even as we point out some awful consequences of this kind of discrimination in the past, we'd be naive to shut down our mechanism for discrimination entirely.
Scarlett I like what you have been posting here and I believe you have a peculiar and unusual point of view so as some others here.
I also believe this kind of discussion is good and can only enrich us.
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My mother would agree with you about 'peculiar.'
Also, I don't think in medieval times any Lord would tell the Queen to open her legs or to bare his children without having his head off his neck.
The thing about Medieval Queens is that there were very few independent, i.e. sovereign female rulers. Medieval lords could be very mercenary and vulgar toward actual wives or prospective wives. Their job was to produce heirs and pass along claims or titles - that's it, with a handful of really awesome exceptions like Eleanor of Aquitaine. Think of how hard a time even later rulers like Elizabeth and Victoria had keeping power for themselves. Shoot, even Maggie Thatcher had to put up with a lot.
BM has to have a nod to modern sensibilities here by making the genders more equal. If I were to make a BM-esque game tomorrow, I would do the same thing. In light of that, the extent that treating women like crap ICly is appropriate doesn't really have a proper basis for conclusions: it's pretty much the same thing as treating a male character like crap, except probably worse since you might have some chivalrous types in your realm who will get really upset by it. I'd much rather be a BM princess than a medieval princess!
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Has it already been mentioned yet that Rynn explicitly stated that Alice could secure peace by spreading her legs? I'm not trying to derail things, but I've seen mentions of SMA, etc, and I think this is a relevant touchstone since both players also have characters in Melhed and Thalmarkin, which are also engaged in a war.
IIRC, that's rather false as it wasn't explicitly stated like that and that was supposed to be offensive, that was the point. I know he never sent peace conditions that stated that, I only recall one letter that you would be getting it from, which was, as I said, meant to be offensive to Alice. Rynn is very insulting/rude to those he doesn't like (except for those inside the realm).
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IIRC, that's rather false as it wasn't explicitly stated like that and that was supposed to be offensive, that was the point. I know he never sent peace conditions that stated that, I only recall one letter that you would be getting it from, which was, as I said, meant to be offensive to Alice. Rynn is very insulting/rude to those he doesn't like (except for those inside the realm).
Rape and prostitution (trading sex for a peace) are not the same thing.