Roleplay and adult themes

[Grakor456]

Yeah its loaded with violence and war and nightmare fuel, but hyper-realism grimdorkery ala GoT just does not work here.

This is actually an interesting point that, in hindsight, should probably be stressed and discussed more.

Warcraft is, generally speaking, a rather noblebright setting. Black and white morality, the good guys always win in the end, the bad guys are cartoonishly evil, etc. etc. Even the more "nightmare fuel" bits aren't played up, and never really go into truly adult territory for long. Warcraft is far more likely to throw jokes and pop culture references than it is to try to seriously shock you with its adult themes. If we're respecting the setting we're in, Game of Thrones style RP is unlikely.

This does beg the question of how many folks RP on CotH because they genuinely love WoW lore, and how many picked a WoW RP server arbitrarily or because WoW is popular and thus the best choice for RP in general.

[Maulbane]

I'm pretty confident in speaking for the veterans here that we've all got Stockholm Syndrome at this point; the setting is so terrible, but we were young and it's so accessible!

[Dae]

This does beg the question of how many folks RP on CotH because they genuinely love WoW lore, and how many picked a WoW RP server arbitrarily or because WoW is popular and thus the best choice for RP in general.

This and the sheer diversity of WoW lore is what makes me stay with it, even though Blizz's writers can't seem to keep their own story straight.

Warcraft is, to me, a happy medium between Friendship is Magic and The Elder Scrolls when it comes to lore- there's biased and Mad Gods, technology and a whole slew of arcane magics, genocide and the creation of new races and cultures through magical means-
But there's also miracles. There are friendships that transcend race and circumstances into some of the most epic bromances in pop fiction. Faith and love can manifest itself into incredibly powerful smiting lasers, and there is always the possibility of redemption.

"Adult" themes should be addressed in WoW RP at times, but a character without some of the Warcraft "warm-fuzzies" is a character ill-suited to the lore. Even the most ruthless of assassins should be aware that they might be outsmarted by a silly, pink gnomish self-defense robot squirrel. Warlocks have to deal with comically sexual succubi and derpy-looking little hell spawn.

Now that I think about it, that's one of the biggest issues with DKs- their being forced to commit atrocities, bloodlust, and generally have been turned into (un)living weapons encased in anti-Light armor tends to be very non-conducive to a balance of silly and serious.

[Alliicce]

I'm up for most things unless they're super crazy weird fetishes or something. I mean.. I could do it, but I'm going to feel uncomfortable and might stop at a certain point because I can't go any further.

Usually though, most of the adulterated RP I've had are filled with sexual content. I try to become friends OOCly and what not to avoid awkwardness while RPing in my opinion. Sometimes that has led me down a dark road, but I'm glad I still have friends that I'm comfortable with. Though, I have to admit, age does kinda matter to me. If they are younger than I am ( 18 ), I will usually end scene and fade to black. Then we will vaguely talk about what happened. I don't feel like going into detail with that sort of content with younger people. It doesn't feel right. When it comes to people older than me or the same age, I'm totally okay with going into detail and RPing it out, etc.

I've never experienced drugs in real life, so it's kinda hard for me to RP that. I know people and have dated a few druggies in my life, but it doesn't help much. I do try to imitate what I've seen through RP. Like.... Duuuuuuude. Haha.. Yeeaaaaah.

As for violence and gore.. I kinda want it. I want to see more of it in RP and do things. I enjoy reading horror manga with a passion. It's so great. I need to find more to read now. >_<

** Also, read the in-game steamy romance novels.. You can find them on wowpedia. They're great and somewhat uncomfortable to read in my opinion.

[CappnRob]

Yeah its loaded with violence and war and nightmare fuel, but hyper-realism grimdorkery ala GoT just does not work here.

This is actually an interesting point that, in hindsight, should probably be stressed and discussed more.

Warcraft is, generally speaking, a rather noblebright setting. Black and white morality, the good guys always win in the end, the bad guys are cartoonishly evil, etc. etc. Even the more "nightmare fuel" bits aren't played up, and never really go into truly adult territory for long. Warcraft is far more likely to throw jokes and pop culture references than it is to try to seriously shock you with its adult themes. If we're respecting the setting we're in, Game of Thrones style RP is unlikely.

This does beg the question of how many folks RP on CotH because they genuinely love WoW lore, and how many picked a WoW RP server arbitrarily or because WoW is popular and thus the best choice for RP in general.

Make no mistake, I rather love using Warcraft's darker side for exploring dramatic role play (such as the entirety of the Forsaken or Stormwind kicking out all its homeless), I just don't think it should be taken to Dirt Ages style skullduggery where everyone's an illiterate superstitious religiously biased warmonger. There are -elements- of that to be sure, but it isn't the whole. I disagree that Warcraft is "noblebright"; there are plenty of instances were villains either win or their defeat is so pyrrhic it makes little difference in the end. The series walks a very thin line between over the top theatrics and some honestly depressing and grim nightmare fuel. Capturing that element in RP is a difficult but rewarding task.

[DaveM]

Hmm. Yes, WoW is definetely a "casual" lore. But in my head, with the world textured through my vision, it's a place that can simultaneously allow cartoonishness and seriousgrit. My love of the lore is there, but it's more rather of the factions and their history, concepts of magic and descriptive structures.

If nothing else, the world is large and diverse, and I think both cartoonish tomfoolery and dark mature intensity can fit in it.

[flammos200]

Violence, death, blood, gore, I'm fine with. Heck, I've had a character stomp on another's head until it went splat. I'm more than used to it from doing far too much 40K RP.

Torture to a lesser degree. I'd rather take death than torture. It's unappealing to me to RP, but it's not a complete impossibility. As an example, I've had a character offer to burn and heal another repeatedly as a means of extracting information.

Drugs, I have no issue with. In spite of seeing people be destroyed by them IRL and having some level of experience with them myself, I don't find them particularly good nor bad. S'a person's choice what they do with their bodies and what they put in them, I believe.

Sexual themes in general are to be kept as hidden as possible, but rape in particular is a no. Not under any circumstances. Not on your life.

Role-playing functions by immersion, and a character is a person with a conduit of emotion leading back to you. You're meant to feel all the little joys, the little sad moments, the loves and hates and hopes and fears, to experience all that your character experiences. Why, then, would you wish to experience that?

It might seem hypocritical that I find it fine to murder someone in a gruesome fashion but do not allow the topic of rape anywhere near me, but it's not.

My philosophical argument aside, I've read all we have so far of ASoIaF, and watched all we've got and y'ought to know taking A Song of Ice and Fire as a bible of realism or a guide to the Middle Ages is not very wise. Certainly not on how medieval society genuinely functions, nobility, quality of life or swordplay. It's no more realistic than LOTR. That doesn't make it any less worthwile a fantasy series. But it is fantasy, and using it as a set of guidelines on the portrayal of say, nobles, is not really accurate if what you're aiming for is realism.

Nor, for that matter, is it lore-accurate in WoW lore, which as the people who've posted before me have pointed out, has a completely different tone to the grimdorky ASoIaF. Specifically, it's Noblebright. Nobles may be corrupt or genuinely good, but ultimately they get a sympathetic portrayal either way. Heck, even the villains get that treatment a lot of the time. Just look at Arthas. Man's a mass-murdering maniac, but we still find Jaina's locket on him.

S'yeah. We're about Paladins and HEROICS and NOBLE AND SPARKLY, and cackly Warlocks summoning who-knows-what in shadowed underground laboratories, and a world painted in very distinct shades of grey, if not utter black and white.

But I feel I've answered your questions.

[TimtheCannabis]

Don't mind me, just gonna drop on in here.

As someone who has been both a player and admin on Garrysmod roleplays, I can easily generalize my opinion of all this as completely all right with me, with rape only being fine so long as both people have given their consent to the roleplay beforehand.

Now for me to go into some depth.

Violence, Death, Blood and Gore, and more importantly. Torture

I've roleplayed in the Fallout universe before, and have been subject to CL Legionnaires getting their legs blown off by NCR snipers with Anti-Material Rifles, and towns being wrapped to crosses by barbed wire and nailed in place. I've seen men been reduced to a bubbling, blistered mess by robots rendered 'insane' by having their IFF components scrambled.

Sexual and intimate themes.

I've found that I have roleplayed, witnessed and authorized these types of confrontations in the past. It adds a sense of realism, and if the players involved wish to go that far they may so long as they keep it between themselves, as I never liked the idea of giant orgies in the middle of the city square in Half Life 2 RP (Though Overwatch would take care of that quickly.) Rape I have only authorized if I've got all of the participants okay for it and I have to make absolutely sure no one will walk in on it. I won't lie, I've roleplayed this before as both the victim and the aggressor, but this was simply to further develop my character.

Drug use.

I honestly do not mind it in roleplay. It's a harsh reality we're all going to eventually encounter whether we like it or not. I do believe there is already drug use within warcraft lore, and considering I've RP'd as a drug dealer in The Last of US roleplay who made a drug called cancer, that if anyone below 13-15 took it they'd drop dead of aheart attack so I'm kinda fine with it.

As multiple others have said though, WoW is very unstable when it comes to being serious. Giants can be brought down by gunslinging gnomes, and where dragons come around and burn villages, Goblins chase them down on rockets and motorcycles.

Regardless though, I am completely fine with all of this, and for it to be completely shunned from RP kinda irks me. So long as everyone involved is fine with it, let it happen, otherwise no.

[Holynexus]

WoW lore can certainly be used to more grimdark ends. The lore is toned down for a PG-13 audience; but politics, exile, war, death, destruction, those can be heavy themes if you begin to dig a little. Violence is VERY common in Warcraft, and I don't see the problem with more gray characters - this is CotH, we shape our settings to our tastes, and if we diverge from Warcraft's original setting, so be it. We play in a setting but aren't -bound- by it.

It isn't hard to imagine the most horrible things happening in many of the events of Warcraft lore, really. Wars everywhere, lawless areas...mothers losing their children, peoples being destroyed, soldiers coming home destroyed and with severe PTSD... and even in the most sophisticated of societies, spots of shadow (think of the rather authoritarian Sin'dorei - they're coming better, don't you think some people are gonna have trouble relinquishing their power?...Or Stormwind itself, which might be guarded well, but a wrong turn in a backalley and things can go south easily, and you can lose your life belongings, and end up homeless, or soemthing..stretching it a bit, but y'know)...

What about DKs? Forsaken? Dealing being utterly defiled, with becoming killing monsters, and being shunned by everything for something they just can't help..what about gnomes, ...oh yes, we see them as those cheery, bouncy things, but they certainly lost a lot of folk, and even their very -home-, or Tauren, those cuddly moocows, who have been saved from genocide.... and the list goes on, with most races having lost something of value, and most characters likely to have been hit by war, violence.

You will notice I am not limiting adult themes to sexual content and drug use (that's the commercial use of the term). -Many- other themes can have a dark or frightful tone. I'm giving some examples that might seem light to some, but go tell a mother about losing her child, go speak to those thousands of displaced people around the world, you'll understand things can become extremely dark and serious even with situations that really could happen every day. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdultFear see this for instance - it doesn't have to be fantastic, 18+, or overly unlikely to happen to become a serious, adult topic)

My point is, even the cheeriest parts of Warcraft lore have material to explore for darker roleplay. Now, do we HAVE to play darker? Definitely not. But while all these happenings are toned down and shown in a cartoonesque light, I am fairly convinced many more adult themes can be delved on the existing lore, and if RPers want to play around that, who are we to stop them? After all, there are MANY others things that are left to be determined by players in the Warcraft world.

It is maybe mood-breaking in regard to the lore as a whole, but definitely not "lore breaking". I would welcome more adult RP (not that kind, no), though if people want to keep to the more cartoon way to interpret the lore...that's fine too. But I think adult themes are something about the lore worth exploring, which is not explored enough for the sake of PG-13, but we are CotH, we can allow ourselves to where Blizzard just can't.

[DrakeTheHyooman]

I'm pretty alright with violence and sexual topics in RP. Not a lot squicks me out, and I'm alright with drugs and whatnot. My characters will probably take that kind of stuff quite seriously, but I OOCly don't have a problem with it. What does squick me out, however, is rape and extreme pain. (Combine both and... Yeah, no thanks, I'm out of there.)

I'm okay with torture and whatnot, as well as hammering someone's skull in with a warhammer. Kill someone quickly and, no matter how gory it is, I'll be okay with it. I'm a writer myself and though I've written fight scenes and other things where characters have gotten hurt, but never to a huge extent. If someone is in clear, incredible pain, I get a bit uncomfortable. A friend once sent me a compilation of deaths from an anime called Corpse Party and I couldn't watch it. It's not something that I can't deal with, but as I said it makes me uncomfortable.

As for rape, nothing really squicks me out more. It makes me very uncomfortable and, although it doesn't bother me if it's happened to a character or it's implied, just don't ask for me to be involved on either end.

[Xigo]

I generally don't mind adult themes, but I will quickly stop associating with anyone who enjoys excessive gore or finds senseless torture roleplay fun. Both things are annoying, boring, and often poorly done.

Nevertheless, as a player of the superior Warhammer setting, I am used to such things and embrace them when they add to a story. Warcraft generally isn't a setting where these things are necessary, nor a setting where they belong though.

soldiers coming home destroyed and with severe PTSD..

Good joke. We know every soldier really comes home bragging about how many wars he/she has been in.

[KomodoTheCashew]

I'm a big horror fan (are you guys sick of me saying this yet?) and as a genre, horror is definitely pretty adult. Horror is meant to make you feel scared and maybe a bit disturbed, usually by describing/showing some pretty graphic stuff. The big problem with modern-horror is it really likes to over do that kind of stuff. For some reason, modern-horror directors like to throw in a random sex scene or some un-necessary over the top torture scene. It doesn't create those feelings of fear, suspense and terror which are some of the reasons I love horror. Instead it makes you feel gross.

RP is not too different. If you want your character to evoke feelings of fear and concern in other characters, make him/her a bit more violent than most people or use a bit more harsh language. If you want your character to be provocative, make them a little more revealing and teasing than most people. The problem is over doing it. Making your character finish off every enemy Mortal Kombat style isn't going to make people fear you, it's going to make your character feel like more of a cliche. If your character struggles with drugs/alcohol/whatever they did in the war and you actually make it a struggle, it can add a layer of depth to your character but if your character "struggles" with drugs/alcohol/whatever they did in the war by openly complaining about how much it sucks, it can make your character sound whiny and annoying.

Basically, TL;DR Adult Themes are fine in moderation and can add a nice layer of grit to RP but if overused, they're boring and nasty.

[Loxmardin]

... To emphasize a bit more on my stance when it comes to mature/adult themes, I guess I could throw out my most well-known event chain.

Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, Exhibit D.

Any doubt left in your mind?

No?

Good.

Shut up Grakor.

[CopperheadSnake]

Warcraft is, generally speaking, a rather noblebright setting. Black and white morality, the good guys always win in the end, the bad guys are cartoonishly evil, etc. etc. Even the more "nightmare fuel" bits aren't played up, and never really go into truly adult territory for long. Warcraft is far more likely to throw jokes and pop culture references than it is to try to seriously shock you with its adult themes. If we're respecting the setting we're in, Game of Thrones style RP is unlikely.

My thoughts exactly. Warcraft is Warcraft is Warcraft. To try and RP it as anything else would actually seem like a betrayal to the source materiel.

It might seem hypocritical that I find it fine to murder someone in a gruesome fashion but do not allow the topic of rape anywhere near me, but it's not.

MFW Flammos watches Jim Sterling.

[ImagenAshyun]

It really depends on the environment of the story and with whom I am RPing with. Before I got my jobs, I used to be absolutely okay with wanton violence (regardless of the target), sexual themes, substance abuse, and psychological horror and torture. Ever since I started working professionally with children, however, and I am more exposed to what these topics can do for unprepared young minds, I am now more sensitive to mature themes are portrayed and RPed out. I still enjoy darker-themed RP (and writing stories with dark themes, and I am still okay with subjects such as torture, violence, and sexuality. However, I would like to be warned ahead of time that the RP will be going in this direction so I can be better prepared for it. Otherwise, I am not fond of RPing sunshine and rainbows when suddenly someone is gored in the gut for the sake of shock value (unless, again, I am familiar with the RPer's style and I'm prepared for it).

My preference to being warned or at least informed is less to do with my developed sensitivity and moreso to do with courtesy and taste-- my dislike for adult and mature themes only comes in environments where it's really not needed. While I do make perverted dirty jokes (a lot) in the company of certain friends and individuals, I wouldn't do the same with others (especially family and coworkers). I would like to get to know an RPer as an RPer and not a stabby-rapey-smokey-ERPer fresh off the darkest corners of the internet. Yes, I have been to those dark corners, and yes, I am unphased by them by now. I still wouldn't visit them voluntarily, as I don't need stabby-rapey jokes as my source entertainment.

That said, I am very fond of "crosses the line twice" and "refuge in audacity" jokes and humor, and some of my sources of humor happily dive into black humor. I love South Park, Jeff Dunham, and the like. But like the above, the environment I'm in has to be welcoming for it. If I'm in the company of my students and clients, leave that crap out the door.

As for me RPing adult themes myself? It's not that different. I'm generally detached from adult themes, so seeing them in my RP won't shock me, again, as long as I'm in an appropriate environment and among friends who are comfortable with this stuff. I tend to actually not be aroused when it comes to ERP--I see RPing sex as no differently from RPing a fight or social outing--as it's my character engaged in the activity, not myself. If anything, I tend to look forward to the emotional development between the lovers enacted in intimacy then I am in the RPed act of sex itself.

If there is anything I am very uncomfortable/fearful in mature RP, it's when I fear of going too far. I generally tend to play on the safe side in fear I'm crossing territory with another player I shouldn't be treading in, even if they say "I'm okay with it". Being "okay" with mature themes without any absolutely clear limitations ("I'm okay with torture as long as it doesn't involve rape and mutilation") doesn't go well with me at all, so I don't get to RP my violent villains as often as I honestly would like to. I like exploring my wicked side, but I still explore with care.