Rusty and Co. Crossover, Part 4/5
Shall we press on into part four the of Handbook of Heroes / Rusty and Co. crossover? Let’s shall. And as an added bonus, let’s start by explaining the joke. Because, ya know… That always makes comedy better.
For those of you who don’t follow Rusty, here are the basics. Our boy Mimic is a mimic. He’s distinguishable by his big ol’ butt-chin, giant lips, and Brooklyn accent. But perhaps more germane to today’s comic, there’s this running gag where Mimic creeps on a certain bard by tricking her into sitting on him. It would seem that business remains consistent between webcomic universes.
Now here’s the thing about unwanted physical contact between sex demons and shapeshifting bar furniture. On paper, playing grab-ass with a succubus sounds like a perfectly reasonable comic premise. If you’re writing a raunchy bit of fiction, or if you’ve established up front what the comfort level of your tabletop group looks like, then you’re golden. But Mimic didn’t establish jack. He saw he’d been paired with Succubus for the crossover, decided to go all-in on the feel coppin’, and is now left with no way to introduce himself to his blind-date-party-mate without looking like a jerk. The unluck keeps on rolling.
The moral of the story? Don’t be a jerk. We’re talking about consent in gaming folks, and it can be key to your Session Zero setup. There are plenty of resources out there to keep unfortunate moments from ruining your game night, so I won’t belabor the point. All I’ll say is that you should take the time to get to know your table before making assumptions. When you’ve started out with a new group, spend a few months to get a feel for the room before you drop the raunchy joke or go for the sex-comedy gag. Chances are it’ll play just fine, and you won’t get labeled a creep for going a little off-color. But never forget that r/rpghorrorstories is a thing, and you do not want to wind up on there because of poor judgement.
So how about it guys? Have you ever taken a joke too far at the table? By the same token, have you ever found yourself in Succubus’s unenviable position, wanting to have a normal kill-the-monsters adventure but finding yourself embroiled in the sticky grasp of poor taste instead? Share your tales of creepy creeps and unwelcome “humor” down in the comments!
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I don’t believe I’ve ever taken a joke too far at the table, and im lucky enough that the others ive played with have done the same for me. The worst it really got was some jokes and stuff with Elliot the unlucky after he rolled into becoming a female halfling with some frog stuff added after a reincarnation by a confused evil frog shaman, as some of that stuff did make me mildly uncomfortable, but there was never anything too bad. I’ve read some of those horror stories though, and man, I just can’t imagine what some of those people must have been thinking. Its like they have absolutely zero awareness or consideration of others. I wouldn’t say it amazes me that people can be like that, as i know well people can sink far deeper, but i still just cant help but feel confused about how people can behave like that.
Never a comfortable topic. But in the wake of the Far Verona thing…
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/fvfhdw/how_to_avoid_rpg_dumpster_fires_like_the_far/
…I feel like it’s worth talking about.
My knee-jerk reaction to something like a “formal consent checklist” is to roll my eyes. “We’re all friends here. We know one another’s sense of humor. This won’t be a problem for us.” But then is suddenly is a problem, you know? Figuring out how to handle that is part of the hobby.
It definitely is an important thing to consider in any rpg group.
I wonder what kind of boundaries are put in place for tabletop games that are ‘expected’ to have pitch black comedy or NSFW subjects, like Cards Against Humanity, Everyone is John, or the zany combo of Cards Against D&D.
Sometimes applies to podcasts too (hence why all vids of Acquisition Inc begin with a disclaimer).
The concept of “bleed” makes this extra-uncomfortable. You are supposed to occupy your character’s mental space, at least to some extent. You feel a bit of what they feel, and that’s part of the draw of the hobby. But when you go in for grimdark or politically-incorrect as an aesthetic, I think it’s more important than ever to go out of your way getting everybody on the same page.
What’s Succubus’s choice of ‘stood up for a crossover’ self-pity drink? Bloody Mary’s?
The script called for cosmos, but I’d be willing to hear alternative drink orders for a depressed sex demon.
Something so vile and offensive that it might qualify as an example of the topic of the panel – a big, wholesome glass of milk. If that doesn’t work wonders on Succubus, I think nothing would.
Hard pink lemonade. Seems innocuous but it hits you after you have gone too deep.
Nice.
Uh…anyone else notice that the stool seems to be a mimic?
Did you… Did you read the blog post?
Someone nat20’d AND nat1’d a perception check.
No I rolled a 20 on perception but a 1 on investigation.
Heh. Nice.
No I did not. I will no go commit sudoku.
My bad experience wasn’t about sex, but was certainly poor taste. A guy playing a tiefling paladin, struggling towards the path of righteousness to overcome his evil nature as the literal spawn of Satan. Cool, lots of potential there. Except that he used it as an excuse to play a blatantly evil character in a mostly heroic party, with the barest of nods to remorse as he graphically described ripping out the viscera of defeated enemies and bathing in their blood, while the rest of the table sat there very obviously uncomfortable and asked him increasingly desperately to stop. Out of character conversations between games gave us a lot of empty promises to be more aware of the group.
The rest of us soon started thinking that, if he’s acting “as his character would do,” well, surely ours would in turn be compelled to treat him as the monster he’d proven himself to be. He quit right before the session we would have killed him.
That just sounds straight-up disrespectful to the group. I mean, you’re not just playing a game. You’re working together to tell a collaborative story. Why would you agree to make a change and then continue on with the same shit? Imagine co-authoring a book.
“Yeah… I decided to keep the extreme violence in the new chapter.”
“We talked about this. We took a vote. We decided not to do that.”
“Well yeah, but it’s my chapter. Screw what the rest of you think.”
At that point, I don’t think the solution is to kill off a character in your own chapter. I think it’s to politely ask the offending writer to leave.
Is it just me, or does Barmaid look different? Had we seen her since the great Art Upgrade of I-can’t-remember-when?
+1,600 XP to the first person to reply with before / after links.
https://i.imgur.com/jqSPej2.png
Did I level yet?
In my group where we have enough confidence and trust as to make all kind of jokes among ourselves, sometimes exchanging fist, specially when food is involved, or as to getting shirtless during the hot of summer, but only shirtless no matter how much the only girl on the group ask us if we don’t want to take anything else off, i would say we would need to go too much afar to make us uncomfortable. Even more sex for us is not the big thing. This is something we have talked a while ago during one of our philosophical session. One person only can take things too far, but how much far is far is only established by the other people. We got a wider safe circle and we know how much we can go. That there is only a handful themes we find uncomfortable, and knowing which they are, also help us. More than anything a player isn’t a jerk for crossing this limits but for crossing them knowing what he is doing. If someone takes thing to far but apologies shouldn’t be that much of a problem, unless he has crossed the line twice. Knowing what other people don’t like and insisting on that is just pure jerkerism and not the funny one kind. In a certain way Fighter is the kind of player that can take things too far without knowing it, Summoner will take things too far by knowing it. And knowing Summoner it will involve sex in a stupid childish way or threesomes or a Rotating Vietnamese Shame Wheel 🙁
I refuse to google for “Rotating Vietnamese Shame Wheel.”
The idea of infractions that go “beyond the pale” are interesting to me. If you screw up, realize you screwed up, and apologize sincerely, then it makes sense for the group to collectively forgive and forget and move on. But when I think about those stories on RPG r/RPGhorrorstories, there’s a lot of one-strike-and-you’re-out going on. What’s the difference there?
Well, since you are for the US let me give you some yankee examples. Jokes about the civil war or cowboys killing indians may not be for everybody taste but they may be able to let it pass with only an apology than jokes about the 9/11. That is a more sensible, and recent, matter. Make the wrong joke and someone who lost a family member may get upset. Make jokes about the civil war and even if someone have lost family in the war they may let it pass. If you screw up, realize you screwed up, and apologize sincerely you may have a better chance for that to be accepted and the game can continue. Now if someone start making jokes about Jewish people and Nazis, defenestrating him is fair trade. Some limits are more personal, someone don’t like even implicit rape, others are more universal, Nazis and Grammar Nazis. You may not know of the first but the second is difficult to not get the memo. And some others are more location related. I will not find funny any joke about the 9/11, for example, even when i am not from the US because that was a tragedy for the US, it would be insensible. Equally i will not found funny any joke about the last military dictatorship in my country because that was a tragedy for my county. There are many triggers and many consequences, some people may follow a “one-strike-and-you’re-out” as you said. My group will explain why whatever the inflicting person did is not good idea and give him the opportunity to apologize. If it was something light, there things that shouldn’t be joked about and people should know that 🙂
As for the Rotating Vietnamese Shame Wheel. it consist on a [CENSORED] when you [CENSORED] and the [CENSORED] with your [CENSORED][CENSORED][CENSORED] and her’s [CENSORED] unless his [CENSORED] is [CENSORED] or [CENSORED] and i hope not [CENSORED] up to the [CENSORED] players. Oh, and remember to bring the [CENSORED] for the [CENSORED] unless you want for the [CENSORED]’s to get [CENSORED] in the [CENSORED] of everybody’s [CENSORED] 😀
I guess there’s a baseline threshold of “what can be joked about.” That has nothing to do with gaming: it’s general social knowledge. Willingly breaking that convention confers the status of “automatic asshole” upon the perpetrator. Unfortunately for the socially illiterate out there, there isn’t a handy cheat sheet.
Yes there is, is called common sense. Sadly is rare than seventh sense 😛
But this is more the case of my friends, our table and myself. Others may have different opinions. Wider amplitude on what is safe or very small concept on what is safe. In a some tables making a LGBT characters make you a SJW, in other tables not making a LGBT character make you a Nazi. As once a webcomic full of knowledge and wisdom said: “Know Thy Audience”* 🙂
*Unless you want to end up in a dungeon suffering what Wicked Uncle’s Wheel of Torture has in store for your pc 😉
Heh. I am very smart sometimes.
Mimic’s bad luck will only get worse once Succubus realizes her… Scalemail skirt (and/or armored kilt) is glued to her ‘chair’.
I choose to believe that’s a “may” ability.
I remember my first experience being in Succubus’s position very well, unfortunately. I was playing a female ninja who, due to clan business, often had to sneak off on her own. I was traveling and the GM called for a perception check, which I rolled very well on. He proceeded to describe a pitfall in the road and several ogres lying in ambush. My character, being alone, stepped into the forest and used her impressive stealth score to get past them. This part was all well and fine. The problem came when the GM mentioned after the game, “I’m glad you made that perception check, cause if the ogres caught you they were going to rape you.” I was stunned and frankly appalled. We had not had any form of grimdark preface or anything and this actually wasn’t one of my dark tragedy stories (and I wouldn’t become known for those for another two years when I went through a particularly long depressive spell). I was just shocked at how casually he mentioned it. I suggested he go read up on the red rule and never plan something like that again if he wanted me to keep gaming with him. To his credit, we’ve not had another situation like that and he’s gotten much better at recognizing boundaries over the time I’ve known him.
Was this a Pathfinder game? Because the ogres in Rise of the Runelords are pretty gross, and even Paizo has moved away from that depiction.
I think this comic has its roots in a recent experience at my table. This mess involved a cloaker and a love potion. The NPC cloaker had allied with the party, and was hanging around one dude’s shoulders as a makeshift magic item. When love potion was used as a splash weapon against the PC, the cloaker was caught in the line of fire. It failed its save. And that left me in a pickle: how do you describe the comic premise of a love-struck cloaker hanging from a beefy guy’s shoulders without going a little on the raunchy side?
I decided to describe a bit of butt-groping, but even that was too far. Dude told me it was gross, I apologized, and we moved on.
This was a long-time group. We’d been gaming for years. But even there it was possible to make the wrong call. It’s no fun for anyone when it happens, and it’s definitely made me more cautious about putting this sort of premise in my games.
It was years before pathfinder thought about writing the Gralls, but yeah. Paizo kinda plays tip-toe the line on this, cause they moved away from Ogres being rape machines, but then published the Seducer Witch archetype. x.x
I feel like they’re into giving you the tools to run a “mature content” game, but hedge away from making that official in their APs and fiction. I suppose I can respect the desire to support various playstyles while letting individuals decide the tone of their own games, but it becomes a problem when folks see that sort of content and decide it’s “the default.”
On the creep part…
As a DM at a small game convention, I had once a player who picked-up my pre-made Rogue and went overboard with “all rogues are unscrupulous scoundrels” concept. In theory of neutral alignement, but all I saw was chaotic with borderline evil tendencies. I guess he could claim he was just playing to a character type, of the too-stupid-to-live sort.
As a player, he had a reputation for pushing limits, but naive me wasn’t expecting something that far.
Ah, the creepy part.
He decided that his character was feeling lonely and started hitting on the sorceress. Who was the only female player at the table, and as this was a convention, I’m pretty sure they didn’t know each other.
At some point, he started asking if a shop could sell him a love potion.
I was both overloaded by trying to keep up with his BS and still new to, how to say, manage “mature” players, so I didn’t put a stop right away to his attitude.
That I should have done was to pick up his character sheet and rip it in two.
Well, a less drastic move would have me to tell him that the usual rules of PvE only apply to PvP if both parties give consent. The other player doesn’t have to roll to see if your attack/attempt at seduction/rape drug works. If she says it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
But I have this feeling he would not have taken ‘no’ as an answer.
That was also the last time I DMed.
Oof. I encourage you to get back in the saddle. Not everybody sucks.
That guy though? He sucks like a bag of holding inside of a portable hole.