What to Watch Out for in Your Players

[Quertus]

This thread hasn't been closed yet? Cool. I love how cool our moderators are, and how well we can (usually) manage to talk about sensitive issues.

Out of respect for this, I'm going to try really hard not to be my usual self here.

But I am none the less very... confused.

So, can anyone please explain to me exactly what the difference is between not wanting sex to feature in their games, or rape, or religion, or homosexuality, or, heck, my personal favorite, "characters who are not from around here"? How is attempting to exclude one subset of characters or characteristics or concepts from a game substantially different from another? How is someone being uncomfortable with the topic of nymphomania or automobile accidents or spiders different from someone being uncomfortable with romantic affection between boys, or someone being cross-gender? Why is not accommodating someone's fear of spiders considered being a ****, but even bringing up that a subset of LGBT in a game makes you uncomfortable makes you a ****? How is this not a double standard?

For those who talk about it being "hurtful" - if the GM said, "I have never seen X done well, so please don't", would that still be hurtful? If the GM said that they have never seen religion done well, and ask that everyone at their table play atheists / ask that religion didn't come up / have a game world with no religion, is that hurtful to those for whom religion is a major part of their identity? Heck, what if their world doesn't have gender at all? Is that hurtful?

And what's with this "right to exist" stuff? Darwinian teaches that no-one has a "right" to exist - you exist if you can, you become extinct if you can't. When did people start overturning Darwin and claiming that things had a "right" to exist? Outside of religion, I see no way to justify the notion that the human race has any right to exist whatsoever. Does anyone have anything that disagrees with this?

Most importantly, treat people as people and friends first, potential partners a distant second (and genuinely be interested in their friendship, not just as a stepping stone to romance).

Also you may find that personal connection can make people be attractive that while glancing at them you would never have given the time of day.

I... I cannot agree strongly enough with this. I treat people as people. In no small part because of this, I have gotten far too much attention for my taste, and have had to turn down far too many girls (and no small number of guys!) who became enamored of me. Including ones where it was rather obvious to me that I did not otherwise match their tastes.

If my player wants to play a gelatinous cube... Is the character's gender 'fluid'?

Thank you for that bit of humor in this rather tense thread!