What are your thoughts on doing that in roleplays? Is it something you make sure to avoid, or do you enjoy testing the limits and seeing what happens when you cross the line(s)?

Mature rps do this alot, aslong as people are okay with mature themes and it goes with the story (it fits obviously). It can provoke a good emotional response. It's not something to avoid by any means, mature rps usually hit for realism or take ideals from it. The one's I've been in, anyway.

When I do it I woulden't have my character do what they woulden't do, it can be fun, it can make people cry.

It's a good tool for emotion and impact of actions.

I like to poke darker subjects, like experiments on humans, but I find that 99% of the time it's not done for roleplay value but just because these people get off on it. When I think of this, I think of it being death-camp nazi experiment style - it's definitely bad, it's definitely not ethical, and you're probably not using willing subjects. But it's for the sake of science.

What I'm not really interested in, and what it seems to be portraying 99% of the time, is sexual fantasies.

torture is much more interesting in RP than sexual fantasies are, @Odin.

torture is much more interesting in RP than sexual fantasies are, @Odin.

But as with all things I think there's a bit of discretion involved when selecting the good and the bad; poor writing makes torture seems meaningless, dull and... y'know, not interesting. I'd prefer well written sexual fantasies over poorly written torture, as a reader.

There seems to be some sort of bias towards sexual fantasies when we're talking about writing quality, though, so sexual fantasies are more often poorly written, in my experience.

aye. can't disagree on that. Quality is important.

we like exploring a variety of the "darker" themes, seeing how characters handle it. That's probably why our RP has Jedi being captives of a group of Sith. Sure, some might escape, but it wouldn't be fun if the situation was utterly hopeless. (we had that in previous iterations of the RP, and it did not work well)

I remember I wrote something this for an NRP once. Basically it was styled as the average new to NRP ubernation with a strong, massive military and an all powerful government with no opposition, but I tried to see how those things could feasibly and realistically work. While sure not as dark as Nazi death-for-science summer camps, what I ended up with was a fairly grimdark nation for what was supposed to be a relatively average NRP.

Yes I had a massive army, but that was because I was literally having children, the elderly and the sick go straight into the meat grinder a la Volksstrum style. It was well equipped army but that was because my entire economic industry was geared to warfare out of desperation to the point civilian goods are nearly nonexistent and starvation is a problem. There was no opposition to the government because they brutally removed any such thoughts since the government was just that fragile. Basically they were the arch typical martial pride race before getting their shit stomped in so hard their planet was turned into a wasteland and their species was being hunted with immense hate from just about everyone because of their previous wars and raids.

I guess you could call that one more of a deconstruction, but it did have the whole "survival over ethics" idea behind it. Although I will say the most time I see people using this its rather for smut or talk-out-of-your-ass philosophy of nihilism or absurdism where nothing matters and everything is pointless and boohoo edge, angst and darkness.

I never miss any an opportunity to play with a sensitive topic. I do, however, always ask my Roleplay partner(s) if they're comfortable with it, especially if they have experience related to said topic.

I do think some people don't know when to stop their writing and let the imagination of the reader take over, while others will write out the scenes to a point where it feels like the writer is getting a hard on. Whether it's sexual scenes, racism, torture, and other sort of triggers, you don't need to go into the detail to create a good quality scene without it coming across as trash.

Good example of this can be seen in Reservoir Dogs with the ear cutting torture scene. You actually do not see the damage inflicted but you see the pre-emptive actions and the resulting dismembered ear. Compare this movie to something like Saw and you can see how Saw just creates a gore fest by simply relishing and showing how it disfigures and kills it's characters. Sometimes you do need to push the boundaries but you need to understand your audience.

That brings us back to the forums and the taste of each player. You may want to create some of these darker themes but you have to remember that you are writing to a certain demographic. Just because the Roleplay is a theme like horror does not mean that each player wants to have to read about heads getting split open, brains popping out, or any other gnarly stuff.

(Btw, general torture is easier to speak about since it's a theme most people can understand and know where their own reading limits lie. Sexual scenes is something way more difficult and different due to how I've seen ideas from normal romance to rape, BDSM, tentacles, and even torture filled snuff. + Need to be careful about some discussions on the public side of the forum.)

You can write in detail about "dark" topics, you just have to choose the correct details. It's possible to have a girl get swept up by tentacles. Instead of drawing out what happens once she gets dragged around that corner, you can instead highlight her confusion and fear as she desperately clings to anything that is available to her. You can write a torture scene in the same vein, having a torturer explain what's going to happen to the victim if they don't give up the safe's password. I actually just wrote a scene a week ago where a character explains to someone she captured what's going to happen when they fire a cannonball into their chest. There's no gore, she never fires the cannon, and the reader knows exactly how destructive it would have been. Hell, maybe you don't mind erotica as long as it isn't X-rated. It's possible to be sensual and intimate without "sticking it in." Characters can kiss, hug, and touch with their clothes on. There are also layers of clothing that can be removed. people don't have to *BING* appear naked before feelings of intimacy can be felt. I always laugh when people say "I can't feel the intimacy of these characters when you fade to black."

Of course, you're always going to run into one-upmanship. "Oh your character lost their finger? Well my character is going to lose their whole hand!" It's hard to regulate this type of behavior, which is why establishing rules in RPs is so important.

Problem with writing dark topics is that there's a fetish for everything. Getting enveloped by tentacles? Obviously. Being consumed? Nothing new. Experiencing an event that completely breaks your psych and renders you an emotionless rag doll? Check, and double check. I tend to avoid too much use of "mainstream" dark when I can for this reason. Your horror roleplay can quickly turn into a sadist sex fantasy if you're not careful. That's not the kind of excitement I was looking for, friends.

I always laugh when people say "I can't feel the intimacy of these characters when you fade to black."

That sounds like poorly or incompletely written "foreplay", right? Because it clearly isn't those people's need to read the blackened stuff...

On a more serious note... Yup, you can have intimacy between characters without having it result in intercourse, and you can have intercourse between characters without it demanding a fade to black. You just have to consider how to go about writing it. After all, there's a difference between describing in detail the exact order of events as the two (or more) characters go about having intercourse and simply explaining that they had intercourse of the sexual kind, and that they found it really enjoyable.

Or to take it on a darker theme:
there's a difference between describing how a character was raped and simply saying the character was raped.

If it's dark and brutal for the sake of being so then it's stale and boring to me. There needs to be a reason behind the unethical paths characters take and exploring the morals, and philosophy of what is behind the deeds. The world plays a big role in limiting the characters power to be all good in our eyes. Which will lead to some juicy perplexions of who is right and wrong in a roleplay where one is portrayed as a hero or villain at first.

As an aspiring author, I have long since lost all qualms of what I research.