I don't know what this whole exchange looks like from your perspective, but from where I'm standing (and from where most people are standing, judging by the general tenor of the discussion and other comments), you're actively campaigning for the inclusion of sexual violence in the game and shitting up the thread by talking about how cool it is that Ma-Ha-Suchi is here to rape us.
You're not coming across as someone just interested in dispassionately discussing the pros and cons of a particular setting element or talking about how the line has portrayed this sort of thing in previous editions.
You're coming across as someone who likes sexual violence and harassment. As someone who is cruelly and maliciously dismissing the concerns and expressed wishes of people who don't like it, including people who have experienced it themselves in the past, and then pontificating about how this stance of morally vapid indifference makes you somehow better or wiser than the rest of us.
I appreciate the outside view. Here's how it looks from my point of view:
Last edition around, the game made many attempts at dark sexual themes. Most of 'em were absolutely terrible, largely unusable at any table. But this particular character actually worked; he could either be taken as a gag or treated as a really awful villainous human being. Either way, he said something about the setting. And if you did treat him as a villain, there's an actual story in going up against him. I wouldn't actually want to do the "kill the creep" story at my table, but not everything's for me.
I appreciated that. Still do. I said so, and after some brief incredulity at the idea that there might be anything sinister about the character I immediately got a whole bunch of personal attacks. Which I ignored, obviously. I heard a bit of actual criticism of the point I was making, but it was drowned out by people who were just yelling at me to shut up. I tried to answer it, all the same.
Throughout this conversation, people repeatedly said they didn't want any discussion of sexual violence, or any suggestion that it belonged in the setting, as it was simply not an acceptable topic. This seemed to be the main thrust of the responses; nobody was going through the details of his writeup, people just objected to the conversation on principle. But somehow, when I said the same it sparked outrage.
In retrospect, it was a mistake to point out other people's role in keeping the argument going. That tends to tick people off and it wasn't necessary.
The actual point I wanted to make here is a pretty small one, and I could easily be wrong about it. I don't actually feel terribly strongly about Ma-Ha-Suchi. But I'm obviously not going to be shouted or insulted into silence. When has that ever worked on anyone with any sense of self?
I don't really see myself as advancing a position, here. I feel like I'm just standing here being yelled at. The yelling will probably continue until I stop standing in that place, which is honestly fine by me but probably not desirable to the people to the people running this show.
If you scroll back through the thread, you can see this isn't the only time I've been in a similar spot. I say something unpopular, other people get annoyed, they spend twenty posts telling me just how annoyed they are with me while I mostly just stonewall them.
...you've -wholly unprompted- recreated the idea of the predatory queer...
I didn't create anything; it's right there in the book.
Still, that is one qualm I have about the whole thing. In the bi-by-default setting that holds MHS his pansexuality doesn't really stand out, and I don't think the awful things about him are connected to his orientation. But it's still unfortunately similar to the stereotype.
And for what it's worth, I don't feel there's anything better or more mature about having this kind of thing in your game. As I said, I prefer to keep things PG at my own table. But of 2e's many attempts at the theme, I can't think of one that was actually better than the FA MHS. (Can you? Not a rhetorical question, I'm actually asking.) And I'm inclined to extend some credit for that.
At the risk of sticking my hand in a blender.
You absolutely could. A sex-orientated villain hinges primarily on two things-
-A good social contract between storyteller and player.
-The ability of the player to express internal conflict.
Those both seem like table things rather than book things, though.
How could any character writeup provide them?
