Trigger warning: sexualized violence
In the gaming group I run, I said at the very first day that this was going to be a very "adult" campaign. I told them I wasn't going to pull punches, and that the party would have to really think about the decisions they made, as this was a gritty, dark world. In which true horrors and evil would be present. And they were all okay with that. But a few weeks ago I pushed it way too far.
One of the party members got himself kidnapped by a gang of criminals. (It was his fault, he was acting like an idiot.) So the rest of the party went to a rival gang of werewolves to ask if they knew where they could find him. Their leader agreed in exchange for the services of one female party member the following night. They freed the captured PC, and the female PC went to go honor the deal alone. When she went there, she was attacked by the leader. She was then assaulted, in a very bad way, by several of the gangs members. They let her go the next day, and the leader told the rest of the party that "she has paid for the information quite well."
Now, in my head at the time, I thought that this was a good idea. It created a villain the party had a real reason to want dead. With all the past villains the party had faced, they only fought them because there was treasure or someone else asked them. This gave them a person that they hated, a person that they all legitimately wanted to fight. And reminded them that it's probably a bad idea to go trusting violent gangs leaders. But afterwards, I realized that this was a terrible idea. I had never considered the human element. That there was a person playing this character that this "stuff" is happening to. I felt horrible about it afterwards, and apologized to the party, and especially to the female party member.
Now, the party member says that she's okay. That it did really remind her that she was dealing with criminals, and to make more careful decisions. But I still feel like I do owe her something for such a huge mistake. More so than just treasure or items. My group likes to go deep into RP, and was hoping to find an RP way to help the situation.
Even though the player said she was fine, it was very clear she was upset and depressed the rest of the session. And even a week later at the next session she was very insecure, and stayed quiet most of the time.
So I guess the real question is: what can I do to try and make up for such a terrible mistake?
Best Answer
Oh. Oh my. This is a pretty difficult situation for everyone involved.
Let's not sugar-coat it more than we must: you made some profoundly poor decisions in play. For your own benefit, you really need to figure out how that happened. Why did you feel like sexual coercion was a reasonably obstacle to throw in front of the group trying to fulfill their mission? What led you to decide that the gang-rape of a protagonist was a natural thing to introduce into the game? Why did you only realize it was a bad idea after the fact?
However, it's good that you noticed your friend was unhappy and decided to do something about it. That's the foundation of good communication in play. Maybe you can salvage things.
Tools for working it out
So, generally when I've screwed up majorly in an RPG, the most productive thing is to talk about it openly and pick a fix together. Actually once we just went back and replayed a bit of the game ("retconned" it, if you will) because the ending to a session kinda flopped and we decided it'd be cooler to just do it differently, and it resulted in what was probably the best session I've ever played. This kind of editing is pretty rare in RPG culture but it's actually pretty easy.
That said, your friends might want to just put it in the past and not talk about it. That's a perfectly legit way of dealing with something that's actively uncomfortable. So don't try to force the issue (you might mean well, but if you end up creating the impression that you think someone is fragile or incapable of making their own decisions, that can be more off-putting and uncomfortable than the fictional sexual assault itself). Say that you feel like you made a mistake, and that you'd like to talk about X or Y if they're open to it, and leave it at that.
Whatever you do, don't put her on the spot to "forgive" you, and don't make a big show of your contrition and how much you've learned, &c., &c. — that's all just peer-pressure and posturing. Fess up, honestly, and take a hard look at the decisions that brought you there.
I think the best thing you can do is to create the structure that'll keep the group on the same page from here on out. I'd start with techniques like lines and veils or X-card. These'll give you some ways to talk about emotional safety and fun at the table in a clear and communicative but non-judgemental way.
If you'd like more discussion on how to handle boundaries and extreme content, I recommend the short supplement "Safe Hearts" (revised free PDF) by Monsterhearts author Avery Alder.
Fictional rape may hint at other, subtler problems
There are some issues about sexual violence in particular that I want to draw to your attention. Basically, sometimes fictional rape is just the tip of an iceberg of complicated (and probably undesirable) stuff to watch out for, because of the atmosphere that it creates. This isn't necessarily stuff you need to tackle all at once in one big block, but it's good to keep an eye on what you're doing so you can catch yourself if you accidentally slip into some unfortunate tropes about gender and violence in play.
Some examples to consider:
A lot of fiction sorta dances around the issue by threatening characters with rape but always narrowly avoiding it through some contrivance. Playing that can be just as threatening and off-putting as rape.
Is the threat of sexual violence represented as an inherent and inescapable part of being a woman? That can create a really hostile atmosphere, potentially more so than depicting rape itself, because essentially it's saying that being an object and a victim is an inseparable part of being a woman.
Is it only women who face danger in this way? That's actually a sexist trope, embedded deeply into a lot of media because Western culture is generally more comfortable with the idea of women as victims than with the idea of victimized men. (Which doesn't stop men from experiencing sexual violence in reality, in both modern society and the historical past; it just makes it very hard to talk about it coherently.)
Is being raped totally going to define the character going forward? (Hell, is it totally going to define the player's relationship with the group going forward?) Either as the thing that we constantly talk about or the thing that's always hanging over us that we tiptoe around? That's a problematic attitude about women and rape, too.
When you're playing "grim-and-gritty," there's a lot of stuff you should discuss up front. I know torture, egregious violence, ridiculous misogyny, and rape are rather de rigueur in a lot of the inspirational material, but, trust me, they're really not an essential part of creating the mood.
Also ask yourselves whether you actually have something interesting and important you want to do with this stuff: abuse for abuse's sake, as set-dressing and background color, can become grating very quickly.