Livestream Role Playing Game Broadcasts Sexual Assault

On YouTube and Twitch, Tens of thousands of people log in regularly to take part in popular ‘tabletop actual play’ games, where user role play on livestream and podcast services.

The long-running role play game (RPG) series RollPlay – Far Verona part of the RollPlay Network on Twitter that features 90 videos with 256,130 views, disrupted that service when the ‘actual play’ broadcast a sexual assault scene to its live viewers.

After the sex scene played the cast of Far Verona quit the show, and canceled the second season of the series. The GM responsible for the scene said they are stepping away from RPGs (role-playing game) and will seek counseling.

The sexual assault scene played and was broadcasted to all role playing game players out when a synthetic human named Johnny Collins, a character from a player named Elspeth Eastman, visited a friend’s place to get fixed up, but the role playing scene quickly evolved into a play sex scene when that character, a non-player character (NPC) performed by the game master and award winning game designer, Adam Koebel, performed the sexual assault act while other players were watching.

No physical devices that players could have used to stop the game at any point if they become uncomfortable was not installed.

Koebel tweeted, “I feel a deep regret for not doing better for letting down the cast and the fans, I have a long road ahead, one that’ll last the rest of my life, if I want to align my ethics and my behavior. I’m working with a counselor on this, and have been since it happened. I’m so sorry that I hurt the cast, and to anyone in the audience who felt hurt, this apology is for you, too. I’m going to rededicate myself, and keep working on doing a better job.”