I'm feeling curious today.  What problems have your groups had with various forms of harassment and/or discrimination?  Besides the ****-y behavior I've heard about and witnessed a little of, I've heard of some people creating things like "Caitlyn Jenner parody" characters to belittle certain types of people, and the like.  How did your groups respond to this type of behavior?

I'm also curious if any one else has gotten the feeling that Tieflings are somewhat based off of older 'Curse of Cain' beliefs.  Has that ever come up in a game?  How did people respond to it?

Art imitates life though.  Just about everything in the game manuals is based off of a real life myth or system.  There's myths out there that Cain married Lilith (first wife/lover of Adam and mother of all demons), so the "curse of cain" thing isn't that hard of a stretch.

Ooo, share some stories.  I've had nothing but pleasant players who've played nicely.

Bring on the cringe.

There are some rules you need to lay down before starting your game (I normally write up a rules doc and link it for the group). Everyone is required to read it before session 0 and in session 0 if they show up and design characters they are agreeing upon those rules. Because this is the session to question the rules, and things presented. Everything is open to debate and the group agrees upon things. The major things I include are: No real life situations are brought into game, such as politics, religion or sexual orientation (or gender bashing), EVERYONE has the right to feel comfortable sitting at the table. Any player caught bullying or designing up things to insult another people or make them feel uncomfortable, gets a stern warning and then if they keep it up, ejected from the group. I know this sounds a bit extreme, but Ive had some wonky players over the 20 something years of running games, join my sessions.

Quote from Sedge >>

Ooo, share some stories.  I've had nothing but pleasant players who've played nicely.

Bring on the cringe.

I've never experienced anything quite as bad as the OP link discusses, but I've definitely seen people being forced into gender stereotypes. The female cleric who has to be nice, and who is always forced to be in peril and to be rescued with no option to do anything else. It gets tired quickly and the worst part is, it turns people off a hobby that shouldn't be like that.

I've never witnessed harassment, but I have had some players want to be spotlight hogs.  I usually just pointedly shift attention to other players.

Harassment of another player or bigot activity would be a good way to be disinvited from any game I was connected with.  No racism, sexism, genderism, etc.

When you run with a group of PCs called the "Dukes of Depredation" you pick up stories. One guy collects pants...

I've never seen harassment among my own groups, but I've heard stories of people breaking up campaigns because some people want to be rude just for the sake of being rude.

I have had one player who always plays a cleric, so that he can offer 'Lay on Hands' to the female characters, so I told him that his god didn't approve and it might stop working...

The other thing was going into bars and asking for a wench - so I had the female bartender feed him lots of ale and then take his money.

I don't have much in the way of personal run ins with it, but mostly I'm gaming with friends so boundaries and personalities are known. Smaller public games run within the local community are supposed to be using the X card system to put a bit of a stop to it. At a local convention level where the community tends to run the tabletop gaming track, X cards are explained to DM's who are meant to cover it before every game they run to also help minimize issues.

Generally speaking, as more unknowns are involved, more safeguards are put in place. 

As a Dungeon Master I feel it's my responsibility to not only set the tone for my tables, but to enforce it with zero tolerance for any behavior that makes someone feel not-welcome in the game. It's not negotiable for me at all. While the story of a game might deal with darker themes at some points, I do not have any interest in any game that leaves a player feeling uncomfortable or unwelcome.

When someone starts to wander in the no-go direction I quickly stop it. Taking the player to the side if necessary. Removing them from my gaming circles if necessary.

My version of fun has no space for making people feel unwelcome, uncomfortable, or unliked. 

If the DM/GM doesn't discuss acceptable player boundary rules at the beginning of the game OR doesn't allow questions before playing the game...I just get up and leave.  It is usually an indicator that the DM/GM is going to allow "anything is ok at my table".

If a game is heading down the directions of ****-y actions, I leave the game.  I want a game to be fun, not disgusting.  DMs/GMs know that most people will pretty much do what the DM/GM tells them is ok...people love to be led without question.  It is up to the individual players to decide what is allowable.  Luckily 95% of the games I've played under unknown DMs/GMs have been great experiences...but those 5% always stick in my mind.  I've learned from their mistakes! -)

TQQdles™

my group was never into that type of play. it was more about mischief and o few (accidental) city burnings (courtesy of our wild mage.)

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There was one other encounter, but it wasn't sexual in any way. While in the Navy I had a group I DM'd. We'd sit in the main rec area of the barracks for our games. One guy, not one of our group, would trash talk us and say he could play so much better, we were missing opportunities, etc. I got so annoyed with him I offered to let him play for a session to try him out. The rest of my group didn't like the idea but I persuaded them to give it a try. I even allowed this new guy to create a Drow Elf (though had never allowed Drow before). I pulled out an old dungeon my older sister had create which was designed specifically for a Drow Elf, but never told ay of the group that the dungeon was designed for Drow (my sister had no problems letting Drow characters in her games). This new player made every mistake in the book, you could say. He forgot what his character  could do, and had to constantly be reminded to look at his sheet to recall his abilities, spells, even weapons. No deal, newbees often have this problem. But what got me was that by the end of the dungeon, everyone else had been killed except the Drow Elf (though all my regulars had graciously stayed to watch, relying on me to teach this guy a lesson). He gets to the final scene and all he needs is Faerie Fire (basic Drow ability) to win the dungeon (it's been over 20 years, so don't recall what the challenge actually was). He tried everything he could think of, but never once used Faerie Fire. He would refuse to even look at his sheet by then and wouldn't allow anyone else to advise him, even me as the DM, who DID try to help. Finally, he was killed, and the player was so enraged he stood up and stormed off without trying to find out what he missed. He never bothered us again, either. My regulars were quite pleased, as judging by the game we'd just had, he didn't mesh well with us anyway. He did try to start his own group after that, but his players would leave to join my group after only a few sessions with him. I think he needed to learn to play well with others and listen.

In over 30 years of playing D&D, I've never encountered 'harassment' at any of my tables.  And I only allow parody characters if it is a non-serious short run game.  I'm also not a fan on playing with people who look for reasons to be offended.  If I find myself with people like that, I tend to move along to other groups where it's ok to make fun of and be made fun of.  My best groups were where we all took turns dogging each other.  It was always in good fun and if you were gonna dish it out, you better be ok with taking it too.  Seems like everyone is too serious about social interactions these days.  I will say though that sexual role playing or sexual themed content were never allowed in my games.  I don't play RPGs to 'find myself'.  I make sure everyone knows that from day one.

A lot of folks think harassment is strictly a matter of overtly antagonist action of one person directed at another person.  Harassment is also tied up and most frequently addressed in the work place, or play space, in terms of hostile environment.

To tack on something constructive to this resurrected thread, while I've yet to use it, I've found this tool an interesting way to define both GM and Player boundaries in a game:

Monte Cook Games Consent in Gaming

As someone who's been in and around the hobby for around 35 years, I like many scoffed initially at some sort of "HR form" for TTRPGs, but having read up on the philosophy behind it and having educated myself on some of the more well public incidents that animated some community members to develop it, I'm glad it's there.  Again, I haven't used it as a distributed form in my groups, but I do use it as a sort of guide in Session Zero and pre game spaces to make sure I understand boundaries and also the players understand my boundaries ahead of the game rather than having to do a game pause to either have a "are we all good with this?" discussion or a game derailment and maybe a group dissolution because someone wasn't aware of the lines that aren't supposed to be crossed.