How do you handle sexuality in your RPGs?

tenuki · Post by **tenuki** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 5:45 pm

I just read through the long thread about the enchantress in Count Morgenstein's party, which is a pretty extreme example for how roleplaying sexually charged content can go wrong; please forgive my euphemism.

However, if you run a roleplaying game that focuses on storytelling and the personalities of the PCs, sanitizing out love interests or sex entirely seems wrong to me. After all, most people do have sex, it's important to them, and the issue features in most novels/movies, even genre ones. So why shouldn't it come up in a game where the objective is to tell a story that _could_ be made into a genre novel or movie?

Here's an example where it works out:

The group in which I am a player consists of five people between 32 and 38 years of age. The setting could be described as Middle-Earth on acid, and the story takes place during the prelude to the War of the Ring (T.A. 3018).

I am playing a relatively powerful, albeit conflicted, Dunadan ranger. This character has an ongoing love affair with a shapeshifting Maia of Manwe who has taken more than one step on the road to corruption by Sauron. In a D&D setting, she'd be called a monster of neutral/evil alignment. I find that this twist is an excellent story device that helps to give depth to both the character's and the NPC's personalities.

As to the storytelling technique, we stop at the bedroom door (figuratively speaking) and leave the details of lovemaking to the imagination of the players, all of whom are mature enough to extrapolate from their own personal experiences.

So, how do you guys handle this kind of stuff?

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:29 pm

Well, characters have had sex in one game I played in, and one game I DMed.

Actually, I was the one who did it in the one I played in.

My character, a former thri-kreen leader turned vengeful, insane ghoul got cursed by the evil deity who was responsible for ruining his life, making him want to have sex with another party member (who consented, oddly enough...)

It was just handled offscreen after our characters decided to do it.

It was similar in another game, where a yuan-ti halfblood woman paid the party sorcerer to have sex with her (he rolled a ridiculously high Diplomacy check which I decided made her fanatically in love with him, but he wasn't concerned with her, so she made all sorts of offers to him)

Again, handled offscreen.

I don't want the encounters themselves to be role-played, but relationships themselves are fine; in a more mature group they could even add to the story (the games I run and play in tend to be light-hearted and really goofy so relationships in them are just joke one-night stands).

Really, it's whatever the group is comfortable with.

Jilocasin · Post by **Jilocasin** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:12 am

The D&D episode of Community shows us exactly how not to handle it.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:04 am

It only just now occurred to me that the reason I don't even bother to have most of my characters do anything as far as relationships and sex go is because I game to escape my real world problems, which, for the time being, includes my love life.

But yeah, I basically don't bother with my characters' love lives. Usually they're busy doing something else.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:32 pm

Presence of real life couples within gaming group makes this an uncomfortable issue for me. Does anyone else feel that way?

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 3:32 am

Schwarzkopf wrote:Presence of real life couples within gaming group makes this an uncomfortable issue for me. Does anyone else feel that way?

YES.

Also, I feel weirder about role-playing explicit scenes in person or with a male MC. It's weaknesses on my part, sure, but I doubt I'm entirely alone there either.

Basically, it's having a sense of the table. Some groups would be just fine having hardcore porn playing in the background; some groups are uncomfortable with any in-game affection. It may even be that the same group feels differently day to day. There are no hard and fast rules, and anyone who says otherwise is wrong or prudish. People generally don't have fun when they're uncomfortable though, and squicking your players is always a dick move. Generally, it's better to err on the side of caution.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:31 am

In general for me, adult themes are fine. Sexual content is not.

Molochio · Post by **Molochio** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 7:47 am

There is no sexuality in my games.
The only thing you will find is stunning environments, cunning npc's, and endless waves of monsters with challenge ratings higher than your character's level. This leaves no time to cultivate a meaning romantic relationship.

If between sleeping in dungeons and taverns your hobo murderer pc wants take carnal pleasure with the slain before another wave of over powered monsters arrives, it may do so at varying degrees of risk.

However, actual intimate relationships are out of context.
For the most part, no ones even cares about the fine details of what your character does with it's genitals.

From most of my observations, the introduction of sexuality in a game opens the door for someone's PC being brutally raped in the ass.
And this is fine... If everyone at the table is in agreement on the content.

However, most people actually don't want to play in a sex game.
They merely desire a magical tea party or brazen combat with 6 ogre barbarians and a great red dragon.

That is the simple truth of the matter.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 4:26 am

Roleplaying out actual sex in game seems like a waste of time. I don't want too much spotlight being shone on this character or that so I tend to let things fade to black whenever such a thing come up. And it has, as the last campaign I ran featured a scion of a character that had gotten laid in the campaign prior to that one.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 7:40 am

Fade to black for details, but otherwise relationsips, seductions and using sex as bribes all are ok.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:06 pm

Fuchs wrote:Fade to black for details, but otherwise relationsips, seductions and using sex as bribes all are ok.

That's generally how I handle it.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 9:33 pm

Molochio · Post by **Molochio** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 12:38 am

...now make a DC 20 Diplomacy check to see if she lies down in the soft green grass with you.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 6:41 pm

Wait: no Perform checks?

I've gamed with people who bragged about using Perform (Sex Acts) as a skill before, but luckily for me, they were always talking past tense.

Molochio · Post by **Molochio** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 7:51 pm

Perform checking sex acts without consent granted by a successful diplomacy check first is rape.
At which point you must instead win a grapple check to pin the subject.

Red Archon · Post by **Red Archon** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 3:45 pm

Typically, fade to black and you figure it out, perhaps an after-sex chat or a description of how it went on a general level. But there have been two hugely awkward one-on-one game situations, both with male players. Those experiences have taught me to simply not go there. My advice and plead to the gaming community: don't. Just don't.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 4:57 pm

Red Archon wrote:Typically, fade to black and you figure it out, perhaps an after-sex chat or a description of how it went on a general level.

Dude, we play RPGs to escape reality!

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:08 pm

Perform checking sex acts without consent granted by a successful diplomacy check first is rape.
At which point you must instead win a grapple check to pin the subject.

Said by one of my characters to another member of the party, after using Charm Person to create an opening for sleeping with a third party member, an attractive female coincidentally (and rather shockingly) played by an attractive female:

"It's not rape, it's assisted consent!"

(Which I more or less stand by. Charm person isn't Dominate, after all. Probably a shitty thing to do in real life, but not rape-equivalent. My character was kind of a douche, anyway. Tres gray elf.)

We did not talk about the actual sex because that kind of shit at the table is not appropriate and would have made everyone, especially me, uncomfortable. We just kind of noted that it happened in game and moved on with a minimum of snickering.

But there have been two hugely awkward one-on-one game situations, both with male players. Those experiences have taught me to simply not go there. My advice and plead to the gaming community: don't. Just don't.

If we're talking two straight male players, you're right, definitely the less said the better. Whatever, bro, you bang the wench, let's move on to the next encounter.

Molochio · Post by **Molochio** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:20 pm

Red Archon wrote:Typically, fade to black and you figure it out, perhaps an after-sex chat or a description of how it went on a general level. But there have been two hugely awkward one-on-one game situations, both with male players. Those experiences have taught me to simply not go there. My advice and plead to the gaming community: don't. Just don't.

Sexuality is... Squick?

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:47 pm

Not so much squick, as wholly inappropriate for the medium. That really isn't the type of roleplay most people play D&D for.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:35 am

How do you handle sexuality in your games?

HEAD-ON, WITH ENTHUSIASM

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:26 pm

You apply it directly to the forehead?

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:37 pm

RobbyPants wrote:You apply it directly to the forehead?

Skullfucking.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 3:51 pm

Darth Rabbitt wrote:
RobbyPants wrote:You apply it directly to the forehead?
Skullfucking.

I'm never going to see those commercials the same again.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 3:08 am

I was just being asinine or squib or something.