Gay PCs or NPCs

arscott said:

I'm somewhat intrigued by the number of bisexual elves posts. What is everybody's reason for giving elves that tendency?

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I suspect it's because elves are generally portrayed as tall, slender, good-looking, and long-haired - i.e., looking a lot like manga bishonen pretty-boys.

I played in a game once with a blatantly gay dude who practically only played female characters. So we had a gay player more comfortable playing a straight female rather than, say...a butchy CONAN type of warrior. It was weird at first and interesting to say the least. If it wasn't for his crappy personality (as a person) and stinking attitude/munchkin-ism my pals and I would've played in the group a little longer.

I played a lesbian paladin, who got involved with the high priestess of her temple. Long, drawn out romance. Very amusing and fun to play.

Never played a gay NPC or PC, but I've seen one played by another player, and the only time it came up was when the PC (female) was being courted by a male noble.

Most of the time, as most people here, it's never come up.

STARP_JVP said:

I'm just curious here; this was sparked by a conversation I had just recently. Without editorialising homosexuality itself, has anybody here had a gay or bisexual PC in their game, or a gay or bi NPC? I'm just curious to see how common it is. It's never actually happened in my game - not for any particular reason, I'd like to stress; it just hasn't.

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Ok I have not publically touched on that subject in D&D. Altho My current Teifling does lean that way.

I have a Cyberpunk 2020 character who is Bi-sexual. How blataint she was about it dependied on how old she was in the game. at 18 she was in the coset for the most part. by age 36 she was married with two kids and while working along ways from her husband ended up involved with the only other female PC in that game.

in a latter game earler in her life I did get some flak from another gamer who knew my character liked females.

IRL: I am a straight Male with a small line of Bi-girlfriends. I do usually treat sexuality as something normal and usually accepted. Then again I am decended from the Hellfire Club of England. What I consider normal usually is not that normal.

In terms of players, the one gay guy who has played in our group always played female PCs. The one time he played a male character, the PC got killed in his first combat. He kind of gave up playing male characters after that one. In terms of the sexuality of thecharacter's he played, none of us ever knew.

In terms of NPCs, there is only one NPC that comes to mind and that is Chess - see story below. She was crafted as a character whose profession meant that her sexuality mattered. If it was men then it was business and if it was women it was for pleasure (or at least pleasurable business). It helped to characterise her "man-eater" personality. Aside from this, sexuality has never really come up in our game.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

I'm just curious here; this was sparked by a conversation I had just recently. Without editorialising homosexuality itself, has anybody here had a gay or bisexual PC in their game, or a gay or bi NPC? I'm just curious to see how common it is. It's never actually happened in my game - not for any particular reason, I'd like to stress; it just hasn't.

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Why, yes, my current game has elves. Why do you ask?

I played (very briefly) a gay man in a game of Spycraft back when it was new and exciting. He was only gay because I was sick of hearing one of the other players talking about how her character's high Charisma and various social feats made her "irresistible" even to the other PCs - so I snapped back that my character was gay.

Having made that kneejerk decision, I would have stuck with it and treated it seriously, but that game fell apart after one or two sessions.

Generally speaking, my characters are motivated by things other than sex and romance - but, then again, I was having fun playing out a difficult romance with my d20 Wheel of Time cavalryman and a minor noblewoman before that game went on seemingly-permanent hiatus, so I don't shy from it either.

Monte At Home said:

It was not the intention of the original creators of Rufus and Burne (who were PCs together and played through the adventure) that they were gay.

However, it was absolutely my intention to portray them as such in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (there's only the one bedchamber for them in the entire castle), without saying "and they're gay," which would be silly. (Silly because it's really not an issue, and because I didn't identify straight characters as such.)

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Monte,

I wanted to thank you for this. I remember running through a little of ToEE when I was a teenager, and I seem to recall at the time there were jokes about Rufus and Burne's sexuality.

When I ran RttToEE I played up their relationship with some humour (I am gay, as is one of the players). I remember when the party were in the Welcome Wench, possibly the first night of the first campaign day, I had R&B having dinner at the table. I remember describing it as a table with a candle, a flower in a vase, etc, all being set up for a "romantic evening", even though the rest of the tavern was your usual D&D type.

I always played up the warrior as the strong, silent type, and the wizard as the one who like the public displays, the "we" in conversations, etc, while his boyfriend silently put up with these affectations. It was a lot of fun. (also reminded me of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of Hamlet - couldn't remember which one was Rufus and which was Burne, etc).

A little off topic: It was interesting to find excuses during the RttToEE campaign for R&B, and the other Homlett elites, to not get involved in the adventure; R&B spent much of the campaign simply not believing the characters, claiming that they would be aware if the temple were rising again; Cannoness Y'Dey would constantly remind the PCs that she had been involved last time, and that things were much tougher then, while belittling the PC's achievements, etc (boy did they hate her!).

Back to the main topic - I rarely mention the sexuality of NPCs when I'm running a game. It rarely comes up at all, and although I've opened the door for characters to have romance, etc, it's not really been taken up (there was an instance during RttToEE where the Paladin was trying to purchase two matching rings as components for Shield Other, which he intended on casting on the (female) mage. The shopkeeper, who was familiar to them, leapt to the conclusion that they were engagement rings. When he congratulated the Paladin on his upcoming nuptuals, the paladin decided that perhaps the wizard would also think the ring was an engagement ring, and therefore he would have to propose to her. He got on his knee to ask her and was promptly smacked over the back of the head by a very embarassed wizard.

I remember a couple of instances where the PCs have found themselves being hit on by members of the same sex, but this was usually done for humour value (one instance where a PC was being berated by someone for flirting with the berator's wife - the PC then declared (falsly, I believe) that the character was in fact gay. The Berator was taken aback for a moment, and then said "I'm sorry, we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, could we start again? And then smiled knowingly at the PC, while offering to shake hands - it was very funny, and the PC had to feign interest in the NPC for some time).

Anyway, enough from me,

Duncan

Oddly enough, none of my gay players play gay characters.

Much like other posters, the issue of sexual orientation doesnt come 'out' . And when romance of both hetero-homosexual in nature occurs, it doesn't faze anyone.

Hmm.
I had 2 groups playing over one weekend (Sat and Sun). One consisted of 5 gay men, and the other 5 straight guys. (IN the past there was a combination of 4 gay men and 1 straight gal but thats beside the observation i'm trying to make).

My gay group didn't play their characters to reflect any sexual need, romantic social interaction in the least. When it was brought up, it was largely handled as straight characters. All characters were male. Some Charismatic beyond belief, others more rough and tumble. A spectrum of personas.

My straight guy groups consisted of half female characters. Over hte course of several games, at least half the group was always female. In a White Wolf Vampire game, there ALL played female characters. Only one of them played a lesbian once. But there were 2 bisexuals overall.

I have to put this in context of culture as well.
We are of different asian ethnic races playing in South East Asia.

I never gave it much thought really.

Hmmms.