Gay PCs or NPCs

[diaglo]

My current PC in a mini-series I'm playing in is gay, but it hasn't ever come-up in play. It's possible the mini-series will end without it ever being revealed, since there are only two more sessions!

but besides the ale what then do you spend your phat lewt on???

ale and 'hos are the real meat and potatoes of adventuring.

 

[Eeralai]

but I got over that when I realised that it was only pretending.

That's really the essence of everything here. We are all playing make believe. If a group wants to make believe blood and gore than that's what their group does. If a group wants to make believe romance and intrigue than gender identification is going to play a much more important role and there is nothing wrong about that. I play in a game that is a lot about blood and gore and yet I find it important to me to write stories about my character and what she does outside of her adventuring time. Stories like that are encouraged because it's much harder to role play that then the blood and gore for our group. So the sexuality of my character comes out in her stories. That's the way I like to play it. But whatever works for other groups is just fine.

 

[der_kluge]

The topic of sex and sexuality doesn't often come up in most games I play in.

That said, I have had a few non-heterosexual characters that I've played. It makes more sense to me for futuristic and modern characters than for fantasy ones, but that's a personal thing, I guess.

I played a lesbian rigger in Shadowrun. I think all female riggers should be lesbian. It just makes sense to me. This wasn't a lipstick lesbian, but a real butch bulldyke lesbian. I didn't play her terribly long. Like most games from that time period, we started new campaigns all the time.

In Planescape, I had a bi-sexual female Sensate cleric/wizard. It just makes sense to me that Sensates would all be bi-sexual. It's practically part of their whole ethos.

Also in Shadowrun, I had a male decker who was a pedophile. His favorite phrase was "Hey little girl, wanna make a movie?" But he never acted on any of it. Mostly he was just kind of psychotic.

 

[Arnwyn]

has anybody here had a gay or bisexual PC in their game, or a gay or bi NPC?

No, this has never come up in our game - and, due to the personalities involved in our group, will likely never come up, either.

In any case, sexuality never comes up in our game, and romance is virtually a non-issue as well.

 

[fusangite]

In the game I'm currently playing in sex, sexuality, gender, and romance have played great key rolls in the storylines and character development.

While sexuality and romance are not part of the games I am in, gender certainly is. Gender is a very important identity category in any society and can reveal a great deal about its nature and, in most historical societies, has tended to subsume the category we think of a sexual orientation. Societies that have understood sexual orientation as an identity category rather than a practice have been rare in the extreme (basically this one and that's about it, as far as I can tell).

Thus, in my games, there are NPCs and PCs who sleep with people of the same sex. Most of them are officially celibate or in or on the path to marriage. A small minority identify as the opposite gender but those are rare individuals who feel the need to have society formally (rather than informally) recognize who their real romantic partner is.

On top of that we've had a great variety of genders/sexualities/romances too.

I cannot recall ever being in a gaming group in which romances have grown out of play.

I guess what I can't really visualize the social dynamic that would have to exist at a table for romantic or sexual interactions to be part of play.

 

[fusangite]

I find all this talk about 'maturity' interesting, as regards to sexuality in the game.

I think both "sides" of the debate over whether sexuality and romance should be a component of play think of themselves as more mature. One side associates immaturity with prudishness; the other associates it with collaborative sexual fantasizing with one's friends. I happen to be in the latter group but understand where the former group is comin from.

One of the DMs I've played with has NPCs flirt openly with PCs, and the DM himself flirts 'in character' with players of both genders with no embarrasment or shame. It was a little disorienting at first, being male and pretending to flirt,

There is no clear or clean boundary between flirting and pretending to flirt, just as there is no clear/clean boundary between sexually fantasizing with the assistance of one's friends and being sexually stimulated with their assistance.

Romance is such an important part of storytelling that I find it off how many people have eschewed it.

I often enjoy stories in which it plays no role. And I dislike the practice in the standard 2-hour American movie of devoting 15-20 minutes of it to an obligatory romance between the main character and a requisite hot girl. I prefer stories in which romance is not a factor or those in which it is the clear subject and occupies the foreground throughout. The thing is: RPGs are not conducive to telling the latter kind of story due to how they are socially configured.

but romance is important.

Most Hollywood movies with the 20-minute romantic sideline would be better without it.

It is such a powerful motivator for any character, for a start.

Yes. But there are all kinds of character motivations and actions that D&D is not configured to address. For instance, RPGs are socially configured to tell stories in which the objective is something all the characters can share in. Questing for loot, the holy grail, etc., fighting to depose a tyrant or achieve political power, protecting a village -- these are objectives everyone can equally share in and fulfill. The same is not true when it comes to romance, unless the society is polyandrous.

I specialise in playing the 'suave debonaire' 007-type character, for who romantic dalliances are a major goal.

What do the other players do while you're achieving it?

but all these things come together to make memorable gameplay for me and my group.

Here's the thing: if one of they guys in my group wakes up on a Saturday morning and spends the next 20 minutes "remembering" my game, this is a sign something has gone very wrong with my game.

I'm not saying that those who don't share my view are weird, and I certainly don't encourage anybody to do anything that might make them uncomfortable, but I am fascinated by the number of people for whom love and sex are foreign concepts in their game.

They're not foreign concepts for us. They're just things that cannot be played out in a normal gaming dynamic.

 

[Kuld]

I am using an NPC in one of my campaigns that is magically disguising himself as a woman and he actually slept with one of the (male) PCs. The PC is aware the she was “the bad guy” but is still unaware that he is indeed a “guy”. There is a lot more to it but that’s the gist.

 

[barsoomcore]

A female NPC in Barsoom fell in love with a female PC. The NPC was a former noblewoman who'd been turned into a vampire (which on Barsoom is a savagely painful and horrifying experience) and spent a few centuries being completely psychotic.

I'm with fu (as I usually am) in that the "roles" of sexuality we currently make such a big deal over simply don't exist in other cultures. This woman had been married in her mortal life, and had a child and held titles as a married woman of her society, and yet her sexual preference was for women and she had female lovers -- but to the society she lived in, this was no problem whatsoever because she was fulfilling her primary role as wife and mother. People flat-out didn't care.

I wondered in fact if such behaviour wouldn't be considered LESS problematic to her society than if she took male lovers -- at least with her prediliction, she has no chance of disrupting the succession with bastard children. The husband never has to worry that her children aren't his.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I've noticed a lot of women who play lesbians or gay males in order to keep the other male players from hitting on thier character.

Having said that, I've had quite a few gay and bisexual characters and PC's over the years.

The most notable one was a Paladin & Wizard in the party. (Interestingly enough, both played by straight guys and not in a stereotypical way.) They kept it hidden and quiet, with niether of them actually acting out on it.

When the Paladin was killed, the Wizard went mad and began researching way to bring the Paladin back. Eventually the Wizard became an NPC (Player's request) and eventually they began to hear about this powerful undead wizard doing horrible necromatic experiments.

So the party ended up facing an old friend and comrade who had gone mad from grief, and refused to recognise that bringing the Paladin back as a Death Knight was wrong.

When the dust settled, and the Wizard was dead, less than half of the original group was left.

It's still talked about now and then. It lead to a VERY interesting campaign spin-off.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I once played a halfling rogue that got the nickname of Haldin Pinchinbottoms. Since the party was all males, the little guy with the penchant for playing grab ass with the party eventually morphed into a gay character. There were plenty of jokes all around, but overall it ended up being an interesting character.