How often do sex and romance come up in your games?

[Pour]

Now that I stop and think, a whole lot. I think it has a lot to do with it being run online. In person, we've had moments, but nothing as in depth or prolonged as my internet game.

I think every PC has had moments, some quite brutal and adult, but the social contract among individual players dictates the limits. I can think of one player that wants NOTHING to do with sex and his female character, quite liking her beautiful and chaste [and has threatened to quit should anything sexual befall her]. As a DM, I really don't have limits, though I refrain from roleplaying the sexual encounters themselves (I used to a couple of years back, but I just don't have the inclination anymore. Some of my players do rp them on the side, as it suits them.).

I think the most sexual character I have in my game currently is a vampire queen whose soul was once forfeit to a succubus. The succubus became her pimp and twisted mentor, and under the hellish ordeal she learned to use her sexuality to her supreme advantage. The vampire eventually leveraged her way out of bondage and into a role as prophet to the goddess of pain, having proved herself capable of sustaining legendary punishment. Among the character's treasures, the Malcanthe Sutra, penned by the queen of the succubi herself hehe. It's actually a rather useful artifact.

My most romantic players have to be my half-elf cleric (female playing a female) and my eladrin swordmage (male playing a male). For whatever reason, this bond developed with the two characters over the five years we've been playing, and they even had a child together. They also play up the sexual angle when there's downtime, but I don't think they really delve into it the same way the vampire queen does, or her vampire assassin ex-boyfriend does (another player of mine) whose in love with an alien gem...

 

[S'mon]

I like romance in my games, but most players and GMs at the Meetup aren't interested, so I've seen very little since I've been playing there. I kinda expect D&D to not have romance, but was very disappointed it was equally lacking in the Savage Worlds zombie horror game I played last year.

In general it's always been fairly rare in tabletop games, but was actually more common in games I ran as a teenager than 20+. When romantic plots did occur they were unusually memorable.

It's more common in online games, there was a nice romance in the 1e Yggsburgh game I ran earlier this year, despite the catcalls from the public gallery in the Dragonsfoot chatroom.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Every single campaign, with about half of the characters involved at some point.

Right now, every PC is involved in some sort of romantic relationship (two are married with kids, too). It's part of life, and it tends to develop naturally enough. Like you, nothing explicit happens, and we will skip over stuff as we feel is natural (though I, as GM, tend to make it clear what's going on, in case anybody is hazy or wants to take precautions).

This is pretty close to how my group is. Our current campaign includes PCs who are children of previous PCs; PCs who frequent brothels; and PCs who are family (wo)men, adventuring to support their loved ones. Nothing too explicit is ever discussed aside from the occasional joke at someone's Fruedian slip.

It does help that we have all known each other for at least ten years and, in some cases, nearly forty! We all know where our lines of comfortablity are.

 

[steenan]

Sex and romance don't happen very often in our games, but they definitely aren't absent. In each campaign there is at least one serious relationship, and sometimes a few minor "encounters". My characters quite often start campaigns single and end married.

We never roleplay sex itself, though the point at which we fade to black varies (sooner for an established couple; later if the romance is just beginning and there is a lot of dramatic tension in first kisses and declarations of love).

 

[Serendipity]

Pretty regularly - the longer a game runs around here, the more likely one or more characters will hook up with someone (PC or NPC).

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Almost never.

And when it does, we skip forward to the killing things and taking their stuff.

 

[the Jester]

Sadly, half of the only pc couple in my current group died a few sessions ago.

She was a half-elf. He was a gnome. They had just uncovered the truth about their region's ruler (there wasn't one) when they met a man on the road who was coming to "take a census" for the local governor's liege. After some minor dancing around the subject, the census-taker asked who was in charge. Both the gnome and half-elf claimed that they were working for the (no such person) governor, but the census-taker saw through their feeble attempts at deception, married them on the spot and declared them the new authorities.

Though the two of them never had a romatic relationship- she barely tolerated him and he didn't especially like her- they did have a sexual one in the hopes of producing gelfling offspring.

 

[ComradeGnull]

I don't think that any of the three- sex, love, or romance- has really been a part of the games that I have been a part of. In the last ten years I've mostly done PbP, which tended to be more tactically/kick-in-the-doors-style focused than some IRL games are. Back in the day when I played more in person with a regular group, I think we ran one 'rescue the princess' type adventure, but I think the member of the party who might have made a play for here was abandoned on the roof of a castle because he had been crippled by a vampire attack.

Other than that, the nearest my players got to the sweet embrace of love was one of them being fitted for prosthetic testicles after an unfortunate incident involving a speeder bike and a plate glass window while playing d6 Star Wars.

Roleplaying sex or romance with a group of dudes I went to elementary school sounds like about as much fun as being shot in the face. I've got a wife and family, so RP'ing domestic scenes seems kind of like roleplaying mowing my lawn or filling in my Form 1040. Not exactly the stuff of epic heroics.

 

[jbear]

As both DM and player I tend to stay away from it, but it still comes up.

When I DM my wife loves to play flirty characters, and up until now I have thwarted all of her attempts to bed anyone she has met. It became a standing joke actually, as she took over her brother-in-law's character who was originally male. After going through a phase of being androgynous, it eventually became female as she didn't really want to play a male character. As she had a low charisma score to boot, I decided to just play it that everyone who met her assumed she was a man. It made sense and it was fun. So it made for very entertaining situations when she would hit on any and everyone, but alas to no avail as they politely excused themselves from her company, calling her "Sir" all the while.

But no romantic relationships have ever developed between PCs or NPCs while I've been DMing.

As a player on the other hand it has occurred. Accidently. And I say accidently because it is something I'd most definitely not seek out to include in a game intentionally. [sblock=Amusing anecdote, so I'll share.] My PC had picked up a couple of love potions for very very cheap from a hag in a local village at the beginning of the adventure. It was something I sought out and he obliged allowing me to find it. I paid something like 10 gp so while my PC thought it was real, I myself was pretty sure I had been scammed.

Later on during the adventure, we were on a mission to rescue the King's son when we discovered that it was his sister that had kidnapped him and planned to perform a ritual on him that would would wipe him from existence and even from living memory, leaving her as direct heir to the throne. She was under the influence of the BBEG, and so after we foiled the murder, beat down her minions and restrained her, preparing to return her to her father we ran into a bind... Well to say the least, she had quite a potty mouth and swore black and blue that we had no proof and that she would tell her father that we had mistreated her wrongfully, demanding that he chop off our heads.

So, with nothing to lose, and with little hope of success, I forced her to drink the Love Potion. For good measure I made her drink both. We couldn't be sure if she was bluffing us but her attitude changed very quickly and she became pliant and fawning towards me. She quickly agreed to cooperate and apologise for her wicked ways.

We later found out that when my DM rolled to see if they had any effect or not he rolled two consecutive natural 20s. So he decided they were not only genuine, but that she was now completely, genuinely, permanently in love with my PC.

Now, my PC was a fighter, not a lover. He had a very low charisma. So as we became the king's loyal knights, he suffered greatly in the face of her affections, always saying the wrong thing or bringing her completely unromantic gifts (which she loved! Eg. one of the skulls of these undead spidery thingies we had been battling). Things were shaping towards a formal courtship blessed by the king himself when I moved countries which of course ended my participation in the game. It was very fun and sweet, and I don't think it was uncomfortable for the other players, as they were able to join in on it and make light of my characters complete ineptitude with women and even set me up for situations they knew my character would find incredibly uncomfortable and embarrassing.
[/sblock]

So, to resume, it's certainly not something I deliberately include very often in my games, or deliberately seek out as a player, but I think it can be fun if it is included in a way that doesn't make other players uncomfortable.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Two examples:

1) In a campaign I played, one character played a Charismatic Hero. The heroes were assigned to get dirt on a drug lord, so this guy found out who the drug lord's favorite hooker was. He pumped her for information, and then "completed the transaction". There was no romance, and other than the suggestive sentence it was quick/fade to black.

2) In a campaign I wasn't in, one PC was a female half-orc with low Charisma. She hit on every male, and apparently her Diplomacy was so bad her every attempt was actually an Intimidate check. ^^