Sex and Sexuality in D&D. . .

[Ahnehnois]

Currently, my cleric has to deal with a suicidal rape victim, with an Eye of Fear and Flame having forced someone to do this to her.

OTOH, a while back a halfling rogue of mine had a brief tryst with another halfling (off camera). The entire point of the campaign was that it was getting harder to have babies, and yet she came back a little while later, pregnant. Tramp. If I ever found out whose kid that was, my character would've roughed him up.

Really though, I don't have much sexuality in my games, largely because there aren't many female characters.

 

[Kesh]

"Kissik likes the ladies. He's going to a brothel, and his requirement is 1) Female, 2)Doesn't hate Kobolds, and 3) Likes to eat chicken."

This should go into your .sig, as I nearly died laughing from reading it.

 

[Clavis]

In one of my old campaigns, the characters invented an "erection" spell. Funny thing is, what started out as a somewhat puerile joke actually became a potent combat tactic! Initially the players simply used the spell to ensure good times at the local brothel, but then they realized how debilitating a uncontrollable erection would be to a man fighting in armor.

Sex was always important in my games. In fact, my campaigns tend to be saturated with sex and graphic violence. I found that my male players would role-play better and get more involved with the story if they knew that there was going to be plenty of naked whores and shattered skulls later. By making the sex and violence GRAPHIC, the players quickly got their fill of it, and would actually play out such things as romances and intrigue.

And yes, I've tended to have female players in the mix too. As long as I NEVER played out rapes (and made it clear to the male players that it would NEVER happen while I DM'ed), and had plenty of role-playing opportunities, my female players were all on board. Many of them LIKED the sex and violence. Of course, the fact that most of my female friends have been polyamorous, bisexual, and/or involved in the goth/punk/metal scenes probably helped...

 

[s.j. bagley]

the majority of pcs that i have played have been openly queer, but it hasn't usually been much of an issue in game.
except for one time when a pc of mine had a long romantic history with a recurring villain, and that history added depth to the encounters with the villain and definitely effected the way the encounters ran.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

If we're talking Inanna in particular (since I tossed her name before), she was actually the goddess of both love/fertility/pleasure and war in her pantheon, so it would be pretty much perfect, I think.

Well, I can imagine that when these courtesan paladins went to war with the boys, troop morale would be notably higher than in most armies

I've considered for a while a "King's Companion" type PrC which took on a concubine role in the court - serving drinks, dancing, playing music - until of course anything threatened the king. An entire order of escort/bodyguards could grow out of it eventually. It was a monk/rogue based class in my idea, but then monks get immunity to disease too.

As for the availability of Remove Disease... Clerics in D&D can be of any religion and any allignment. The idea of a universal moralizing stance which considers prostitution of any stripe and those who frequent them not "worthy" is intensely parochial when looking at the rules and default list of deities, but of course one can make whatever decisions they want for their gameworld.

 

[Peni Griffin]

For the record, syphilis is not the only STD and Europe had plenty of them before 1492.

Different temples, governments, and societies will handle cure disease differently just as they will define appropriate behavior differently. For example, in medieval Europe, the charge of rape had a number of definitions, one of which was marrying an adult woman against the will of her father - even if the woman in question went to tremendous lengths to achieve this marriage. In Victorian England, such an event would have been defined as an elopement and it would have been a scandal to be settled out of court, if possible. In modern England, such an event would be a purely personal matter, though some neighborhoods or churches might still regard it as a scandal. It's up to the DM to decide what mores are appropriate to his campaign and to give the players a heads-up about what they are.

The same DM who gave us the kinky villains, and who is playing the romantic lead in the RHOD soap opera previously described, once had our party of innocent kids from an isolated village charmed and date-raped by a bunch of satyrs. We woke up sore and hungover the next morning and dragged ourselves out of the woods as fast as we could. Soon all the female party members found they were pregnant (100% impregnation rate struck me as a bit extreme, but whatever - he said he'd rolled it). This might have been a conflict for my character, but this DM also throws massive complex crises at us and we were in a period of being forced to run off in all directions - there was simply too little time and too much risk involved to run around pregnant with babies we hadn't even volunteered for, so we looked for medicinal herbs with explicit warnings against using them when pregnant, opting to take the quick, intense risk of abortion rather than the prolonged, chronic risk of pregnancy. Obviously, this development could have been a campaign-buster had he misjudged our willingness to deal with such matters in-game.

A more immediate result came in the first town we came to. None of us had ever been in a town of more than 100 people before, and my character went wandering off by herself exploring and wound up in the bad part of town confronted by a gang of teenage male thugs with shivs. She had a short sword and a dagger and two-weapon fighting, but was still low-level. My first intention was to fight them off with the flats of the blades, but there were seven of them and I realized, as my initiative came up, that Trudy was actually frightened and that, after the satyrs, I didn't in my heart trust the DM not to let the situation turn into a gang-rape if she didn't dominate the fight right from the start. So she used the edges, and she killed one in the first round. The thugs evaporated, as did the witnesses, and the local law-enforcement type who had been shadowing her (we were not welcome, though we didn't know it - the BBEG had influence in town) arrested her for murder. This had a profound effect on the way the campaign proceeded and the character arcs, not only of my character, but of the entire party.

The fact that I suddenly didn't trust the DM is an indication of just how important it is to handle these matters carefully. This whole campaign could have gone sour, and our friendship with it, had I been a different person.

 

[AnonymousOne]

the kind who might otherwise be victimised as prostitutes in the worst and most exploitative kinds of brothels.

In a system of choice, there is no exploitation. Exploitation requires coercion.

All in all I find this a bit fascinating. This also brings up another thought. There was a thread on ENworld a few months ago titled something "Would you allow this paladin?"

Said paladin woke up in a brothel next to two women, acted as an enforcer for the madam if the clientèle got rough, healed them, and he paid them well.

I see no caveat in D&D that prostitution is inherently immoral. Hell even the LG gods like Moradin might encourage bigamy and other such things. Keep in mind that many MANY governments might also make prostitution legal for one very important reason: They can tax the brothels. So assuming that the brothel wasn't a cult of Demon worshipers, a Paladin could very well frequent one.

 

[Mokona]

While my games have had realistic events and people (including a house of ill repute), I've never focused on the off-camera elements such as the "mature" parts.

I guess I just try to avoid playing like this Wizards of the Coast employee. (For the record I believe that Mark Rosewater, Head Designer of Magic: The Gathering R&D, lived in L.A. after college which means he was clearly an adult when this story takes place.)

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr294a
The fact that for once I was supposedly going to be the solution rather than a problem made everyone happy. So we finally get to the castle. Think Sleeping Beauty's castle except a little more dangerous with more dragons. Because my character is the key to the problem in the castle, my team had to keep my alive. Which wasn't easy, as a blind low-level wizard is a bit of a liability. But eventually we make it into the castle where we meet the princess.

She was human. And we discover that the prophecy says that her heir will bring an end to the great evil that has enslaved their land. The problem is that the wizard that was causing this problem had made all the men of the land sterile. Now remember, I was the only human in the group. And I was male. I remember turning to Charles and saying, "So for the first time ever in the history of this party I am being called upon to save the day, and all that's being asked of me is to sleep with a princess?"

I had a big smile on my face. I said, "I can do that!"

There's a bunch more to it. We had to get married. And there were some tests. But anyway, we finally get to the point where I'm supposed to sleep with the princess and I'm like, "Now what?"

Charles is like, "You sleep with her."

And I'm like, "But what do I do?"

Arthur—he played the gnome—says, "We were hoping you already knew that."

I'm like, "No, I mean in the game. Do I need to roll a die?"

Charles is like, "I'm pretty sure you can impregnate the princess."

"No, no, no," I say, "I want to see how I do."

Charles looks at me. I say, "We roll dice to see if we can open a door successfully. I can't check if I make the princess happy? She is my wife after all."

"Fine," Charles says, "Roll a twenty-sider."

Remember that in D&D you want to roll high. Twenty is the best score and one is the worst. I crack my knuckles and roll my die. Twenty! I start dancing.

"So," I say to Charles, "I take it she's happy."

"Yes," he says, "So happy, in fact, that she has a gift for you."

She gives me an item called a Wand of Wonder. Basically it's a magical wand that has a random magical effect each time it's used. It's very powerful but highly unpredictable.

 

[Pagan priest]

My point is that we assume that because the power of healing is at hand, right across the street, that this means it would be affordable. In all of our games, folks die all the time from battles fought in bars. The friends of these combatants don't really always whip out potions of cure light wounds, adfter a bar fight just because they can afford to buy a few.

If a person won't pop a couple of gold pieces to save a life, how can you call them a friend?

We assume that the characters involved just "heal" naturally and save the potions for stuff that really matters.

Any chuch administering to the sick should probably want to deal with the root cause of why folks are sick. You don't help the hookers by giving the communion and curing the crotxh rot. You help the hookers (if this is really what you want to do) by eliminating that which causes them to think they need to be on the street.

Any chuch thats handing out healing to hookers everytime they come down with something is going to find themselves supporting that which they really want to fight against.

As others have mentioned, you are assuming that there is a moral problem with having prostitution.

Catching thew creeping whim wham is the result of a choice made by said hooker.

Of course there would also be a middle class in D&D as well THOSE folks aren't out getting stabbed in pubs or having their ginkys sprout legs and crawl away after a wild night at the docks.

The middle class members of your city more than likely are reasonable members of society who are married and avoiding the brothels.

Unless prostitution is a normal part of life. Wife have her friend visiting this week? Hit the brothel at lunch.

IF NOT and they need to get rid of that moss on their johnson, then the church should charge double. After all, The Middle class and wealthy can absolutly afford it. NOW this is how the soup kitchens get funded.

I never said healing was for the rich. Healing is for the worthy. Mercenary healing can be for the rich. Everyone else gets the Hospitlars.

In my campaign world, there is a Goddess of love and beauty, who serves as the patroness of prostitutes. Certainly no thought of charging double there. The Goddess that is the head of the pantheon has temple prostitutes. For most people, it is with a temple prostitute that they have their first sexual enounter: someone trained to teach others how to help your partner have a good time, and also able to teach about other aspects of sexuality.

 

[jdrakeh]

Wow! This thread has certainly spawned a great deal of thoughtful discussion and good ideas. Thanks to everybody who has shared their thoughts thus far