Sex at the Table

[Reynard]

Spinning out of the BG3 thread...

How, if at all, do you incorporate sex in your RPG games? Do love, lust, romance, and other adult interactions have a place in your games? How do you feel about sex in RPGs as a player? As a GM? Is sex between PCs better or worse than sex between PCs and NPCs, or sex between NPCS? If sex does appear in your games, to what degree? When does the camera cut away? Do you use some sort of mechanics for sex?

Also, big note here: this is about consensual sex -- consensual both at the table between participants, and in the fiction of the world.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

All I've got to say is know where the d4s are before you start.

 

[pointofyou]

I'd suggest checking the load-bearing capacity of your table beforehand.

 

[Reynard]

Most entertainment genres aimed at adults include sex to some degree or another. it is a fundamental human interaction. That RPGs almost universally shy away from it might be related to D&D's original popularity among kids (I was one of those kids) but I think it is more related to the fact that we would rather jointly fantasize about violence than intimacy.

 

[DammitVictor]

Certainly, romance is an important part of our games and "romance" is... a character detail.

But I game with my family. We don't go any further than "fade to black" because that's just not how any of us want to interact with each other.

 

[Reynard]

Certainly, romance is an important part of our games and "romance" is... a character detail.

But I game with my family. We don't go any further than "fade to black" because that's just not how any of us want to interact with each other.

To be clear, I am talking about sex and sexuality broadly, not just the specific act(s).

 

[pointofyou]

More seriously sex is a thing that happens in the worlds I run in. Most of the cities in my D&D settings have legal brothels and characters in my games have sex and talk about sex and care about sex. The extent to which player characters do those things is up to the players.

 

[DammitVictor]

To be clear, I am talking about sex and sexuality broadly, not just the specific act(s).

Broadly speaking, I encourage my players to make characters who have romantic interests and pursue them, but-- again-- only the mildest of flirtations actually occur "on screen" because we are all uncomfortable roleplaying that kind of interaction with any kind of specificity or intensity.

 

[Pedantic]

I elide direct portrayals of sexual acts, but I certainly portray intimacy and relationships. I'm a gay man and make it point to portray queer relationships and intimacy as normative, because I don't particularly want to deal with queer suffering in my hobby time.

 

[Reynard]

An example of what I am talking about is "sex moves" from Apocalypse World. Because "moves" are mechanics associated with things players do in the fiction, it makes sense that "sex moves" exist in a game that looks like 80s and 90s apocalyptic sci-fi. It isn't always purient or exploitive. The sex scene in the original Terminator is both meaningful to the characters involved and meaningful to the plot.