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Sexuality in your games.

Shadowslayer

Explorer
My ex-DM liked to opine that most elves swing both ways. He also frequently had gay NPCs. He also liked to make veiled references to certain homosexual acts.

Problem was, he was just doing it to see if he could get a rise out of anyone. It did and it backfired. What's left of our group gets along just ducky now, and sexuality is kept to a bare minimum.

One thing you may want to consider, and its been said already, is really know your players. Guys who are content and secure in their sexuality (gay or straight) are usually OK. They can have fun with it. Its the guy who's unsure of himself, maybe well back in the closet, that you have to look out for when you bring this stuff up. If you're gonna have trouble, or an uncomfortable player, I guarantee it will be him.

Personally, I don't see the need to bring homosexuality up in order to create suspension of disbelief. Understand that I'm not being critical here, but your world will not be any more vibrant or "more believable" because you included openly gay and bi people as NPCs. I don't know if the value justifies the cost, if you get my meaning. If it was my game, I'd focus my efforts elsewhere.

But maybe that's just me.

Good Luck to you
 

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Terwox

First Post
It would possibly bug me. I mainly just get bugged when minorities are depicted as "never the bad guys" -- as in, if an NPC is gay, they've really got a heart of gold, even if they're an enemy you can empathize with them somehow. (Just as bad would be if every enemy was gay and pure evil, but somehow I doubt that's where you're headed!)

But, yes, I largely agree with Oryan77 -- it would seem to me like you were pushing an agenda, and an agenda that would possibly annoy me if it didn't mesh with what I believe about population prevalence or if the character of minorities were typically given a positive ethical bent -- that kills my suspension of disbelief completely.

Oh, and one of my current characters is a (sort of, I'm skipping the story) bisexual male, and I'm still saying all this would likely annoy me. I'd suggest asking your players beforehand -- sounds like they'll be fine with it though, but you never know.
 

Baroness

First Post
Agback said:
On the other hand, the fact that characters are sexual beings, that they love, court, marry, have illicit affairs, form crushes, fall out of love, elope, make arranged marriages, get pregnant, have babies etc. is one of the wellsprings of adventure.

I definitely agree with this. For those who are not comfortable with it, it's fine of this aspect is not included, but for those who are it adds another dimension to the game and gives players and npcs other motivations.

As for homosexuality and bisexuality, I think it's fine as long as it isn't integrated as if it was part of a '100 random npc quirks' table. Also, players shouldn't be distracted by homosexuality if they weren't distracted by heterosexuality.
 

Illirion

First Post
I asume that in my homebrew are also gay and bi people strolling around. Maybe even some of the NPC's they've already met are gay. But when it comes to meeting people during an adventure, sexuality of said NPC is rarely an issue. And if they ask, I could just roll a d20 and decide the sexuality based on that. Something like 19-20 is gay and 18 is bisexual :D . But I don't expect that by doing that, my players will feel anymore immersed in my campaign than they do when I give them a good room description.

It all depends on your own personal campaign and stuff. If you notice your players care a lot about sexuality issues during their adventure (i've never seen it happen, but yours might be different), you should definately be consistent and let them encounter some homo/bisexuals.

Farthest we've ever considered sexuality is when one player wanted to play a half-dwarf-half-dragon. :confused: (not all of us knew that dragons could shapechange)
 

Oryan77

Adventurer
KingCrab said:
I disagree strongly with Oryan, because I feel it does make a difference whether queerness is accepted in your game world. It changes many fairy tale conceptions and brings up interesting ideas.
The reason I question the OP's motives though is the fact that the DM claims that homosexuality is supposed to be common in the world...and "accepted" (I guess anyway). So if it's common & accepted, why is the DM creating a situation where the players are supposed to be surprised that an informant is gay....or that an organization is all lesbian? The PC's shouldn't be surprised, because it's "normal". It should be no more shocking than if the male informant had a wife, or the organization is all straight women. My point is, why bring attention to that subject matter in your world unless the PC's are meant to react towards it? The OP wanted to know if that might be distracting. Based on that, I'd say it could be distracting because it doesn't add anything to the world other than trying to get a reaction from players when the intention isn't supposed to be negative.

When I'm playing and the DM wants to add atmosphere in a tavern, all I need to know is that people are flirting and dancing.....I don't ask if it's a man flirting with a woman. So if gays are common in this world, why point out that it's a man flirting or dancing with another man? I should just assume that might be the case. I believe the reason might be to push your views on a player and get the player/PC to react to that.

KingCrab said:
How does the lineage of your kingdom get passed on if the queens tend to marry only women?
If homosexuality is common in the DMs world, than this issue would not be an issue in that setting. The culture already has a way around the lineage problem. If they don't have a way around the problem, then it's not common is it? So what is the point of turning it into an issue if it's common? You're thinking of this as if the OP's world was our real life world where it's not common & accepted all over and the PC's are meant to deal with the issue.

It's like adding slavery to a game to make the world more "alive". You add slavery to get a reaction from the players. The reaction is what makes the world feel alive. 99.9% of us will be against slavery, so there's a reason to shove it in their face...to get them to react towards slavery. So if being gay is common (and not meant to be immoral like slavery is), then what is the player supposed to get from this issue? What's the purpose of pointing it out occasionally in the game? How exactly is it making the world feel more alive? If I'm supposed to be used to seeing gays in the world, why would I need to be told by the DM that this NPC is gay? I've never been told that an NPC was straight in the campaigns where heterosexuality is common. I just don't see the point other than trying to be controversial. :\
 

Turanil

First Post
Malanath said:
I'm not interested in opinions on the subject, I am interested in your personal experiences or how you would react or feel.

I am currently in the process of building a homebrew world, and one of the things I am striving for is a strong suspension of disbelief. I want to make my world seem as realistic as possible.

My goal wouldn't be to distract players, but rather more strongly immerse them in a fictional world.
Well, as a player I am not in the least interested in sexuality being featured in the game. For me sexuality is a personal subject for intimity, not a plot device for RPGs. Frankly I don't see why featuring sexuality and homosexuality in your game would further the suspension of disbelief. :confused: Suspension of disbelief has to do with internal coherence of the setting, its economics, availablity of magic and consequence o the world, etc.

Now I had a DM who liked to lecture us aout some subjects from times to time. From racism to homosexuality for instance. I found that boring, I game for fun, not to be taught about someone's opinions about "how bad racism and homophobia" is. I game to have my character vanquish the Necromancer of Ulgoth and revel in my munchkin power; I don't want to be told that the taverner is gay and kisses his lover in public. (And I am open minded, I have had a friend who was homosexual, I didn't mind. However, I never discussed about homosexuality with him, since I am not interested in the subject.)

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EDIT: My answer assumed a standard vanilla fantasy game. However, I think that a more mature game based on ancient Greece / Alexander the Great, or a sci-fi / cyberpunk game, could usefully feature homosexuality to add to to the general ambiance (hence further the suspension of disbelief). However, even in such cases I would just make a note of it, I certainly wouldn't emphasize the subject and focus the game on it.
 
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I'm currently running one game, and playing in another.

In the one I'm running, one of the PCs is gay, and that fact played into his backstory as a conflict between the teachings of the Church and the actual attitudes of his deity. He was a paladin who was excommunicated when his superiors learned he was gay. This actually cost him his paladin status because he thought his god had rejected him. When, later in the campaign, he learned that wasn't the case--from an angel of his deity, no less--he was able to regain his paladin status. It really helped shape the character, and the campaign would have been much the poorer without it--and it was his idea and decision to include it, not mine as the DM.

In the game I'm playing in, there are no gay characters of which I'm aware, but there's definitely a romantic subplot between my character and one of the others. This has no direct baring on the topic, but I bring it up to make the point that we don't necessarily assume that romantic relationships are only an NPC thing.

Bottom line? While I don't see any need to make a huge deal out of the presence of gay or bisexual characters unless there's a reason to do so, I also see no reason to arbitrarily decide they don't exist. If it never comes up, it never comes up, but if it does, I can't imagine to disallow it.
 


I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich
Sex wierds some players out.

Whatever happens in the world, the main thing is to have a good grasp on your group.

Fer'instance, for me, with my Cultural Anthro background, I like to see sexuality as I can see it in real human societies. I mean, homosexuality, bisexuality, or even a kind of asexuality are nothing new, and certainly not a human-only thing. Every culture has a way to deal with it, often surrounded by a lot of ritual, and that's the same IMC. Usually, I have the reactions to it vary based on race. I've also got a Religion background, which gives me way too much knowledge on some of the more sexually explicit myths that mankind has created...

In general, it's assumed that it's been around and different cultures have dealt with it in different ways, depending upon what they need/use/see sex itself as being for. Which is pretty much how modern society's views (fractuous though they are) came to be.

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Fer'instance, Dwarves are traditionalists who enjoy law and order. They deal with gay dwarves and lesbian dwarves as they would anything else -- find a place, put them there, and live alongside them. Dwarves are also quite reserved, so even the more "open" dwarves are rather reticent about what, exactly, they enjoy sexually, and would never discuss it except with a potential partner. "Partnerships" are as much about functionality as rommance, and functionality includes raising a good dwarven family or helping dwarven society as a whole. The ones unable or unwiling to make the babies (including the castrated, the adventurers, and the same-sex-inclined) contribute in ways that those with families cannot or should not, such as by being soldiers in the army or traders to foriegn lands or the like.

Most Fey are fairly hyper-sexual, and elves are an extention of that. Try anything and everything, enjoy every aspect of it. Currently, there's an Unseelie Fey character IMC who was cursed after having sex with Loki, and the characters make in-character jokes about how he's likely to have sex with anything. Elves enjoy art and beauty, and lovemaking is included in that (though IMC, elves are also rarely fertile and come together in an Elfmeet to have a massive reproductive orgy once every decade). Because elves are open (sometimes to the point of annoying th emore reserved they associate with), being eager for sex, especially with the same gender, is often seen as being "elvish."

Gnomes are traditionalists in that they enjoy a well-functioning family, but they're also remarkably inventive and sensual critters. "Gnomish whores behind closed doors" is a common phrase for "Anything could happen." Gnomes probably experiment a lot growing up, only to find their favorite and settle into changing it up as they go. Families aren't a requirement like they are in the dwarven society, and same-gender relations are generally copacetic.

Halflings have something of a communal lifestyle, formed under a matriarchy (as befits a race whose main creator is a warrior-goddess paladin). The mother leads the caravan, and many women have more than one "suitor," though marriage is uncommon. Manly kinship is rare because of the matriarchal focus of the society, and many are mistrusted because they don't fit in. Womenly kinship is more common and generally accepted.

Orcs are more instinctive and bestial. Like the cruelest, most instinctive beasts, they *take* what they want, without any concept of rommance, love, or compassion. They are monogamous, because they must defend their mates against all comers, and often separate into an alpha male/alpha female pair, and the many that contest around them. Same-sex pairings are uncommon simply because the chemicals rarely flow that way and their society doesn't really know how to handle it. Often, they simply become outcasts, unwilling to fight for a mate they have no interest in, but fighting and subduing those who often have no interest in them. Still, there's no compassion about it -- they hunt down and wear away at whatever they desire.

Tieflings, touched by evil, enjoy suffering. Sexuality for them is a constant power-game, they like to dominate or be dominated. It's not simple bestial sex, it's an elegant manipulation of other's emotions for their own enjoyment. Same-sex unions are no exception: if you can do something for me, I can do something to control you.

Aasimar play hard to get to test those who would court them. They want to see the best out of everyone, and never settle for less than they (think they) deserve. Many are abstinate because of their high opinion of themselves. When they love, they do so deeply and truly, without pretention, and with an almost embarassingly slavish devotion. They aren't for the casual encounter -- only the True Love will satisfy them. They want something as spiritual, not something physical, though they probably achieve as much satisfaction from a noble devotion as most derive from a healthy sex life. Same-sex pairings work just like opposite-sex pairings since reproduction usually isn't an issue, devotion is.

Zenythri are all about the perfection of the act. They're not about to experiment with a variety, but they will hone what they do to a connsumate skill, effective for everything they want to achieve (be it reproduction, enjoyment, manipulation, whatnot). They may not have much variety, but what they do, they do VERY well. Some will hone same-sex engagements as much as they would hone anything else, and would likely do it exclusively.

Chaonds change it up, and love a variety of experiences. They don't like one partner for long, same-sex or not. They're likely to experiment as much or more than the gnomes, but don't really stop. They don't often marry or even date, instead delighting in the random encounter.

Bariaur have some deep gender divides born of biology, and have well-defined roles based on their gender. Those who don't fit into the typical male-and-a-handful-of-mates roles do as the dwarves do and find different roles, if they don't just leave and form their own little communes. Entirely acceptable -- some bariaur spend their entire lives just wandering around itenerant, or forming their tribes far away from their brith tribe.

Mephits are genderless, so it's not an issue at all for them. They reproduce with a spell, though they don't even really feel a need to do such a thing. If they engage in any kind of sex act, it'll be kind of unsatisfying, because they've no real reaciton to that over anything else. Many probably wonder what all the hubub is about.

Githzerai, obsessed with personal choice and acceptability, have no official problem with same-sex relations, but any sexual relation is something of a problem for many of them, tempting them away from the ascetic lifestyle they so enjoy. Young ones are always needed, but more from a functional standpoint than a romantic one. They really rob the act of it's rommance, reducing it to a functionality only. You reproduce, you move on, and that's the only cause for it. Sex for pleasure doesn't make sense to them (most pleasures don't). If there are any openly gay Githzerai, they are doubly odd, both for being interested in sex and for being interested in non-reproductive sex at all. Ousting them from the monestaries of Limbo is about as bad as the Githzerai are willing to do to their own, and the homosexual fall under this curtain as well.

Githyanki, more appreciative of the pleasures of the flesh and mind, definately see the motive behind it, and enjoy it very much. However, it often falls to becoming about their own personal power. They may very well sleep their way to the top, whatever acts may be demanded of them by whatever gender is in power. Gender doesn't dicatate power in Githyanki society, so whoever has the power becomes the target of the sexual advances of most other Githyanki, male or female.
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I don't think in-character jokes or biases are unacceptable -- indeed, I think my suspension of disbelief would be strained if it was "just as normal as everything else!" unless the overall culture was absurdly blind to the difference. Sexuality is prominent in myth, in legend, and in fairy tales (though it is conspicuously absent from most modern takes on fantasy). It's a big part of the fantasy world of humanity, it's only natural that it be considered in games based on that fantasy world.

I've had gay PC's. I've had sex-obsessed gay PC's, horribly cliche gay PC's, and PC's who just happen to be gay. I've had "80% female, 20% male" PC's. Lesbian PC's (who were so reserved it never really came up). PC's who take vows of celibacy. Genderless PC's.

It's a big world out there, full of all sorts of critters and all sorts of cultures. To ignore the difference is almost as insulting as trying to eradicate it, IMHO.

And Obryn does have a point. If it's not an issue, it doesn't need to be constantly pointed out. If you're constantly pointing it out, you as a DM are acting out of character. Mention it, let the players know it's there, but if it's not a thing, it's not a thing. All-Lesbian organizations would strike me as VERY out-of-character for a setting where sexual orientation doesn't matter. Because if it doesn't matter, why would that be a defining characteristic of the organization? Why would it be all-lesbian if a lesbian isn't anything of note?
 
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Baroness

First Post
ForceUser said:
Gaming is just a reflection of life, Baroness.


I meant by that that if players weren't distracted by romance without any gay or bisexual npcs around, they shouldn't be distracted by romance with homosexual characters. I just have problems finding words to express what I am thinking :p
 

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