D&D 5E CoS: Full of child peril and death, but lacking...

[timbannock]

Ok, it's PG-13.

But sexuality is a topic fraught with landmines and is something best left up to the discretion of DMs.

Totally agree with both points.

I was just thinking that my post pretty much sums up some of the darker stuff on American Horror Story, which is TV-MA. I feel like that tends towards PG-13 with the occasional light foray into R-rated territory, so yeah.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

In my campaign, one of the PCs has totally got the hots for Sister Garaele from Phandalin.

A new player wanted to come and watch a game, and I suggested he play an otherwise NPC for the night instead, to give him a feel for actually playing D&D. As Sister G was involved in a mission with the party, I said maybe he could play her.

The player whose character is in love with her said, "Mate. No. Just no. It's weird enough with you playing her."

The new guy played a bear instead.

 

[MrHotter]

It's not written into the adventure, but I don't see why it would be. We get to give the NPCs any personalities we want, so if we want some to be flirty or promiscuous, then we can do that. For me it will depend on how the players characters are behaving. In previous editions I always had at least one guy player who's first question when meeting a female NPC was 'is she hot?'. Now I have my wife playing and she's the one who keeps looking for hot guys.

They do mention that Strahd is looking for a new consort, so there could be some creepy romancing there. Besides that, I'd guess the Vistani can be free-love types with all the drinking and partying they do.

 

[Duganson]

Have you seen who Strahd picks as consorts? Gertruda isn't described as ugly. The three "wives" weren't thrown out of his bed because they ate crackers.

Sexy ladies are Strahd's thing. Oh, and guess what? So is at least one hot guy (Escher). Rahadin may or may not meet your criteria of hot; depends on how much you view the sexiness of elves.

RIGHT!

My question is what do we do with them? What most of the posters on the thread think is we could use them to seduce PCs... That's too overt, in fact I don't think they should be sexualized to the PCs at all. Perhaps they should attempt to seduce townsfolk, an NPC close to the characters, their Torroka divined Ally even, not the PCs themselves. As others have stated, it gets weird, also see below...

But the nice thing about Victorian-era sexuality is that it's hidden. You're not allowed to talk about that stuff because it's not proper! But in a horror context you can have a lot of symbolism -- tons of sexual symbolism -- and create a lot of sexual tension. It works (I think) precisely because it makes people uncomfortable, and mixing it with scary stuff doubly uncomfortable. Are you scared of the monster, or scared of your own improper feelings?

THIS! Very well said. Its a far cry from someone here suggesting I should look up some pr0n and get over it. 77IM gets it. Now I'd like to have a conversation about how we infuse this most base of horror concepts into what is supposed to be the ultimate horror campaign.

It's not written into the adventure, but I don't see why it would be. We get to give the NPCs any personalities we want, so if we want some to be flirty or promiscuous, then we can do that.

Yep, that's what I'm hoping we can do here.

I'm going to spend some time thinking more about it, brainstorm with my book nerd wife and maybe come back with some ideas to run by the forums.

 

[Quickleaf]

My question is what do we do with them? What most of the posters on the thread think is we could use them to seduce PCs... That's too overt, in fact I don't think they should be sexualized to the PCs at all. Perhaps they should attempt to seduce townsfolk, an NPC close to the characters, their Torroka divined Ally even, not the PCs themselves. As others have stated, it gets weird, also see below...

There are some things about Gothic Horror writing that are harder (but not impossible) to translate to the RPG medium. I'll be writing a guest blog about that at www.highlevelgames.ca but you're right that Victorian Romance/Sensuality is one of them.

A few directions you could go:

Make one of the romance NPCs a Strahd apologist. This ties in with the way the Hickmans describe Strahd as an archetypical abuser...what makes those sorts of relationships last are the psychological ties between abuser and abused. Often this involves the abused making excuses or justifying the abuser's actions. However, that is a darker direction to go in that may stray uncomfortably close to real-world issues for some players.

Explore the question of what happens when the flood gates of repressed passion are open. It could be healthy and passionate...or it could go the way of the hedonist "bad boys" of the Victorian era like Oscar Wilde and Dorian Grey. For example, what happens if one of the NPCs begins a spiral into greater sensual risks? Perhaps he/she escapes the orbit of Strahd and is lured by jealous vampire spawn into a dark bachannal where the spawn intend to take his/her life?

And lastly, maybe someone thinks they can redeem Strahd by the power of love. Yeah, it's cheesy, so you'd have to pick the right NPC and do some thinking about how to portray it subtly, but the redemptive/transformative power of love (often ambiguously chaste/erotic) was a theme in Gothic fiction.

 

[timbannock]

RIGHT!

My question is what do we do with them? What most of the posters on the thread think is we could use them to seduce PCs... That's too overt, in fact I don't think they should be sexualized to the PCs at all. Perhaps they should attempt to seduce townsfolk, an NPC close to the characters, their Torroka divined Ally even, not the PCs themselves. As others have stated, it gets weird, also see below...

Seducing townsfolk is a great idea. It mentions commoners in the random encounter tables, talks about how they occasionally storm the castle with pitchforks, and so on, so there's no shortage of opportunities there.

Additionally, trysts with the Vistani certainly wouldn't be out of the ordinary. Exploring how this changes the relationship between some/all Vistani (including Madam Eva, especially) and Strahd and his minions could be quite compelling.

If you go with seducing PCs ever, I'd make full use of the Flaws, Bonds, or Personality Traits as a way to *temporarily* "force" a player character along a certain line of actions, but only subject to the player's approval. This could be a fun way to add just a little intrigue, secrets, and doubt among the party to sow some discord before releasing said PC from such a trajectory. Only some groups will buy into this though. But like the Dark Gifts use of Flaws in the Amber Temple chapter, it's a great use of those traits in a slightly more overt fashion.

 

[Jester David]

Sexuality is tricky, as that makes a lot more people uncomfortable than violence. Even adult groups playing at home can be a little uncomfortable with that, let alone mixed aged groups of semi-strangers in a public play environment.
Plus, gothic sexuality is very subtle. You can read Dracula and never get that subtext. It's very between-the-lines, which D&D and RPGs very much are not since that stuff has to be made apparent so the DM knows what to portray. RPGs, by their very nature, lack subtly as books.

It's really up to individual DMs to inject that into their game as needed.

I remember some PG movies with some pretty risque subject matter. Police Academy was PG, right?

The only ratings I can find online marks it as R.

Ok, it's PG-13.

PG-13 didn't exist until mid-1984. July actually. Being released in March of that year, Police Academy could only be rated PG or R.

The early '80s were a very different time for what you could get away with in movies... One of my favourites from the era as a kid was '87s Monster Squad that probably would be a hard-R if released now. The mouths on those kids...

 

[Patrick McGill]

Strahd's dark courtship of Ireena certainly isn't going to end platonically. I think the module brushes the sensual, and abusive, themes well enough without going overboard enough. It's not Lamentations of the Flame Princess, after all.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Just as a semi-aside, be very careful how much you mine Dracula for hidden sexuality/sensuality. A whole lot of what many people mistake for sex metaphor in that book--including basically the entirety of his "relationship" with Mina--is actually rape metaphor.

(Which is one of many reasons I loathe the modern interpretation of Dracula as some romantic, tragic figure, pining for the reincarnation of his lost love. Uh, no. A thousand times no, with some added shuddering for good measure.)

 

[Jabborwacky]

Just as a semi-aside, be very careful how much you mine Dracula for hidden sexuality/sensuality. A whole lot of what many people mistake for sex metaphor in that book--including basically the entirety of his "relationship" with Mina--is actually rape metaphor.

(Which is one of many reasons I loathe the modern interpretation of Dracula as some romantic, tragic figure, pining for the reincarnation of his lost love. Uh, no. A thousand times no, with some added shuddering for good measure.)

Although in the case of Strahd...[sblock]his relationship with Tatyana is most certainly representative of rape. He just wants to break her and make her his new vampire china doll.[/sblock]