Gay PCs or NPCs

[Uder]

In the games I've run, I've had a few gay NPCs. Rufus and Burne in my Hommlet are in a long-term, openly-acknowledged, but fairly quiet relationship.

Strange, I ran Rufus and Burne in a similar way. I wonder if there are cues in the modules that suggest this, or if it's just a really obvious idea.

IMC, They weren't exactly out, but most everyone knew... in "my" Greyhawk, their sexuality would cause problems with politics in most regions, and speaks to why they settled down outside of traditional human lands (never could figure out why Hommlet is so deep into gnome territory... yet doesn't have any sort of sizeable gnome population)

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

As to Rufus and Burne ... I mean ... maybe I'm stretching here, but two otherwise normal guys who settled down, together, in a castle ... together ... to run a small town ... together. With no mention made in the module that they had wives, girlfriends, or anything else. It just seemed like a natural conclusion.

I liked my male roommates well enough in college ... but I don't really think I'd want to permanently settle down with them ...

Well ... Scott DID do all of the cooking, and was great at it. And kept the place clean. ... Hrmmmmmmmm.

--fje

 

[Samnell]

Strange, I ran Rufus and Burne in a similar way. I wonder if there are cues in the modules that suggest this, or if it's just a really obvious idea.

To me it was really obvious, but then again I'm a gay male and I've done reading about the days before any political movement by and on behalf of gay people. They read to me as a pair of what might have once been called "confirmed bachelors". They cohabitate. They share a job. They don't need to say anything. One could extend this analog and presume that as long as they kept it quiet (no public touching, etc) and were largely absentee lords their presence would be tolerated. Those who had an idea about gay couples would catch on, and those who didn't, wouldn't.

Whether this was intended way back in the late 70s, I have no idea. Gary certainly didn't have them speaking Polari. Or dressing up in mouse costumes.

 

[Trellian]

I've had an evil NPC Sultan of Calimshan who made no secrets about his likings of young boys.. which made the PCs hate his guts even more.. I've also had a PC succumb to necrophilia while running a Call of Ctulhu game after failing several insanity checks.. that was rather shocking as he performed his "insanity" on the dead female PC who died in a fire and was badly burned... yuck...

 

[ForceUser]

I'm just curious here; this was sparked by a conversation I had just recently. Without editorialising homosexuality itself, has anybody here had a gay or bisexual PC in their game, or a gay or bi NPC? I'm just curious to see how common it is. It's never actually happened in my game - not for any particular reason, I'd like to stress; it just hasn't.

In a Marvel game many years ago, I played a gay speedster based upon the Northstar character from Alpha Flight. When it came out that the PC was gay, it made the other players pretty uncomfortable.

Around the same time I had a gay player who, as with many gamers, always played characters with the same gender and sexuality as himself.

I like including gay NPCs from time to time for verisimilitude, as long as the group can handle it maturely. Of the groups I'm running at the moment, two groups have gay players and don't have a problem with the occasional gay NPC; a third group, however, would probably be uncomfortable with encountering such characters, so I doubt I'll ever use them in that game. In a previous campaign with that group, I introduced the idea that in human culture in the region, marriage was between two people of any gender. I mentioned it as an "Oh, by the way..." sort of cultural background tidbit--it went over like a fart in church, so I simply mentioned it and left it at that.

I did have a lot of fun recently with role-playing a flamboyantly gay transvestite "madam" that ran a guild of prostitutes. I love freaking players out.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I own the Book of Erotic Fantasy and have played and GMed my share of gay charcters & NPCs.

 

[shilsen]

I've played a bisexual PC and had a few gay and bisexual characters in my games, but it's never been a subject that featured strongly.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

I'm just curious here; this was sparked by a conversation I had just recently. Without editorialising homosexuality itself, has anybody here had a gay or bisexual PC in their game, or a gay or bi NPC?

White Wolf's Aberrant Superviser's Screen included a scenario which prominently featured a gay NPC.

When I ran it, my players maimed his boyfriend.*

I haven't tried repeating the experiment.

*Not because he was gay, I should stress. They were just the sort of characters who went around maiming people. There was a lot of immature humour going on mind, which didn't exactly help.

 

[fusangite]

I'm just curious here; this was sparked by a conversation I had just recently. Without editorialising homosexuality itself, has anybody here had a gay or bisexual PC in their game, or a gay or bi NPC? I'm just curious to see how common it is. It's never actually happened in my game - not for any particular reason, I'd like to stress; it just hasn't.

It's been fairly rare; I've had a lot fewer gay PCs than gay players but this is mainly because sexuality doesn't really come up in my games beyond the two sentence throwaway lines about ale and whores when people get to a new town. I just don't run games is which romantic relationships are ever formed.

The best gay character I've had in a game was a paladin; working collaboratively with the player, we came up with the idea that all paladins in the campaign world were gay. Parents who found their boys weren't interested in girls would hope that their son was destined to be a paladin. Heterosexuals never received the special favour of the god Orthanov that gave paladins their special powers. It all worked really well.

EDIT: I don't see why characters being non-heterosexual should require an all-adult group. Having a clearly homosexual character does not imply the presence of sexual scenes or themes in a game any more than having a clearly heterosexual character does.

 

[Bront]

EDIT: I don't see why characters being non-heterosexual should require an all-adult group. Having a clearly homosexual character does not imply the presence of sexual scenes or themes in a game any more than having a clearly heterosexual character does.

Having played with an immature group as a mature gamer, I understand why.

It's hard enough keeping the players on a fairly serious note (I had one druid who insisted his wolf was a submissive peer, a Aasimar Paladin who threatened to wack people if they didn't listen, a Frey Sorceress (Paladin's RL GF) who liked to try to ride IN the paladin's armor, and generaly a group that couldn't stay on topic in a serious manor for more than 10 minutes), and if I had introduced homosexuality in the game, in any form, not only would there have been comments about it constantly, but it likely would have caused RL problems for whoever had to deal with said person. (AKA, why I don't roleplay with teenagers who don't have RP references anymore).