How do you work sex into your campaign?

[Kahuna Burger]

... Again and again, the raging dwarf hurled his hammer on the skulls or ribs of his enemies. Flesh, bone, rings of armor, everything was smashed together into a bloody pulp. Bones sundered, brain matter spurted in the most violent death, while the longest ones left victims agonizing slowly, drowning in their blood after their broken ribcage crushed and perforated their lungs. When a downed foe seemed to be still moving, he mercilessly kicked them in the face or the belly with his heavy metallic boots, with a joyful, sadistic, grin.

Hint : If you personally use this level of imagry in fight scenes, you personally may have a problem. If you are trying to ascribe this level of bloodthirsty grossness to everyone who runs a non pornographic campaign, you have a larger one...

I use the level of detail needed to tell the story and resolve disputed events. Sex is not a disputed event, and detailed description is almost never needed for the story. Combat is almost always a disputed event, but descriptions are kept tactical.

So really sex and violence are done about the same in my games. "He drops/I cleave" vs "I invite him for a moonlit ride on my pegasus/good thing you have a military saddle built for two"

I am interested by the number of people who keep any sexual interaction out of it except for "ale and whores".... Even my Loser D&D Group only had maybe one guy per campaign who was interested in "wenching". The others would either be chaste (usually the palidan types) or end up persuing adult relationships. I would find it odd to play under a DM who would encourage the whores but draw the line at love.

Kahuna burger

 

[Lalato]

Kahuna Burger... I agree...

I think there are a couple things at play. One is the level of maturity of the players and DM. It's fairly safe to make the correlation that the less mature the gaming group the more likely it will be that one will find crude and lude behavior. I'm not saying that this type of behavior is always bad... I've been known to be crass from time to time myself.

Another is the level of escapism desired by the players and/or DM. Wenching and whatnot isn't something that we do in modern society. Some people want to escape to a time when they can "get their rocks off" with a wench. It certainly a lot easier to pretend at roughhousing with a whore than it is to pretend at falling in love with someone. The falling in love hits a little too close to home for some people.

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Recently, in the campaign I play in the DM announced that a woman (an NPC that was assisting the group) seemed to be giving my character the eye. Since we play in a mythical India campaign... there are no wenches... heck... there are no taverns. So when someone gives you the proverbial eye it's very noticable. Still, I decided that it would be inappropriate for my character to do anything about it. It's not so much that my character is chaste, but we were all in a hurry to get from point A to point B. Taking time out for an affair just didn't seem right.

That said, if the situation had been different, I think my character might have approached the NPC. I highly doubt that sex would have been the ultimate outcome, but if it had been... it would have been handled "off-camera". It's not so much that I'm a prude, but I'm not necessarily interested in erotic storytelling with my gaming group. Lucky for me, neither is my DM.

 

[Celtavian]

I am interested by the number of people who keep any sexual interaction out of it except for "ale and whores".... Even my Loser D&D Group only had maybe one guy per campaign who was interested in "wenching". The others would either be chaste (usually the palidan types) or end up persuing adult relationships. I would find it odd to play under a DM who would encourage the whores but draw the line at love.

Kahuna burger

Honestly, we usually have alot of romantic interplay between characters with my current gaming group. It seems like what would reasonably happen given a group of single men and women adventuring together while they constantly face life and death situations.

Its more than pure wenching, but it is also often peripheral. One of the players in my gaming group likes to write, so he and I will sometimes write up the interactions of the growing relationship. It helps the suspension of disbelief and allows for better character development.

Overall, I don't think that with a regular gaming group of guys you could roleplay romantic scenarios. It takes a player and DM with very open minds and a high level of detachment to attain the suspension of disbelief when a male DM is roleplaying a female character with a male player. Most of the time its just not going to happen.

Now, I'm sure if we had a few female players, it might be different. Most guys would be much more comfortable roleplaying romantic scenarios with a female DM or player, though I think that might lead to other problems around the table if someone was to take the roleplaying too seriously.

 

[Buttercup]

Mentioned in passing, takes place off stage. Occasionally.

Yup. The thought of going into detail with my friends about this is just, well, eeeew.

 

[Green Knight]

Yup. The thought of going into detail with my friends about this is just, well, eeeew.

I just had a picture of Meg Ryan from "that" scene in the movie "When Harry Met Sally" when thinking about that subject. LOL!

DM: "Uh, Meg? It's not necessary to roleplay out EVERYTHING your character does..."

 

[fusangite]

Kahuna Burger says,

I am interested by the number of people who keep any sexual interaction out of it except for "ale and whores".... Even my Loser D&D Group only had maybe one guy per campaign who was interested in "wenching". The others would either be chaste (usually the palidan types) or end up persuing adult relationships. I would find it odd to play under a DM who would encourage the whores but draw the line at love.

Lalato has it sort of right for my reasons here: simply, whores and ale requires the very least specificity and detail. Any other sexual interaction would require the DM and the player to know the name of the character's co-copulatrix. My concern is to cut down on detail -- therefore, anonymous sexual encounters are clearly the sensible ones for characters to have. They can be dispensed-with in a single sentence -- I cannot think of any other type of in-game encounter which can be generalized and dispensed-with in a sentence without transmitting a single bit of detail.

I also agree with your disputed event observation. Although it is not the main reason sex is, for all intents and purposes, edited out of my campaign, it's another good reason for spending no time on it.

As for love, as I mentioned in another thread, a major escapist appeal for playing D&D is playing a character who has more power over their own life. Falling in love is a disempowering experience and, while fun, runs against the grain of the kind of escapism D&D offers.

Finally, I agree with Buttercup that the main factor for me in not depicting sex is just the sheer ickiness. I'm looking to deliver a certain type of pleasure to my players -- if they take away a different type of pleasure (ie. sexual), I consider myself to have made a very grave error. I would hate to think that anyone was recalling a moment from my campaign while reaching below the waist.

 

[clark411]

Five guys hanging around chucking dice on a weekday night makes for zero romance and what in our gaming.

"Hey, is the *female NPC* pretty?"
"Sure."
"Cool, I try to get her in bed by the end of the night."
"... Done. Moving on, there's also a *30 second description of the cool character who walked into the story with some purpose in the DM's mind*."

Not saying it's the best way of doing things, but it's what is comfortable.

 

[Green Knight]

Eeewwwwwww. Thanks for that image, Fusangite.

 

[BVB]

Sex is not icky. Messy, perhaps, if you're doing it right. But not icky.

If the DM and players feel awkward about roleplaying a sex scene with each other because -- as more than one person has suggested here -- the participants at the table are out of shape and unattractive, then maybe they should be working to improve their appearances and social skills instead of licking the orange Cheeto powder from their fingers between dice rolls.

Me? I'm rolling for a "called shot" on the scantily clad half-elf babe. ... Oooh! A critical hit, too!

 

[jmucchiello]

As a DM, ... I do encourage characters to spend some time and money on whores and ale.

If I were the quotes in the sig type.....

I'd like to contribute but our group doesn't go there much. I think there's been one dalliance in 8-10 years of (real time) gaming. (We were time travelling and I couldn't resist the "is he his own great-great-grandfather schtick."