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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5292521" data-attributes="member: 3820">I'm sort of losing the thread of the argument here. Because there can be exceptions and rationalizations to make characters unisex, it is more comfortable and natural for characters to be unisex? Or is more that a GM has the tools to mandate unisex answers if it's somehow deemed necessary? Because the example I use came from a player who wanted her character to put on a dress — something that nobody had ever seen said half-orc wear before, in part because it would challenge the character.You could say the exact same thing of any choice that has consequences in an RPG. Failing to disarm a trap means you could take damage from a trap? Charging an army with inferior strength and no plan could result in death? Mouthing off to the Dread Emperor-King means he might have you imprisoned or worse? You REALLY need to take your games less seriously. Sure, you can remove any potential consequences from sex for the sake of not wanting to focus on it, just as you can remove the possibility of death from combat or hazardous environments. But you're not some kind of weirdo if you don't. You can even say "I won't make your character get pregnant against your consent," and a player can still wind up spending gold pieces on contraceptives because it seems enjoyably in-character that the character would worry about such things, being bereft of the meta-knowledge of the social contract.Plenty of people like complicated games. Such complications are one of the things that differentiate RPGs from boardgames. I'm not saying that the ability to opt out is bad — far from it, I've had players tell me their characters were sterile for similar reasons, and that was fine! The ability to opt out is good, and in-game reliable contraceptives are a good design decision. However, the ability to opt in is also a good thing. All respect, but I cannot disagree more that these things only make the game more complicated in a bad way. Too much first-hand experience with gender differentiation and sexual identity as plot points that complicate the games in good ways. Some players want romantic subplots, which are impossible to do well if characters have no sexual preferences and no distinct attitudes toward sexuality in or outside of courtship or marriage. And some players (like the guy in my game who wants to have an angsty teenage romantic triangle) see romance as an opportunity to entertain everyone else at the table, possibly in comedic fashion. Again, I'll absolutely back you if you say people should have the option to opt out. Completely disagree with the concept that opting in is a bad idea. In my experience, it's only a bad idea if the people around the table don't want to do it (which is not always the case), or if they just plain suck (also, thankfully not always the case).Heh. I will admit that I post from something of a privileged position, as I pretty much roleplay with longterm friends and co-workers. My most long-running games are with people I know so well that we're often talking about games when we're hanging out like we would anyway. Now and again I have to remind myself that not everyone plays that way. There was a somewhat light-hearted thread on RPGnet a while back about designing a Jane Austen RPG, in which the goal was to design mechanics for your character to be utterly passive until the right gentleman falls utterly in love with you and sweeps you away.Being somewhat entangled with a romantic subplot for a PC like this, I can say it's not totally easy to incorporate that motif, but achievable. Surrendering control without being deprotagonized is basically the kind of compromise that goes into, well, a relationship. It also generally involves some understanding of a meta level: the player sets the boundaries for when she's going to be surrendering control, which usually happen after she's established some similar form of "control" over the NPC (like having him fall hopelessly in love with her.) Tricky stuff, and our version involved as much (if not more) talking about the nature of romantic subplots as actual play as prep, but doable.</blockquote>

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