PCs dealing with sexuality

[Barastrondo]

Mainly because that isn't fun and most people still play for fun. Who wants to sit around the table playing Byron the Wizard in love with Kothar the Barbarian with Byron knowing his love will never be returned because Kothar comes from an extremely masculine culture and might kill Byron if he found out Byron had such feelings for him. Then Byron charms or uses illusions to seduce Kothar, who eventually finds out, then your entire party is destroyed. And quite possibly if the player of Kothar is strongly heterosexual himself, he is probably angry and never coming back to the table to game again.

Controversial content does not automatically equate crummy execution unless you play with people who just aren't very mature. If a player played out that same scenario, only with Kothara the Female Barbarian getting date-raped by means of charm person, I wouldn't lay the blame on allowing the topic of heterosexuality at the table. I'd lay the blame on Byron's player.

You're just asking for trouble exploring deeply emotional material of any kind at most tables. You would have to have a special group of players more interested in acting and psychology than playing an RPG.

Or who are interested in characters and RPGs. It doesn't take preference for acting and psychology over an RPG: this sort of thing can be interesting to a player just from preferring books and films that have a strong element of character to them. There's an entire D&D franchise hinging on people liking to read about a character who realizes he's different and has to come to grips with that emotionally, only parsed in "I think I might be good" instead of "I think I might be gay."

But to the original post, I honestly haven't seen this particular conflict played out; like you say, usually characters are more open about their sexuality. One of the things that maybe undercuts this particular issue as something that plays out at the table (as opposed to blue-booking, emails or other smaller-group sessions) is the fact that at least in the groups I tend to play in, the other PCs don't add to the conflict -- they're too supportive! If they're likely to get engaged in another PC's romantic travails, they'd be less "We're not sure we approve of you being attracted to a guy" and more "We're not sure we approve of you being attracted to this guy, seriously, I think he's got an infernal pact or something."

Which is not to say I don't think it could happen; there's a couple of people in my swashbuckler who are undergoing some complicated introspection about who they are and what they want. It's mostly due to family issues, but I dunno, either player might decide sexuality is part of it, and it wouldn't be out of character. (Well, the rake would probably have to self-identify as bi, given his history.) If that happened, I think the other players at the table might find it as interesting as they find things like absentee parents, pressure to marry and the other little social things that go hand-in-hand with duels and monsters and all that other good stuff.

 

[Halivar]

I will admit: I've gone straight for the joke angle. I knew my gaming group (which included an open lesbian), and no offense was taken by any present, though they did plot to kill him (for completely unrelated reasons). This was a group where catharsis and deep roleplay simply weren't really what anyone was interested in, and they enjoyed cheap bawdy humor more anyways.

In my other gaming group, there tends to be deeper character development, more serious roleplay, and such a character (or any " cheap joke" character, for that matter) would not be tolerated. Not one bit. Such games center their catharsis more on the struggle against evil, and internal struggles get pushed to the wayside, though, so I don't think it would ever come up. (EDIT: Now that I think about it, in the 10 years I have played in this group, I have only seen a romantic storyline of any kind twice; both involving female players' PC's).

I think it's safe to say that if I played in a campaign where a PC had the time to roleplay a PC questioning their sexuality, then that game does not have enough orcs. For me, that is.

 

[Dice4Hire]

My games do not get this close to reality. Sex is left at the door.

 

[Umbran]

So has anyone else here played a PC through those times? How did it go?

Haven't played through it myself. I've seen it done several times, but only in live-action games, not in tabletop.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone play through a PC who is conflicted, still figuring it out, or who doesn't want to admit their sexuality.

In my personal experience, most tabletop campaigns don't do much in the way of romance at all, much less tackle the issues surrounding sexual identity.

D&D games typically take place in a world where the societal positions on such matters are either not specified, or not important to game play. When you're out bashing orcs, who you prefer as a romantic or sexual partner really isn't a major concern.

 

[Mark Hope]

My games do not get this close to reality. Sex is left at the door.

Doorway sex. Sounds fun.

 

[Aeolius]

Sounds fun.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyOp1Y7L4hE"]revolving door[/ame]

 

[SnowleopardVK]

Doorway sex. Sounds fun.

Oh dear. XD

Really though? So few people have seen romance in the game? My previous group, I'll admit, didn't do it much because we new somebody would be giggling all the way through someone else's confessions of love, but normally it seems to me like a pretty obvious thing to come up. The characters are human after all (or humanoid... Demi-human... Whatever).

And again. Sexuality and romance does not automatically equal sex. Seriously.

 

[Stumblewyk]

For the most part, my games are about getting together and having fun. And for us, "fun" means Monty Python jokes, pizza, beer, catching up on movies we've seen since the last time we met, discussing how annoying a previous NPC villain was, and then rolling dice and killing bad guys.

Our characters have backstories, they've got schticks, they've got motivations and goals. But we leave the heady, socio-political stuff outside in the real world. Around the table, we're heroes (and occasionally anti-heroes) doing heroic stuff. No one wants to sit there while the sexually conflicted wizard has a deeply emotional session of growth and maturity.

Believe-you-me, if one of my players or DMs came out of the closet to me, and wanted to have a real world discussion on their sexuality, I'd be there for them, withholding judgement, and helping them where I could. But at my table (or one of my DM's tables)? We don't care.

 

[Umbran]

Really though? So few people have seen romance in the game?
...
The characters are human after all (or humanoid... Demi-human... Whatever).

Whatever the characters are, the players are still predominantly heterosexual men, in a culture that may be improving, but still has a lot of sexual hangups. Maybe some of those men play females, but they probably don't do so convincingly for romantic purposes. In general, how many of those players do you figure want to turn to Hairy Joe next to them and profess in-game undying love? Probably not too many. For most of them, it is kind of awkward.

And, even when there's a lady at the table, a lot of folks find detaching in-game emotion from out-of-game reality awkward.

Finding a good opportunity for romance in game is probably a lot like a guy trying to find a date for Friday night at MIT in the late 1970s...

 

[Dark Mistress]

I have seen it done only once. A male PC that took over half the campaign to come to terms with his sexuality. It was well done.

I think the problem for why many don't do it is simple. That is something it would be very easy to get wrong if you have not experienced it yourself and most players I think would be nervous about screwing it up and offending others. I have seen straight guys play gay characters and vice versa, just as I have seen cross gender play of all sexuality. Sometimes it is done well and sometimes badly.

As for the later question about sexuality and romance. Yes most games I play in has had it in them. Not as a focus of course but as some side personal stories for PC's.

As for romance I once played a cold hearted assassin who was raised to only know how to do her job. Before the game began in the prelude she found stuff out that made her flee. She ended up in a really weird relationship with another PC, a PI. He liked her but was sickened by her casual look on death and killing. She was conflicted cause she didn't know how to make emotional commitments. They went back and forth, as friends to dating to not liking each other and back again. Finally at the end of a 2 year campaign they ended up together.

On a related topic, I have seen people play out characters who have very strong emotional reactions to things and take a long time to recover. Same game as above. The PI (this was a space master game) was tracking down some people. He cornered them in a van and during a firefight. A guy was in back with a automatic weapon. Having already shot several other PC's no one could get a good shot at him. The PI stuck the nose of a auto shotgun around the door and unloaded the full clip into the back of the van. Killed the guy but what he did not know is they had kidnapped a kid and he was in the back too and was killed. The PI freaked it took about 3 months of RL time and about 1 year of game time for him to get over it. It was very cool and well done.