PCs dealing with sexuality

[Dannyalcatraz]

And the last gay guy I games with used to run very witty elf or half-elf women. I think he felt it gave him an excuse to quote songs like "Its Raining Men" at the table.

Good gamer, funny guy. We lost touch, and I do miss him.

Not like that, though.





...Not that there's anything WRONG with that!

 

[Elf Witch]

Romance and sex are part of the games I play in. We don't role play out sex scenes we fade to black. But we often choose for our characters to have relationships.

We did at one time have two male characters who were in love with each other. One was very confident in his sexuality and the other was not.

He was very much in the closet he had run away from his noble family to become an adventure to avoid a marriage. It was interesting to watch the by play the one would flirt with the other one who would get mad. It was fun watching him making excuses to get out of going wenching with the other guys but trying to maintain his illusions as ladies man. He was like this until one day the other character died in hos arms and he brokenly declared his love and move heaven and earth to get him raised. After that they became a couple. There was not a lot of public affection going on and nothing was done to make anyone else uncomfortable at the table.

The interesting thing to me was that the players were both straight females.

We enjoy killing orcs as much as the next group but we also enjoy character interaction and role playing.

 

[S'mon]

RHe was like this until one day the other character died in hos arms and he brokenly declared his love and move heaven and earth to get him raised. After that they became a couple. There was not a lot of public affection going on and nothing was done to make anyone else uncomfortable at the table.

The interesting thing to me was that the players were both straight females.

Not surprising though - without straight females there'd be no "slash" fanfic!! How else would Kirk & Spock or Blake & Avon ever get it on?

 

[Bold or Stupid]

I've pretty much done it all, sex/romance is part of most of my games though I mostly leave it at the bedroom door, except in cases were what went on matters (BDSM has featured). I've even run a game with a lesbian relationship in a homophobic society. My players are all fairly mature and most of us make the sexuality of our characters a part of their makeup at times.

 

[avin]

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

Not on D&D.

I've got a lesbian friend but she never showed interest in rping gay characters.

A straight guy rped a bissexual shadar-kai, but he never had doubts about it.

I roleplay females all the time, but never go into romance with them.

 

[Elf Witch]

Not surprising though - without straight females there'd be no "slash" fanfic!! How else would Kirk & Spock or Blake & Avon ever get it on?

Ah yes slash fanfic. I knew a writer who wrote the most X rated slash fanfic she was a Sunday school teacher and happily married mom of two.

One of the reason slash gets written is that stories with female characters coming in and having a relationship with one our heroes is seen as a disruption of the buddy relationship and often the female character is considered a Mary Sue or just the author private fantasy.

Making it a slash you can do the romance and sex to your hearts content and even place yourself in one of the characters shoes and not get called for basically writing your fantasy.

 

[Mallus]

IME with a typical action-adventure game RPG, realistically-portrayed lesbian characters are particularly hard to make an impact in play. Where it's easy to make a flamboyant gay male (N)PC's sexuality obvious, the sexuality of that rather dour, plate-armoured female Fighter (N)PC probably will never come up at all, unless maybe she has a life partner, which very few PCs do at the start of play.

Matches my experience. I can do flamboyant characters, and often do, even when I haven't bothered to give them a sexual orientation. I think the truth is I'm just more comfortable playing around with male stereotypes than female stereotypes.

Also, flamboyant is fun, which is why my (usually implicitly) straight PCs tend to have more than a bit of queen in them. Metaphorically speaking.

It's a bit of Catch-22. Since I've given the PC an orientation, I want it to matter. But I don't want to use any of the easy characterization crutches; man hatin', wearing comfortable shoes, etc. That sits squarely at the intersection of insulting and not fun to play. And she's already got a bit of cliche in her. She's from a martial culture, but sees herself as more of athlete than warrior. Then I rolled randomly for her sexual preference and got a Kinsey 6.... so great, she's an elven sports dyke! (built like a human supermodel).

This PC is going to be a challenge. Finding a PC or important NPC to engage in a Xena/Gabrille-like banter with would be very helpful. Perhaps one will turn up... or maybe my PC will get over her bias against "fat" non-elven women and warm up to the party's sorcerer...

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I've got no problem with someone playing a gay character, or a bisexual character, or whatever. Nevertheless, "exploration" of a character's sexuality is not the kind of thing I want in a role-playing game. (And it doesn't matter what sexual orientation we're talking about.) I find that more suitable for theatre, or a group-therapy session, but not desirable in a D&D game (at least, not the way I play it). I'm much more enthusiastic about exploration of a dungeon, or a mysterious island, or a dark and dangerous wood, or the ruins of a long-dead wizard's tower.

Unless everyone in your group is into what you're trying to do, I think the "explore my character's sexuality" thing is likely to come across as narcissistic and disruptive to the game.

 

[GregoryOatmeal]

My next PC is going to be a 19-year old Paladin named Gary. He's going to have shaggy blonde hair, be super-cheerful and enthusiastic about life in spite of all of it's challenges. He's constantly going out of his way to help people and share his good news. Essentially he's your stereotypical Mormon missionary mixed with Butters from South Park.

He's also on an oath of celibacy. And he's an incredibly repressed homosexual.

 

[Mark CMG]

In-game, sex rarely comes up so in-game sexuality rarely comes up either. Occasionally, players will, in-character, ask about the attractiveness of NPCs or utilize their own in a manner when being charming or diplomatic, which is fine. But as far as exploring sexuality further than that at the game table, I don't keep exploration charts on hand for such things. I've got no problem with someone playing heterosexual, gay, or bisexual characters but it's unlikely to come up much in-game, maybe not at all.


When running games at gamedays or conventions (particularly for younger players), such matters (and details of graphic violence) are strictly forbidden. I've even taken one adult player aside at a convention and asked them to clam up or leave the game when she felt compelled to make her character overtly sexual (Living Greyhawk game - player character in a cat suit, with whips for weapons, constantly propositioning other player characters and being extremely suggestive with every sentence). I don't care to run such games, so I don't, and I wouldn't play in them either.