PCs dealing with sexuality

[Therise]

In my experience, which is merely anecdotal and not meant to suggest truth for everyone, playing any deep-issues emotional content at the gaming table can be troubling for the DM and other players. Most people prefer to use gaming to de-stress from the hectic nature of life, not delve deeply into things that are perhaps better explored in anything -but- a game session. Whether the emotional issue is sexuality, death, severe financial loss, reminders of debilitating medical problems, whatever, it just makes people uncomfortable. Games are meant to be fun, and while they can serve as a kind of therapy (distraction, exploration, etc), it's not good to subject others to deep personal issues without their consent.

I'm here to game for fun, not provide someone with a free alternative to REAL therapy at the cost of my own comfort level. I didn't agree to that. I agreed to beat up orcs and evil mages with you.

Too many people can't handle the "blurring" that happens in the context of gaming. As a straight woman, just being friendly with guys at the table during roleplay can be mistaken for other things. Adding in-game roleplayed sexuality (homosexual, heterosexual, or even omnisexual if your PC is supposedly "into" orcs or gnomes) can seriously muddy things in ways that activate my "squick" factor really fast. You have to think about what people will take away from the table, the assumptions people will make, it's just not good to go there.

Just my $0.02.

 

[MoxieFu]

In my experience, which is merely anecdotal and not meant to suggest truth for everyone, playing any deep-issues emotional content at the gaming table can be troubling for the DM and other players. Most people prefer to use gaming to de-stress from the hectic nature of life, not delve deeply into things that are perhaps better explored in anything -but- a game session. Whether the emotional issue is sexuality, death, severe financial loss, reminders of debilitating medical problems, whatever, it just makes people uncomfortable. Games are meant to be fun, and while they can serve as a kind of therapy (distraction, exploration, etc), it's not good to subject others to deep personal issues without their consent.

I'm here to game for fun, not provide someone with a free alternative to REAL therapy at the cost of my own comfort level. I didn't agree to that. I agreed to beat up orcs and evil mages with you.

Too many people can't handle the "blurring" that happens in the context of gaming. As a straight woman, just being friendly with guys at the table during roleplay can be mistaken for other things. Adding in-game roleplayed sexuality (homosexual, heterosexual, or even omnisexual if your PC is supposedly "into" orcs or gnomes) can seriously muddy things in ways that activate my "squick" factor really fast. You have to think about what people will take away from the table, the assumptions people will make, it's just not good to go there.

Just my $0.02.

Pretty much verbatim for me until that last paragraph. I'm a straight male and any sexual encounters are handled off-camera and nothing but the most boring and straightforward stuff imaginable. Except for that tiefling rogue that one time. And how was my bard to know until the last minute anyway?

 

[Pentius]

Oddly enough, I'm remembering back to the last time I gamed with a homosexual friend. I have many, though most of them don't game. Still, I can't recall whether Dan's character was gay or not. It never really came up.

He was a pretty good kisser, though.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And how was my bard to know until the last minute anyway?

The size of the horns? Look under the tail?

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

And how was my bard to know until the last minute anyway?

Crocodile Dundee figured out a method.

 

[Mallus]

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.

It's Angels in America Greyhawk.

Very nice!

 

[MoxieFu]

The size of the horns? Look under the tail?

Well NOW you tell me!


(razzzem, frazzem, gol-dang must spread experience points around...)

 

[haakon1]

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.

As Butters would say, "Oh hamburgers, sounds like I'm gunna get in a heap of trouble."

Just looked up some stuff:
-- His official name is Leopold "Butters" Scotch
-- The episode most directly relevant to your character idea, the one where Butters is sent to a special camp for the "confused", is called "Cartman Sucks". Cartman Sucks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Therise]

Pretty much verbatim for me until that last paragraph. I'm a straight male and any sexual encounters are handled off-camera and nothing but the most boring and straightforward stuff imaginable. Except for that tiefling rogue that one time. And how was my bard to know until the last minute anyway?

I should probably add/clarify that I don't have any issues when people say that their PCs are going upstairs with a "friend", "rent-person", or some other randy PC or NPC, as long as it's all handled off-camera as you said.

I've played extensively in the Forgotten Realms, which has always had adult themes and plenty of sexually active NPCs (both straight and gay) in the setting. So any off-camera "arrangements" are cool, as long as it's game-related and makes sense. I just don't want to see any sexual encounters fully roleplayed out at the gaming table, whether it's hetero or gay. It can too easily turn into "let me describe, in detail, my favorite porn movie scenes." Just... ew.

 

[Pheonix0114]

So, I just started a World of Darkness campaign, and it is my first time playing the game. We've started out as just normal people who don't have any idea of anything beyond normal people existing, and the Storyteller has expressed that even though we will deal with the supernatural, we more than likely won't ourselves become Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, etc.

My character was designed as being very similar to myself in real life before he expressed this, and after the first session I realized it is kind of boring for me to roleplay someone so similar to who I am in real life. After reading this thread I've decided to try my hand at roleplaying him as homosexual, and not being open about it or even really comfortable with it. As a heterosexual male myself, I feel this will be a challenging bit of roleplay, and I hope it goes well.

I don't think the gaming group will mind however; in our previous game (D20 Future), which I GMed, we had serious discussions of romance, PCs being married to NPCs, and a mature handling of the loss of a dear friend and many subordinates during an attack on a pirate ship, as well as the coming to grips with this guilt and loss to continue the players's campaign to stabilize their sector of space.