Sex and "adult themes" in game

[John Morrow]

The level of detail that we go into is rarely all that graphic but there are sometimes fairly suggestive details if they serve a role-playing purpose beyond titillation. To put this about as suggestively as we'll often deal with it, how enthusiastic, athletic, agressive, uninhibited, passive, reluctant, reserved, shy, pleasant, annoying, selfish, nervous, experienced, inexperienced, etc. a partner is and how well or how badly an encounter goes can have role-playing implications beyond that encounter, expecially if the encounter is romantic or with a recurring NPC rather than simply a random encounter with a faceless NPC to pass the time. We'll often cover things in enough vague detail so that the player can give their character some sense of how they felt about the experience and about the impressions they got from the other character(s) that were involved.

 

[Psion]

A retrospective analysis of some campaigns I have been in indicates that fully 90% of atractive female characters interested in PCs are succubi.

The other 10% are rakshasi.

 

[John Morrow]

I would imagine that things would be a bit more discreet and its better to roleplay it that way.

How discreet things are, in a realistic sense, will depend a great deal on the consequences of being indescreet. A setting that has relatively reliable birth control, a social welfare system or legal system that supports single mothers, reliable paternity tests, easily avoided STDs, etc. will look very different from a setting without reliable birth control, where single mothers aren't helped or supported, where paternity is a matter of trust, or where incurable debilitating or even fatal STDs abound.

The ideas about a ton of b!@$#!@ children out there is very interesting and a great plot hook that I may have to use sometime soon.

The fact that we now consider "bastard" a mild, if not friendly insult (and an inappropriate thing to call the children of unmarried mothers) when it was once the sort of insult that could find one in a duel over family honor says a lot about how much things have culturally changed over the years. Another thing that changes how discreet people are is how concerned they are about what others think about them and how much they are held responsible for upholding the honor of those related to them.

 

[der_kluge]

A retrospective analysis of some campaigns I have been in indicates that fully 90% of atractive female characters interested in PCs are succubi.

The other 10% are rakshasi.

Maybe this is why my wife is constantly draining the energy out of me. It makes sense now!!

 

[NewJeffCT]

When I've played, sex has always been "off camera" with few exceptions. It happens, but we don't go into detail. One exception I can recall was in a somewhat less serious campaign where the group was all in the town inn... one guy was playing a naive barbarian (I think, or a naive about the city ranger) But, my sarcastic citywise rogue and another similar PC decided to play a joke on him in-game and send up a dominatrix type prostitute to his room. I think he was out of the room on a bathroom break when I told the DM about this idea... The guy had his PC freak out in game when the woman pulled out her whip, and I think he was a bit shaken out of game, too. However, it did not get graphic or anything like that. It kind of ended in piels of laughter when the PC ran out of the room.

 

[freebfrost]

Well, until recently the the worst that had happened sexually was the pirate who got knocked up by a Nalfeshnee in disguise... Actually got to use some tables from the Book of Erotic Fantasy for that one!

But that was before we started the Conan game and the party ended up in the city of Shadizar (the Wicked).

Well, let's just say all the ladies and gentlemen players seemed to take to the city like horses to water and their characters certainly lived up (down) to the reputation of that city. And they provided the details of their exploits as well.

Lots of detail.

Anyways, the curious part was that it never seemed strange. Not one of the group flinched or complained or made much comment about the other's detailed debaucheries. It was like an *normal* everyday adventure. In retrospect, I have to hand it to the party for doing that - they immersed themselves in the setting and made it seem natural to do so.

Not sure I'd want to see that in other situations, but it worked well for that setting.

 

[RangerWickett]

Some 'adult themes' don't involve sex, but I think I'll start a different thread to address those. In one game I played in, the goddess of lust appeared in the dreams of Don Juan, a priest of the god of love, and she taunted him quite viscerally. It made us grimace a bit, and the next week the DM said that he kinda weirded himself out.

Of course, in this game we also use the Luck Roll system. When the DM wants to put something up to random chance, like whether there are any books on a certain topic in the library, we roll d%, high good for the party, low bad for the party. And 69 always requires the DM to work sex into the answer somehow.

Best time this ever came up was when Don, the priest from above, managed to grab the villain's artifact and plane shift away to his goddess's plane. He rolls a luck roll to see how close he shows up, and gets a 69. It was determined that, though the goddess of love had been blocking most of Don's efforts to get play, the angels who served the goddess felt Don deserved a reward for all the good work he had done.

Don showed up a week later, looking pretty refreshed.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Doesn't really come up these days. My brother is in the gaming group, so anything really off-color would be really weird. There are occasional "Frazetta-style" NPCs, but they're there more as an homage to the pulp roots of the genre, as opposed to anything meant to be lascivious or titillating.

A long time ago, there was a player who had a rather unchaste elven cavalier, followed by a perverse elven magic-user, but we eventually stopped gaming with him for a variety of reasons.

 

[Mallus]

The following is an I sent out my players, to set the stage for the session that just got cancelled. Its pretty representitive of the games general level of naughtiness (and punishing wordplay).

<Aboard the MCSDF Windsprint, 2 days sail from St.Tart's Island, enroute to Narayan:CITY via the Straits of Narayan>

Its warm. Its crowded, despite the loss of the enlisted crew to the Ping Island raiders. Its surprisingly dull, considering that the 'enlisted crew' have largely been replaced by half-dressed female refugees from the Shrine of St. Tart's Bodice, for whom propriety is venal sin.

Unfortunately, you all discover the priestesses have a thing for real seamen.

Captain Spar and a skeleton crew of relatives man the Wretched Excess. Most of his men are aboard the Windsprint, getting a crash-course in navy life. This education proves to be so popular that Spar rotates them over in shifts.

Needless to say, the nights pass unquietly, disturbed by --frequent-- bouts of religious fervor. By the 3rd day Capt. Spar comes aboard Windsprint himself.

"Just trying to do my part", he says to an incredulous Burne, who is about to remind him that he has a ship of own, when Spar interupts him.

"You wouldn't have any of that herb, what do they call it in Narayan... le weekender.... umm... Sialis root, that's it. A man my age needs a little help raising the mast."

"I had some," says Mallus, "but we used all we had trying to ah... revive the ronin. He had a
particularly draining experience on the way to St. Tart's (he lost 6 CON to a rast)."

"On the way over?" replies Spar. He looks away with thinly-veiled incomprehension (when the only crew was himself, his sons, and the other male PC's).

 

[Remathilis]

Usually when we have sexual encounters in game is when we switch to "LARP mode."

Ask me if I'm surprised.

On topic. We keep such material off camera. We have one female player who is a bit uncomfortable with it, so its usually winked and ignored...