Sex and Sexuality in D&D. . .
- Thread starter jdrakeh
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Samnell
Explorer
kenobi65 said:I play in Living Greyhawk, and Verbobonc (which contains Hommlet) is my local region. Rufus and Burne showed up in a module last year, and that's the assumption that we all made, too.
Honestly, I know they were old PCs in Gary's game. But they've been living together for decades. Neither has a female associate. If they don't fit the profile for a long-term couple, then Corellon's got a beard bigger than Moradin's.
Philotomy Jurament
First Post
Corellon uses a beard? What's her name?Samnell said:
Scurvy_Platypus
Explorer
I apparently surprised the GM and other players (including my wife) this past game we played. Setting is strongly historical (AD 170 roman) based, and the previous game, my character (A 40 year old semi retired Optio in the legion) had taken a female slave as his loot. He hadn't really bothered taking anything up until then, and there were a number of jokes starting to be made about just why the character had taken the slave, and my wife had given me the fish-eye as well.
After a few minutes of this, I turned to the GM and said, "As I recall, they didn't really have a huge taboo against homosexual activity, is that correct? The attitudes basically varied with some people against it, and others openly gay, and at the end of the day as long as Rome got what it wanted, they didn't really care. No laws against it specifically, yes?"
The GM looked sort of confused and said, "Well... yeah. Nothing that I remember, so it's not a big deal. Why?" pause...."Oh. You mean...?"
And I said, "Yup. Tiberius is gay."
Tiberius also happens to be a rather adpet fellow with doing a Trip attack followed with a free Attack, and has put down several of the tougher opponents we've faced by keeping them tripped and stabbing 'em while they're down. And he's recently crucified a rebel that had attacked the romans, in addition to having been engaged in banditry of a general sort. "Violator of the Pax Romana" was the sign attached to his cross. He's LN, shaves his head, and is partially inspired by Apone from Aliens (yeah, Tiberius really loves the legion).
I don't play female characters (never have), but sex and sexuality is something I've made deliberate and conscious choices about for me characters. My last character (Kobold Dragon Shaman) was seriously into partying and women. Early on, I told the GM the kobold was going to head on off for a night on the town. The GM said, "What sort of 'night on the town' are you thinking of?" as the kobold had already established a talent for trouble.
"I'm going to blow all my gold and hookers and booze!"
The rest of the table suddenly paused in their various plans and side chatter and looked over at me.
"Just how much money do you intend to spend?"
"Well.... I've got a 150 gold, so I'll blow whatever is left after I get some fresh chickens for eating." The player that had a dwarf groaned loudly and asked me, "What about buying any gear you might need for the future?!?!"
I shrugged and said, "I'll steal it, borrow money from one of you guys, or just do without. If Kissik dies, he dies. He's not going to hoard money on the off-chance he might need to buy something later when there's women, booze, and chickens to be had now."
The GM asked, "So what kind of...ladies.... is Kissik looking for? It might be kinda hard to find any that are willing to mess around with Kobolds, and I'm not sure there's any Kobold hookers in Sharn."
To which I replied, "Kissik likes the ladies. He's going to a brothel, and his requirement is 1) Female, 2)Doesn't hate Kobolds, and 3) Likes to eat chicken."
Turned out the GM had the book of Erotic Fantasy, so he got to roll up a social disease for the Kobold. Luckily we had an NPC cleric as the disease was apparently fatal. No surprise there.
I don't go for explicit descriptions or anything like that, but yeah... my characters (regardless of race) don't ignore sex. I think part of the reason why it's never been an issue in any of the games I've played in over the years is because I'm very explicit about not wanting explicit details or anything like that. It's just one of those things that my characters indulge (or very religiously don't indulge) in.
After a few minutes of this, I turned to the GM and said, "As I recall, they didn't really have a huge taboo against homosexual activity, is that correct? The attitudes basically varied with some people against it, and others openly gay, and at the end of the day as long as Rome got what it wanted, they didn't really care. No laws against it specifically, yes?"
The GM looked sort of confused and said, "Well... yeah. Nothing that I remember, so it's not a big deal. Why?" pause...."Oh. You mean...?"
And I said, "Yup. Tiberius is gay."
Tiberius also happens to be a rather adpet fellow with doing a Trip attack followed with a free Attack, and has put down several of the tougher opponents we've faced by keeping them tripped and stabbing 'em while they're down. And he's recently crucified a rebel that had attacked the romans, in addition to having been engaged in banditry of a general sort. "Violator of the Pax Romana" was the sign attached to his cross. He's LN, shaves his head, and is partially inspired by Apone from Aliens (yeah, Tiberius really loves the legion).
I don't play female characters (never have), but sex and sexuality is something I've made deliberate and conscious choices about for me characters. My last character (Kobold Dragon Shaman) was seriously into partying and women. Early on, I told the GM the kobold was going to head on off for a night on the town. The GM said, "What sort of 'night on the town' are you thinking of?" as the kobold had already established a talent for trouble.
"I'm going to blow all my gold and hookers and booze!"
The rest of the table suddenly paused in their various plans and side chatter and looked over at me.
"Just how much money do you intend to spend?"
"Well.... I've got a 150 gold, so I'll blow whatever is left after I get some fresh chickens for eating." The player that had a dwarf groaned loudly and asked me, "What about buying any gear you might need for the future?!?!"
I shrugged and said, "I'll steal it, borrow money from one of you guys, or just do without. If Kissik dies, he dies. He's not going to hoard money on the off-chance he might need to buy something later when there's women, booze, and chickens to be had now."
The GM asked, "So what kind of...ladies.... is Kissik looking for? It might be kinda hard to find any that are willing to mess around with Kobolds, and I'm not sure there's any Kobold hookers in Sharn."
To which I replied, "Kissik likes the ladies. He's going to a brothel, and his requirement is 1) Female, 2)Doesn't hate Kobolds, and 3) Likes to eat chicken."
Turned out the GM had the book of Erotic Fantasy, so he got to roll up a social disease for the Kobold. Luckily we had an NPC cleric as the disease was apparently fatal. No surprise there.
I don't go for explicit descriptions or anything like that, but yeah... my characters (regardless of race) don't ignore sex. I think part of the reason why it's never been an issue in any of the games I've played in over the years is because I'm very explicit about not wanting explicit details or anything like that. It's just one of those things that my characters indulge (or very religiously don't indulge) in.
The Green Adam
First Post
I use an unusual subtext with some of the Elven cultures in one of my campaigns. Elves are often depicted as quite promiscuous but at the same time a very long lived species with few children born to their people. IMCU this is because many Elves are 'joined' or 'linked' to some other Elf in a form of predestined relationship. If Elves try to mate without this connection, it is unlikely to bare any fruit so to speak. That doesn't stop them from trying. An unjoined couple only has a 1 in a million chance of reproducing from a sexual act between the two individuals. Even a joined couple only has a 1 in 5000 chance. This means that for their race to continue they need to mate as often as they can to improve their chances of there ever being more Elves.
On a similar note, in an old Star Wars campaign my friend Jason created an alien species with three sexes. The name of an individual of this species ended with a letter indicating the sex. In order to reproduce, a member would have to locate the other two beings with the same name but of the other sexes. For example, if Respori wanted to have children, Respora and Resporo would need to be found. Of course, what if Respora was living in another part of the galaxy or Resporo was killed by Stormtroopers? Evolution and cultural development had no idea this species was going to become starfaring. Within the next century or so this race could easily be rendered extinct.
AD
On a similar note, in an old Star Wars campaign my friend Jason created an alien species with three sexes. The name of an individual of this species ended with a letter indicating the sex. In order to reproduce, a member would have to locate the other two beings with the same name but of the other sexes. For example, if Respori wanted to have children, Respora and Resporo would need to be found. Of course, what if Respora was living in another part of the galaxy or Resporo was killed by Stormtroopers? Evolution and cultural development had no idea this species was going to become starfaring. Within the next century or so this race could easily be rendered extinct.
AD
Kahuna Burger
First Post
in terms of glbt, I've played a couple of Amazon characters from tribes who lived in a symbiotic relationship with the nearby villages. The longest running of those was a brash Ale and Whores sort of fighter - she just happened to be female. She showed some interest in a fellow party member but didn't ever push things with her.
In a d20 modern play by post, we were all supposed to be soldiers in the modern gulf war. I decided to play cross gender because (imo) a female soldier in the modern military is a strong character archetype itself and I felt would interfere with developing the character I wanted to play. After some thinking I decided the intelligence officer I was playing was somewhere between "asexual nerd" and "so far in the closet he still has one foot in Narnia." Some of his talents required him to choose a "target gender" or somesuch and I chose men for him - but he connected with men on more of an intelectual than emotional level and pretty much had no sexual interests at all. Whether this was due to being a late bloomer combined with an early decision that military intelligence was his goal in life and he had better agressivly avoid asking himself questions he didn't want answers to is an exercise for the reader.
There were a couple of other characters for whom sex played a strong role in their background or characterization. One of my only evil-ish characters had decided at about 12 that she wanted to be a widow when she grew up (due to a poor history of her female relitives surviving more than one childbirth and a social status that made getting married a non-optional destiny) and murdered several husbands. Her fear of birth and by association sex was one of her defining characteristics.
On the other hand, Sara the happy gladiator had no problems with sex, but found other warriors distinctly unappealing. See, in her mind, pit whores and weakling bimbos slept with gladiators. She was a gladiator. She ended up attaching herself to a fellow PC who was a halfling wizard. She thought he was cute, smart and needed her to take good care of him.
In a d20 modern play by post, we were all supposed to be soldiers in the modern gulf war. I decided to play cross gender because (imo) a female soldier in the modern military is a strong character archetype itself and I felt would interfere with developing the character I wanted to play. After some thinking I decided the intelligence officer I was playing was somewhere between "asexual nerd" and "so far in the closet he still has one foot in Narnia." Some of his talents required him to choose a "target gender" or somesuch and I chose men for him - but he connected with men on more of an intelectual than emotional level and pretty much had no sexual interests at all. Whether this was due to being a late bloomer combined with an early decision that military intelligence was his goal in life and he had better agressivly avoid asking himself questions he didn't want answers to is an exercise for the reader.
There were a couple of other characters for whom sex played a strong role in their background or characterization. One of my only evil-ish characters had decided at about 12 that she wanted to be a widow when she grew up (due to a poor history of her female relitives surviving more than one childbirth and a social status that made getting married a non-optional destiny) and murdered several husbands. Her fear of birth and by association sex was one of her defining characteristics.
On the other hand, Sara the happy gladiator had no problems with sex, but found other warriors distinctly unappealing. See, in her mind, pit whores and weakling bimbos slept with gladiators. She was a gladiator. She ended up attaching herself to a fellow PC who was a halfling wizard. She thought he was cute, smart and needed her to take good care of him.
Varianor Abroad
Explorer
Cure disease spells are no more available to the general populace than raise dead or resurrections. They are generally options for the rich.
In our planescape game we have one shapechanger with exceptional charisma that often sleeps with others to get favors for our group. My character has a terrible charisma and is a bit deranged, and she's just started sleeping with me to get me to do her favors and so forth. My character hasn't had a woman in a LONG time, so its working like a charm
This is kind of a 1st for our group, we haven't really delved into sexual topics too much in our games, but so far its been working fine. We poke fun at our "slut" party member from time to time and move on.
This is kind of a 1st for our group, we haven't really delved into sexual topics too much in our games, but so far its been working fine. We poke fun at our "slut" party member from time to time and move on.
Kahuna Burger
First Post
No more available? It's two spell levels lower than Raise Dead (and thus capable of being cast by far more npcs), available to rangers paladins and druids at high enough levels, and has no material components (as opposed to a 5000 gp one).Varianor Abroad said:
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