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Just came from a New World of Darkness game and one of the players had a strange focus for her PC. It was that the PC was gay, and its not that I question that view but how much does does the Giant collective include sexual preference in their games. It seemed that the game turned into her players desire for sexual contact which was fine role playing on her part but seemed more like a public reading of erotica than actually a theme to move along a quest.
I don't think this ever comes up in our games. Sometimes when we're in a slightly silly mood, someone attempts to persuade an NPC with usually hopeless seduction, in which case the gender of the NPC doesn't make the situation any more or less entertaining for everyone.
It's usually making it up as we go.
Pathfinder has a mechanical aspect to this- the Charming trait gives you a +1 on Diplomacy and Bluff to characters that could find you attractive.
Generally it hasn't come up much in games I've been in other than a brief, "What do you do during the night at the inn?" "I find a barmaid and try to seduce her." Brief flavor, acknowledged as part of the character's personality, played for laughs in the event of a horrible diplomacy roll, but otherwise just moved past.
Well, part of the appeal of games is that you can act out a fantasy that you can't, for whatever reason, act out in real life. I don't think her behavior was necessarily disruptive, and it only was so because it got in the way of everyone else's fun.
Furthermore, I'm willing to admit that some fantasies you should keep to yourself.
As for your actual question, I think character sexuality should really only be used as a dimension through which that character conflicts with their society. Humans tend to be very cruel, sometimes even violent, toward those who violate their sexual norms (though "sexual norms" obviously deviate significantly from culture to culture). A misfit outcast searching for people who will accept them for what they are is a classic character archetype, especially in roleplaying games, and having an abnormal sexuality is a great way to get there.
If, however, the sexuality is considered "normal" then there's really no good reason to bring it up.
Honestly? It's never come up, in either sense of the phrase. Sexytimes are for sexytimes, games are for games. Cross-contamination leads to weirdness, and not the lovecraftian kind that D&D is ok with.
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I have a 7'2 Thai boxer who happens to be a Silver Fang Werewolf in a WoD game I'm playing in who I decided was gay. It's not for any particular reason, other than to attempt to play a gay-positive character. It hasn't come up yet, but then why should it?
It does matter, at least to me, but only in certain cases. I once had a character who blatantly told a succubus that he really wasn't into ladies, and when she tried to turn into a guy, he just waved her off, saying that it wasn't the same. The succubus felt very incompetent after that, and didn't bug our party again.
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Neither moved for some time.
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It's never come up, in either sense of the phrase.
Ha!
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Sexytimes are for sexytimes, games are for games. Cross-contamination leads to weirdness, and not the lovecraftian kind that D&D is ok with.
And I very much agree with that as well. You can't go looking for fan art for... well, anything! without half of it being porn.
The other configuration is equally bad. "Wait, isn't that from the cartoon my small cousins watch? Now I feel unclean."
Depends on the player. Most of the players I know choose to be asexual (in and out of game in several cases). A few players will play characters with a defined sexuality here or there. I can think of a couple for whom the character's sexuality is a defining trait.
When it does come up in the game, we state what happens without actually going there. Usually saying PC spends the night with NPC is as far as it goes.
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Wait, no, now that I think about it, I did say that one character of mine was homosexual. She was a sorceress on a pirate ship, and she blew a guy's non-peg leg off for being something other than utterly chivalrous. It wasn't a big deal, though, mostly for effect and to make the awesome one-liner that I can't remember work better. Never came up again.
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Guess who's good at avatars? Thormag. That's who.
A Campaign Setting more than a year in the making, Patria!
I played a Galliard in a Werewolf Wild West game set in that Appalachian mountains who was gaaaayyyyyyyyyy. And also a total bohemian, a complete shoutout to Oscar Wilde. That was fun!
I also, for a short lived D&D 3.5e game, had a Lesser Fey'ri Wizard who was a complete horndog/seducer type, and would flirt with almost anything that moves with at least a 14 cha and some youth and elegance who was remotely compatible... the Alter Self at will came in handy!
Pathfinder has a mechanical aspect to this- the Charming trait gives you a +1 on Diplomacy and Bluff to characters that could find you attractive.
Generally it hasn't come up much in games I've been in other than a brief, "What do you do during the night at the inn?" "I find a barmaid and try to seduce her." Brief flavor, acknowledged as part of the character's personality, played for laughs in the event of a horrible diplomacy roll, but otherwise just moved past.
Ever played Apocalypse World?
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Originally Posted by kyoryu
I swear, about 50% of what makes BW awesome is the little stuff like that that's applicable to just about any system.
Has almost never come up in any of my games. We've got a bard who essentially worships freedom and beauty, and as such is quite promiscuous (male, female, outsiders, whatever), but most characters don't seem to be in a ton of situations where their sexuality is even relevant.
Usually saying PC spends the night with NPC is as far as it goes.
Yes, that is what I am used to as well. When someone aces a seduction roll it is always a palm over.
I guess I just found one of those unexpected moments in a game where I just didn't quiet know how to react. And I mean that as many PC choices lead to something you can work with "oh you owe this guy money and he is trying to hurt you, I got your back" and you go from there with a plan as a team.
I try to do everything I can to help a character in their individual quests but this one had me stumped... I guess I could have played wing man...?
This situation looks like it was much more about "character's sole interest is sex" than "character is gay."
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"You are what you do. Choose again, and change." --Miles Vorkosigan
"The really unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, or anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future. But the crimes they hope to prevent in the future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present--they are real." --Aral Vorkosigan
As I understand it, characters in Apocalypse World grow in power and abilities by stengthening the personal relationships between PCs, benefitting from the abilities of their friends, rivals, lovers, etc.
Unless I find a way for my characters to swap genders. Which I have been desperately trying to do without resorting to Twin-Faced Hero. Making a Heretical Charm that combines Malfeas' raw shapeshifting abilities with the Ebon Dragon's Subtlety could probably do it.
My computer, unlike my friends' computers, doesn't even have a gender or name, let alone a sexual preference. ....oh, you meant... I'll just go away now.
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Originally Posted by Ertier
A good background is like a skirt. Short enough to keep my interest, but long enough to cover the important bits.
With my group it varies. In some campaigns we have intra-party romance, in others it never quite comes up. Generally we include at least a little something, even if it only amounts to token sexual tension of the kind you'll find in practically every movie or TV show between the male and female leads.
One of our group tends to be asexual or does a little bit of watered-down romance, another plays straight, two tend towards bioware-like bisexuality, and I usually play straight despite being gay in real life (a lot of people don't believe me when I tell them; I look like a young trucker, not a stereotype). I only had one gay character, and he was the burly, Gears of War style commando squad leader for the team in a post-apocalyptic military horror. It never happened to come up except as a subtle hint in a RP scene with him and the psychic.
We don't go into too much detail, though, there's not a whole lot of value in blow-by-blow sex roleplay. Just a brief description of the general mood or any notable, character-revealing bits.
...there's not a whole lot of value in blow-by-blow sex roleplay. Just a brief description of the general mood or any notable, character-revealing bits.
But in this interaction does it move the plot or is it rather flavor. Because I would like to assume that most players have had a game where one PC is flavored as promiscuous, but just like a good diplomat and a good tactician can there be a good panty hound who can drive a campaign by there focus on such.
I guess I just find myself wondering if this was one of the most original ideas that I have witnessed that could have been turned into a utility or if it was just as it seemed, and awkward moment in my gaming history.
I don't usually consider the sexuality of my PCs unless the situation demands it, and it rarely does. I might jokingly say stuff like "I seduce the barmaid" or something, but I don't really "count" that.
Only once I've decided in advance that a sorcerer I played was bisexual, but I'm not sure if her sexuality ever even came up.
As a GM I obviously take the NPCs' and even the PCs' possible families and such into account a lot more.
I've always found romantic love to be a classic motivation for a character, so even with my less developed peeps, I assume straight unless otherwise specified. Only real exception so far is deciding that my sorcerer is pretty much asexual.
I've occasionally made an npc that was way-over-the-top stereotypically homosexual for a laugh, but character sexuality just never comes up in any serious way. A PC or NPC simply cannot be defined only by their sexuality without being painfully one-dimensional in any but the shortest interactions.
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