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FistsFullofDice
2012-07-18, 12:07 PM
Hey all,

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.

Yora
2012-07-18, 12:22 PM
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.

Lord Tyger
2012-07-18, 12:24 PM
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.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-18, 12:27 PM
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.

Mastikator
2012-07-18, 12:27 PM
My PCs are always asexual for all intent and purpose, I find roleplaying romantic and/or sexual stuff distracting at best, and uncomfortable at worst.

Wyntonian
2012-07-18, 12:28 PM
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.

Ashdate
2012-07-18, 12:28 PM
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?

Manly Man
2012-07-18, 12:29 PM
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.

Yora
2012-07-18, 12:35 PM
It's never come up, in either sense of the phrase.

Ha! :smallbiggrin:


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."

valadil
2012-07-18, 12:36 PM
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.

Wyntonian
2012-07-18, 12:40 PM
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.

Gavinfoxx
2012-07-18, 12:41 PM
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!

Siegel
2012-07-18, 12:41 PM
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?

Synovia
2012-07-18, 12:44 PM
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.

Lord Tyger
2012-07-18, 12:46 PM
Ever played Apocalypse World?

Nope! Why do you ask?

FistsFullofDice
2012-07-18, 12:51 PM
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...?

Kish
2012-07-18, 12:53 PM
This situation looks like it was much more about "character's sole interest is sex" than "character is gay."

Yora
2012-07-18, 12:56 PM
Nope! Why do you ask?

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.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-07-18, 12:56 PM
Straight.

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.

Jallorn
2012-07-18, 01:00 PM
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.

FistsFullofDice
2012-07-18, 01:01 PM
Straight.

Unless I find a way to swap genders.

Hmm, not quiet the question I was asking but the face of sheer confusion that post inspired me to make made my day a little better.

Best of luck in your shape changing endeavors.

Ryu_Bonkosi
2012-07-18, 01:03 PM
Most of my characters are asexual.

http://londonrelocationservices.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/agent-smith.jpg
Wait...

FistsFullofDice
2012-07-18, 01:03 PM
My computer, unlike my friends' computers, doesn't even have a gender or name, let alone a sexual preference.

:smallbiggrin: Derailed in the best way, thank you good sir.

Kuma Kode
2012-07-18, 01:05 PM
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.

Kholai
2012-07-18, 01:13 PM
Don't ask, don't tell.

FistsFullofDice
2012-07-18, 01:15 PM
...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.

DeIdeal
2012-07-18, 01:31 PM
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.

Janus
2012-07-18, 01:40 PM
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.

Kelb_Panthera
2012-07-18, 01:42 PM
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.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-07-18, 01:42 PM
Hmm, not quiet the question I was asking but the face of sheer confusion that post inspired me to make made my day a little better.

Best of luck in your shape changing endeavors.

For my characters to swap genders, Mr. Literal. :smalltongue:

Oracle_Hunter
2012-07-18, 01:43 PM
Depends on the game :smalltongue:

In most of 'em, I default to "Straight" because that's what I am -- whether I'm playing a Male or Female PC. It doesn't usually come up, but if it does that's how I'd go.

Now, in Bliss Stage I also usually play "Straight" but the incentive to play bisexual is rather large (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoreFriendsMoreBenefits?from=Main.MamboIntimacy5).

FistsFullofDice
2012-07-18, 02:02 PM
For my characters...:smalltongue:

Haha, sorry about that x.x

some guy
2012-07-18, 02:22 PM
As a player most of my pc's aren't very sexual active. A rogue I once played was interested in the other sex, and this was in a mostly city game, so that... came along nicely. But descriptions were minimal at most.
I once played a lizardfolky/dragonborny character whos gender could switch based on the amount of males/females in the vicinity. That campaign died out before the other players found out I'd written "?" as sex on my character sheet, though.

As a DM, which I'm is the thing I am more than a player, most of the time sexual preferences don't come up, but there is variation.

mathewt
2012-07-18, 02:22 PM
My last several gaming groups have had a large percentage (sometimes 100%) of gay guys. So it's generally fairly obvious in what kind of "bar maids" they flirt with....more often the bartenders/innkeepers than the barmaids ;)

It's come up occasionally when I've played LFR. There's enough RP/skill challenge stuff that involves flirting that it does sometimes affect things. Not to mention the time that I argued with the DM that the succubus's seduction power shouldn't have any affect on my gay male PC...

FistsFullofDice
2012-07-18, 02:29 PM
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.


Not to mention the time that I argued with the DM that the succubus's seduction power shouldn't have any affect on my gay male PC...

I love this common theme :smalltongue: It seems that I am proved wrong and this can be used in a utility manner. I applaud you both for turning something intended to be flavor into a defensive barricade :smallsmile:

North_Ranger
2012-07-18, 03:09 PM
When playing Changeling: The Lost, I considered making my character - a Mirrorskin shapeshifter belonging to the hopeful and hedonistic Spring Court - bisexual. And no, I was playing a male character. But since we were pretty far along in the campaign, I thought it just might seem like tacking on something for the sake of being different instead of actually building the character. Plus, I wasn't quite sure how our GM would take it, considering he had pretty much made two of my previous characters suffer for no good reason.

I did have the character try out changing into a member of the opposite sex, which led to these exchanges between him and the Ogress whose shape he had adopted when practising:



Lisa (the NPC Ogre): "I know I'm not the prettiest girl around, so I don't mind if you want to use someone else's face..."
Jonah (my Mirrorskin): "Darling, I would never say that. But I'd never use your appearance for my own gain. There isn't room in this world for two Lisas."

He said that with every good intention, BTW. Lisa was one of the few folks he respected without question, mostly because she was honestly a good person.

***

Jonah (shapeshifted into Lisa's figure - which is much more formidable than his own): "Well, this is strange..."
Lisa: "How so?"
Jonah: "Well, don't take this the wrong way, but I think these might distract me." (points at the new, very prominent bosom)
Lisa: "Well, you could always talk to Joy or Mary, they have figures that are more... um..."
Jonah: "Oh, you mean...?"
Lisa: "Flat-chested, yeah."
Jonah: "Well, I was going for nymph-like, but that works, too."

***

Good times, good times...

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-18, 03:09 PM
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'd like to see this done in a way that's actually constructive: My experience is the only way a sex maniac can be said to "drive a campaign" is if they get the party driven out of town or thrown into prison or something else like that.

Ravens_cry
2012-07-18, 03:21 PM
It depends on the PC, though I generally play heterosexual characters.

Jay R
2012-07-18, 03:44 PM
It comes up in any game with high-ranking characters in a medieval setting. In our current 2E game, my character is Ornrandir, a male elven mage/thief, recently given the title of the Earl of Devon by the king. He is an outcast orphan who has only recently formed any attachments to anybody. I've played him as emotionally undeveloped but brilliant. My wife is playing Rowena, a female human wizard, a lady-in-waiting to the queen. She has been in an ivory tower (literally) studying magic since she was a child. She has played her as an extreme nerd. The royalty had started leaning on us to make political marriages, which is to say that the DM wanted to do so political intrigue. We decided to trump the whole romantic process and sent the following email to the entire gaming group.

----------------------

A situation has occurred. It will affect the party to some extent, so I guess you should all hear about it. The two of us decided to explain it to you in character, so here it is.

(You may ignore which account this email came from; it was written by the two of us together.)
-----------------------

Rowena has been traveling to Devon Manor regularly to do magical research stuff and help set up the schools there, make scrolls, etc. The next time she visits after a Certain Conversation with the Queen, once she and Ornrandir are alone in the study where they work together on magic, she initiates the following conversation:

Rowena: The Queen tells me I really ought to give some thought to perpetuating magical bloodlines and recommends I consider marrying you.

Ornrandir: I’ve heard similar rumblings. Countess Elanor told me I have to find someone to marry, too. Something about an heir for the county.

Rowena: It is a rational idea. It is just that I have never really considered it before. I have been rather busy learning magic; all that physical stuff seemed so…worldly.

Ornrandir: I certainly know little about it. I’ve never had any family, and I've been an outcast all my life, except for those occasions when the only female I’ve traveled with was Lorelei, the paladin.

Rowena: The gaggle of giggling girls I must spend time with these days seems so focused on the idea.

Ornrandir: I know. Everyone but you is so stupid.

Rowena: I am already spending a lot of time here anyway.

Ornrandir: My servants wouldn’t have to prepare separate rooms for you each time. That would be convenient. And we seem able to get along.

Rowena: After all, we worked well together blasting hundreds of goblins with lightning bolts.

Ornrandir: I enjoyed casting coordinated lightning bolts with you. I’ve never felt so connected to another person before.

Rowena: After that, how difficult could this marriage thing be?

Ornrandir: Love is one of the strongest and most mysterious forces of the universe. Of course, controlling arcane cosmic forces is what wizards do. Maybe we should research a spell for it?

Rowena: As a mage, I will not age as quickly as normals; being elven, you of course will not age at all, so I really do not see why we need to be in a big hurry. And why should I care about being considered – how did she put it? Oh, yes – an "old maid".

Ornrandir: That seems like a meaningless phrase. Everybody becomes old, and an unmarried woman is of course a maid.

Rowena: On the other hand, your life expectancy, given your penchant for getting into trouble, isn’t exactly eternal. [looks him up and down appraisingly] At least if I marry you, you won’t keep getting ripped off by the tailors. You paid far too much for that rag you’re wearing.

Ornrandir: Fine by me. I’d be happy not to have to think about clothes any more.

Rowena: You thought about … that?

Ornrandir: Of course. It has a fleece collar, so I always have the material component for Phantasmal Force, feathers as decorations so I can fly, and several pockets worked into it here for other components. It has two internal pockets for scrolls, this hidden pocket for a dagger, and Lorelei will never figure out where the thieves’ tools are. It's green, for easy concealment in the trees. See? I carefully considered every relevant sartorial issue.

Rowena: I see. Yes, I believe I should take over those decisions. [Pause.] I would prefer to avoid that spectacle that Aduphus went through to marry Lady Stanley. The collective intelligence of her Majesty’s ladies dropped like a stone the instant someone said, “wedding”, and all they could talk about for weeks was fripperies and lace. Why do you think I spent so much time here writing out scrolls?

Ornrandir: Believe me, I understand. Since I developed the gold and mithril mines, all the nobles have been throwing their daughters at me. A year earlier they were offended that I was allowed to carry a weapon, and now they want me to sheathe one in their daughters.

Rowena: So how quickly can we get this over with?

Ornrandir: Well, when they assigned us to go fetch the Prince, we started out on the task immediately. Is the priest available today?

Rowena: I suppose we need to tell the Queen first. She might have an opinion about how it is done. So we are fully agreed about the marriage?

Ornrandir: It does seem like the logical thing to do [says the pointy-eared member of the couple].

Rowena: I’m glad we were able to work this out rationally, without the usual tawdry, emotional mess.

Ornrandir: Of course. We may be the two most intelligent people on the planet. We won’t let maudlin sentimentality distract us from rational analysis.

Rowena: Well, I am glad that that is settled. Now back to important matters - about that scroll we were discussing…

FistsFullofDice
2012-07-18, 03:45 PM
I'd like to see this done in a way that's actually constructive: My experience is the only way a sex maniac can be said to "drive a campaign" is if they get the party driven out of town or thrown into prison or something else like that.

Yes, I remember playing a vampires: requiem game where our wildcard player tried seducing the prince of the city (female, prince is a generic term) short story really short it ended in a blood hunt where we were gunned down in the streets >.>

Exediron
2012-07-18, 03:50 PM
I give it as much thought as any other equally important trait of a character's personality makeup, which is to say that I know the general orientation of all my characters and a lot more for the ones who are more developed. As of right now among my living, sheeted characters I have 17 heterosexual characters, 8 bisexual characters, 3 asexual characters and 2 homosexual characters spread out over two currently running games (D&D/D20 Modern and MERP).

A character's sexual orientation, in a broad sense at least ('He is attracted only to females', 'She has a specific type of person that she likes and doesn't care if that person happens to be male or female'), is one of those things which usually springs into my mind along with the other basic traits of a personality I'm developing, such as combat tactics, goals, demeanor, etc.

From a dedicated role-player's perspective, I don't really think you can justify leaving out what is in all likelihood a very significant preference for the character in question. Admittedly, the sort of game your group favors determines how important the sexual orientation of a character is; it's unlikely to be particularly important in combat (although it can be), but in social situations it will often at least influence a character's behavior.

It all comes down to gaming philosophy, in the end. I don't believe in what is commonly referred to as flavor; for me, the entire point of the game is the characters and their interactions with each other and their world. Even combat is an extension of this principle, as the personality of a character - their motivations and way of thinking - determines their actions in combat.

Now as far as playing any actual sexual encounters which occur, I prefer to deal with the 'soft' bits - talking, flirting, certainly no further than foreplay - and leave the rest to a fade to black, with a short summary by the dungeon master or the player of one of the characters ('They do it like bunnies for the next three hours', although probably not that). Of course, the fact that in real life I'm both almost entirely asexual and possessed of a healthy dose of sexual aversion disorder may have something to do with that.

I do believe that a character's sexual preference, like any element of their personality, is capable of moving the game forward. I've had a number of romances/relationships between my characters and those of other players, or even between two of my own (or more!), and on a number of occasions these have led to actual plot development. Most recently, one of my characters who had been deeply in love with another lost that character in battle and has been changed quite a lot by the loss - she now leads our party in that game on a vengeance and remorse inspired quest. Meanwhile, a third character is clearly attracted to her and possibly about to be given the sack because of obnoxious comments he made.

As to the OPs player: I think it is an odd choice for a character's primary motivation, but there are people like that. If the GM didn't want that sort of interaction in their game, or one of the players wasn't comfortable with it, I think that should be made clear to the player in question. Otherwise, the only problem I see is one player stealing the focus of the entire game for their character, which is often a problem unless everyone else is fine with it.

As a side note, I would say that due to a Succubus' power being magical in nature, it would be capable of working even on a character who is not usually attracted to females. I would give the receiving character a bonus to their save, however, possibly quite a large one for certain combinations.

FistsFullofDice
2012-07-18, 03:57 PM
We decided to trump the whole romantic process and sent the following email to the entire gaming group.

Wow, a beautiful play of character -claps- Some day I hope to find a group up to that caliber.

Lord Tyger
2012-07-18, 04:02 PM
Also, because no one else has yet-

Annie and the Elf Maiden. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlQmdkyNQ90)

FistsFullofDice
2012-07-18, 04:03 PM
I give it as much thought as any other equally important trait of a character's personality makeup

I can't argue with anything in there, fine show.

Terraoblivion
2012-07-18, 04:06 PM
Whether I define character sexuality in advance or not tends to vary depending on whether I consider it central to the character in question. So when making an F/SN servant of a rather prominently bisexual woman, I naturally went with that, just like I did outright define that my ancient Chinese concubine was quite gay, but also quite closeted. Most of my characters, however, I decide as I go along, which tends to mean that they end up gay enough to be a main character in a Fujieda manga (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MiyabiFujieda).

Callista
2012-07-18, 04:15 PM
In most of the games I've been in, it comes up occasionally. If an NPC is unusually good-looking, or if the character's backstory includes a romantic relationship, the character's sexual preference will usually be mentioned. Romance and sex are present mostly because they are a part of life and a part of many stories--we don't feel the need to describe anything more than "You go upstairs with the barmaid, fade-to-black."

Occasionally, sexual orientation has been a larger part of a character's story--an extremely charismatic pansexual bard, for example; the sort of guy who starts orgies because he's just that good-looking. (Yes. Epic levels. Instant fanatics.)

Currently, I am playing a character whose backstory includes a teenage romance with another girl, tragically cut short when her girlfriend was basically driven to suicide by an evil deity. My character is a paladin whose personality focuses very much on hope and compassion; she grew up under the thumb of said evil deity, and people who really care about each other are new and wonderful to her. She is instinctively attracted not to a specific gender, but to love and trust itself. She is probably capable of falling in love with any sentient, Good-aligned creature, with whom she had a deep friendship and shared trust. Which, I suppose, would make her "demi-sexual panromantic"... a long name for a sixteen-year-old who's just learning that it's even possible for people to truly trust each other. At the moment, what she's learning about most is just plain friendship. Romance--or at least romance beyond puppy love--is still a good way down the road for her. I've never had her involved in any romance, except for some flirting on one occasion with another PC (that never came to anything--their personalities conflicted too much; she finds the other PC too flighty and unreliable--i.e., is strongly chaotic).

Another character I played is an older woman, divorced from her husband, who had left her for another man (the gender and orientation of her ex was rolled randomly, leading to that curious set-up, which I then ran with). She never re-married and instead dedicated herself to the well-being of her home village. She feels betrayed by her ex, not because he turned out to be gay, but because he knew he wasn't attracted to women and married her anyway. However, despite her lack of desire to try another romance herself, she doesn't begrudge other couples their happiness.

I can't think of any other characters who have had their orientation make up significant parts of their backstory or gameplay. In fact, much of the time I don't bother to determine what their orientation is, or just roll for it randomly. For the most part, I tend to consider my characters to be bisexual by default and until proven otherwise. That way, if it matters, I can just roll randomly (10% gay, 20% bi, 70% straight, usually) and decide if my character is attracted to the flirtatious barmaid or the handsome young officer. Or, I can just decide, hey, this story would be cool/funny/interesting if my character thought that NPC is hot, and then declare their orientation whichever way is most convenient. That's probably why I gravitate toward bi; you double your pool of potential love interests that way!

One trend I've noticed is that almost every group I play in has steadfastly refused to include realistic prejudice against GLBT characters. We all know it happens in the real world, and we know it happened in the past; but I think we're all just too tired of seeing it in our everyday lives to reproduce it in our games. It seems to be an unspoken agreement--the break from realism is something we infinitely prefer to having to role-play prejudice of that sort. We're there to have fun, and being reminded of that isn't fun.

Devils_Advocate
2012-07-18, 04:23 PM
"ARE THERE ANY GIRLS THERE?" (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/90046)

This is more of a discussion about the inclusion of sexuality in general than sexual preference in particular. As is inevitable, as it's not really possible to include the latter without the former. Oh, the title is still far more indicative of the thread's content than those of the "I have a question" / "Has anyone ever noticed..." / etc. variety, so props there. Just a little terminological note because I am pedantic like that.


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.
I guess that a succubus who can't seduce a dude deserves to feel pretty incompetent. I can only imagine how that might have gone.

"No, you idiot, you don't get it. I'm not 'really a woman', I'm not even really a person. I'm depraved lust given flesh, okay?"
"Oh, well, gee. In that case I'm totally turned on. :-P"
":("


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.
Wait, how does the former imply the latter?


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.
Um, really? You're saying that a non-angsty romance subplot can't add to a game's story? Not everything has to be about pathos, you know.


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.
It depends on the game. Dungeons & Dragons generally tends to ignore sexuality, at least in part because it tends to ignore stuff unrelated to killing things and taking their stuff. So if it's given more than tangential focus, it seems forced and kinda breaking genre.

Whereas Exalted is like "Yeah, people have sex all the time. Let us tell you about it." In part because it has rather broader themes than killing things and taking their stuff.

And someone is currently starting up a Homestuck-inspired game on the PbP forums, in which romance will be essentially obligatory, despite being completely unnecessary to the main plot. Because troll romance is four times as interesting as our pathetic one-dimensional human romance, obviously (and also four times as hard avoid).

Roguenewb
2012-07-18, 04:26 PM
I played a changeling factotum/chameleon once (loosely based off Aunn from James Wyatt's excellent Storm Dragon series), who was in base biologically female (the opposite of me), but was one thousand percent into impersonation and manipulation. I spent almost as much time on each persona as each player did on character backstories. Each persona had an orientation, because is an excellent lever for manipulation. Many were Bi-, so that Tora could use that as much as possible.

Tengu_temp
2012-07-18, 04:32 PM
From the most commonly found gender/sexuality combinations (male, female, straight, bi, gay, asexual), I only haven't played a bisexual male character yet. Unless someone whose reaction to a trap is "I'd still hit that" counts.

It doesn't come up in every game and not every group is comfortable with that, but when it appears, romance and sexuality can add a lot to the game, making the bonds between PCs or PCs and NPCs deeper, making the stakes higher, and just creating funny and/or heartwarming scenes on its own. Do note that sexuality is not the same thing as roleplaying sex scenes, I've never played with people who did that and I wouldn't really want to have that in my game either.

Dimers
2012-07-18, 04:34 PM
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.

Ditto that. Gender and sexuality is a huge part of the human experience, and it breaks verisimilitude for me if it's left out entirely. But my groups don't focus on it in any detail.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-18, 04:37 PM
Um, really? You're saying that a non-angsty romance subplot can't add to a game's story? Not everything has to be about pathos, you know.

I took "sexual preferences" literally. Of course a romantic subplot can add a lot to a game, angsty or not. What I was talking about is going into details like whether they prefer to be on top or bottom (or neither), how much time they prefer to spend in foreplay, their libido, or how sensitive their nipples are. Barring extraordinary circumstances that kind of stuff should never, ever come up in-game.

kamikasei
2012-07-18, 04:52 PM
As most people are not asexual, so most of my characters have some sexuality. What it is varies by character, and how much it comes up depends on the tone of the game - sometimes it's just something I know like any other detail that informs how I play the character, sometimes there's a degree of ship teasing with NPCs or other PCs, sometimes actual romances are part of the game. Anything past the point of clothing coming off calls for a fade to black, at least in my games to date, in general because that's the cutoff for "justifiably character-relevant aside which excludes the rest of the PCs".

I confess I'm curious as to the details of the scenario the OP mentions...

Lord.Sorasen
2012-07-18, 04:59 PM
I took "sexual preferences" literally. Of course a romantic subplot can add a lot to a game, angsty or not. What I was talking about is going into details like whether they prefer to be on top or bottom (or neither), how much time they prefer to spend in foreplay, their libido, or how sensitive their nipples are. Barring extraordinary circumstances that kind of stuff should never, ever come up in-game.

While some of these are very extreme and I agree should never come up in game, I do want to mention that there's a point where sexuality and romance will end up being very connected. A lot of the time, to really detail a character, I'll end up knowing these specifics, as unnecesary and inapropriate as they may be, simply because I feel that many of our human(oid) traits are connected to one another. One never knows when the knowledge might come in handy, even if you never actually say the information to anyone in your group.

An example (and a clean example): I have a paladin character by the name of Aang-Karsk, from a very isolated nomadic family, who was sort of forced to abandon his home in order to answer the call of justice and order. Now, Aang-Karsk lived in a community where marriage was less about romantic love and more about keeping alliances between peoples. It led me to realize that he would have gone through puberty while on the difficult journey to the west, and as such wouldn't have ever been told about romantic love. As such his sexual preferences would be entirely unexplored, his interest in the opposite sex something that scared him more than excited him. I'd never tell my group this because it's unimportant and probably uncomfortable to them, but it did make me think about the character more, which is always good. It also led to the fact that Aang-Karsk would appear completely asexual, because he would shy away and refuse to acknowledge such emotions as anything other than distractions on the road to justice. It also meant that I figured if he was in any sort of relationship, he'd feel very emotionally invested, and might even let this emotion interfere with his dedication to the paladin code. The idea of my character meeting a beautiful CN woman on his journeys is one of my favorites for the character so far, and I don't think it would have come up if I hadn't thought about it at least a little bit.

I had a gay character too once, but it was a side note and nothing ever happened with that.

Devils_Advocate
2012-07-18, 05:12 PM
I took "sexual preferences" literally.
Oh, okay. But you said "character sexuality", which I took to mean "characters being sexual at all". If you'd said "sexual preference", I'd probably have understood you better.

Because I am pedantic like that.

On that note, and at the risk of getting a bit tangential, I guess I should acknowledge that romance need not be sexual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_friendship).

Janus
2012-07-18, 05:32 PM
Wait, how does the former imply the latter?
It doesn't, though I could have worded things better.
The first part is in response to people saying that since they don't worry about romance/sex in their campaigns, they don't worry about their characters' preferences. I like having a romantic element present, so I do consider sexual preference, and in my case, they're heterosexual unless stated otherwise.

Urslingen
2012-07-18, 05:40 PM
It's kind of interesting that there are such differences between WoD and non-WoD players. WoD-players find the whole sexual aspect more importnat than your avarage D&D:er, but that's not very unexpected I guess. :smalltongue:

I've had a bit of a bother with a Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Campaign I am running. Most things are going swell, but when sexual themes are in the picture some players tend to get a bit... on edge.

In one scene, taking place in an abandoned nuclear bunker in New England, one of the characters went toe-to-toe with Black Spiral Chief Rapes-the-Wind. Things got rather nasty (and graphic) rather quickly, and I noticed I had to tone it down a bit - the player in question were a bit out of his own turf (alltough he quickly snapped out of it).

I think this is the major reason some players do not like to play these themes. They fall outside their comfort-zone, which is to say they are taken a bit by surprise when things actually goes down. IMO the best way to counter this is to make sure everybody knows, from the start, how graphic the game is going to be and what themes will be handled.

I think most people have got no problem with role-playing most things, as long as they have been told beforehand.

Peace Out. Interesting Thread!

- Urslingen

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-18, 05:41 PM
An example (and a clean example): I have a paladin character by the name of Aang-Karsk, ...

I just wanted to say, I think this is absolutely adorable.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-07-18, 05:44 PM
It's kind of interesting that there are such differences between WoD and non-WoD players. WoD-players find the whole sexual aspect more importnat than your avarage D&D:er, but that's not very unexpected I guess. :smalltongue:

It's not WoD. It's White Wolf games in general.

Drascin
2012-07-18, 05:53 PM
On that note, and at the risk of getting a bit tangential, I guess I should acknowledge that romance need not be sexual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_friendship).

Don't be silly, now. Everyone knows that all romance must be about jumping each ohers bones, and that asexual people cannot feel love :smalltongue:.

Anyway, me, I never really give it a huge amount of importance. With some characters I think it up when making them, with some I don't, either way it's rarely much of a matter of concern. It's just one more bit among the many bits that make a character.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-18, 05:59 PM
Don't be silly, now. Everyone knows that all romance must be about jumping each ohers bones, and that asexual people cannot feel love :smalltongue:.

Or, for that matter, that asexuals can only have relationships with other asexuals. It's hard sometimes, but it works.

Lord_Gareth
2012-07-18, 06:28 PM
Sexuality isn't always that important to my characters, but I've explored it every now and again. My characters tend to generally be straight men or homosexual women (I know, I know) though I've experimented with flipping both assumptions. I find it easier to make sexuality/romance a thing in chat-based roleplaying or PbP than I do at a table, though. It's less awkward that way.

SowZ
2012-07-18, 06:30 PM
Has come up a few times. One of my characters, a gnome, was always trying to get laid and we all played it for laughs. One of them was an unbodied who had decided that living in the flesh was a waste and wanted to unite all life in some spiritual bardus and when he was granted a fleshly body he decided to try all the stuff that make mortals lives worthwhile. He tried food and sex and by luck the first eligible NPC he found was male. Not really a sexual orientation thing.

Then I once had a character in WoD who was always going from distraction to distraction be it a drug or sex or whatever. He was a really cool, competent assassin, (albeit very unhappy,) and another character who was a young noble with no real knowledge of the world looked up to him immensely. We both got high on some drug one night and as part of our arc we slept together. Veck had sex in game on one other occasion but this time with a woman. We never went into too much detail.

Most of my characters it has never come up at all.

Axinian
2012-07-18, 06:55 PM
Weirdly, most of my characters are either bisexual or gay (regardless of their sex). It doesn't really come up ever, but I like having details like that decided in case of the unlikely event that it does.

Malimar
2012-07-18, 07:56 PM
It's come up once or twice in D&D, where I usually roll a die.

The one time I can remember, it was in regards to whether my character, Ludgeblatt Curdlegut, would be attracted to Sky, a drow PC who kept getting enchanted to be the other gender and then having that enchantment broken. There was also a magic love-inducing sword involved. I wound up rolling "bi", so the answer in that case was "yes" either way. Half the players involved still ship Sky/Ludgeblatt.

And I guess Jack Jackson (Attorney at Law, Specializing in Interspecies Law, Also an Adventurer) may be either straight or bi, because his first question when sent on a rescue-a-princess quest was "Is this one of those 'the reward for rescuing the princess is marriage' types of deals?" Though that may have been less personal interest and more professional curiosity.


It comes up much more often in more social-oriented games, where I usually build it as an integral part of the character.

Knaight
2012-07-18, 08:13 PM
Sexuality rarely comes up, except for as tied with romance. Some characters have romantic attachments, some don't, usually at least somebody in the group has a character with one. However, as a GM? There, it is suddenly immensely useful - I can use it to connect characters, to provide tension so on and so forth. For instance*, in one of the current games I'm GMing there is a gigantic political mess where some of the ties between characters are romantic. For instance, a character (A) is romantically entangled to one character (B) while married to another character (C), who hates the character they are romantically entangled to. Also, A perceives a nonexistent romantic relationship between B and yet another character, D. In a game based on political intrigue, this is gold, though the vast majority of what is going on doesn't connect to romance much at all.

*If the term "Esheni Nobleman" means anything to you, stop reading now.

Anxe
2012-07-18, 08:19 PM
My campaign world is set in Greek times, so homosexual relationships are somewhat accepted in it. Regardless, its always been a fringe thing with NPCs occasionally doing it. The closest we got to a PC was his cohort having a crush on him.

The little flavor thing comes up as well, where the party will say they're sleeping with barmaids and whores. It's acknowledged and skimmed over most of the time. The campaigns don't last long enough to deal with children. And real relationships seem a little creepy to pull off as it is the player talking to me in real life.

In a campaign one of my player's is DMing I run a cleric of Artemis, the goddess of virginity. He's totally against sex and thinks its disgusting. I spend a lot of time trying to convince everyone else that they shouldn't do it and that the cult of Artemis is the way to go. That's more for laughs, but I guess I have played an asexual character because of it.

Serpentine
2012-07-18, 09:08 PM
Hmm... Now that I think about it, I have a fair few characters where their sexuality really should be fairly important to their character, even if I haven't actually thought about it...

There's Sar'Pynestae, the granddaughter of a succubus. I think she'd probably be bisexual (that seems appropriate for a 1/4 succubus elf) - and she's definitely been interested in a male party member - but I think she might be too broken for deep relationships (PTSD from a stint in the Blood Wars, half-mad, prone to violent outbursts).

Similarly, a current character I'm playing is the son of the celestial equivalent to a succubus. He's completely in love with the very concept of love - every sort of love; romantic, sexual, platonic, familial, the works. I think I've more or less decided he's "mostly straight" - he definitely focuses on the ladies, but a particularly beautiful (inside and/or out) man could certainly attract his attention - he's already flirted heavily with at least one party member. I'm not sure that he'd go past kissing with a guy, though.

The other character where it should be pretty relevant is my dwarven Knight. She was exiled from her (extremely conservative) homeland for sneaking out and for "consorting with elves". I've decided that she had some sort of a relationship with one of those elves, who I think was male, but I'm not totally sure of that, and I'm not sure yet how reciprocated it was. What I do know is that after her exile she drank far too much alcohol and ended up hurting her amore in some way, which is why she's a recovering alcoholic.

Another character of mine, it was part of the point that it was definitely asexual. A sexless hunting bot (warforged) that accidentally gained sentience a few weeks before the campaign started, if it was capable of having a sexuality at all it certainly hadn't developed yet - hell, it wouldn't even know what it was.

Another character of mine, an elven Paladin of Freedom in a sadly short-lived Chainmail Bikini game (inspired by the Dungeons and Dreamboats thread) was, I think, heterosexual, and unwillingly virginal - her (male) unicorn mount was madly in lust with her, and (unbeknownst to her) kept roosterblocking her :smallamused:

I've just double-checked with a friend of mine I game with. His character in my game (when it happens :smallsigh:) is a heterosexual ("Oh yes, very much so. The thought would never even cross her mind, she is oddly innocent in a strange way because she is entirely impulse driven and if she doesn't have the impulse then doesn't even think about it.") female gnome. This character has possibly the best fleshed-out background I've ever come across (we've even been in her house and met her family! :O), which included a love interest back home - they'd been dating in a previous incarnation, but in the current one there would have only been a spark interrupted by her wanderlust.


For the most part, I think all sexualities are by default accepted in my world. The ones that are not accepting of sexualities would be the exceptions, and would possibly be a plot point. Individuals are still fully capable of being bigots, though, of course.

Bhu
2012-07-18, 09:54 PM
Is it bad that my initial thought was that you were asking about PC's as in computers? :smalltongue:

Sex rarely comes up with my characters. Though currently I'm playing an Omnisexual male Succubi named Slut famous for being his own father so he's an exception...

Malimar
2012-07-18, 10:19 PM
The other character where it should be pretty relevant is my dwarven Knight. She was exiled from her (extremely conservative) homeland for sneaking out and for "consorting with elves". I've decided that she had some sort of a relationship with one of those elves, who I think was male, but I'm not totally sure of that, and I'm not sure yet how reciprocated it was. What I do know is that after her exile she drank far too much alcohol and ended up hurting her amore in some way, which is why she's a recovering alcoholic.

The thing I find interesting is: that doesn't even tell me a lot about your character's preferences wrt sex/gender; in most settings, the most masculine male elf is more feminine than even the most feminine female dwarf.

I was going to say "this sort of confusion is one of the reasons I treat interspecies relationships as being considered weirder and more discriminated against than homosexual relationships", but then I remembered that in my setting, even interspecies relationships are treated as no big thing; so much so that mongrelfolk are the most populous race (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace).

Kuma Kode
2012-07-18, 10:45 PM
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 think something has to move the plot or be utilized in combat or anything to be valuable. It can affect the plot or spawn plots or complicate plots itself, but being able to present a character as a person and not just an avatar to interact with a plot is its own reward. We do so for verisimilitude and because we like exploring a character's psyche as much as we do dungeons.

It also isn't in-your-face promiscuous, either. Just because a character has a sexual side doesn't mean it needs to be a big deal. Its seasoning for the character experience.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-18, 10:49 PM
Sexuality rarely comes up, except for as tied with romance. Some characters have romantic attachments, some don't, usually at least somebody in the group has a character with one. However, as a GM? There, it is suddenly immensely useful - I can use it to connect characters, to provide tension so on and so forth.

Oh, NPCs count? In that case, yes. It's not a good web of intrigue until everyone is boning everyone else and everyone things everyone is boning everyone else.

Knaight
2012-07-18, 11:12 PM
Oh, NPCs count? In that case, yes. It's not a good web of intrigue until everyone is boning everyone else and everyone things everyone is boning everyone else.

It also needs blackmail. You can't have a good political intrigue without lots and lots of blackmail, and there is a lot of room for overlap on these accounts.

golentan
2012-07-18, 11:17 PM
I'm currently playing a character who is very much bisexual and in the midst of seducing another (male) PC. I always know my character's sexual orientation because it informs their reaction to other characters, though if there's not an in character reason for one choice or another I roll a die to determine it randomly. The one exception is when I play female characters. Not wanting to be accused of something awkward, I may know them to be non-heteronormative but I rarely play it out in an obvious way.

Triscuitable
2012-07-18, 11:32 PM
One of my concepts in Exalted was a Solar who could not recall their own gender after what was essentially a mental TPW. My storyteller allowed me to carry the character over into another later game because of how it would make for an interesting story. Anyways, due to not knowing what gender they were prior to what we referred to as the "amnesia bomb" (which did kill the original members of the party, spare my PC), the character developed completely differently from the time previous.

(I should probably note Solars have the power to shift gender at will. My character subconsciously did while unconscious).

Beforehand, she was clever, funny, and very helpful in holding the party together. She was the last of the group to go down at the hands of a single Sidereal (the group was a fragile alliance between two Dragon-Bloods, a Solar, and a heroic mortal), and knowing that she failed her comrades was incredibly traumatic.

After the amnesia bomb, my character's gender identity was actually brought into question. The events that followed resulted in my PC identifying as a man, later learning the events that occurred previously. He was also gay at this point, but that's besides the point.

He was eventually killed by the same Sidereal that destroyed the original party, though he managed to save everyone and kill the Sidereal in turn. No last words, just a sudden attack that left the two dead.

Exediron
2012-07-19, 12:12 AM
The one exception is when I play female characters. Not wanting to be accused of something awkward, I may know them to be non-heteronormative but I rarely play it out in an obvious way.

Really? Maybe it's just the people I play with, but I've played female characters of every standard orientation and a few that aren't standard and never been accused of anything beyond liking to play female characters.

Jallorn
2012-07-19, 12:35 AM
:smallbiggrin: Derailed in the best way, thank you good sir.

Mind if I sig that?

Oh, and more on topic, my PCs are always straight males. Not because of any rule or anything, it's just that people are people to me, so I might as well play a guy? *shrugs* Also, as far as the sexual orientation goes, it just feels too easy to flanderize, and there are other ways to add the kind of themes one might get. Plus sex doesn't really come up in the games I've played all that much, so it might be more accurate to say that my characters are asexual.

Slipperychicken
2012-07-19, 12:40 AM
It doesn't usually come up, except maybe to compliment at any hot women who walk by. With the exception of my Warforged Cleric (asexual), all of them are heterosexual guys.

My PCs have serious jobs to do, and powerful enemies. That will endanger anyone who gets too close emotionally (and possibly sexually, too). Especially when you get the "I want to watch you suffer" villains.

golentan
2012-07-19, 12:53 AM
Really? Maybe it's just the people I play with, but I've played female characters of every standard orientation and a few that aren't standard and never been accused of anything beyond liking to play female characters.

Maybe it's an overreaction. But I'd just rather avoid unfortunate implications, and the mental image many people have of a roleplaying male playing a lesbian or bisexual woman is that of the sweaty neckbeard fetishizing the character. I'm not suggesting that most people would fall into the trap, and I wouldn't play them for that reason, but I'd just rather err on the side of caution and avoid the possibility of the accusation. Which, potentially, is its own unfortunate implications.

Siegel
2012-07-19, 02:40 AM
Nope! Why do you ask?

Because every class has a "if you have sex with another character" type move. It's to enforce that sex is an important factor and leverage in a postapocalyptic scenario and does so rather well.

kardar233
2012-07-19, 02:58 AM
I like to decide this even if it has little or no chance of being brought up. A listing of characters:

A cybernetically enhanced previously-daemonically-possessed female super soldier? Not interested.
A gleefully evil yet extremely reasonable male cultist of a mad god obsessed with insanity-causing glass? Usually uninterested except for psychological effect, though angling for an incestuous relationship with his sister, the above.
An extremely short, cheerful and extremely violence-prone woman with an unfeasibly large gun? Single target sexuality.
A male worshipper of a god of hedonism, who indulges in massive terror attacks with his living pirate ship? Omnisexual.
A ruthless, swiftly-rising female electricity mage? Doesn't particularly care the target with a sadism streak a mile wide.
A former extremely successful male bandit gone civilian as a farm hand? Lasciviously straight.
A shapechanging toppler of empires and master manipulator? Omnisexual, though engaged in an open relationship with a loving wife.

It varies.

FistsFullofDice
2012-07-19, 06:45 AM
Mind if I sig that?

Please do :smalltongue: gave me a good laugh

Project_Mayhem
2012-07-19, 06:57 AM
I think it's interesting how little this seems to come up in the majority of peoples games. In the group I play with, I don't think I've played a game where sex hasn't been factor. We don't normally highlight it, and tend to run the 'fade to pink' rule instead of detailed descriptions, but its there. It might be that we tend to play social focused stuff like WoD, and even when we do more adventurey games, we still focus on character roleplay than seems to be the norm.

In any case I tend to consider sexuality, if not important, and least a relevant thing to consider when creating a character.

So for what its worth, here's a description of how it applies to my current characters:

Vampire the Requiem larp: First character is a fiercely hetro and vanilla macho guy in a relationship with a polyamorous pansexual hippy (another PC). Hilarity ensues. The second is a narcissistic rockstar with delusions of godhood, who chooses sexual partners based on how they look as an accessory to him. He has no male/female preference.

Changeling the Lost larp: First character is an asexual doctor who had all capacity to feel sexual attraction cut out of him by the fae. Second is a ridiculously beautiful succubus, who unconsciously shapes the desires of people around him to make him even more alluring. He is straight, monogomous, and in a relationship :smalltongue:

Vampire the Masquerade tabletop. I play a bisexual emotionally distant guy, although pretty much all trysts in game have been straight. The one homosexual encounter probably didn't really count, cause it was a Tzimisce.

Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magical Obscura tabletop. Not so relevant, as I play a half ogre, a race with barely any sex drive. I guess he's straight, but so socially repressed it's unlikely to ever come up. The game has had some interesting discussions about the homophobic culture of the humans, and how the elves basically struggle to comprehend this.

Strawberries
2012-07-19, 07:07 AM
I usually play both male and female characters, and I default to straight unless differently specified. I don't really know why; probably for the same reason that I default to "human" unless differently specified: because it's the situation I'm more familiar with, being a straight human :smalltongue:.

But, I don't think I'd have objections in playing a non-straight character.It's just never come up.

Thialfi
2012-07-19, 07:57 AM
All aspects of life come up in our game. Character's do everything they might be expected to do in life. Live, love, laugh, play, drink, fight, cry, work, die, pray, everything. Roleplaying outside of combat is at least half the fun of our game. I don't know why you wouldn't involve these kind of things in your game. It helps connect with the character and enrich the roleplaying experience.

In my 32 years of gaming, I have had characters fall in love, have meaningless sex, get married, start a family, get divorced, watch grandchildren be born, grow up, have their own adventuring career, fall in love, get married, and have their own kids. I currently have eight active characters that are the children or grandchildren of former characters.

I have played dozens of characters over the years of both sexes. I have yet to play a homosexual or bisexual character. Don't know why, I just haven't felt the draw to do so.

prufock
2012-07-19, 08:27 AM
Sex and (to a lesser degree) romance come up in our games quite regularly, though rarely is that the focus. We're adults, playing adult characters, and sex is a part of adult life. There are inter-player relationships, PC-NPC relationships, there's flirting, brothels, etc. That said, we don't normally go into too much detail - we normally just play it like a movie "fade to black" for the scene.

Romance in an RPG is a tricky thing anyway. For one example, as a male, I have trouble roleplaying a woman in a romantic sense. I don't know how they think, what they want, or how they would act in most given situations (may be why I'm single). I just have trouble putting myself in the head of a woman. This is also why I have never played a female character (in addition to the general pronoun confusion it would create at the table) - though I have an idea for a female character, and would like to play it sometime (a virgin hedonist priestess... yep).

Exploring a relationship story with a male player/male DM is just awkward. Even with a female it's a bit awkward, though much easier, especially considering that the only female in our group is in a relationship with one of the male players. That said, I'm game for anything, and will give it a shot. Any NPC that becomes important will get a personality profile developed, so I'll just try to act and react based on that.

I've had players with opposite-gender characters - both have been women playing men, never the other way around. One played a gay elf. I played a gay superhero for one campaign. We've had characters with no real regard for sex or relationships, barbarians with very simple notions about "taking a woman to the field," and characters with a history of marriage and family. None of these have been bad for the game; again, sex isn't the focus, saving the town/countryside/world is usually the focus.

I have some "no" buttons though. Regardless of the type of campaign (good, evil, modern, medieval, whatever), any type of sexual abuse is off the table (except for the villain, and even then only as off-scene stuff for exposition, to show how hateful he really is).

Mono Vertigo
2012-07-19, 12:59 PM
I play all genders, but currently, when making new characters, I tend to just make them female (perhaps because I feel the party in the games I'm in includes a lot of men already and I want to see more balance).
And in theory, I try varying their sexual preference and what they think about it, but in practice, it never seems to come up at all. Doesn't help that I'm not really interested in playing romance, either.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-07-19, 01:47 PM
(I should probably note Solars have the power to shift gender at will. My character subconsciously did while unconscious).

...What the hell? What Exalted are you playing? Because if that were true, I would switch to playing a Solar for this one game in a heartbeat.

Maybe you confused "Solar" with "Lunar that has Twin-Faced Hero Knack".

Triscuitable
2012-07-19, 02:09 PM
...What the hell? What Exalted are you playing? Because if that were true, I would switch to playing a Solar for this one game in a heartbeat.

Maybe you confused "Solar" with "Lunar that has Twin-Faced Hero Knack".

Okay, sorry, it's been a while. :smalltongue: I only just got back into Exalted.

LikeAD6
2012-07-19, 02:20 PM
My characters are mostly straight but their preferences hardly ever come up. The only time the preferences have any real screen time is when I play bards, whom I usually roleplay as similar to 80s metal musicians.

Tyndmyr
2012-07-19, 02:41 PM
Hey all,

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.

Frankly, it doesn't come up much, usually. The sort of games I play frequently involve mucking about in a dungeon, killing monsters, and making off with the loot.

Most of that shouldn't generally involve sex if living is a priority.

Kesnit
2012-07-19, 04:02 PM
I've played 2 WoD characters that had stated sexual orientations. One was a bisexual, barfly bimbo (Vampire). The other is a male escort (Changling). They have stated orientations because it is part of the character concept.

I think the issue has come up once for each character. The bimbo went to Las Vegas in-character because I had to miss game because I was in Vegas. So she came back with "evidence" of her conquests (cards with phone numbers, tickets to a topless show, pictures of dancers, etc). The male escort was part of a group attempting to get materials for a ritual to rescue the kidnapped Spring King. One of the items was "tears of a mortal wrongly accused." We sat around and made accusations at each other in the "hopes someone would cry" and we could use those tears. One of the other PCs turned to mine and said "you're gay!" I laughed and said "yeah, I am!"

MidgetMarine
2012-07-19, 04:47 PM
It doesn't really come into play. I mean, the furthest I've seen it, as far as becoming an influencing aspect of the game is that my current Gnome Cleric (dnd 3.5) is getting married.

MidgetMarine
2012-07-19, 04:59 PM
Correction: that's not the only time. One of my players' characters in a Shadowrun 4e campaign I'm running is an female elven face who, on multiple occasions, has seduced/flirted her way into locations where she is most definitely not allowed. (This technique is often combined with a pair of shock gloves that she keeps on her person. While one hand slides downwards, the other one slides into her pocket and slips on the shock glove. You can guess how this ends for the poor guards) but unlike most of the time, I don't find this to be uncomfortable to be narrating or interacting with because it's one of the most clever character builds I've seen in a while that takes advantage of basic human weaknesses (and metahuman, for that matter.)

Terraoblivion
2012-07-19, 05:30 PM
Frankly, it doesn't come up much, usually. The sort of games I play frequently involve mucking about in a dungeon, killing monsters, and making off with the loot.

Most of that shouldn't generally involve sex if living is a priority.

Except once you've killed the monsters and run off with the loot and it's time to celebrate. :smalltongue:

Unless you only play asexual workaholics, who don't celebrate, I guess.

Xzeno
2012-07-19, 09:12 PM
Unless you only play asexual workaholics, who don't celebrate, I guess.

Well, I would play something like that, but I try not to play myself.

When I'm not playing a lesbian elf princess, which is at least 75% of the time in D&D but literally never in a video game, I roll dice to determine my character's sexuality. Because I'm a class act.

Lord Tyger
2012-07-19, 09:42 PM
Well, I would play something like that, but I try not to play myself.

When I'm not playing a lesbian elf princess, which is at least 75% of the time in D&D but literally never in a video game, I roll dice to determine my character's sexuality. Because I'm a class act.

D4? Straight, Gay, Bi, Asexual?
D6? As above, but throw in pansexual and polygamous (reroll for targets?)
D8? As above, but add Omnisexual (think Captain Jack Harkness), and Object Sexuality?

phelgeos
2012-07-20, 12:41 AM
The issue seldom emerges for sinister eunuchs...

PairO'Dice Lost
2012-07-20, 12:53 AM
Sometime last year, my gaming group back home noticed that our past few campaigns had involved lots of PCs that were basically variations on the player's personality--the short woodsy guy from Maine played forest gnome rangers a lot, for instance--and decided to do a series of one-shots where we made characters drastically different from ourselves to provide some variety and help us work on certain aspects of our roleplaying. Everyone came up with a different schtick and then DMed that one-shot. One of the suggestions was for everyone to play someone of the opposite orientation (or opposite leanings, for the one bi girl in the group), to get people out of "go to tavern, flirt with waitress, repeat" mode and to help them with their NPC interaction skills, and after a bit of spirited discussion about what level of detail people would be comfortable with we decided to give it a try.

Everyone was being stereotypical with their characters to some degree, so I decided to go all-out with a high-Cha, well-dressed, flouncy elf wizard named Bruce who focused on prismatic spells and glamers. I'm sure you can guess how he was played. Everyone else got their moment in the spotlight, then we headed to an inn with a tall, dark, and handsome well-muscled bartender. My character threw open the door, sashayed toward the bar...and started chatting up the serving girls, entirely ignoring the barkeep. Before the other players entirely knew what was going on, Mr. Limp-Wrist-And-Rainbows was taking three lovely elven ladies up to a private room. One player, very confused, asked if I remembered that we were supposed to make characters of the opposite orientation, and I told him that I remembered very well, thank you.

And that's how I came out to my gaming group. :smallbiggrin: (The blatant lesson on paying too much attention to stereotypes was a nice bonus.)

Morithias
2012-07-20, 12:57 AM
This is going to sound stupid but..."anything that moves and won't kill me when I stick it into me/stick myself into it"

Mainly so I can justify trying to seduce female or male guards. I don't need some evil overlord beating my Ninja because he thought to have a group of female guards for the female prisoners.

Besides, most of my characters are changelings, who have no genders.

lady_arrogance
2012-07-20, 01:32 AM
I have feeling, tha I have spoken about this before. But I say it again.

I have used to play campaings where romance is as good plot element as fighting with enemies, or shadow-y intrigues in some court. So sexuality is also something to think about.

Most character I make, I assume they are straight, as most people are. But as the games go on, there might be changes to that: either there is some (n)pc with same gender as my character amd whom my character finds attarctive and realises s/he has first same-sex -crush (as it happened on one D&D- campaign) or I decide that character has been gay all a-long (if there hasn't been romance to opposite gendeer before).

I think that my own bi-sexuality has much to do with this - I don't feel like liking males or females is gross, so it gives me kinda neutral starting ground.

I think that playing homophobic character might be a challenge... I have to try it sometime. :smallbiggrin:

Mono Vertigo
2012-07-20, 04:31 AM
[awesome story snip'd]
*thumbs up* Heheh, very nice story! :smallbiggrin:

I've got one (currently unused) human character who presents as a gay male. The truth is that she's actually female, disguised as a male version of herself for several reasons. Because she's straight, she pretends she's gay, so she can keep checking out guys. Not that she actually does it often, she's got tons of problems that monopolize her attention.

Serpentine
2012-07-20, 10:40 AM
D8? As above, but add Omnisexual (think Captain Jack Harkness), and Object Sexuality?Oh my God. Object sexuality could actually be really feasible in D&D!
New character concept ahoy!

golentan
2012-07-20, 03:12 PM
Oh my God. Object sexuality could actually be really feasible in D&D!
New character concept ahoy!

And it could be a consensual relationship... Wow...

Lord Tyger
2012-07-20, 03:13 PM
So... I'm not the only one wanting to play a character in a committed romantic relationship with their talking sword then?

Maugan Ra
2012-07-20, 03:46 PM
Hey, by the time you reach higher levels, your talking sword could well be your best companion. They've been with you through thick and thin, and never once abandoned you. They've seen you at your best, and at your worst. They've likely saved your life many times over, and you've almost certainly come to rely on their strength and abilities without question. Hell, if you're using the alignment rules, then you might well owe your sword for keeping you on the right path and protecting you from temptation.

Damn right there's potential for a proper romance there.

As for character sexuality... It's only really come up once, and that was when I was playing an Infernal Sorcerer/diabolist in my Kingmaker game. He was pretty much omnisexual and uninhibited, and being a sorcerer was basically sexy as all hell. The willingly damned are usually quite open to experimenting, because as far as they're concerned the worst that happens is they experience a mediocre evening. More than one public scandal was caused by him being less than entirely discrete...

jaybird
2012-07-20, 06:44 PM
Pyromaniacs often derive sexual pleasure from burning stuff, right? :smallbiggrin:

Manly Man
2012-07-20, 06:55 PM
My characters are mostly straight but their preferences hardly ever come up. The only time the preferences have any real screen time is when I play bards, whom I usually roleplay as similar to 80s metal musicians.

Needs to be switched to David Bowie.

Raimun
2012-07-20, 10:10 PM
I play male characters only and I usually assign/assume them to be straight. I don't really think about it that much beyond that.

The reason for that is simple. That stuff never really comes up in our games... unless you count a few, mild, extremely lame remarks which are more of a joke than a serious attempt to explore the characters' sexuality. Instead, I try to find some other motivation that actually comes up during the game.

Also, it could get creepy. (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=951)

Edit: Of course, warforged/robots/etc. would be asexual.

Zaq
2012-07-20, 10:33 PM
Very few of my characters have an explicit preference, because that sort of thing just doesn't come up. That's just not the kind of game I play in, really. Sometimes it's by design (for example, in one game, I'm playing a gnome Psion whose guiding character model is "what would Pinkie Pie do?", and you couldn't pay me enough to go to the part of the internet where people discuss that kind of stuff), and sometimes it just happens.

That said, there are exceptions. I did have some fun playing a dwarf on a quest to avenge his dead husband. My other current character is mostly obsessed with tropes and "the way stories should be" (think Elan, only zoomed out a level or so), so he's hired actresses and/or prostitutes to make a big show of being the tearful lover begging him not to risk his life on his latest quest, but that's more because "all the great heroes have tearful lovers doing that, right?" than anything else.

Gavinfoxx
2012-07-21, 12:59 AM
So... I'm not the only one wanting to play a character in a committed romantic relationship with their talking sword then?

Yay sapiosexuals! <3

"Oil me, dear!"
"Yes love!"

Anyway, where do odd pairings end up with your characters?

Be they intelligent items, intelligent constructs, or various species of sapient/sentient/communicative people that are, you know... not generally seen as 'appropriate'?

I once roleplayed a short lived romance (okay, well a crush) between a whisper gnome and a prismatic dragonwrought kobold (my character was the whisper gnome; when a kobold with a 16 charisma and the most beautiful shiny multihued scales came along, she was instantly smitten)...

Hmmm. My characters seem to fall for dragonwrought kobolds more often than not. There was the (male, but with alter self at will, he spent PLENTY of time as a female...) Lesser Fey'ri wizard who was passing as a Grey Elf who kinda fell in lust with the party gold dragonwrought kobold...

Marlowe
2012-07-21, 02:17 AM
I once had somebody play a female Elf Wizard. Who had three seperate personalities. Number one thought she was male, and Lawful good. Number two was true neutral. Number three was Chaotic Evil and gay. Three managed to seduce a Vampiress at one point.

As for myself, well, I recently managed to break a DM by having my character out herself as bisexual and promiscuous. By successfully seducing the barmaid. Which I swear to god I only tried because I was tired of watching the party barbarian making such an inept job of doing the same.

EDIT: The crime in question (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247185&page=8), if anyone feels like telling me what a horrible person I am.

Arutema
2012-07-21, 04:16 AM
My PCs are typically asexual, mostly because of my own issues.

My next character is going to be a female bisexual bard on account of being based on a real-life bi woman. That's definitely going to be a role-playing challenge for me.

WitchSlayer
2012-07-21, 04:35 AM
It doesn't really come up but sometimes when I'm thinking up a character a sexuality will pop into my head. Like my German Rockstar Werewolf Alpha being homosexual (although it doesn't really come up that often), or my Warhammer 40k Navigator being bisexual (because he's crazy rich and does not care, lodsofemone) Sometimes it comes up if I decide one of my characters is married or used be, again the aforementioned Navigator who is actually married and has a child. And sometimes? Sometimes I play a character in the One Piece universe, a nun necromancer or a crazy church sanctioned assassin who are, for all intents and purposes, asexual.

lsfreak
2012-07-21, 10:58 PM
snip

That's awesome.
---
It's never come up when I played, but I keep it in mind when playing and when DM'ing. Culture-building, the three first things of the first things I develop are rough sketches of their religion, social hierarchy, and views on sex and marriage.

If you're rolling, something closer to realistic (but still far too simplistic) might be 1-85 heterosexual, 86-97 homosexual, and 98-100 something in between. Asexuality or polygamy should be different rolls altogether.

Xzeno
2012-07-22, 12:36 AM
Actually, if you're me, it's best to develop a wildly inconsistent system in which you look at wikipedia pages and search for statistical averages before rolling a couple d%, having only some vague idea of the purpose of any of these rolls, then assigning largely arbitrary values and rolling. Also look into a d6 for position on the Kinsey scale. Since you're still me in this hypothetical, you spend an uncomfortable amount of time doing such weighted randomization.

Pair'o'dice, that story was beautiful. It always warms my heart to see tabletop games meaningfully affecting people's lives. Makes me feel good about the hobby.

Gavinfoxx
2012-07-22, 12:56 AM
Also, people... you should give your sapient/sentient magic items which are not innately mobile, mage hand or unseen servant or greater mage hand at will. So they can affect the world around them and stuff...

Blisstake
2012-07-22, 01:15 AM
It usually doesn't come up for me... but that's mostly because when I'm not the DM, our campaigns only last one or two sessions. In my PbP games, on the other hand, I usually think about it as I'm making my character.

The first one I've thought about the most, but can't actually decide on. I keep changing my mind whether he's straight or gay (but oddly enough, I'm not really considering bisexual that much). It hasn't come up at all, so it really isn't a big deal, thankfully!

The second is attracted to violence, regardless of the other characteristics of a person. I'm trying to make him a bit creepy, so that helps. I highly doubt this will come up in game, though (which is probably for the best!)

Cerlis
2012-07-22, 07:56 AM
Hey all,

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.

well generally when you make a character you already know their sexual preference orientation. Its just that when your character's matches the most common form, you dont notice it.

Even I often create a character who has a "normal" sexual orientation, simply because its more common. I mean, as common DnDers you got to admit you'd be disappointed when you found out the suave cultured sorcerer doesnt want to try seducing the empress because he doesn't swing that way and it might get awkward. But none the less I'm sure I'm only slightly less uncomfortable making a character who likes girls , than your average straight man is being pressured by the party to have his character seduce a male guard.

But the main point being, i think people who dont think they haven't decided their character's preference on creation think so only because they either went with what is normal in their eyes and didnt even notice, or people who see their character as a wacky tool to have fun times in game (the type who's have their character flirt with anyone and anything as long as they beat the encounter or w/e)

----------------

And just like how a roleplaying game can help a shy person be assertive, or an awkward person be social, or a follower become a , it can help a person get used to an aspect of themselves they themselves aren't comfortable with. In this case their sexuality.

There is however, a fine line between a subject being a major fact in someone's life and thus that conflict bleeding into character creation and motivation( A Admirable act that should be respected) and being proud of your newborn realization at your own sexuality and wanting to try it out in every fashion (which, in my opinion, is what sexually in-your-face LGTB people are doing).

----------------------

Hyena
2012-07-22, 03:59 PM
I usually play heterosexual characters of both genders, though they barely acknowledge that part of their lives beside light flirt with comrades. There were twwo exceptions, though - I played the married assassin and the paladin who was gay (however, for the majority of the game, there were two or three people who knew what she looked like under the robe and hood and wondered if she was even human (she wasn't), so the fact of her orientarion came as... Surprise for some)

Shadow Viper
2012-07-24, 06:30 AM
(which, in my opinion, is what sexually in-your-face LGTB people are doing).

----------------------

Please define the acornym: LGTB?

Strawberries
2012-07-24, 06:38 AM
Please define the acornym: LGTB?

It usually is LGBT, standing for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT).

Mono Vertigo
2012-07-24, 06:40 AM
EDIT: ninja'd again!

Knaight
2012-07-24, 06:47 AM
There is however, a fine line between a subject being a major fact in someone's life and thus that conflict bleeding into character creation and motivation( A Admirable act that should be respected) and being proud of your newborn realization at your own sexuality and wanting to try it out in every fashion (which, in my opinion, is what sexually in-your-face LGTB people are doing).

I can guarantee you that sexually in your face straight cis people do the exact same thing, often to a greater extent, and the only reason it doesn't get commented on is that it is so ubiquitous that it flies under the radar. Plus, it surrounds people to the point where discomfort is rare, so the cognitive dissonance needed to justify discomfort but not acknowledge it through a dodge like "these people are up in my face" doesn't emerge.

Serpentine
2012-07-24, 11:01 AM
I dunno, I find sexually "in your face" straight people pretty annoying most of the time, too, unless they're charismatic enough to pull it off (which goes for LGBT people too).

Dr Bwaa
2012-07-24, 11:50 AM
In 99% of games, I create a character personality and background first, then fit him/her to the setting, then fit him/her to the mechanical system, so that I don't accidentally tie myself down to anything in particular. It often happens, sometime during creation of a backstory, that I realize "huh, I think <character> is <orientation>." And that's that. It is somewhat rare for it to come up in-game (unless it's a particularly promiscuous character obviously); the important part, like every other facet of the character's development, is how it contributes to my picture of who this person is and how they view the world and react to situations.

Roderick_BR
2012-07-24, 11:54 AM
Hah, yeah. The great majority of male players that roll a female character will maker her homosexual. Fact.
Myself, unless I have some worked out background, I just default my character as hetero, since it's easier for me to play it.

That said, it doesn't come up in my game, other than the ocasional leg-pulling and general faux-roleplay silliness when my friends are in OOC mode.

Blisstake
2012-07-24, 12:23 PM
Hah, yeah. The great majority of male players that roll a female character will maker her homosexual. Fact.

I don't believe there is any substantial evidence that suggests this, actually.

Werekat
2012-07-24, 02:29 PM
Pair'o'Dice - great story!

As for "men making lesbian characters"... Huh. I've DM-ed all cross-gender games, and never once did I see a lesbian female character or a strictly homosexual male character. And my gaming groups involve long-term friends who are comfortable with exploring a lot of things.

My own characters are usually either bisexual or asexual, though I've done straight female and straight male, as well. Just for something completely different. :D

As for coming up in game...

One prominent character is an asexual vampire, for whom being a vampire removed a lot of the pressure she felt socially in this respect. It hasn't come up in game other than in my own understanding of how to play her. When you're human and weigh 50 kilograms, people who are interested in you and are rough and loud about it are scary. When you're a vampire - they're food.

I also have a bisexual elven wizard (in a world where most elves are bi). One of the party found out he was bi long after the game was over, and was very surprised, which was funny. ("You didn't know about it because you're not my type", and a dirty-dirty look from the straight party paladin who did know about it, though he would probably have preferred not to.) There was also a funny story about resisting the half-elven rogue's advances - she was 19, and the elf saw her as about 12-14 years of age (human years) - way too young to be interested in - while the rest of the party, used to humans being of age at about 14 (and the young lady being raised human), didn't get his point.

Straight female has come up with two rival martial artists who wound up in bed together just 'cause they had a good bit of training and a good bit of drinking together.

Another completely straight female has the honor of having my weirdest sexual relationship to date. The game was a space opera with psychics, and the man (NPC) who would later become her husband (and was someone she liked at that point, but hadn't told him yet, and who was some 40 years her senior) died. She was griefstricken, but a little while later, his voice spoke in her head. It turns out that, since he was telepathic, he made a last-ditch and successful effort to transfer himself to her consciousness. They'd make him a young clone body, but the transfer back into a separate body was very dangerous, and there was a large chance that he'd die. So the two spent the last night before the transfer sharing memories - and at one point he said, "Come on, you have to be curious what it's like for men. I could show you." Without going into too much voyeuristic detail, he did, with triple sensory experience for both of them - the experience of the memory, the experiences of the female's body at present time, and the additional experience of knowing the other is there and also sharing in the sensations.

The transfer was successful, they got married, happy end. :D

Straight male - nothing particularly interesting to tell that I can remember right off the bat. I'll have to correct that. :D

Speaking of interesting additional questions - is there more PC-NPC romance in your game or PC-PC? We usually have PC-NPC - simply because parties aren't put together on sexual attractiveness, and the chance that one character will like another is pretty slim. The DM, however, is free to mess with the players' minds. :D

Callista
2012-07-24, 03:18 PM
Maybe it's easier for straight guys to make lesbian female characters because that way they can still flirt with the female NPCs and it doesn't feel as awkward for them.

I'm a girl in a group of mostly or entirely guys--sometimes I make female characters lesbian in a group of male or straight female PCs just because I rolled a high Charisma and know they'd be very attractive to other PCs. Sometimes it's nice to have a legit reason to have her reject their advances without hard feelings on either side.

It's mostly an IC/OOC thing; I don't want them to think that real-life me is attracted to real-life them. The other people in the group are nice and all, and good friends; but I'm asexual and they're not, so I'd prefer not to send any of the wrong signals.

Cerlis
2012-07-24, 07:37 PM
it would be hard to "prove" anything, unless there was some sort of communal Census.

But I wonder how many straight male characters who play females characters dont get put in a situation where the option to flirt with a male npc.
What i'm getting at is I'd think that it would be more understandable for a male to play lesbian, because its not like you can expect them to be comfortable roleplaying a character who is sexually attracted to men anymore than you could expect them to play a gay male.

--------------

and im well aware of annoyingly sexual straight people :smallwink:

co-workers are annoying.

Knaight
2012-07-25, 02:10 AM
What i'm getting at is I'd think that it would be more understandable for a male to play lesbian, because its not like you can expect them to be comfortable roleplaying a character who is sexually attracted to men anymore than you could expect them to play a gay male.

When I've seen it (never from anyone above 14 or so) done poorly, the reasons are usually closer to "two chicks making out? Hot". I'd imagine that the prevalence of this is why it is usually frowned upon in the first place. As for expecting them to be comfortable roleplaying a character that fits that description - if you're a decent roleplayer, you'll probably be fine. After all, people are comfortable playing characters with religious and political views drastically different than their own, not to mention moral and ethical views drastically different than their own. Sexual, or more likely romantic preferences are small potatoes compared to that.

Set
2012-07-25, 02:59 AM
Maybe it's easier for straight guys to make lesbian female characters because that way they can still flirt with the female NPCs and it doesn't feel as awkward for them.

That's happened to me once. The *second* another male player or the GM/ST made some sort of RP romantic overture, I decided that my female PC was into the ladies, just to avoid uncomfortable-ness.

SlyJohnny
2012-07-25, 03:40 AM
Mostly I just assume my characters are straight, and it doesn't come up much. The two notable exceptions are two AD&D characters. My Dark Sun mul gladiator, Brannak, who is powerfully built, thuggish and a cold blooded murderer, but has zero experience with women and any attempts at seduction directed at him make him nervous and uncomfortable. He's mostly too busy running for his life to cultivate relationships, anyway. I also have a half-elven druidic adviser, Shyellin, who's in this homebrew campaign, where the premise is that the PC's are members of this Mongol-esque horde that swept across the continents before being betrayed and wiped out. His original mission was to gain the trust of the warlord, steer him away from rampaging through the forest heartlands, and come home, but Shye wound up falling in love with the guy and getting swept up in the adventure of it all, and wound up campaigning with him half way accross the world. Unrequited love for a man that probably didn't even notice or care.

Shye is especially fun, as the warlord is now dead, and my character is the only one that even gives a damn; the warlord was something of a psychotic bastard, and the other PC's are mostly all tired, grizzled veterans with varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder who are just pleased that they finally get to go home. We're slinking homeward over the ruins of the countries we previously curbstomped, and we're being confronted with the fallout of all the horrible things we've done or had to do. So my guy is torn between loyalties and is something of an apologist, wailing "He wasn't like that! He was a great man!" to an audience that could not possibly be any less sympathetic or understanding.

Flickerdart
2012-07-25, 08:55 AM
Time spent sexing is time that could have been spent killing things and taking their stuff and then using that stuff to kill other things to take other stuff. If you're attracted to someone, they'll always turn out to be secretly evil, and then you'll have to kill them and take their stuff anyway, so why delay it?

PairO'Dice Lost
2012-07-25, 12:34 PM
Time spent sexing is time that could have been spent killing things and taking their stuff and then using that stuff to kill other things to take other stuff. If you're attracted to someone, they'll always turn out to be secretly evil, and then you'll have to kill them and take their stuff anyway, so why delay it?

Are you kidding? That makes it even better! If your DM has given an ally of yours some sweet loot and you want it but can't kill them to get it, just romance the NPC and suddenly they're evil and thus fair game. :smallbiggrin:

Ravenica
2012-07-25, 12:50 PM
my characters sexual preference...

An INT over 6 :smalltongue:

Serpentine
2012-07-25, 02:28 PM
This character I described earlier:
I've just double-checked with a friend of mine I game with. His character in my game (when it happens :smallsigh:) is a heterosexual ("Oh yes, very much so. The thought would never even cross her mind, she is oddly innocent in a strange way because she is entirely impulse driven and if she doesn't have the impulse then doesn't even think about it.") female gnome. This character has possibly the best fleshed-out background I've ever come across (we've even been in her house and met her family! :O), which included a love interest back home - they'd been dating in a previous incarnation, but in the current one there would have only been a spark interrupted by her wanderlust.is played by a heterosexual man.

Flickerdart
2012-07-25, 06:20 PM
Are you kidding? That makes it even better! If your DM has given an ally of yours some sweet loot and you want it but can't kill them to get it, just romance the NPC and suddenly they're evil and thus fair game. :smallbiggrin:
...I...that's brilliant. Where's my Circlet of Persuasion? Papa's gonna get his hands on some sweet loot!

Kalirren
2012-07-26, 12:52 PM
<== The character pictured to the left is Melinda. As her world's first triply-ordained priestess of all three goddesses of sex, Melinda sleeps with people. She sleeps with people for love, for friendship, for fellowship, for advantage, for tempting and being tempted, for money, for power, for fun, for religious mysticism, and for all other manners and sorts of human reasons. She's been with men, women, outsiders, and one demonic goddess-queen over the course of the campaign, and that's just people she's explicitly or implicitly been with that have been covered in significant PC-PC or PC-NPC interactions I've had as a player. I presume there are countless people in the background with whom she has sex completely off camera, who never warrant narrative focus or mention.

The best thing about it all for me as a player is that the existence of sex in her life is not at all exotic. Just another day (or night, I suppose) in the life. A night alone is a night wasted, and that's that.

But really, Melinda just sleeps with people. She exhibits a slightly compulsive, discreet, yet unabashed pansexuality that is really fun to play.

comicshorse
2012-07-26, 01:05 PM
my characters sexual preference...



I would say a pulse but, you know, Vampires ........

Sir_Gabes
2012-07-27, 01:06 PM
Sexual preference in a game like WoD is great! It adds flavour to characters. I personally think that sexual moments in games should be summed up in a stamina roll and move on. Flirting isn't so bad to role play, but it's how mature your group is that determines what level of sexuality you want in a game. Certainly don't make it a central focus on the game and if someone plays a flirty character no big deal. Just make malleable NPCs. He/she can seduce and your good. Just point out you want to summarize any actual sex.

Toofey
2012-07-28, 07:20 AM
Most of my characters end up involved with each other if they're opposite sexes, it's a little meta gamey but it was really awkward the time I was playing a swashbuckler type and tried to flirt with a barmaid played by my best friend...

Jay R
2012-07-28, 07:58 AM
Most of my characters end up involved with each other if they're opposite sexes, it's a little meta gamey but it was really awkward the time I was playing a swashbuckler type and tried to flirt with a barmaid played by my best friend...

Here (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=951)'s the best example I know about.

This is part of why my character and my wife's character are getting married in the current game.

inexorabletruth
2012-07-28, 10:03 AM
You've got to establish your boundaries, but sexuality in a campaign can make a character more palpable.

In many of our campaigns, everyone tends to play a chaste character. Its unrealistic to think that all these characters are so young, virile, athletic, beautiful and famous and don't have any interest in flirting with the barmaid, or courting the local aristocrat.

As a DM, I try to encourage players who look deep into their character's psyche and motivations including matters of sexual orientation and libido by creating subplots just for them, because I like how it rounds out a character. Everything above PG-13 happens "off-camera" in my campaigns, but the potential for romantic interludes always exist if the players want to go there.

One great example was in a 3.5 campaign I ran with a Human Female Ranger who was sort of an awkward outsider from the mostly male group (IRL and IC).
She decided that her character's awkwardness was due to a crush she had on the DMPC, a Cloistered Cleric (it was a Protect-the-Virgin-Priestess Quest for noobs) that she hadn't reconciled with her upbringing yet. During the course of the quest, she began acting on her urges and trying to awkwardly flirt with the Cloistered Cleric (who, yes, was a virgin and had never considered any kind of relationship, let alone a homosexual one), so I made her roll Diplomacy checks each time she flirted. If she succeeded, the CC would accept the attempt. A failed roll meant the CC rejected her advances and would have to wait a period of time before the CC lowered her emotional defenses again. That romantic sub-plot became almost as interesting to the players as the main plot was, and there were several after-session discussions that were based mainly on the love interest between her character and my DMPC.

So yeah, it's pretty awesome. But if your campaigns are derailing into something better left to Book of Erotic Fantasy and that makes you uncomfortable, then maybe it's time to suggest some house rules for in game content, and what does and doesn't remain off-camera.

Avilan the Grey
2012-07-28, 03:36 PM
I dunno, I find sexually "in your face" straight people pretty annoying most of the time, too, unless they're charismatic enough to pull it off (which goes for LGBT people too).

Personally I have no problem with that unless they are welll... Howard-like* in their behavior.


Hah, yeah. The great majority of male players that roll a female character will maker her homosexual. Fact.
Myself, unless I have some worked out background, I just default my character as hetero, since it's easier for me to play it.

That said, it doesn't come up in my game, other than the ocasional leg-pulling and general faux-roleplay silliness when my friends are in OOC mode.

Mine tend to be more or less bisexual, mainly because well... female NPCs tend to be better written, or at least more tantalizing, from a sexual perspective combined with my IRL heterosexuality. Those two things combined means my characters tend to only go for a male character if that character REALLY stands out, in a positive way. Hence I never had a female character in BG2 pursuing a romantic relationship, for example, since the male options were severely lacking. As a contrast, I really like Alistair from DA:O and a good 50% of my female characters have dated him (the other half went for Leliana).

*Big Bang theory.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-28, 06:15 PM
Somewhat relevance.

Today, one of my players came to me with a new character they wanted to play in our next campaign. A pedophile, into the little boys. I wouldn't be comfortable playing one of these characters myself, but hey, there could be some great roleplaying opportunities there, so what the hell, I approved it.

Later today, another player, completely independently, came to me with their new character, a 10 year old boy.

thiswillbeinteresting.jpg

Dr.Epic
2012-07-28, 06:19 PM
Dragons. Always dragons. Because I want my offspring to have a kick ass template.

Scarlet-Devil
2012-07-28, 10:33 PM
Somewhat relevance.

Today, one of my players came to me with a new character they wanted to play in our next campaign. A pedophile, into the little boys. I wouldn't be comfortable playing one of these characters myself, but hey, there could be some great roleplaying opportunities there, so what the hell, I approved it.

Later today, another player, completely independently, came to me with their new character, a 10 year old boy.

thiswillbeinteresting.jpg

That's hilarious :smallbiggrin:. Hope it all works out alright, that kind of territory definitely has some awkward potential.

Most of the time these days it doesn't come up to often, though I usually have at least some sense of my character's preferences anyway. I've got a character right now, a female monk, who has a crush on an NPC female ranger. It's something the DM and I decided on early on in the campaign, but there haven't been many RP opportunities yet.

Jerthanis
2012-07-30, 01:28 PM
Sexual identity and preference are very important aspects of a person's identity and relationship with their culture, so they are often explicitly defined in my case. However, they are by no means the only things which define a person and so I'll sometimes leave them alone and be surprised by them later.

I've played a relatively small number of LGBT characters, but I've always tried to approach the subject matter with respect and maturity. There was a 1920s Pilot/air enthusiast who wound up being a lesbian. I played a halberd-using city guardsman who was ludicrously competent and was gay.

I think the crowning jewel of my gender/sexual identity portfolio was a woman born into a nation where women were disallowed from doing most work, most importantly serving in the military, which she wanted more than anything. She took on the guise of a man in order to enlist. The issue of whether she would prefer to have been born a man, and her uncomfortability with her gender's cultural norms was the center of her arc. In the end, she decided she was a woman inside, and that her anxiety was caused by the imposition of her culture, and so decided to reveal herself in hopes of changing her culture. In her epilogue I described her as sort of a Galileo figure... changing the world, but not in her own time. So she wasn't exactly transgender, but it was an issue for her that she considered and struggled with.

CoffeeIncluded
2012-07-30, 09:09 PM
The rogue I'm playing right now turned out to be lesbian when I was going over her after the first encounter. Funnily enough, she's got a thing for the team wizard. Right now it's more a crush stemmed from admiration at her being a wizard (she always wanted to learn spellcasting, but everyone in town calls her "The strange one" or more often "Nuts" so she never got the chance), but I think things are going to run a bit deeper than that with time.

Lord Tyger
2012-07-31, 10:49 PM
I'm currently playing a Grippli who was raised by giants. He's heterosexual, but his preference is towards women much larger than himself.

Remmirath
2012-08-01, 12:07 AM
It's another aspect of a character, so if they're completely fleshed out, it's something I expect to be known about them.

It's one of the things I think of right away, but if they last long enough, my PCs (and NPCs, when applicable) do end up developing a known sexual preference of some sort. I put it that way, because it tends to be unknown to me until there's a reason to define it, and then I just go with what seems right at the time. Sometimes, if there's a particular reason for it, it will be known right away (an NPC who was mentioned for a long time showing up, for instance, or a new PC who a different PC had known and talked about a great deal).

I've had a lot of characters, and I think I've probably wound up having quite a few of every orientation over time. At the moment, I believe that all four of my current MERP PCs are straight as are five of my D&D PCs. Of the other D&D PCs, two are bisexual, two are asexual, and two are homosexual. I currently have no NPCs who have been around long enough to know one way or another. Through all that, the split of them being male/female is pretty even. I'm not sure about any figures of my PCs over time - I haven't kept track, and I've honestly had too many to just remember them all.

That's with my usual roleplaying group, though; with some other groups which are not as roleplaying heavy, it doesn't tend to ever come up, and so many of my characters in those grouped lived and died with that (and many other things about them) remaining unknown.

Scarlet-Devil
2012-08-01, 12:20 AM
Remembering back to some of my early adolescent games, I once had a flirtatious human rogue nicknamed "Slim", who I specifically said 'had a preference for women stronger than him'. In one session we entered a tavern, and I asked the usual 'anyone stand out?' kind've question. There was a very muscular halfling adventurer woman sitting by herself, and, well I can't remember the details, but there was flirtation involved, and it ended with the DM putting me in a headlock.

I also had a little spree of playing eccentric, wisdom-dumping sorcerers who took every opportunity they got to try and seduce dragons.

Edit: I was really into dragons at the time.

Erik Vale
2012-08-01, 01:59 AM
Somewhat relevance.

Today, one of my players came to me with a new character they wanted to play in our next campaign. A pedophile, into the little boys. I wouldn't be comfortable playing one of these characters myself, but hey, there could be some great roleplaying opportunities there, so what the hell, I approved it.

Later today, another player, completely independently, came to me with their new character, a 10 year old boy.

thiswillbeinteresting.jpg

Belongs in the funny DnD stories.

Gnomish Wanderer
2012-08-01, 02:20 AM
For my role-playing characters, I've never really had the fortune to try out different ideas regarding sexuality. Almost all the DM's I've ever had never really brought up the subject at all, so it was never much of an option in my games.

Two pretty recent games of mine are getting into changing that. One allows me to play sexually repressed, which still hasn't come up but there are plans that could bring that out, and the next has one of the soft, sweet flirty types where she's open about that kind of thing, but that just started so again it's not really fleshed out.

In my old free-form roleplaying games I did manage to play around with different ideas and characters, playing the 'aloof but flirty' shy characters to 'overtly salacious' villains to once a 'homosexual subtext' between two male characters (with that whole need for masculinity thing popping up wonderfully) that was a lot of fun to play out. The biggest problems with my forays into freeform is that it was always through chat-rooms or one-shots, so I've never really been able to flesh anything out enough.

Mixt
2012-08-01, 04:55 PM
Dracosexual ahoy.

Fighter: Let us go forth brave adventurers, and slay the evil dragon!
Me: Dragons are for laying, not slaying you fool! It just needs a little love!
Others: ...:smalleek::smallyuk::smallsigh:
Me: Besides, dragon sex is the best kind of sex!
Others: (Twitch, shudder)
Cleric: Damn sorcerers...

BootStrapTommy
2012-08-01, 05:05 PM
For some reason, our parties always have a lesbian elf and a lecher rogue/bard/martial twit.

Acanous
2012-08-02, 06:23 AM
Most of my characters are straight.
There's one female tiefling wizard I recently played who was Charmed while drunk by the les half-elf for a night of experimentation. She was very confused for a short while.

But, there was one character I played a few years back. He was a human bard/marshal who fell for a heroic barbarian, who died while saving his life.
The bard was a noble, and paid a noble lady to keep up apperances for him, but he quietly dedicated all his efforts into trying to ressurrect his one true love.

Probably the most complex character I've ever played, and he was quietly, but irrefutably gay.

Amazo
2012-08-02, 10:37 AM
For some reason, our parties always have a lesbian elf and a lecher rogue/bard/martial twit.

Well, when you're a class that lives and dies on sticking sharp, pointy, phallic things into people while they're not looking, that personality type just seems to come naturally. :smalltongue:

As for my own characters, I once had a former-pirate dwarf fighter who was explicitly in a relationship with the frail, pretty male tiefling bard who was accompanying him on his adventures to write legends about him. That character had a lot going on in his head because of what he used to do in his pirate days. I also currently have a heterosexual female human paladin (coincidentally the only female character in our group is run by a man while there are two female players also in the group) who is considering starting a relationship with another party member but fears that it may jumble her priorities in regards to the world-saving quest at hand.

My groups tend to be soap operas, so anything to add in that extra pinch of over the top drama is usually worth it! :smallbiggrin:

Hiro Protagonest
2012-08-02, 05:06 PM
Dracosexual ahoy.

Fighter: Let us go forth brave adventurers, and slay the evil dragon!
Me: Dragons are for laying, not slaying you fool! It just needs a little love!
Others: ...:smalleek::smallyuk::smallsigh:
Me: Besides, dragon sex is the best kind of sex!
Others: (Twitch, shudder)
Cleric: Damn sorcerers...

Me (barbarian/warblade/some martial character): *calmly draws axe and chops head off in one motion*

Menteith
2012-08-02, 05:21 PM
If I know that it's a subject that's going to come up in a game (and be handled maturely), odds are I'll try to find a way to have a character exist outside of social binaries. Warforged are biologically incapable of sex - what do they make of it? Or a Changling, who lacks a fixed form, and is capable of any sex or gender; how do those experiences change the way that the being approaches romance? Those can make for far more compelling and interesting subjects to explore for me.

Yukitsu
2012-08-02, 05:26 PM
Most of my characters are straight.

One female character was too work focused for me to seriously consider the question.

One was a confusing form of self-sexual (without the narcissism. Got weird fast.)

A few were far too young to really make that a worthwhile question for them, though they would probably have grown up straight.

One I would have honestly classified as a lesbian if asked, entirely because 100% of all male characters she'd met over her entire life were complete jerks, except her father (and lesbian seems a road safer traveled.)

One was an ooze. No idea there.

Erik Vale
2012-08-02, 07:58 PM
One was an ooze. No idea there.

I'll give you a clue. It either rhyms with 'Penticle Hex', or they spilt when they find someone they kinda want to replicate. (Ripped from Schlock)

Absol197
2012-08-03, 10:35 AM
Aside from the rare cursed item of gender-swapping (which always gets resolved within a day), this rarely comes up in our games.

Well, I suppose that's not entirely true. I've got a couple examples from our games.

1) My all-time favorite character, Mensharr (who's OotS-ified version is my avatar) was an outcast from his village for various reasons, but he had a love back home. When he finally completed his quest halfway through the campaign, he returned home (i.e. left the party) for a couple of sessions. When the party came to find him again because they needed him, he had married his love off-screen. Some of the other party members were mad that they weren't invited to the wedding :smallsmile: .

2) In a desert-based game I ran, one of the characters that came from a very oppresive nomadic culture (like the regimies in the Middle East) was pregnant throughout the entire campaign. However, she wore a heavy burka at all times, so for the first couple of months of the game, no-one knew. The funny thing was, the "powergamer" of our group was playing her, but he managed to handle it very well.

Throughout the game, she had to deal with several of the downsides to being pregnant, including the heavy hit to her Dexterity- and mobility-based fighting style. The baby was also endangered multiple times. The psion of our group, one of those (mentally) strong silent types, took it upon himself to guard her once the group found out, and used his powers to save both her and the baby multiple times.

At one point, though, the player's powergaming nature overcame him, and Merial used one of her wishes from an efreeti trapped in a bottle to allow herself to fight unhindered while pregnant. Unbeknowst to her, the efreeti essentially crafted an extra-dimensional womb for the baby out of infernal energy, causing the child to become a half-fiend. When, after the campaign was over, the child was born, giving birth to it killed her. The psion Issac brought her back, and proposed marriage to her. She accepted :smallsmile: .

3) In my Avatar game I'm running, the character's were infiltrating an enemy army by impersonating enemy soldiers. One of the female characters, a very buff, powerful lady (Str 18 and Con 20, with no supernatural boosts...) developed a relationship with an enemy soldier. She wrote letters to him by dragon hawk for several weeks after that, and then when they discovered a village that had been overrun by Chin's Army, they found her boyfriend amongst the occupying force. When he recognized her, he stopped fighting in disbelief for several rounds, then turned on his commanding officer. Ah, love :smallsmile: !

That's basically it. My groups aren't really the kind of people who want to deal with that kind of stuff, so sexuality is rather rare in our games. Those are really the only three examples from all of our games together. For my part, when making and playing characters...I don't know, I usually assume that they're straight, but a lot of them may as well have been asexual.

Zelkon
2012-08-03, 12:40 PM
My pixie bard is an impulsive flirter, no matter what gender, but isn't really exposed to anything nearly her size save for her familiar, for any "intimate" purposes.

Cerlis
2012-08-03, 02:30 PM
One was an ooze. No idea there.

Voraphilia?

Yukitsu
2012-08-03, 02:38 PM
Voraphilia?

Considering 20% of all encounters in all campaigns are solved by me getting eaten, I'm just going to consider that a possible general trend.

BootStrapTommy
2012-08-03, 08:22 PM
During a GURPS campaign, I begged and managed to convince the GM to let my universally attractive character have the ability to change gender on command. The GM though it would just be a waste, but I whored it to our advantage, excuse the pun. It was the least taken serious campaign we ever run because my pansexual character was hitting on everything. EVERYTHING. Straight up Jack Harkness. Everything.