Rewriting the Unholy Trinity +1 (BoEF, Blue Magic, Q.Temptress, BoUCK)

[Estradus]

So, I've had it in my head for a while to try to create a new standard for the less than safe for work side of 3e for a while. There are a few books that currently exist in, lets say various levels of quality, but all of them were written with what can be charitably described as "early 2000s sensibilities." I won't be getting into content details here for reasons that should be self evident, but I wanted to see if anyone had any interest in joining me on this project or knows of a forum or similar where such a conversation would be more acceptable.

I hope I am not breaking any rules with this thread - I checked over the rules and adjusted my content accordingly, and I know these books have been mentioned before so I *think* I'm in the clear, but i will take the blame and delete the thread if a moderator objects.

Edit for further steps to keep this thread forum approved:
If interested, PM me a discord name and we can talk off-site.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Well, this post itself doesn't violate any Forum Rules, but it seems likely that responses will. So, to responders, please don't post or link to content that would be inappropriate for this forum. If you're not sure what that is, please review the Forum Rules carefully. If you're not sure whether a given comment would be inappropriate, it's safer to not post it. Despite the OP's kind offer to take responsibility, that's not how it works; you're responsible for the content of your own post.

[Estradus]

Sheriff: Well, this post itself doesn't violate any Forum Rules, but it seems likely that responses will. So, to responders, please don't post or link to content that would be inappropriate for this forum. If you're not sure what that is, please review the Forum Rules carefully. If you're not sure whether a given comment would be inappropriate, it's safer to not post it. Despite the OP's kind offer to take responsibility, that's not how it works; you're responsible for the content of your own post.

Okay, thank you for this clarification, Roland. If someone did have a link to something with potentially NSFW content, would it be acceptable for them to DM it to me instead of posting here?
Edit: within reason, of course. I do not want an inbox full of porn, just the topic at hand.

[Peelee]

Okay, thank you for this clarification, Roland. If someone did have a link to something with potentially NSFW content, would it be acceptable for them to DM it to me instead of posting here?
Edit: within reason, of course. I do not want an inbox full of porn, just the topic at hand.

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Obviously not Roland, but do be aware that the Forum Rules apply everywhere on this Forum, including every subforum, spoiler box, signature, avatar, and Private Message.

[JNAProductions]

So, as someone with an interest in this project, would the best way to handle it simply be to PM something like a Discord name, so all conversations can happen off-site?

[Estradus]

So, as someone with an interest in this project, would the best way to handle it simply be to PM something like a Discord name, so all conversations can happen off-site?

Great idea, I can work with that. Updated OP as well with that as an instruction.

[Kalkra]

Unholy Trinity? You've got 4 books there. Shouldn't that be an Unholy Tetrad? Or am I missing something.

Also, remember not to nerf Metaphysical Spellshaper in the slightest. It's totally balanced, and definitely makes sense as an inclusion in a book about sex.

Jokes aside, I was thinking about it a bit, and it's actually a really difficult area to write for. I mean, on the one hand, there's no mechanical benefit to having sex. If you're not into roleplaying, you probably wish you could trade your nether regions for a bonus feat, or something. That's actually Eunuch Warlock, basically. If you're really into roleplaying though, you'd might take a feat that does nothing but help you go boink. In other words, different players have very different expectations of how valuable sex-related things are.

To give an example, suppose you had a spell that summoned 12 deities of your choice to have sex with you for a year. What level should such a spell be? One person might look at the fact that you're binding deities to your will and say that it should be a 9th-level spell, but if you're a Sorcerer, are you really going to choose it as one of your three 9th-level spells known. That just feels bad.

On the other hand, suppose you had a spell that was just like Fireball, but with sex as an additional component. You'd expect some kind of upside for the additional cost, and all optimizers will start using Sexball for the slight advantage it provides.

Of course, even if you don't want to include any skills, feats, spells, or classes, and just want to codify the rules for Fantastic Sex and Where to Find It, that's also a mess. A similar but more family-friendly example would be trying to make rules for how tasty food is. It's a) very subjective, and b) dependent on a lot of factors which don't have in-game statistics.

This isn't to say that I think such a project would be impossible, just pointing out why the previous attempts have been somewhat lacking, and some hurdles which would need to be overcome.

Also, I should point out that if you deal with it in too mature and tastefula way, you'll lose a good bit of your audience.

[Estradus]

Unholy Trinity? You've got 4 books there. Shouldn't that be an Unholy Tetrad? Or am I missing something.

Also, remember not to nerf Metaphysical Spellshaper in the slightest. It's totally balanced, and definitely makes sense as an inclusion in a book about sex.

I've seen the first three referred to as the unholy trinity a couple of times, the last one is a bit more of a fan project and not a book that's been physically published so its often disregarded or unknown - despite having some pretty good content (and some pretty eeeeh content)


Jokes aside, I was thinking about it a bit, and it's actually a really difficult area to write for. I mean, on the one hand, there's no mechanical benefit to having sex. If you're not into roleplaying, you probably wish you could trade your nether regions for a bonus feat, or something. That's actually Eunuch Warlock, basically. If you're really into roleplaying though, you'd might take a feat that does nothing but help you go boink. In other words, different players have very different expectations of how valuable sex-related things are.

To give an example, suppose you had a spell that summoned 12 deities of your choice to have sex with you for a year. What level should such a spell be? One person might look at the fact that you're binding deities to your will and say that it should be a 9th-level spell, but if you're a Sorcerer, are you really going to choose it as one of your three 9th-level spells known. That just feels bad.

On the other hand, suppose you had a spell that was just like Fireball, but with sex as an additional component. You'd expect some kind of upside for the additional cost, and all optimizers will start using Sexball for the slight advantage it provides.

Of course, even if you don't want to include any skills, feats, spells, or classes, and just want to codify the rules for Fantastic Sex and Where to Find It, that's also a mess. A similar but more family-friendly example would be trying to make rules for how tasty food is. It's a) very subjective, and b) dependent on a lot of factors which don't have in-game statistics.

There is generally a variable between what should be subjective and what should be concrete between a lot of these books, and can also be a major downfall. Quintessential Temptress is kind of infamous for leaning way too hard on one "image" of lewd discourse which, if you don't identify with, is incredibly cringeworthy.

The better-written books (Book of Erotic Fantasy, Book of Unlawful Carnal Knowledge) do away with that most of the time, replacing it with a "here are some game mechanics for lewd acts, use them as you will" and I have had fun utilizing those mechanics after-hours in campaigns, but there are lingering issues with some of those systems.

I'm not interested in designing the spell that hypnotizes men with breasts or summons a cadre of nymphs for your pleasure or whatever other effects - its subjective, offputting if you're not into it, could probably be done easily enough with existing rules and some flavor (Just use a normal hypnotism spell and flavor it however you like, or whatever). Similarly, I'm not interested in "Spell but now its horny" because I am not qualified to balance the mess that is 3.X.

I'm interested in codifying a basic but versatile ruleset for after-hours acts based on existing stats without going deep into subjective specifics. This will theoretically involve extra spells, feats, etc (or notes on existing materials) and magic items to play into this system.

But as a general rule, it shouldn't require anything to opt-into or out-of this system. "Feats" would be provided through some sort of bonus system and wouldn't give you meaningful advantages or disadvantages in a normal campaign; A similar mechanic could be used for spells and the like (actually, that is a great note on the sorcerer thing, I've got a couple of ideas for handling that now). A femme fatale villain can use charm magic on your handsome but low-wis fighter whether this system is used or not, this is just in case the players want to play through what happens next, and how that play out. It could certainly be optimized by players to some extreme effects, but this is 3.x we're talking about, that's kind of a given.


This isn't to say that I think such a project would be impossible, just pointing out why the previous attempts have been somewhat lacking, and some hurdles which would need to be overcome.

Also, I should point out that if you deal with it in too mature and tastefula way, you'll lose a good bit of your audience.

The previous attempts have ranged from pretty decent to garbage fire, but there *is* some pretty good stuff to be found and used. I've worked with these for a long time, and some of it works great and could probably just use some polishing. Other areas I've already applied substantial rewrites for and want an area to share it.

Its not like I'm making money off of this idea, this is just a passion project. If trying to handle this maturely and tastefully makes it less appealing... oh well?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I'm actually interested in something that would help, err, flesh-out various campaign worlds and how they function on a level that would be realistic if magic existed. The BoEF does this somewhat, but it still gets cringey at times. Getting some insight on how a world full of gods, monsters, and magic would change things would be neat, and having access to feats that give new options for actual campaigns (preferably that have uses for many adventuring characters, instead of just bra/jockstrap sizes) would also be nice. So, for example, if a feat or skill is seductive in nature, make sure it gives options for functional uses that will see regular use in fights or social encounters even when the physical act of sex is not involved. It gives a bonus to seduce members of the selected gender? Make sure it grants the same bonus to Diplomacy, Bluff, saves, or AC on attacks from them, too. Things like that.

[edit 1] You'll want to be inclusive for those of us who don't fit into the straight and narrow end of the Kinsey scale. I've had several characters who openly bat for the "other team," and nobody in the group had any problems with it, so long as it's kept fairly tasteful. It's one really good thing about the BoEF; it doesn't try to hide that side of things.

Maybe include options for psionics, incarnum, warlocks, and initiators, as well?

And give insight as to things like dragons and why they make so many half-dragons, when apparently they don't seem to do much with each other that often.

[edit 2] If you don't want to tie this into the main d20 system to be useful during adventuring, maybe give extra bonus feats that have no bearing on the main game and are instead used in their own subsystem. No advantages in adventuring, but are instead used completely separately and have no bearing on it. And since no character will have to use his/her/its normal allotment of skills and feats on it, and instead use a completely separate set of bonus skills and feats, it won't mess anything up for anyone if they want to optimize for, say, combat, while still having things to use when trying to find someone to relieve stress with.

[martixy]

On one hand, we're humans and enjoy our human sensibilities when it comes to this stuff.

On the other hand... most of the D&D world is full of intelligent monsters, who'll likely have different sensibilities (oh, look at that sexy claw, those luscious mandibles...).

On the third hand, people get inordinately riled up about this stuff, most can't look beyond themselves when it comes to this subject.

And everyone has different ideas about it.

You have to realize that everything is off-putting to someone or another. One person's "tastefully" is another person's "cringe".

For example, I really liked BoEF. Especially the sexual life of the ooze: "One ooze. Idiot hits ooze. Two oozes." (Heheh.) I run a monster-themed campaign and I'm not squicked out by weirdness, sexual or otherwise. While most people would likely call something that gave proportional treatment to everything "The book of furry" (or "scaly" - this is dungeons and dragons after all) and never touch again. Meanwhile I feel BoUCK took itself way too seriously for my tastes. Roleplaying round by round, really? Sex is funny and awkward enough as it is. The juvenile jokes have their place too. Then there are other, even more sensitive topics...

Anyway - I find this to be an amusing idea, feel free to PM me. Racier discussions can certainly be had elsewhere.

[OrbanSirgen]

Personally, I like the chart in BoEF showing what can breed with what...

[digiman619]

Well, if you don't mind backporting it, the author of the BoEF made a spiritual successor for Pathfinder in The Book of Passion (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/235710/The-Book-of-Passion?src=hottest_filtered&filters=44235_0_0_0_0&manufacturers_id=101).

[SirNibbles]

Personally, I like the chart in BoEF showing what can breed with what...

It's a shame that BoEF is so unfinished. I remember looking through it when writing another post:


What happens in regards to fertility and virility as characters age? It's common knowledge that a woman's fertility declines significantly after her 20s and continues to decline in various ways until menopause.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Age_and_female_fertility.png/400px-Age_and_female_fertility.png

Additionally, the risk of birth defects, miscarriages, and the death of the mother increase with age.

Virility has similar issues to fertility. Males are able to produce offspring pretty much until they die but the quality and volume of sperm decreases. This, as it does for older women, leads to an increased chance of birth defects and greater difficulty in conceiving a child. The oldest known human to father a child is 96 years old.

_

There is certainly no rule in any first party material regarding this issue that I've been able to locate. Even going to third-party material such as the Book of Erotic Fantasy doesn't help much. It mentions that (most) races become fertile upon reaching adulthood and simply mentions that age is among the factors that affect conception but does not go into detail about any of those factors (Book of Erotic Fantasy, page 49).

The equivalent would be something like this: "There are several ways in which the environment affects your attack rolls," and then not elucidating a single way in which the environment affects attack rolls.
I was half-tempted to do the legwork myself on this one but then I realised that's a lot of effort.

I'd say that using table 2-3 (Book of Erotic Fantasy, page 49) and adapting it with a Con check (which would help represent both age and general health) would be a good start, though not a complete fix.

__

As for the value of such books, I think it goes beyond simply helping integrate sex into your games: the rules (if they were sufficiently fleshed out, which in some aspects they are) provide clarity in the rules for acts that the players may want to partake in anyhow.

I'm not sure that the shortcomings of these books is the 'early 2000s sensibilities', whatever that means. I think the main issue is that the writers simply forgot to write some of the rules, or in cases like Metaphysical Spellshaper (Book of Erotic Fantasy, page 81), they forgot that game balance existed.

[martixy]

~snikt~

Have you wondered what the intersection is between simulationists and people who want to roleplay fantasy sex, D&D notwithstanding?

[Estradus]

I'm actually interested in something that would help, err, flesh-out various campaign worlds and how they function on a level that would be realistic if magic existed. The BoEF does this somewhat, but it still gets cringey at times. Getting some insight on how a world full of gods, monsters, and magic would change things would be neat, and having access to feats that give new options for actual campaigns (preferably that have uses for many adventuring characters, instead of just bra/jockstrap sizes) would also be nice. So, for example, if a feat or skill is seductive in nature, make sure it gives options for functional uses that will see regular use in fights or social encounters even when the physical act of sex is not involved. It gives a bonus to seduce members of the selected gender? Make sure it grants the same bonus to Diplomacy, Bluff, saves, or AC on attacks from them, too. Things like that.

[edit 1] You'll want to be inclusive for those of us who don't fit into the straight and narrow end of the Kinsey scale. I've had several characters who openly bat for the "other team," and nobody in the group had any problems with it, so long as it's kept fairly tasteful. It's one really good thing about the BoEF; it doesn't try to hide that side of things.

Maybe include options for psionics, incarnum, warlocks, and initiators, as well?

And give insight as to things like dragons and why they make so many half-dragons, when apparently they don't seem to do much with each other that often.

[edit 2] If you don't want to tie this into the main d20 system to be useful during adventuring, maybe give extra bonus feats that have no bearing on the main game and are instead used in their own subsystem. No advantages in adventuring, but are instead used completely separately and have no bearing on it. And since no character will have to use his/her/its normal allotment of skills and feats on it, and instead use a completely separate set of bonus skills and feats, it won't mess anything up for anyone if they want to optimize for, say, combat, while still having things to use when trying to find someone to relieve stress with.

I might message you later, the discussion here is giving me a lot of anxiety and I guess I'm just second-guessing the whole project. Discussing how magic and psionics and gods and multiple fantasy races interact regarding physical relationships is a good discussion though, interesting to explore.

I've seen more than a few "get cha bonuses vs gender" abilities in my sourcebooks that provide the bonus against a chosen gender, as opposed to the opposite gender (Which the book reasons could be romantic or platonic, as well as whichever team you're batting for.) I've also seen bonuses that apply to creatures that swing your way, which might be more applicable - especially if its like, appearance based. I generally replace "+cha v opposite gender" mechanics with one of those, depending on if its based on looks or based on practice. The "target one gender" ones, if they're feats or like, a class ability you can choose more than once, also let you take it again for the other gender.

As for adventuring, there are plenty of spells and feats and etc that already exist for general adventuring and could benefit in the bedroom, so what I want to add is mostly focusing on that end. The system I'm considering atm is a "Talents" list where you get like, one talent per level that provide some sort of non-adventuring related bedroom perk. This could include basic things like, physical characteristics getting a boost, or extra skill points for whatever bedroom skill we have this book / using an alternate ability score with it, experience with creatures outside what is generally considered normal for your race, or getting access to spells, powers, maneuvers, invocations, etc - maybe even getting some kind of personal magic item, if I can figure out a way to balance that. Possibly also giving impairments that function as flaws for this system - idk, this is just a brainstorming.


On one hand, we're humans and enjoy our human sensibilities when it comes to this stuff.

On the other hand... most of the D&D world is full of intelligent monsters, who'll likely have different sensibilities (oh, look at that sexy claw, those luscious mandibles...).

On the third hand, people get inordinately riled up about this stuff, most can't look beyond themselves when it comes to this subject.

And everyone has different ideas about it.

You have to realize that everything is off-putting to someone or another. One person's "tastefully" is another person's "cringe".

For example, I really liked BoEF. Especially the sexual life of the ooze: "One ooze. Idiot hits ooze. Two oozes." (Heheh.) I run a monster-themed campaign and I'm not squicked out by weirdness, sexual or otherwise. While most people would likely call something that gave proportional treatment to everything "The book of furry" (or "scaly" - this is dungeons and dragons after all) and never touch again. Meanwhile I feel BoUCK took itself way too seriously for my tastes. Roleplaying round by round, really? Sex is funny and awkward enough as it is. The juvenile jokes have their place too. Then there are other, even more sensitive topics...

Anyway - I find this to be an amusing idea, feel free to PM me. Racier discussions can certainly be had elsewhere.

The roleplaying sex round by round in BoUCK is more than a little tacky, but I also kind of like it? I wouldn't actually use it 9 times out of 10, and even then only if it was an over text RP or something (nothing in person for sure) but it does help cover a lot of situations like "can a barbarian rage to be better at sex" or "what happens if one of them is tired" or "what if the two are just so different they dont even know where to start?" The mechanic itself is awkward to use (and poorly balanced) but the information and mechanics that come with it are pretty useful, even if you use the soft-focus variant.

But yeah, everyone is different. Maybe start with a general, and make like, a separate expansion for focusing more on furries, or a separate expansion for... idk, whatever.


Personally, I like the chart in BoEF showing what can breed with what...

I have a love-hate relationship with that chart, its useful, some of the fringe cases I have beef with, and I overall find the BoEF's "consequences" to be subpar. I don't like BoUCK's either, I just wrote my own system for pregnancy risk and etc after making do for 10 years. That's the main reason I started this.


Well, if you don't mind backporting it, the author of the BoEF made a spiritual successor for Pathfinder in The Book of Passion (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/235710/The-Book-of-Passion?src=hottest_filtered&filters=44235_0_0_0_0&manufacturers_id=101).

I did not know drivethru rpg had adult content. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.


It's a shame that BoEF is so unfinished. I remember looking through it when writing another post:



The equivalent would be something like this: "There are several ways in which the environment affects your attack rolls," and then not elucidating a single way in which the environment affects attack rolls.
I was half-tempted to do the legwork myself on this one but then I realised that's a lot of effort.

I'd say that using table 2-3 (Book of Erotic Fantasy, page 49) and adapting it with a Con check (which would help represent both age and general health) would be a good start, though not a complete fix.

__

As for the value of such books, I think it goes beyond simply helping integrate sex into your games: the rules (if they were sufficiently fleshed out, which in some aspects they are) provide clarity in the rules for acts that the players may want to partake in anyhow.

I'm not sure that the shortcomings of these books is the 'early 2000s sensibilities', whatever that means. I think the main issue is that the writers simply forgot to write some of the rules, or in cases like Metaphysical Spellshaper (Book of Erotic Fantasy, page 81), they forgot that game balance existed.

So, as stated in the prior quote, I wrote my own pregnancy risk system that currently mostly works. It currently doesn't account for stuff like monthly cycles because that's a bit too much to keep track of (especially depending on how much your dm actually hard focuses on time progression), but it does account for personal fertility/virility via racial modifiers and con scores, potential talents (see quote area 1), spells, using autohypnosis to control your body, supernatural fertility (replacing the 100% from outsiders and fey in boef, they add or subtract their charisma at their choice from the rolls), scaling compatibility bonuses.... Etc. Could probably make an addition for Age beyond just constitution checks. The system was adapted for d20 from a significantly more furry-biased system I found, and I'm still tweaking some of the mechanics to reduce the risk of having 7 kids at once (its very rare, but way more common than it should be.)

The sensibilities comment was mostly that, I remember even BoEF having a touch of kinkshaming, and bits that felt like they could have done better but they weren't sure how much they could self-censor? I explained that poorly (and stuff like, quintessential temptress and blue magic are *very* bad with some of the kinkshaming). I explained that poorly (Sorry about that), mostly meant that the cultural conscious regarding sexuality was pretty different, and generally more reserved, 20 years ago. Also I think BoUCK *might* have been German? Which would again, potentially skew what is normal to account for - but don't quote me on that.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

There's always Encyclopedia Arcane - Crossbreeding, Flesh and Blood, if you want a 3rd party take on more crossbreeding stuff.

Also, those talents could be things that could, but don't need to be, involved in romance and seduction. Stuff that's out of context for adventuring but still might be interesting to have. Like, you have an interest in art, or bookbinding, or inventing, or something. Stuff that has nothing to do with earning XP and loot, but expands your character's personality into something 3 dimensional without eating into game optimization.

[edit] Think of it as an additional game layer. More stuff for characters to do outside of the dungeon, like maybe a secondary out-of-adventuring set of minigames and more fodder for RP. One of those layers (explicitly for adult characters, and they start gaining XP once they hit puberty) is for the seductive stuff. Younger characters also partake in the overall talent system, but they don't get access to the reproductive stuff until at least young adult.

[edit 2] Of course, there should probably be a template somewhere for creatures younger than young adult, which said creatures lose once they hit young adulthood. Having options for younger characters is a good idea, I think, since I've played a few of them using Small races fluffed as simply being younger versions of Medium ones. Not that this has any bearing on the overall thread, but depending on where the talent system goes, it could be useful.

[Estradus]

There's always Encyclopedia Arcane - Crossbreeding, Flesh and Blood, if you want a 3rd party take on more crossbreeding stuff.

Also, those talents could be things that could, but don't need to be, involved in romance and seduction. Stuff that's out of context for adventuring but still might be interesting to have. Like, you have an interest in art, or bookbinding, or inventing, or something. Stuff that has nothing to do with earning XP and loot, but expands your character's personality into something 3 dimensional without eating into game optimization.

[edit] Think of it as an additional game layer. More stuff for characters to do outside of the dungeon, like maybe a secondary out-of-adventuring set of minigames and more fodder for RP. One of those layers (explicitly for adult characters, and they start gaining XP once they hit puberty) is for the seductive stuff. Younger characters also partake in the overall talent system, but they don't get access to the reproductive stuff until at least young adult.

[edit 2] Of course, there should probably be a template somewhere for creatures younger than young adult, which said creatures lose once they hit young adulthood. Having options for younger characters is a good idea, I think, since I've played a few of them using Small races fluffed as simply being younger versions of Medium ones. Not that this has any bearing on the overall thread, but depending on where the talent system goes, it could be useful.

Bastion Press has published a couple of books along the lines of "irrelevant to adventuring", the one I can think of off the top of my head is like, Ink and Quill? which features entire mechanics for becoming a successful playwright? A lot of the stuff like Mongoose's quintessential dwarf's overly detailed mining ruleset or creating a masterpeice from Mythic Vistas: Medeival Players manual could apply as well - but a lot of these wind up having a mechanical benefit (usually money or fame.) I guess that could be a benefit of sexytimes, but i digress.

... Are you suggesting like, you can get second experience bars for the submechanics as a separate leveling tree? That you get like, sexp from using it? I was just going to staple it on as a progression of normal levels, but that could be interesting. Possibly more work than I'm willing to invest, though.

I'm not especially invested in figuring out stats for children and I'm not especially keen on discussing it too much in this thread. I'll DM you some of what I've found for younger characters in dnd in my time in the depths of 3rd party 3.x, but I'd like to avoid the subject in this thread.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Bastion Press has published a couple of books along the lines of "irrelevant to adventuring", the one I can think of off the top of my head is like, Ink and Quill? which features entire mechanics for becoming a successful playwright? A lot of the stuff like Mongoose's quintessential dwarf's overly detailed mining ruleset or creating a masterpeice from Mythic Vistas: Medeival Players manual could apply as well - but a lot of these wind up having a mechanical benefit (usually money or fame.) I guess that could be a benefit of sexytimes, but i digress.

... Are you suggesting like, you can get second experience bars for the submechanics as a separate leveling tree? That you get like, sexp from using it? I was just going to staple it on as a progression of normal levels, but that could be interesting. Possibly more work than I'm willing to invest, though.

I'm not especially invested in figuring out stats for children and I'm not especially keen on discussing it too much in this thread. I'll DM you some of what I've found for younger characters in dnd in my time in the depths of 3rd party 3.x, but I'd like to avoid the subject in this thread.I was thinking maybe some secondary systems for things that wouldn't typically be used during adventuring, although they might be useful to make money or craft or something during "downtime." That is, time not actively spent adventuring. Something a bit more involved on the RP side than just a Craft skill check. As far as XP gain is concerned, perhaps a secondary level (even a secondary character sheet) would be apropos, since it never did make sense that things like Knowledge, Craft, Profession, or Perform scaled in large chunks with your ability to kill monsters.

If you've ever read Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8096183/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Natural-20) (which is hilarious, by the way), it's like how all the HP characters learn in a curve, while Milo only learns anything at all when he gains a level, and he can learn a huge amount at once due to gaining a lot of skill points.

This system should mitigate that a bit. And adding romance, seduction, and sex as a subcategory of that would just make sense, since your ability to woo barmaids and/or stable-hands (probably) doesn't have much to do with your ability to smack things around or disable traps or whatever, just as your ability in bookbinding or inventing cool stuff doesn't.

I could even see each separate talent gaining its own character sheet, even, if it came to that. Though that might be taking things a bit too far.

[SirNibbles]

The sensibilities comment was mostly that, I remember even BoEF having a touch of kinkshaming, and bits that felt like they could have done better but they weren't sure how much they could self-censor? I explained that poorly (and stuff like, quintessential temptress and blue magic are *very* bad with some of the kinkshaming). I explained that poorly (Sorry about that), mostly meant that the cultural conscious regarding sexuality was pretty different, and generally more reserved, 20 years ago. Also I think BoUCK *might* have been German? Which would again, potentially skew what is normal to account for - but don't quote me on that.

I don't think there's any way to have a productive discussion on this topic, nor any reason to. If two players want to perform certain acts together or alone, that's up to them to decide. If they want to perform an act with an NPC, that NPC's personal tastes will determine whether or not they want to participate.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Hmm. A thought occurs. The talent system (whatever it ends up being) doesn't need to be 100% removed from the main adventuring game. I mean, a number of skills could easily be used in both areas, whether directly or as support. Engineering is a good one, since it can be used to find structural weaknesses in construction that can be targeted to bring them down. Guard towers, structural supports in dungeons, etc. Inventing, of course, could be used to create new types of items that could be "field tested" while adventuring, like the Iron Man armor would be, if that were a thing in a D&D game. A charmed enemy could be seduced using a seduction skill to convince it (him, her, or other) to join your side of the fight, since the enemy's current allies aren't interested, and said enemy has been blue balled by being stuck with them for months.

Stuff like that.

So some overlap would definitely be there, and the system would have to take that into account, of course.

[Estradus]

A bunch of stuff

I've been working with a mechanic system called "Complete control" where you can buy class abilities with XP instead of gaining distinct levels. (I went into more detail in my necromancer post). It sort of bypasses the level thing mentioned with the Harry Potter and the Natural 20 thing. Could get bonus XP, gained from non-combat actions and that can be then spent in non-combat skills that dont count towards your level with xp gained, or something. Invest in those non-adventuring skills through that - but then, what really counts as non-adventuring skills? Something like, craft magic items might be kind of non-combat, but you can really get a lot of power out of them. IDK, might take some fiddling but could be interesting.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

[edit {again}] Here's a question for y'all. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?608552-Can-You-Awaken-A-Protozoa&p=24399047&viewfull=1#post24399047) [/edit {again}]

Y'know, I think that, in order to see use in "normal" games, the system should be geared toward "fade to black" moments. The band's barbarian is a randy rager, and he has a few feats that give him bonuses the next day if he manages to successfully seduce his preferred potential partner he's been busy with in his bid to bed. He approaches, does whatever it is the system wants him to do in order to become successful in his struggle for seduction, and then the lecher leaves with his likely lover, while the party goes about whatever other business they've got. Then the next day, the barbarian is boasting about his 24 hour bonus to his BAB (or whatever), the party is aware of approximately what occurred, and it all happened without actually entering into the adult arena.

[edit] There are quite a number of mythological creatures who are involved with sex, in one way or another, and succubae, nymphs, and dryads aside, very few have been touched upon in D&D. Satyrs (the Greek god Pan, in particular) and centaurs both are well-known for their sexual escapades. Nymphs, dryads, and sirens, of course. And that's just mainly in Green myth. There are plenty more throughout the world that are either mildly or heavily involved in sexual themes. Tanuki (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?576324-3-P-Tanuki-Marital-Arts-Style), for instance, can transform their extraordinarily large male parts into tools and weapons they can use for various things. A number of other Japanese yokai. Succubae and incubae, from English mythology. And that's barely scraping the surface of the hundreds upon thousands of cultures around the world, which are so numerous as to be impossible to go into much detail on them all, unless you want to write an encyclopedia's worth of words.

Still, it'd give you a lot to work with, with plenty of ideas that nobody else has ever touched before.

[martixy]

Satyrs (the Greek god Pan, in particular)

Just one greek god?

When's the last time you read greek mythology (which btw is the main aesthetic of D&D - not medieval europe)?

Because practically the entire pantheon is sex fiends.

Also, it doesn't have to geared towards fade-to-black, but it has to accommodate it. The amount of D&D smut I've seen recently has risen sharply - the general smut RP community has started to spill over to D&D too.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Just one greek god?

When's the last time you read greek mythology (which btw is the main aesthetic of D&D - not medieval europe)?

Because practically the entire pantheon is sex fiends.I was just looking at stuff that would fit in the Monster Manual, and Pan is a satyr, despite also being a god.

Though, yeah, that pantheon would need a BoEF-type supplement unto itself.