Sex and Love in D&D

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

OK, so last night me and a group of friends got together to play a Valentine's night game of D&D. It was set up to be a one off, but we really liked it.

Me, and my girlfriend, my best friend and his wife (who doesn't often RP), and two other friends got together at my best friend and his wife's house. We were using 5e as the base system but the DM asked to borrow my copy of Book of Erotic Fantasy (3e 3rd party supplement) and was modifying it to fit.

We knew that it was a love theme, but man when we got there it was very different then I thought. SO I got to wondering how raunchy and how sexy people play. In my normal groups we don't do much (I have seen family lines though in some campaign settings.)we normally just joke a bit then skip the parts with details.

Last night was different, we pretty much played 50 shades of D&D (Ok that's a joke I never read those books so I don't know) and so what do the rest of you do?

[sblock=basic Vday Game] The story was about a cupid and a succubus who fell in love... neither manipulating the other but true love. They were both being attacked by forces normally aligned with them to break them up. The PCs come in when the fight carries over into the town where we were resting between adventures. So lots of charm and dominate effects thrown around. We had an underground cult to Glasya (asmodius daughter) under the brothel as well. It ended almost as bad as Romeo and Julet. In the end through lots of sex and debauchery it really was a love story... it ended with us finding out the succubus was pregnant with the cupid's child, and us getting her out of the town and to safety by faking her death. [/sblock]

[Seto]

In D&D, I never had the occasion to play such themes, and I'd generally avoid it unless everyone participates, as it can be unfun when one/two players launch themselves into detailed descriptions as others listen awkwardly.

However, I once played a long-term romance with another PC (it was a Naruto narrativist Pbp forum), which was carefully set up over months out-of-game and more than a year in-game, and finally bloomed, and it was hands-down the best roleplaying experience of my life. It helped that we didn't have to include other PCs, and the other guy was an excellent roleplayer. We didn't roleplay sex (sadly his character died and it was against forum rules anyway), but I wouldn't have had problems doing it.

It's harder to pull off in D&D, though, because of what I mentioned. And unless it's the focus of the whole group, sex is usually best glossed over.

[MrNobody]

In the games i've played in sex is something that happened (and in a couple of games it happened really often), but it was never played or described.
I've seen relations between PCs, PCs and NPCs, i had one of my players have a "private encounter" with a female brass dragon only to discover (months later) to be the father of a litter of young half-dragons.

In the various group i've played in is usual to leave all the "details" to individual imagination; maybe something slips out in IC conversations but the act of making love is not subject to dice rolls and particular descriptions.

Like i said in a recent post Book of erotic fantasy was used here and there but it never played an important role in our campaigns.

[TheCountAlucard]

I never really did much sex stuff in D&D (though some of my players have been a little under-hesitant to engage in some very graphic activities… ), but it's come up here and there, especially in other systems; my preference is to "fade to black" unless I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that every player is comfortable with it.

One of the PCs in an Exalted game had a tryst with the Silent Wind, a psychotic imprisoned titan who had helped shape the world in a former age; we didn't go into particular detail, save that I told her player how the physical act of it almost killed the PC, and how the Silent Wind ended up having a baby as a result (in spite of both participants being female).

[VincentTakeda]

My players are brewed from equal parts greed, murder, and self preservation... Not much room for pleasures of the heart or the body.

[ellindsey]

In a recent Champions super-hero game, I played a speedster martial artist character who was essentially a hermaphrodite shape shifting alien. Another player was playing a telekinetic anthromorphic ferret who could split into five identical bodies. Over the course of a several year long campaign, the two of them fell in love. It happened very organically, though them having complimentary personalities and similar backstories (both being essentially lab experiments abandoned by their creators and looking for family). They got married in the campaign epilogue.

We kept any actual sex well off-screen, to preserve the sanity of everyone at the table. (Alien shapeshifter tentacle monster/furry orgy? No thanks.)

[Knaight]

With sex I'd generally cut to black, though I don't think I've ever had to. With love though, I've GMed a game that was basically a fantasy romance before (occasionally veering into rom-com territory for humor purposes) and it actually worked quite well. Then there's love between friends, siblings, etc. which have all come up even more frequently.

[SiuiS]

The code for a spoiler block is just "spoiler" not "Sblock" :)


I don't have a group wherein anyone is comfortable enough with anyone else to actually do anything detailed. It's a complex issue, but part of it is that the people I play with just aren't nature.

I've had some play by post games that would have gone there if the forum allowed, but eh.

[Vitruviansquid]

No. I'd be too nervous about accidentally exposing everyone to mention of one of my sick, deviant sexual fetishes that would cause my players to view me in a different light forever.

[Darth Ultron]

I've only ever done sex and love with female gamers. Any guy I have ever played with was fine with the sex and love being off screen.

My first all female sex and love game was a drow one. They played sisters of a drow noble house. It was a very mature game.

Another group started as cat-folk slaves for rich people. Another was a group of female knights. Another was a group of female giants...who saw other races as toys....

[TheThan]

The book of erotic fantasy is a weird book.

The first half or so is well written and somewhat well researched and can really help a player or DM explore love, sex and all that girly stuff in their games in a mature manner.

Then you get to the second half of the book, the parts with the mechanics. Things get really kinky and goofy really fast, it’s as if a completely different team of developers wrote each section. it really throws off the feel of the first section of the book and just... seems weird. Do we really need a wizard prestige class that turns him in to a peeping tom?

My best advice is to simply fade to black when things start to get intimidate.

[Obak]

Never, weather that is because we a re an all-guys group, our medium age is fairly high or because I'm a bit prude, I can't say.
Although I have the conception that women are much less squeamish about these things, perhaps it is an issue of trust, of our cultural view of sexuality or women being more emotionally mature then men.
I am not really comfortable with love in an mmo either, for me love is something private and personal, same with sex, so it is not an issue of of having describe to Izzy how I gently caress his hand and look his PC deep in the eyes while looking at him over the table (all though that would be even more awkward) but that I can not comfortably roleplay intimacy.

So, I am not comfortable with rping neither love or sex, but I don't have a problem with raunchy jokes in and out of game.

[BWR]

BoEF is fun. Mongoose's "Nymphology: Blue Magic" in their Encyclopedia Arcane series is hilarious. New monsters like the Bearded Clam, spells like Summon Sexual Partner (you wouldn't believe some of the creatures on the list) or Morning Wood (why not save it for later?), feats like Horn Dog (bonus to social rolls vs. folks you've screwed because you were great in bed), etc.

More seriously, sex and love depends greatly on the game played. More casual games are basically "you go wenching/whatever-the-appropriate-word--for-guys, roll a die to see how well you do" and leave it at that. (menching? guyching? dudeching?) Some games are a bit more detailed on love and romance and seduction but on the whole we fade to black after a Perform (sex) roll. Partially because it's kind of boring for the rest of the group to watch someone waste lots of game time on stuff they aren't part of and isn't plot-relevant (we haven't had much by the way of PC group sex yet) and partially because it probably would get a bit awkward to get terribly detailed.
One on one with my gf, on the other hand, has on occasion been quite a bit more detailed and...involved.

[Mr Beer]

I game with 4 or 5 other middle aged straight (as far as I know) guys so while there's a certain amount of sexual innuendo for comedy purposes and general goofing around, any P on P romance would be icky for everyone concerned. There are a few rare sex scenes with NPC, but they are done off camera as it were.

We're all a lot more comfortable with mutually visualising gory ultra violence than sex...I suspect that's probably standard for my demographic of RPG-ers.

[Hyena]

My new RPG party does know that my mind is dark and twisted, but isn't aware just to what to extent - and I don't want to scare them with what's going on inside my head. So, no.
My previous party, however, was playing what I can only call porn with plot (essentially Game of Thrones, but with elves). I usually haven't participated in "porn" part until very recently - it was all "fade to black" instead - but I did do it a few times and didn't enjoy it all that much. An effort was made to conceal the darker side of me.

[goto124]

So by 'love' did we mean lovemaking?

[dps]

the act of making love is not subject to dice rolls and particular descriptions.

If it were, would a critical failure mean ED or an unplanned pregnancy? Kind of opposites, but both a type of fail.

[goto124]

DM: So the curtains are drawn... now make a Fortitude saving throw! Whoops, you rolled a 1. Good luck finding a healer.

Unplanned pregnancy would be way too much IMHO. It's bringing in highly sensitive RL issues to something already... iffy. Leave it at disease.

[gom jabbarwocky]

I had been roleplaying for a while with the same group before I felt comfortable broaching the subject of romance as a character arc or dramatic device. But I figured, to hell with it, we're all mature adults here, right? Romance is something that we all had exposure to in real life and in most of the media we consume, why leave it out of our games? I discussed with with my fellow players and found that I wasn't the only one who thought it was weird that our games were oddly sexless. It worked out pretty well. Some PCs have loved and have known love in return. It's nice, and allows lots of opportunity for roleplaying more nuanced or complex relationships.

When it gets to the wild thing, the GM usually leaves it to the imagination for the sake of taste - when I GM specifically, I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, so I don't cover anything too explicit. I try not to be too blunt (I'm a classy guy), but the subtext is pretty clear - this is a thing that is happening. If you want to know how it went, use your imagination. This isn't that kind of roleplaying.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

So by 'love' did we mean lovemaking?

no the story really did end as a love story... it was kind of cool.

I've only ever done sex and love with female gamers. Any guy I have ever played with was fine with the sex and love being off screen.

My first all female sex and love game was a drow one. They played sisters of a drow noble house. It was a very mature game.

Another group started as cat-folk slaves for rich people. Another was a group of female knights. Another was a group of female giants...who saw other races as toys....

I wonder if the fact that I am a woman changes things...

[Solaris]

Last night was different, we pretty much played 50 shades of D&D (Ok that's a joke I never read those books so I don't know)

"50 Shades of Grey" and "love story", even "BDSM love story", aren't even in the same conceptual universes as each other.[/soapbox]

Back on-topic, I've never done an in-character romance, even in games where my fiancee is playing with me. Part of it is that I don't generally play very lovable characters (one might joke that they're about as unlovable as I am, but one may not do that within earshot of my fiancee), but mostly it's that none of the people I've played with have been interested in romance. We're playing D&D to kill things and save the world. If we want romance we can do it in real life (an opinion I also hold about the stupidity of roleplaying wenching, getting drunk, and partying in character).

[Gritmonger]

My best advice is to simply fade to black when things start to get intimidate.

Exactly! I personally don't want to have to role-play getting past another guard to see his baron - best to just leave it all to the imagination. "I intimidate - well, let's just pan to the fireplace..."

[Sajiri]

I'll admit, my current game Im in has a lot of sexy stuff happening, very graphically. However, it is not the focus of the game (just a side thing that came about because its well known I enjoy the romance parts in bioware games, so the DM made a bunch of 'romance options' as npcs for my character), and the game is just myself and the DM, who is my partner IRL anyway. Sometimes it's fade to black, sometimes we go more in depth if it's going to affect the plot/characters in some way (eg recently my character's dhampir lover hypnotised her in it, so now there's the uncomfortableness that follows that he did such a thing to her).

I don't think I could ever do such scenes if it were a group, or if the DM was anyone else. We dont use rules from BoEF or anything like that, though its possible there may be pregnancy rules...I've told him not to tell me if it incorporates such things, it will just have to be a terrible terrible surprise if it happens :p

I wouldnt have thought it would matter, but since this is a very roleplay focused game, its actually pretty fun and interesting to see how characters and plots progress after such things happen (and it has affected the plot quite a bit so far)

[Mutazoia]

OK, so last night me and a group of friends got together to play a Valentine's night game of D&D. It was set up to be a one off, but we really liked it.

Me, and my girlfriend, my best friend and his wife (who doesn't often RP), and two other friends got together at my best friend and his wife's house. We were using 5e as the base system but the DM asked to borrow my copy of Book of Erotic Fantasy (3e 3rd party supplement) and was modifying it to fit.

We knew that it was a love theme, but man when we got there it was very different then I thought. SO I got to wondering how raunchy and how sexy people play. In my normal groups we don't do much (I have seen family lines though in some campaign settings.)we normally just joke a bit then skip the parts with details.

Last night was different, we pretty much played 50 shades of D&D (Ok that's a joke I never read those books so I don't know) and so what do the rest of you do?

[sblock=basic Vday Game] The story was about a cupid and a succubus who fell in love... neither manipulating the other but true love. They were both being attacked by forces normally aligned with them to break them up. The PCs come in when the fight carries over into the town where we were resting between adventures. So lots of charm and dominate effects thrown around. We had an underground cult to Glasya (asmodius daughter) under the brothel as well. It ended almost as bad as Romeo and Julet. In the end through lots of sex and debauchery it really was a love story... it ended with us finding out the succubus was pregnant with the cupid's child, and us getting her out of the town and to safety by faking her death. [/sblock]

The research has already been done...

[Raimun]

Sure, love and/or sex has happened in games sometimes but it's never been the focus of any game.

Most people I've played with have seemed to undestand that these things are part of life but no one has wanted to play an erotically charged sexventure. It's the more... regular type of adventures people want to have when they are playing a game. You know, killing the undead or some dragons.

[MrNobody]

If it were, would a critical failure mean ED or an unplanned pregnancy? Kind of opposites, but both a type of fail.

Amusingly, this happened once in a game i was as a player. After an intercourse the DM rolled a couple of dices, then look at the player and said: "Congratulations! You are pregnant!".

[johnbragg]

Currently playing in a beer-and-pretzels type campaign, where the Paladin and the Druid are in luuuve. I only joined recently, but it's mostly played for laughs as the Paladin keeps charging into combat to "rescue" the wildshaped Druid, who then has to bail him out.

Any action is off screen, as we go around the table making bestiality and "holy sword" jokes.

In high school, my socially retarded D&D group rolled percentile dice to determine how well we sexed nameless rescued female NPCs.

[Joe the Rat]

Okay, the exact shades of blue and purple involved aside, that sounded like a pretty awesome tale all around. Love stories, even in the third person (NPC stories) can be pretty cool. From what I've seen. Sadly, it's not a big part of my gaming experience.

My experiences with sex & love in-game fall in three general categories:

Off Topic. We're not going there. It simply doesn't fit into the game. Now, this doesn't mean we don't get into lengthy discussions of medieval prophylactics and comparative humanoid anatomy out of game, but this is peppered in amongst body functions and rules bickering. For some groups it was actively avoided.

Off Camera. It's something that happens, with little detail. If you want your character to go wenching/menching, you have a wonderful time and the DM hands you the bill. For drinks, obviously. The warrior seeking vengeance for the death of his beloved. The charming rogue who ends up in bed with the villain of the next chapter, and barely makes it out alive. The Drow Classic using her exotic wiles to make new allies and torment the goody-two-shoes half-elf priestess by dating her father. Getting the nervous young hero hooked up with the most dangerous woman on the seven seas. Giving those enchantment-based villains a creepy vibe. Giving those overly hedonistic villains a really creepy vibe. "Away with your dancing girls! But leave the gnome..." Anything involving succubi.

When playing serious, this tends to be the sweet spot for my old groups. That's not to say that you shouldn't get more explicit in-game, but given that most of the players and gm's I've known are not "writers of quality fiction," being more explicit would have ended up purple prose at best, and... really, really not good at the worst. But this does make for obvious tells on plot points. When your dalliance gets more treatment than fade-to-black, you're going to need protection. I recommend Mage Armor and a dagger.

Off the wall. Sex as comedy. Anything related to sex in-game is played for humor, in the body-humor-to-bawdy-humor range. Exaggerated features. Innuendo involving transmutation spells ("No, that was pretty much a single-entendre, Carl"). Halflings get their noses in everyone else's business. Unidentified magic belts. Elven androgyny. Booby traps. Deliverance references. Rabbit season. Abhorrent admirers. Breastplate + light spell. Pretty much the entire reason "mature content" is an oxymoron for most gamers.

Which is not to say that it is all irrelevant jokes. A wizard's attempts to woo Ms. Callipygia the barmaid leads to an entire questline. The sorceress can help solve the illusionists potion-induced transformation issues due to her... intimate knowledge of the potion-maker. Finding a solution to a Pon Farr-like situation leads to making a deal with a dangerous foe. The party has free transportation if the fighter is willing to put up with the advances of the elven diplomat. The warlock uses her assets to turn a fight into a social encounter. The rogue's attempts to seduce women he hasn't even met yet turns a social encounter into combat.

[Angel Bob]

My D&D group is normally pretty sterile about this sort of thing. Romance/sex are always in the background of the story; they're more of a setting detail. For example, the innkeeper who (on a whim of the DM) took a liking to our group's thief, or the gay couple that the same thief barged in on while breaking into houses. The group's too focused on the (admittedly, very important) plot and stopping the Big Bad; the way the campaign is structured, we just don't have the time or willingness to fool around.

My previous D&D group was a little more eager with these sorts of things, mainly because they played more for comedy than for drama. By the end of the campaign, half of the PCs had slept with one another, mainly because "I sleep with [cleric]" was as legitimate a downtime activity as "I sell the treasure from the last dungeon". Everyone in the group was alright with it and found it entertaining, but it still didn't affect the story very much (primarily because there wasn't very much story to affect). The most significance romance ever had was in the first session, when the party fighter rolled a natural 20 on his check to seduce a guard and evade a dictatorial security measure.

In general, my D&D groups have never been committed enough to roleplaying to make their characters fall in love. It's either one-night stands or complete celibacy, and I'm totally cool with that.

[Sith_Happens]

The campaigns I've been in so far have had occasional rom-com shenanigans (both PC/NPC and PC/PC) and lots of sex. The latter bit generally being about one step short of "fade to black," plus some relevant rolls for giggles.