HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Oct 3, 2015 1:51:29 GMT -8
This topic may have come up before, but has there been a discussion about sex and romance in games? At least one other podcast has tackled it, and I was less than impressed with the results as things pretty much devolved into busty barmaid and fantasy STD jokes. The same thing would probably happen here given the nature of the show and the hosts, but Happy Jacks has a substantial number of female hosts whose opinions, I think, would make the discussion very interesting. Female perspectives aren't something many other podcasts can boast.
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Post by uncommonman on Oct 3, 2015 3:10:21 GMT -8
Great idea for a topic.
Bring in the Eldemy players since there is some romance there:
The Lady and the Orc
The Bruce and anything female.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2015 3:30:05 GMT -8
Personal experience, ymmv.
I don't really know many gaming groups that want to include much adult or mature content in the sexual vein. Either it ends up really ackward for a bunch of guys, or it goes the creepy route of hitting on the only female in the group (in most cases). The only time it "works" is between pre existing couples, in which case it has always annoyed the crap out of the rest of the group in my experience.
Of the games that boil sex into the game itself, I have noticed that those product lines seem to have a higher percentage of female players. Monster hearts is a good example, but so is OWOD to a lesser extent. Perhaps this indicates some kind of desire for more romance based plots from female players. Just speculation on my part. I have personally been in romance plot that I enjoyed, but only in a solo game. Perhaps it's the greater attention to a single character over a team (such as reading Captain America vs The Avengers) that makes it really work. I suspect it also has something to do with less jeering and dumb comments from the peanut gallery.
Anyways, that my experience. Take it for what you will.
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sbloyd
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Post by sbloyd on Oct 3, 2015 6:05:47 GMT -8
Certain Kindred in Vampire use sex as their prime feeding vector. As yet I've glossed it over - fade to black, lights come back up after.
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Post by HourEleven on Oct 3, 2015 7:02:20 GMT -8
I'm not sure I've ever run a campaign where romance and, to some capacity, sex weren't major elements in the plot. They are much too important parts of daily life; I couldn't imagine how you could remove those from a characters existence and have any fullness or completeness to their life. Especially young characters, where the buzz of hormones underlies everything they do. So many drives and motivations are tied up in it. People respond the strongest to those emotions, and we make the greatest and stupidest mistakes following our hearts and... other parts of our anatomy. It's the stuff of great story telling.
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D.T. Pints
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Post by D.T. Pints on Oct 3, 2015 7:05:23 GMT -8
With my Lady A Majora Star Wars group 4 women three men...there's been togruta sex...keldor on twi'lek sex...wookie on human sex...it was a mess. I start to say "and fade to black..." they say "but I want my head tentacles to.." and it just goes weirder from there. Not a gaming horror story but again one that reinforces the effects of having a mixed gender gaming group for me.
Meanwhile in our Mathfinder game the ranger/barbarogwizard seduced the elven sorceress only to find she was hoping to make some sweet sweet love to have a "Melisandre" style demon love child. MAKE A CONSTITUTION CHECK!
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Post by ayslyn on Oct 3, 2015 9:37:05 GMT -8
I couldn't imagine how you could remove those from a characters existence and have any fullness or completeness to their life. It's remarkably easy, actually. There are people running around IRL who have zero interest in sex at all, and they enjoy complete lives.
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Post by HourEleven on Oct 3, 2015 9:43:17 GMT -8
I feel like, generally speaking, people who have no need or care for love and intimacy in their lives are largely the exception.
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Post by ayslyn on Oct 3, 2015 10:02:24 GMT -8
Never said they weren't. That was why I only quoted the one sentence. I was disagreeing with your theory. There is living proof that it doesn't hold true. It make not make much sense to you, but we need not understand everything that everyone enjoys/prioritizes.
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sbloyd
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Post by sbloyd on Oct 3, 2015 12:45:38 GMT -8
Hm. Ace people can be romantic. They just don't have any interest in sex.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Oct 4, 2015 1:45:43 GMT -8
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that groups don't fade to black when they feel comfortable. That's not what "including sex in games" means to me. I'm just curious when and why people include it. For me, sex is a great way to add drama and complications to games. Being intimate with someone creates all sorts of problems that are great character building and roleplaying fodder. Maybe I'm dead wrong here, but I get the sense that sex is something that is included pretty rarely (except as jokes), which seems like a shame to me.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2015 2:24:09 GMT -8
Shadowrun kind of sums it up by saying the characters don't really have the time to date/romance, just fuck. Any game with the general wandering murder hobos setup will fall under that heading. Thus you get picking up bar wenches in taverns as the typical activity with a fade to black ending. If you want more, you typically have to have a game with a setting conducive to romance. Being stable in one location helps, but so does not being able to accomplish everything by killing it.
One issue with many games and intimacy have is the idea that you should never split the party (and its tangential cousin, women are evil). Having a scene with just you and the nobles daughter is less time for the group as a whole to be involved in the adventure proper. Turns out roughly half (to over 100% in D&D) of the time that said romantic interest is actually some sort of sucubus or other monster that wants to eat you anyhow (hence the women are evil trope).
So it comes down to play style of group and the game played. Certain games make it easier to delve into, but everything hinges on the group first and foremost. More than a few hurdles are in the way of it working well, but it can be a very emotional element when it all comes together well.
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Post by joecrak on Oct 4, 2015 6:40:01 GMT -8
One issue with many games and intimacy have is the idea that you should never split the party This idea needs to go away and die. There are so many games out there that make no sense for every single character to be together at all times. I've witnessed people give up on great moments by saying, "Well..I don't want to split the party" Split it!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2015 22:21:20 GMT -8
This idea needs to go away and die. There are so many games out there that make no sense for every single character to be together at all times. I've witnessed people give up on great moments by saying, "Well..I don't want to split the party" Split it! Many GMs of popular games (looking at you D20) encourage never splitting the party either knowingly or through their actions. I've sat across from the guy who bitched that we went to the bathroom together, meanwhile what he really wanted was to ambush and kill PCs in said bathroom. I've also sat across from the exasperated GM whose encounter killed the split part of the party (see the trope: the dead guy as relates to rogues). Keeping the party together is a defensive strategy on the part of the players to keep their characters alive, and more importantly, themselves engaged in the game. If you want the players to split you need to ameliorate their concerns. They need to know they won't be killed, mangled, etc as well as being able to still stay engaged in the game. Imagine Black Widow at the beginning of The Avengers movie as a PC. If you told the player they would start in captivity, most would balk at that idea. If you got their buy in by promising an escape and that they will get to look bad ass, then they might go for it. It is an issue of trust and communication. Splitting the party can be akin to doing a trust fall with people you don't know who have dropped or tormented you in the past. How much do you trust the guy who giggled last time he killed your PC to catch you? And that, lady and gents, is why don't split the party exists.
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HyveMynd
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Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
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Post by HyveMynd on Oct 5, 2015 1:49:37 GMT -8
And that, lady and gents, is why don't split the party exists. So, basically, don't split the party because your GM might be a douche bag. Trying this back to the topic, I feel groups need a certain level of trust and maturity to seriously incorporate sex and romance into their games. Groups with GMs who act like jerks and kill a split party probably don't have that level of trust.
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