Why would you want sex in your role playing game?
by Elin Dalstål • May 21, 2012 • Essays • 13 Comments
I recently did an article on how to introduce sex into role-playing games. In this article I’m going into why you might want sex in your games.
Like in the previous article, the word ”sex” is occasionally used as shorthand for sexual content, sexual acts, sexual relationships, sexual feelings and/or sexual tension. I’ll just write “sex”, that way I can say it with three letters, instead of 88 letters every time I bring up.
Why would you want sex in your games?
You could argue that sex is part of human nature, and that it is unrealistic to not have it as a factor in the game, blablabla. Bah. I’m not going to go there. For me it is about stories. What stories you want to tell, and how you want to tell them. Realism can be a part of the story, but it doesn’t have to be.
In my opinion you should include sex if it fits the stories you want to tell. Sexual content might not have a place in all stories, but in some kinds of stories, sex is important. Sometimes just hinted, sometimes as a part of the story in a very explicit way.
Think of your favorite movies and books. Often sex will have played some part in the story. In some stories, sex might be really central to the plot, like in A Game of Thrones. In other stories, sex might play a very small part, like in The Lord of the Rings where there are some hints of sexual attraction and a few sweet kisses, but nothing more. In some of your favorite stories, sex might not at play a part at all, like in Spirited Away.
All three examples are good stories. You can tell fantastic stories without including sexual content. But if you do say no to including sex, you are also saying no to all the kinds of great stories where sex plays a part.
What does sex add to stories?
Humans have a lot of emotions, some of them sexual. Sexual emotions change how people relate to other people and to the world. Sexual emotions make people act in ways they otherwise wouldn’t.
When you choose to include sexual elements, you get a whole bunch of a new ingredients to use in your games. Let me give you some examples:
- A tale about how someone is torn between duty and honor makes a fine story, and so does a story about someone torn between love and desire. It will be a different story, but with as much potential to be interesting.
- The relationship of a friend is different from the relationship of a lover. If you want to explore human relationships in games, then including sexual relationships gives you even more to explore.
- If you wanna play an epic heroic story, then using an antagonist motivated by desire will shape the story differently than having an enemy motivated by revenge.
- Sex is funny. Perhaps you want to include sex into a humor game just because you want to joke about it.
- Lastly, you as player or a game-master probably have a lot of feelings about sex. Having sex in the story might change how you feel about the game. Sometimes that can be the most interesting thing to explore.
Sexual content adds new things into the story you tell at the gaming table. It as easy as that.
“Sex is fine in movies and books, but I’m not sure I want it in role-playing games”
Reading the article, I suspect that some people will probably feel this way. I got two simple answers for you. First, if you don’t want sex in your games, don’t include it. Tell other sorts of stories. You are free to choose, and I think you will have a great game anyway.
Secondly, if you are not sure you want sex, but are a bit curious, you can wait until you feel sure you want to include it and include it then. Or you can try it, give it a chance, and then figure out if you want it to be a part of your games or not. If the subject feels embarrassing, you can check out my first article to get some tips on how to introduce it into your role-playing games.
Thanks to Vivian for proofreading and editing.
I have had games I’ve played in without it, and those with it. For a long time, we never (my current group) touched sex in games, but now that I’ve had it there, I feel like there’s a depth that was missing to games without it. It wasn’t that the other games were horrible, but even having tension adds something.
My favorite character (ever, I think, for some reason his personality just hits all the right notes for me) is a young man, Henry Irons, the Blue Prince. A story started evolving after he met another PC’s sister (an enemy) and they started having feelings for each other after a duel to the first blood where they struck each other at the same time. But both were reluctant to deal with any physical feelings and told such to each other in a number of secret letters hidden around his Club’s house (Kerberos Club is the game, Victorian superheroes). She at first thought he was trying to play her, but came to realize he honestly had issues.
See, he came from a poor family, was sold to an orphanage, then escaped dark forces with his friends, running for his life, and had spent most of his life on the street as an urchin stealing for scraps of food. His education in such areas was not one he liked or was proud of. Emmie (the sister, and her name as she preferred to go by) gently talked to him about it, gave him a kiss, and told him not to worry about it. It would all be fine.
Most of the sexual tension was going on inside one PC and one NPC’s heads but it was very real, very heavy, and it was the thing in the room that neither wanted to address till the time was right. And all it led to was a single kiss, but it was very potent.
I like the three examples you chose to illustrate your points; A Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and Spirited Away. I would argue that the Song of Ice and Fire book series (which the HBO series is loosely based on) does a much better job of dealing with sex than the TV series. To me personally, there is no meaning or point to the gratuitous sex scenes in A Game of Thrones series; they don’t further the story or character development at all. They’re simply there to give the guys something “nice” to look at. I feel like the creators of the show said “This scene is too boring. You know what it needs to make it interesting? Tits, and lots of ‘em!” It’s gotten to the point where I feel the show is insulting my intelligence. Like I’ll loose interest in the story unless they keep giving me nudity so I’ll pay attention again.
The book series has sex, but not nearly as much as the show would lead you to believe. And in the book, sex always has a purpose. It’s used as a weapon by a few characters, used to motivate or as motivation by others, or simply to show that the setting is “real”. But it never comes off as fan service, like in the TV series. Phew. Rant over. Sorry.
Back to the topic of sex in games. I’m one of the people who prefer to include sex in my stories and/or characters because it makes things feel “real”, and I prefer “realistic” stories. Even the fantastic ones where we’re fighting flying skeletons with laser guns (no I haven’t actually played that game). As most characters are essentially human (maybe with just pointed ears, green skin, or who are shorter than normal), I feel it is totally natural for them to be sexually attracted to someone. I understand that some players don’t want to play those games or include that aspect in their character, but I feel that “flattens” the character.
Another reason to include sex in your games is as a way to explore your own sexuality. I guess that could be covered in the fifth bullet point of the article, though.
Well, HyveMynd, I once had a chance to talk to George R. R. Martin and he talked about his purpose in writing the series of books (though technically he talked about that in a forum I was at). Apparently, he started writing it after working on Beauty and the Beast (the tv series) and wanted to write something that “couldn’t be made for tv!” after all his hard work left a lot of beautiful stuff on the cutting floor due to: too many characters, too high a cost to produce, too long, etc…
So, in a way, I think I see where it’s going. In a way, his intentions ran true, because the story hasn’t been really perfectly moved to a video format without some mangling. I haven’t seen the HBO series yet, and I know people say I should. I just am currently between jobs and don’t have the spare money for it.
I don’t even have a TV, let alone HBO. All I need to get my episodes of AGoT is a PC and a high-speed internet connection.
I’ve gone both ways in my games. Personally, if it adds to the story and doesn’t take away from the flow, I’m fine with characters running off and having romances or one night stands or attending their local spring festival. We do most of the scene either offline in chat (where I’ve helped pen some scorchers), or we handwave the scene to the next morning.
I also make sure that those that don’t want to have sex still have chances to role play and be silly and have meaningful relationships. One GM I had forced me to always play a female character who was attractive. If I told him I didn’t want to have any relationships with my current character, he’d still send suitors after me, with one incident getting scarily close to rape. (Why did I keep gaming with him? Youth, I suppose, and the difficulty of trying to find a new group that was okay with kids)
I agree with Haran: it can bring a new depth to games, as long as there isn’t one sex-starved guy trying to get laid at every tavern.
The fact that your GM forced you to play attractive female characters is creepy. The he kept sending “suitors” after your character despite you expressly stating you didn’t want to deal with sex/relationships in the game is downright scary. Hopefully that GM has either grown up, or you’re no longer in that group, kcunning.
I guess I’ve been guilty of trying to force a sexual relation onto one of my players when I GMed. But it was to see of the player wanted to explore that aspect with his character, and not to make him uncomfortable. I had an NPC take an interest in his PC, and I made her intentions as clear as I could without being crass about it; crossing and uncrossing her legs in fron of him, playing with her hair, “accidentally” touching his hand, finding an excuse to touch his face, and do on. The PCs were destitute at the time, and she even offered him a place to stay (with her, of course) until he got back on his feet. The PC (and player) either didn’t react at all to her (OK, *my*) flirting, and politely turned down her invitation. So she (I) gave up.
After the session I privately asked the player why he didn’t bite at the hooks I’d been dangling in front of him. “I’m just not interested in having sex be a part of my character” was the response. So that was that, and I left it alone. If I’d been a player in that situation I would’ve been all over those story hooks, but I really like the drama romance and sex can add to RPG stories. Not everyone does, and I get that.
Actually, this will sound weird, but I’ll defend the “sex-starved guy trying to get laid at every tavern” so long as the player and GM are willing to make it interesting. And I don’t mean making the sex scenes interesting; we probably should even see that “on screen”. I mean making the *consequences* interesting. The GM can pull something like “… and turns out she was the daughter of the King out slumming it for a night.” or “… and he/she shows up just as you’re leaving town with a stick and a backpack, ready to join your epic quest, too.” or “… you thought she looked familiar. Holy crap, yeah! You slept with her sister just the other night. Speaking of which, isn’t that the sister heading directly towards you two right now?”
So, if nothing happes because of the sex, then you didn’t need it. Cut it out. It didn’t do anything to further the story or complicate the PCs lives. Sex in RPGs needs to be just like everything else and have a point to it’s inclusion.
I left that group long ago, thankfully. Looking back, it was super creepy, but being young and desperate to game, I let it slide. I believe his excuse was that he ‘liked romance’ and since I was the only female, I was supposed to be obliged to deliver.
These days, I tend to ask my players if they’re interested in romance before I start a game. 1. I’m sure to make no one uncomfortable, and 2. I know which people are more likely to grab that sort of hook than others.
As for the sex-starved guy… heh. I’ve done something similar to what you suggested. It ticked off the player when it always seemed to get complicated for him. “Why can’t I just get laid?!”
“Dude, that’s a question for the ages, isn’t it?”
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In the spring of last year my friends and I did an episode about sex, seduction, and romance on our weekly gaming podcast. We don’t have any women in out gaming group and so we had to go at it from an exclusively male perspective. But we tried anyway. We discuss a lot of the points you bring up in both this and your previous article, Elin.
We’d love to hear comments or criticisms on the episode from a female perspective, if people here at GaW have the time to give us a listen. http://www.idleredhands.com/?p=139
I like the podcast, and some friend gave me the link so this episode had been on my to-listen to list for a while.
I appropriate how you are where talking openly and with humor about your own experiences. Sharing, discussing, and analyzing. Giving advice and providing examples. Good stuff! It sounds like it was an discussion that was sort of about the group still trying to figure out how you want it, why you want it, and how to do it while discussing it on the podcast. And what the other members of the podcast thinks. Sort of exploring the subject among yourself?
From a female and gender perspective, you seem like good sane guys with nice values about gender. But we are all affected by our culture, and there was a slight gender pattern to the examples you picked, that I want to point out since you asked for feedback.
I done podcast with NordNordOst and know how hard it is to pick the perfect examples during a talk, you simply take what on the top of you head, etc. So I’m just pointing this out without blame and finger pointing. This is probably unconscious stuff due to our culture. It is interesting to see how we are all affected by the gender norms about sex and romance that exist in society, even if we strive for gender equality.
Most of the example you picked follows the pattern:
Females: Attractive, the passive part of the seduction/romance, sex is a tool not a motivation
Male: The active part if the romance, sex is a motivation not a tool
Example: The princess and the dragon analogy, track pants on ladies used as a metaphor for people finding different things sexy, how all the examples of player character deciding to seduce someone was example of male characters doing the seducing. The only time a women is the active part, seducing someone, she uses sex as a tool to get stuff the male character, sex wasn’t her motivation, it was just a tool etc. I also count blood=sex in the case of the vampire examples, because it sort of is oral orgasms.
Because that how culture learn us to see stuff. Women should be attractive and passive. Men are suppose to be active and want sex. It cam be very hard to notice when you are using stereotypes unconsciously. It because that how we expect romantic or sexual stories to work. The women is the attractive one, and the male is the active one.
We are all affected by culture, and we all fall into the trap of using the stereotypes about sexuality that out culture learned us, no matter how progressive we are.
I think you did a good work with the podcast and I agree with the stuff you discussed. You even gave me some new blogpost ideas.
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen and for the feedback, Elin. I listened to the episode again myself after posting the link here and winced at several things we said. At the time they seemed harmless or funny, but now I think “Oh man. I can’t believe I just said that.”
You’re absolutely right about the pattern of our examples; generally male characters pursued and female characters were passive, unless the female characters used sex/seduction as a tool to achieve an objective. I’m kind of slapping my head about that now.
There was one example contrary to this that didn’t really get discussed on the episode. In the Changeling game I ran, the romantic relationship that Lyal’s character developed with a female NPC grew pretty organically. What I mean is, neither character really wanted anything other than companionship, and no dice or game rules were used to “decide” if the characters like each other. Neither character actively pursued the other, it was just kind of a mutual attraction. Or maybe it happened simply because the opportunity was there.
In the Vampire game we pull examples from, I was pretty much the only player who saw blood as an analogy for sex. I’ve mentioned this in comments of other essays before, but when I created that Vampire PC I decided he would be 100% heterosexual cis-male. But that changed during play after I seduced a male NPC for information and then fed from him (much to the amusement of the other players, as you can hear in the episode). So my PC essentially became bisexual from then on. Both the male NPC and the game died shortly after that encounter though, so I never really got a chance to see what came of that decision. It’s unfortunate because I had just decided that attractiveness was all that mattered to my PC, and that the gender of his vessels was irrelevant.
When you cut right to the heart of it, the player must have an objective in mind that drives the relationship, otherwise they won’t continue it. Sometimes the player and the PC have the same goal, sometimes they don’t. Like in the Changeling game, Lyal’s goal was to meet the other NPCs of the game world and he decided an interesting way to do that would be as a romantic partner to an NPC who was already an “insider”. In the Vampire game, after getting a taste of how much fun the drama of “romantic messiness” was, I kept tossing more fuel on the fire. I had my PC try to juggle multiple relationships just to see how many I could handle and what would happen when they all came crashing down around my ears. We (the players) had a goal, even if our PCs didn’t.
I think this means it will be very hard to change the stereotype of which gender will be active in pursuing a romantic relationship and why in an RPG. Well, provided there are only guys sitting around the table, as is the case with my group. If the PCs are male, and they players decide to start a romantic relationship, then they are going to have to be the active ones. Hence men will do the pursuing once again. If a male is playing a female PC and pursues a romantic relationship, is that any different? Possibly, but it still a male player doing the pursuing. On the GM’s side, they can create NPCs that they hope the players will be interested in pursuing romantic relationships with, but they can’t push. The GM can’t make a PC fall in love without the player’s consent. So any NPC who pursues a romantic relationship with a PC pretty much has to have an ulterior motive, even if it’s just the GM wanting to make the story interesting.
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