# Sex and Sexuality in D&D. . .



## jdrakeh (Sep 2, 2007)

I've dealt with sex and sexuality a great deal in D&D. Not in a "roll a die to see how many times you. . " kind of way but in a serious social context. And that is what is considered on-topic for the purposes of this thread. For example. . .

There was an openly homosexual villain in one game that I ran who frequently challenged some of the misperceptions about homosexuals (and villains) that _players_ had. He was genuinely affable, which was unusual for a villain. And he was not effeminate at all, which didn't mesh with the stereotype that most of the players had envisioned. In fact, players expected him to be a pushover because of his sexual orientation when, instead, he ended up trumping them (fairly) on numerous occasions. 

Likewise, I've utilized a nationwide network of spies -- who were female prostitutes. Basically, each brothel operated like a spy shop, with each madam serving as handler. Naturally, they had access to better (i.e., first-hand) intel than your typical Thieve's Guild, having seduced it out of highly placed government officials. They weren't combat oriented (they subcontracted out their muscle), though they didn't have to be as a few unfortunate PCs discovered. You can hurt a lot of people with information alone. 

Basically, what I tried to do in both of the above situations was challenge some stereotypes. I think that it worked out okay. None of those players were quick to underestimate opponents based on sex or sexuality after those particular games  

What serious role have sex and sexuality played in your own D&D campaigns?


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## Mouseferatu (Sep 2, 2007)

Well, it hasn't come up in _too_ many of my campaigns, but...

In my most recent campaign, one of the players was a (temporarily) fallen paladin. He'd fallen because his orientation (homosexual) went against the dictates of the Church of the Sun God, and he was convinced that his god no longer approved of him. About 1/3 of the way through the campaign, the party freed an imprisoned angel who restored the character's faith--basically making it clear that it was the people of the Church, and not the god himself, who had rejected the character--and he regained his paladin status from that point onward.

(FYI, the character background and concept was entirely the player's; I just ran with it, and eventually worked in a way for him to regain his paladin status.)


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## jdrakeh (Sep 2, 2007)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> (FYI, the character background and concept was entirely the player's; I just ran with it, and eventually worked in a way for him to regain his paladin status.)




Hey, that's really cool. For far too many DMs that I know, a character concept or background that can't be mechanically quantified never comes in to play. You deserve some credit, too


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## megamania (Sep 2, 2007)

I players I have are not that serious of players.   I wish I could push the envelop with them but it would quickly spiral into bad stereotyping.   Kudos to you and your players.


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## jdrakeh (Sep 2, 2007)

megamania said:
			
		

> Kudos to you and your players.




My former players. I've moved around a bit since then and I don't think I could successfully implement such 'heavy' themes in my games locally. I do miss those players


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## Trench (Sep 2, 2007)

My DM (and player in another game) and I are currently working on putting together a homosexual neighborhood in our Ptolus campaign. So far we've just come upon a name and carved out a section of the city, but ideas and NPC's are brewing. Some already in place, as some of Monte's characters in the Big Book are explicitly homosexual.


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## HelloChristian (Sep 2, 2007)

I think the Paladin story and James' villain are great examples. I also like the gay area of Ptolus. I live in Los Angeles and we have West Hollywood, which would provide some great inspiration were I to try something like that in play. 

A Ranger in my campaign owned a cottage just outside the town's limits. Every few days a maid, Sarah, would come to clean. We role-played a few of their exchanges, simple pleasantries and such. Over time Sarah and the Ranger began to flirt, fell in love and moved in together. It was never anything explicit, but it worked out well. I kind of like the way the Ranger rose from 1st level wanderer to 7th level warden and loyal husband.


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## jdrakeh (Sep 2, 2007)

HelloChristian said:
			
		

> I think the Paladin story and James' villain are great examples. I also like the gay area of Ptolus. I live in Los Angeles and we have West Hollywood, which would provide some great inspiration were I to try something like that in play.




I always wanted to write up the Glendale free love pagan community of the 1960s and 70s as a city district in a fantasy campaign, myself


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## AnonymousOne (Sep 2, 2007)

Here is just a simple thought from the mind of an econ major:
What happens to the drawbacks of an unsafe and unprotected sexual lifestyle in a world where clerics can just cast cure disease?  Theoretically, anyone well-to-do enough needn't worry.  

hmmmmmm.  Funny how magic screws with incentives.


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## Oryan77 (Sep 2, 2007)

Well 2 of our players have brother & sister characters that are also lovers. Them being half-elves doesn't help their reputation in town. When we visited a major city for the first time, we found out incest was common among most of the families (lower, middle, & upper class). The 2 players even found a cleric in town that married them.

In the same campaign, there's also a BBEG Ranger who's only minion is his wolf animal companion that he's a little too _affectionate_ towards. The first time we encountered him we heard odd sexual sounds coming from the other side of the door. We thought he was with a woman and after we buffed up and charged in, he was curled up with his wolf and no one else was in the room


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## billd91 (Sep 2, 2007)

Sexuality has come up in a number of ways over the years. I was playing a male half-orc fighter/thief in 1E and ended up with a girdle of femininity/masculinity. I figured that the character would take a little while to... check out the new frame... as it were since it was so novel.

I've had barmaids be very interested in the monk character, partly because of his shaved head and partly because of his muscular yet wiry body.

I've had other barmaids meet PCs in the cloak rooms at classy gambling establishments.

I've seen a PC rescue a teen from a brothel in return for important information on a powerful regular patron.

For the most part, it doesn't come up  that often unless a PC is actually out for an evening of carousing. But it will become a much more prominent element once the PCs reach the Vault of the Drow. I figure the drow would have a pretty decadent society. I plan on having the gate to the noble end of the vault be carved in the form of Lolth, nude, squatting down as if bearing children with her birth canal being the passage of the gate (thus the nobles are all, metaphorically, born of Lolth). Of course, that and all other statues of the seductress-goddess will be quite graphic and frank in their depiction. Enough to make Caligula blush.


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## Elephant (Sep 2, 2007)

AnonymousOne said:
			
		

> Here is just a simple thought from the mind of an econ major:
> What happens to the drawbacks of an unsafe and unprotected sexual lifestyle in a world where clerics can just cast cure disease?  Theoretically, anyone well-to-do enough needn't worry.
> 
> hmmmmmm.  Funny how magic screws with incentives.




For the rich, anyway.  Your average commoner would never be able to afford the cost of a cure disease spell.


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## Philotomy Jurament (Sep 2, 2007)

Elephant said:
			
		

> For the rich, anyway.  Your average commoner would never be able to afford the cost of a cure disease spell.



Yeah, the poor are always getting screwed.


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## S'mon (Sep 2, 2007)

Well IMC the dwarven swashbuckler courted and married the fair (human) maiden.  Does that count?


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## blargney the second (Sep 2, 2007)

Good timing for a thread on this subject.  I've just started DMing for a couple of new people, and one of them is the first specialist player I've ever met: apparently she always plays nymphomaniac elf sorcerers.  I'm not quite sure what to do with the openly sexual part of that - I've never really seen sexuality come up in game.  (Beyond goofy stuff like ale & whores which we always just fade to black...)
-blarg


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## Dice4Hire (Sep 2, 2007)

In my games, sex and sexuality gets put on the back burner and forgotten there. 

My players and I are in strong agreement about that.

i know some groups can add it to their games and it can add a good element to the games


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## Agamon (Sep 2, 2007)

Philotomy Jurament said:
			
		

> Yeah, the poor are always getting screwed.




Ah, the irony in that statement....


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## Peni Griffin (Sep 2, 2007)

One member of our group has a tendency to motivate us to wipe his villains off the face of the map by making them disgusting sexual predators who do things like kidnaping small children and magically mucking with their brains to turn them into s/m sex slaves who will be grow up to be his fanatically loyal bodyguard.  This puts us in  awkward situations as we don't want to hurt any of the victims, who are universally used as human shields.  We kill those villains really hard and then have to tie up a lot of resources rehabilitating the victims.  We also have a problem with the loot, as a lot of it is kinky in ways that our characters don't find attractive at all.

In my campaign, a recurring problem is that the duergar have undertaken an imperialist campaign of expansion which involves conquering Group A, enslaving its members, and using them as cannon fodder in conquering Group B, which is in turn enslaved to go after Group C and so on, theoretically until the duergar rule the world.  When they conquer a CE group, like an orc tribe, they motivate the orcs with rewards based on individual desires, and thus arose the champion rogue Shagrat Paladinkiller, a sexual sadist whose reward was a harem but whose true love was an intelligent sword with an, um, peculiarly-shaped hilt.  When he sneak-attacked somebody with it, you really don't wanna know the effect.  My players certainly didn't!  It was forged by a succubus, did vile damage, and was of an infernal metal that resisted normal means of destroying it.  The PCs helped the harem escape, killed Shagrat (who came back as a ghost bound to the sword), and destroyed the sword by arranging for it to be dropped from a tremendous height sufficient to overcome the DR.

More cheerfully, I decided that the White Forest, the society where the PCs originate, is a frontier area with an easygoing attitude toward many things that the more settled areas are uptight about - the idea being that you're more likely to move into the wilderness if you feel constrained where you are.  The closest thing to a central authority is the Ecumenical Monastery of Benevolent Doctrines, where good and neutral clerics gather, providing hospitality, a library, and a paladin training school.  Priests routinely marry.  The library contains two copies of the popular "Marriage Booke," which is chock-full of medical advice on fertility, birth control, gynecology, and erectile dysfunction, and access is not restricted (though all the books are chained to the shelves - that's just common sense).  The young paladins are forever pairing up in the way teen-agers do, many of them in same-sex couples.  A male nonpaladin PC has been dating a male instructor.  Theologically, the Monastery takes the attitude that the genders assigned to the gods are symbolic representations only - it's obviously ridiculous to think that Yondalla gets a period or Pelor pees standing up!  The idea of gender duality among the gods is so ingrained that most people in the White Forest assume that St. Cuthbert was gay when he was alive, because this image fits their notions of godhood better.

So when I decided to take the PCs to Elsir Vale for Red Hand of Doom, and realized how well Lady Kaal in that module fits the background I had invented for the instructor who's dating the PC, I made Elsir into a 1950s-style repressed society, where people do everything that people normally do, but lie and lie and lie about it.  

This enabled me to give the player of the gay PC lots of opportunity for drama, because his boyfriend ran away from the Vale years ago specifically to keep his mother, Lady Kaal, from marrying him to some innocent well-connected girl for political reasons.  He tried to get his then-boyfriend, Lars Ulverth, to run away with him, but Lars had just achieved his ambition of joining the Lions of Brindol and wouldn't.  Now Lady Kaal has tracked the instructor down and is blackmailing him into returning by threatening to expose Lars's current relationship with another Lion.  The instructor, who is a lot older than the PC, tried to keep him away from the Vale without telling him the full truth (protecting him donchaknow), causing a major ruction in their relationship, and we're now poised for all the scenery chewing you could want.  The Horde is bearing down on the town, Lars's boyfriend died protecting a refugee caravan that the instructor was escorting (Lars basically looked up from his present lover's fresh corpse to meet the eyes of his first boyfriend), the instructor is subverting his mother's attempts to control him by turning up the flame and prancing around town letting people gaybash him, and the PCs have just ridden into Brindol preceded by their reputation, with the bard singing their great deeds.  We're poised for a sex-and-violence drama of miniseries proportions - and a family emergency may force the relevant PC to move before we can play it out!  Alas for art when real life intervenes.


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## Keeper of Secrets (Sep 2, 2007)

I once had a Call of Cthulhu game set in the modern period where the cult was dedicated to Shub Niggaruth (the fertility goddess - sort of) and the cultists were ensconced as figures in a porn studio.  On the side they were doing REALLY terrible snuff films.  That certainly got spooky.


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## AnonymousOne (Sep 2, 2007)

Elephant said:
			
		

> For the rich, anyway.  Your average commoner would never be able to afford the cost of a cure disease spell.



Only if you assume no charity exists in a setting like that, which I find hard to believe.


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## lobsterGun (Sep 2, 2007)

AnonymousOne said:
			
		

> Here is just a simple thought from the mind of an econ major:
> What happens to the drawbacks of an unsafe and unprotected sexual lifestyle in a world where clerics can just cast cure disease?  Theoretically, anyone well-to-do enough needn't worry.
> 
> hmmmmmm.  Funny how magic screws with incentives.




There might not even BE any STDs in a fantasy setting.  There were no STDs in Europe prior to Columbus trip to the New World (Syphilis was one of the things he brought back with him).  

Somewhat related, there was effective natural birth control during the time of the Roman Empire (link).

So really, (depending on the setting) there may be little reason NOT to be promiscuous.


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## AnonymousOne (Sep 2, 2007)

Interesting.  I just assumed that with the number of clerics running around, a sure disease might make for an excellent act of charity.


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## Philotomy Jurament (Sep 2, 2007)

Agamon said:
			
		

> Ah, the irony in that statement....



I debated about putting a smiley on it, just in case anyone missed the obvious, but then I thought, "why beat on the obvious; that's kinda like self-flagellation."  (No comments from the peanut gallery about master debaters, please...that one's so old even I wouldn't whip it out...)


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## Varianor Abroad (Sep 2, 2007)

Most recently, it was in an Arcana Evolved game where a female player running a male faen character became enamoured of a female NPC human magister. Short guy falls for tall girl right? Except I decided to play the NPC as not willing to just jump into bed immediately. So there you had gender role reversal by player and DM with a funny roleplaying twist. Many jokes ensued with the male PC getting encouragement from all his fellows in character. (It was a one-shot convention game, which may just be why the player took a bit more risk. Either way, it was damn funny.)


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## kenobi65 (Sep 2, 2007)

lobsterGun said:
			
		

> There might not even BE any STDs in a fantasy setting.  There were no STDs in Europe prior to Columbus trip to the New World (Syphilis was one of the things he brought back with him).




It doesn't look like the scientific community is unified in that theory, btw, though the first major European outbreak did occur shortly after Columbus's return:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphillis


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## kenobi65 (Sep 2, 2007)

In most of the groups I've played in over the years, sexuality has played a role, though this has primarily been through relationships between PCs, or PCs and NPCs.  My guess is that this is, at least in part, due to the fact most of my gaming groups have been composed of both men and women; the one all-male group I've played with wouldn't touch the topic with a 10-foot pole.

In 95% of the cases, anything above a PG rating is clearly handled "off-camera".  OTOH, I've had a few instances in which the players of the PCs were themselves involved, and that would tend to lead to steamy in-character note-passing. 

In my campaigns, there's occasionally been plotlines revolving around prostitutes, goddesses of love, etc.; I've always kept anything truly suggestive off-camera, as well.

For us, that seems to work just fine.


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## Samnell (Sep 2, 2007)

When I ran Hommlet in RttToEE, I made Rufus and Burne into a long-term couple. When the party figured out that more than just ordinary Elemental Evil was going on, one of them (I forget which) ended up comforting the other.

My players all know that their DM is gay and they may encounter gay, lesbian, bisexual, and otherwise different people as a part of the normal diversity of the campaign world. If they have some dire objection to that, then other games exist. Some cultures are more tolerant of them, or subsets thereof, than others. It hasn't so far become a plot point, but it very easily could be if a good idea hit me.

I once played a halfling that was the deliberately-inbred progeny of a line of sorcerers. They wanted to keep recombining their sorcerous talent. It worked, but also left the halfling with some genetic oddities. Power had its price.


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## Joe Sala (Sep 2, 2007)

One of my PCs was seduced by a villain's associate, and he was giving her a lot of information about their activities. He didn't know who was her, and when they discovered it...


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## airwalkrr (Sep 2, 2007)

AnonymousOne said:
			
		

> Here is just a simple thought from the mind of an econ major:
> What happens to the drawbacks of an unsafe and unprotected sexual lifestyle in a world where clerics can just cast cure disease?  Theoretically, anyone well-to-do enough needn't worry.
> 
> hmmmmmm.  Funny how magic screws with incentives.




As an aside, I houserule that remove disease allows the cleric to make a caster level check against the save DC of the disease in order to successfully remove it. Anytime someone in my campaigns has sex with another character, I give that character a 10% chance of contracting VD, 50% if the partner is a prostitute. Even if the partner shows no symptoms, they chould still be a carrier. Of course I grant benefits as well, such as a +1 morale bonus on all attacks, saving throws, and checks for 24 hours afterwards (as long as the sex is good which I base on the partner's Perform or Profession check).

I also played a gay bard once, although I was not 100% PC as I incorporated a number of gay stereotypes into the character (like making him a bard for one). I've often thought that playing a big, burly, gay barbarian might be an interesting challenge though.


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## Geron Raveneye (Sep 2, 2007)

blargney the second said:
			
		

> Good timing for a thread on this subject.  I've just started DMing for a couple of new people, and one of them is the first specialist player I've ever met: apparently she always plays nymphomaniac elf sorcerers.  I'm not quite sure what to do with the openly sexual part of that - I've never really seen sexuality come up in game.  (Beyond goofy stuff like ale & whores which we always just fade to black...)
> -blarg




Depends I'd say. If she constantly comes on (blatantly) to every NPC they meet, go with the flow and roleplay the NPCs depending on how you think they'd react to that kind of behaviour. Some might take her up on the offer, others might simply kick her out immediately, and everybody who came in with her, again others might simply toy around with her to see how far she'd really go, start sermonizing about her "sinful" or "inappropriate" behaviour, and she might even get arrested for indecent behaviour in some socially more restricted towns/cities. Just stay in NPC-character as much as possible, and don't let your own opinions about that kind of behaviour run every encounter...or talk to the player if it gives you too much of a problem to deal with, and ask her to tone it down a notch.


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## kenobi65 (Sep 2, 2007)

Samnell said:
			
		

> When I ran Hommlet in RttToEE, I made Rufus and Burne into a long-term couple.




I play in Living Greyhawk, and Verbobonc (which contains Hommlet) is my local region.  Rufus and Burne showed up in a module last year, and that's the assumption that we all made, too.


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## Samnell (Sep 2, 2007)

kenobi65 said:
			
		

> I play in Living Greyhawk, and Verbobonc (which contains Hommlet) is my local region.  Rufus and Burne showed up in a module last year, and that's the assumption that we all made, too.




Honestly, I know they were old PCs in Gary's game. But they've been living together for decades. Neither has a female associate. If they don't fit the profile for a long-term couple, then Corellon's got a beard bigger than Moradin's.


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## Philotomy Jurament (Sep 2, 2007)

Samnell said:
			
		

> If they don't fit the profile for a long-term couple, then Corellon's got a beard bigger than Moradin's.



Corellon uses a beard?  What's her name?


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## Scurvy_Platypus (Sep 2, 2007)

I apparently surprised the GM and other players (including my wife) this past game we played. Setting is strongly historical (AD 170 roman) based, and the previous game, my character (A 40 year old semi retired Optio in the legion) had taken a female slave as his loot. He hadn't really bothered taking anything up until then, and there were a number of jokes starting to be made about just why the character had taken the slave, and my wife had given me the fish-eye as well.

After a few minutes of this, I turned to the GM and said, "As I recall, they didn't really have a huge taboo against homosexual activity, is that correct? The attitudes basically varied with some people against it, and others openly gay, and at the end of the day as long as Rome got what it wanted, they didn't really care. No laws against it specifically, yes?"

The GM looked sort of confused and said, "Well... yeah. Nothing that I remember, so it's not a big deal. Why?" pause...."Oh. You mean...?"

And I said, "Yup. Tiberius is gay."

Tiberius also happens to be a rather adpet fellow with doing a Trip attack followed with a free Attack, and has put down several of the tougher opponents we've faced by keeping them tripped and stabbing 'em while they're down. And he's recently crucified a rebel that had attacked the romans, in addition to having been engaged in banditry of a general sort. "Violator of the Pax Romana" was the sign attached to his cross. He's LN, shaves his head, and is partially inspired by Apone from Aliens (yeah, Tiberius really loves the legion).

I don't play female characters (never have), but sex and sexuality is something I've made deliberate and conscious choices about for me characters. My last character (Kobold Dragon Shaman) was seriously into partying and women. Early on, I told the GM the kobold was going to head on off for a night on the town. The GM said, "What sort of 'night on the town' are you thinking of?" as the kobold had already established a talent for trouble.

"I'm going to blow all my gold and hookers and booze!"

The rest of the table suddenly paused in their various plans and side chatter and looked over at me.

"Just how much money do you intend to spend?"

"Well.... I've got a 150 gold, so I'll blow whatever is left after I get some fresh chickens for eating." The player that had a dwarf groaned loudly and asked me, "What about buying any gear you might need for the future?!?!" 

I shrugged and said, "I'll steal it, borrow money from one of you guys, or just do without. If Kissik dies, he dies. He's not going to hoard money on the off-chance he might need to buy something later when there's women, booze, and chickens to be had now."

The GM asked, "So what kind of...ladies.... is Kissik looking for? It might be kinda hard to find any that are willing to mess around with Kobolds, and I'm not sure there's any Kobold hookers in Sharn."

To which I replied, "Kissik likes the ladies. He's going to a brothel, and his requirement is 1) Female, 2)Doesn't hate Kobolds, and 3) Likes to eat chicken."

Turned out the GM had the book of Erotic Fantasy, so he got to roll up a social disease for the Kobold. Luckily we had an NPC cleric as the disease was apparently fatal. No surprise there.

I don't go for explicit descriptions or anything like that, but yeah... my characters (regardless of race) don't ignore sex. I think part of the reason why it's never been an issue in any of the games I've played in over the years is because I'm very explicit about not wanting explicit details or anything like that. It's just one of those things that my characters indulge (or very religiously don't indulge) in.


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## The Green Adam (Sep 2, 2007)

I use an unusual subtext with some of the Elven cultures in one of my campaigns. Elves are often depicted as quite promiscuous but at the same time a very long lived species with few children born to their people. IMCU this is because many Elves are 'joined' or 'linked' to some other Elf in a form of predestined relationship. If Elves try to mate without this connection, it is unlikely to bare any fruit so to speak. That doesn't stop them from trying. An unjoined couple only has a 1 in a million chance of reproducing from a sexual act between the two individuals. Even a joined couple only has a 1 in 5000 chance. This means that for their race to continue they need to mate as often as they can to improve their chances of there ever being more Elves.

On a similar note, in an old Star Wars campaign my friend Jason created an alien species with three sexes. The name of an individual of this species ended with a letter indicating the sex. In order to reproduce, a member would have to locate the other two beings with the same name but of the other sexes. For example, if Respori wanted to have children, Respora and Resporo would need to be found. Of course, what if Respora was living in another part of the galaxy or Resporo was killed by Stormtroopers? Evolution and cultural development had no idea this species was going to become starfaring. Within the next century or so this race could easily be rendered extinct.

AD


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## Kahuna Burger (Sep 3, 2007)

in terms of glbt, I've played a couple of Amazon characters from tribes who lived in a symbiotic relationship with the nearby villages. The longest running of those was a brash Ale and Whores sort of fighter - she just happened to be female. She showed some interest in a fellow party member but didn't ever push things with her.

In a d20 modern play by post, we were all supposed to be soldiers in the modern gulf war. I decided to play cross gender because (imo) a female soldier in the modern military is a strong character archetype itself and I felt would interfere with developing the character I wanted to play. After some thinking I decided the intelligence officer I was playing was somewhere between "asexual nerd" and "so far in the closet he still has one foot in Narnia." Some of his talents required him to choose a "target gender" or somesuch and I chose men for him - but he connected with men on more of an intelectual than emotional level and pretty much had no sexual interests at all. Whether this was due to being a late bloomer combined with an early decision that military intelligence was his goal in life and he had better agressivly avoid asking himself questions he didn't want answers to is an exercise for the reader.

There were a couple of other characters for whom sex played a strong role in their background or characterization. One of my only evil-ish characters had decided at about 12 that she wanted to be a widow when she grew up (due to a poor history of her female relitives surviving more than one childbirth and a social status that made getting married a non-optional destiny) and murdered several husbands. Her fear of birth and by association sex was one of her defining characteristics.

On the other hand, Sara the happy gladiator had no problems with sex, but found other warriors distinctly unappealing. See, in her mind, pit whores and weakling bimbos slept with gladiators. She *was* a gladiator. She ended up attaching herself to a fellow PC who was a halfling wizard. She thought he was cute, smart and needed her to take good care of him.


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## Samnell (Sep 3, 2007)

Philotomy Jurament said:
			
		

> Corellon uses a beard?  What's her name?




Oddly enough, also Corellon.


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## Varianor Abroad (Sep 3, 2007)

_Cure disease _ spells are no more available to the general populace than _raise dead _ or _resurrections_. They are generally options for the rich.


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## Stalker0 (Sep 3, 2007)

In our planescape game we have one shapechanger with exceptional charisma that often sleeps with others to get favors for our group. My character has a terrible charisma and is a bit deranged, and she's just started sleeping with me to get me to do her favors and so forth. My character hasn't had a woman in a LONG time, so its working like a charm

This is kind of a 1st for our group, we haven't really delved into sexual topics too much in our games, but so far its been working fine. We poke fun at our "slut" party member from time to time and move on.


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## Kahuna Burger (Sep 4, 2007)

Varianor Abroad said:
			
		

> _Cure disease _ spells are no more available to the general populace than _raise dead _ or _resurrections_. They are generally options for the rich.



No more available? It's two spell levels lower than Raise Dead (and thus capable of being cast by far more npcs), available to rangers paladins and druids at high enough levels, and has no material components (as opposed to a 5000 gp one).


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## krissbeth (Sep 4, 2007)

I usually reserve my characters' sexualities for journals rather than in-game.  I have one who's unsure of herself, one who's poly and one total virgin with a romantic hero complex.  The sexuality is a pretty tertiary characteristic for the first two, so I just keep that in writing, mostly.  For the third, well, it's just funny for her to say, "I don't get it," whenever there's an off-color joke.


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## Varianor Abroad (Sep 4, 2007)

Okay, I stand corrected. They are slightly more available. But at the typical gp costs of casting a spell, I think that they are at best an option for upper class and the occasional middle class types. (Adventurers are not on the charts since they have access to money nobody else does.)


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## Zurai (Sep 4, 2007)

PATHFINDER SPOILERS!



Spoiler



The first Pathfinder adventure contains quite a few sexual situations. A young woman tries to seduce one of the "heroes of Sandpoint", one of the villains has a book full of erotic drawings of another of the villains, and there's several mentions of possible romantic interests among the NPCs.



It's really quite refreshing to have a pre-generated module that isn't forced to shy away from stuff like that.


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## STARP_Social_Officer (Sep 4, 2007)

I don't go out of my way to point out and introduce sexual elements into my games, but I certainly don't gloss over them. Of course it depends on the setting, and you can go a little too far sometimes. One example would be a friend of mine who ran a game in which all the PCs were elves. At some point during his campaign a licensed work (either an article or a book) was published about elves which made much of their 'sexual freedoms' and no-hang-ups attitude to sex. The rest of the campaign, the attitude of "if it moves, shag it" applied nicely and it started to get weird (think animals...I'm not kidding). That kind of ended the fun for my friend. But not for his players.
As for my campaigns, it varies depending on setting and culture. In modern games and the like, it has the normal status as it does in Western society today. In more archaic settings, it tends to be "there but hidden" unless PCs go looking for it. It's much the same in other settings I've played in. I could tell you a story involving my halfling bard and a bondage parlour but...well, there might be kids reading this.


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## Dread October (Sep 4, 2007)

AnonymousOne said:
			
		

> Here is just a simple thought from the mind of an econ major:
> What happens to the drawbacks of an unsafe and unprotected sexual lifestyle in a world where clerics can just cast cure disease?  Theoretically, anyone well-to-do enough needn't worry.
> 
> hmmmmmm.  Funny how magic screws with incentives.




This may have been addressed already but I think that from an econ perspective nothing changes. 

Remove Disease is a 3rd level spell and if you follow 100 GP per spell level, then you're gonna need to convince a cleric powerful enough to cast Dispel Magic, Searing Light or Speak with Dead, to save you from a night or 12 with an unclean woman.

Not likely gonna happen. I can't see a cleric bothering to do this for a guy who woud just go back out and catch the next bug of the month.

Anti itch unguent is cheaper.


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## Dread October (Sep 4, 2007)

I've played in campaigns where the GMs had an element of sexuality to the game and in almost every case, it became a distraction AND a bit or a personal soap box fpr that DMs "issues".

In other games, I have played gay characters and IMO done a good job. Part of my inspiration for how to play the characters has to do with having gay or bi players on our games for a long time. This helps play real characters and avoid caricatures and stereotypes. 

Currently I go no further than setting of family trees etc. Most players who bother to write up close personal contacts, tend to forget all about them LOOOONG before there is ever a chance to take advantage of the sexual aspects of having those contacts.

My rule is get laid in real life so we can not have to help you get it done during the game.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 4, 2007)

I'm a straight male gamer with 30 years in the hobby who has played a few gay PCs and several female PCs in a variety of RPGs.

Oddly enough, its my play of female PCs that has gotten more negative reaction from other players than the gay PCs.  Why, I don't know.

Its not as if I'm hitting on other PCs all of the time. I only did that once- a female alien gladiatrix in a superhero game thought the supergroup's leader was cute, even though he was rather tiny and delicate (she was nearly 7' tall _before_ she started using her Growth power).

A female mecha-pilot/engineer I played was a "closeted" bisexual who kept her affairs off-base.

A female Ley-Line Walker I played in a RIFTS campaign was a virgin- she believed that her power derived from her status as a maiden.  Her belief in that concept was so strong, that had she slept with anyone, she would have a mental block about her powers and would have lost them utterly.

A GURPS PC I played was a "situational slut"- she used her sexuality to gain power & influence with NPCs, sometimes even access to forbidden areas of bases.

Meanwhile, none of my gay PCs has ever been a stereotype- though if I thought a PC required such a personality, I'd play him or her that way.

OTOH, I've encountered very few people who actually play gay PCs without playing up a stereotype.


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## AnonymousOne (Sep 4, 2007)

Dread October said:
			
		

> This may have been addressed already but I think that from an econ perspective nothing changes.
> 
> Remove Disease is a 3rd level spell and if you follow 100 GP per spell level, then you're gonna need to convince a cleric powerful enough to cast Dispel Magic, Searing Light or Speak with Dead, to save you from a night or 12 with an unclean woman.
> 
> ...




This of course is dependent on the nature of the cleric, his associated church, the relationship with the petitioner, etc.  

The way I see it, this is a rather affordable venue.  If the 'church' really wanted to minister to the ladies of the night in a campaign setting, then what better way to cure them of their diseases and minister to their spiritual needs.  

This idea that it's "just for the rich" is not true, D&D does not equal ancient feudalism (at least not the way I've understood it).  So you have to assume that there is a burgeoning, if not flourishing middle-class.

On a similar note, why the hell shouldn't a wealthy playboy be able to purchase a cure disease after a night out?  Sure some clerics might balk at it, but others would put the gold from the healing to good use funding a soup kitchen or for alms.  Your assumption that nothing changes in a world where certain kinds of actions are low cost is simply incorrect.


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## Dread October (Sep 4, 2007)

AnonymousOne said:
			
		

> This of course is dependent on the nature of the cleric, his associated church, the relationship with the petitioner, etc.
> 
> The way I see it, this is a rather affordable venue.  If the 'church' really wanted to minister to the ladies of the night in a campaign setting, then what better way to cure them of their diseases and minister to their spiritual needs.
> 
> ...




My point is that we assume that because the power of healing is at hand, right across the street, that this means it would be affordable. In all of our games, folks die all the time from battles fought in bars. The friends of these combatants don't really always whip out potions of cure light wounds, adfter a bar fight just because they can afford to buy a few.

We assume that the characters involved just "heal" naturally and save the potions for stuff that really matters.

Any chuch administering to the sick should probably want to deal with the root cause of why folks are sick. You don't help the hookers by giving the communion and curing the crotxh rot. You help the hookers (if this is really what you want to do) by eliminating that which causes them to think they need to be on the street. 

Any chuch thats handing out healing to hookers everytime they come down with something is going to find themselves supporting that which they really want to fight against.

Catching thew creeping whim wham is the result of a choice made by said hooker. 

Of course there would also be a middle class in D&D as well THOSE folks aren't out getting stabbed in pubs or having their ginkys sprout legs and crawl away after a wild night at the docks.

The middle class members of your city more than likely are reasonable members of society who are married and avoiding the brothels.

IF NOT and they need to get rid of that moss on their johnson, then the church should charge double. After all, The Middle class and wealthy can absolutly afford it. NOW this is how the soup kitchens get funded. 

I never said healing was for the rich. Healing is for the worthy. Mercenary healing can be for the rich. Everyone else gets the Hospitlars.


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## Rystil Arden (Sep 4, 2007)

AnonymousOne said:
			
		

> This of course is dependent on the nature of the cleric, his associated church, the relationship with the petitioner, etc.
> 
> The way I see it, this is a rather affordable venue.  If the 'church' really wanted to minister to the ladies of the night in a campaign setting, then what better way to cure them of their diseases and minister to their spiritual needs.
> 
> ...



 Heck, go one step further--what about disease immunity?  Imagine an elite group of courtesans made up of Paladins.  The classiest and most expensive to be sure, and if you try to mistreat the girls, they'll break your arm, but since htey are immune to disease, safety from STDs can be assured.  And then of course, all the funds are used to help poor and orphaned girls make livelihoods for themselves, the kind who might otherwise be victimised as prostitutes in the worst and most exploitative kinds of brothels.


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## Samnell (Sep 4, 2007)

Rystil Arden said:
			
		

> Heck, go one step further--what about disease immunity?  Imagine an elite group of courtesans made up of Paladins.




I love your brain with every part of my body.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 4, 2007)

I don't know if you could do _that_ with Paladins...but you definitely could with devotees of Aphrodite and similar gods & goddesses.


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## jdrakeh (Sep 4, 2007)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> I don't know if you could do _that_ with Paladins...but you definitely could with devotees of Aphrodite and similar gods & goddesses.




I think that Paladins of Aphrodite could also be courtesans if you adhere to the _explicit_ RAW and ignore the _implied_ Christian-leanings of said class.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 4, 2007)

You're probably right on the Paladins of Aphrodite...assuming they define prostitution as "Good" and not "Neutral."

But for most other faiths, whether they could or not depends on things like the meaning of acting honorably (some might not view prostitution as an honorable profession) or lawful (it could violate the laws of certain regions).


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## Rystil Arden (Sep 4, 2007)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> You're probably right on the Paladins of Aphrodite...assuming they define prostitution as "Good" and not "Neutral."
> 
> But for most other faiths, whether they could or not depends on things like the meaning of acting honorably (some might not view prostitution as an honorable profession) or lawful (it could violate the laws of certain regions).



 Definitely not where prostitution was illegal and shady business, indeed!  With Paladins, it would be done with honour and totally aboveboard--bringing pleasure and happiness to others for a donation.

But if we look at pre-Christian religions, temple prostitutes were common and considered extremely holy and sacred in many of them.  In some worship of the Sumerian Inanna, the copulation between the high priestess and the king was seen as symbolic of the goddess's protection and love of the city-state.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 4, 2007)

> But if we look at pre-Christian religions, temple prostitutes were common and considered extremely holy and sacred in many of them. In some worship of the Sumerian Inanna, the copulation between the high priestess and the king was seen as symbolic of the goddess's protection and love of the city-state.




No disagreement, but there is still something somewhat unseemly about linking sexuality with the capacity for out and out violence- Paladins are _somewhat_ more inherently warlike than Priests.

So, I'd still be more inclined (so to speak) to believe in priestly prostitutes than paladin panderers.


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## Rystil Arden (Sep 4, 2007)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> No disagreement, but there is still something somewhat unseemly about linking sexuality with the capacity for out and out violence- Paladins are _somewhat_ more inherently warlike than Priests.
> 
> So, I'd still be more inclined (so to speak) to believe in priestly prostitutes than paladin panderers.



 If we're talking Inanna in particular (since I tossed her name before), she was actually the goddess of both love/fertility/pleasure _and_ war in her pantheon, so it would be pretty much perfect, I think.  

Well, I can imagine that when these courtesan paladins went to war with the boys, troop morale would be notably higher than in most armies


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## DarkKestral (Sep 4, 2007)

Also there was Inanna. The first goddess of sex we see in literature... and the first goddess of war too. She was also noted for sleeping around.

So.. for her, Paladin temple prostitutes would be... fairly likely. Especially as she wasn't a mother goddess.. and was noted for being very prone to deciding to go to war against her lovers. So they might be perfectly willing to sleep with the enemy...

There are also a few other notable examples of that combo.


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## Rystil Arden (Sep 4, 2007)

DarkKestral said:
			
		

> Also there was Inanna. The first goddess of sex we see in literature... and the first goddess of war too. She was also noted for sleeping around.
> 
> So.. for her, Paladin temple prostitutes would be... fairly likely. Especially as she wasn't a mother goddess.. and was noted for being very prone to deciding to go to war against her lovers. So they might be perfectly willing to sleep with the enemy...
> 
> There are also a few other notable examples of that combo.


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## DarkKestral (Sep 4, 2007)

Rystil Arden said:
			
		

>




Aye. I noticed that you and Danny both mentioned Inanna just after posting. Either way, sex and violence have tended to go together in some cultures. I don't really consider Greek god(desse)s to be good examples, because ALL of them are sex god(desse)s so it's not really fair, but it is another case.

Well, except for Athena and Artemis... who are the most martial of the female deities which makes that bit kinda funny..


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## Ahnehnois (Sep 4, 2007)

Currently, my cleric has to deal with a suicidal rape victim, with an Eye of Fear and Flame having forced someone to do this to her.

OTOH, a while back a halfling rogue of mine had a brief tryst with another halfling (off camera). The entire point of the campaign was that it was getting harder to have babies, and yet she came back a little while later, pregnant. Tramp. If I ever found out whose kid that was, my character would've roughed him up.

Really though, I don't have much sexuality in my games, largely because there aren't many female characters.


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## Kesh (Sep 4, 2007)

Scurvy_Platypus said:
			
		

> "Kissik likes the ladies. He's going to a brothel, and his requirement is 1) Female, 2)Doesn't hate Kobolds, and 3) Likes to eat chicken."




This should go into your .sig, as I nearly died laughing from reading it.


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## Clavis (Sep 4, 2007)

In one of my old campaigns, the characters invented an "erection" spell. Funny thing is, what started out as a somewhat puerile joke actually became a potent combat tactic! Initially the players simply used the spell to ensure good times at the local brothel, but then they realized how debilitating a uncontrollable erection would be to a man fighting in armor.

Sex was always important in my games. In fact, my campaigns tend to be saturated with sex and graphic violence. I found that my male players would role-play better and get more involved with the story if they knew that there was going to be plenty of naked whores and shattered skulls later. By making the sex and violence GRAPHIC, the players quickly got their fill of it, and would actually play out such things as romances and intrigue. 

And yes, I've tended to have female players in the mix too. As long as I NEVER played out rapes (and made it clear to the male players that it would NEVER happen while I DM'ed), and had plenty of role-playing opportunities, my female players were all on board. Many of them LIKED the sex and violence. Of course, the fact that most of my female friends have been polyamorous, bisexual, and/or involved in the goth/punk/metal scenes probably helped...


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## s.j. bagley (Sep 4, 2007)

the majority of pcs that i have played have been openly queer, but it hasn't usually been much of an issue in game.
except for one time when a pc of mine had a long romantic history with a recurring villain, and that history added depth to the encounters with the villain and definitely effected the way the encounters ran.


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## Kahuna Burger (Sep 4, 2007)

Rystil Arden said:
			
		

> If we're talking Inanna in particular (since I tossed her name before), she was actually the goddess of both love/fertility/pleasure _and_ war in her pantheon, so it would be pretty much perfect, I think.
> 
> Well, I can imagine that when these courtesan paladins went to war with the boys, troop morale would be notably higher than in most armies



I've considered for a while a "King's Companion" type PrC which took on a concubine role in the court - serving drinks, dancing, playing music - until of course anything threatened the king.    An entire order of escort/bodyguards could grow out of it eventually. It was a monk/rogue based class in my idea, but then monks get immunity to disease too.   

As for the availability of Remove Disease... Clerics in D&D can be of any religion and any allignment. The idea of a universal moralizing stance which considers prostitution of any stripe and those who frequent them not "worthy" is intensely parochial when looking at the rules and default list of deities, but of course one can make whatever decisions they want for their gameworld.


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## Peni Griffin (Sep 4, 2007)

For the record, syphilis is not the only STD and Europe had plenty of them before 1492. 

Different temples, governments, and societies will handle cure disease differently just as they will define appropriate behavior differently.  For example, in medieval Europe, the charge of rape had a number of definitions, one of which was marrying an adult woman against the will of her father - even if the woman in question went to tremendous lengths to achieve this marriage.  In Victorian England, such an event would have been defined as an elopement and it would have been a scandal to be settled out of court, if possible.  In modern England, such an event would be a purely personal matter, though some neighborhoods or churches might still regard it as a scandal.  It's up to the DM to decide what mores are appropriate to his campaign and to give the players a heads-up about what they are.

The same DM who gave us the kinky villains, and who is playing the romantic lead in the RHOD soap opera previously described, once had our party of innocent kids from an isolated village charmed and date-raped by a bunch of satyrs.  We woke up sore and hungover the next morning and dragged ourselves out of the woods as fast as we could.  Soon all the female party members found they were pregnant (100% impregnation rate struck me as a bit extreme, but whatever - he said he'd rolled it).  This might have been a conflict for my character, but this DM also throws massive complex crises at us and we were in a period of being forced to run off in all directions - there was simply too little time and too much risk involved to run around pregnant with babies we hadn't even volunteered for, so we looked for medicinal herbs with explicit warnings against using them when pregnant, opting to take the quick, intense risk of abortion rather than the prolonged, chronic risk of pregnancy.  Obviously, this development could have been a campaign-buster had he misjudged our willingness to deal with such matters in-game.

A more immediate result came in the first town we came to. None of us had ever been in a town of more than 100 people before, and my character went wandering off by herself exploring and wound up in the bad part of town confronted by a gang of teenage male thugs with shivs.  She had a short sword and a dagger and two-weapon fighting, but was still low-level.  My first intention was to fight them off with the flats of the blades, but there were seven of them and I realized, as my initiative came up, that Trudy was actually frightened and that, after the satyrs, I didn't in my heart trust the DM not to let the situation turn into a gang-rape if she didn't dominate the fight right from the start.  So she used the edges, and she killed one in the first round.  The thugs evaporated, as did the witnesses, and the local law-enforcement type who had been shadowing her (we were not welcome, though we didn't know it - the BBEG had influence in town) arrested her for murder.  This had a profound effect on the way the campaign proceeded and the character arcs, not only of my character, but of the entire party.

The fact that I suddenly didn't trust the DM is an indication of just how important it is to handle these matters carefully.  This whole campaign could have gone sour, and our friendship with it, had I been a different person.


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## AnonymousOne (Sep 4, 2007)

Rystil Arden said:
			
		

> the kind who might otherwise be victimised as prostitutes in the worst and most exploitative kinds of brothels.




In a system of choice, there is no exploitation.  Exploitation requires coercion.   

All in all I find this a bit fascinating.  This also brings up another thought.  There was a thread on ENworld a few months ago titled something "Would you allow this paladin?"  

Said paladin woke up in a brothel next to two women, acted as an enforcer for the madam if the clientèle got rough, healed them, and he paid them well.  

I see no caveat in D&D that prostitution is inherently immoral.  Hell even the LG gods like Moradin might encourage bigamy and other such things.  Keep in mind that many MANY governments might also make prostitution legal for one very important reason:  They can tax the brothels.  So assuming that the brothel wasn't a cult of Demon worshipers, a Paladin could very well frequent one.


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## Mokona (Sep 4, 2007)

While my games have had realistic events and people (including a house of ill repute), I've never focused on the off-camera elements such as the "mature" parts.

I guess I just try to avoid playing like this *Wizards of the Coast* employee.  _(For the record I believe that Mark Rosewater, Head Designer of *Magic: The Gathering* R&D, lived in L.A. after college which means he was clearly an adult when this story takes place.)_



			
				Mark Rosewater said:
			
		

> http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr294a
> The fact that for once I was supposedly going to be the solution rather than a problem made everyone happy. So we finally get to the castle. Think Sleeping Beauty's castle except a little more dangerous with more dragons. Because my character is the key to the problem in the castle, my team had to keep my alive. Which wasn't easy, as a blind low-level wizard is a bit of a liability. But eventually we make it into the castle where we meet the princess.
> 
> She was human. And we discover that the prophecy says that her heir will bring an end to the great evil that has enslaved their land. The problem is that the wizard that was causing this problem had made all the men of the land sterile. Now remember, I was the only human in the group. And I was male. I remember turning to Charles and saying, "So for the first time ever in the history of this party I am being called upon to save the day, and all that's being asked of me is to sleep with a princess?"
> ...


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## Pagan priest (Sep 9, 2007)

Dread October said:
			
		

> My point is that we assume that because the power of healing is at hand, right across the street, that this means it would be affordable. In all of our games, folks die all the time from battles fought in bars. The friends of these combatants don't really always whip out potions of cure light wounds, adfter a bar fight just because they can afford to buy a few.



If a person won't pop a couple of gold pieces to save a life, how can you call them a friend?


			
				Dread October said:
			
		

> We assume that the characters involved just "heal" naturally and save the potions for stuff that really matters.
> 
> Any chuch administering to the sick should probably want to deal with the root cause of why folks are sick. You don't help the hookers by giving the communion and curing the crotxh rot. You help the hookers (if this is really what you want to do) by eliminating that which causes them to think they need to be on the street.
> 
> Any chuch thats handing out healing to hookers everytime they come down with something is going to find themselves supporting that which they really want to fight against.



As others have mentioned, you are assuming that there is a moral problem with having prostitution.


			
				Dread October said:
			
		

> Catching thew creeping whim wham is the result of a choice made by said hooker.
> 
> Of course there would also be a middle class in D&D as well THOSE folks aren't out getting stabbed in pubs or having their ginkys sprout legs and crawl away after a wild night at the docks.
> 
> The middle class members of your city more than likely are reasonable members of society who are married and avoiding the brothels.



Unless prostitution is a normal part of life.  Wife have her friend visiting this week?  Hit the brothel at lunch.


			
				Dread October said:
			
		

> IF NOT and they need to get rid of that moss on their johnson, then the church should charge double. After all, The Middle class and wealthy can absolutly afford it. NOW this is how the soup kitchens get funded.
> 
> I never said healing was for the rich. Healing is for the worthy. Mercenary healing can be for the rich. Everyone else gets the Hospitlars.



In my campaign world, there is a Goddess of love and beauty, who serves as the patroness of prostitutes.  Certainly no thought of charging double there.  The Goddess that is the head of the pantheon has temple prostitutes.  For most people, it is with a temple prostitute that they have their first sexual enounter: someone trained to teach others how to help your partner have a good time, and also able to teach about other aspects of sexuality.


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## jdrakeh (Sep 9, 2007)

Wow! This thread has certainly spawned a great deal of thoughtful discussion and good ideas. Thanks to everybody who has shared their thoughts thus far


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## The Grumpy Celt (Sep 9, 2007)

I wonder if there will be a 4E of the Book of Elf Fannies. I mean, the Book of Erotic Fantasy. For that matter, would you be interested in such a book?


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## jdrakeh (Sep 9, 2007)

The Grumpy Celt said:
			
		

> For that matter, would you be interested in such a book?




Honestly. No. For every paragraph of serious, insightful, examination that the BoEF contained, it had ten pages of purile juvenile humor. I think that one such book for D&D of _any_ edition is enough to last a lifetime. That said, I _would_ be interested in a purely serious 'National Geographic' treatment of sex and sexuality in fantasy (i.e., a book written like an anthropological study) presented in culture books for the assumed default races of D&D (4e, I guess).


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## Nyaricus (Sep 9, 2007)

Scurvy_Platypus said:
			
		

> "Kissik likes the ladies. He's going to a brothel, and his requirement is 1) Female, 2) Doesn't hate Kobolds, and 3) Likes to eat chicken."



     

that's so sigged


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## Korgoth (Sep 9, 2007)

I personally find some of the stuff in this thread troubling... but I'd like to ask a question which I'm going to try to put as delicately as possible.  I'm going to try to frame the question in such a way that people can respond in the negative without having to flameout or get Modded.

To what extent do people tie sexual behavior to alignment?  I ask because I see lots of discussion of brothels and other sexual behavior which according to some bodies of moral teaching (for example Christianity or Natural Law Theory) are not compatible with what we'd call in D&D terms "Good alignment".

It appears that many folks are inclined to say that sexual behavior is morally neutral unless it is outright violent (that is, the behavior is forced upon an unwilling recipient).  It occurs to me that one might classify this as a "liberal" or perhaps "late/post modern" view of sexual activity.  In some cultures relevant to fantasy gaming, such as medieval Europe or the ancient Hebrews, sexual activity was considered to be very closely tied with a person's moral status, and in fact some bodies of moral teaching to this very day (such as the inheritors of those named examples) still consider one's moral status as greatly impacted by choices in sexual behavior.

If I might press it a bit further, perhaps in many campaigns one might go so far as to say that attitudes about sexuality are "anachronistically liberal".  I'm not offering that as a criticism, only pointing it out in the vein of making something that may or may not be a conscious campaign design choice evident (and explaining what's behind my question "to what extent do you tie sexual behavior to alignment?").


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## Rystil Arden (Sep 9, 2007)

> If I might press it a bit further, perhaps in many campaigns one might go so far as to say that attitudes about sexuality are "anachronistically liberal".




I disagree--the Sumerians came before any of the religions you mention, for instance, and there were plenty of other cultures with similar view.  It isn't based on 'anachronism' so much as it is based on culture.  I would say it requires a great deal of cultural narrowness, historically, to make such a claim.


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## Korgoth (Sep 9, 2007)

Rystil Arden said:
			
		

> I disagree--the Sumerians came before any of the religions you mention, for instance, and there were plenty of other cultures with similar view.  It isn't based on 'anachronism' so much as it is based on culture.  I would say it requires a great deal of cultural narrowness, historically, to make such a claim.




That's a fair point.  Perhaps part of what drives my thinking is the level to which most fantasy worlds are, cosmetically at least, married to "Western civilization".


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## Rystil Arden (Sep 9, 2007)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> That's a fair point.  Perhaps part of what drives my thinking is the level to which most fantasy worlds are, cosmetically at least, married to "Western civilization".



 Well, you'll have to admit that we do have other elements more common to either modern or non-Western cultures present in many D&D settings (gender equality for one), so I wouldn't think it would be too surprising.  That said, if you were my GM and you wanted to run a game with attitudes on relationships and sex that mirrored post 12th-Century reforms Europe's stance (check out pre 12th-century reforms Europe some time--there were a lot of things you probably associate with Christianity that they totally didn't enforce back then, like polygamy and priests with wives), that would be cool with me.  It could be quite awesome.  I just wouldn't expect it as the default.


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## Rabelais (Sep 9, 2007)

Philotomy Jurament said:
			
		

> I debated about putting a smiley on it, just in case anyone missed the obvious, but then I thought, "why beat on the obvious; that's kinda like self-flagellation."  (No comments from the peanut gallery about master debaters, please...that one's so old even I wouldn't whip it out...)





You win the thread sir...

cun·ning      /ˈkʌnɪŋ/ –noun 1. skill employed in a shrewd or sly manner, as in deceiving; craftiness; guile.  
2. adeptness in performance; dexterity: The weaver's hand lost its cunning.  
–adjective 3. showing or made with ingenuity.  
4. artfully subtle or shrewd; crafty; sly.  
5. Informal. charmingly cute or appealing: a cunning little baby.  
6. Archaic. skillful; expert.  

lin·guist       /ˈlɪŋgwɪst/ –noun 1. a specialist in linguistics.  
2. a person who is skilled in several languages; polyglot.


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## WayneLigon (Sep 9, 2007)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> To what extent do people tie sexual behavior to alignment?




None. Any alignment is equally likely to produce and/or enjoy pretty much any sexual behavior that consenting adults can enjoy.


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## Rabelais (Sep 9, 2007)

I may have missed it, but I'm pretty sure that nobody's mentioned the Kushiel's Legacy  series.  I've read the first trilogy, and part 1 of the second.  The fantasy/romance is very sexual in nature.  Overall the setting has intertwined some pretty torrid romance elements with High Divine/Low Arcane magic Epic Fantasy.  It would have to be the RIGHT group, but that world would make a compelling campaign setting.

Has anybody else noticed that the Romance and Science Fiction aisles are back to back in Barnes and Noble?  Maybe it's just me, but there's no reason that a well done campaign would have significant Romance elements in it.  It's been a long time since I've gamed with just males in the party.  Single sex campaigns would probably decrease the amount of romanticism in a game.  With both men and women in a game, I've noticed that it comes up more often.

As far as the mechanics?  Like all other roleplaying, it's best when done without a great deal of dice rolling.


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## Pagan priest (Sep 9, 2007)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> ...
> To what extent do people tie sexual behavior to alignment?  I ask because I see lots of discussion of brothels and other sexual behavior which according to some bodies of moral teaching (for example Christianity or Natural Law Theory) are not compatible with what we'd call in D&D terms "Good alignment".
> ...



I hold that sex, and pleasure in general are a good thing, albeit not in the alignment sense of the word.  However, engaging in acts that share pleasure in a consensual manner does tend toward a Good alignment.  Going back to the Biblical teachings, one reason for the prohibition against certain sex acts (such as homosexuality) was a way to separate the tribes of Israel from the surrounding folks.  Other prohibitions are based on the need to determine paternity.  

The value of virginity in a prospective bride is based on perceived value, and thus ties into the concept of woman as property.  Since women in D&D are generally considered to have all the same rights and privileges as men, this last is rather a bit of a problem.

Outside of the pleasure aspects of sex are the procreative aspects, and that is firmly within the Good alignment... unless you have an area that suffers a problem with over population.

On top of all of this, you also have the effects of race as well.  There is no reason to suppose that elves or dwarves feel the same about such matters as humans do.


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## Nifft (Sep 10, 2007)

Bondage is Lawful.
Infidelity is Chaotic.

- - -

IMC, sex happens off camera. I'd like the PCs to be more involved with romance (because it's a great plot device), but I don't feel the urge to RP that stuff much.

Cheers, -- N


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## Peni Griffin (Sep 10, 2007)

In the RHOD game with all the soap opera, one of my players wrote his character background as the result of a teen pregnancy.  His mother was a little wild, and realized when he was about 8 that the people she was hanging out with were a bad influence on him, so she parked him on her brother.  Ten years later, she's finally settled down, grown a wisdom point, and writes to her son asking him to come to her wedding.

This is their first meeting (bluebooked - I think it's important to bluebook as much one-on-one stuff as you can, so nobody's sitting around twiddling their thumbs on game day):
By the time you can see the roof of a large building with an exterior 
ampitheater below, which he points out as your destination, you hear a voice 
cry:  "Gerik?"  Hurrying uphill toward you, pushing her way through the 
crowd, dodging traffic, comes a blonde, blue-eyed, 17 CH woman with a build 
like Jayne Mansfield.  She is dressed simply, but well, in an outfit that 
brings out her eyes, and she has roses in her hair.  Ivellio smiles for the 
first time, and waves at her.  She breaks into a run, barrels into Gerik, 
and hugs him tight.  "Oh, I'd know you anywhere!  You've gotten so tall - 
and so handsome!  I didn't realize you'd be handsome!"  She's a couple of 
inches shorter than Gerik, and glowingly happy, though a little out of 
breath.

We play out the meeting, which happens in front of some of Gerik's friends, one of whom is a little younger than he is, and another of whom is a young female paladin with a crush on him.

Male friend:  Dude, your mom is hot!
Gerik:  Shut up!  That's my mom!
Female friend:  I'll hold him down while you thump him if you like.  I think your mom is very nice.

Now, I chose Jayne Mansfield because I was remembering her as the woman in the Cross-your-heart bra commercials (We full-figure girls have a problem).  This is actually Jayne Russell.  So I'm not very good at names.  Anyway, the player is young and the name didn't even ring any bells, so he googled her.  If you try this, you'll see why his response was "Dude!  Gerik's mom is hot!"

I had briefly considered, but discarded as too cruel and too complicated, pulling a similar stunt, only with his future stepsister, but that would have been pushing it.


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## Mardoc Redcloak (Sep 10, 2007)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> To what extent do people tie sexual behavior to alignment? I ask because I see lots of discussion of brothels and other sexual behavior which according to some bodies of moral teaching (for example Christianity or Natural Law Theory) are not compatible with what we'd call in D&D terms "Good alignment".




I don't tie sexual behavior to alignment by either of those standards.



> It appears that many folks are inclined to say that sexual behavior is morally neutral unless it is outright violent (that is, the behavior is forced upon an unwilling recipient).




I would broaden this somewhat. Behavior can be in a sense "forced upon an unwilling recipient" without it being "outright violent", and in accordance with this principle at least in some cases where "consent" can be claimed (prostitution being one prominent case) there remain serious moral problems.

But, yes, that is the essence.



> It occurs to me that one might classify this as a "liberal" or perhaps "late/post modern" view of sexual activity.  In some cultures relevant to fantasy gaming, such as medieval Europe or the ancient Hebrews, sexual activity was considered to be very closely tied with a person's moral status, and in fact some bodies of moral teaching to this very day (such as the inheritors of those named examples) still consider one's moral status as greatly impacted by choices in sexual behavior.
> 
> If I might press it a bit further, perhaps in many campaigns one might go so far as to say that attitudes about sexuality are "anachronistically liberal".




The second part does not follow from the first, even if we accept your cultural analysis without question (and there is room for dissent there as well.) An action can be morally good or neutral even if society disapproves of it, and an action can be morally evil even if society encourages it. Even if one doubts this principle in the real world, at least as far as the "cosmological" notions of good and evil existing in D&D, it holds--a solar need not check the specific cultural predilections of an area before recognizing what is good and what is evil.

It is perfectly possible, therefore, to portray a society that has a strong opposition to (say) homosexuality while still having same-sex relations not count as immoral.

Of course, especially in the religious context such a contradiction might be more difficult to maintain in a fantasy world, since direct communication with good-aligned outsiders and the various "detect" spells make objective moral standards somewhat more accessible than they are in the real world... but in that case we would have good reason to be anachronistic.


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## Trench (Sep 11, 2007)

First off, kudos to Korgoth for broaching the subject with respect and tact. I don't think there's any reason to scrub that. And as someone who's vast majority of close friends are gay and father is transgendered, it's appreciated.

Having said that, I don't think the sexual acts themselves are the moral barometer when it comes to alignment. Where alignment, I think, DOES come into play is perhaps how one deals with their sexuality. This alignment works in tandem with whatever societal norms of the campaign are.

For instance, a CN homosexual man living in a less than sympathetic campaign would be quite the rebellious libertine. Whereas a LN homosexual man would most likely be one of those terribly unfortunate closeted individuals that struggle with themselves on a daily basis.


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## Samnell (Sep 11, 2007)

> To what extent do people tie sexual behavior to alignment? I ask because I see lots of discussion of brothels and other sexual behavior which according to some bodies of moral teaching (for example Christianity or Natural Law Theory) are not compatible with what we'd call in D&D terms "Good alignment".




Those bodies of moral teaching do not exist in my games, even when monotheisms do. So their opinions on the matter are moot to my homebrew. My games are often heavily informed by real-world history, but they are not recreations thereof. This is both a personal preference of mine (I am an adherent of neither of the named bodies of teaching.) and a good modus vivendi for a religiously and politically diverse group to enjoy games together.

As a general issue, consent is the only place where sex is other than morally neutral. ...though now that I've said this I had a neat idea about how mating with celestials to deliberately produce half-celestial offspring might be a moral good. Out of the box, half-celestials are always Good. Hm...


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## The Grumpy Celt (Sep 11, 2007)

I usually game with hairy, farting men. So talk of sex happens, but rarely in-game or in what could be called a tasteful manner.



			
				jdrakeh said:
			
		

> For every paragraph of serious, insightful, examination that the BoEF contained, it had ten pages of purile juvenile humor.




I disagree - I think it warrents a 4E treatment, sooner or later and that it was pretty good.



			
				Nifft said:
			
		

> Bondage is Lawful.
> Infidelity is Chaotic.




What about spanking?


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## Nifft (Sep 11, 2007)

The Grumpy Celt said:
			
		

> What about spanking?



 Sorry, none for hairy, farting men.

 -- N


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## Pagan priest (Sep 11, 2007)

Mardoc Redcloak said:
			
		

> I would broaden this somewhat. Behavior can be in a sense "forced upon an unwilling recipient" without it being "outright violent", and in accordance with this principle at least in some cases where "consent" can be claimed (prostitution being one prominent case) there remain serious moral problems.




Wait, is there consent given, or not.  While I can agree that coersion into prostitution is certainly a possibility, I feel that in a realm of magic, it is much less likely to occur.  With plenty of clerics and paladins sticking their noses into every pimp's business, any person not there willingly would get rescued in short order.  Of course, in a predominately evil society, the issue of coersion would be irrelavant to those with any sort of power within said society.

If a person is consenting, _freely_ consenting, then why would prostitution be a moral problem?  Or rather, why would it be any _more_ of a moral problem than any other form of sex outside wedlock?

In general, I see wedlock and fidelity in general as issues of law/chaos rather than good/evil.  Chastity until marriage is again more of a L/C issue.  Coersion, duress or outright force, are issues of good/evil.

Once you start by looking at sexual matters in this manner, the rest falls neatly into place, and you don't have to sit and think out every little variation on human (or humanoid) behavior.  Wild orgies?  Chaotic.  Sado-masochism?  *IF* fully consensual (_informed _ consent) then I would consider it morally neutral.  Polygamy?  Ethically neutral.  Married and cheating?  Chaotic.  For this, I would consider something to be cheating if any erson involved does not know and consent tot he activities of another, so a man with two wives who also sees a mistress is cheating.  Of course, if a man with a wife who says "I'm sick tonight, why don't you go get a prostitute?"  is NOT cheating, under this framework.


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## Korgoth (Sep 11, 2007)

Pagan priest said:
			
		

> Mardoc Redcloak said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Geron Raveneye (Sep 11, 2007)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> I tend to avoid sexual issues when I run games, though.  If PCs did insist on frequenting brothels they may eventually find themselves with a new alignment, however.




As long as they know your alignment interpretations cover that, and how, that's perfectly valid. 

I'd add a few interesting STDs, though.   

Actually, that would be an interesting adventure hook...a character who frequently visits brothels ending up with a STD that can't simply be cured with a wave of a wand because the goddess of chastity (or marital fidelity, or whatever) has put a curse on all brothels that the diseases they transfer are not easily healed, and it requires a little bit of diplomatic tap-dancing with the local temple of that goddess to get the disease removed again.


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## Pagan priest (Sep 11, 2007)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Pagan priest said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Samnell (Sep 11, 2007)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> And so I would put chastity, marital fidelity and fecundity on the side of Good, and promiscuous and sterile behavior on the side of Evil




Why? I have trouble seeing how the amount of consensual sex one has is of any moral dimension whatsoever. Furthermore, your definition of the sexual good is self-refuting. If chastity is good, and you mean by it electing not to have sex, then it is the opposite of fecundity, which does involve sex. Furthermore, chastity sounds like a pretty sterile behavior to me, and fecundity is easily abetted by promiscuity. I might grand marital fidelity as a good, but if all parties involved are agreed I wouldn't see open marriages as a bad.


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## Mardoc Redcloak (Sep 11, 2007)

Pagan priest said:
			
		

> Wait, is there consent given, or not.




It's not so simple, morally.

Someone's drowning in a river. I can save him easily... but I tell him that I will only do so under the condition that he become my slave for life. He agrees.

Is that "consensual"? In a very weak, non-substantive sense, maybe. Is it morally acceptable? Not at all.



> With plenty of clerics and paladins sticking their noses into every pimp's business,




If we assume such a great number of powerful good-aligned individuals involved in regulating brothels, might there not also be powerful evil-aligned hirelings protecting them?



> If a person is consenting, _freely_ consenting, then why would prostitution be a moral problem?




It would not be. But the standard of genuinely _free_ consent requires a whole lot more than is often supposed. There are many means of compulsion that do not fall so neatly into "outright force" (or, in the D&D universe, mind control.)



> In general, I see wedlock and fidelity in general as issues of law/chaos rather than good/evil.




Adhering to traditional, stable, rule-bound, static relationships is lawful.

Non-traditional, fluid relationships (or nothing worthy of the term "relationship") are chaotic.

Cheating requires a certain dishonesty and neglect for the feelings of others, and is thus evil (though obviously not as much as, say, murder.) Of course, in relationships between (or among) chaotic characters what constitutes "cheating" may be quite flexible.



> Married and cheating?  Chaotic.  For this, I would consider something to be cheating if any erson involved does not know and consent tot he activities of another, so a man with two wives who also sees a mistress is cheating.




I can't see a chaotic good character doing that. Indeed, for the chaotic good character I would suppose that the important moral elements in a decent relationship would _precisely_ be knowledge and consent... to whatever arrangement the participants prefer, regardless of social tradition.



> Of course, if a man with a wife who says "I'm sick tonight, why don't you go get a prostitute?"  is NOT cheating, under this framework.




No, but certainly, insofar as "traditional" relationships prohibit sexual contacts with non-participants, this is chaotic behavior.


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## Korgoth (Sep 11, 2007)

Pagan priest said:
			
		

> Okay, why?  Not trying to be sarcastic or anything, but why do you think that promiscuity is in any way a "not good" behaviour?  You mentioned natural law, but how does that apply here?  I am aware that numersous real world religions consider casual sex un-good, but how does that translate into D&D, when  (as I mentioned) so much of that really seems to translate to the lawful/chaos axis?




OK, I'll take a stab at it.  I'll try to frame it in a way such that it can be abstracted from specifically Hebraic affiliations.

Anything attains its excellence insofar as it imitates the eternal (and if it is already immortal, then insofar as it imitates the most purely eternal).  This is the basis for the cycle of life, evolution and weal.  Each different kind of thing is relatively more or less capable of such imitation (a dog moreso than a daisy, etc.). The basic proper orientation of life (according to the view I am representing to you) is to preserve and produce life.  The basic mechanism for the production of life is sexual procreation.

A person does not have to be procreating all the time (time must be spent preserving life, and for human beings there are also other things to be done, as I will explain in a moment).  But when one does engage in sexual activity, it would be contrary to our natural excellence to deliberately frustrate the act's capacity for fecundity.  The end of the act is procreation.  That it can be enjoyed is secondary and a result of the passions (but enjoying it is not bad, when it is done under the right circumstances).  Of course with human beings, who are rational, there's a further and in fact more perfect way of imitating the eternal: contemplation of the truth.  There is even a 'procreative' aspect to this when the truth is conveyed in conversation.  And the highest form of life is the contemplation of the highest truths.  However, this does not mean that the other activities, including sexual procreation, are to be discarded in the pursuit of the most perfect life.  On the contrary, these activities are related to the superior activity of contemplation as subordinates, just like horse grooming, bridle-making and cavalry tactics are subordinates of generalship (though each and every subordinate activity is not necessary to produce the superior; however, when a subordinate activity is undertaken it must be undertaken in a rational way or else it will undermine the imitation of the purely eternal).

See especially the speech of Socrates (really, of Diotima) in Plato's Symposium, and Aristotle's books Physics (especially Book Two), On the Soul and Nicomachean Ethics.  The Stoics are also helpful in this regard.

This is not an issue of Law and Chaos in my view because those (in the 9-part system) are methodologies.  A Good character who is strict, disciplined and a disciplinarian is Lawful; a Good character who is easygoing, undisciplined and "mushy" is Chaotic.  Lawful tries to instill goodness with a ruler to the knuckles and a rigorous regimen; Chaotic tries to instill the same morality with group hugs and homemade cookies.  Lawful tries to bring about change by "working within the system"; Chaotic tries to bring about change by "bucking the system".

I should note that as primarily a Classic and OD&D guy, I tend toward the 3-part alignment system, which has no alignments for "Good" or "Evil" (nothing codified, anyway).

Now to consider the specific issues of chastity and promiscuity: I consider chastity good because it is fully in accord with the rational (procreative) nature of the sexual act.  Nothing says that you have to procreate, though you are bound to imitate the eternal in some way, so if you cannot or will not do so sexually then you ought to channel that energy into the rational form of imitation, i.e. contemplation and rational activity; this shows how abstinence can actually fuel your pursuit of the pure as a subordinate act.  Now, what I would say about sterile promiscuity is surely obvious.  But what about fecund promiscuity?  I consider this contrary to reason because it erodes the family life, confuses children, and presents a barrier to the complete gift of spouse to spouse... that is, a spouse is required to give himself or herself over to his or her spouse in a unique and central way which is prevented if sexual activity were being practiced outside of the marital dyad.


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## Samnell (Sep 11, 2007)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> Anything attains its excellence insofar as it imitates the eternal (and if it is already immortal, then insofar as it imitates the most purely eternal).




Why is that? 

I'm sorry. That's a bad response. It sounds like a first grader being irritating. But I can't come up with much else that wouldn't dive right into religion or politics. Guess that's it for me here. I do appreciate that you were willing to respond, though.


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## phindar (Sep 11, 2007)

I think being free with one's affection is Good, and repression is Evil.  (Well, I don't get into the whole GvE that much, but it seems like sexual repression is more common in serial killers than promiscuity.)  

It seems like putting Alignment restrictions on morality that would differ from religion to religion would be somewhat problematic.  Tyr might frown on sex outside of wedlock, but Sune might encourage it.  Sexual attitudes seem to be more defined by cultural traditions than anything else.


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## Pagan priest (Sep 15, 2007)

Korgoth said:
			
		

> OK, I'll take a stab at it.  I'll try to frame it in a way such that it can be abstracted from specifically Hebraic affiliations.
> 
> Anything attains its excellence insofar as it imitates the eternal (and if it is already immortal, then insofar as it imitates the most purely eternal).



This is where I start to disagree with you.  For an ephermial being, imitating the eternal is a path to unhappiness.  Or rather, to _blindly_ imitate the eternal is a path to unhappiness.  "Excellence" can only be defined by looking at what something is, and what it can become.  To be eternal is to be static, to be static is to never grow, an ephermial that never grows remains a baby.


			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> This is the basis for the cycle of life, evolution and weal.  Each different kind of thing is relatively more or less capable of such imitation (a dog moreso than a daisy, etc.). The basic proper orientation of life (according to the view I am representing to you) is to preserve and produce life.  The basic mechanism for the production of life is sexual procreation.
> 
> A person does not have to be procreating all the time (time must be spent preserving life, and for human beings there are also other things to be done, as I will explain in a moment).  But when one does engage in sexual activity, it would be contrary to our natural excellence to deliberately frustrate the act's capacity for fecundity.  The end of the act is procreation.  That it can be enjoyed is secondary and a result of the passions (but enjoying it is not bad, when it is done under the right circumstances).



But for humans, and preseumably other humanoids as well, most acts of sex are NOT about procreation, but are about pleasure.  It is hard-wired into the system, thus you are going against that which lies at the very core of human-ness.  Instead, the pleasure is about creating a bond, and in the context of that bond, new life can be nurtured to maturity.


			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> Of course with human beings, who are rational, there's a further and in fact more perfect way of imitating the eternal: contemplation of the truth.  There is even a 'procreative' aspect to this when the truth is conveyed in conversation.  And the highest form of life is the contemplation of the highest truths.



Having a few naval-gazers may be okay for a society, but if you are claiming that it is the highest good, then you are claiming that everyone should be doing that, and society immediately goes into the toilet, because there is o one left to cook supper, or dig a new outhouse.  Running away from reality is never a good thing.


			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> However, this does not mean that the other activities, including sexual procreation, are to be discarded in the pursuit of the most perfect life.  On the contrary, these activities are related to the superior activity of contemplation as subordinates, just like horse grooming, bridle-making and cavalry tactics are subordinates of generalship (though each and every subordinate activity is not necessary to produce the superior; however, when a subordinate activity is undertaken it must be undertaken in a rational way or else it will undermine the imitation of the purely eternal).
> 
> See especially the speech of Socrates (really, of Diotima) in Plato's Symposium, and Aristotle's books Physics (especially Book Two), On the Soul and Nicomachean Ethics.  The Stoics are also helpful in this regard.
> 
> ...



"Good", as per the PHB, relates to altruism,  respect for life and a concern for the dignity of others.  Chastity is not _inherantly_ any of these.


			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> Nothing says that you have to procreate, though you are bound to imitate the eternal in some way, so if you cannot or will not do so sexually then you ought to channel that energy into the rational form of imitation, i.e. contemplation and rational activity; this shows how abstinence can actually fuel your pursuit of the pure as a subordinate act.  Now, what I would say about sterile promiscuity is surely obvious.



Promiscuity at least shares pleasure, and thus fits into good as an altuistic act.


			
				Korgoth said:
			
		

> But what about fecund promiscuity?  I consider this contrary to reason because it erodes the family life, confuses children, and presents a barrier to the complete gift of spouse to spouse... that is, a spouse is required to give himself or herself over to his or her spouse in a unique and central way which is prevented if sexual activity were being practiced outside of the marital dyad.




Fecund promiscuity erodes family life or confuses children only to the extent that there is an expectation of chastity.  In other words, back to the law/chaos point again.  If a child is raised in a society that considers it to be the norm for women to get pregnant by an unknown man while celebrating the coming of Spring, there will be NO confusion... that is what is normal.

You end with the assumption that a marital dyad is harmed by non-fidelity.  What of the marital triad?  What of a marital dyad that accepts that one or both partners will occassionaly seek outside pleasures, but the dyad is a constant amongst these ephermial pleasures?  It is certainly possible to define a marital dyad that allows for a unique and central gift of one spouse to another, while still having room for outside sexual relationships that never touch on this.


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