Real life partners, in-game depravity

[Mike Holmes]

From my Sim POV, I find that hopping into bed is a great time for a die roll! This tends to difuse tension, and remind the players that it's "just a game". People can envision the scene if they like based on the results of the rolls.

And performance counts. Can make a real impact on where things go from there. For a sim game, make sure the players don't know the exact results of their efforts. Allow the normal perception rolls, but leave some doubt if you can. So when their new partner starts avoiding them, they can hope it's because of the partner's fear of the strength of the attraction (and fear themselves that it was a bad performance).  :-)

This is the veiled concept taken to an extreme. It's a good time also to cut to another scene (usually all the characters aren't involved). Then flash back in the morning. Sure it's a little ninteen thirties censorship. But I agree with Contracycle, and find that descriptions of sex in an RPG is usually just uncomfortable, and provides little benefit.

Certainly the plot will proceed whether or not the missionary position was employed?

Mike

[Clay]

I don't think that we're getting quite to the level of implementing the Hayes Code in the games, but I'm a big fan of pullling the veil.  The reasons are twofold:

1. We're likely to draw from our own experiences. I don't want to know how kinky my friends get at home.  I suspect that they feel similarly.

2. We're there for the purpose of telling our story, not creating pornography. If I was interested in creating porn, I'm definitely not inviting the guys over; I'm waiting until the kids are in bed and then Adelfa and I are bolting the door.

How that helps Paul I'm not sure. Violence Future or S"Nora's character may be so arranged that pulling the veil isn't a practical solution.

[Valamir]

to twist the topic abit.  Do opinions on the matter change when the "over-the-line" issue is not about sex but rather violence.

Meaning for those who would prefer to draw the veil on sex, do you similiarly draw the veil on torture, or execution by disembowlment, etc.

For those who don't draw the veil, to discuss a person being skinned alive as openly with the same aplomb.

From my experience I know a player who'd never consider describing a sexual encounter in more detail than "I got laid / fucked".  But that same player doesn't blink an eye when describing ramming a spear up a captured thief's ass and mounting him in the courtyard as a warning to others, complete with graphich descriptions of gore, and regular updates on the state of decay of the corpse.

(as an aside, the GM eventually decided that the player had spent so much effort on this dead halfling, that the halfling came back from the dead as a zombie...)

At any rate.  Is there a distinction on how far we cross the line based on which line we're referring to?

[J B Bell]

I've responded to Valamir's post in this thread, since it's mutating pretty far off the original topic and constitutes an interesting topic in itself.

--JB