Hooray[Sex&Sorcery]

[sirogit]

Yay! I just got this in the mail. I'm at a loss for words. That Death/Madness/Sex thing just blows my mind, I'll have to give it some serious thought on how to use it. The comments on Gender for stories was bold and direct without machiosmo pap you find in some literary discussions.

I love the charts and illustrations, as well as the selections of quotes(Paticularly from Hedwig and Bloody Chambers.). Also, I'd really like to run a game in any of the provided settings.

So, an overall amazing book. Thanks Ron!

[Ron Edwards]

Thank you.

If I were to have asked you, a couple of years ago, about any anecdotes from your play experiences to include in this book as a testimonial, could you have provided any? If so, what?

Best,
Ron

[sirogit]

Well, not sure if its good as example, but it certainly hits me hard.

Game A, is a large(8 people) wholeheartedly dysfunctional group. The roleplaying is crap but its sort of a fun social atomsphere, the fact that the players hardly do anything is a virtue in that it lets people have conversations with each other more. I at the time had the idea that this was The Game, my chance to make roleplaying exciting and relevant and all that other jazz. I have no idea where the heall I came up with that idea.

Anyway, the game doesn't have a shared imaginary space, it has a shared imaginary battle. Where protagonism is distribuited through out-of game politics which is very loosely veiled as in-game game politics, and heavily guided by the number of people on your side.

At this time, I had a strongly developing friendship with a couple at the game. Due to the woman's appreciation of my personality and artistic sensibilities, we all formed a little coup in order to try to wedge the game towards our idea of function.

So, after I play with mostly just this couple, have one paticularly fantastic game, and we have an incredibly strong friendship that exists completely outside of roleplaying. During the course of one game, however, things took a pretty sharp turn. Due to my reputation of being a sexual person, as well as this intense mutual appreciation of the woman and I, the friendship just became very rocky with imagined suspicions, add a few heated words with both him and her and I no longer had any friendship with anybody.  

In our last game together, the air was very hostile, with both of them passively showing distaste for my contribuition to the game.

After throwing out all of my ideas of how the characters were related, somebody suggested that my character and her had a kid along time ago, but now they hate each other and she feels dirty because of the relationship. She said fine and the game went on.

The game was me through my character trying the hardest to get stuff to happen, and her turtling as a resistance to my suggestions, and an intereast to not engage the game. In one scene, someone elses character was throwing out incentives for her to join the adventure, stuff like, money, influence, safety, helping other people, to which she said her character had no intereast in.  

At this time, other people were telling him what to say to convinche her character, and I said "You know how you could convince her? By saying you can make it so she never had sex with me."

It caused a round of extremely genuine nervous laughter from several people. It was definately the most insightfull and painfull moment for me I can think of in roleplaying.

[Ron Edwards]

Yeah. Like that. Exactly like that. (and man, did that sound familiar ...)

Anyone else?

Best,
Ron

[Ben Lehman]

Yeah. Like that. Exactly like that. (and man, did that sound familiar ...)

Anyone else?

BL> Hmm... do I actually want to post about this.  If anyone reads about this that was involved (a couple of them have been around the boards before, I apologize.)

Warning: Timeline is fuzzy.

The Setting: High School.  It's important to note that there are two groups here -- The GM and the girls involved all go to the same high school.  I go to a different school, so despite the fact that I'm good friends with a lot of the group, and that there are other people in the group from my school, I'm an outsider to the sexual circle.

The Cast:

GM -- Referred to as GM.  A good friend of mine for a long time.  Illusionist type GM.  Has had sex with Girl A as part of a polyamorous relationship clusterfuck which, at the start of the game, has not ended, and has long-standing underlying sexual tension with Girl B, who is too much of a good girl for him, but they are very touchy-feely.  A good guy, but a *very* alpha male sort -- big and strong, into martial arts, popular with girls and likes it that way.  Also, is good at doing the "i'm going to show my soft side here" thing with dried roses, etc.  RPG vet, long play-history with all the guys.

Me -- I'm this strange guy from another school.  Because of my own personality, I end up teasing GM a lot -- I can undermine his sexiness because I clearly can't compete with him on a physical level, and don't even try, but I can run circles around him with academics.  RPG vet.  At start of game, does not know Girls A or B.  Also RPG vet.  Long play history with GM and Guy A.

Girl A -- A rather promiscuous, out-going, snappy sort.  Has not played any RPGs prior to this, and is doing it mostly as a social thing.  Has own car.

Girl B -- Has gamed in past, mostly D&D, but is playing this game mostly as an excuse to do something with GM and meet his "strange other friends."  Is very shy and trying to learn not to be.  Occaisionally drives.

Guy A -- A nice, friendly fellow that I have known for a long time.  Home-schooled, insular sort, but also into martial arts (and better than GM), and competes directly with GM for big, strong guy role.  Knows GM through me and another mutual friend.  Does not know Girls A or B.  Long play history with me and one other player.  Has played in the past with GM.

Guy B -- A friend of GM.  Very capable out-doorsy type, and comes into RPGs with that sort of strong militarish / survival attitude.  Very tough guy, but also very shy.  Has dated Girl B in the past, and knows Girl A.  Long play history with GM.  Has guested in my games once or twice.

There are other players, but this is all that I'm going to track right here right now.  Note that none of the guys drive.

The Game: A World of Darkness set superhero game, heavily railroaded with a big emphasis on characters being cool and stylish.  The game and characters are important here because the in-game relationships map oddly to the out-of-game relationships.

The Characters:

GM has an uber-ish NPC that is essentially a strange ghoulish ex-military commander, who is the leader of the paramilitary team that we're on.  He has a long, angsty backstory that we players are never fully privy to *except for me* (more on that later.)  He has vampire super-strength and speed without any drawbacks, and a nasty habit of bossing the players around as a rail-roader.  He is also, deep down, a softy.

My character is a creative genius pianist, but highly autistic, with audio-control powers.  In the pre-game (!) I get implanted with a bane spirit by my father and become a Fomori, which will progressively rob me of my musical talent and make me strong/better/faster.

Girl A's character is generated for her by the GM, and is an ex-military cyborg with lots of contacts and allies.  A *male* cyborg.

Girl B's character is a quiet, nice girl who can turn invisible, and is just caught up in the game's events.  Her father was murdered, I think...

Guy A's character is actually an NPC who he plays from time to time, and is a martial artist with luck and foresight powers.  Over the course of the game, he will repeatedly decline options to have a more formalized character.

Guy B's character is a half-indian born in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, with fire powers.

With exception of Girl A and possibly mine, these characters are all *highly* autobiographical.

The situation:
These games are played *constantly* and often at Girl B's house, and become a major social touchstone for all of us.  Before and after play, we are hanging out together at diners, going to the beach, or hanging at people's houses (usually girl A, because she has the car.)  This hanging out is accompanied by the usual teenage sexual stuff -- a lot of backrubs, cuddling, walks alone together, heavy flirting, swimming naked or in underwear and the like.

Early in game-play, Girl A and GM are involved in a "we're not dating just fucking" thing.  At the second session, Girl A realizes that GM is trying to seduce Girl B (a friend of hers) and, as a way of getting back at him, starts wildly flirting with me, and encourages Girl B to do likewise, largely in the presence of GM.  Being the teenage male that I am, I am lapping this stuff up.

Girl A starts hanging out with me, alone, and tells me things like "Guy B was really just too good for me, so I couldn't stay with him, but I want to marry him" and lots of random dirt about her love triangle with GM.  Coincident with this, we end up hooking up into an "almost dating, but not quite" thing and, I believe, she cuts off GM at the same time.

Coincident with this, I get a massive addition of GM focus in the game.  GM's character tries to get his character to act as a surrogate father figure for both my character and Girl B's (who, you will note, both have absent/evil father figures).  This backfires with Girl B, who just doesn't dig militaristic authority so much, and totally runs off of my character, because I am honestly trying to play someone at genuine emotional disconnect.  Girl A's character and Guy B's character are recruited as military subcommanders.  Guy B eats it up.  It becomes a point of tension for Girl A -- she just doesn't get the military stuff, OOG.  I think that this is intended to by focus, it just backfires.

(As a note here: GM has an absent father and a rather bad relationship with his stepfather.  Girl A has a very bad relationship with father figures, too.  Girl B and I have very parental good relationships, on the other hand.)

The game progresses.  I get increasingly more GM attention, but it is totally centered around hammering my angst angst angst, and coincident with a demon that makes me bigger and stronger while taking away creative ability.  The game becomes split between the GM and players -- the GM who wants to run a paramilitary horror/supers game, and the players who are doing a "fantasy bonding circle" thing.  My character starts being forced to hang out with other characters and, stereotypically, starts to emotionally bond with them, because (I justify) his music is failing him.

Girl A and I do the drifting apart thing.  Girl B, apparently on the recommendation of Girl A, starts dating Guy B.  She may or may not resume sleeping with GM (I was always unclear on this.)

In game, Girl A gets totally cut off from anything, including basic use of her abilities.  She essentially starts a social war against the GM's railroad, which includes a biforcation of the shared imagined space (there is a point where almost all the players dispute a GM ruling and, instead of settling it, we just continue to play as if our opinion is true.)  Guy A takes an increasing role in the game, and sides particularly strongly with Girl A here.

I start, as an in-character project (I'm not a musician OOG) working on songs that describe each other character.  I start with Girl B's character, probably because I am very interested in her out of game at this point.  I roll stupidly well, and this becomes a major point of the game.  The characters get very close, and are having this "I love you, but I don't know how, and we can never say it because, hey, you have an evil demon living inside of you."

Girl B breaks up with Guy B.  It is interesting to note that, throughout their relationship, she and GM keep up their "platonic very close friends" thing.

After the breakup, I get hammered by in-character angst angst angst.  Girl B starts responding to *other* NPCs controlled by GM as father/advisor figures.

Girl B and Guy A get together.

My character leaves the game for a while, for various interesting reasons.  GM complains that he never gets the play games.  I offer to run a story-arc.  In the process, GM gives me a full briefing on all the meta-game secrets.  Other players are considerably jealous.  Guy A refuses to have anything more to do with the game, citing (privately) that he can't stand to see Girl B and GM together in the same room.

I run two sessions.  Vast amounts of player hostility is unleashed on GM as soon as he is a player, combined with me hammering his backstory elements hard.  Game explodes, never to restart, despite many attempts.

In sequel, Girl B breaks up with Guy A in a *very* messy way, and gets together with GM, with whom she has a 2-3 year long relationship which drives me totally nuts.  Guy A and Girl A have a strange fling, which is followed by other crazy shit which I won't get into right now.

I think it is interesting to note that no one who slept together or dated OOG had any in-game anything, and that all the sublimated stuff comes out in the game.  I'm sure there's a bunch of other stuff here you could mine, too.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  I have to disagree with the sex / death / madness triangle.  Particularly, I think that those three things go together quite frequently -- or would you say that a orgiastic death cult is perfectly sane?

[DannyK]

Interesting to hear these stories.  Almost all my early gaming experiences were, since I'm an Army brat, with all-male groups of enlisted soldiers who I knew through the S.C.A., who were all about five years older than me.  

Looking back, there was definitely some weird sexual mojo floating around some of those groups, but it pretty much went over my head.  

(Sidenote:
Maybe that's why the heavy gender issue exploration in Sex & Sorcery didn't speak to me all that much.  On some level I feel that you can game damn well without all that, and people seem to act like enormous buttheads when those issues enter the game.)

[Henri]

Hi Ben.  I don't have my own story, but I just wanted to say that that was a great story.  We have an RPG about soap operas.  Now what we need is a soap opera about teenage gamers (or maybe an RPG about a soap opera about teenage gamers).

Er... I hope you don't think I'm trivializing your experience.  Obviously at the time a lot of it was very painful for you and others involved, especially the part with Girl B and Guy A getting together.  But that's what makes it a good story.  It's really classic teenage gamer angst stuff that I'm sure a lot of us easily identify with.

By the way, World of Darkness super heros?  Aahh, the pain!  What was GM thinking?  I'm guessing this was before Aberrant came out?

[DannyK]

On re-reading my last post, I realize it sounds very snarky, and it's too late to edit it.  Sorry about that, I was just trying to throw my two cents in the ring and didn't mean to sound judgemental.

[Ron Edwards]

Heya,

DannyK, no big deal - as long  as you come clean about the (as you called it) sexual mojo in those all-male groups that went over your tender, naive head at the time. What do you think was going on? Can you think of any examples, especially in which in-game stuff was used as an arena for such interactions or tensions?

Best,
Ron

[Christopher Weeks]

I'm having a hard time figuring out how much detail is best for these kinds of stories.  Is more or less detail more useful?  Hopefully this stuff isn't way off track.

I grew up loitering at various St. Louis area game stores, starting at about the age of ten and running through my teens.  I gamed a lot.  But until I was maybe 13, I was just the newbie kid and I didn't really own the games or the groups.  There were occasionally female participants, but mostly not.  Since we're interested in Sex & Sorcery annecdotes, I'll mostly gloss over those early years.

The earliest sex/game-tension experience that I recall is in the sixth grade.  Our homeroom teacher thought RPGs were keen and allowed us time to play if we didn't want to be doing other kids of work.  (She was a bitch in many other ways, so don't get all googly-eyed.)  Again, it was mostly boys playing, and I was far and away the most knowledgeable -- so it was 'my' game.  This girl, Christina played with us sometimes.  She was willing to behave in an overtly sexual manner toward me -- including allowing me to handle her privates, in exchange for in-game consideration.  (Interestingly, this was all negotiated without direct reference or admission about what we were doing.)  This is really embarrassing now, but I took advantage of the poor lass.  I have no recollection of it impacting the game or the other players' enjoyment, but I'm not sure that I would have noticed.  It certainly seems like it should have had a negative impact.

When I was around seventeen, my friend Steve ran what turned out to be a three-shot Traveller game.  He was the first of us to have a real girlfriend and she was playing.  We were a tight-knit group of young men -- friends in and out of gaming, but mostly focussed on gaming and the common ancillary interests like comics and SF.  Melanie was a mousy, smart, 'good,' scholarly, pseudo-rich kid.  Melanie's character was a combat god, and a characature of a macho man.  Using one of the suppliments, maybe High Guard, they, in secrecy (unlike the rest of us) generated a character that would have taken a simply incredible series of rolls.  Incredible.  Everyone was a little skeptical.  She enjoyed being the center of attention.  Despite this, the game was very good.  The sessions were planned to be seperated by about a month apart and we were sending 'in-game' communiques by USPS, which was a completely new idea to us.  In the end, there was too much social pressure on the various relationships to permit Melanie to lead this group of veteran gamers and She ordered Steve to terminate the game.

Within six months or so of that last annecdote, a closetted homosexual man moved into our area and started running a game of his own design that caught my group's fancy.  We played this game (and TMNT) almost exclusively for the next couple years.  The man, Jim, was about ten years older than me (and the group ranged from one year older than me to three years younger) and was in part using the game to attract younger men/boys that he was attracted to.  But it wasn't some awful victimization thing -- I mean, if I could run a game that would attract hot seventeen year old girls, I'd be all over it.  (Sadly, I'd probably get as much ass out of it as he did; none.)  Over the course of the first six months, he assessed which of us were safe and in private conversations, revealed his orientation (to two of us).  I think knowing, and being somewhat uncomfortable with homosexuality, changed things.  There was interesting subtext among male-female in-game character relations and tension when characters who we suspected of being guys the GM was hot for made appearances as important NPCs.  But it was a good game.  In the end, after Jim moved back to Chicagoland, it became common knowledge that he was gay.  He'd been right not to reveal it to the others -- there was open hostility.

I ended up moving away from my parents house when I was nineteen, and into Jim's place in Chicagoland.  It was quite a transition.  I was then gaming with his group of friends instead of mine.  They all knew he was gay.  They were all highschool gamer-friends.  They all had history.  And they were mostly eight years older than me.  This group used sexual teasing liberally.  It was also a mixed sex group.  There were two long-time gamer women in the group and I guess there had been others in the past.  And there were deep, long-standing crushes.  Unravelling the layers of tension and historical relationships was really interesting.  Watching the results of a drunken revel -- two of them screwing on the livingroom floor -- finally, finally caving in to a ten-year old mutual attraction (what a waste!) and how they related to each other and we onlookers afterward was interesting.  The two of them wouldn't play in a game together anymore, but both were cheerful about admitting that they just got carried away.  My own sexual encounter with one of them, seemed to result in her leaving the group while I was around (for another year and a half before I moved to go to school) and I was never sure why, or what happened.  And through all of this, the primary GM was Jim, the homosexual who was, I'm pretty sure, attracted to all the guys in the group, though they were all straight, and was kind of sad.  He eventually decided that finding sexual partner situations was more important than the game.

Once in college, where both sex and games were free and easy, crossover situations were more common.  I was in a couple of different game groups.  One was male grognards and the other was college students.

In the first of those groups, reference to women and dating and stuff, in a real-world sense was almost studiously avoided.  I dunno, like we were too good for that or something.  There was no sexual tension in the games among the players, but we would try to simulate it in the games.  Weird stuff, but I actually think it's kind of a common situation.  

The other group changed quite a bit over the years and members rotated in and out (I was at the same university for nine years and a few of the other members were there that whole time, so turnover was never so great that group cohesion was lost).  Gaming was really a pretty central unifying aspect of the group, but lots of other stuff was done socially too.  I'm not even sure how to tease the players' sexual relations apart from what was going on in game.  There was always, always an issue of monogamous infidelity, and there were almost always polyamorous relationships that were usually healthy (I mean, everyone involved knew what was going down).  

Originally, this group included several couples, most of whom didn't both game.  But not always.  And in this group, in particular, there was a great deal of using characters as proxies for hitting on partners.  I mean, man A and his girlfriend or wife B would be playing and either or both of their characters would routinely be propositioned which would frequently make one or both players uncomfortable and once the tension grew sufficently, we would enevitably deal with an argument and hear "but that was just my character...it's part of the game" which was bullshit.  One player was using the game as a safe method of feeling out potential sexual partners in a way that made other players uncomfortable.

Later, the group was a pretty intertangled knot of relationships where lots of players had had sex with most of the other opposite sex players.  The GM and his wife were very openly polyamorous and she occasionally had lovers in the group who would get 'funny' about the situation, jealous, I guess.  The game would sometime (d)evolve into group-gropes and more, which were fun, but obviously messed up the gaming.  Often, the gaming would be a little funny after such an event.  There was usually no sense of exclusivity or ownership in these relationships, but somehow they would crop up in the domain of the game.  (I guess people allowed feelings that they knew had no base in reality, to come out in the game.)  There was occasional hostility and sometimes people would stop gaming with the group in order to get away from their discomfort.  Also, couplings would crop up and fade away pretty routinely and when that was happening, the characters of those players would inevitably act differently.

It takes a lot to make me uncomfortable, but one player sensually spanking another as part of the in-game enactment managed to do so.  And what I think is funny about that, under other -- more overtly sexual circumstances, I wouldn't be uncomfortable with that in the least.

My involvement with that group overlapped the courtship and marriage (many of those fellow gamers were guests at my wedding) of my wife.  She came from my other social circles (boardgames and work), but she has played RPGs with me.  The final way that I have to recount about how sexual relationships have altered my gaming experience has to do with her role in my gaming.  I'm essentially not allowed (though that's a bit of a strong wording) to host RPGs at my house.  For a year or two, we gamed with that same poly husband and wife mentioned above at their house.  Mostly, the wife hung around and distracted us.  She used to play in our game, but didn't want to any more.  So while she was nice enough (and it was her house), she was kind of a nuisance.  My wife isn't willing to be a nuisance, and she knows she would be if the game were at our place.  So it needs to be elsewhere.

Chris