Has dropped and can be found... here.

Been listening for a while, but not quite finished yet.

On the topic of romance in RPG's. To be honest, the first time this ever came up for me was only recently. In all the years I'd played previously, it had just never come up. No particular reason why or why not, it just never happened.

But, then it did. I guess I should frame the story a bit. It was an online, OpenRPG 3.5 D&D game. One of the other players, who is actually a woman, had her character start chasing mine. I have to admit, it made me very, very uncomfortable. I'm not a 100% sure, but, I think that it's just not something I'm comfortable exploring in public like that. I really weirded me out.

But, I didn't want to be THAT guy, so, I rolled with it and tried to play along. After all, I don't want to kill the RP, and it was pretty obviously my hang up, not hers, so, I tried to bull through.

It didn't work. I found myself dreading sessions very quickly because I knew that I'd have to do this yet again. I wound up acting rather badly in character and putting a serious stop to any further romantic overtures. Unfortunately, I think the other player took things a bit personally as well as I really was being a dick.

Anyway, the lesson I learned from the whole experience is that there are just some things I'm not comfortable dealing with in game. This is one of them. In the future, if it comes up again, I'll nip it in the bud right off the bat and it won't become a problem. A little side bar chat to the other player would have gone a long ways towards ending any drama at the table. Trying to deal with it through roleplay was the wrong way to go for me at least.

Thing I'll never get about these romance discussions is, why is it treated like such a big deal? Why should it be treated as something odd and out there, something to specifically bring up in planning? After all, how many movies have you seen or books have you read that don't deal with romance or sexuality at some point? Considering how it's such a basic part of the human condition, I should think that it coming up in some capacity, possibly prominently, should be a given if there are organic creatures involved in-character.

And as to the, "don't go there with a new group," bit? Quite frankly, if you're with a group that straight-up cannot handle the topic of human sexuality, that seems like a good, quick way to establish that the group you've fallen in with is so immature as to not be worth gaming with.

Relevant game:
Relevant page 1.
Relevant page 2.
Relevant page 3.

That's GxB. Very simple, very light game. It's not even billed primarily as a roleplaying game; rather, it's billed as a party game and generally sold at anime cons. It's meant for new players, and even as an icebreaker, and it's all about roleplaying out awkward teenage romance.

Because not everyone is as comfortable with sex in RPGs are you are. It's great that you are but not everyone wants that in their games.

Yeah, it's not something I want to sit around a table and fantasize about with my drinking buddies. That goes 10x if it's a sausage party, but some of them are playing women. The whole Master Three Balls story made the little hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

The television analogy doesn't work for me, specifically because TV is passive consumption. It's more accurate to compare gamers to actors. I wouldn't get down with a dude in drag (or the vast majority of women) just because the scene called for it.

If you want to call that immature, fine. I think it's naive to pretend that there's One True 'mature' viewpoint on the subject, that doesn't take into account the fact that different people have very different feelings and approaches to the topic of sex and romance, even in the realm of interactive fiction. I'm not inclined to judge the real life attitudes of anyone simply by the topics they're willing to explore in a roleplaying game.

This. That is all.

Not being comfortable with sex in games is one thing. Not being comfortable with taking part in romance and sexual interactions is one thing (which, from the sound of the episode, seems to be where you're at and not what I'm talking about). Not being comfortable with sexuality and romance in games happening at all (or giving others grief for the same) is an entirely different matter that just seems bizarre.

If I'm in a modern age supers game and my character has a girlfriend, her relationship with her girlfriend is unstable because of the heroing, and that has a fundamental impact on how she operates and reacts... that's a bog standard hero premise. Being uncomfortable with something like that, particularly if you're not expected to participate in it, is just... absurd.

I don't have any problem with people RPing relationships. It's what RP is all about. I don't care for sex and sexuality in a game.

Relationships, which I agree are an important part of the human condition, often deal with sex and sexuality. Many people have differing ideas, views and comfort levels concerning sexuality. Since relationships can easily shift towards explorations of sex and sexuality, if you're going to include romantic relationships, it's only responsible to make sure everyone is on the same page with how much sexuality is included in the game.

Even when not expected to participate, simply being so close to those who are exploring/roleplaying sexuality at the game table can be uncomfortable and awkward. Just because one's character is not involved directly in the sex present in a campaign, does not in any way mean that they are unaffected by it or uninvolved. Every player is if nothing else, witness to every scene in the game.

First: YAY! I got mentioned again!

Second: I've heard that necrophilia joke before. It hasn't gotten any less funny.