GM's Tip of the Week

This is not intended as a political post, despite being a possible trigger; just bear that in mind while discussing it on the Portal. I was at a bit of a loss what to talk about, but.. it is Pride month. I have friends who are celebrating, there are rainbows all over the place, and I’m right there with them and I suspect there are GMs and players who are trying to figure out how to – if you will pardon the expression – be more inclusive.

So, you want to include some non-standard sexuality in your games, for whatever reasons – maybe you want more realism in your games, or you have a player who wants to play a character who isn’t exactly what they appear in that sense, or … well, there are a lot of variants. Your biggest issue is probably going to be not going all the way out into caricature. If you have a player who’s deliberately playing that kind of character, that might be another matter, I grant you, but most of the time, that probably isn’t the case.

So, I’m going to make this easy. You are writing and portraying people. If it turns out they don’t have a standard preference or expression, that’s interesting, but most of the time, it’s probably not going to be relevant, unless some light romance comes up, or you’re running or playing in the kind of game where things get a little heavier in the social combat sense. Talk to your players, make sure everyone’s comfortable. If even one person is not comfortable, they’re not having fun. If someone is not having fun, you are doing something wrong, and you need to find out what and address it.

Even then, the specifics probably won’t be an issue, whether you have a belt of gender-swap in play, or a character attracted to their own gender, or an open poly group, or.. or … there are a lot of specifics, but you are still writing people, not cardboard cutouts, and people will generally be worrying about the quest; or whatever’s going on that they need to hire adventurers or mercenaries for. Or getting out of whatever horrible mess they got dragged into, or .. well, the possibilities are just as endless as they were before, really.
The other thing to remember is what the normal is. Your cultures may have familiar ideas about how these things are handled. They may have completely different normal, they may be worse than current normal, they may be better. You should consider the reasons; how they got to their normal. Why they got there. What some of the fallout might be or have been. This may all be background information, but it may also lead to some interesting role play opportunities for your group, and perhaps even some horizon-broadening research for you, whether you are a player trying to figure this stuff out, or a GM trying to make their world a little more realistic.