A difference between online and tabletop play
Consider the following situation, all my tabletoppy friends: if you’re playing an RPG and in response to something you just said someone at the table gets an erection, how do you feel about it? What if they have an orgasm, and then tell you about it?
Does the thought make you want to puke into your mouth just a little?
Consider this: in many online RPGs, and not just sex-based games, there will be segments of play in which that exact reaction is the point of play. Things that folks get nauseous about even hinting at in Breaking the Ice games played with people they know and respect are common place and boring in games where the people playing will probably never so much as see each others faces and don’t have any rules to mitigate the ejaculation.
How much online RP (not MMORPG based) is out of a context and background of internet sex chat? How much TT RPG is out of a context of awkward adolescents sitting about a table dreaming about banging the elf princess while pretending they aren’t? Not that one is better than the other, because screwed up social dynamics abound in both situations.
If it were just sex, I’m also sure that there would be much less to say about this. But romance, betrayal, PC vs PC conflict, and the endless cycles of freeform emotional play in which the roaming, questing nature of the play is to determine the response of the other partner without the ability to see their face or fall back on mechanics to help you, is also a feature of the medium. The irony of it is that I’ve seen a lot of online RPers who can read the moods and needs of people they’ve never met face to face better, faster, and more accurately than folks who’ve gamed together around a table for years can. Because, you know, they have to be able to in order to keep playing.
I’m not sure what this says about intimacy, friendship, the shame and anonymity of sex in and around games, and avatar play - but I’m sure it says something. When designing for different mediums and thinking about sex in game, it may be worth keeping in mind.
Well, to be fair to tabletop, I think the primary reason for openness in online play is the anonymity — i.e. the same reason why porn is so popular on the Internet.
I don’t think that’s the whole story, though. In my experience, larp and even Jeepform (which is like tabletop in that everyone in the group is watching) are often more open to romance than traditional tabletop (and this is including various indie story games).
I agree, the anonymity and distance are big factors. In LARP I think there is an assumed adultness, or a permission given by the medium that makes them work differently. Part of it, I’m sure, is also a difference in backgrounding. Most LARPs tend to be older than a lot of TT games (at least in my experience), more gender balanced, and often have some expectation that some players may hook up in the game — which is absent in every TT I’ve ever played.
I also think that any LARP or TT game that in any way bills itself as “art” gets some special license. After all if you’re making art you have permision, and what is created is outside yourself and so you can do what you will. Hell, it may even be that for it to be art you must do so.
Now, I know next to nothing about Jeepform. Can you tell me a bit more about it, and why it might be more open to romance? Is it because the spectators make it more of a performance, and so there is less assumed about what it means on the part of the performer?