Sexual Situations in Role Playing Games

         Romance is something that is given in almost any RPG.  Characters will grow close and form friendships, an out of those friendships some characters will become even close. The problem lies in how far the players will take those relationships, and how much can or should be described when playing in a RPG. As such this post will discuss what is and is not appropriate for a RPG, knowing what age your audience is, and finally the ratings that a creator can give a RPG if he or she feels that adult situations may arise in it.

         Typing out romantic and sexual situations is nothing new.  The rise of sexting among adults and young adults in the past decade is just one example [1]. The problem here is that while sexting is merely private texts sent back and forth through cell phones or other devices, on message boards such posts are free for anyone to read. As such each player must be aware that anyone from a young child, to even a parent or sibling is free to look at what you wrote. Such things also can come back to haunt you later in life as say a potential employer gets hold of what you posted. Yet that does not mean that such situations cannot exist in a RPG all together. Instead, one of the best routes is to do much like what is seen on broadcast television:  skip past the graphic parts and move to say the characters waking up the next morning. Such a thing allows for the older readers to have a idea of what happened, without actually addressing it.

         RPGs, especially message board RPGs do not happen inside of a bubble, as addressed before almost anyone with time on their hands can peek in and see what you or the other players are writing about. As such when starting out writing a romantic post, you should expect for nearly the whole world to be a voyeur and look in. For some this does not matter to them, and as such additional steps should be taken to prevent children from unintentionally reading the material you write. The easiest way to combat this, be it on a message board or a chat room is to label the RPG "mature". Placing this in the title works as a opening warning, and tells people that adults subjects may be broached inside of the RPG. Further action can be taken in the opening post or sign up, telling the other players and the audience what is and is not acceptable in the RPG. Nudity, intense violence, harsh language, or sexual situations are all things that can be listed as acceptable or unacceptable inside of a mature RPG.

        There is no problem with engaging in adult situations inside RPGs; sometimes such situations can help grow and expand characters, just as much as they can arouse the audience. However any player wishing to do this must also be smart when doing this.  They must recognize that such things are open for the entire world to see, and that they must be responsible and mature if they wish to write out adult situations.

[1] Harper Michael (06/28/2012); Sexting Among Young Adults Has Become More Common: http://www.redorbit.com/news/general/1112665286/sexting-among-young-adults/