Quote from: jhkim on July 13, 2024, 01:38:53 PMhttps://startplaying.games/gm/isfriday

Thanks for the link. That was eye-opening, I didn't even know there was such a site. That's the sort of thing I'd expected Wizards has wanted to duplicate (but in a closed fashion) with their VTT.

As for the topic, none of my players have ever had interest in Romance in the game. They will 'pick' up barmaids and such but that all hand-waved and fade to black as its an annoying distraction to the game. I'll eventually cook up some carousing tables to provide plot hooks and make something of it.

Quote from: jhkim on July 13, 2024, 01:38:53 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on July 13, 2024, 12:31:23 PMIs Friday, your response seems overly defensive. Could you give us your real name so that we could verify your claims of 5+ Star reviews and over 900 professional games ran? I'm also interested in your workshops and consulting on RPGs.

I'd presume that this is Friday Strout, since she is credited as lead on the Backerkit project page, and "IsFriday" is her online handle. When I check her profile on StartPlaying,

https://startplaying.games/gm/isfriday

She's listed as having 923 games hosted with a 5.0 rating.

You forgot their other fundraiser, jhkim.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/fridays-feminization-surgery-fundraiser

Quote from: jhkim on July 13, 2024, 01:38:53 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 13, 2024, 10:52:57 AMPerhaps it's more, your book seems aimed directly at portraying *QUEER* romance more than anything.

Which, there's absolutely nothing wrong with. I have homosexual members of my own direct family. That being said, your book says how to GM 'romance' and when visiting the backerit page for it, it seems to scream "No CisHet allowed!"

So it doesn't seem like a book that would be useful to about... 97% of the actual player base.

This would be a question for Friday, but I don't see anything in the Backerkit text that says it is for queer romance. Many of the writers identify as queer, but I don't think that prevents them from writing a book that covers both non-queer and queer romance -- especially if the writers have experienced both non-queer and queer relationships, as Friday says she has.

You're usual disingenuous need to be a contrarian rears it's head, yet again.

"It doesn't specifically say it's only for Queer romance."

So you're just blatantly ignoring how every example art piece from the book is queer coded and the part where the book artists state they specifically do queer art.

But they didn't *specifically* mention it's a Queer romance book in text, so it's totally not you guys.

Quote from: Ruprecht on July 13, 2024, 02:14:40 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 13, 2024, 01:38:53 PMhttps://startplaying.games/gm/isfriday

Thanks for the link. That was eye-opening, I didn't even know there was such a site. That's the sort of thing I'd expected Wizards has wanted to duplicate (but in a closed fashion) with their VTT.

As for the topic, none of my players have ever had interest in Romance in the game. They will 'pick' up barmaids and such but that all hand-waved and fade to black as its an annoying distraction to the game. I'll eventually cook up some carousing tables to provide plot hooks and make something of it.

What was eye opening to me, was scrolling through the website and looking at all the GMs and being unable to find one that DIDN'T have a 5.0 rating. They all do.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 12, 2024, 11:00:00 PM

Quote from: SHARK on July 12, 2024, 10:40:32 PMOn the more male-centric side of things, having the women players along is generally positive overall, as they do tend to roleplay very well, and well, they also tend towards taking the game and the fantasy world seriously. Initially, the men are sometimes skeptical, but over time, they also appreciate the approaches that women players bring to the game as a whole, and to my table in particular.

That's been my experience as well. The few women I've gotten the chance to play with have frequently been some of the most dedicated roleplayers I've had in my games. If they've had a flaw, it's usually in getting a little too into it and taking things that happen in the game too personally, but I'll still seek out female players when I can for that reason. Sadly, they often clash with the more beer-and-pretzels or jokey sensibilities of my male players.

Well, I'll be a (limited) voice of decent on that . For my face to face game I have my 2 daughters, their best friend (another girl) and her dad (an ole school 1e gamer from back in the day like me). My younger daughter IS a roleplayer like you mention, and their friend's dad riffs off her role playing. However, the other 2 girls ARE NOT role players. I have to all but twist their arms to do any role playing of their characters. The outlier in that is the friend and my younger girls interactions. It is ALWAYS their friendly rivalry and picking on each other (to the point of one stealing food and bribing the group's dog to be her pet more than the other when the other was sleeping).

Whit them, it is a reflection of their personalities more than male v female in the roleplaying. My younger daughter is MUCH more outgoing than her older sister and their friend. Both of which are introverted (almost to the painful point) and it just isn't in their nature to put themselves out and play a role even in a 'roleplaying' hobby.

That said, they do all three of the girls, get more emotional than most guys ever do. Admitidly they are teen girls, but even with that, I have had to be careful (especially in the Delta Green/CoC game) to not torque their emotions to hard.

From that site (start playing). Can someone break this down for me:

QuoteSafety tools used:

• Aftercare
• Bleed
• Breaks
• Debriefing
• Lines and Veils
• Monte Cook RPG Consent Checklist
• Open Door
• Session 0
• Stars and Wishes
• X, N, and O Cards

Edit:

I've heard of these: Consent Checklist, Session 0, X Card. What's up with the rest?

I see that Common Sense is not on the list.  :-)

Quote from: Aglondir on July 13, 2024, 07:41:20 PMFrom that site (start playing). Can someone break this down for me:

QuoteSafety tools used:

• Aftercare
• Bleed
• Breaks
• Debriefing
• Lines and Veils
• Monte Cook RPG Consent Checklist
• Open Door
• Session 0
• Stars and Wishes
• X, N, and O Cards

Edit:

I've heard of these: Consent Checklist, Session 0, X Card. What's up with the rest?

A bunch of new red flags, if anyone requests or says those are in use I either bounce or kick them out.

Quote from: Aglondir on July 13, 2024, 07:41:20 PMFrom that site (start playing). Can someone break this down for me:

QuoteSafety tools used:

• Aftercare
• Bleed
• Breaks
• Debriefing
• Lines and Veils
• Monte Cook RPG Consent Checklist
• Open Door
• Session 0
• Stars and Wishes
• X, N, and O Cards

Edit: I've heard of these: Consent Checklist, Session 0, X Card. What's up with the rest?

I know two more -

"Open Door" is just the policy that if a player has to leave the game, they leave. I find it pretty common sense. It seems silly to me to demand a player stay if they've got a problem with the game.

"Lines and Veils" means that before the game, the GM talks with the players about what content they find unacceptable in the game. A hard no is a "line" - like no rape or torture in the game. A "veil" is something that's OK to have, but make sure it's not detailed. i.e. If there's a veil on torture, then if a PC is tortured, just say it happened and leave it at that. If the player lines/veils aren't workable with the game, then at least everyone knows in advance.

I can guess at some of the others, but I'm not sure.

Quote from: jhkim on July 14, 2024, 01:51:24 AM

Quote from: Aglondir on July 13, 2024, 07:41:20 PMFrom that site (start playing). Can someone break this down for me:

QuoteSafety tools used:

• Aftercare
• Bleed
• Breaks
• Debriefing
• Lines and Veils
• Monte Cook RPG Consent Checklist
• Open Door
• Session 0
• Stars and Wishes
• X, N, and O Cards

Edit: I've heard of these: Consent Checklist, Session 0, X Card. What's up with the rest?

I know two more -

"Open Door" is just the policy that if a player has to leave the game, they leave. I find it pretty common sense. It seems silly to me to demand a player stay if they've got a problem with the game.

"Lines and Veils" means that before the game, the GM talks with the players about what content they find unacceptable in the game. A hard no is a "line" - like no rape or torture in the game. A "veil" is something that's OK to have, but make sure it's not detailed. i.e. If there's a veil on torture, then if a PC is tortured, just say it happened and leave it at that. If the player lines/veils aren't workable with the game, then at least everyone knows in advance.

I can guess at some of the others, but I'm not sure.

Aftercare, breaks and debriefing. When are we going to have time to play?

Aftercare I only know as a BDSM term. In simplest language, it's being nice to someone after rough sex so they know you didn't mean it. You can see how that would extrapolate to rpg gaming.

I'll make some educated guesses, based on that. "Debriefing" probably means talking about shit that upset people after the game. "breaks" means taking a break when people get emotional. "Stars and Wishes" I'm going to guess from context is the inverse of "lines and veils".

I don't know what an "N" or "0-card" is. Based on the fact that the X-card is effectively a safeword, I'm going to assume they're equivalents of the way some people use semi-safewords during sexual roleplay to mean "more of this" or "back off".

As is so often the case with safety tools, most of this stuff is just formalizing and putting jargon around things that ought to be regarded as common sense and basic decency, and the rest of it is a way of scripting the game to make sure the players get what they want. I don't see a need to play this way, but I'm kinda over getting outraged about it.

Drifting back to the OP, I looked at the local library for writer books on romance.  Oh my, the bodice rippers have turned that into a seedy little industry.  All I found was one short little essay on 'clean' romance. 

Quote from: zircher on July 14, 2024, 03:18:04 PMDrifting back to the OP, I looked at the local library for writer books on romance.  Oh my, the bodice rippers have turned that into a seedy little industry.  All I found was one short little essay on 'clean' romance. 

If I was going to look for a book on how to do romance I'd start with "How I Write" by Janet Evanovich.  I haven't read it myself, but I've heard good things, and she's an extremely successful writer of romance, among other things

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2024, 09:54:10 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on July 13, 2024, 07:41:20 PMFrom that site (start playing). Can someone break this down for me:

QuoteSafety tools used:

• Aftercare
• Bleed
• Breaks
• Debriefing
• Lines and Veils
• Monte Cook RPG Consent Checklist
• Open Door
• Session 0
• Stars and Wishes
• X, N, and O Cards

Edit:

I've heard of these: Consent Checklist, Session 0, X Card. What's up with the rest?

A bunch of new red flags, if anyone requests or says those are in use I either bounce or kick them out.

Do you feel the same about a Session 0?

Bleed is when the player is blurring the line between PC and self. You start thinking of yourself at the table and on the street more as Alkharg the Elf Destroyer rather than Jane Doe, accountant. Worse case scenario is you momentarily stop thinking of yourself as Jane Doe, accountant at all.

Quote from: Omega on July 15, 2024, 11:47:41 AMBleed is when the player is blurring the line between PC and self. You start thinking of yourself at the table and on the street more as Alkharg the Elf Destroyer rather than Jane Doe, accountant. Worse case scenario is you momentarily stop thinking of yourself as Jane Doe, accountant at all.

If that's what it is, then "Bleed" is a clear mental health issue and beyond anything GMs should be dealing with.