I don't know how many games I have seen that do have sex workers as possible professions, but it has been a lot.

How many players in my games have actually wanted to play current or former sex workers?

Not many. I think two that I can remember. I tend to make it less of an exciting and sexy and hot experience for them by describing it as highly physically demanding, unsexy drudgery. Not to mention a time sink that sucks them in deeper and deeper when they could be adventuring or doing something fun like shooting people in the face for money or wasting things with their crossbows.

Quote from: Dropbear on July 06, 2022, 08:37:35 PM
I don't know how many games I have seen that do have sex workers as possible professions, but it has been a lot.

How many players in my games have actually wanted to play current or former sex workers?

Not many. I think two that I can remember. I tend to make it less of an exciting and sexy and hot experience for them by describing it as highly physically demanding, unsexy drudgery. Not to mention a time sink that sucks them in deeper and deeper when they could be adventuring or doing something fun like shooting people in the face for money or wasting things with their crossbows.

I can't recall anyone playing a sex worker in a long-term campaign, but I've had sex workers in a few one-shot adventures. I had a game set in the Firefly/Serenity universe where the PCs were all working for the Companions Guild, though only two of eight pregen PCs were Guild members (i.e. sex workers).

https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/serenity/

I think compared to other professions (i.e. craftsman, entertainer, etc.), the interesting thing about sex work is the social connections that it allows. I remember playing a courtesan in one-shot game, and it meant that I knew people from widely different circles - i.e. military as well as courtiers and such.

If I made things too narrow, I apologize. Maybe I should have asked about a character who was a 'sex worker' AND...?

I mean you have options to be more than just a hooker. Assassin, sabatour, thief, spy, etc.

I had an image of a spy getting a mark in bed and while he's on top of her she outs ger thumbs on his carotid arteries and presses gently to constrict blood flow to his brain to rrender him briefly unconscious, pushed him off her, swipes out a USB drive he was carrying with one loaded with the computer virus...

Then gets back under him as he regains consciousness and even tips her for the great time...

Quote from: bromides on July 04, 2022, 07:40:07 PM(and maybe they make DEATH BY SNU SNU,

Somehow.
Someday.
I will run a game where you have to Save vs. Death by Snu Snu!!

Quote from: jeff37923 on July 05, 2022, 11:40:22 AMYou don't handle the details with a few rolls. If the player wants seduction, let them role-play the seduction.

But Jeff, then I start with the sound effects.

And then the table begs to never have sex scenes ever again in RPGs.

Quote from: Spinachcat on July 07, 2022, 04:38:07 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on July 05, 2022, 11:40:22 AMYou don't handle the details with a few rolls. If the player wants seduction, let them role-play the seduction.

But Jeff, then I start with the sound effects.

And then the table begs to never have sex scenes ever again in RPGs.

A more convoluted path, but the outcome is not bad either. I just see a quicker fade to black in the future.

Quote from: Battlemaster on July 07, 2022, 01:00:39 AM
If I made things too narrow, I apologize. Maybe I should have asked about a character who was a 'sex worker' AND...?

I mean you have options to be more than just a hooker. Assassin, sabatour, thief, spy, etc.

I had an image of a spy getting a mark in bed and while he's on top of her she outs ger thumbs on his carotid arteries and presses gently to constrict blood flow to his brain to rrender him briefly unconscious, pushed him off her, swipes out a USB drive he was carrying with one loaded with the computer virus...

Then gets back under him as he regains consciousness and even tips her for the great time...

A player who is good at role-playing would not even have to make the character engage in sex in order to sabotage the computer.

Roleplay doesn't seek out commercial professions (and sex work is the oldest of them all). For all the moralism about sex, sex work is a class of profession that is one of the purest forms of commerce that exist. As a more libertarian person, I am all for it. If I ever did play Firefly, I'd probably choose a Companion above all other choices.

Good games with commerce tend to be competitive board games. Roleplay doesn't often deal with commercialism. Heroism is seen as something other than commercial. Even scum have hearts of gold.

Few are the pure commercial classes. Sex Workers, yes. But also actual Traders. Free League's Forbidden Lands has a Peddler. ALIEN doesn't really have a trading module. 40K Rogue Traders aren't actual traders. I still haven't bought Ryuutama, but that might be promising for trade.

Even where commercial classes exist (like Firefly's companions or Forbidden Land's Peddlers), the game often isn't about the commerce. Like, Companions are expected to be sluts (giving it away for free) rather than whores (commercial traders). When the focus leaves out the "Work", then it's just the other thing ("Sex").

I have yet to read what Traveler or Cepheus does in the commercial space, but at least there is something... which is a rarity.

Postmortem's Courtesans RPG is structured more like a board game feel, with very strict turn structures. This is a criticism of the game as a RPG (which Grim Jim himself pointed out in a review of the product), but when it comes to commercial interests like sex work, I feel like it is more successful in that highly structured format than a pure roleplay. (It may be less intentional and  more of an expression of the author's ASD, but I feel like the strict structure actually helps more than hinders the matetial.)

Courtesans at least handles the commerce bit - a rarity in any game, to be sure.

Quote from: Spinachcat on July 07, 2022, 04:33:36 AM

Quote from: bromides on July 04, 2022, 07:40:07 PM(and maybe they make DEATH BY SNU SNU,

Somehow.
Someday.
I will run a game where you have to Save vs. Death by Snu Snu!!

One of the joys growing up as a young lad, back in the stone age, was the 1e AD&D Monster Manual (plus Deities & Demigods).

One recalls that the Succubus had a good drawing.

I would imagine that a Succubus/Incubus game would work (if it does not already exist), and saves vs Snu Snu might then be rather appropriate.

Of course, a candidate for this type of game would be White Wolf with their "Abc the Xyz" type games, like Vampire the Emoing... or Werewolf the Furrying. And then it would be mostly a game about navel-gazing, although I always looked at Vampire as another form of Superhero game, myself.

Quote from: Battlemaster on July 07, 2022, 01:00:39 AM
If I made things too narrow, I apologize. Maybe I should have asked about a character who was a 'sex worker' AND...?

I mean you have options to be more than just a hooker. Assassin, sabatour, thief, spy, etc.

I had an image of a spy getting a mark in bed and while he's on top of her she outs ger thumbs on his carotid arteries and presses gently to constrict blood flow to his brain to rrender him briefly unconscious, pushed him off her, swipes out a USB drive he was carrying with one loaded with the computer virus...

Then gets back under him as he regains consciousness and even tips her for the great time...

Yeah, the sheer amount of stripper ninja PCs I have encountered in Shadowrun alone is mind-boggling. I get what you're saying. I just don't find it to be a particularly compelling argument for the player to want their character to still be an active stripper/porn star/whatever while actively pursuing adventuring life. If "former" were prefixed before the type of sex worker in question, sure. And the skills learned in that lifestyle were being put to use in the new one.

But I would absolutely have to fade to black a lot with that. I have no desire to RP sex scenes at all. Well, maybe with my lady behind closed doors but not at a mixed gaming table. It's not within my comfort level for one of my players to be describing in detail how his super sexy elf girl blows a guy to get deets for a run/grift/con/etc.

Yeah, I think that part (using sex to generate plot movement) is where the concept is kind of weird. It's more about the sex part than commerce, with sex workers expected to be a slut for plot points rather than a whore for commercial enterprise.

That misses the point with sex workers, just as RPGs often miss the point about capitalism and commerce in general. (especially modern games, which are often socialistic if not communist.) If one emphasizes the "sex" over "work", then the perspective of it gets a little confused, IMO.

Playing a sex worker is similar to playing a merchant trader in any game, the sex work or trading is only a plot vehicle to connect adventures and adventuring.

Case in point, I'm doing two Traveller games set in the same subsector with noble houses competing with each other and moving the citizens they govern like chess pieces in a colonial frontier environment. A courtesan in this setting could work for herself and while individual noble houses may want to contract her exclusively, she is the one who moves between worlds and nobles, manipulating them with information and rumors she hears from other nobles. The courtesan, being considered just high class entertainment, is not taken seriously but is the de facto power behind the thrones in that subsector. Would the sexual nature be part of this, yes - but not the focus of the adventures.

Quote from: jeff37923 on July 07, 2022, 06:11:39 AM
A player who is good at role-playing would not even have to make the character engage in sex in order to sabotage the computer.

I'd hope one of mine would not feel their only hope in sabotaging the computer lies in seducing it.

Quote from: Dropbear on July 07, 2022, 12:02:46 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on July 07, 2022, 06:11:39 AM
A player who is good at role-playing would not even have to make the character engage in sex in order to sabotage the computer.

I'd hope one of mine would not feel their only hope in sabotaging the computer lies in seducing it.

Wasn't that a Star Trek episode?

Quote from: jhkim on July 06, 2022, 03:30:52 PM
Warhammer Fantasy has a lot of low-class career paths down to Rat Catcher, but doesn't include sex work. However, Burning Wheel has "prostitute" among its list of two hundred or so lifepath options.

2e at least had 'Camp Follower' as a starting option. It wasn't explicit the PC had done/did sex work and instead mentioned their role included things like scavenging, cleaning, widows, etc but they could take Charm as a skill and it's no secret what a lot of real-world camp followers were.