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Voros

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Okay so since the controversial 'sex moves' of Apocalypse World often come up when discussing it or even other PbtA games that don't have them (the vast majority don't btw) I thought it would be good to have a thread with the actual rules for reference available for those who don't have the game and are wondering what all the fuss is about.

I also figure having a thread called Sex Moves should do wonders for the Pub's internet traffic stats.

I prefer to call them Sex Moves with capitalization because it sounds like a good name for a Punk band. These rule excerpts are from my legal pdf copy of AW 2e so there could be some differences with 1e. I may also mess a bit with the text layout here for ease of reading and reference on the forum.

SEDUCE OR MANIPULATE (Pg 142, AW 2e)

When you try to seduce, manipulate, bluff, fast-talk, or lie to someone, tell them what you want them to do, give them a reason, and roll+hot.

For NPCs: on a 10+, they’ll go along with you, unless or until some fact or action betrays the reason you gave them.

On a 7–9, they’ll go along with you, but they need some concrete assurance, corroboration, or evidence first.

For PCs: on a 10+, both. On a 7–9, choose 1:
• If they go along with you, they mark experience.
• If they refuse, erase one of their stat highlights for the remainder of the session. What they do then is up to them.
On a miss, for either NPCs or PCs, be prepared for the worst.

Seducing someone, here, means using sex to get them to do what you want, not (or not just) trying to get them to fuck you. Asking someone straight to do something isn’t trying to seduce or manipulate them.

To seduce or manipulate an NPC, the character needs leverage, a reason: sex, or a threat, or a promise, something that the character can really do that the victim really wants or really doesn’t want.

Absent leverage, they’re just talking, and you should have your NPCs agree or accede, decline or refuse, according to their own self-interests.

The assurance that the NPC needs should directly address the leverage the character is using. The leverage is sex? The assurance should be sexual. The leverage is violence? “Just promise you won’t hurt me.” The whole process of needing and offering assurance can be explicit or implicit. Explicit: “‘okay, I’ll let you through,’ he says. ‘Just promise you won’t tell Keeler it was me.’” Implicit: “she takes your hand and nods toward the bed. ‘After you,’ she says.”

When one player’s character manipulates another, there’s no need for especial leverage. Instead, the manipulating character simply gets to offer her counterpart the carrot, the stick, or both. The carrot is marking experience, and the stick is erasing a stat highlight.

Some example Sex Moves from the Playbooks.

For some context, Hx an interpersonal stat:

(Pg. 11, AW 2e)

• Hx, meaning history (like Rx for prescription and Dx for diagnosis), particularly shared history, how well one character knows another. It doesn’t mean how well your character likes the other, just how well your character knows the other. It’s also asymmetrical: my character might know yours very well, like Hx+2, while yours doesn’t know mine well at all, like Hx-1. Roll+Hx to help or interfere with someone.

(Player Moves, Pg.183-188 AW 2e)

And here’s the angel’s sex move:

If you and another character have sex, your Hx with them on your sheet goes immediately to +3, and they immediately get +1 to their Hx with you on their sheet. If that brings their Hx with you to +4, they reset it to +1 instead, and so mark experience.

This’ll happen during the session, naturally, so it’s in addition to the end-of-session basic move.

If an angel and an NPC have sex, there’s no mechanical effect.
...

And here’s the battlebabe’s sex move:

If you and another character have sex, nullify the other character’s sex move. Whatever it is, it just doesn’t happen.

For example, when a hardholder and a battlebabe have sex, the hardholder gives the battlebabe no gift; when a driver and a battlebabe have sex, the driver doesn’t roll+cool; when a savvyhead and a battlebabe have sex, the savvyhead doesn’t get to read her.

If a battlebabe and an NPC have sex, there’s no mechanical effect. Um, still. Either. Also.
...

And here’s the brainer’s sex move:

If you and another character have sex, you automatically do a deep brain scan on them, whether you have the move or not. Roll+weird as normal. However, the MC chooses which questions the other character’s player answers.

This move does apply if the brainer and an NPC have sex.

And here’s the chopper’s sex move:

If you and another character have sex, they immediately change their sheet to say Hx+3 with you. They also choose whether to give you -1 or +1 to your Hx with them, on your sheet.

If a chopper and an NPC have sex, there’s no mechanical effect.
...

Etc.
 
I'd love to play a game of Apocalypse World itself some time. Have you run/played it Voros?
 
Bite Marks uses them though like MANY things, it discusses optional elements, for example, the Cub (not a child, but a "new" werewolf) has this one:
If you and another Player Character have sex, then the next time they
are threatened, if you put yourself in harm's way for them add +1 to all
rolls until you are both safe again.

The Alpha actually gives the other player character an emotional TIE that they can use to help dominate YOU the alpha (using their Heart/Emotional tie to you.)

These moves are ALL mostly about making the characters (who aren't genetically related) strive both together and apart (estrangement is part of the game and dissension) but its about fundamentaly the dynamics of an extended family.
 
I'll leave one of my fave sex moves here, from Monsterhearts' The Infernal...

When you have sex,
the dark power loses a String on you
and gains a String on whoever you had sex with.


The Infernal is a dude who made a pact with a Dark Power and now must manage this relationship through bargains (Strings). When he lets the power have a string against him, he gains a powerful ability or instant effect. But when he cumulates 4 strings he has a crash where he can't have powers anymore until he eliminates all strings. His sex move allows him control over this flow, delaying the crash, or if already crashed, speeding up the recovery. The catch being, whoever he had sex with is now in a bargain with his Dark Power, knowingly or not. :devil:
 
Bite Marks uses them though like MANY things, it discusses optional elements, for example, the Cub (not a child, but a "new" werewolf) has this one:
If you and another Player Character have sex, then the next time they
are threatened, if you put yourself in harm's way for them add +1 to all
rolls until you are both safe again.

The Alpha actually gives the other player character an emotional TIE that they can use to help dominate YOU the alpha (using their Heart/Emotional tie to you.)

These moves are ALL mostly about making the characters (who aren't genetically related) strive both together and apart (estrangement is part of the game and dissension) but its about fundamentaly the dynamics of an extended family.
Very good. I will end up getting this.
 
Taking this over from the other thread as it is more suited here.

Sex in RPGs isn't my issue. Its roleplaying sex as/with underage characters.
The book of carnal knowledge was a fun handbook in it's day.
Honestly, I guess it comes down to, the existence of sex moves isn't the issue it's how it is run/portrayed by the game.

We all have our lines. If this doesn't cross yours, I will be one of the first to defend you from those trying to stop you from playing it.
I just don't get it myself.
 
Taking this over from the other thread as it is more suited here.

Sex in RPGs isn't my issue. Its roleplaying sex as/with underage characters.
The book of carnal knowledge was a fun handbook in it's day.
Honestly, I guess it comes down to, the existence of sex moves isn't the issue it's how it is run/portrayed by the game.

We all have our lines. If this doesn't cross yours, I will be one of the first to defend you from those trying to stop you from playing it.
I just don't get it myself.

Yeah I can see that, just to be clear though AW and Monsterhearts are pretty different games. MH builds on the interpersonal mechanics of AW but takes it in a different direction more suited to its genre.

I've never been into teens as protagonists in general myself, even as a teen the last thing I wanted to read were books like Catcher in the Rye that I was supposed to 'relate' to. As a teen my favourite writer was old world weary Graham Greene!
 
There was a GURPS Sex fan book and GURPS has Sex Appeal and Erotic Art as skills.


So many places to go with this.. Any links, there are actually a few RPG "sex books" which really are pretty good and not the "hur hur boobies" supplements so many assume. Sex is a huge driver of human motivation, so I find it unfortunate that it is so hard (heh, heh, Bevis he said hard, heh, heh) to intelligently discuss on RPG forums.




Oh and since I'm not above it and it hasn't been posted yet...

 
Bruner might be a brave fighter, but Bob decided to make the dick bigger, better and better, so he got good results in Wisdom and Sexy.
 
Dragging this reply over as well.

See... thinking in that more. It just adds to the ick factor. Its basically having sex without a condom while having an STD.
It also brings another being in on it so in top of the communicable sleeze its with a csmrra in the room.
That seems like the point; the Infernal clearly isn't a nice person and they're doing awful things for awful reasons. You should find it squicky.

But again, there's no actual roleplaying a sex at the table, you're dealing with the emotional aftermath.
 
Yeah I can see that, I've never been into teens as protagonists in general myself, even as a teen the last thing I wanted to read were books like Catcher in the Rye that I was supposed to 'relate' to. As a teen my favourite writer was old world weary Graham Greene!
Hmm... almost for me.
I have no problem with teens as protagonists... I just don't fantasize about having sex as Harry Potter with Hermione Granger.
 
Dragging this reply over as well.


That seems like the point; the Infernal clearly isn't a nice person and they're doing awful things for awful reasons. You should find it squicky.

But again, there's no actual roleplaying a sex at the table, you're dealing with the emotional aftermath.
...
...
I still don't get it... people want to sell you on something that makes you feel squicky?
I know there is a niche for it. People who play it don't automatically become skeevers to me either. It just doesn't compute.
 
Well, since this is now a sex thread, I will inform you of the sexual customs of my people...

Here are some terms to know if you're trying to get laid in Appalachia...

Dickenson County Mating Call: Shake a pill bottle loudly. Every woman in a five mile radius will be wetter than the Clinch River in a rainstorm and every man will have a dick harder than the rocks at High Knob

Dickenson County Pillow Talk: Also present in other counties, this is the kind of dialogue the folks of Appalachia engage in during intercourse...



Banner Elk Surprise: A sexual technique invented in the Appalachian High Country of North Carolina, described below in spoilered text because it's too filthy and potentially offensive to leave unspoilered.

The Banner Elk Surprise is performed when a man is having sex with a woman doggy style and then places his thumbs together with the nails facing each other. Then the man places the thumbs in the woman's anus while spreading his remaining fingers apart to look like the antlers of an elk.

The Ned Beatty Experience: The Banner Elk Surprise, but with the two holes reversed in their roles.
 
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I still don't get it... people want to sell you on something that makes you feel squicky?
I know there is a niche for it. People who play it don't automatically become skeevers to me either. It just doesn't compute.

Well it is a horror game of sorts, so being disturbed is often part of the appeal, like in Kult and a number of CoC investigations.

Which just gave me an idea: Monsterhearts reskinned for playing a Hellraiser game.

*don't click if you're not a horror fan
 
Well, since this is now a sex thread, I will inform you of the sexual customs of my people...

Here are some terms to know if you're trying to get laid in Appalachia...

Dickenson County Mating Call: Shake a pill bottle loudly. Every woman in a five mile radius will be wetter than the Clinch River in a rainstorm and every man will have a dick harder than the rocks at High Knob

Dickenson County Pillow Talk: Also present in other counties, this is the kind of dialogue the folks of Appalachia engage in during intercourse...



Banner Elk Surprise: A sexual technique invented in the Appalachian High Country of North Carolina, described below in spoilers because it's too filthy and potentially offensive to leave unspoilered.

The Banner Elk Surprise is performed when a man is having sex with a woman doggy style and then places his thumbs together with the nails facing each other. Then the man places the thumbs in the woman's anus while spreading his remaining fingers apart to look like the antlers of an elk.

The Ned Beatty Experience: The Banner Elk Surprise, but with the two holes reversed in their roles.


Why?
 
Well it is a horror game of sorts, so being disturbed is often part of the appeal, like in Kult and a number of CoC investigations.

Which just gave me an idea: Monsterhearts reskinned for playing a Hellraiser game.


Thanks, that I can understand. I dislike horror, so it makes sense I don't get this either.
 

Hey now, this information might be important!

I once performed the Banner Elk Surprise with a girl I was dating and it literally saved both of our lives! That technique is more useful than you might think! :hehe:

Seriously though, I'm just goofing around in this thread. I'll reel it in.
 
...
...
I still don't get it... people want to sell you on something that makes you feel squicky?
I know there is a niche for it. People who play it don't automatically become skeevers to me either. It just doesn't compute.
Honestly, I don't think I would want to play it either. It makes me feel uncomfortable in a bad way. But, you know, "not for me" and all.
 
Other than a few folks I know who are super sex positive and seem to want to join my town’s polyamory clubs, I’ve never met another roleplayer who explicitly wanted to make dice rolls involving sex.

but the world is a vast place and there are all kinds of tastes. I don’t get this one, but then again, RPGs like Paranoia and Delta Green look absolutely ghastly to me.

Ah well.
 
I'll leave one of my fave sex moves here, from Monsterhearts' The Infernal...

When you have sex,
the dark power loses a String on you
and gains a String on whoever you had sex with.


The Infernal is a dude who made a pact with a Dark Power and now must manage this relationship through bargains (Strings). When he lets the power have a string against him, he gains a powerful ability or instant effect. But when he cumulates 4 strings he has a crash where he can't have powers anymore until he eliminates all strings. His sex move allows him control over this flow, delaying the crash, or if already crashed, speeding up the recovery. The catch being, whoever he had sex with is now in a bargain with his Dark Power, knowingly or not. :devil:
This is sleazy as hell. Kind of rapey. It's like playing the dude from the beginning of It Follows. No one should play with that dude, he's spreading an allegorical demon STD around.
 
This is sleazy as hell. Kind of rapey. It's like playing the dude from the beginning of It Follows. No one should play with that dude, he's spreading an allegorical demon STD around.
It Follows was the first thing that came to my mind, yeah. :devil:
 
? How not, it's a game of monsters.

Or are you saying this kind of thing should be off limits in a game or something?
 
This thread is a goddamn roller coaster.

on a weirdly related note, this last game session I learned about Genital Jousting, the game, from the Mormons in my group. They perpetually surprise me with the knowledge they have.
 
Pretty much what Tristram said.
And also, if Voros spun this off to clear up the controversy surrounding those poorly misnamed "Sex Moves", well bravo, you surely helped him out.
 
Nothing is off limits;

But some things deserve ridicule
Sorry I don't get it. Ridicule is a subjective thing - what's ridicule for one is fun for another and vice-versa.

Right?
 
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