The Sex Move represents not only intercourse, but all intimate interactions, physical or by verbal communication, correct?
The Sex Move represents not only intercourse, but all intimate interactions, physical or by verbal communication,…
The Sex Move represents not only intercourse, but all intimate interactions, physical or by verbal communication,…
a good time to ask questions
My understanding is that unless the special says otherwise, it is about sex. However, like gender presentation and sexuality in AW, what constitutes sex may not exactly what we think of in this day and age but the elements of risk (pregnancy, disease, the particular vulnerabilities, etc.) would still be there unless proper precautions were taken.
“Like a bear” counts… apparently. (Don’t ask…)
Tim Groth I guess I was seeing it as more as it just being around or about intercourse seems really limiting, while so many other aspects of the game seem so expansive.
I think this stuff makes more sense in things like Monsterhearts where it is about exploring of sexuality. In AW it’s much more about simple fucking.
When in doubt, I ask the player: “Was this intimate enough to qualify as ‘sex’ for you?”
Actual Play: I’m playing a Terminator Apocalypse World.
One of the Character is, in fact, a female T-800 (Faceless booklet).
Her chip was removed and she had to let a hacker in her most private memories to have him trust her and her companions.
It was VERY intimate, for a sentient machine, and the hacker NPC treated her as it was some kind of delicate, intimate, embarassing medical procedure… or some kind of “having sex for the first time”.
We ALL ruled it was enough to trigger the Special Move.
heck i even had psychic Maelstorm sex between the Angel and the Brainer and it triggered the move for the Angel but not the Brainer. (or it should have. i think we didn’t trigger the Angel either but it should have).
Tim Franzke What about two people just having a true heart to heart? Maybe someone is opening up to you?
I’d start with “did at least one of the participant climaxed?”
If the answer’s “no”, it probably doesn’t count.
I think dialog doesn’t trigger it, mechanically because Hx / Reading People covers that sort of closeness and in the fiction because I think that human relationships / intimacy are marked by the move. Which isn’t to say that if a player told me the experience felt like the character had made the move, I would block it because I didn’t think it was sex, I’d be asking questions around it for sure though.
On the flip side, it is important to have clarity and consistency around the moves as some of them are quite significant if triggered and they should make the player think about what they are doing and what it means. Letting that get too slippery is going to reduce the punch of those moves.
I also have the suspicion that the purpose of the moves is to encourage explicitly sexual entanglements. I have also noticed that it causes more consideration of players to cross-play and have characters who are not quite so straight as usual, because they want the moves to be on the table. I think this may also be a design intent.
For me, you have to do the naughty thing to get the benefits of the move. Hence : no climax => not sex => not the Move.
There is something that just feels wrong to me in considering “climax = sex”.
You can have sex without climaxing (ex., I’d have the Special move triggered by this scene: “her father comes in and interrupts you two”).
Not so sure about “climaxing without considering it sex for these games’ purposes”
A true heart-to-heart is endearing, and can be great role-play, but it’s not sex. The sex moves are about sex.
Tim Groth’s point about risk is very good – a heart-to-heart won’t get you pregnant or infected, and is inherently less risky. Also he’s right about the design push to have players consider playing different sexualities.
Mattia Bulgarelli’s group handled a borderline case perfectly – if it has enough of the emotional and physical markers of a sexual encounter, you can count it as sex. Likewise Tim Franzke’s Brainer / Angle pyschic mind-sex. That’s totally legit, and we’ve had that sort of thing in our game too.
@Mattia Bulgarelli climax => ocytocyn release is the link I saw.
Mattia Bulgarelli of course you then roll a seduce to get the father in on it somehow…
Or Direct Brain Whisper Projection
I’d not use the climax as a definitive ruling, if only because that’s not the most interesting part of such interactions in the fiction.
Loris Gianadda : I see your point, but I think the moves are (for these games’ purposes) all about “being SO intimate with him/her”, and therefore “crossing lines you wouldn’t cross with someone else”… not about “one or both had pleasure”.
When in doubt, my final line is “ask the players if they considered it like that”.
Tim Franzke : I guess you can do that, too… I was thinking about the classic “OMG, I have to run for my life RIGHT NOW call you tomorrow”. ^_-
Why would i do that when i am playing a super hot character. She is most dangerous when naked ^^
I’m thinking too much to Monsterhearts and less to Apocalypse World, it seems. ^_^
Well you can do the same thing in Monsterhearts when you are cold-blooded enough.
Make humans seem monstrous you know 😉
An important caveat: intercourse is not the only form of sex.
Meguey Baker : +1200000012100 ! \o/
Meguey Baker : my knowledge of English language gets a bit fuzzy on this.
Do you mean “intercourse” as “male parts inside female parts”, and that there are a lot of different sexual acts with the same intimacy value?
If so, I agree with you.
If you mean something else, I’d like to understand better.
(thanks for being always so helpful, Meg!)
You’ve got it right Mattia Bulgarelli. heterosexual penis+vagina sex is only one of many many options that would count as sex for ApW special moves. So for some values of Tommy Rayburn’s question, sure, physical + emotional intimacy 100% = sex. You’ve just got to be sure as a group what counts, and don’t hedge with what would actually be Read a Sitch, Read a Person, Seduce & Manipulate or just straight-up role playing to try and get the sex moves to go off and give you those sexy, sexy benefits. To do it, do it.
Thanks for explaining, Meg! ^_^
I think the way the Maestro’D special move changes the nature of the trigger underscores that the trigger is normally sex (in all its polymorphous perversity). It also opens up a space for playbooks or advances that likewise alter the trigger. Now I want a Skinner move for the impact of including others in their performance.
Jam Session – when another PC joins you in performing your chosen art, roll +hot. On a 10+, choose 2, on a 7-9, choose 1. On a miss, the performance is a success, but everyone is paying attention to them; they get the effect of the Artful and Gracious move as if they rolled a 10+.
– Your sex moves both trigger.
– You get +1 Hx with each other.
– You both get +1 forward to help or hinder each other.
BTW, it is not (yet) useful, but I’d say that when you kill someone, that someone gets +1Hx with you. It’s up to him/her to do the next step, now. 🙂
I think one aspect that we haven’t covered as to why sex must be involved in the special moves is meaningless sex. Characters who claim to have no emotional rational for sex are boring. The whole point of the specials in my mind is to make sure that sex has consequences (beneficial or not so much). This means that the characters have to deal with the aftermath of their hook ups and in the process get to reveal their attitudes about sex.
Loris Gianadda The person who died already gets +6Hx with you (+1Hx per harm segment with the person who hurts you).
Alfred Rudzki Harm is one thing. Murder is another.
Loris Gianadda isn’t murder prescriptive/descriptive? If you’re killed, shouldn’t it fill up your harm clock? Like if I get a Hardhold, I stat it up?
This is actually really interesting and I don’t have an answer. Hmm.
Alfred Rudzki I had to think of it because my game of AW has a Cthulhian apocalypse (like in BPRD:Hell on Earth) : stars have been right, civilization collapsed under monsters, great old ones, sorcerers and whatever. And the Maelstrom can be reaaaally bad for your health.
Lots of tentacles and, yes, some guys can come back from the dead.
How well do you really know your murderer. Well I suppose you do find out what they feel about you. ‘They’re willing to kill me’ is certainly a worthwhile secret (just not might be a relevant one at that point)
David Rothfeder It becomes relevant when you come back with a revenge (and an appetite for fresh brainnnnz 😉 )
Like I said, might not be relevant. Never said that it couldn’t be.
I was running a session once where, a decidedly asexual person watched two others have sex as part of a seduce. I asked her if that was sex to her character and she said that they wouldn’t consider that sex.
I would argue that, for sure, that would have been sex if the character interpreted it that way. But from her interpretation of the character, Napoleon did not see that as sex and that was the important part.
Man I don’t think it’s necessary to go into so much detail that you describe who climaxes and such. The moves are about what happens after we’re not writing Penthouse letters. Nothing wrong with veiling it.
Nothing wrong with veiling it, you’re right. But there is so much juicy information to be gleaned from asking questions! Every group should so what works for them, but let me jut sing the praises of getting a little sex detail.
Sex is a microcosm of life, and the sex moves are a convenient way to review, compare, and contrast the everyday of the characters. There are people who get upset about sex stuff — I knew a person who worked all day standing up, running around, came home and HATED having to do all the work in the bedroom. This person was tired, duh.
The sex moves are a source of drama in AW because obvious reasons — “uh oh you screwed the Gunlugger? Well Balls really wanted to be screwed by the Gunlugger, guess he’s coming after you now!” — but also because they can let you frame new sides of a characters personality just with a few Q’s.
“Who’s on top? No ones on top? There’s a wall involved? Okay, so who’s on the wall then? You? Really? You feel comfortable about that? No? You kind of hate that this NPC does that? But you don’t say anything? Okay.”
I’ve played with veils, and I’ve played with small questions like this that don’t gush over the sensory details of the experience — cause no thanks — and I’ve found the questions to be informative and interesting. Players take whatever details they learn about their own characters and feed them back into the game, and this is no different.
“Ask provocative questions and build on the answers”