Apocalypse World, and Sex

Apocalypse World does something that no other RPG that I can think of does. It deals with sex.

Now…some of the more experienced players out there might have just whispered “Dominate” under their breath. Or perhaps “Frozen Witchfire Embrace.” Or even “Charm Person.” Or…gods protect us… F.A.T.A.L.

Because yes, despite what I said, a lot of RPG systems deal with sex, and almost all of them do so poorly.

No, I can’t say poorly…they do so casually. Childishly. And some very poorly.

TTRPGs have an unpleasant history with sex. More often than not the attempt to “gamify” sex and romance — especially with magical or weird-science worlds — results in systems that condone, if not encourage, rape.

Let me just put this X card on the table for you to tap if you want out. I won’t blame you.

America, as a culture, has a problem with sex. We just don’t know how to deal with it.

I’d like to draw a very firm line here. For the rest of this post, when I talk about sex, I am talking about respectful, consensual, and narratively significant sex. Not rape, not shock-bait, not 12-year-old’s ideas of touching butts. I’m talking about — and to — adults.

And even our adult attitudes towards sex is a fascinating thing to me in RPGs, (and outside of RPGs, but this is neither the time nor the place for that discussion, boy howdy!) specifically because it highlights several important pressure-points in our hobby’s culture.

I’m not going to discuss the afore-mentioned Dominate, Charm Person, or other sexual abuses dressed up as bad-gaming-practices; partially because I don’t have anything new to say, and partially because I have a hard time thinking of anything to say. Bad stories are bad. Bad games are bad. Sexual abuse is bad. Don’t do it, not even “for pretend.” It’s not funny, and never narratively necessary.

So let’s start where I stared, with the X card.

The X card is a card placed on the gaming table, in easy reach of every player. If someone feels uncomfortable with anything that is being portrayed in-game, they can tap the card and the other players will move on. The game jump-cuts to a later scene, and we don’t go back to whatever was happening before. We don’t even fade-to-black, we cut it out.

You can tap the X card for anything. Tap it to avoid rape scenes, images of child abuse, excessive gore, portrayals of racism that are either insensitive or hit too close to home, or laughter that you don’t find funny. If you’re an arachnophobe, tap it when you’re about to fight giant spiders. If you have PTSD, tap it to avoid your triggers. Tap it if you just want to avoid something. It’s a safety and comfort tool, and every game should have one or something similar.

Usually, we don’t even fade-to-black for sex; we ignore it completely. We preemptively X card sex.

Apocalypse World says no. Apocalypse World says that if you live in a post-apocalyptic world where you have to struggle to survive, your relationships with other characters is just as important, if not more so, than whether you have two magazines or three for your rifle.

So half of Apocalypse World’s ruleset deals with relationships and sex. The character classes even each have a “sex-move,” a special ability that comes into play after a night of intimacy (not necessarily sex) with another person. A large number of character abilities involve manipulating relationships and the bonuses that come with them.

Now, you might wonder why I’m talking about Apocalypse World and not Monsterhearts. Monsterhearts, which is Powered by the Apocalypse, goes one step further by making romance and sex an integral part of the game, as much a plot-point as physical conflict, and that’s precisely why I’m not talking about Monsterhearts; It is about romance and sex, specifically as relates to teenagers and growing up, as much as D&D is about slaying dragons.

Apocalypse World isn’t about sex, it includes sex. It makes intimacy as important a mechanic as scrounging for supplies and beating back raiders. Each character has a different concrete mechanical benefit to being intimate with another character. It’s another part of the game.

Sure, you can fade-to-black on the act if you must, and the rules clearly state you can ignore sex if you don’t want to deal with it, but you can’t play Apocalypse World without at least being aware of physical and emotional intimacy and the role it can play in both the world and the game.

Maybe we tend to ignore sex — and sometimes even romance — because we, as gamers, get bored easily. Maybe we want the experience of jumping from dungeon to dungeon, planet to planet, mission to mission, dealing with monsters and then tossing their corpses aside; a deluge of one-night-stands that we can “win,” and then move past. On to the next adventure.

Maybe if I want to stop the Foozle from destroying the world, I don’t want to have to worry about calling home to check in. I want to be able to wander wherever the story leads.

Maybe it’s because we see sex as a private thing, and we feel uncomfortable leering at our creations enjoying themselves, even when they don’t exist.

Maybe it’s because we worry that even pretending to have emotions will somehow be read as truth, and we fear expressing love even accidentally.

Maybe it’s because we feel it is unseemly or gauche to enjoy an erotic act, so we don’t talk about it. We skip over it. We ignore it completely. We fade-to-black.

Apocalypse World refutes this. I like it primarily because it forces players to acknowledge sex’s presence without forcing it into the limelight. It recognizes that sex and intimacy are a part of everyday life, even if we pull the blinds when it happens. It doesn’t let us put love and romance in the same hand-waving-box as going to the bathroom or eating three meals a day.

Now, take a deep breath.

Because RPGs don’t only go as far as Monsterhearts; they can go further. Most any RPG has the potential to go further into sexual content, and I refuse to casually brush against the subject and not detail it further.

Next time, we have to get overtly Not Safe For Work.