Hopelessly Devoted, and Sexual Roleplay
Hopelessly Devoted is a NSFW solo-journaling RPG, and this is going to be an uncomfortable post for some of you. If you don’t want to hear it, that’s fine, see you next time. For everyone else, some ground-rules:
First and foremost, I will not hear any dissing of the sexual roleplay community. The RPG community should know what it’s like to have people totally misconstrue our hobbies in a manner that details their hangups more than it does ours. Even worse, we know what it’s like for someone to get it right, and then shake their heads and say it’s weird. We know better. People like what they like.
Second of all, do not take anything I say here as gospel. I am, by necessity, shaving out a lot of important facts to keep this relatively quick post quick. If you want some of the facts from a Kink-focused lens, go find Kink-made media. There’s plenty of good stuff out there.
Oh, and let me get this out of the way. Kink play is not inherently sexual. Yes, sexplay and eroticism can certainly be involved, and often is, but neither is necessary — so if sex is part of your hangup about Kink, just remember that it’s no more necessary than a GM, Dice, or Combat is for a fun RPG session.
Now then. Hopelessly Devoted.
As a Solo Journaling RPG, you could be forgiven for assuming the game is mostly an excuse to write smut. The game is not, however, about that. It’s about community, personal growth, and duty. It asks you to pay attention to the body of your character, and their relationships with others. It may not need to be smutty, but it does ask you to be intimate.
The mechanics are simple enough; you play as squire to a knight, and roll a d4 to decide how many weeks have passed since your last entry before writing on the prompt supplied for that week. Once you pass week 12 you move to the next season, until the end of winter when your worthiness for knighthood is judged. Judgment is based on a point system dependent on which prompts you roll up.
Not all of the prompts are erotic, or even necessarily intimate. A good deal are fairly standard knightly duties, but most involve at least one other person with the potential for deep emotional investment.
All of this is predicated on whether or not you actually want to explore sex.
I talked about this earlier: my culture doesn’t do well with sex. We don’t know how to talk about it. Either we hem, haw, and sidestep, averting our blushing gaze and coming up with euphemisms; or we go into lecture mode, becoming dispassionate professors, reciting medical and sociological facts like Vulcans.
With that in mind, its easy to see how Hopelessly Devoted could be considered a protection of sorts, a safe place to explore and perform the erotic within the confines of a game, complete with scoring.
But I don’t want to talk about sex, exactly. I want to talk specifically and exclusively about roleplay, and how sex connects to it. Remember the question I asked earlier, about “how much are our characters embodiments of ourselves, and how much are they masks we wear to protect us from harm?” Now is when I want to bring up something that might influence the answer.
Some people like to play a Dominant in their sexplay, to feel like they have control over themselves and others in a way they don’t outside the scene. Some like to be Submissive, finding strength and satisfaction in providing pleasure to other people. Some RPG players like to min-max and master the intricacies of a system to better control outcomes. Some like to serve the higher cause of narrative, creating a story everyone enjoys, even if it means sacrificing their character and “ideal instrumental play.”
Am I saying that min-maxers are doms and storytellers are subs? No, of course not, I’m merely suggesting that we roleplay — both in and out of the bedroom — for comparable reasons: to experience something we don’t or can’t otherwise, to practice what we aspire to, and to enjoy ourselves through experiencing some possibly/probably intense emotions in a safe environment.
Okay, am I really saying that sexual roleplay and game roleplay are the same because people do both for fun? Is that my argument’s lynchpin?
No, not really. I mean yes, that is significant, but that’s not where the similarities end. In the stories of both avid roleplay gamers and roleplay kinksters, there are a lot of parallels.
Both groups put on “scenes” and play for the intended pleasure of all parties involved. Both maintain a powerful fourth wall that keeps the illusion vibrant and healthy, unless a safeword/X card is used. It’s no accident that safety is placed at the forefront of both the healthy-RPG and healthy-kink community: have you noticed how often I’ve said that all kinds of RPGs are valid, so long as everyone is having fun? That language isn’t unique to RPGs. Both communities care about consent, safewords, verbal contracts, safety-toolkits, and aftercare. Granted, the kink communities have known about the need for these tools a lot longer, but RPGs are closing the gap.
What my argument really is, is that RPGs that focus on the roleplay are emotionally charged, and should be treated with the same level of respect and care as a therapy session or sexual encounter.
Some people find themselves trapped in a different kind of roleplay in their daily lives, pretending to be businessfolk, confident parents, competent managers, real men, real women…and there can be a real catharsis, real healing to be had in getting rid those roles. Listen to the stories of everyone from Furries to gender-non-conforming people, and how adopting a role that is more true can free you from significant pain.
My biggest worry in writing this post is that some of you reading this are feeling at least a little uncomfortable right now, either because of my frank discussion of sexual practices, or because you don’t like the idea of RPGs being compared to “kinky sex-play.” I get it! Our hobby has been vilified by outsiders since the beginning, with the Satanic Panic being the obvious example. Some people just don’t “get it,” and label it weird, no matter how natural it actually is.
Especially since, it must be said, we all recognize that at times our hobby can be pretty childish. For every long-winded diatribe someone writes up about the positive powers of RPGs in schools or for therapy, there are seven embarrassing echoes of the worst excesses of our hobby’s history. Yes, we loved our Boris Vallejo art. Yes, All females are sexy and poorly dressed. Yes, we get very emotionally invested in what is fundamentally a game. No, no-one plays RaHoWa, and we wouldn’t even if the rules weren’t trash. We can try to reject the giggling juvenile aspects of our history while embracing our mature and healthy potential, but every hobby has its embarrassing — sometimes outright shameful — side.
The fact of the matter is, roleplay both in and out of the bedroom is a kind of storytelling, and the point of a story is to make you feel.
Sure, Burtolt Brecht might disagree, and there have been entire artistic movements centered around rejecting that idea, but for better or for worse, when we play RPGs we experience emotions. I’m comfortable calling that a fact, and I’m not positive it’s one we should keep quiet about.
Emotions can be weapons. We can turn them against each other far easier than we care to admit. Traumas both big and small can be driven deeper into our skulls, opening old wounds and scraping away at our nerves.
We are all writers when we play RPGs, and writing is difficult. Oftentimes we know the results we want, but are uncertain on how to achieve them. Worse, we can be certain what will work and be wrong. We know that struggles and conflicts are required in a game, but is there value or virtue in forcing our fellow players to feel feelings like pain, helplessness, futility, and despair?
We play a dangerous game when we roleplay. We put ourselves and our emotions in the hands of our fellows. You may think this is a bit melodramatic, but our emotions are our emotions, our traumas our traumas, and roleplay can help heal our wounds, unite our community, and help us in ways that we need.