One of my PCs unknowingly slept with his sister [closed]

Question

So some background: 3 sessions into the campaign, we arrived in Neverwinter and went to the nearest inn. At this inn, one of the barmaids started to flirt with our Paladin. Our paladin had sworn an oath of celibacy, and when the serving girl found her flirting didn't work, she started to work again. However, for laughs, our Rogue tried to make a CHA check to seduce her. He rolled a 20 and they ended up in the barmaid's bedroom. At this point, we decided to call it for the night.

The problem is that in my GM notes, this barmaid was actually the Rogue's sister, who was kidnapped at a young age. In addition, the entire storyline I was planning on going with is that the people who kidnapped his sister are also the people who the party is currently tracking down for other reasons. There are also other plot reasons that make it so I can't easily just make her a childhood friend retroactively. For example, the barmaid possesses objects and knowledge that only the sister would be aware of.

You probably understand my issue:

• Keeping the barmaid as his sister could cause conflict both at the table (Rogue to GM: "why did you not warn me she was my sister, GM?") and on the table (Paladin to Rogue: "Why would you commit such an unlawful act?");
• Rewriting part of my campaign to remove the surprise incest would be a lot of work;
• I did see a 3rd option of starting the next session with a short segment in the sister's bedroom the night before, where either the sister or the rogue notices something peculiar about the other person. However, this would be the first time that we do not skip the night between 2 sessions, so that would put up warning lights. The other players might think the wrong idea when I take the rogue apart for some personal GMing.

I'm not sure how to handle this. Part of me wants to see the looks on their faces when the reveal happens, but the sensible part of me thinks that might cause irreparable damage in the group. However, the alternatives would invalidate much of the work I already did on this campaign.

How do I deal with this situation?

Answer 1

First: Ewwwww, yuk.

Second: The bar is big enough to employ 2 barmaids - luckily the one he slept with is not his sister. This changes the situation from really gross to "dodged a bullet, lucky your sister wasn't working the first night, eh?" Oh, and they share a bedroom and each other's stuff because they're BFF. She comes home in the morning and doesn't trust the rogue because she thinks he is ... a rogue and doesn't have her friend's best interests at heart.

Answer 2

Talk to the Rogue's player, out of game and before the next session.

Explain to them what is going on and ask if they are happy to either run with the accidental incest plot line or want to change it retroactively. Even let the player come up with a reason why they did not end up sleeping with said bar wench: maybe a talisman, tattoo, birth mark, or something stopped it. They chatted, realised they were long lost siblings, and for $reasons decide to keep it a secret. For example, not to raise the kidnappers attention.

If the whole incest is a problem with other players, then you have but little choice to drop it.

Personally, I have a list of things that shall not be approached during play. Everything else is open. So, I know what I must not do. It is harsh but those are my rules. This forestall some of these thematic problems.

Answer 3

Hot diggedy.

Can you keep the story intact with this twist?

I think it's a fun option that could really add drama, tension and character into what you're doing, but it is likely to be off-limits for some people and as a GM you need to respect that. You need to figure if your players would be uncomfortable with casual, accidental incest. You could print some questionnaire sheets about topics the players would be comfortable/uncomfortable with. List many: torture, amputation, racism, slavery, and slip in incest too. Have your players grade them on a scale (EDIT: Per excellent suggestion by Angew in the comments, you could use the "lines and veils" system) to see if they're ok with these, anonymously if they prefer, under the guise that you want to be sure to not cause any accidental distress with your plot developments. Voìla, you've got results, and can use them to determine whether it's worth keeping the twist intact.

As a side note, having such results is beneficial in any case, if you plan on doing anything potentially controversial in your game.

Suppose someone doesn't want even casual, accidental incest in the game.

Don't fight it - in this case, it's pretty much your duty to work your way around without the incest twist. You'll have to retcon your story to remove the sibling incest in some way. I take it by your question that the barmaid being the kidnapped sister is a very integral part of the story, but luckily, since (by the presence of Rogues and Paladins) this sounds like a fantasy setting, people stealing each others' identities shouldn't be too hard. Maybe the barmaid was actually a shapeshifter beast preying on careless adventurers using a female form it had seen somewhere, or has people see it selectively as "the person they most desire" (with "desire" not specified as necessary sexual).

If the idea of the barmaid not being the one she seemed to be doesn't strike you fancy, but you don't want incest either, you'll have to either suck it up and rewrite the relevant parts of your campaign, or interrupt the action before it gets sinful.

The third option, interrupting before incest

That's not a bad idea, and by my experience players would likely appreciate such foreshadowing. If you want to avoid ringing too many warning bells, you could interrupt with something actually dangerous to keep the players' attention away from the barmaid. Have a gang of rogues storm the bar before bedtime, or a fire break out. Anything that prevents things from escalating into erotica, and you've dodged the bullet.

Answer 4

Let it be AS IS. In real life this could happen. If they didn't have a reliable way of knowing, it doesn't really matter, and will only give a bit of awkwardness between them.

If you have a prudish(?) set of players though, it wouldn't be a good idea...

Answer 5

My advice: Keep it a secret, reveal it only to the Rogue, let him come up with why the party needs to go on the quest. Maybe he'll reveal it to some other party members to get them on side, or maybe he'll blurt it out and have to convince the Paladin that there is a greater evil at hand that the party needs to contend with. This is something that happened to the party, no different than if the rogue had backstabbed someone, thinking they were an evil henchman, but that turned out to be innocent.