I'm uncomfortable roleplaying sexuality between my NPCs and my sibling's PC. How do I handle this best?

Question

We have a table with men and women. My sister is playing a promiscuous character that fools around with male NPCs and takes advantage of them and etc.

I can easily role play romance and sexual stuff with anyone at the table (girls are easy to hit on, boys are fun to hit on AND there's the added bonus of making them jokingly uncomfortable) but doing it with my sister just creeps me out. She doesn't seem bothered to do it, but I cant role play male NPCs hitting on her and just vaguely describe what they do.

Given that it is an integral part of her character, I feel bad for doing a worse job on her than with the others that just do it for fun. What can I do, if anything, to improve or solve the problem?

Answer 1

I don't think this is quite a duplicate of this related question, or this one although it is very close to both. I am as a GM and a player, by my reserved nature as a person, somewhat reticent to engage in sex-related themes in a game at all, period.

That said, I recognize even from my own experience that some situations can feel a little more fraught than others: Usually when my or someone else's Significant Other was directly involved and especially when the "someone else" was there, too. From what I've read of interviews on the subject of sex scenes with married actors, apparently that's a lot more fraught than it appears on screen, too, so we are not alone.

What I personally do in these situations (if I am the GM) is dial the entire campaign back to the level of comfort I have with that individual player. Generally speaking, that is not Puritan/Disney level, but does involve a lot of Fades To Black as described in several answers of the related question. This is best done early in a game, though, since even though it is egalitarian and "fair" it may result in a major part of a PC's personality becoming useless.

Two other things you can do include:

1) Talking to the player, explaining the issue, and promising to at least try to do a little better each time. Like most things, practice and repetition will desensitize you. I have done that in related situations (I often use convention games or other one-shots as experimental venues, so if something blows up in my face, the damage is limited) and it has helped.

2) Delegating a certain class of bit-NPCs to other players, if the nature of the scene allows it (i.e., if the delegate player's character is not also on-scene.) Be warned, I have not actually done this, though I've entertained the idea for other situations, so I can't vouch for how well it will work.

Finally, remember that in general no one should be playing a character whose nature makes another player uncomfortable. It would probably not be controversial to suggest that if a promiscuous PC insisted on playing out that promiscuity with other PCs as the targets, and if one or more of those other target PCs were uncomfortable with this, then the player of the promiscuous character ought to stop it. Remember though that the GM is a player, too. You've correctly determined that you have an expanded set of responsibilities due to your role as the GM. But that doesn't mean that the other players have no responsibilities toward you.

Answer 2

If you are set on rolepaying events out, consider using a formula

"Formula" is pretty loose, but by that I mean follow an approach used by a fictional character that is similar to your PC so that you don't have to completely improvise. If you adopt, say, a James Bond style approach the flirtation is all suggestive but not necessarily very direct. "Oh, did you think that I was referring to something else, [name of sister's character]? What an unseemly mind you have, coupled with such a blunt and direct manner."

If your character's romantic moves are like the Roxbury Guys', you've got a one-speed approach that requires very little investment on your part. If your character is modeled after Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother, the approach could be very direct but based around constructing an interesting lie and sticking with it. Any of these (or the unlimited other options) could allow you to engage in the roleplay without actually having to come up with ways to hit on your sister.

Roleplaying might not involve heading towards a particular sexual conclusion either. If your character is inept with women (or even just this particular woman), his interactions with her might be him getting tongue-tied and nervous.

It's also not necessarily the case that your character has any interest in hers, at all. Just because she's flirtatious or aggressive or whatever doesn't mean that your character needs to complement hers in any way. And if it turns out that her character is pursuing yours but yours is just not interested, then most of the sexual-related roleplaying burden falls on her, where she can engage with it as much as she wants to.

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If none of these (or any other answers) appeal, it might be worth flat-out saying that it makes you uncomfortable. Roleplaying games are about having fun, and if this dynamic removes a lot of the fun for you it may just be better to remove the dynamic instead. Even if your sister isn't bothered by the roleplay and enjoys the immersion it creates, she might prefer for you to roll dice for your character's attributes (and actually have fun) rather than force you to do something that you don't enjoy and that you are concerned reduces the fun for the rest of the group as well.