Sex Appeal and Erotic Arts

[Keiko]

Sort of a spin off from an earlier discussion, but I was curious how much these abilities see use in different people's game. Also how much detail do you usually go into if you use them?

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Keiko

Sort of a spin off from an earlier discussion, but I was curious how much these abilities see use in different people's game. Also how much detail do you usually go into if you use them?

Sex Appeal: Frequency: High. Detail: Medium. This is, frankly, a social skill that comes up all the time IRL. If you disagree, you have it at default and probably wonder why some people just seem to have an automatic "in" with the people whose genitals differ from yours.

Erotic Art: Frequency: Low. Detail: Low. It's a valid skill that does valuable things, but not especially something that I feel like playing out explicitly.

[simply Nathan]

Sex Appeal: Seen it once ever, and with almost no detail. A single NPC once said something a little flirty to our low-Willpower Dwarf and used her Margin of Success as a bonus in her contest of Merchant skill against him to convince him to sell stuff to her for less money. I don't see it often in real life, but I don't really see a lot of social skills other than Leadership and Intimidation.

Erotic Art: Not in a million years do I expect to see this in play, but I have made (and not played) a couple characters who have it for reasons of thorough design. I would shoot down any character concept that was reliant on it and probably not even charge any points for someone who wanted it as a background skill.

[Libertine]

Erotic Art is more likely to be used proactively to create a long term fascination with an npc. It could be used to justify allies, even minions of used right. In other words, the target is "whipped".

One could also say that erotic art would be used when an intimate relationship is established as a means of determining the effectiveness of ongoing sex appeal rolls and could also justify a boost in reputation.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by Keiko

Sort of a spin off from an earlier discussion, but I was curious how much these abilities see use in different people's game. Also how much detail do you usually go into if you use them?

Usually at least one at least one character in each campaign will have both such abilities. Typically it will be the character that is the primary "Face" character for the party. Its fairly common for use by Daeva styled vampires or similar designs when hunting. The details tend to be low beyond a sentence or two leaving the actual scenes to fade to black events but the have led to Contacts, Allies and on at least one occassion led to the PCs fleeing the campaign starting area.

[Dwarf99]

Short Answer: A lot.

Slightly less short answer: I compiled a book of numerous rulings that have come about since Tim and Christine Morgan wrote their book on the subject, but the book also has some original rulings of my own.

[starslayer]

Sex appeal:
Frequency: Medium-High ('Face' characters will use this all the time, it might even be a 'go to' skill).
Detail: Low.

I attempt to use my good looks to get the guard to let us through:
Roll Sex Appeal.

This is the primary skill that gets benifit from higher then average apperance, the voice advantage, and the charisma advantage.

It's also one of the 'easiest' to justify skills for casual minimal backlash soical attacks (though also requires some of the largest margin of successes for proper effect). IE in the above mentioned example failing the sex appeal roll won't cause the guard to shoot you, just turn you away, but you might need an MoS of 10 to convince him to look the other way while you and your party of fully armed murder-hobos goes inside the building.

Erotic Art:
Frequency: Low-Medium
Detial: Very low (desired effect may be higher detail though).

I want this guard to be a viable contact later, and I want him to remember this encounter VERY positivly.
Roll Erotic Art.

Erotic art is the skil of doing sex stuff effectively, but it does not actually have to be the act of couplulation- Erotic art can be the skill you roll to give a penalty to someone's lecheorus disadvantage roll via carefully and effectively applied statement that 'get the blood flowing'.

It can also be the skill you go to for getting bonus on ANOTHER skill roll:
IE- I want to influence the person across the room with dance, but I want to use sexually charged dance moves:
Roll erotic art first add 1/3 your MoS to dance, then roll dance as an influence roll.

Finally it can be a replacement skill in applicable situations:
IE- I want to convince the guard that its in his best interests to let us pass by suggesting certain acts to the guard.
Roll erotic art as a social influence roll.

IE2- James Bond after having had sex appeal used on him successfully and is not in the bedroom with the femm fatal of the movie is trying to seduce the femme fatal so hard that she changes sides and becomes his ally.
Roll erotic art as a social influence roll.

Very professional, straightforward and non-explicit, but allows characters to engage in the sort of activites that are pretty common in books/movies/television.

[Firebird]

Sex Appeal: Occasionally, although I once played a mage with lecherous who got a lot of use out of it. Light detail if just socializing, medium to in-depth if important to the plot.

Erotic Art: Rarely (lecherous mage not included). Sketchy detail unless very necessary for some reason.

[panton41]

Sex Appeal - High frequency, low detail. Mostly we used it like any other social skill. Except the one time a new player used it heavily with almost every "favored gender" interaction because he was That Guy who would do that. (He didn't last long in the group.)

Erotic Art - Never used it (GM was too squeamish), but I've had a character that included it because it fit their background.

I should note both of these cases were playing 3rd Edition in high school with my buddies. So it was kind of a teenage "oh boy sex and erotica" mentality that died hard once it got into play because none of us had the willpower to even begin describing how to use it with each other.

These days I have NPC builds that would include it in a bit more of a "Playboy" mentality as opposed to the "Penthouse" or "Hustler" of high school.

[vicky_molokh]

Sex Appeal: very common on character sheets, somewhat rare in practice, with moderate detail. Most of my players seem to believe that Sex Appeal is only good for seduction (or forget that it has other uses). And in the campaign I play in, there were too few NPCs who would be valid targets in circumstances where it would be relevant.

Erotic Art: moderately common on character sheets, but in practice the question is usually 'is there [1] in it, James-Bond-like, or is it at default, as is common among less adventurous people?', with no dice-rolling involved. There were a few cases of high detail, but again, no dice-rolling involved. Otherwise usually fade to black, with a generic description of the overall tone of the scene only.

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I suppose people might start using Erotic Art more and in more detail once they realise that with the most recent SJGames PDF involving this skill allows cool FP transfers for mages, chi users and the like.