[DF] Faun Barbarian - Bessarion

[Tymathee]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

The only DF Barbarian I ever GMd had this (though I haven't read the Barbarians book and called it Arrowproof Nudity, but it was the same idea). He was a colossal THREE-FOOT TALL Leprechaun in my all-Leprechauns campaign, Little Green Men. His standard move at the commencement of any hostilities was to whip off his kilt, which he also became skilled in using as a Light Cloak and Sling.

Hahaha, that's amazing!

I just found the very particular naming of the trait to be interesting. I wonder what the story is behind that? TTRPGs are mostly written by heterosexual, cis-gendered men... which is pretty true of GURPS, although perhaps I shouldn't be making assumptions about the author's identities. My impression though is that by large they're straight men. Oh, sure, there's women involved in GURPS. But if this stuff was written by men, by a primarily male consumer base... well, it's safe to assume intentional homoeroticism. Jokingly is totally fine too, plenty of LGBTQ+ people are totally OK with jokes being cracked at the expense of queerfolk so long as they're made in good taste. This seems to be the intention here with "Beefcake Protection".

I usually deem it largely unnecessary to list the sexuality of a character on their sheet (nothing to do with queer awareness, "fade to black" is just a scarcity in roleplaying, at least anecdotally). Almost all my characters are heterosexual, cis-gendered people, and I usually only dip into alternative sexualities/alternative gendering if I'm for whatever reason wanting to explore LGBTQ+ themes. I've had some queer characters... but their sexuality/gender for the most part just isn't that important to most typical adventuring.

For characters with the Sex Appeal skill, as Bessarion has, sexuality becomes a bit more relevant in adventuring. Should it need be made apparent, yes, Bessarion is a heterosexual, cis-gendered faun male. The Lecherousness trait has some strongly implied bicuriosity though... honestly, I find the queercoding in GURPS traits to be quite amusing.