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Old 02-13-2022, 11:45 AM   #31
the_matrix_walker
 
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Default Re: Modelling Equal Gender Appeal

Questions of Disguise, and different applications of Sex Appeal (Which seems to keep getting defended as useful to things other than seduction, when I do not believe anyone called that into question) are great subjects for another thread, but are getting off track of the OP actually is asking, which is...

What trait can they take to be able to say they are...
"a man who even the men want"
and
"the character could use Sex Appeal on/against others regardless of gender."

I take this to mean that without preparation, the character walks into a room and anyone interested in either gender who see them think "I can work with that..." on a romantic/sexual level, so they are receptive to Sex Appeal attempts once they are made. Or that they are so skilled in a technique for breaking down people's barriers that they are able to seduce people into thinking about 'crossing over' for an encounter (so they can be "vamped" for any application of Sex Appeal, not necessarily seduced into a sexual encounter).

IMO - Androgynous as an appearance modifier or as a perk is insufficient, as it requires you to "dress the part" and as a result does not apply to those only interested in one gender when the character is presented as a different one, or their gender is ambiguous which has it's own set of complications. Neither trait will allow someone who is clearly of a particular gender to use sex appeal on someone not attracted to that gender (I know the writer of many GURPS books including Social Engineering has said I was wrong about this, but outside of Social Engineering (which I don't have) I can't find anything to support that statement. I'm not fond of being wrong, so I'd like to know where my flaw lies. Can someone with Social Engineering comment if there is a relevant wording change for one of the involved traits that change Sex Appeal or Androgynous in a relevant way?)

------------------------------------------

Questions for the OP:
  • Is this intended to have any impact when they are not actively using Sex Appeal?
  • Is this meant to be great personal magnetism or is it sheer seductive prowess?
  • Is the goal to have the character have the same reaction modifiers with either gender or just to enable the use of sex appeal and let the normal appearance modifiers stand as written?
  • If you are concerned with the point value being too high for some options, how high are you willing to go?


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Old 02-13-2022, 12:21 PM   #32
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Default Re: Modelling Equal Gender Appeal

Quote:
Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker View Post
Questions of Disguise, and different applications of Sex Appeal (Which seems to keep getting defended as useful to things other than seduction, when I do not believe anyone called that into question) are great subjects for another thread, but are getting off track of the OP actually is asking, which is...

What trait can they take to be able to say they are...
"a man who even the men want"
and
"the character could use Sex Appeal on/against others regardless of gender."
The fact that Sex Appeal can be used for purposes other than getting someone into bed, and that other things than sex appeal can be used to get someone into bed, means that "the character could use Sex Appeal" is not limited to using it to get people into bed. Therefore it is not equivalent to "a man who even the men want," at least not if that is about seduction. Those two can be discussed separately.

Consider, for example, a man who is a committed monogamist and who is genuinely passionate about his wife. He meets a beautiful woman. His reactions to her in general are at +4 (not +2, as they would be for a handsome man). And if she attempts to gain his help using Sex Appeal, it's not impossible that she might succeed, and in any case she would get +4 to her Sex Appeal roll if she got to attempt one at all. And all of this is even though he is not going to go to bed with her and she may not even be offering that.

Now, if she were a man, he would get +2 to reaction rolls, but he would not even be able to attempt Sex Appeal rolls against this monogamist, not because he's monogamous, but because he's not even abstractly or potentially interested in a male partner.

But what if he's an Androgynous man? The reaction bonus is +3, not +2. That extra +1 must come from the fact that he looks a bit femme. It's not because he's mistaken for a woman, because the rules say nothing about "passing" in this case. And it's not because there's sexual intent, because the monogamist is still heterosexual and knows that the androgyne is a man. It's purely an aesthetic response to appearance.

So does that extra +1 apply to Sex Appeal rolls, and does the androgyne get to MAKE Sex Appeal rolls to straight men? I agree that that's debatable and any answer must be speculative. But I might allow it, to represent a specific response: the perception of physical beauty and in particular the perception of the beautiful woman this man might be were he a woman. That bonus wouldn't be usable to get a straight man, or an exclusively gay woman, or a monogamist of any orientation into bed, or perhaps into any physical contact; but it might be usable to get them to do other things that the androgyne wanted.
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Old 02-13-2022, 12:47 PM   #33
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Default Re: Modelling Equal Gender Appeal

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
So does that extra +1 apply to Sex Appeal rolls, and does the androgyne get to MAKE Sex Appeal rolls to straight men?
And if so, it raises another question: How does one make a character who can make Sex Appeal rolls to straight men and straight women, but who ISN'T particularly beautiful? Average Appearance (Androgynous +0%) [0]?

It's akin to the question of how to apply Cannot Wear Armor to a character who lacks natural DR.
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Old 02-13-2022, 01:14 PM   #34
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Default Re: Modelling Equal Gender Appeal

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Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
And if so, it raises another question: How does one make a character who can make Sex Appeal rolls to straight men and straight women, but who ISN'T particularly beautiful? Average Appearance (Androgynous +0%) [0]?
You stop beating your head agaisnt this wall and call the invisible aura that affects the Reactions of others Charisma?

There's a combat-themed Perk that allows for substiuttion of a different Weapon Skill with a weapon that Skill does not necessarily cover. So you need to create a new Perk that allows the possessor to use Sex Appeal when people without the Perk have to use a different Skill.
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Old 02-13-2022, 01:18 PM   #35
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Default Re: Modelling Equal Gender Appeal

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Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
And if so, it raises another question: How does one make a character who can make Sex Appeal rolls to straight men and straight women, but who ISN'T particularly beautiful? Average Appearance (Androgynous +0%) [0]?
(a) Give them the Androgynous perk.

(b) Any character can attempt Sex Appeal rolls. If you're Ugly, you roll vs. Sex Appeal-4, but hey, you might have a critical success . . .
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Old 02-13-2022, 01:30 PM   #36
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Default Re: Modelling Equal Gender Appeal

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
The fact that Sex Appeal can be used for purposes other than getting someone into bed, and that other things than sex appeal can be used to get someone into bed, means that "the character could use Sex Appeal" is not limited to using it to get people into bed. Therefore it is not equivalent to "a man who even the men want," at least not if that is about seduction. Those two can be discussed separately.
I'm not seeing much of a distinction. They can be discussed separately, but they can likely be resolved with a single trait that equates to...

"You are perceived as a viable sexual partner buy those with a different orientation than your presented gender."

No one is arguing that the access to Sex Appeal for use with an oppositional preference would be specifically aspected for "getting people into bed", just for the switch to be flipped to enable the skill's use in this usually forbidden context.

Depending on the game, This could be just its own custom perk (but not, I think, an existing one), or added special benefit of a technique or modeled in any number of ways.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Consider, for example, a man who is a committed monogamist and who is genuinely passionate about his wife. He meets a beautiful woman. His reactions to her in general are at +4 (not +2, as they would be for a handsome man). And if she attempts to gain his help using Sex Appeal, it's not impossible that she might succeed, and in any case she would get +4 to her Sex Appeal roll if she got to attempt one at all. And all of this is even though he is not going to go to bed with her and she may not even be offering that.

Now, if she were a man, he would get +2 to reaction rolls, but he would not even be able to attempt Sex Appeal rolls against this monogamist, not because he's monogamous, but because he's not even abstractly or potentially interested in a male partner.

But what if he's an Androgynous man? The reaction bonus is +3, not +2. That extra +1 must come from the fact that he looks a bit femme. It's not because he's mistaken for a woman, because the rules say nothing about "passing" in this case. And it's not because there's sexual intent, because the monogamist is still heterosexual and knows that the androgyne is a man. It's purely an aesthetic response to appearance.
No arguments here.

You can use Sex Appeal for any number of social interactions to be sure, but for it to work for anything, the person you're working your magic with has to have the undertone that "this is someone I would want to have sexual contact with" regardless of the promise of actual contact, the base desires and the flattery of being appealed to on this level are enough to sway people, even if their situation is such that they would never agree to go through with said contact.

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
So does that extra +1 apply to Sex Appeal rolls, and does the androgyne get to MAKE Sex Appeal rolls to straight men? I agree that that's debatable and any answer must be speculative. But I might allow it, to represent a specific response: the perception of physical beauty and in particular the perception of the beautiful woman this man might be were he a woman. That bonus wouldn't be usable to get a straight man, or an exclusively gay woman, or a monogamist of any orientation into bed, or perhaps into any physical contact; but it might be usable to get them to do other things that the androgyne wanted.
So you're saying a GM may decide to enable the use of Sex Appeal with people who would not be sexually desirable. While I think I would not do that and they would just get their improved reaction bonus with other relevant social skills, I can see it as a point of potential debate and discussion. It's not anything established in the RAW to my knowledge, so...


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Old 02-13-2022, 01:56 PM   #37
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Default Re: Modelling Equal Gender Appeal

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Originally Posted by Merior View Post
How do you represent 'a man who even the men want'? (Or, for that matter, 'a woman who even the ladies like'?)
I assume (pulling from B21 terms) that you mean something along the lines of allowing female characters to buy "Handsome" and allowing male characters to buy "Beautiful" ?

Expressions like "even men want" or "even the ladies like" of course rely on the stereotype that "men prefer beauty" and "women prefer handsomeness" which are associations which (while probably describing average/majority trends) may not even hold true amongst heterosexuals.

You could for example have a heterosexual man who prefers handsome women to beautiful women, or a heterosexual female who prefers beautiful men to handsome men.

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Originally Posted by Merior View Post
To explain a little more: I have been trying to figure out how to represent someone who can be the 'exception which proves the rule' for the sexuality of others. The best way I could see this represented in the rules would be if the character could use Sex Appeal on/against others regardless of gender.
This should always be possible IMO, like instead of a 'hard cap' you soft-cap such attempts with increasing levels of penalties.

Social Engineering pg 29 treats "attracted to the person's sex" like a fixed criteria.

Plus this raises the question as to whether bisexuality in gurps has only drawbacks (you can be manipulated by a wider range of people since you are attracted to a wider range of people) that might make it a quirk, or some kind of benefit (maybe people could get bonuses when attempting to do something on behalf of someone they are in love with?) that would balance it as a 0pt feature.

I also think we should recognize interim states, like "heteroflexible" falling somewhere between hetero and bi, and "homoflexible" falling somewhere between bi and homosexual.

Or we could also classify that as androsexual/androflexible/bisexual/gynecoflexible/gynecosexual

How many interim tiers you use depends on how many +1 tiers you want to assign per gradient I guess.

IMO we should probably redo the "Appearance Levels" category, and rather than have a bunch of confusing words, just rank it numerically like what's done with Charisma.

IE the baseline could be "Impressive 1, Impressive 2, Impressive 3" when talking about advantages.

There doesn't seem to be a "negative Charisma" for negative numbers but you could probably do that.

I think we basically need a lot of "under the hood" analysis. Like for example, why is there a "-2 instead of +2 from same-sex who have -4 in other reactions" for VH/VB but nothing like that for normal Handsomeness or Beauty?

I don't really think something like that should be uniform: there should be people out there who don't irrationally react worse to very handsome/beautiful characters simply due to hating them for other reasons.

If we consider that the baseline then there ought to be some kind of "I don't overreact to attractiveness" perk to ignore that "+2 becomes -2" issue.

Quote:
Originally Posted by WingedKagouti View Post
The Universal modifier on Appearance from Basic (p 21).
That's only for crossing the species gap not the sex gap

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Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
there's a distinction says that Androgynous is intended to apply to sex appeal, not merely generic reaction bonuses.
Do you recall where it says this?

"Attractive" is inherently androgynous yet I don't think that enables Sex Appeal to be used against those not attracted to your sex.

Quote:
Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker View Post
Sex Appeal specifically works on those "attracted to your sex". Androgynous does not alter the character's sex.
I think part of the problem here is that it probably ought to be something like "attracted to the sex they think you are".

For example, you have Bugs Bunny dressing up as a lady to use Sex Appeal on Elmer Fudd, who is into it when he thinks Bugs is a lady, but not when he realizes Bugs is Bugs.

But that type of thing involves some combination of androgynous looks (or conversely, opposite-sex looks: handsome women and beautiful men) or the Disguise skill.

Last edited by Plane; 02-13-2022 at 02:06 PM.
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Old 02-13-2022, 01:56 PM   #38
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Default Re: Modelling Equal Gender Appeal

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
So does that extra +1 apply to Sex Appeal rolls, and does the androgyne get to MAKE Sex Appeal rolls to straight men? I agree that that's debatable and any answer must be speculative. But I might allow it, to represent a specific response: the perception of physical beauty and in particular the perception of the beautiful woman this man might be were he a woman. That bonus wouldn't be usable to get a straight man, or an exclusively gay woman, or a monogamist of any orientation into bed, or perhaps into any physical contact; but it might be usable to get them to do other things that the androgyne wanted.
Now that you lay it out, I think this seems a fair interpretation. However, I'll note that OP stated the character is meant to be "a man who even the men want," which implies the character is actually capable of getting a heterosexual man (or a homosexual woman) into bed, not just able to influence him with Sex Appeal. I think in most campaigns that would pretty much just be a Perk, even if in-world it's more akin to a limited form of mind control/brainwashing (you're overwriting someone's sexual orientation).

Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
And if so, it raises another question: How does one make a character who can make Sex Appeal rolls to straight men and straight women, but who ISN'T particularly beautiful? Average Appearance (Androgynous +0%) [0]?
As noted, the Passing Appearance Perk has an Androgynous option, that lets you pass as the opposite sex.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
There's a combat-themed Perk that allows for substiuttion of a different Weapon Skill with a weapon that Skill does not necessarily cover. So you need to create a new Perk that allows the possessor to use Sex Appeal when people without the Perk have to use a different Skill.
That makes a great deal of sense. I'd have a character who has the Perk but is clearly of a sex the target isn't attracted to use their lower bonus if they're Handsome/Beautiful or better, but otherwise I don't see a problem with allowing this.


Putting it all together, my inclination would be that, to make a character who can convince even those who are not attracted to his/her sex to sleep with him/her, you first need some way to be able to use Sex Appeal on your target (androgynous appearance, or the Perk Fred Brackin suggested), then you need a Perk that makes it so anyone you can use Sex Appeal on can be convinced to sleep with you, regardless of their actual orientation (but note you don't have to actually use Sex Appeal, any other influence skill should be able to convince them to sleep with you, as normal). The GM can still override this in certain cases - a truly dedicated monogamist, someone who is very serious about their Vow of Chastity, etc, would still be unwilling to sleep with you (just as the GM can decide an NPC's reaction to you, regardless of what your stats are - sure, most people react to you at +20, and you have literal worshippers, but the High Priest of the Dark God doesn't care about that, he wants you dead).
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Old 02-13-2022, 03:21 PM   #39
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Anyway maybe sexuality is legitimately a more personal and delicate subject than fighting.
Stipulating so, then wouldn't you agree that (say) me grilling you over whether you know what you're doing to the degree you're involving sexuality at your gaming table would be a pretty frigging impertinent question?
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Old 02-13-2022, 03:36 PM   #40
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Default Re: Modelling Equal Gender Appeal

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I think part of the problem here is that it probably ought to be something like "attracted to the sex they think you are".

For example, you have Bugs Bunny dressing up as a lady to use Sex Appeal on Elmer Fudd, who is into it when he thinks Bugs is a lady, but not when he realizes Bugs is Bugs.

But that type of thing involves some combination of androgynous looks (or conversely, opposite-sex looks: handsome women and beautiful men) or the Disguise skill.
Agreed.

Since the OP isn't interested in embracing androgyny or exploiting ambiguity and is expressing a desire to attract those with an orientation counter to their gender presentation, I'm having trouble seeing why androgeny (without some form of further modification) is part of the discussion at all.
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