milk cat

I’m guessing most of the people on here weren’t tabletopping in the 90s or early 2000s, but me, and a lot of people were. VtM was actively trying to pull female players into the game with using female pronouns in the books and such. So, us girls (I was a young teen with an older brother, so I at least always had a guy with me) would show up at the comic book store (shout out to TBS comics!) and sit with strangers, some of who were young adults, to play.

I get VtM is a more adult game, but these were different times, and pretty much no one was turned away from the table. The ‘no sexual desire’ thing literally made my tabletop experience more enjoyable, unlike DnD, where I was always getting hit on, especially when I was hitting 16/17.

I personally am "vampires fucking" neutral, some of my characters at some of my tables I adhere to that rule whether it exists in the table's meta or not, other times I don't--but it REALLY depends on the table and the character. The reason for this is everything you listed, and I cannot stress enough that it is a good rule if you are in a situation where you need to have an easy way to tell somebody "no" without it becoming a big deal.

Like, I don't think I'm a prude, but literally like EVERY VtM game I've ever been in as a player except one, someone has felt entitled to being fucked by my character because (to list a few examples) my character was a sex worker who was ONLY a sex worker to feed on humans not coteriemates, or my character was a woman, or they thought they should use Dominate and Presence to force my character to want to fuck them.

I've noticed (and this is probably a problem for men as well but I just don't see it because I'm not looking for it) that women in gaming, even if they play men, are targets for people feeling entitled to some sort of attention both in play and irl and the ability to just say "oh my character doesn't get anything out of sex and would think you're weird for trying to force yourself on them" has been a life saver.

The one table where this didn't happen was the only one where we followed book rules for sex. And one of the others said that ERP isn't allowed/shouldn't come up, but the person who was trying to pressure my character into sex via disciplines just ignored that so like, it's not a fail-proof rule by any means but it DOES make it so much easier to take action against the player and get them removed from the table if they ignore it.

For my tables where I trust my friends and know it's not going to be a big deal, we get rid of the rule entirely or reflavor it (I like the one where all fluids are blood) but for tables with strangers (which I'm increasingly not playing at tbh) I prefer it being a hard rule.

So how have you been these past couple of months? The shadowhand finds out.

✨Illustration for the cover of BREEZE FELT AT MOONRISE by Lynn Buchanan and published by DAW Books