in other shoes

not very caffeinated yet - apologies in advance.

So, I really think it is really cool that I have this group of D&D players in my local group that has gone with homosexual characters in our game. I have two married (male-female) couples as players, and among them, the PCs consist of 1 straight female, 2 gay females, and 1 (straight? asexual?) male. The players of the 3 female PCs have all, to one degree or another, shown some interest in having their characters involved in occasional side romances, though I wanted to firmly establish a main plot before I tried to work with these.

Being their GM, I went in eager to explore and facilitate this aspect of the game, and being a straight cis male, I went in with the full knowledge I was/am more than likely going to make a mess of things. I find myself actively choosing to make lots of NPCs female that I would otherwise default to males, and doing so makes me think about why I would otherwise default to a male (inherent sexism? an easy archetype that I can play to? because I'm male and its easier to voice a male NPC?).

First thing, I think we managed to get a good basic plot through-line established. Dark powers in ages past were locked away in a magical prison in the form of a book, the Tome of Xendrin. Recently uncovered, the magic has been subverted and now the book, when read, is releasing the nasty evil biz back into the world. Check on getting that off the ground, and my PCs seem engaged. Also checks on getting multiple threads from the PCs backstories woven in, some of which they have discovered and a few more that are still out there.

ramble ramble ramble. point, in short: last night boy howdy do I think I probably offensively portrayed a female NPC reacting to advances of female PCs, but here's a thing - I don't think it was any difficulty putting myself in the position of a lesbian in this instance - I think it was my utter lack of knowledge of what the experience is of a woman at a bar/tavern.

So, i guess, exploration ongoing. Its actually really comforting that my male player with the female PC also felt like he screwed up a character moment last session. Yay for not failing alone!