As the title suggests, I wish to run some roleplaying games that fulfill the following:
1.  Focus on queer characters, particularly queer women and gender-non-conforming characters.
2.  Involve adult themes, including sexual themes to one extent or another.
Since I don’t know who out here is interested in the above, and in turn what else they’d be interested in, I’m looking to gauge some interest and get feedback on some possible ideas before creating my games loosing them into the wild.

Are you interested in any of the following systems?
- Fate
- Dungeons & Dragons 5th Ed.
- Pathfinder 1st Ed.
- Pathfinder 2nd Ed.
I’d love to do more with Fate. Exact rules would be tailored to the particular story.
I’ve grown to dislike class/level systems, but PF1e is an old standby and I can always do it.
I’ve never run D&D5e or PF2e but wouldn’t mind giving them a try.
Since I’m in the “finding out what people into” stage, I’m open to suggestions. I’m familiar with other systems, just don’t feel like listing them all.

Side question:  Are you interested in freeform roleplay?
I’d kind of like to do at least one at the moment.

Ok, now on to some possible plot ideas. All are subject to fiddling and change pending feedback and potential player discussion. Or I might decide to try ruining something completely different. Which of these, if any, do you find interesting?


#1.  The Orphans of Hell
The PCs are tieflings in a world where opinions of them are less than stellar.  While most are raised in specialized orphanages and manage to get with the program of “normal” society, the PCs have each struggled to fit in and still find themselves cloistered in a… well, “asylum” would be a tasteless term… Nevermind. The day comes when they are “offered” a “chance” to be of service doing some dirty work those in authority deem too sordid for their normal agents. Will they do these tasks in hopes of finally finding a niche? Will they use the freedom this mission offers to escape? Will they only die trying? Or will they get caught up in a conspiracy that will shake up the world completely?

#2.  The Howl of Metal
In a world polluted by dark science and even darker magic,  might tyrants carve out fiefdoms for themselves and indulge in what exultation of power and reckless hedonism they are able to before their inevitable defeat by a rival. Is there hope for a brighter future when the only constants are cold steel and colder wills? Depends on how edgy you're feeling,  I suppose.

#3. Yaga a Friend in Me
The PCs are vagabond witches. Each has arrived at the village of Brudrot, drawn by rumors that it was the only settlement in a hundred leagues to have a bath. The hospitality is top notch, but it might not last very long. A variety of monsters plague the countryside,  and you *are* expected to pay for all that food and soap…

#4.  Under Strange Stars
Long ago, the peoples of the Nyvona Isles broke free from the despotic empires of the continent and took to the seas. While they had long thought further travel across the ocean was impossible, a daring expedition was launched to discover what lay beyond the horizon. Disaster wrecks the ships on the coast of a strange new land full of huge and dangerous beasts. The survivors must now establish a foothold here, rebuild their ships, and survive the wilds.  But darker things than predatory animals have their eyes upon the travelers…
This message was lightly edited by the user at 19:55, Tue 04 Apr 2023.

Alright, so I have thoughts on this, which I'll try (and fail) to enumerate in a logical way.

1. Queer character focus - This is an incredibly important issue for me. Great representation is always important, and safe gaming spaces doubly so. While the hobby has made great strides in the last decade or so, I'm old enough to remember when it was decidedly not a very safe space for women and/or queer people of any stripe. I have also seen the frequent fetishization of us on message boards across the internet. While I would hope that everyone who wanted to be involved in this was doing so in good faith, I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me a little wary. We deserve to be able to explore our sexuality as much as anyone else, but I've also seen that explicit focus draw people who made me feel personally very uncomfortable in the past. Definitely not a NO, but I'd want to make sure there were good safety mechanisms in place if that was the focus you wanted to take, especially when we're talking about strangers on the internet.
   
   
2. While I too have a nostalgic history with d&d 3.5/Pathfinder 1e, I'd suggest avoiding those. They're relatively crunch heavy and that often bogs down PbP games which already struggle to get off the ground. Simultaneously, while 5e is a bit lighter, I'd recommend against trying either it or Pathfinder 2e here if you don't already have experience with them. FATE has a nice, modular system and can be tailored with fractals etc. to provide a good experience. You might also want to look at a variety of Powered by the Apocalypose (Thirsty Sword Lesbians, despite how . . . very one the nose it can be, is a game about predominantly queer women) or Forged in the Dark games. I'm not personally interested in freeform.
   
   
3. As for your game pitches, I think that "The Orphans of Hell" and "Yaga a Friend in Me" are the most interesting to my sensibilities.

What sort of mechanisms would you want to see in place?

Any of the items listed here might be suitable.

In reply to Norwood (msg # 2):

Focus is more than representation and might not be better. What themes you focus on matters.
Sex as a theme will tend towards pornographic which Norwood properly calls out as historically problematic. It also tends to kill games. Erotic voice in fiction is detail oriented PbP is already a slow format, slowing that further is risky, and then pacing after six tempo is awkward. A set scene can end a game.
Relationships are a fine thing to focus on but most relationship narratives rely on miscommunication which needs buy in and intention to pull of. The traditional view of D&D type gaming is incompatible with these tropes for PC-PC relationships. Relationships have archs like character archs. To pull of a good relationship arch or several you need good communication and sense of pacing. You need the other player to buy-in and sell what you're putting up
Place in society is inescapable. Being an oppressed minority roleplaying oppression is kind of a grim uneasy concept. Usually we'd step away with stand ins like mutants for being a person of color or who is LGBTQ. But even if you leave descrimination out setting has impact. Suppose you have a pair of Lesbians been together for a while and want kids. Does alter-self work long enough for procreation? Someone will have worked out a spell. To say nothing of being Transgender in a world where it's famously a curse caused by a belt when you acquire sex-gender in incongruence. Nevermind magically fixing it. Are you even represented if you get magically "better." Also that puts weird problematic moral value on sex-gender congruence. There's stuff there to work out but good luck finding an RP partner wanting to support. Like imagine the relationship between a feminine changeling with say a trans-fem dragon-wrought kobold in Eberron. Massive trans-themes with a hefty dose of "it sucks to be the chosen one."

OP seems out. Personally hesitant about any sex-centric game, but do like more inclusion in games conceptually.

I'm just gonna take this all as a no and look elsewhere.
Cheers.

I'd have some tentative interest.

I've played several transwomen characters, generally ones who used magic to get their physical bodies to match their minds along with body swapped/reincarnated characters who didn't set out to change their physical sex but ended up embracing those changes.

Paizo has done a lot of work to make their Adventure Paths very inclusive and open.  I've been running the Outlaws of Alkenstar, and in the first two books we've had same sex couples, a trans gang leader who came to Alkenstar to live as himself, since his culture rejected him, a number of non-binary NPCs, and plenty of room for characters of either gender to express as they wish.  One of my players is currently attempting to romance a same-sex airship captain (a tiefling dwarf) in hopes of getting to share her rather spacious quarters, and at least one of my players has declared themselves asexual (actually being asexual, rather than just as a ploy) to stop advances from an NPC.

And my group is decidedly old school in their normal gameplay.

But if you're looking for a setting where all of this is actually way more built in, you might want to look at Starfinder, their Science Fiction/Fantasy system.  Many of the alien species are multi-gender or even ungendered, and a lot of their work was done to make the system inclusive from the ground up, rather than changing setting tropes to ignore or blur lines.  Having played a Host Shirren in my first game, and using they/them, it was a little bit of a stretch for some players, but I liked being able to play a character that was a little closer to my personality than more 'manly man' style characters that old-school fantasy tends to lean towards.  And the thing I appreciated was that the players grew to know my character beyond the pronouns or the surface.  They were a mystic, a believer in sentient potentiality, and the importance of mental health.  Whether it was a player character, a captured villain, or a ravening being losing its mind, my character stopped to counsel, and then, as an icon, record and post to social media personal statements and self-help motivational speeches.  The groans at the table were for me spouting psychobabble or asking probing questions, not for my gender.

Roleplaying can be so freeing and validating, especially for individuals who are not regularly seen in real life.  Despite being cis-gendered in RL, I very much hope those of you in this thread who are looking for Queer roleplay have an outlet, or are able to make one.
This message was last edited by the user at 21:08, Fri 28 Apr 2023.

FYI - I heard tell that someone was working on a version of Dungeon World for the Rat Queens setting.  If you were going to have a game setting that was inclusive, queer friendly, and rules-flexible, Rat Queens would be it.

Now I have to go hunt down who was supposed to do that, and see if they published anything.