The tabletop roleplaying game feels like the perfect landscape for romance and sex stories to thrive within - especially when it comes to more modern TRPGs, where the goal is often to develop bonds between characters rather than win battles.
I wish the article would actually go more in to depth what it exactly is about TTRPGs that make them “the perfect landscape” for romance and sex stories. The author just states it as a truth to accept rather than ever talk about it.
I’d also challenge the idea that modern TTRPGs are not about winning battles. D&D is still by a mile the most popular game, followed by the likes of Call of Cthulhu that focuses on solving mysteries and overcoming the mythos, with Paizo games following behind being, at their core, about the same stuff as D&D. You can say what you want, but the modern TTRPG audience is still all about that winning battles game.
So funny thing, owning a bunch of the itch.io bundles from the last few years, there are plenty of games out there about relationships, romance, and sex… But they are not easy to find because, well, that is not what the majority of our current crowd wants. It’s not that romance and sex is under-served, it is that there is a very small audience for it in the RPG sphere.
I think if you are in to this kind of content that is great for you but understand that it is something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable even to engage with in private by themselves… Bringing it to a table of friends in an environment where the writing is very often in first person. That is a big barrier to break.
I’d actually strongly disagree with the assumption that “The tabletop roleplaying game feels like the perfect landscape for romance and sex stories to thrive within” - I think these kind of games, backed up by having read some of the romance games from the bundles, actually move away from the classic TTRPG space and in to some new, cool, experimental spaces, but not in the classic sense of “sit around a table and play characters and tell a story together”.
Trying to sell a TTRPG about sex and romance is also going to be a hurdle to overcome. It is a hard thing to put in a hobby store on the front of a webpage in a hobby that is often sold alongside board games, minifigures, and pokemon cards.
Honestly this feels a bit like the classic “Why aren’t other people taking their time and effort to make the thing I specifically want, even if the thing I want is super niche and won’t make money”. What is the old adage? If the game doesn’t exist, you are now on the hook to make it?
I dunno, this is just some very messy immediate thoughts on the thing.
I’d also challenge the idea that modern TTRPGs are not about winning battles. D&D is still by a mile the most popular game, followed by the likes of Call of Cthulhu that focuses on solving mysteries and overcoming the mythos, with Paizo games following behind being, at their core, about the same stuff as D&D. You can say what you want, but the modern TTRPG audience is still all about that winning battles game.
So funny thing, owning a bunch of the itch.io bundles from the last few years, there are plenty of games out there about relationships, romance, and sex… But they are not easy to find because, well, that is not what the majority of our current crowd wants. It’s not that romance and sex is under-served, it is that there is a very small audience for it in the RPG sphere.
I think if you are in to this kind of content that is great for you but understand that it is something that makes a lot of people uncomfortable even to engage with in private by themselves… Bringing it to a table of friends in an environment where the writing is very often in first person. That is a big barrier to break.
I’d actually strongly disagree with the assumption that “The tabletop roleplaying game feels like the perfect landscape for romance and sex stories to thrive within” - I think these kind of games, backed up by having read some of the romance games from the bundles, actually move away from the classic TTRPG space and in to some new, cool, experimental spaces, but not in the classic sense of “sit around a table and play characters and tell a story together”.
Trying to sell a TTRPG about sex and romance is also going to be a hurdle to overcome. It is a hard thing to put in a hobby store on the front of a webpage in a hobby that is often sold alongside board games, minifigures, and pokemon cards.
Honestly this feels a bit like the classic “Why aren’t other people taking their time and effort to make the thing I specifically want, even if the thing I want is super niche and won’t make money”. What is the old adage? If the game doesn’t exist, you are now on the hook to make it?
I dunno, this is just some very messy immediate thoughts on the thing.