Don't Tell Me About It
This is pretty old suck, back from when I was running World of Darkness games online. Most of my experiences doing this were good, but there was one notable exception. I was running a mortals game. The plot involved a stone curse tablet and a demon, I can't really remember too much of it now. I had got most of my players from online forums, so I didn't know them hardly at all, but they seemed cool. We had a few sessions and it went well. I noticed pretty early on that two of the characters had taken a liking to each other, and had more or less begun playing out a romance. This actually made me happy, because it meant the players were getting involved in the game more, and that's always good.
Since it was an online game, I told the players that, if they wanted to, they could roleplay together when I wasn't around, provided they didn't need any NPCs and also sent me the logs so I could see what their session was about. This seemed like a great idea, because they were really getting into it, and I figured it would give them a chance to flesh out their characters more, and strengthen the relationships between them. Well, I was right about one thing, at least.
One day, a player IMs me and tells me that her and another player had run some scenes without me. I was excited, because this meant they were interacting more, which I thought would make the actual game more interesting. "Send me the logs," I said, and she was happy to oblige. I read them. For a few pages, the two characters discussed the mystery of the game, came to some interesting conclusions. Great, huh? Then I read something like, "I lean forward and meet your lips with mine." Then everything went to hell. The latter half of the log was page after page of these two characters getting busy together. I mean sex. SEX. And worse, it was in the most purple prose, using words like "phallus."
I was appalled, but didn't know what to say to the player, so I just thanked her for the logs and pretended none of it happened. For the next few days I agonized over how exactly to tell these people how I felt about it, but couldn't, so again, I just pretended it never happened.
Wow. Just wow. I'm all for people doing whatever they want with their characters in the off time, but I would have appreciated it if they hadn't sent me such detailed pornographic transcripts. I know, I know, I asked, but I had no way of knowing it was going to be like that. I honestly thought rules like, "Don't have cybersex and then tell the Storyteller about it in long lingering detail" were a given in this kind of thing.
Since it was an online game, I told the players that, if they wanted to, they could roleplay together when I wasn't around, provided they didn't need any NPCs and also sent me the logs so I could see what their session was about. This seemed like a great idea, because they were really getting into it, and I figured it would give them a chance to flesh out their characters more, and strengthen the relationships between them. Well, I was right about one thing, at least.
One day, a player IMs me and tells me that her and another player had run some scenes without me. I was excited, because this meant they were interacting more, which I thought would make the actual game more interesting. "Send me the logs," I said, and she was happy to oblige. I read them. For a few pages, the two characters discussed the mystery of the game, came to some interesting conclusions. Great, huh? Then I read something like, "I lean forward and meet your lips with mine." Then everything went to hell. The latter half of the log was page after page of these two characters getting busy together. I mean sex. SEX. And worse, it was in the most purple prose, using words like "phallus."
I was appalled, but didn't know what to say to the player, so I just thanked her for the logs and pretended none of it happened. For the next few days I agonized over how exactly to tell these people how I felt about it, but couldn't, so again, I just pretended it never happened.
Wow. Just wow. I'm all for people doing whatever they want with their characters in the off time, but I would have appreciated it if they hadn't sent me such detailed pornographic transcripts. I know, I know, I asked, but I had no way of knowing it was going to be like that. I honestly thought rules like, "Don't have cybersex and then tell the Storyteller about it in long lingering detail" were a given in this kind of thing.