Ave sodales,
The satyr blood grants a +1 bonus for Com and Pre totals, as long as targeted characters are sexually compatible.
Does it mean a male heterosexual satyr-blooded character must be sexually compatible with his targets ? Or vice versa ?
May he have a bonus when he speak to lesbian people ? Or is the bonus granted with homosexual male targets ?
I was not certain about it.
Anyways am I correct this character may hack his satyr blood with the "Switch gender" virtue (RoP:I) ?
I am quite sure, that the
requires, that the Satyr blooded character be "sexually compatible" with the character he wishes to get the +1 bonus with.
The troupe needs to use discretion and knowledge of the world to determine this compatibility case by case: don't expect an RPG or RPG forum to exhaustively explain finer points of sexuality. As an obvious example, a straight man can make himself sexually compatible with a gay man, if he desires so.
A rare character with both Satyr Blood and RoP:TI p.85 Gender Shift might have a very unstable sexual identity and a very strong sex drive at the same time. If the troupe allows such a character at all, they might wish to do some further reading on child sexuality.
Cheers
Maybe but then it means the Satyr blood bonus could apply in any conversation, should the character wish to become openminded. It would be a way to bind the "sexually compatible" limitation, making that virtue two times greater than other Faerie blood (Satyr blood boosts Com and Pre where others only affect a single Characteristic).
My initial question was about the difference of point of view. A satyr-blooded character do know which genre arouses him. But if the required compatibility is from his relations' point of view, then a player cannot know if the satyr-blooded character wins a bonus, and the roll must be secretly performed by the storyguide.
Thzt is a small gameplay difference.
I'm not discussing gender identity process.
It seems to me that it would be dependant on the person being affected and their sexual inclinations. Otherwise everyone playing a character with satyr blood would want to be a bisexual slut, tactically speaking.
Exactly what I thought !
How? A satyr-blooded man - no matter how openminded - would not appeal to the typical straight man, or would he?
A straight satyr-blooded man can expect no bonus when conversing with another man, unless he first understands this man's sexual inclination (e. g. with a successful roll of Folk Ken or Area Lore), and then successfully plays to it (e. g. with a successful roll of Guile or perhaps Carouse).
A SG with something special in mind - like a gay man who fancies the satyr-blooded man from the beginning - will make the interaction rolls secretly: but this applies to any other such modifiers - like in conversations with people fearing or detesting faeries - as well.
Cheers
In My Biased Opinion, it requires two things to activate: The 'target' to be sexually interested in the Satyr-blooded (That girl likes boys!) and the Satyr-blooded to be playing to it. It could be the Satyr-blooded is a heterosexual male interested in the fishwife, or it could be a heterosexual Satyr-blood who's flirting with the homosexual Venetian merchant man.
I agree. Then there is the question if a heterosexual Satyr-blood in homosexual situation (or vice versa) can /successfully/ play to it. There is little doubt that this would be harder to pull off, than a heterosexual situation for the heterosexual character. Maybe this difficulty and the resulting awkwardness offsets the bonus, or maybe a skill check is required to make the necessary sexual hints, or maybe we just want to make it simple and allow it. The answer also depends on how much emphasis the troupe wants on romantic and sexual roleplays.
"Hey there. I notice you're staring at my magnificently sculpted behind. While I am not interested in other men, I appreciate your positive attention. You seem a classy man, perhaps we can hang out with the understanding that I'm not taking my pants off. Also, I think that man in the other corner of the room is also looking at my butt. You two should hang out."
But yeah, I think there are ways to make the situation work, but it'd usually be an exception rather than a rule.
Today you find experts for this around most European central railway stations, who generally learned it by practice in short time.
Cheers
There is nothing in the description that indicates that you have to "play into it". It just happens. Similarly there is nothing that says gender is the only issue. People have hang ups based on class, hair color, perceived religion, and so on that can all come into play regarding sexually compatible, as long as sexually compatible doesn't get confused with relationship material...
Sometimes.
But 'sexual compatibility' can also require work. Our straight satyr-blooded man at first is not 'sexually compatible' with a gay man. But he can work on it and become compatible, if he so wishes.
Cheers
I beg to differ. Look at the fairy tale descriptions of satyrs and similarly powered faeries. They have a magically, seductive effect on the opposite sex. This is the power the virtue seems to grant (in a weak version appropriate for a thin-blooded descendant). All the other features that may be relevant for mundane sexual preferences are simple not relevant because they are overpowered by the magic of the fay, which affects the opposite sex indiscriminantly.
Yes, I agree that the virtue itself does not say that gender is the only issue, but Ars Magica as a whole states an aim to be consistent with medieval legends, and the virtue says «satyr-blood». Like the satyr, the satyr-blooded should affect everyone with the right gender.
The wording of «sexually compatible» is just there to cater for homosexuality (etc), which is largely ignored in the faerie tales. The wording leaves an opening for troupes who want more homosexuality in their sagas than they can find in histories and legends. ArM, and it is stated in more than one disclaimer around the books, does not want to write much about sexuality, because whatever they could have written, some troupes would not be comfortable with it. Hence, an opening is provided, but not a solution. The solution must be found for and by each troupe.
Now, I may have contradicted my previous agreeing to «playing to it» as a requirement. Not really. I think of it as a general requirement in any social interaction to roleplay it, somehow capturing the unique tension in the situation, whatever it is. This virtue is nothing special in this request. But this is really the old roleplay versus rollplay debate, and I hope we are not reviving it in this thread 