anyway.

I think this is a good example on how system can actually help immersion. Playing out the sex for real is of course more realistic but I belive most people would have problems staying in character during sex. Ars Armandi tries to retain the feel of sex without it being sex in any conventional definition of the word. The method is of course intimate enough that some people will have problems using it, something that will probably be the case with any system more involved than saying "And now our characters have sex? Ok!"

I'm not sure how this way of using system for immersion could be translated to rules based tabletop roleplaying but I guess some small part of it could be used for inspiration.

/ Jonas - unrealitiesofmine.blogspot.com

Yeah, sexy, but reasonable!

Also very worth reading:
Tom's GenCon Bachannal writeup: [Bacchanal] GenCon Playtest
Ron's GenCon BARBAREN! writeup: [Barbaren] Today, I am a man!
AskMeFi on Help me seduce a guy.

I went to an Ars Amandi workshop by the inventor of the technique, Emma Wieslander, during my visit to Knutepunkt 2005 in Norway (cf. my Knutepunkt 2005 Report).  My brief description was:

A workshop by Emma Wieslander on her famous "Ars Amandi" method for simulated sex in a larp. It is described in other places, I am sure, by people who can do it better justice than me. The exercises were in groups, trying out touching only the hands and arms in a sensual manner. The group I was with were seven men and one woman, which meant that a certain degree of homophobic tension was fairly palpable. Nevertheless, everyone took it quite seriously and did their best. One person said he was uncomfortable with it and bowed out but was quite polite about it.

I think something in common with Ars Amandi and Meg's ritual post is emphasis on what is really, physically happening for the participants—i.e. lighting the candle, and so forth.  A lot of tabletop RPG discussion gets sucked into thinking only about what is happening in principle in the imaginary space.

One interesting issue with Ars Amandi is how to interpret it in-game.  In Wieslander's famous "Melan Himmel och Hav" larp, the method was in-game.  That is, for the science fiction creatures that were being played, that was how they really had sex.  But as Jonas mentioned, it is also possible to map it to real-world sexual acts.

"n Wieslander's famous "Melan Himmel och Hav" larp, the method was in-game. That is, for the science fiction creatures that were being played, that was how they really had sex. But as Jonas mentioned, it is also possible to map it to real-world sexual acts."

John is completely correct here (although it should be "Mellan..."). At least in the larp Ringblomman it was used as representing sex in the SIS (as a non-diegetic method, as opposed to diegetic in "Mellan himmel..."). I haven't visited any of these events.

(To be really correct I think the story in Mellan... goes that they had to have normal sex to create offspring, but that was something that noone would do just for fun.)

" A lot of tabletop RPG discussion gets sucked into thinking only about what is happening in principle in the imaginary space."

A good point. This seems to be the standard view at the Forge. I can fully understand this view, but it really doesn't resonate very well with my roleplaying needs. This might be the single things that creates the biggest between me and much Forge-talk.

/Sven - polyfem.blogspot.com