Editing Magical realm (section)

==Drawing the Line==

It is inevitable that DM's, being at heart storytellers, will let their desires and interests bleed into a narrative without trying to get off. A horse loving DM may not constantly pimp-out centaurs with big dicks or beautiful female bodies, but he will very likely pay great attention to mount mechanics and try to sneak in a centaur character or two wherever they can plausibly fit the game, or in the very least make many horse references. These are ''not'' the DM's that have a magical realm. Despite what [[/pol/]] may (read: will) tell you, caring about something is not a crime.

A [[/d/M]] is someone who ''only'' dotes on the concepts that get him (let's be honest, they are almost always male) off, and try to draw other players to appreciate his fetishes via quests and requests. (see the piss comic above)

On the other side of the "published author" line, one of the problems with defining "magical realm" is that, sometimes, legitimate aspects of the setting can sound really, really fucked up when discussed casually. 

Due to many cases of both, a lot of threads about magical realms on /tg/ are anons trying to find the precise line when something goes from "fantastical" to "perverse". As with debates regarding furries, [[beastfolk]] [[Furry#Monstergirls_vs._Furries|and monstergirls]], the primary keys are context, context, context, and the sanity with which the concept is approached. Intent also goes a long way, naturally: the DM might describe a sewer's horrible smell in-depth not because he's a fart fetishist, but because he wants to improve the group's immersion and not have the characters jump in the sludge without a care.

For a specific example, take [[Empire of the Petal Throne]], in which one of the potential PC races are the ''Mihalli'': shapeshifting alien [[wizard]]s whose "default" form is [[furry|a humanoid lion with 4-6 breasts]] and who are reputed to be [[dickgirl|hermaphroditic]]. And, to be honest, "multi-tittied herm lioness wizard" sounds like [[Chakat|something straight out of a stereotypical furry's magical realm...]] but here they are treated as just an ordinary, mundane aspect of life on Tekumel.

A quick comparison to the other races of the setting makes it clear that the hermaphrodite thing is just a case of contextually appropriate weirdness (assuming it's even true, given the Mihalli's reproductive practices aren't exactly documented): all the non-human PC races are similarly strange in one way or another. One species faces four directions at once and has eight biological sexes (and funnily enough, their reproduction methods aren't well know to outsiders, either); another has members who resemble glass sculptures and act as a eusocial hivemind. The Mihalli are almost certainly intended to be aliens that actually '''feel''' alien, and are neither [[Star Trek|aliens whose only difference from a stock human is that they have funny ridges on their foreheads]], nor aliens whose shtick is [[Chakat|summarized by the phrase "they're like that because It Gets Me Off™"]] -- in particular, they lack the usual [[Mary Sue]] bullshit that is a distinguishing feature of the latter. For example, the main reason they're a minor race? They lost a large scale war against the humans when their capital city got nuked, resulting in them having to flee into the shadows.

Another thing to consider is the intent and nature of the work. Something that is openly and explicitly about sex (e.g., pornography, [[/a/|ecchi anime]], erotic roleplaying, etc.) is generally not considered magical realm material because the sex is what you're there for, so complaining about it is like ordering a sandwich then complaining that it has bread on it. You're a willing participant, not having something forced onto you, and the creator is completely open about what they are doing, not doing it and then pathetically denying it. The "magical realm" complaint being justifiable only sets in when the sex is nominally hidden, but starts peeking out from every corner you look at, or the content is very much not as advertised.<ref>To provide an example of the latter: If a book heavily advertises itself on its sexy Furry content, complaining about it having a lot of sexy Furry content is probably going to get you rightfully mocked... but if your complaint is that the book also has a disturbing, repeated, and heavy focus on sexualized cannibalism content that ''wasn't advertised in any way'', well '''that''' is considered a valid complaint.</ref>

A final potential wrinkle in the whole concept is the matter of personal preference. Everyone has their own tastes and comfort zone; one gaming group may laugh as the [[Bard]] has hot sex with a [[Beholder]] right in front of them, the next may get uncomfortable just from some light flirting with an [[NPC]]. Its good practice to use Session Zero to get a vibe of what your group will tolerate content-wise. Now you know. [https://youtube.com/watch?v=dzyh_nEuh3M And knowing is half the battle!]