Do all humanoids have a sex drive

dnd-5eroleplayingromancesexuality

This question came up when I was using XGE's This is Your Life section for the first time, to discover and develop my kobold's backstory… rolling a 24 in Life Events which would have left me married. A quick google search led me to discover, however, that kobolds are non-monogamous and the females lay up to six eggs a year… but nothing I found about their romantic lives. There was one entry I found (on Google's search page) that clarified that they are reptilian so they lay fertile hard-shelled eggs.

I didn't think of it much at first, just rerolling that event and moving on, but as I started to piece his story together, it dawned on me how impactful it was… If their reproduction cycle was pheromone-based like that of many animals, then they would be naturally asexual resulting in:

  1. A lack of understanding of any romantic subplot development
  2. The complete (and possibly comical) lack of awareness of touching moments such as a marriage, divorce, or proposal… (which now makes me think of how hilarious a kobold acolyte with ceremony would be)
  3. An advantage/immunity to any mundane means to seduce
  4. Any magical means used to seduce would be like using the pheromones as perfume and "release the wild beast" (which might follow the same rules as a Barbarian's Reckless Attack/Rage for that moment)
  5. This might be the most seen as a difference in tone with how that character relates to the group, almost rendering them like the oblivious PG character in a gangbang film.

So I started to look into this and did not find much on the kobold (sorry if I missed any on here), but then realized that other races might be affected too, like the lizardfolk that has an alien/primal mind. So what I was hoping to learn is what playable character races are monogamous, polyamorous, or asexual, and how does that mindset affect the campaign?

Note: I understand that not all campaigns involve sex all that much, but the concept is still present in kids' movies, so I think that would find itself everywhere. For instance, even in CoS, there are heavy romantic elements; with the 3 wives and the whole reason Strahd became a vampire… If my hunch is correct, that would mean that the kobold player in the campaign would be oblivious to the whole reason one should empathize with this character and simply see him as a lawful evil tyrant.

Best Answer

Look to older editions

D&D publications became a lot more “streamlined,” for lack of a better word, with 4e, and while 5e has reversed that somewhat, it is still rather slim compared to the monumental amount of material published prior to 4e. For example, as far as I can tell, 5e has less than half a page total devoted to kobolds. The closest we get to hearing about their family life is that they are “egg-laying.”

D&D 3.5e, by contrast, gave them an entire 18-page book chapter. Races of the Dragon is a 3.5e supplement devoted to several “draconic” races. This was the original debut of dragonborn (which have changed massively in the editions since) and the spellscales (who have never appeared again, to my knowledge), and it also greatly expanded the lore for kobolds and half-dragons.

Obviously, it’s been two editions. Even more obviously, as I just said, the dragonborn changed massively between 3.5e and 5e.¹ Things can and do change, including stuff from this very same book.

That said, Races of the Dragon addresses this question—with respect to kobolds, anyway—directly:

Love

[…]

Kobolds only rarely engage in any activity resembling romantic love. Most find their communal life among tribe members satisfying enough. A kobold can live her whole life without forming a bond to any sort of significant other. That doesn’t mean that kobolds are asexual. They mate regularly. The impulse for doing so, however, is mostly instinct tempered with a sense of duty. All kobolds desire to keep their tribe fortified with as many healthy young as can be fed and housed.

Kobolds who form an emotional attachment to another kobold are drawn to that one out of mutual respect and increased productivity. The potential partners often meet because of having to work with one another, and then find that they work better jointly than they did alone. As such, kobolds who don’t work together only rarely become romantically involved.

Kobolds who are attached in this manner take an oath to serve and care for one another, each becoming the other’s “chosen one.” The would-be couple’s all-watcher (see Society and Culture, below) must approve the match, and with that done, a priest witnesses the oaths and blesses the union. Such unions are rarely monogamous, because both sexes are still compelled by mating instincts and are likely to succumb to those influences if separated from one another for long. Since sex itself has little emotional value to kobolds, these extramarital liaisons create no friction between couples.

Couples who bond together in this was are provided with personal living quarters if their status and contributions to the tribe merit such a privilege. Usually, the all-watcher allocates an area that the couple must then excavate.

(Races of the Dragon, pg. 43)

So romantic partnerships are not precisely alien to kobolds, but they’re far from the norm. Those romantic partnerships are committed, but are typically not sexually monogamous; “sex itself has little emotional value to kobolds.”

There is nothing here about “pheromones,” though non-specific “instincts” are mentioned several times. It’s entirely plausible that these instincts are triggered by non-chemical cues; pheromones are just one of many ways that animals can indicate a desire and/or willingness to mate.

Anyway, one way or another, kobolds are sexual, even if they don’t attach emotional significance to the act. They are also capable of romance, though most neither seek nor find it. It is unlikely, therefore, that any of the game-mechanical effects you describe would be particularly appropriate. At best, circumstantial disadvantage for interracial seduction attempts, if the seducer is unfamiliar with the sexual instincts of the seducee, but that can probably said for most interracial pairings in D&D.

But note here that while kobolds rarely do romance, and don’t attach romantic feelings to sex (or constrain sex to romantic relationships), this is primarily because kobolds’ emotional lives are tied so heavily to the tribe. The same section, for example, states (up front, the very beginning of the Love section, as part of the “[…]” in my quote) that kobolds are eager parents:

Kobolds put great energy and care into fostering kobold wyrmlings. Few experiences are more gratifying to an adult kobold than being treated as a model for the life of a young kobold.

Kobold adults go out of their way to encourage juveniles who show promise, to steep them in the traditions of kobold culture. Kobolds teach using simple instruction and swift punishment in case of error or failure. Punishment is often physical in nature, though usually geared toward causing instructive pain rather than injury.

(Races of the Dragon, pg. 43)

Thus, it would be a mistake to see kobolds as purely driven by instinct or incapable of emotional reactions to others. They just have different emotional tendencies and needs.

I suspect most playable races fall in the same boat. But you can look into this more by looking into older editions’ material. Not every race is covered in this kind of detail, of course—lizardfolk don’t have their own dedicated book chapter, for example. But it’s a good place to start, to save you the trouble of inventing it all yourself.

For what it’s worth, though, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of a D&D race being subject to differing rules with respect to seduction et al. like you propose. That certainly doesn’t exist in WotC-era D&D. I wouldn’t be utterly shocked to find out TSR had written up some rules like that, but be aware that the further back you go, the less connected it’s going to be to modern D&D. TSR did a lot of things that WotC wouldn’t (and vice versa).

  1. Really 4e, the dragonborn are pretty similar between 4e and 5e.
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