Happy New Year!

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Hi Everyone and Happy New Year! Let’s hope 2021 is a bit brighter than 2020!

Like many creative enterprises big and small, for most of 2020 I’ve been in “survival mode”. I don’t mind admitting it- we’ve not been able to shoot with external models since March 2020, I’ve had to take most of the remaining jobs I’d outsourced back in-house, and we’ve had to adjust our lives and our businesses to Ariel not travelling and not modelling for other people, too.

As our friend and long-standing member and contributor Merlin said in an email to me yesterday, the result is that RE is looking a bit forlorn. Not in terms of content! We’ve never missed an update, we’ve got a very exciting batch of new models to showcase from Alexander Lightspear and I’m about to commission a new batch of Lockdown Selfie shoots from our best models, too.

The bit that needs attention is the interface and site design. Behind the scenes it needs https: secure mode and the latest version of PHP. But what it needs most is a refresh of things like the members’ home page and the CSS layout so it works better with mobiles and on large screens.

This is my major technical project for 2021. I’m aiming to get the redesign and revamp done in time for the site’s 20th birthday. I’ll be rolling stuff out in waves over the next few months and asking for your feedback and suggestions as we go.

Artistically I’ve got four big projects in the works (and a lot of little ones too).

The first is to master my new video camera: I’ve invested in a new Sony FX9 camcorder now that we’ve moved to Sony E mount for the majority of our lenses. I’ve shot a couple of test videos with it and it has some really lovely features like continuously variable ND filters which nicely complement the cameras we’re currently using. For example we can now do smooth indoors-outdoors transitions, something we’ve never really had a good way to shoot before. I’m excited to start using it on bondage shoots.

The second is to experiment with shooting with Anamorphic lenses for an even more cinematic feel. I loved the experiments I’ve done so far but my composition and (especially) set and production design needs work, and the best way to learn is by making more bondage videos that way. I’ve now completed my line-up of lenses so I have a wide-angle, a normal and a telephoto, and I’ve got hold of a second-hand Panasonic GH5 which has a proper anamorphic shooting mode which will make focussing and composition much easier as you can view the de-squeezed image as you shoot.

The third is to revisit old shoot plans. I’ve got a folder full of emails dating back 20 years with ideas to shoot. I want to go back and find the ideas I wrote but didn’t shoot on the day for one reason or another. It will be a lot of fun to bring them to life with 20 years more experience and the resources of the modern RE bondage storeroom and photographic kit. Ariel and I are going to be working on this a lot for the next few months!

The fourth is to write a big long list of ideas for models to shoot for us for the Lockdown Selfies project. It’s weird writing shoot plans for stuff where I am not going to be present. I’m going to have to relearn how to do it. It’s a throwback to 25 years ago before I’d shot anything myself and was commissioning a lot more customs, in a way, which is quite nostalgic.

Oh and fifth I just remembered I bought a new camera gimbal just before the first lockdown which I’ve not experimented with much yet, too. I want to get back into doing planned camera moves with it, scripted in more like the way Slave Auction and Day in the Life were. Having a camera permanently mounted on the gimbal should make setting those shots up a lot easier than laying track and using a dolly. Especially as we’ll be shooting in our house, which has lots of rooms but not all that much space to lay track. The gimbal should be much more agile. I’m watching the Hollywood Camerawork course again to remind myself how to block these elaborate shots efficiently and creatively.

So there’s a lot in store for 2021! Email me at webmaster@restrainedelegance.com if you’ve got suggestions for the site redesign or ideas for the bondage and artistic projects. I’ll be emailing the mailing list and posting here for feedback on specific things over the coming weeks and months.

Cheers, Hywel

Megashoots coming soon!

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Hi Everybody,

It’s been quite a strange year what with the pandemic and all. Ariel and I live where we shoot, and we live out in the country. So models usually need to come to stay when they shoot with us, and that’s been against regulations since March. We had to cancel the year’s big location shoots as well.

Fortunately, it’s time for some excellent news. Alexander Lightspear has had a break in lockdown, and lives in a city, so has been able to cram in a spectacular burst of shooting working with us! He’s shot 50 sets in the last week or two, with more to come.

Best of all, he’s found us some SPECTACULAR new models, as well as shooting more sets with gorgeous favourites like Irene, Cheryl and Delta.

I can’t wait to get processing these, they’ll be up in the New Year but in the meantime here’s a few tasters screen-grabbed as I looked through them!

Hywel

SilkSoles.com running “at risk” for next few days

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Hi Everyone,

We are performing a load of updates to the system software on the SilkSoles.com server over the next few days which amongst other things will finally let us move to offering encrypted/https browsing of the whole site.

We’ve tested as best we can but there’s always the possibility for disruption when one goes live with a major update, so the server might be offline or pages might not work as expected for short periods over the next few days.

I’ll post again as soon as we think we have it all up and running, you shouldn’t notice any changes but will be able to browse the whole site securely once we’re done.

I’ve decided to make one change as part of this so far and removed the “rate this set” option from inside gallery pages. No-one ever uses it – even the oldest sets only have like six ratings- so rather than working to revise old scripts for the new system software I’ve just decided to remove the feature. Now that we sell sets individually on the eStore and post samples on twitter I get much better feedback as to who likes what that way anyway.

UPDATE 04/10/2020: Script changes are all done our side. Now we wait for tech support to move us to latest versions of the environment and see if anything breaks. It shouldn’t do – we tested everything under that version already- but you never know, there’s always the possibility of missing something on the live side. So site still running at risk for next few days.

Cheers, Hywel

Porn star D&D!!! (or, less tabloid: adult industry & BDSM community table top roleplaying game)

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Hi BDSM Community and Adult Industry folks!

UPDATE

As is always the way, the devil is in the details. Scheduling a normal-sized D&D group with adult industry folks looks like it is going to be a nightmare. Plan B: I’m going to run this as a series of one-off games for one or two people at a time.

On the plus side, many thanks to artists Devin Night and AAW Games for giving us permission to use their wonderful products during these games. Check out Devin’s token for VTT’s and AAW’s awesome maps – you’ll see them in action soon!

ORIGINAL POST

I’m Hywel Phillips, the photographer and webmaster of RestrainedElegance.com. I’ve been running D&D and other tabletop roleplaying games for almost 40 years. I’m going to be running a D&D game for people in the adult industry and kinky/BDSM community.

It will be online via the Fantasy Grounds virtual table-top program for character sheets, maps and tokens plus Discord for video conferencing and streaming. Having got permission to use their system, I’m putting the game together now. It’ll take me a couple of weeks minimum.

LINKS:

  • Fantasy Grounds. Download the new Fantasy Grounds Unity version, it’s free. You can play using the demo version, you just have to sign up for a free account on their site.
  • Discord. I’ll send you an invite to the Restrained Elegance discord server. Install the app, the browser version’s crap. Again, free but you’ll need to make an account with them.

I’m looking for players from the adult and BDSM/kink industry and community to join in.

I need a group of three or four players to get started. Email me or DM me on Twitter if you are interested, but please read the rest of this post so you know what’s involved.

What’s the plan?

Start off small. Run a private “session zero” to get us to the point where everyone can log in, see their character sheet, join the video and voice chat. I help people figure out their settings for Fantasy Grounds and Discord. If we get that done with time to spare, we start a short adventure.

If that goes well I will run a few sessions, each of two to three hours, same time same day for a couple of weeks ideally. After that we’ll decide whether to keeping playing and how often to do it.

You will need to be happy to appear on camera via video chat and voice.

Apart from the private “session zero”, I propose that any of the participants have the right to record, stream or do anything else they like with the game sessions. I propose to stream it myself via Discord and publicise to my members, and maybe record the screen and put that on Restrained Elegance afterwards. If you want to record your screen or point a camcorder at yourself and stream to a webcam service or record for your OnlyFans or whatever, please go ahead. It is up to you to decide how to stream, who to give access to, whether to just use the discord feed or whether you’re pointing a second camera at yourself and recording that, etc..

None of us will be paid, but any of us can package up and distribute, sell or give away the footage of the games via our own channels as we like.

So all participants will need to consent to the other people in the game streaming or recording it and selling it.

I propose to allow fans to watch the sessions on discord, maybe write messages via the discord text chat channel, but not to participate via video or voice. I have (hopefully) set Discord up so than any of you as official players can block or mute or kick off anyone who is being annoying. If you have any concerns at any point tell me. There will be a zero tolerance policy – if someone harasses or upsets any of us that person gets blocked.

The Game World

We will be playing D&D 5th edition because more people are familiar with it, and I’m comfortable with running it. I know there are currently some problems with WOTC, the company who own D&D, but I think bringing excluded adult industry voices in to the conversation can only be a good thing. We might branch out into other game systems in due course but D&D is the simplest way to get started.

The game setting is a stock high-fantasy elves-and-dragons-and-dwarves-and-wizards place called the Duchy of Falcondale, which I created for my Cosplay Dungeon video series.

If you’ve played D&D or fantasy computer games, you know the stock characters – fighters and rangers, sorcerers and thieves, bards and barbarians, orcs and ogres. You shouldn’t have much trouble coming up with a character idea that’ll fit. We’ll discuss by email in advance of session zero and I will generate your character for you inside Fantasy Grounds ready to roll. We’ll start the characters at third level, not too much to master but not as fragile as first level newbies.

A few things that are different:

  • First golden rule: any intelligent creature can fall in love with any other intelligent creature, and given the high magic levels of the fantasy world, can find a way to have sex. Quite a lot of people have a high libido and will be attracted to lots of different folks.
  • Second golden rule: you can never tell by appearances. That gnome could be of stone giant blood and stronger than an ogre. The dragon might be a shapeshifted dwarf sorcerer and the halfling might by a warrior worthy of Yoda.
  • Third golden rule: while bad stuff can and will happen to your character, there will always be a way out. Even if they are killed there will be a way back. So feel free to throw yourself into trouble; it’s my job as GM to devise a quest into hell to rescue you again.

The reason that I put these in place was as a framing device in the Cosplay Dungeon films to have both player and GM be comfortable roleplaying kinky and sexy situations, and to make more or less any intelligent creature a potential source of romance or a sex scene. I will do my utmost to ensure that the setting is free of trans- and homo-phobia. Sexism and racism are not going to be a thing in the game setting.

How you look, what you can do and your moral character are in no way connected in this world and “race” isn’t really a thing in the usual D&D sense. If you want to play a talking unicorn or a winged fairy, a halfling with the stats that a half-orc would usually have or a goblin with the stats a high elf usually has, you can. There are no “evil” or “inferior” races; the orcs in this barony might indulge in banditry because they are poor and the people travelling past have nice stuff. The orcs in the next-door barony are refined merchant prices who live the high life in tastefully decorated mansions.

Your mother might well have been a polymorphed talking lizard in dwarf form and your “father” her lesbian sex-demon lover suitably shape-changed. You can change almost everything about your physical body, including sex, gender and race, with a second-level spell. LOTS of people in the game world can cast that spell and do so enthusiastically every time they have sex.

Consent Tools

While I think there would be some value in showing adult industry folks playing a purely-vanilla game where we fade to black the moment any sort of sex scene happens, I don’t think we should have to censor ourselves. I don’t expect every encounter to turn into a sex scene but I’m hoping for a much higher level of libido in this game world than I’d dare to do running a game for strangers at my local games club!

We will be using consent tools for the game. Similar to shoot and BDSM scene safewords, there’s a red/amber/green safety card system in place which I will explain in session zero.

Basically press the red “X” card if you are uncomfortable with the content at any point. The group will rewind or change the content. That’s like a red safeword. Use the amber “N” card if you think we might be heading for an “X” card and you’d like to change the content or fade to black and skip to the next scene. The green “O” card is for me to poll everyone to see if everyone is good to continue with a scene.

Romantic and Sexual Themes

Are you OK to have non-consensual stuff happen to your character (as it would playing a damsel-in-distress character in a BDSM video?) Are characters going to get tied up by the evil baron, spanked by the head of their magical order, grappled and groped by tentacle porn monsters? Or you want to be able to romantically ravish the princess if the tone seems right, or turn the wicked baron into your boot-licking slave?

I don’t HAVE to run the game like that, but I think it would be kinda cool to include BDSM, kinky and sexual elements if the group is happy with it.

If you ARE happy with that, please tell me what kinks and BDSM roles you would like your character to be involved in. I’ll be delighted to make sure you character gets into lots sub/bottom/non-consensual (for the character) situations if you would enjoy that as a player. Likewise I’ll be delighted to have plenty of feisty but submissive-at-heart NPCs around for your character to dominate if that is something you as a player would enjoy.

Or I can restrict it to situations where that character gives explicit consent in-game (as well as the player obviously) if you prefer.

All of those things can happen if you’d enjoy switchy situations too and I can work in other kinky themes or fetishes if you’d like me to include them.

I’ll call for a show of green cards before describing any of this in detail in the game, particularly for the first few sessions where we won’t know each other’s limits and preferences yet.

Many of the NPCs will be poly, pansexual, kinky switches who might put up some “oh no sir” resistance but will fall in lust/love after you give them a bit of a spanking, in the light-hearted way we often see in BDSM kink erotica (Like “and then she has a forced orgasm after the whipping” in a BDSM film). And just as many will try to take the lead and dominate your character if you’ve expressed interest in that, too. The ogre is as likely to have a foot fetish and try to get a foot job from a character he fancies as to try to eat you.

If you’re not OK with any of that, this game is not for you. If at least some of it sounds cool, go for it.

If I can’t find any players who are OK with that well then I’ll just have to run the vanilla D&D for porn stars version instead.

As GM I will say a hard no: no sex scenes between player characters initially, because I don’t yet know how to handle it as a GM. (Not least how to handle the lack of spotlight time for characters who aren’t involved). I would be happy to figure out how to handle that once we’ve done a few games if people want to but it seems much more fraught with potential for upset than dealing with NPCs.

Other concerns

Religion won’t be a big topic. There’s a not-very-defined high fantasy set of polytheistic gods. If you want to worship the goddess of the moon, there is one. It’s not intended to have real-world religious overtones nor is it likely to come up much in play.

If any of the themes in the above checklist are of concern please let me know.

Tonally, I’m after pretty light-hearted. Lots of bad stuff can happen, but it’ll all have a happy ending.

I don’t do overly gory descriptions so while you might fight giant spiders or experience an earthquake or a corrupt city guard, we’re not going to linger over the horrible implications for hours. Zap them into slime and move on.

If this game were a movie it would probably be PG-13 rated for violence but 18-rated for romance and kinky sex.