February is a month of cold temperatures and warm feelings of love and romance. If you’re looking for something to do with friends when it’s too cold to go out, why not stay in and take a look at the Romance Trilogy?
A compilation of three games (and much more besides) written by designer Emily Care Boss, the Romance Trilogy includes Breaking the Ice, a game for two players about a new couple going on three different dates; Shoot the Moon, a three-player game about two suitors competing for the affection of an idealized beloved; and Under My Skin, a four-to-eight player live-action roleplaying game about infidelity in established relationships.
Besides the three main games, Boss saw fit to include a plethora of supplemental material in the compilation. Sitting at 373 pages, the book contains hacks and mods for each game, either providing guidance for changing the number of players or changing the core assumptions of the games entirely. Shoot the Moon, for example, supports two-players instead of the normal three, while Breaking the Ice can handle up to ten with modifications included in the book. Additionally, both of those games include alternate rules for playing “man vs nature” scenarios, allowing for a very interesting look at the ways a game can be cleverly hacked to suit different purposes.
Game mechanics aside, roleplaying romance can be a very difficult thing. Emotional vulnerability requires a great deal of finesse and care from all those involved, especially when dealing with more sensitive subject matter like infidelity in Under My Skin. Thankfully, Boss is sure to include constant reminders, gently but firmly, to establish boundaries and ground rules for those participating. The text instructs participants to preemptively establish what level of physical contact is acceptable, what subject matter shouldn’t be brought up, and to keep an eye out for discomfort and be ready to put the brakes on any scene that’s going too far.
In addition to these inclusions of desirable metagame behavior, the book also includes references to several meta-techniques to be used by the players and, if applicable, the director. This is part game, part improvisational theater, and Boss goes to impressive lengths guide those playing towards techniques that will help tell the type of stories these games are about. Players are encouraged - and in some cases, required - to act on knowledge their characters lack in order to create tension or comedy through dramatic irony. Players are all encouraged to make suggestions for scenes as they unfold, even if they aren’t direct participants. These games trust their participants to all act as directors or game masters, to some degree, and guides them into doing just that.
As a final bonus inclusion, several “companion games” were included after the main trilogy. These companion games are like the hacks and mods mentioned before, but each one includes such significant additions that they change the entire way the game is played along with the core assumptions of each one. From a strictly guided, on-rails improvisation exercise where players act out scenes from Arthurian legend to a pseudo-wargame about love triangles between bitter enemies to more besides, there is more extra content included here than anyone could expect from any one product.
There are a few blemishes on the product itself. There were plenty of typos and poorly edited sentences, as well as quite a bit of redundancy in the explanations of the rules. But these editing issues are relatively minor, and never even come close to making the book unreadable or the games unplayable.
Looking at the Romance Trilogy as a whole, it’s an exceptional product. The reader is promised three games about romance, and gets all that and more. Give it a look, and try to get some friends together to play. Who knows? You might just find some romance of your own in the process.
This article was contributed by Nicholas Potter as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. If you enjoy the daily news and articles from EN World, please consider contributing to our Patreon!
A compilation of three games (and much more besides) written by designer Emily Care Boss, the Romance Trilogy includes Breaking the Ice, a game for two players about a new couple going on three different dates; Shoot the Moon, a three-player game about two suitors competing for the affection of an idealized beloved; and Under My Skin, a four-to-eight player live-action roleplaying game about infidelity in established relationships.
Besides the three main games, Boss saw fit to include a plethora of supplemental material in the compilation. Sitting at 373 pages, the book contains hacks and mods for each game, either providing guidance for changing the number of players or changing the core assumptions of the games entirely. Shoot the Moon, for example, supports two-players instead of the normal three, while Breaking the Ice can handle up to ten with modifications included in the book. Additionally, both of those games include alternate rules for playing “man vs nature” scenarios, allowing for a very interesting look at the ways a game can be cleverly hacked to suit different purposes.
Game mechanics aside, roleplaying romance can be a very difficult thing. Emotional vulnerability requires a great deal of finesse and care from all those involved, especially when dealing with more sensitive subject matter like infidelity in Under My Skin. Thankfully, Boss is sure to include constant reminders, gently but firmly, to establish boundaries and ground rules for those participating. The text instructs participants to preemptively establish what level of physical contact is acceptable, what subject matter shouldn’t be brought up, and to keep an eye out for discomfort and be ready to put the brakes on any scene that’s going too far.
In addition to these inclusions of desirable metagame behavior, the book also includes references to several meta-techniques to be used by the players and, if applicable, the director. This is part game, part improvisational theater, and Boss goes to impressive lengths guide those playing towards techniques that will help tell the type of stories these games are about. Players are encouraged - and in some cases, required - to act on knowledge their characters lack in order to create tension or comedy through dramatic irony. Players are all encouraged to make suggestions for scenes as they unfold, even if they aren’t direct participants. These games trust their participants to all act as directors or game masters, to some degree, and guides them into doing just that.
As a final bonus inclusion, several “companion games” were included after the main trilogy. These companion games are like the hacks and mods mentioned before, but each one includes such significant additions that they change the entire way the game is played along with the core assumptions of each one. From a strictly guided, on-rails improvisation exercise where players act out scenes from Arthurian legend to a pseudo-wargame about love triangles between bitter enemies to more besides, there is more extra content included here than anyone could expect from any one product.
There are a few blemishes on the product itself. There were plenty of typos and poorly edited sentences, as well as quite a bit of redundancy in the explanations of the rules. But these editing issues are relatively minor, and never even come close to making the book unreadable or the games unplayable.
Looking at the Romance Trilogy as a whole, it’s an exceptional product. The reader is promised three games about romance, and gets all that and more. Give it a look, and try to get some friends together to play. Who knows? You might just find some romance of your own in the process.
This article was contributed by Nicholas Potter as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. If you enjoy the daily news and articles from EN World, please consider contributing to our Patreon!
