Do your characters have love interests?

[Kai Lord]

Just curious as to how many of you incorporate love interests into your campaigns. Since epic romance is a staple of high fantasy, it usually ends up in my campaigns in one way or the other.

Do you/your players weave romance into your adventures? If so, is it as a diversionary challenge (get the girl, get laid, move on), or as a primary means of developing the characters and fleshing out the campaign? For me its the latter, and can often take precedent over the more traditional conflicts.

I tend to play/DM solo adventures or with two players and a DM at most, which obviously lends its to more character development.

 

[Crothian]

It depends on the character. Neither of my current ones do, by the Ranger could if it came up. The other is a cleric going towards the Oozemaster prestige class, so I doubt any woman woulkd really love him.

 

[tsadkiel]

My Sorcerer got married to his (NPC) love interest a few months back. So yeah.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Salutations,

I think a characters romantic nature is an important part of who they are, but it is not always relevant.

I try to figure out what my character's first brush with romance was like- and use that to help guide some of their behavior now.

Oddly enough, it is not something I push as a dm. It is not one of my good areas.

I also have a rule that any personal time between characters is best left unsaid. They deserve their privacy.

FD

 

[barsoomcore]

There have been a number of romances in my campaign. Because I use Swashbuckling cards (which let the players introduce plot elements, including Love), the players have started up a number of romances.

We had a distraught and completely insane ghost lady pursuing a nervous young fellow because of spike she claimed to see in his head. Her tormentors have been punished and she sees to have been put to rest.

A devasted survivor of a massacre falling head-over-heels for the party thief, then turning mean because he treated her so poorly. She's now a major nemesis of the party's.

The Demon Goddess, lesbian vampire witch-queen from Hell, got her block knocked off by the party's shy, scholarly sorcereress and subsequently tried to repent her centuries of torture, destruction and slaughter.

Those Love cards have had a massive impact on the campaign -- so yeah, use romance, and it's often the prime driver of campaign events.

 

[derverdammte]

Swashbuckling cards? How come I've never heard of these? Where can I find more information?

 

[barsoomcore]

Swashbuckling cards? How come I've never heard of these? Where can I find more information?

You know, I'm just going to have to post these somewhere. Morrus?

The idea is that each session, you hand out a card to each player. Some of the cards are very specific (automatically make one saving roll), others are more generic (natural phenomenon lends timely aid), while still others are story-affecting (NPC falls in love with PC, or NPC turns out to be long-lost acquaintance). The players can "play" the card at any time, at which point they get a new one. In practice, it's rare for any player to use more than one card per session -- often the card doesn't get used at all.

The "Love" card has had the most impact on the campaign, but all of them are great -- and allow things like romance to develop on the PCs terms.

Email me, I'll send the set to ya. Dunno where they originally come from -- I got mine from a post on the WotC boards.

 

[ForceUser]

Love interests happen in our campaigns as "quickies," asides, and occasionally as plots that drive our stories forward.

It breaks down like this:

-The guys will sometimes mention wives at home, tavern wenches, and lost loves. These are usually part of character backgrounds or downtime asides.

-The single female player always wants her characters to be romatically involved with her husband's characters if at all possible within the structure of the campaign. The husband's characters are usually unobliging

-The DMs often try to portray romances between NPCs and players, but many players have difficulty getting beyond the fact that the DM is a guy, so "mushy" stuff is often brushed aside. Very rarely a DM plot may hinge on a NPC/PC romantic liason, which is usually handled obliquely.

For my part, as DM I've noticed that players are usually uncomfortable portraying romances if they are in a relationship IRL and the intended romance is not with a character played by their spouse/SO. I suppose this is healthly for the relationship, if annoying to me as DM since I'm trying to provide interesting drama. As a player, I appreciate the opportunity to develop characters in that direction if appropriate, but again, I'm single so I have no inherent objections to such things. I can step away from me and be the character. I know this has lead to some uncomfortable moments for the other players since I sometimes play female characters.

 

[Kai Lord]

The other is a cleric going towards the Oozemaster prestige class, so I doubt any woman woulkd really love him.

Check out The Toxic Avenger from Troma. All he needs is a cute blind girl.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I love killin' people. I'm always interested in that.