Do your characters have love interests?

[Raschesohn]

In my current Greyhawk campaign that I'm playing in, romance isn't something the DM actively pushes for since he's more of a dungeon crawl adventure kinda guy (plus he seems to love using half-orc, orc, goblin, and kobold NPCs). But among our players there's a married couple whose characters generally can't stand each other (which is funny when those two get into arguments): the wife plays as an uptight and bossy female elven fighter/wizard while the husband plays as a reckless and slightly deranged male half-elven druid. I don't really see love blossoming there, but you never know, hehe.

My girlfriend plays as a female human Gypsy rogue who has a penchant for pickpocketing and being a packrat, all in the name of collecting new shinies. Her character calls herself a treasure hunter, but my male human paladin/ranger just thinks she's a handful and a troublemaker, lol. Their relationship has started to grow beyond the big-brother-looking-out-for-little-sister type of thing (my character, who is a whip-toting undead hunter, had a twin sister who vanished as a child following a vampire attack). Her Gypsy rogue has made him question his devotion to his church order (he feels they've sent him in on a mission while withholding information from him plus their methods and motives are starting to conflict with his sensibilities), in addition to my paladin/ranger having been so focused on duty he hasn't really allowed himself to find love or true friendship up until now (I'm possibly taking him into the direction of a lasher after stopping advancement as paladin).

My girlfriend's aunt plays as a red-headed Celtic-esque war priestess of the Morrigan who has started to have feelings for our group's resident male human monk (who happens to have dark skin), and him vice versa. So love takes on many forms, I guess. But I'd say for our little group it's more subtle (especially with all the combat our DM has been throwing against us lately, heh, no real time to develop romance when you're fighting for your lives). As for our kobold sorceror mascot type NPC, I don't think anyone in our group likes him that much to consider him dating material, lol.

 

[drowchick]

Coincidentally, in the last two campaigns I played in, romance was a major feature with both characters I ran.

In the first, I played a female fighter/thief half-elf in a homebrew world, who fell in love with and married a human priest of Thoth- not an NPC, but a regular PC. Interestingly enough, both of us (the players that is) ended up married in real life within a year- and not to each other. Our DM and the other players would tease us about playing too much “real life” in the game as the priest spent much of his time speculating on what type of home he would provide for his bride, and buying her jewellery and whatnot. (Not that my character minded, she had a gem and jewellery addiction- a trait most of my PC’s seem to share- and myself, come to think of it.) Much of our down-time in the game was spent looking for real-estate and shopping- my character loved to shop and had champagne taste- pretty funny for a half-elven chiquita who got her start “liberating” items of value to survive.

In the second campaign (played concurrent to the latter; prior to my real-life marriage I had oodles of time free for gaming), I played a Priestess of Sharess- with all that entails.

Eventually, she and another PC formed a relationship- not a marriage as we rationalised that the clergy of Sharess can’t marry, but they were close nonetheless. Yeah, even an exclusive relationship on the part of a priestess of Sharess seems to be contrary to the dogma of that deity, however, my character’s belief was gnosis through pleasure, and the other PC was a gloomy Gus and brooding and melancholy (as all romantic heroes MUST be!) so my priestess felt called to bring meaning to the other PC’s existence by showing him joy and pleasure. It worked. He was much less gloomy, and began to act the hero, albeit with sarcasm firmly in place.

As a side note- my real life husband is not a gamer. His eyes glaze over when I discuss D&D with him, the poor kitten. Someday I will have to show him what fun he is missing out on…

So romance is a great factor in gaming. I appreciate a DM who allows this to be an aspect of the campaign, and think it is an overlooked area of role-playing gold- provided the group is of a mature enough level to handle the subject, and especially when the relationship betwixt the characters might be more “eros” than “agape”. The DM who plays up this overlooked aspect opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

Ciao-
drowchick

 

[Speaker]

Then there was a dwarf that loved gold!

Didn't you hear? Dwarves only say that to get into bed.

 

[VorpalBunny]

I'm not sure this qualifies as "romance" but... Two characters in my Forgotten Realms campaign have been fighting over the same woman since they were 3rd level (they're 12th now ).

The woman in question was a 2nd edition Justifier (Ranger kit), and there was a Justifier PC in the party. So of course, the player plays up the common interest angle to stir up a little romance; but not wanting to be outdone, a Swashbuckler PC starts laying down the charm on her also - "Hey, I'm a romantic figure! She has to fall for me!" *sigh*. They've been at it ever since...

 

[Methinkus]

does romance paly a big part in my games?

The character of a friend of mine once had to make a will save to avoid falling in love with someone.

Another character in a group i was involved in set up "procreation tents" to rebuild the population of his kingdom after wars.

My paladin slept with a woman who later turned out to be a deamon queen. Several times. (he didnt know she was a deamon at the time)

Hmm. i guess my answer is "no," but there are times when i wonder what it would be like to include more of that element in my games.

 

[Kibo]

Re: does romance paly a big part in my games?

The character of a friend of mine once had to make a will save to avoid falling in love with someone.

Another character in a group i was involved in set up "procreation tents" to rebuild the population of his kingdom after wars.

My paladin slept with a woman who later turned out to be a deamon queen. Several times. (he didnt know she was a deamon at the time)

I saw that movie, only it had the gardener delivering pizza to the womens prision where he taught tennis. The acting was almost as bad as that movie with Thora Birch and Marlen Waynes.

 

[tburdett]

I have enough bad luck in real life, I don't need to go looking for it in a game!

 

[Hand of Evil]

Hmmm....my character hasnt gotten to a love interest yet (hes a priest of the god of wine, women, and song, who needs to be tied down to 1 woman, when you can have several at once?)

This is always a good plot element:
Groupiees, hey they are heros, they will have fans sooner or later!
The forgotten child looking for their father.
The half-bother/sister villian.
Hell has no fury as the woman scorned, lover that was looking for more.
And don't forget the creep that stalks an adventure.

 

[Henry]

I have tried to include such elements in our games, but generally, the players are not interested in pursuing such story elements.

In one Star Wars game, one of the female PC's was wooed by the actual leader of a vitally important core world. The male player, while emphatically uninterested, kept the courting cordial, and used the excuse of being on diplomatic missions to keep "loverboy" from showing up.

In our Star Trek d20 game, I played a Polish Engineer named Conrad who went through women like a tap dancer goes through shoe polish. Our greatest reward was not the promotions, but when the GM moved our duty assignments to a galaxy-class starship, with about 300 female crew.

I had one halfling PC in a Forgotten Realms game who I would have loved to have find a nice halfling lass to settle down with, but alas the campaign ended before he could do so.

 

[barsoomcore]

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