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Message: <blockquote data-quote="roguerouge" data-source="post: 4144416" data-attributes="member: 13855">This is going to be a disaster. I say that as someone who met his girlfriend as a fellow player in one campaign and who's DMing her in a one-PC campaign. I say that as someone who's in a third campaign with three married couples. The crucial difference is that my girlfriend actually wanted to play. Those married couples wanted to play. They actively participated in the character creation process. In short, they wanted to game because it would give them pleasure. It has nothing to do with her gender or her relationship status. It has nothing to do with being new to the game: I've taught new people the game and I've seen others learn it successfully too. But if someone is not interested in the character creation process, they don't want to game. They are there for another reason.I've had two players who weren't interested in designing their characters. We tried everything and nothing worked. Both ended up being black holes at the gaming table. They didn't role play. They watched other people role play. Those other players then had to strive to forget that they were now gaming with an audience. Most of the time, that audience wasn't into it, and it is darn tough to immerse yourself in a character as an actor when you have a disinterested audience. Then combats dragged to a crawl, as players were either teaching the Black Holes the combat system or striving to not to take over the Black Hole's PC through their advice. The Black Hole felt stupid, the other players were frustrated, and their tactics went down the drain as they literally couldn't count on one of their party. Inevitably, they left the game after a few sessions, but never quite told us to retire the character.The one thing that I didn't try or see tried was this technique: Perhaps this situation won't be a disaster if you do a LONG one on one session with this player. Have her describe what kind of hero she'd like to become. Provide her with choices to achieve that goal. Just have her character start with a suite of starting equipment after she chooses her primary weapon and armor. And then you roleplay a full session just between you and her. No boyfriend in the building. (Do a shorter intro solo adventure for the others later, so that she's not being singled out.) It's you running an introductory adventure just for her. She makes the choices. She runs the risks. She plays the character. You commit to making as fun an experience as you possibly can. Pull out all the stops.One of two things will occur. First, she could fall in love with the game and her character, which is now as vibrant a starting character as it can be. She's got a sense of the personality, the society, and a basic understanding the mechanics. Or she'll realize that she doesn't want to devote this amount of energy to this pursuit. That's fine: no harm, no foul, and you two know each other a bit better at the end.Just understand: the tone has to be supportive and fun, not *sigh* look what I have to put up with. Even one moment of that and you'll lose her.</blockquote>

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