Love, truuuuueeeeee love

[Olive]

ever wished you'd titled a thread differently?

anyway, thanks for the responses. Not sure what I'll do yet, but I'm sure I'll do something.

For the record, I like the book better, but not much better.

 

[DM_Matt]

I find it very difficult to do any of that romance stuff tabletop because frankly, (unless its someone I truly trust) it freaks me out. I get enough of that weirdness when I'm NOT playing the game, don't need it during the game.

However, romance with games on the boards works fine for me because of the distance. You don't see the person, they don't see you, and you can imagine to your hearts content and it travels no where else. It also is much better when I am the DM and I play a whole host of NPC's for my players to choose from.

I find romance to be a great thing to help add some interest to the plot because every game is a soap opera so to speak, otherwise it would just be battle after battle with no real driving force or interest. Relationships between characters whether platonic or romantic help to create bonds not just between PCs but with the game. It helps keep players emotionally invested and interested.

Agreed. I have only done romantic interactions in Play-by-Post. The barriers to doing that in person are difficult to surmount for many people. Part of it might be maturity, but that is an oversimplification. A lot of people just are not comfortable with pretending to hit on someone etc.

I think that whoever made that point about actors hit the nail right on the head. The ability to do those kind of things is cultivated more than it is a function of maturity. Those who bring themselves to get used to it (and scripted acting is less emotionally difficult to get into) eventually develop the ability to handle it.

 

[Sagan Darkside]

Do you mean a game that is totally devoid of any personal relationships? I'm afraid that I still don't get it.

[sarcasm] Right, because that is exactly what I said. [/sarcasm]

Why not read my post instead of looking to be insulted? What I described as my group's behavior and what happened in your campeign are pretty much the same thing.

Why do I waste my time?

SD

 

[Shadowdancer]

With the group I'm playing with now, and have been for about 10 years, romance and relationships are a constant, but not dominate, element of the campaign. Two of the players are married to each other. But their characters are hardly ever involved with each other. And no one in the group is uncomfortable with it.

Most of the relationships are PCs with NPCs, but sometimes PCs hook up with each other.

Many of our relationships are one-night stands or visits to brothels. The player who gets into this the most, is one of the female players. She is married, but her husband doesn't play. Her adventures and exploits when the group is in a town is like a medieval version of "Sex in the City."

Since I'm usually the DM, I have to handle all this, and roleplay the situations with them. It doesn't bother me, not even when I have to play a female seducing or being seduced by a male PC.


But that's our group. I think all groups are different, because people are all different. Different people handle things and react to things differently. Group dynamics are different, sometimes when you just add or subtract one person.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

I've always included romance in my games. I am rather good at drawing a person in and really making the romance seem real.

I love forcing players to deal with romantic feelings in the context of a roleplaying game. It adds alot of drama and realism to the game.

Face it, a full developed character will have romances. A DM that can't handle such a thing in game really won't allow for the full development of a character.

That hardly means a DM should allow the graphic development of romances. It should be subtle, like one often sees in books. A few lines or just a little additional attention to the other player in game.

Our gaming group is all guys, so it is usually handled with an explanation rather than a role played scenario. I find that is the best way to do it, though I spice things up when I actually write a story about what is occurring.

Romance definitely improves a game by adding more depth to the characters and story.

 

[Gez]

It's not totally absent, but usually rare.

I have four PCs in three different games, out of around two dozen characters in various games, with a romantic interest. The two olders are in Ars Magica, where you have several characters and use one or the other depending on the situation. To integrate them both in the covenant (it was a Spring Covenant, nearly noone outside of the PCs), I chose to make a Merinita mage and his feyblooded wife. Then, in a Vampire game, a weird gangrel (who happen to have found a way not to be damaged by sunlight) and a NPC witch. It's rather a platonic affair than a torrid romance, with a bit of paternalism from my character. When we found a weird orphan that don't seems to have had parents at all, it began to be a sort of Addam Family thing.

The last one is in D&D. We decided to make a campaign where all PCs would have strong ties. We hesitated between family ties (all from the same family), childhood ties (all multiclassed something, with the same master for the Something class), geopolitical ties (all exiled from the same distant country, and seeking fortune for revenge).

We ended up with merging all three: my character as a sorcerous princess, her sorcerous husband of lesser nobility, her sorcerous brother-in-law, and her less sorcerous sister-in-law. Exiled from the same oriental realm due to the failed plotting of my character's father.

We would not use this kind of thing to gather the party in all campaigns, but doing it once is interesting. These were our most fleshed-out characters, as we had the possibility to create our character's motherland, derived from pseudo-Japan and pseudo-China, with some other pseudo-countries thrown in, its customs and traditions, some family quirks for the aristocracy, etc.

Family ties, romance, political ambitions, exotism, action: all ingredients of adventure !