One of my players is attempting to hit on one of my NPCs!!!

[Sunseeker]

She could be shy about personal matters and devoted to her duties. It seems like viable role-playing parameters to me.

Being shy or reclusive about personal matters is not generally the description of an "ice-maiden".

 

[Funkmaster Rick]

People live with contradictory personality traits and ideals all the time.

Heck, maybe she just came off as an ice-maiden because she didn't know the party that well, or they had to prove themselves?

 

[haakon1]

Being shy or reclusive about personal matters is not generally the description of an "ice-maiden".

This is the best description of an ice-maiden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Ice_Maiden

But seriously, my interpretation is close to what Free Dictionary says:
ice maiden. n. a beautiful but aloof woman

Aloof meaning "remote in manner: uninvolved or unwilling to become involved with other people or events"

I assume that's what the OP was going for, not the Urban Dictionary definition of "A girl who acts cold hearted and bitchy towards all guys."

 

[Starfox]

As for her orientation, I'd default to "compatible with the PC hitting on her", unless you've already decided otherwise. Either the player picked up on something about how you were role-playing this NPC, or she made this NPC somewhat more "interesting" than you intended . . . either way, I'd go with it.

This seems to be Pazio's base assumption for NPCs (See specifically the Jade Regent adventure path and it's continuing NPCs.), and one I support. But I know some players in my games have disliked it and found it to be unrealistic that so many NPCs match PC's sometimes odd sexual orientations. Aw well. Role-playing is at least partly about wish fulfillment, so I see no problem with it. If it becomes a problem, try just cutting down on the screen time devoted to it, as others have suggested.

 

[Funkmaster Rick]

I know some players in my games have disliked it and found it to be unrealistic that so many NPCs match PC's sometimes odd sexual orientations.

I think I disagree with the idea of most NPCs being receptive to PC advances, but on the other hand, real life is filled with all kinds of weird personalities - why not D&D life? In any case, where adventurers are concerned, there's a point to be made about striking the iron while it's hot; those sort have a weird mixture of loyalty, breeziness, and intensity of character that can be appealing for some but requires one to move swiftly, while they're still in town.

 

[Grogg of the North]

- Don't let the romance be a 'screen hog'. A short interaction between my party's fighter leader and the saucy tavern wench is fine . . . but I don't want it to be all about him for too long. One scene like this ended with the fighter going out to the outhouse, the farmer's daughter disappearing shortly after, and them returning "twenty minutes later" to great hilarity for all. Implication of unspecified debauchery in a smelly place was more than enough detail for us.

This, right here. Sometimes less is more.

 

[steenan]

- Any sex is strictly off-screen. Treat it like "Star Trek: The Old Show" would. Kirk often romances and kisses an alien, and sometimes you might see them in his room as he's putting his boots back on after an encounter, but what happened in between is censored. For me at least, anything more is unseemly.

Definitely. It's up to you and your players at which point you "fade to black", but sex itself definitely stays off-screen.

Also, because of that, don't introduce sex in the romance too early. Remember that in a romantic plot the tension is the highest just before the first kiss. After you get sex in there, there's not much more that can be done.

 

[haakon1]

Role-playing is at least partly about wish fulfillment, so I see no problem with it.

I agree, at least on this issue.

But if I'd specifically decided the orientation of an NPC before the PC's "investigated it", I'd stick with the original design. Rarely, I've actually decided it and it matters to the plot in some way, or the background of the adventure.

I generally like the world to be "what it is" and not changed by PC expectations if those expectations are off (e.g., if the farmer's daughter is just a farmer's daughter, she doesn't change into a werewolf or a princess just because a PC hit on her).

 

[Dwimmerlied]

Understood. This is more or less the same way I do things, though I do permit myself to consider impromptu changes where I come to see an opportunity that I didn't see before. This whole issue is a prime example of this.

I wonder if I can accurately get across my feelings on this; thing is, this is a particular issue and quite seperate from how I might handle others, because it provides opportunity I didn't forsee; this isn't the only time I've gamed with people of differing orientation than me, and I think its important. To be honest, and this might make me a bad person, but I don't really want to put in too much thought about sexual orientation, and I don't want to have to be politically correct.

I think this discussion has helped me to decide to be non-committal (is this an oxymoron? ); I don't bother to assign a sexuality to my characters, and have the default assumption be that if a character approaches an NPC, my decisions will not be based on a planned orientation, but on whether they are compatible. This could be extended to an assumption about the world (whilst most people are heterosexual in my game world, there is absolutely no barrier or stigma to being otherwise).

It could very well be interesting to throw in the twist every now and then that a particular character hits on another, and it turns out that they have an opposing orientation; but I'm leaning more toward not bothering with this because I don't want my game to become a modern soap opera

On the subject of just when to draw the curtains, I agree completely. Going too far is going to make that freaking weird.

 

[nijineko]

had an occasion where one of my characters attracted an npc's attentions due to her actions regarding the death of his brother. in our case, the DM and i sat down out-of-session, worked out where things would likely go, how they would interact, and so forth. in-game, we made occasional references and eventually advanced the timeline we had planned out, but for the most part that was it. they eventually got married due to various reasons.

(as it happened, she had run away from home to avoid a fourth or fifth arranged marriage [odd culture, not allowed to be unmarried for long, don't ask] to an older fellow who was usually away from home. the npc she ran into and eventually married turned out to be the self-same individual that she had run away to avoid (never having met him) - who spent his time away from home in order to avoid the cultural obligations of his next impending arranged marriage, having truly loved his previous wife (who died all too soon), thus not wanting to be trapped into a relationship with an unknown while his emotional wounds were still fresh. )

i must say, it worked out well for all concerned.