Players - if you would consider your PC having a romance with an NPC, what sort?

[Neonchameleon]

Which PC? Seriously, they all have different tastes. Of the ones you know, Hoka would have gone largely on looks (yes, he was a deathwish paladin - but I'm pretty sure the norse would laugh at celibacy as an ideal). Either a sweet damsel in distress or a shield-sister as crazy as he was. Or possibly just groupies until he died. Martel's very mercenary. He'd want someone he found complementary - neither much stronger nor much weaker, and someone who doesn't overlap with him too much - either a caster of some sort or someone with wealth backing her. Ochim, I'm not sure yet.

Edit: Adding some other recent characters, Jaq really wouldn't do romance. A woman (or man or other changeling with genders by negotiation for both) in every town, and possibly more than one - almost certainly. Commitment, no. What would the fun in that be? J'elle was celibate and would be confused by romance. Isha would laugh and drink and screw (if she wasn't too drunk by then) to get her mind off the fragment of Selune in the back of her head driving her on (Malediction Invoker) and memories of her own past (former cultist of Shar). But wouldn't want to inflict herself on anyone long term.

In short, it varies character by character.

 

[S'mon]

The one romance my character had was with a gearhead. She was the tom boy, blonde hair, blue eyed, athletic, mechanic working on my truck. She liked me, I liked her... then the zombies got her

That sucks, my commiserations.

 

[S'mon]

Speaking from the perspective of a GM who's often providing romantic subplots, I've noted that female PCs have a penchant for becoming interested in NPCs I never actually thought of as romantic interests: rather, I simply build NPCs I find interesting and dynamic, and then I am startled when they pop up as potential romantic targets.

Yes, I've seen that a lot - Elfishna the head of the Wizard's Guild (nicknamed 'Fishy' by her paramour - I didn't see that one coming either ) or Reesha the barbarian heroine, were not NPCs I created with any thought to their potential as romantic interests. These are often the most interesting cases - probably a lesson there.

 

[Sunseeker]

I would not be interested in a romance with an NPC.

1: I have a girlfriend and I try to play with her, if there's gonna be a romance, I'm gonna romance her.

2: It's just weird, as eventually it feels like you're romancing the DM(who is controlling the NPC).

3: Romance leads to sex, which again makes it weirder if you have sex with the character your DM is controlling.

 

[MortonStromgal]

That sucks, my commiserations.

Well as a player I figured it would happen as we were playing All Flesh Must Be Eaten... We all knew going in all the NPCs were going to die and we would be lucky if one of us lived by the end but my character never saw it coming he died after falling off a roof trying to get out of a burning church surrounded by the horde.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I would not be interested in a romance with an NPC.

1: I have a girlfriend and I try to play with her, if there's gonna be a romance, I'm gonna romance her.

2: It's just weird, as eventually it feels like you're romancing the DM(who is controlling the NPC).

3: Romance leads to sex, which again makes it weirder if you have sex with the character your DM is controlling.

I've never seen sex handled as other than an off-screen fade to black in a game of D&D. And faded quite far back in my experience - for one thing it's one or two PCs active in what is a group activity. Yes, such things happen - but they really aren't any sort of a focus.

 

[MortonStromgal]

double post

 

[coyote6]

You know, I don't think I've ever seen a PC-PC romance, certainly not in a tabletop game. Maybe it depends on the group, or the game system - running D&D type games IME I don't think most PCs are thinking of their fellow PC adventurers as potential romantic partners. YMMV.

In my last D&D campaign, two of the PCs got married. Of course, the players are married in real-life, so I'm not sure it really counts.

Another PC married an NPC -- the PC was (to start) a N rogue; she slowly grew more of a conscience, eventually dedicating herself to Sehanine (the PC's cousin was a divine oracle of Sehanine, and another PC), and eventually married the NPC paladin of Heironeous.

In non-D&D games, I've seen intra-PC romances, even marriages (where the players involved weren't married).

Never seen any intra-PC divorces, though.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I tend to create PCs who are just slightly too dysfunctional, emotionally, to sustain a romance. It's vaguely possible that I do that as an unconscious choice, simply to avoid it, but I don't think so: I don't have anything against the concept of romance in RPGs, and have done it a few times. In my current M&M game, an NPC hippie-chick heroine is involved with one of the PC heroes.

I don't think there's an NPC "type" I'm more or less comfortable with (when I'm playing). It really depends on the characters (my PC and the NPC) in question, which have differed greatly from instance to instance.

I'm not particularly interested in detailed scenes of romance in RPGs ... not for their own sake. I've played and DMed romantic scenes in which exposition or the extraction of information was important, though (for instance). I am definitely a "fade to black" player and DM when it comes to any physical romantic or sexual interaction, and always have been. (Even back in my MUSHing days, where cyber-sex in roleplaying was considered more or less normal, if not de rigueur.)

 

[Sunseeker]

I've never seen sex handled as other than an off-screen fade to black in a game of D&D. And faded quite far back in my experience - for one thing it's one or two PCs active in what is a group activity. Yes, such things happen - but they really aren't any sort of a focus.

Oh it doesn't have to be described, we all know what "Joe and NPCLady go off into a back room" means, and I have just therefore imagined it in my head and now the NPCLady is my DM and THE IMAGE BURNS.