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

[JustKim]

Sometimes I have a clear idea of what kind of person my character would be attracted to, just as a complementary idea kicking around the back of my head, but I think normally I work by flash of inspiration, so of course it helps to have a large and changing pool of NPCs.

Back when 3.0 was limited to a number of books a human being could carry, I had wanted to play a paladin but we needed a healer, so I went with a melee cleric instead. She had wanted to become a paladin, but had never quite made the grade, hence she was Lawful Neutral. I played the combination the best that I knew how, as a paladin with an authoritarian moral compass.

By mid-levels we were having a lot of planar adventures. For whatever reason we ended up traveling the Styx on a ship run by mercenary devils. The captain of the ship, whose name nobody recalls now, was a fat, rakish cambion. I don't think he was intended as a likable character, but he was dependable and ran a tight ship, and he was either neutral or suitably discreet about his evil. Something just clicked for me and I decided this rotund, horned purple thing made hearts appear round my cleric's head.

The pace of the story did not really allow for much to develop, but, I'd like to think that when my cleric retired at 15th level, she was bound for the River Styx.

 

[Barastrondo]

I think this is an interesting point - if the romance is going to be at least somewhat roleplayed out rather than abstracted, a major benefit is if it brings out/develops the personality of the PC, who is after all the more important of the two characters involved (in the game, not necessarily in the game-world, of course). So an NPC with a personality that "brings out the strengths, the weaknesses or the quirks" of the PC's character is very useful.

Yeah. The most remarkable and accidental chemistry I've seen in a D&D game was when I suggested that the latest guy my wife's tiefling fighter/rogue would be interested in was a priest. Threw her for a loop, but she rolled with it. After a year or so of gameplay, her character had it bad for the priest. We weren't really sure why, but upon analysis he matched several of her strengths, such as a love of swordfighting, a passion for armor and weapons in particular. He also offered non-judgmental stability: the kind of dependable support that was initially there to make him the kind of NPC that wouldn't steal anybody's spotlight, but that in retrospect really provided something her vagabond orphan had been missing her whole life.

This maybe argues for more 'odd couple' type liaisons, as opposed to say hammer-wielding bearded dwarf + identical hammer-wielding bearded dwarfess. Eg in my 3e Lost City of Barakus campaign, the flamboyant dwarven rogue (and actor-director-playwright) PC Brassik courted the shy, horse-loving human daughter of a rural country knight, pretty much the opposite of him in every way. As I recall it was rather sweet, and hinted at possible hidden depths to his character.

Interesting. I haven't seen complete opposites attract in that way personally; usually there needs to be several points in common, and then some points of contrast. A necromancer/deathknight pairing I've seen was full of opposites, but both characters also agreed on very fundamental items: fondness for animals, interest in scholarship, a sense of duty. The contrasts often provide things that keep the relationship exciting, but the points in common ensure they always have something to talk about.

 

[Lanefan]

While I'm all for romance in the game and have been involved in all sorts of 'em, I really can't directly answer the original question here (what sort of NPC) for a few reasons:

1. The answer would be different for almost every character I've ever played; which is quite a few.
2. Even using an individual character as an example, I still don't necessarily bother defining a specific "type" of NPC (or other PC) he or she might go for; with the exception of at some point determining what gender(s) and-or race(s) {and in some cases, culture(s)} this particular character would usually find acceptable.
3. I don't limit my in-character romance-chasing to NPCs. Other PCs are fair game as well.

That said, taking the 70-or-so characters I've played as a sample: some are almost completely asexual. Some are simply repressed. Some are normal enough. Some are shameless flirts. Some have what might best be described as variant tastes. Some are as horny as satyrs. And far too many of 'em die before I ever get a chance to either figure this aspect out or do anything with it.

But if put to it such that I absolutely *had* to define an aspect of any given NPC that might help produce a romance it would be this: the NPC has run in the same party with me for long enough that we've faced danger together and come through it.

Lan-"I met my (in-game) wife this way"-efan

 

[ExploderWizard]

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

Trying to avoid those

" You're going to kill me because I had fake sex on graph paper with a girl who barely spoke to you in real life?!?"

moments I see. A most wise and careful strategy.

 

[The Shaman]

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

Just your usual boy-meets-girl-zombies-eat-girl tale, then?

 

[Gold Roger]

Honestly, I can't recall an instance of PC-NPC romance in my years of gaming, propably because most of my regular groupmembers have tried to stay clear of it.

I guess I could see my PC's drawn to all kinds of NPC's.

What's most important to me is that an in game romance seems natural and isn't overstated. I think a lot of the strong antipathy to in game romance comes from fear of and bad experiences with forced in-game romance, wether it be couples that need to play their own realationship out in game, hogging time, the old "hurhur, getting laid" or any other thing that could possibly go wrong (the two I've mentioned are just what I saw in my earlier gaming years).

When I played myself, usually I couldn't get my characters developed far enough, before they got killed or the campaign the way of the Dodo, to get them into a romance.

However, one of my all time favorites was an ambitous mage and military officer and even at my table nobody would have batted an eyelash if he had married some girl for power, money and a little love in the game.