Romance? Err... ok?

[Whimsical]

My characters have been hooking up lately. My social bard/rogue bought a 5,000 K GP diamond ring and proposed to the female party cleric, which was a great surprise to everyone since he hasn't given indication that he had feeling for her until then. She accepted. They got married a week later. Since our gamer group is the stereotypical group of Real Men, I didn't go into detailed roleplaying of romance. I would say things like "Elerys goes into full Don Juan mode with Jenda. She deserves a first class courting and he is going to give it. Describing our first night together: "We complete the scheduled events of the wedding day." Hoo! Hot stuff there!

Previous to that, when a new D&D game was starting up I couldn't think of a character. So I asked a player what he was playing and he said a dwarven barbarian. I asked him if it would be cool if I played his wife and he was OK with it. So I created a female dwarven barbarian/spirit shaman, and I play her like Susan Hawk from the Survivor TV show. Everyone expected that my character would be this domineering battleaxe with her husband, but she wasn't...until his INT went down to four permanently and he started doing really stupid things. Then she went into guardian mode and ordered him about. Although I was happy that I got to successfully roleplay my character, I didn't like what she was doing. So I was releived when his character died and the player brought in another character when it became clear that the party wouldn't raise him because he chose to be infected with lycanthropy.

 

[JamesDJarvis]

When you have to go hack to death a few dozen of lord darks minions because your lady fair was kidnapped again , that is romance.

 

[twofalls]

When you have to go hack to death a few dozen of lord darks minions because your lady fair was kidnapped again , that is romance.

Yeah... my wife just loves it when I kill things for her. :\

 

[DM JOE]

In game romance has never been anything to shy away from in my gaming group neither has going down to the local brothel but we have always kept it within a PG limit. Relationships of any kind are essential in the real world so naturally they need to be adressed in some sort of manner in the gaming world.Well thats just my take on it.

 

[fusangite]

When people proclaim that they don't use Aristotelian physics in their games, I'm never surprised because I don't expect my game to resemble other people's in this respect. But I have to say I am overwhelmed by the prevalence of romance in people's gaming groups here. As it appears the original poster may never reappear, I wonder if I could hijack the thread a little and ask those who have posted so far a few questions:

1. Some social skills are more often summarized, condensed and glossed-over than others. Gather Information, for instance, is played-out far less than Bluff is. To what extent do people play out romantic (not sexual just romantic) interactions in their games and to what extent are they just glossed or summarized?
2. What percentage of the romantic interaction in your games is between player and player vs. player and GM?
3. After the cathexis/seduction process is complete and the romance is in place, how much playing time does it continue to occupy?
4. How do you avoid in-game romances creating uncomfortable out of game social dynamics?

 

[JDowling]

in my current campaign 2 of 3 players started with the goal of finding a wife to help rebuild their clan.

Anyway, I've basically glossed over the romance:
PC: "I invite the girl to go for a walk around the town tonight"
DM: "She accepts your invitation, the two of you meander around for hours talking about your childhoods and your clans. You both seem to have a really good time, and she expresses interest in seeing you again the next time you are in town."
etc etc

I basically didn't want the romance to be a central theme of the campaign so I don't let it eat up much game time; my players can fill in the details that I leave out about a long moonlit walk around the waterfall town and what not.

questions:
1 - answered above, basically I gloss over 90%-99% of it. The PC or NPC initiates the situation, the other responds with their acceptance/rejection, then I gloss over the actual events and give a "it went well" or "it went poorly" summary of what happened. Sex I just fade to next day/later same day.
2 - so far all PC & NPC
3 - Not much, one of the players is already married. Occasionally his wife will haul him off and take him out of action for a bit of game time (You've been gone for 13 days romping around the wilderness, now you're not getting out of my sight again!), and sometimes she tags along on travels.
4 - I gloss over the details. I think my players imaginations are good enough to fill in the romance bits that I skip over.

 

[Ibram]

Though I dont have much of a problem with it Romance is rarely played out in game.

The last major "romance" was when the party cleric had a thing for an evil cleric (well the character didnt know that she was evil at the time, he just thought she was a handmaiden to the locak Duchess)

 

[Cannibal_Kender]

Of the 6 players in our group, three are married in game to NPCs (2 with children), and one is in a significant relationship.

The thief married a thief npc in the group, the wizard married a steel dragon, and the fighter (a ruler of a city) married the daughter of a chieftain of a tribe so he could secure trading rights through their lands. Lastly, the paladin is currently involved with a high priestess of her god.

Pretty much, we keep most of the romance stuff out of game. If the player is interested, they talk to the DM via emial or notes. This makes for some interesting revelations in game though:

"You're pregnant by who?? The Dragon??? Wha?!?!? When did this happen???"

 

[Kesh]

This thread should get very interesting when there are more Blue Rose campaigns running.

 

[S'mon]

Some GMs and some players can't handle romance in-game; this is a question of emotional maturity and natural disposition. Either they dislike the concept or they RP it embarrassingly badly. If players & GM are comfortable with it, it's great - I've had very good & very bad experiences, I definitely wouldn't discourage a GM from running a romantic theme if everyone seems happy with it.

>.1. Some social skills are more often summarized, condensed and glossed-over than others. Gather Information, for instance, is played-out far less than Bluff is. To what extent do people play out romantic (not sexual just romantic) interactions in their games and to what extent are they just glossed or summarized?<<

Depends on the game - eg typically a PBEM focuses more on RP, of all kinds, than a round-table game does. I play out romantic interactions in-game to the extent I & everyone else seems comfortable with. The better my fellow RPers, the less glossed-over it will be.

>>2. What percentage of the romantic interaction in your games is between player and player vs. player and GM?<<

In a PBEM probably 60% PC-PC, in a round-table game 100% PC-NPC or PC-their-own-cohort (I've grown to dislike the latter, certainly a player should never be playing both sides of the romance unless they're a really good RPer).

>>3. After the cathexis/seduction process is complete and the romance is in place, how much playing time does it continue to occupy?<<

In a round-table, very little.

>>4. How do you avoid in-game romances creating uncomfortable out of game social dynamics?<<

Like what?