Romance Rules

[zarionofarabel]

Well, as always, it depends! Though just about every TTRPG system I own completely lacks any sort of rules that have anything to do with romance. So, for the most part romance is handled by pure RP. I have had numerous instances of PC/NPC romance over the years, mostly because I usually run games that tend to be localized and feature recurring NPCs, so PCs (and players) often develop strong attachments to NPCs. I have also explored the length and breadth or romance, love found, love lost, jealousy, revenge, broken hearts, you name it. I like having strong NPC/PC relationships and romance seems to be a natural outcome of such things. As for PC/PC romance, much less so, mostly limited to real life couples that decided to make their PCs an item. Never had any issues with it because I insist on gaming with mature people.

As for actual rules stuff, well, Pendragon is by far one of my favorite games, and it has very specific and impactful rules regarding romance. So much so that romance, and the pursuit and engagement of romantic ideals, can become the cornerstone of a PCs identity. The best part is the complexity of possibility when it comes to how one can engage the rules in regards to romance, with unrequited love being just as powerful as true love. Romance can also lead to one's downfall and failure to live up to knightly ideals. Which is absolutely perfect considering the source material for Pendragon and the type of game that one is assumed to be playing when one plays Pendragon. The way it handles romance is yet one more reason why Pendragon is easily one of the best and most interesting ROLE playing games ever made.

 

[sevenbastard]

I come to the table to live out my power fantasies about being a kick ass warrior, getting fabulously rich, and being a hero.

I can romance in real live so dont really see the need to do that in game. Just like I dont want to come play a game where I manage a buisness or take care of kids.

 

[Bill Zebub]

100% roleplaying. If at all.

(As a side note, I simply cannot wrap my head around the appeal of the romanceable NPC options in video games, such as Baldur's Gate III. WTF? Put down the video game controller and ask out a live human FFS.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Put down the video game controller and ask out a live human FFS.

That doesn’t work out well for some.

 

[bloodtide]

Pure role playing.

I'm not much of a fan of any rules for most social stuff.

I've had plenty of it in my games.

A great one was my Bored Princess game. Bunch of moms with princess characters. With bubbling kings and princes getting their kingdoms in trouble, and the princess swooping in to save them. Each princess liked a prince of another kingdom...and a couple other guys... to make for...lots of love drama.

 

[Marc17]

Mostly role played it all, although there were sometimes rolls to make. The chance for a relationship was an option for random occurances in the magical school game I ran (which was much more of the fantasy high school simulator than I was expecting). In some other games PCs made the decision for such and would have to make some rolls to initiate. From there it was mostly role play: Give the NPC a full background, personality, and agency. Give them some desire or demand that the PC would have to react to. The relationship required effort and time on the PC side to maintain.

 

[dragoner]

No rules, just fade to black.

 

[zakael19]

I was like wait didn't we just talk about this? Yeah, back in May. In fact the OP commented in there a couple of times .

My comments in there hold true, a number of my games over the last two years have had things that ranged from casual flings through to full-on "me and my boyfriend are getting married at the Fall festival." I still haven't really played in any of the games that do a good job of adding in a layer of NPC-side rules/moves for handling stuff like this, so it's all been role-play.