Romance Rules

[Gorgon Zee]

I see a number of posts talking about how people are uncomfortable with intimate details in romance. I think it's helpful to understand that romance does not necessarily mean sex, and might not even overlap that heavily with flirting.

I don't RP sex scenes ever. I occasionally, with the right group, will describe characters using sexy language, but as soon as things get physical, the most I'm going to do is ask for a roll or two and say something like "you enjoy a very pleasant night together, but get the impression that he wasn't particularly moved by your skill in bed". Absolutely no judgement if you do like details (I own a copy of S/LAY WITH ME), but it's not part of the story our group wants to detail.

There are also a lot of social situations where flirting or some form of romance-adjacent skill seems suitable for a situation. D&D doesn't really have such a skill and "persuasion" always felt a poor choice, but there are many social situations where flirting is a suitable skill for hosting a party, getting a security guard to relax, impressing a peer at a dance -- situations where both parties know it's probably not going anywhere, but it's enjoyable!

Romance in RPGs, to me, is about building a relationship between people. It's a process and may involve many different challenges and skill checks, almost none involving physicality. In Pendragon a knight might be required to orate, compose, slay dragons, or (one of my favorites) be seen many times on the battlements sighing and looking in the vague direction of their love's home (an Energetic test). I played a character in a Three Musketeers game and my character was focused more on Romance than Politics, so I spent my time bargaining and finding exotic gifts, buttering up tailors and an extremely excessive amount of time looking after dogs.

As a suggestion for a simple way to add romance to game with a low squickiness factor: Choose a number to represent the "impediment" level of the romance -- make it roughly equal to the number of sessions that you'd like this to play out in. Each session run a short (like 5 minute) scene where the player(s) have a chance to overcome a simple challenge and so deepen their relationship. When enough impediments have been removed, the characters are in a relationship.

So, if you were a young male Fighter/Bard playing in an Renaissance-style world, I might let you know that there was a cute woman at a party you attended and if the player was interested, we might have some impediment to overcome like:

• She is a member of a rival family and it's very hard to find time to be alone with her
• The guy you just killed in a sword fight? That was her brother.
• Her family plan for her to marry a noble.

(In Shakespeare's version the player critically fails their skill check to understand the plan for the third one and the GM is really aggressive with the outcome)

I know the book genre of Romance tends to be more detail-heavy and physical, but I think we can use the more traditional version of Romance for our roleplaying.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I never used any romance rules, but I had "romance" in my longest running campaign, a 4E game centered on the idea of restoring the Nerath Empire and fighting off a group of Far Realms that wanted to basically destroy the material world because it its rigid (and for them, alien) structure is encroaching on the Far Realms (at least in their view).

One of my inspirations for a part of the campaign was three-parter from the Farscape series, where some sort of festival is happening where people are supposed to find a compatible mate and he kisses the princess - and turns out to be the only potential mate for her, since she was basically poisoned to be incompatible with others of her kind, and without the chance for a heir, she could not become queen. In Farscape, teh reason she was compatible with the main character was that her species is a human offshot (which they aren't really aware), just different enough that it circumvented the genetic manipulation done to her. In my campaign, the reason was that the character in question had some royal blood from the Nerath Empire in him, and that countered the magic against her infertility.

I stole also from Witcher, the idea of a rose of remembrance, a rose that, if plucked and then gifted to a person you genuinely love, will never wither, but if your love ends, it will die quickly.
Aside from the fun of the intial concept and dealing with suddenly expected to marry a woman you just met, the player characters would eventually stumble upon such roses and the player was given the choice - do you want to commit your character to this romance and will the rose stay alive, or will it wither. The player chose to commit.

That was fun, but there were not really any mechanics needed (aside from the usual social skill stuff required in the situation, which the Warlord character could handle reasonably well.) Everything important about it only came from roleplaying the characters and the situation (without going into any details).

 

[Bill Zebub]

No. I just did it to highlight the fact that Pendragon, in my experience, is the most ROLE focused TTRPG I have encountered. There may be (and probably is) others that I have not encountered. But Pendragon has a particular focus that I do not find in any of the other systems I am familiar with. Pendragon is purpose built for the players to embody the role of a chivalrous (or pious, or romantic) knight. The mechanics really help focus the game on the role portrayal aspect of the game, with PCs being encouraged and rewarded for portraying the role of an Arthurian knight. In some ways players are even punished for not doing so. That's all I really meant. Other games feature role portrayal as well, but because the roles can vary widely, the role portrayal aspect is rarely as robustly reinforced as it is in Pendragon. Basically, if you are playing Pendragon and you are not trying to be the best Arthurian knight you can be, you really are "doing it wrong" and the mechanics back that up.

Oh, ok, now I understand. Although I would say it doesn't just enforce the roles, but almost forces them. Which honestly is what i don't like about it. If I want to play an Arthurian knight I can do that (and I often do!) without the rules boxing me in.

Heck, even when I'm playing video games like Baldur's Gate III, where nobody else is watching, I still always abide by WWSGD? ("What Would Sir Galahad Do?"), even on playthroughs, even if I know there's a material incentive for taking the evil choice.

If you haven't tried Pendragon you really should! It is, IMHO, easily one of the best (probably the best) TTRPG ever made. If you want to see it in action I recommend the YT channel "tickingtimebob" who has dozens (hundreds?) of sessions of recorded Actual Plays that you can watch, and he and his players do a bloody fantastic job!

Yeah, I have. Everybody raves about it so every few years I've given it another try, and it never really clicks with me. The setting is very evocative, though.

I've pretty much concluded that I don't like games that try to merge mechanics with roleplaying.