Approximately one million years ago, I told you the tale of the most successful intra-party romance I’d ever seen in a game. It was a ship that sailed between roommates, and I got to watch from the safety of my GM-screen shores. Laurel and our former roommate had been gaming together for years before we’d even met, and it was their constant back and forth that taught me the ropes.
Gruff Wizard: What should we fight about this week?
Scorned Assassin: Maybe my presence disturbs your meditation?
Gruff Wizard: Brilliant!
Scorned Assassin: Think we should finally get together next session?
Gruff Wizard: Not yet! Let’s wait until we get cross the Wasteland of Personal Demons. There’s more drama to uncover!
It might not sound like much, but that kind of casual planning was enough to keep everyone on the same page. The potential awkwardness of an intra-party romance was eliminated through clear communication and planning away from the table. It’s a style of play that I took to heart.
You see, it’s finally my turn for a bit of the old drama and tempestuousness. I’m one half of a solar bond in my latest Exalted game, and my solar mate is playing the ice princess to my fire sorcerer. We just exalted-in game, and so we had to figure out how to RP the realization that our fates were entertwined.
Fire Sorcerer: How about this as a dynamic for “noticing the bond” during session? Nothing happens until they casually touch for some reason. Then suddenly.
Ice Princess: Maybe I take your character aside to directly address her burgeoning concerns before they get too big.
Fire Sorcerer: Just trying to think how to make this moment “visible” to other players at the table. It’s our job to dramatize all this cool biz to entertain the others
Ice Princess: Should there be some sort of visual effect on that first touch that doesn’t (or does?) happen on the second?
Fire Sorcerer: Yes! But what? Anima flare where they merge perhaps?
Ice Princess: In my head, I see a sudden tongue of flame that rises and lightly scorches the roof. Then my frigid character is horrified at such a display and ice manifests to crinkle it back down bit by bit until it’s gone. I could refuse to go anywhere near you again until they’re both outside at least. (What does the show look like in your head?)
Fire Sorcerer: As she hurries off, my fire sorcerer exhales in a, “Wow, what a woman!” kind of way. Her breath steams up like it’s winter outside, frost forming at the tips of her hair. The plume of steam coalesces into the figure of your stoic sword saint sheathing her sword, smiling slyly, and beckoning with one hand. (I kind of love these. Let’s do it!)
Ice Princess: I’m blushing as it plays out 😄 How adorable!
This style of communication seems obvious to coauthors or scene partners in drama. But because RPGs are generally constructed as an improv medium, it’s easy to shy away from this style of prep, or even to dismiss it as overplanning. Think about what’s at stake though. The alternative can often summed with the phrase, “No romance in game. Period. It never works out well.”
So what do you say, gamers? Have you ever put in this kind of backstage labor to handle mature themes? Or does it seem like more trouble than it’s worth? I know that I’m having a blast with it, and our ST was helplessly giggling throughout solar bond scene. I’d love to hear your take though. Sound off with all your own flirtations flirtations and adroit avoidance of awkwardness affairs down in the comments!
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Drama? Romance? Big ol’ nope. Closest I’ve goten has been are a “friendly” rivalry with an alchemist, basically a prank war and pulling each otjers to various situations, never taunt the barbarian with a halfpint sized non-martial, he will grab you and leap to the unkown with you just for spite. And none of that was ever planned. I was planning with the CoC GM how to introduce my next character, but that campaings on hold for other reasons.
This has been an unusual experience for me in that I’m planning a similar moment with another player rather than a GM. But since it’s entirely a character rather than a plot issue, it seems to work.
Not my cup of tea personally.
I’m here to engage through the lens of people in a world, not to read from a script.
Indeed even the framing of the alternative as “improv” is too “theater” for my preferences.
We didn’t read from a script. We planned out the shape of the scene, then briefly took the spotlight to describe this interaction. It was planned in advance, but we used that to structure the scene rather than read fic at a captive audience.
Not sure I understand the difference between “engage through the lens of people in a world” and “improv.”
Fair enough, I misunderstood the degree of detail.
Through mentioning a script wasn’t meant as a critique, through rather an expression of preference. After all some people like doing that sort of thing, and it’s not like it inherently take up more time at the table just because those involved decided what to say ahead of time.
To an extent it can co-exist at the same table, as long as everyone is OK with other people not doing things the same way.
[Not sure I understand the difference between “engage through the lens of people in a world” and “improv.”]
The is that, to my mind, improv carries implication of taking an authorial or theatrical stance. Stuff like thinking of time and place and stuff that happens in terms of scenes (in 3 senses of the word?), rather than events and locations and passing time.
The latter on the other hand carries connotations of starting more from a point of immersion. Stuff happens, and the people I’m currently pretending to be do stuff.
It’s weird that Fighter is being pretty emotionally mature here.
Dude knows what he likes.
And she likes dressing up for a certain half-orc.
Have we ever seen Cleric show a romantic or sexual interest in anyone?
As far as I can recall, the only thing that gets him fired up is enforcing the rules.
Yeah. When Wizard brought up giving Cleric the “power-up he needs” I half expected Cleric to bring up the Ceremony spell. “A confession alone will not suffice. We’ll need 25 gp worth of powdered silver”
Alt text sounds realistic.
He had the hots for Warlock over in the HoEF.
Unfortunately, Ninja had beaten him to the punch.
I bet HoEF Cleric wants to take Improved Initiative at next level.
Hey, stop spying on my group!
Just a couple of weeks ago, we had a conversation about how we should discuss and plan character drama out more in advance. And it was after a scene about… my Fighter expressing her frustration with her bonded, pseudo-intelligent sword, which has been passive-aggressive and needy with her after a falling out.
Planning out the big things opens up a lot of opportunities to improv the little things. For example, I had that emotional breakdown planned for a while. But it was only as a spur-of-the-moment response that our DM had an NPC lock the weapon up in what we’ve dubbed the naughty sword time-out box. “You two are only hurting each other, and you need some space. Maybe see other weapons for a while.” And now we’re planning out the resolution to that, and I am chomping at the bit to see it play out at the table.
Anyway, yeah — I see your weapon-and-wielder romance alt text, and I raise you with weapon-and-wielder melodrama!
Funny story. I think “Ice Princess” may be part sword. We haven’t seen him in game yet, but my impression is that her father is an intelligent katana.
Not quite on topic, but I am thinking about the time where I accidentally wrote something worthy of an abuse content warning.
Never have had any of the guys try for character romance since all played CIS hetero male characters and would have been totally uncomfortable if I had tried to introduce that ingame. Nowadays I’d be much more open to encouraging them, but back then, especially since we were all still in the military at the time being gay meant immediate discharge, it definitely wasn’t a good idea.
Wizard’s smug grin is a sight to see. ^_^
I prefer, //if// there are relationships that develop, for them to happen organically. But if others prefer to script their relationships into occurring, that’s their bizznizz.
And that ‘if’ is important. In some games it’s far less appropriate than others for “relationship” drama, for instance a game based, nay steeped in drama like White Wolf’s Pancakes: The Breakfasting? Yes, everyone should be relation-shipping, friend-shipping, and hatred-shipping.
But for a Back To The Dungeon/Orc and Pie* fiesta like The D and The D? Keep the kwia love blossoming to a minimum, thank you (I say as I realize my last Dungeon Fantasy game had my scruffy hobo Elven Sage immediately hooking up the hotty uppermost crust Human Sorceress in game, like, first session hooking up – she was just slumming but decided the gutter was funner I guess?).
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* NOT THAT PIE! Pure, all American, apple pie. Maybe even a peach cobbler.
The other character in my current campaign (there’s only 2 of us + the GM) has a romantic plot with an NPC. We have had plenty of OOC discussion as to whether where it’s going is making anyone uncomfortable. I’m happy with my character being a grumpy, hard-to-please but ultimately supportive dad for his adopted daughter.
I’m currently playing a character that is… significantly more morally ambiguous than the rest of the party. This could be a big issue, because if I did everything my character would do it’d make for an rpg horror story or two.
Instead, I handle those things backstage first. Let me give a couple examples:
We had attacked a dangerous gang leader’s fortress and due to some shenanigans managed to catch him rather than kill him (the contract on his head was dead or alive). My character wanted him dead though, to eliminate the threat.
Me, OOC: so does anyone particularly care about keeping this bastard alive? If so, let’s discuss how you’re going to stop and talk down my character.
What followed was a bit of a discussion, the end result was that all player’s were fine with me eliminating the gang leader, with only the paladin IC being a bit disturbed by it (we’d decided he was just a bit too slow) and lecturing my character for it.
Another, simpler example was during our way to that fight. We went through the sewers and encountered a group of kobolds fighting a bunch of mechanical dogs belonging to that gang leader. The rest of the party had met the kobolds before and knew they were friendly, but my character hadn’t.
They were all mixed up, and my character specialized in aoe’s (blaster mage refluffed as more mundane explosives). So on my turn I checked which party members was closest (the kenku ranger if memory serves) and warned them OOC that I seemed to be aiming a grenade right in the middle of the crowd, giving them a cue to warn my character IC to aim elsewhere.
Fighter considered cleric a colleague and not a walking healthkit? That’s some progress, given… everything about Fighter really.
In the group I am currently involved in a second campaign in, our last game had two party romances that developed during play and one that was a post campaign set up based on various factors.
One of those two relationships ended up in a real relationship and they are currently engaged to be married (insert appropriate “awwwee’s” here).
The other relationship was a first for one of the individuals involved in playing that kind of thing out in a game, and he initially felt pretty weird about it because of who his partner in the RP was versus who he is (the specific details of who is who and what don’t matter, but you can imagine the scenario that might make someone feel awkward, especially if they have never played out something like this before).
Now in our second campaign, four of us began the game already in relationships in game (and the engaged couple is not one of the two in game couples), one of our couples already married and with children, the other recently married in game, and we think our “reluctant” relationshipist might be in another relationship, this time with an NPC.
As a person not directly involved in a relationship in our first campaign, I didn’t know how much prep the others had done, but in this campaign, myself and my in game partner have done TONS of prep on multiple levels. For our own sake, for the sake of the group, and just because we also like knowing where our heads are at in the relationship as well as where our characters heads are at too.
Talking about it with each other between games gives us all a baseline and a goal for where we are and what we want from it. With the other couples some too, not for details… mostly, but just asking for advice or inquiring if they’re all okay about things too, to make sure we are all enjoying the game and nothing feels “forced” or “weird” and no one is doing this stuff because they feel they have to because others are.
And most importantly I think it can set a real life boundary for those that might enjoy exploring these things in the game, but have no interest in trying to delve into something in real life. Because while the romantic in all of us can easily swoon at that idea (and seeing it happen is just so sweet), the reality is that not everyone is in that head space, and it is important to make sure one person is not feeling signals that just aren’t there or someone could get unintentionally hurt, and I don’t think any of us play these games to truly cause any kind of pain in our fellow gamers.
But if you have never tried an in game relationship before (NPC or other party member) and you think you want to give it a shot, don’t hold back… but keep in mind, not everyone else might be interested, so… talk about it.
And if you are lucky enough to be in a party of players you trust and who trust you, sometimes you just feel the moment is right to drop a bomb and see what happens (just like real life) and that can be okay too, but the trust definitely already needs to be there.
(One last thought: It is funny to be writing all this up and have the ad for the Handbook of Erotic Fantasy staring at me the entire time, considering half the reason a couple of us players have gone into game relationships is to explore a little erotic fantasy together between sessions… and that can be a lot of fun too – if you are into it 😉 )
Fighter saw the priest as a buddy rather than a traveling medical kit. Given everything about Fighter, this is a significant gain.
But what if romance actually as gameplay effects? What will the minmaxers in your party do?
For example, there’s a spell in D&D 3.0 Book of Vile Darkness called “love’s lament”. It inflict damage not to the target, but to the target’s dearest friend or loved one. (Though someone who only love oneself will take the damage.) It’s very nasty and hard to avoid. It may also cause some interesting drama if the one ending up hurt isn’t the one expected by current relationship… or if hidden feelings are now right in the open…
The spell is “love’s pain”, not “love’s lament”, my bad.