"Love" ...... as a Plot

[Dimthar]

How many of your characters have "fallen in Love" to an NPC?

In a campaign, long, long time ago ... my Bard adventures started when he was sent in a (suicide) quest to find some magic jewels (kinda like the Silmarilis) to gain the hand of a noble girl. Truth is our party was so far, far away from our original starting point, that eventually my character forgot all about "the girl" and found a new girlfriend in a local merchant girl.

That gave our DM some ideas for adventures, one time a baby was left in my door with a note claiming I was the father (she ended being a dragon baby they wanted me to protect), my characters was the favorite target for the sexiest assassins, and of course getting on time to the wedding was a titanic task with 100% of our recurrent villains trying to stop us. Who would have known that the ring was cursed?

[Grimwell]

Love is a fantastic plot device used well in fiction of all sorts. In gaming, it's not handled well. Not just at the game table, but at the game designers desk. Love is hard to codify and create mechanics for, so it's not dug deeply into.

Oddly enough, I have a bard story too! In a game I ran (about 10 years ago now that I think of it), one of the players created a philandering bard who was a very nice guy but liked lots of women. He was also an elf in a world where the elf and human nations had only recently 'found' each other (again) and opened relations.

So he was effectively a one elf crusade to bring back half-elves to the world. Every stop the party made, he found a woman to use his elfish charms on. It was pretty funny. Not really love by modern terms, but love of all women in it's own way.

[Vimachipal]

Love is a colorful songbird perched in a tree, singing its beautiful song... waiting to be pounced on by the neighbor's cat.

Romance is great in real life, or in a good movie or book, but can be very awkward in a role play setting.

[PhishStyx]

I have found that largely to be true between heterosexual guys. We (and yes, I mean me) just don't want to go there. It's generally awkward and embarrassing.

On the other hand, I have roleplayed in numerous situations with women and have had more success being descriptive in that setting (in meta-game terms) because I can be more comfortable describing intimacy to a woman than a man. The few times that roleplaying with women has been uncomfortable had to do with the (very unattractive) players' inability to avoid making "very forward requests" of me.

[Ed Zachary]

Most of my gaming now is with couples, and in the past that had included "Bear the Barbarian" and "Twink the Thief".

It would be very uncomfortable to see two characters role play romance from different coupled pairs.

However it was funny as hell to watch two straight guys roleplay a romantic situation after one got hit with a sex change, and have it critiqued by the two gay players.

[Dimthar]

Truth is I've never seen any "Romantic" scene role-played, most of it has been me or someone else playing a "Don Juan" type of character.

Role-playing the marriage was mostly limited to:
- Saving a jewel or two for the wife in question.
- The "Goodbye kiss", If I don't make it for dinner is because the Dark-Knight's castle was better defended.
- The rescue scene.
- The Fred Flintstone scene, arriving home from an adventure and asking for dinner.

Just in case I always sent an errand boy to announce my arrival.

[Rain_Spider_08]

I'm not really one for "love plots" in any rpgs I play. It's fine between NPCs or an NPC and a Player Character. But the idea of two player characters being in love makes me queasy due to the fact I can already picture the unneeded drama.

It's funny that there's a topic of this today considering that at my game last night we were taking a breather outside and the owner of the store comes out looks and me and says "So, has your character found a lover yet?" thank god nobody was in close range to me cause hearing that made me spew my drink... he suprised me with that one, didn't know he thought that way.

[Moritz]

I've got a few notes on this subject:

Clay/Sam was married to one of the other players and he would often, in game, try to hit on NPC's within my world. He would even try to make them his 'girlfriend'. I found it all very awkward, especially with his wife in the room.

I've had one or three male players in my game do the gender-bender thing and take female characters. I've never understood this, but to each his (or her) own. During games, I would sometimes have big half-ogres hit on them, objectify them, etc.

In the past, I had a couple that RP'd with us. They would often take characters such as "Vision"/"Scarlet Witch", "Cloak"/"Dagger", "Gambit"/"Rogue" and other common paired FC's from the Marvel Universe game I ran. They would ICly explore the relationships during RP. But for the most part, they were already in love with one another and were just playing different roles. I won't go into this any further than that.

Now, on the subject of 'queasy' brought up by Rain. For the most part, I'm not one to want to run or play romantic situations with other players or NPC's. My reasoning, you look across the table when rp'ing and see this person that is 'not very pretty, slightly or grossly overweight, or 'other'; and that sort of makes me 'queasy' to even think about it.

In a MUX setting, there are often (and I mean very often) players that have 'romantic' situations that they rp out with other players or NPC's run by emitters. I believe it's the very nature of a MUX to attract people who need attention, cannot otherwise get out and meet people, and generally want to rp scenes with their favorite feature characters.

[Dimthar]

In a "Soap Opera" (Mexican) that my wife is watching, one of the "villain" girls buys a love potion from one of the local "witch-doctors".

So, as a plot, in some worlds were magic and/or brainwashing are common and available, and being the PCs some kind of "Stars" in the fiction world, I imagine as a GM there is room to use "love potions" or "desperate noble girls" against the characters.

The original purpose of my question (at the beginning of the thread) was not to actually discuss the "Romantic" implications of a PC-NPC relationship, but rather how as GMs we use "Love Ones" for plot purposes, and put the PCs in situations like Loyalty to the Kingdom Vs Loyalty to the Family.

Player> - I approach the waitress smiling and with my free hand ....
GM> - (Interrupting) Ok you have charisma, 16 <dice rolling>, she tells you where the
treasure is and hands the keys to the Dragon's vault.
Player> - But..... I just was going to ask for another beer.

[PhishStyx]

Mm, I haven't done that, but I did use the "protect this baby" as a plotline once in Shadowrun.

[Moritz]

Mm, I haven't done that, but I did use the "protect this baby" as a plotline once in Shadowrun.

I thought it was "Kick the baby"?

[PhishStyx]

I thought it was "Kick the baby"?

Wrong game. That plot is only used by D&D DM's who are literally down to their last game idea and are about to switch to Version 4.0.

[Grimwell]

/em raises his hand!

[Digital Arcanist]

As a GM, I stay away from plot hooks involving romance unless its romance between two NPC's. I find it uncomfortable to role-play as an NPC in a romantic situation with a PC. I don not however have any trouble pulling out the Book of Erotic fantasy and making my players face the consequences of their lame actions when it comes to barmaids, doxies, or other possible disease carriers. Many a Rico Suave has had to deal with some STD in my campaigns or heaven forbid, some baby mama drama.

I have no issue with two PC's being joined together in the campaign as long as they don't become gratuitous in their role-playing.

[Moritz]

I'm reminded of that dungeons and dragons audio skit where the guy is in the kitchen/tavern looking for maidens and wanting to get laid.