Quote from: Ratman_tf;1033697I roll to poop.

To be serious, romance and sex and attraction and junk are good motivators. Probably prime motivators for people.

It could work for 3rd party motivations, to be sure.  When it involves a PC the problem is that romance or even simple sex - while obviously a behavior driver in meatspace - require some level of real attraction to pull off the interplay that makes chasing the opposite sex fun.  It can't be pretended unless the player has legitimate acting chops and most don't (and even then, if movie set rumors are any indication, often the attraction between actors and actresses is very real and just translated to the screen).

A DM can realistically generate in players almost all the other emotions driving the other deadly sins, but not really romance (absent genuine attraction between the DM and player, which is "get a room" in its own right).  And yes, I know, so many people say they use it to great effect in RPGs; but I take that with a grain of salt because I've sat at a table where romance was used, with the participants exclaiming great satisfaction with its use, and that shit was P-A-I-N-F-U-L to watch unfold.

Out of our group, I'm probably the most inclined to include such elements, and I'm usually the GM.  The typical reaction for an NPC even flirting with one of the PCs is that the guy players will ignore it, run away, or play hard to get in a bid to gather information.  The lady players tend to either dismiss it or kill it with fire, depending upon how big a threat they see the person to their characters.  And I don't have a long history of such NPCs betraying the party, either.  

For me, it's merely another element that gets thrown out there.  Only in this case, I know it's probably not going anywhere.  I think an actual relationship developed maybe once per decade of play.

Hmm. I did have a female player in one of my Dark Sun games whose character had both high charisma and a psionic wild talent, and the player liked to seduce and flirt with the NPCs. That's also something I'm willing to roll with as a GM.

Pretty common. I usually have a lot of NPC's, invariably a PC will build those relationships if they present themselves naturally.

Of course the usual dramas that would surround such relationships occur. Especially when those NPC's develop their own interests outside of the PC group.

Quote from: EOTB;1033692Not everything IRL should happen at the TBL.

This^^

So much of intense role-playing is dependent on the people involved that it is often best to just gloss over those things. Now, when it works with the right people, it is astounding. You have to really know your players, though. Best RP romance I can remember happened between myself (as GM doing a male Navy boyfriend) and a gay player (playing a female ex-scout girlfriend). We had the character banter down, it was smooth, it was believable, it was even fun to watch by the rest of the players at the table - but it could have never happened with any of the other players because of who they were as players and people.

Quote from: EOTB;1033706And yes, I know, so many people say they use it to great effect in RPGs; but I take that with a grain of salt because I've sat at a table where romance was used, with the participants exclaiming great satisfaction with its use, and that shit was P-A-I-N-F-U-L to watch unfold.

That sounds like it's a problem for you as a player, sounds like it worked fine for the participants! RPGs are not a spectator sport. Personally I'll take the interests of all my players into account, but the guy who makes weapon systems for Lockheed Martin and doesn't want any icky romance in his D&D doesn't necessarily have a veto over the woman who's a young adult fiction author and does enjoy a romance element for her PC (to give a couple real player examples from my group a few years back).

Currently in my Stonehell game I have one player who does like romantic elements a lot, but as GM I haven't really done much to satisfy her (as it were) so she mostly has her male Bard PC flirt & court the female PCs. Everyone's fine with it & it just adds to the game IMO.

I agree that it hugely depends on the players - their interest, acting, and preferences.

I would just add that romance can be handled at many different levels. It can be humorous color - like in a James Bond 007 game with aptly names love interests. It could be completely glossed over as something not mentioned at all. It could be played out as believable and possibly intense acting.

As another option, though, it could also be a bit of color that doesn't call for a lot of acted out scenes showing the romance, but is still a part of play. In games with long-term play, like Pendragon or Ars Magica, it can be a notable bit of background for a character that they get married, say. As the years go by in play, there can be updates about how they are getting along, if they have kids, and so forth.

In superhero games for me, it was pretty common for there to be a background love interest of a PC - like a Dependent NPC in Champions or the equivalent. These didn't come up so much as on-screen romancing, but was part of ongoing background for the character.

Somewhat to my surprise, in my medieval Chivalry and Sorcery social tables / BRP mechanics game, some of the players have discovered the potential for the "Marriage as Inheritance" strategy.  "Sure her appearance would shatter mirrors and her voice would shatter granite, but she has lots and lots of really big tracts..."  This hasn't happened before.

So, I have dusted off those rules, and am letting the players pitch a little woo to the NPC's, and everyone seems to be taking it in good part.

Now, let me vary the original post, and take counsel about this plot twist, of a romantic nature:

We have Player Character Sir Ahab, who is pursuing NPC Lady 1, who is the lady-in-wating to NPC Countess 2.  Lady 1 is interested in Sir Ahab.
We have Player Character Sir Beehab, who is intrigued by the idea of pursuing Countess 2.  Countess 2's husband has been missing for years, and the player characters have very carefully avoided making any serious effort to find him.
NPC Countess 2 is probably not interested in Sir Beehab, at least over the long haul, but her husband has been missing for years, and something in hand is better than beating around the bush.

We have here, I think the makings of a fine session or two of comedic farce and mistaken identity if we introduce Squire Bob, an NPC who is flighty, excitable, easily confused and has a low reading ability score, and assign him to deliver love letters going back and forth.

But what would be the advisability of that--the general gist would be along the lines that Sir Ahab thinks he is going off to a secret night-time rendezvous with Lady 1, but the Countess actually turns up, but in the process Sir Beehab is left waiting, but gets an interesting note from the Countess the next day.

Quote from: S'mon;1033720That sounds like it's a problem for you as a player, sounds like it worked fine for the participants! RPGs are not a spectator sport. Personally I'll take the interests of all my players into account, but the guy who makes weapon systems for Lockheed Martin and doesn't want any icky romance in his D&D doesn't necessarily have a veto over the woman who's a young adult fiction author and does enjoy a romance element for her PC (to give a couple real player examples from my group a few years back).

All players get to vote with their feet, if nothing else.

Depends on the group and the game, but the more serious & realistic & fully-scoped the game is, the more common it is for most of the characters to have relationships, circumstances permitting. It tends to be a significant part of characters' motivations and orientations (so to speak). Usually PC to NPC though.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033630How often in your campaigns do your PCs end up having romantic relationships?

None so far.

It depends.

For PC/NPC romance, somewhere occasionally and often.  Up until very recently it never got past the "involved" aspect of the relationship.  I few times it's lead to marriage between the PC and NPC, but that's not a very common thing.

I can only think of 2 PC/PC relationships that happened in the last 30+ years I've gamed.  Both were mutually initiated and developed over the length of the campaigns.  Both ended up in marriages between the PCs.  One in game before the campaign ended, and the other in a post game wrap-up we did with the idea that we may go back to that game some day.

All sexy times pretty much faded to black once the clothes started to come off.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1033630How often in your campaigns do your PCs end up having romantic relationships?

I think the only time they didn't was when I was running Usagi Yojimbo, but I might be forgetting something. Great system, but the characters didn't appeal, at all.

Of course, the phrase "love n-tangle" was coined in one of my campaigns. And then we considered editing it upwards:D!

We've had both PC-to-NPC, NPC-to-PC, and PC-to-PC romance. And obviously NPC-to-NPC has been present as well, but that's "setting background", not something that happens on the table:).

My anecdotal observations are that female players either have a very low tolerance to romance (i.e. don't want it in the game), or are much more open to PC-to-PC relationships with players of the same gender, regardless of whether they're attracted to each other. Male players tend to either have a low tolerance, or are open to roleplaying romance, but not with a player of a gender they're not attracted to. Sometimes, though, NPCs get a pass around that objection;).

Of course, the above might be regional specifics. My experience is, by its nature, geographically limited.

GM'd for everything in the spectrum, 'cept actual sexing (fake or... otherwise).

Had PC-on-NPC romances. One in particular caused GOT proportions of controversy amongst the other players: it was a Third Crusade era HTV game and the PC was a Hunter in a relationship with an NPC Werewolf. Eventually, the Cell and the Pack aided each others efforts against the greater darkness (powerful Tier One Mages + enmeshed Tier Two Vampires) present in the chronicle and that was awesome to witness as a GM.

Also had three other notable romances, all of them PC-on-PC. Two at LDRC, one in an Only War game. One of the two ended up with my club officially attaining matchmaker status! It was quite crazy when it came out two players started going out together having met through the club itself -- their PCs from then on were always close, naturally. The other is happening now in our current Vampire chron but both the PCs are already a couple in real-life so that's to be expected, obvs. And the Only War one was strictly RP and was a bit more "will-they-won't-they" but was hilarious and a bit heart-warming to see: an Operator and a Tech Priest getting together because they both had a love/fetish for Archeotech (it did start to die when the TP started getting more and more Machine Trait, though).

And when it comes to sex, I usually just have my PCs roll against something or state what a particular stat is to see how they perform in bed. It's hilarious but it does get a bit real depending on the player...