No, this isn't about Blue Rose..

I wanted to know how often Romance is used as a subject in your games.  Do your games tend to have gamers in a tintinesque "world without women", a Dr.Who-esque "women abound but no hanky-panky in the TARDIS", is there lots of sex mentioned off-scene but rarely if ever romantic relationships between pcs and love interests? Or is it a regular and major theme?

If not, why is it? Some would argue that its because gamers are nerds who have relationship issues, and I think in some cases for some people that might be true, but I don't think that is really the most obvious answer; I think its more a comfort thing regarding the fact that basically, you're acting out your characters, and it gets a bit into "awkward country" to have to roleplay out a deep romantic relationship with the dude next to you who's supposedly playing an elf chick.

Still, what do y'all think about this?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditNo, this isn't about Blue Rose..

I wanted to know how often Romance is used as a subject in your games.  Do your games tend to have gamers in a tintinesque "world without women", a Dr.Who-esque "women abound but no hanky-panky in the TARDIS", is there lots of sex mentioned off-scene but rarely if ever romantic relationships between pcs and love interests? Or is it a regular and major theme?

If not, why is it? Some would argue that its because gamers are nerds who have relationship issues, and I think in some cases for some people that might be true, but I don't think that is really the most obvious answer; I think its more a comfort thing regarding the fact that basically, you're acting out your characters, and it gets a bit into "awkward country" to have to roleplay out a deep romantic relationship with the dude next to you who's supposedly playing an elf chick.

Still, what do y'all think about this?

RPGPundit

Romance tends to feature in many of my games - up to and including marriage and children. It's been this way since I started GMing, nearly thiry years ago.

-clash

I think I heard this discussed in a podcast someplace...  the reasons AGAINST getting too far into romance in RPGs are:

* The other player is of an incompatible gender and it feels "weird"
* You are roleplaying romance with someone of a compatible gender who isn't your partner and it feels "weird"
* You're playing a Romance game with someone of a compatible gender, and you're both single, and it still feels "weird"

All 3 of these have a good chance of feeling "weird" to the other people at the table as well.  The 3rd is, of course, very popular with some games (eg. Vampire LARP).

If it comes up, it comes up, and usually it doesn't -- it's just not that important to some of our games.  When I'm playing with my wife, one-on-one, there are often in-game relationships, but I game so rarely now that even that doesn't happen so often.

My group's neither afraid of nor uncomfortable with it; we're just more interested in action and adventure.

...I admit it. I'm a sucker for romance, and I often have romantic subplots for my characters (though whether they actually show up in games is another matter). I also strongly encourage my players when they want to explore romantic subplots with their own characters. I try not to push it on them unless they've expressed an interest though. And it can be a bit difficult with face to face games, so we usually fade to black.

Since I've gotten into the PbP scene, I've found that romance is much easier to deal with in that format, both because it lends itself to deeper characterization IMHO, and because its easier to forget that the GM is another bloke. And I adore the Spycraft 2.0 mechanics that allow you to explicitly select Romance as a subplot, so you can make it clear to the GM if that's something you're interested in.

I think a lot of it has to do with the type of story the GM and players like playing. Action/adventure stories don't have a whole lot of time for romance, and what there is of it entails a small subplot where the hero gets the girl at the end. Dungeon delving also leaves little time for romance. It might come up more in an urban setting... In fact, one of the players in my Ptolus game just yesterday mentioned that he wanted his character to develop a love interest. I gotta get to work on that...

Some aspects of romance can be played out quite fine in a RPG, i.e. wooing and other Romeo & Juliet stuff. Once the background music drifts towards wah-wah pedals and bow-chikka bass, the camera of the GM pans to the fluttering curtains...

So "Much Ado about Nothing" is okay, "Bridges of Madsion County" tends to get abbreviated. I tend to speak in-character with the NPCs and blurting out heart-felt emotion to my players just feels to weird to me. Not to speak of the time involved, the other players wouldn't enjoy themselves that much when a player and the GM exchange bitter love sonnets...

The romance subplot is a classic, but it seemed a lot more interesting a few years ago.

But anyhow, I'll still manage to pull it off as a GM from time to time. The trick for me is not to make it that immersive- to consciously move out of 1st person voice (which I do for most NPC encounters) and drop into a third person descriptive format.

The basic technique is, I generate some conversation, just as I would with any NPC (speaking in 1st person). Then I stop and say "You can tell she's flirting with you".

This is because I'm really not interested in flirting with the players as the GM, so I'll just be obvious and tell them, let them be interested or not. And players generally pick up on this with either "ok, well, I'll flirt back" or "I rebuff her advances.." or whatever.

It's one of the few cases where I'll try and back away from 1st person voice when roleplaying-- in this case just to maintain the comfort zone not only between myself and the player but in front of the 3 other guys who are there as well. Also, anything really intense (sex) is generally made to happen offscreen.

An alternate to the romance plot is the unwanted or horrible romance plot, where someone really awful (often comically awful) or something other-than-human takes an interest in a PC. One of my previous characters had a "schtick" as being a tiefling who regularly pursued relationships with various monstrous females. It was played half for comedy, but I wanted it to also show that my tiefling character was sort of between species, and always felt he had a way of seeing someones "true beauty".

Hey!  Diablo Robotico!  Good to see you, man!

My friend Erik used to have a skill in his AD&D game called "Gettin' on the babes".  Does that count as romance?  You DID have to roll for it...

Quote from: RPGPunditI think its more a comfort thing regarding the fact that basically, you're acting out your characters, and it gets a bit into "awkward country" to have to roleplay out a deep romantic relationship with the dude next to you who's supposedly playing an elf chick.

This - sort of - was the reason why I didn't use romance in games for quite a while.  The comfort thing, that is; the example given is pretty radically different from the specifics.

So, I went and read up on games that are about this kind of thing.  And I noted their mechanics for it, and played a few of them here and there.  Traits and numbers, for our group, created the necessary distance that we could play out bits of romance and then retreat to mechanics where it was too much for comfort.

And, from there, we slowly, by aggregation of little ideas, thoughts on how to handle the content piling up, came to consensus on how to do it, and dropped the mechanics.

Now, it's easy, and we use it fairly often.

If I'm playing a dungeon-crawl, I don't expect romance unless it's the life-draining kiss of a succubus. Any other kind of campaign, though, will probably feel incomplete without some romance (what exactly counts as "romance" in your campaign is a different story).

All in all, I feel that many GMs -even really good ones- don't handle romance very well. It can be awkwardness, lack of experience, whatever.

Some common problems I've seen over the years:

- Not enough romantic interests and opportunities (the "everyone in the village is male" syndrome).

- The romantic interest is just an excuse for the GM to make the PC's life completely miserable. Sometimes, they don't have to be (or they don't have to be just that).

- The romantic interest is just a bland, passive "set prop" (does nothing and is completely reactive). Not every romance has to be memorable, but at least make it interesting!

- The GM thinks it's a waste of time for what he has in mind for the campaign. What the players want and what the GM wants don't always match.

Quote from: flyingmiceRomance tends to feature in many of my games - up to and including marriage and children. It's been this way since I started GMing, nearly thiry years ago.

ditto

My current group is all guys and none of us are the types to want to roleplay falling in love with each other. We do have the occasional female PC, but anything romantic happens off screen and rarely goes beyond the "score" level.

Back when my wife and best friend played romance would happen sometimes (although not between them). It still occured mostly off screen. In my 25 years of gaming there's never been an in character romance between two PCs that didn't happen because the players were already together.

Quote from: SosthenesSome aspects of romance can be played out quite fine in a RPG, i.e. wooing and other Romeo & Juliet stuff. Once the background music drifts towards wah-wah pedals and bow-chikka bass, the camera of the GM pans to the fluttering curtains...

So "Much Ado about Nothing" is okay, "Bridges of Madsion County" tends to get abbreviated. I tend to speak in-character with the NPCs and blurting out heart-felt emotion to my players just feels to weird to me. Not to speak of the time involved, the other players wouldn't enjoy themselves that much when a player and the GM exchange bitter love sonnets...

LOL! That's very well put, Sosthenes! When the wah-wah pedals come out, the screen fades to black for me, too. I'm not interested in documenting the PCs' sex lives, but their interactions with people are always interesting.

In a recent In Harm's Way game, two PCs visiting a Muslim ruler were gifted with slave concubines. One of the PCs resisted temptation, as he was deeply in love with his wife, while the other succumbed. It was fascinating to see how they reacted, and how much it disturbed both characters - and their players - because of the slave angle as much as the sexual tension. The second PC, BTW, ended up dumping his fiancee back in Philadelphia - the daughter of a congressman no less - and manumitting and marrying his slave girl. Slavery was, of course, legal in 1803, but these were white girls! They had to confront a lot of unspoken attitudes about women, slavery, and race ingrained in their society.

Now lest one gets the wrong idea, this was all wrapped around them firebombing Tripoli from hot air balloons - the game wasn't about this, it was a  fascinating little side excursion. The game was about them being naval officers in the age of sail, and sometimes that includes stuff like this.

-clash

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Hey!  Diablo Robotico!  Good to see you, man!

*waves at the good doctor*

There are a lot of people here I recognize from Big Purple. I've been sub'd over here for a while, but I'm not all that talkative (same over at Big Purple, where I only just broke 1000 posts after being sub'd over there for three years!). Anyway, nice to be recognized! Thanks!

Er, to keep on topic... the buddy of mine I mentioned earlier who wants to have a romantic interest is actually playing a female elf. *chuckle* Although he's a very good RPer and pulls it off well. He's not sure right now if he wants to develop this love interest with an NPC or a PC (I've got a great idea for someone if he thinks NPC is a better way to go).