Romance in interactive fiction

[alanajoli]

I should have known it wouldn't last when our D&D characters had no chemistry. I speak of my very first boyfriend, whose paladin once quipped "But all priests are good" to my suspicious, cynical elf bard. The character my elf did have chemistry with? An equally cynical elf fighter with a mysterious past, the player of which I married seven years

Comments

[kattw]

Hmmm, lack of real-world experience may lead to lack of in-game interest for me. In Bioware games (Mass Effect, for example), I usually unlock romances for achievements, or to see the cutscene (as the writers usually spend far too much time making romance cutscenes awesome compared to normal cutscenes). But it's not like, say, I actually CARED about Lilliana's shoe obsession. heh

THAT being said, I'm happy to introduce romance into games I run if a player expresses an interest, though it usually focuses upon the consequences of leading a dangerous life and having that one extra dependent, and I don't recall ever introducing a love interest without having a player specifically ask to have one introduced first. Example: my last D&D game (first one I EVER concluded as I wanted to...) had a rather naive goliath fighter in it. Her player wanted to hook up with the leader of the clan that had banished her, get knocked up, and... not know about the latter part. She spent a lot of time being sick in the mornings and having to let out her armor after eating too much, and accidentally sacrificed one of the twins to a dragon she was looking for a favor from - great recurring villain THAT turned out to be!

That being said, I go through the romancing phases when the players want to as well. Most recently, I had a Spycraft player take up a seduction subplot with a Mafia guy she'd met in a bar at one point, and watched with some interest while she struggled to decide if she wanted to win or lose the seduction. But even there, it ended up being more useful to me to have one extra dependent I could throw into games to make the player make a hard choice - help your boyfriend, or help the team, or mediate a peaceful resolution?

[alanajoli]

I feel like I had a thread on facebook awhile ago where the discussion of divided loyalties as a character driver was what made characters INTERESTING. Romantic interests as conflict drivers -- or as potential casualties -- are great!

I mean, in fiction. Real life romantic interests should be kept out of harm's way, of course.

Oh, absolutely

[kattw]

I saw a really good page a while back about similar things - it was focusing upon Vampire larp, but easily converts to almost any roleplaying. And the gist in large part was - have vulnerabilities. Have great secrets get shared to the wrong people at the wrong moment. Conflict is what generates the fun.

It can be interesting to play Mr. Invincible, with nobody in his life, and nothing that can destroy him, for a short while. But eventually, kicking down the door and killing the goblins just to buy a new sword gets old. It's far more interesting when the goblins are guarding a potion that you need to rescue the princess of the neighboring kingdom, and they'll smash it if you take too long slaying them.

And it's even better when the princess is your sister, or wife, or polymorphed ex-family kitten, and you'll be failing yourself too if you don't get the potion.

Now, of course, I suddenly find myself wondering if Smokey Joe had anybody in his life...

Re: Oh, absolutely

[alanajoli]

Joe was totally digging on the spy we were chasing! I thought I was totally obvious. :)