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

[ext_2233930]

In games that are not billed as romance games, I prefer romance to be an optional side-note. Sure, my Bioware game hero may have romantic entanglements, but that's not what her story is about - it's about saving the world, or the galaxy. It's about making moral (or immoral) choices and living with the consequences. It's about being a hero, not about being in love.

That's not to say that I don't enjoy stories that are about romance; Choice of Romance, for example, is absolutely fabulous and one of my favorite interactive fiction games. But if the game isn't about romance, I want to be able to skip the romantic entanglements and feel like that's okay. Because, ultimately, romance isn't what my character's story is about.

[alanajoli]

I agree pretty much completely, although Choice of Romance is one of the games where the romance *didn't* work for me. I didn't like any of the partner options and wondered why I'd get entangled with any of them. But that's at least in part because of the character I decided to play going in.

One of the things I like to see in a game is how your relationships -- romantic or otherwise -- shape who you are. In, oh, Knights of the Old Republic II (the not BioWare one), your relationships shaped the NPCs, which was cool, but didn't seem to have much feedback on you as the main character. In the Choice games, most of the way I've seen this work is that your relationships give you advantages or disadvantages in the challenges you attempt. I'm not sure it *can* be better quantified, but it's something I ponder!

[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

[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. :)