Romance in campaigns?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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I know I'm a decade late to the party, but I recently started watching Critical Role. I'm well aware that the whole group is all professional actors, and not all games will, can, or should be what theirs is. That said I do love the storytelling aspect of this game, and so far it looks like they all do it well. One component that the CR group includes is romance, and I'm in a musing/wondering kind of mood.

So, aside from the boring/useless/non-constructive answer of "Just don't!", I'd like to know how different folks have successfully incorporated romance for their characters. I think with long running campaigns, when this is well done, it makes for richer more believable characters and more layered stories.

That said, I've never really managed this with any characters I've played. The few times I've had a character in a relationship it's been in back story, transition scenes, or prologues, never during actual gameplay. It's not something I usually think to think about or act on for my characters, but if I stop to think about it, I don't really think that any (maybe 1 or 2) of my characters are asexual/aromantic.

So, how do you go about developing intimate character relationships? And, to be clear, I don't mean exclusively or even primarily sex. The act can be implied, but I'm not looking to be graphic. I'm all for the classic Hollywood soulful gaze, embrace, flare the fireplace, flutter the curtains, and fade to black. I'm much more interested in how to build, act, and convey the thoughts, deeds, and feelings that create those relationships.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

In any long-running campaign I've run as a GM, I've always allowed romance as an option for players either between party members or between players and NPCs.

We talk about boundaries, and utilize safety tools. I have adult players, playing adult characters.

We either gloss over or fade to black anything too explicit, but otherwise are comfortable roleplaying the courtships, romantic moments and relationship struggles.

After all, what is the point of serialised fiction if not for soap opera hijinx?


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Successfully integrated? Never.

As a GM, I'm not interested in having some romantic story and role play through the lens of our characters with my players.

And in my group, players aren't generally interested in spending significant table time with someone else's romances.

So the most "integration" you get is 2 players agreeing to be romantically interested with each other and maybe a few 1 liners throughout the campaign that goes back to that relationship. Or something similar between a PC and NPC, wherein the GM will confirm that the NPC is available for courting and interested in the PC and there may sometimes be some small relevant stuff as a result of having that relationship, but we don't allow it to significantly alter anything that would happen if the group didn't romance that NPC.

But I think all of that largely depends on how much playtime you have and how much spotlight you give each player, and how much your group prefers to focus on combat/tactical portions of the game versus roleplay. In my group we tend to have limited play time, and generally focus on moving through the APs as quickly as possible. And with combats taking an hour plus to get through on average, we'll have limited role play amongst ourselves if it isn't roleplay that addresses a specific scenario from the AP or campaign. Like if the players need to attend a soiree than we will roleplay saying "Oh, I talk to this person about a thing they're interested in based on my gather information checks, and oh we're wearing these kinds of clothes, or I regale them with tales of our exploits".

But that's it, surface level/high level without getting deep into descriptions.

Each groups tolerance for "speed of play/progress" versus Role play is going to be different and will probably be a bigger point than anything else. But secondarily, it's important to be mindful of what your fellow players are interested in. And generally getting in depth with someone else's romance isn't high on people's list, unless it's a TV show/movie level acting/drama.


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hmmmmm... I'm envisioning 3 melodramatic adventures called the 'First Bases'... like the First Steps series


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The majority of my PF1 experience has been with Society play, which is ill-suited to any romance plots directly involving PCs. I only gave a handful of my PCs anything resembling a lovelife, and that was strictly offstage during downtime.

I have been in a handful of non-PFS games where one or more PCs acquired a romantic interest, but as others have said, that's very much up to what the players want and are comfortable with. I'm currently in one homebrew campaign where my PC is the one with a romantic subplot. Our party rescued several acolytes of the cleric PC's god, and one, a half-orc, now travels with us to escape her racist hometown and learn from our cleric. She also hero-worships my half-orc fighter, who has been very protective of her from the start due to their shared outsider status. My PC has been careful to not take advantage of her, but they've grown closer over the past few months, and now with winter approaching, it was kind of inevitable that they started sharing a tent. And we mostly leave it at that.

I have been in campaigns where romance was much more prevalent, but most were in other systems. The kind of soap opera nonsense that could easily derail a typical d20 game is the meat and potatoes of (for example) the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.


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I tend to scatter "romanceable" NPC liberally throughout stuff I GM. Gives me as GM extra plot hooks (if the party stalls, the NPC, either by themselfs or by getting abducted by the BBEG, can move things forward).

In play by post, its easier to do so since you dont take session time for it, in actual play, its not about cringe, its about 3-4 other people not being able to interact with the scene, although I had one from

wrath of the righteous:

The bard got romantically involved with a powerful Succubus vasall of Nocticula, they proceeded to have some dates in the prime material, and the other PCs basically strove to make this not be a mass casulty event. Or, in one PCs case, to make it a mass casulty event because the "activity date" was a masquerade in the Chelaxian capital with empress Abrogail in attendance, and that PC hated Cheliax.

It was funny because the bard thought they were busted when Abrogails pit fiend advisor teleported straight next to them, but the Succubus and the pit fiend had an incredibly polite and gregarious chat. Said Succubus was a bit of a contrast to Arueshalae and was Neutral evil, striving to become nascent demon lord of trade, negotiations, contract and ransoms.


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Like Claxon, romance is not a heavy focus in our games. Most players aren't particularly interested in watching two other people spend a lot of time roleplaying the romance, taking up valuable game time. That sort of spotlight-hogging happens enough with plot-relevant issues.

When my fiancee and I play one-on-one games, OTOH...


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Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

...

When my fiancee and I play one-on-one games, OTOH...

LoL, was that literal or just kissing up to the GM?

I think in PFS you can run into the cringe/creep factor as it's heavily moderated and there's little player to player history or relationship PLUS we are talking about social skill set, maturity, and self confidence. SFS was lighter and more frivolous(?). I think players in PBP are more into (slow burn) drama.

Really the problem is as a challenge how do you assign (tasteful) success conditions (SMART goals) and experience for it. Thus my humorous scenarios.


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I mean that we have a couple of games where we take in turns acting as GM for the other, and since there is only two of us we can spend time doing exactly what we feel like and not have to worry about stealing the spotlight from other players, and we can be exactly as detailed as we want without triggering our social anxieties and embarrassment.


Thanks for the feedback folks. My life de-railed for a bit after I made this thread, so I'm just now getting back to it. I appreciate the various perspectives.

I think one challenge I have is that I haven't been in any games with both ongoing story AND recurring NPCs. I've had one or the other, but rarely both. If a character of mine was going to develop a romance, it would almost certainly be a slow burn, which needs both elements. I've played in sandbox games with rotating GMs for several years now, so the NPC cast changes often. This leaves only room for PC romantic pairings, and my group is comprised of mostly real life couples, and now someone's kid. The set-up just isn't conducive (or now appropriate) for any character romances.

I suppose the actual couples could couple their PCs, but that often feels cheesy, cliched, or cringy. Plus, my husband and I would have to play characters that didn't drive each other mad :p


Sysryke wrote:
I suppose the actual couples could couple their PCs, but that often feels cheesy, cliched, or cringy. Plus, my husband and I would have to play characters that didn't drive each other mad :p

I'm with you, that always feels weird.

My wife and I used to be in a game where 2 of the players were a couple and their characters always coupled... Wife and I always made characters that didn't get along / were always at odds with each other because it was more fun for us.


I've only played with three couples in my 30+ years of gaming and never seen that sort of in-game coupling.


Count yourself lucky Bjorn. I played in one group where one of the couples was the GM and his girlfriend. I was playing a gentle giant barbarian inspired by Ferdinand the Bull. Her character was a rather forward/aggressive Tiefling ranger. Her character frequently made advances at mine, but it was cringy, so I just played him a little bit simple/innocent, and he never understood her advances. Placed her hard in the friend/sister zone.

This is definitely where the professional acting skill sets come into play on Critical Role. There are two couples playing at that table, and their various characters developed different romances from the IRL pairings with no awkwardness I could perceive. At least for myself, and I'd venture many other players, it's challenging to compartmentalize oneself from a character to that degree. Of course, if you consider BrAngelina from back in the day, not all actors do this well either.


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