I think it requires a tremendous amount of maturity from the players. And you need agreement among the table as to how far a romance will go "on screen" and when there will be a "fade to black." Not everyone has the same threshold, and we all know of the nightmare stories on the internet about some pair of players graphically RPing the equivalent of an X-rated love scene in front of a table that had the rest of the players squirming, or a DM and a player doing the same with a PC-NPC relationship. These boundaries need to be set in session 0 or you could end up with some very unpleasant or uncomfortable play sessions.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I think it requires a tremendous amount of maturity from the players. And you need agreement among the table as to how far a romance will go "on screen" and when there will be a "fade to black." Not everyone has the same threshold, and we all know of the nightmare stories on the internet about some pair of players graphically RPing the equivalent of an X-rated love scene in front of a table that had the rest of the players squirming, or a DM and a player doing the same with a PC-NPC relationship. These boundaries need to be set in session 0 or you could end up with some very unpleasant or uncomfortable play sessions.
There's a campaign where the DM helped a player with the backstory, and they created a love interest for the PC. In the setting, two of the PCs (and one NPC played by a player for oneencounter - a half-brother) have a "dark" equivalent in a cursed town to the west of their home town.
(The story is that the developers of the setting got lazy and copypasta'd the original village with minor, dark changes to create a higher level zone for players. All the NPCs look like their "light" equivalents but act differently.)
The love interest left the PC for the "dark" NPC version. When the love interest showed up in the players' town with the NPC, the DM accidentally said one of the other character's name when speaking as the love interest. It was totally unintended as the two players have slightly similar names.
This led the players to add to the backstory that the love interest had romantic encounters with them, too. They started making double entendres about it and the original PC played like all the references went misunderstood without understanding what the other players were insinuating.
The love interest stated that the "dark" version became an adventurer, which is what happened to the PC - formerly an NPC but force into adventuring. So, the player started showing off with skill checks and the "dark" version did, too. Both succeeding (much to the delight of the love interest played by the DM) until the player failed one and the NPC passed with a high roll.
The player, while too proud to show it publicly, later (while drunk) admitted to still be pining for the love interest while the other players continued to make sly references that never landed with the lovesick player.
(One player kept trying to get the others to stop making innuendos before the PC figured out what the others were saying, but despite being obvious, the PC never figured it out.)
So... we got the point with a piece of character development without getting X-rated.
Then, I saw a campaign where a player kept trying to hit on women NPCs. The DM eventually threatened to call guards when the player started stepping over "no means no" territory.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I'm pretty sure I'm relatively comfortable with romance in my games for one reason and one reason only: the average age of the others in my groups has by and large gone up with mine. There are some cringefests from over a quarter century ago I dearly wish I could forget, but they're indelibly imprinted in my D&D memory. As things stand all my groups seem to default to "flirting is fun, getting physical is relegated to the background", and everyone's old and experienced enough to at least know the difference between **** and real life.
So, in short: I agree with BioWizard and I suggest that if you need to draw a hard line, draw it just about at the moment the clothes come off.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I think it requires a tremendous amount of maturity from the players. And you need agreement among the table as to how far a romance will go "on screen" and when there will be a "fade to black." Not everyone has the same threshold, and we all know of the nightmare stories on the internet about some pair of players graphically RPing the equivalent of an X-rated love scene in front of a table that had the rest of the players squirming, or a DM and a player doing the same with a PC-NPC relationship. These boundaries need to be set in session 0 or you could end up with some very unpleasant or uncomfortable play sessions.
This! And things can get especially rocky when you’ve got players who might be interested in each other...it’s a credit to my players’ maturity that our mixed-gender group somehow survived those awkward high school years! We just avoided character romance altogether, and it was definitely for the best.
I had a character that ended up being compelled to love an NPC he'd never seen or met and only knew where she was supposed to be.
I was like, "Nah." ...and that story hook rusted away, unused.🤣
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
There's a campaign where the DM helped a player with the backstory, and they created a love interest for the PC. In the setting, two of the PCs (and one NPC played by a player for oneencounter - a half-brother) have a "dark" equivalent in a cursed town to the west of their home town.
(The story is that the developers of the setting got lazy and copypasta'd the original village with minor, dark changes to create a higher level zone for players. All the NPCs look like their "light" equivalents but act differently.)
The love interest left the PC for the "dark" NPC version. When the love interest showed up in the players' town with the NPC, the DM accidentally said one of the other character's name when speaking as the love interest. It was totally unintended as the two players have slightly similar names.
This led the players to add to the backstory that the love interest had romantic encounters with them, too. They started making double entendres about it and the original PC played like all the references went misunderstood without understanding what the other players were insinuating.
The love interest stated that the "dark" version became an adventurer, which is what happened to the PC - formerly an NPC but force into adventuring. So, the player started showing off with skill checks and the "dark" version did, too. Both succeeding (much to the delight of the love interest played by the DM) until the player failed one and the NPC passed with a high roll.
The player, while too proud to show it publicly, later (while drunk) admitted to still be pining for the love interest while the other players continued to make sly references that never landed with the lovesick player.
(One player kept trying to get the others to stop making innuendos before the PC figured out what the others were saying, but despite being obvious, the PC never figured it out.)
So... we got the point with a piece of character development without getting X-rated.
Then, I saw a campaign where a player kept trying to hit on women NPCs. The DM eventually threatened to call guards when the player started stepping over "no means no" territory.
I'm pretty sure I'm relatively comfortable with romance in my games for one reason and one reason only: the average age of the others in my groups has by and large gone up with mine. There are some cringefests from over a quarter century ago I dearly wish I could forget, but they're indelibly imprinted in my D&D memory. As things stand all my groups seem to default to "flirting is fun, getting physical is relegated to the background", and everyone's old and experienced enough to at least know the difference between **** and real life.
So, in short: I agree with BioWizard and I suggest that if you need to draw a hard line, draw it just about at the moment the clothes come off.
I think it requires a tremendous amount of maturity from the players. And you need agreement among the table as to how far a romance will go "on screen" and when there will be a "fade to black." Not everyone has the same threshold, and we all know of the nightmare stories on the internet about some pair of players graphically RPing the equivalent of an X-rated love scene in front of a table that had the rest of the players squirming, or a DM and a player doing the same with a PC-NPC relationship. These boundaries need to be set in session 0 or you could end up with some very unpleasant or uncomfortable play sessions.
This! And things can get especially rocky when you’ve got players who might be interested in each other...it’s a credit to my players’ maturity that our mixed-gender group somehow survived those awkward high school years! We just avoided character romance altogether, and it was definitely for the best.
The worst difficulty tends to happen in text-medium online RP, such as the old school MUSHes and MUXes and such. People did not know each other by sight or voice, and immature or inexperienced RPers would tend to conflate character with player. And there was a type of sexualized RP called "TinySex" (or TS for short) based on the original name for MUDs and MUSHes (TinyMUD and TinyMUS). That kind of thing was... ugh.
MMOs can make it bad too, as they often almost require you to make up a sexy avatar (both male or female) and then players for some reason assume that everyone is as hot as their avatar (even though you know you're not as hot as your own avatar -- many people assume that everyone else is, as if they are the only exception).
For all these reasons I tend to steer clear of romantic plots. As a DM, I don't mind having an NPC flirt with a character, because DMs play so many characters there is no chance anyone will assume that the DM is flirting with them. But player to player flirting in my experience has often caused trouble unless you are in person with people you know REALLY well.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
The worst difficulty tends to happen in text-medium online RP, such as the old school MUSHes and MUXes and such. People did not know each other by sight or voice, and immature or inexperienced RPers would tend to conflate character with player. And there was a type of sexualized RP called "TinySex" (or TS for short) based on the original name for MUDs and MUSHes (TinyMUD and TinyMUS). That kind of thing was... ugh.
MMOs can make it bad too, as they often almost require you to make up a sexy avatar (both male or female) and then players for some reason assume that everyone is as hot as their avatar (even though you know you're not as hot as your own avatar -- many people assume that everyone else is, as if they are the only exception).
For all these reasons I tend to steer clear of romantic plots. As a DM, I don't mind having an NPC flirt with a character, because DMs play so many characters there is no chance anyone will assume that the DM is flirting with them. But player to player flirting in my experience has often caused trouble unless you are in person with people you know REALLY well.
It is awesome if the players are into it. Sometimes it is a couple playing, which is nice. Sometimes it is two players horsing around, which can fun.
Otherwise, I encourage players to play two characters. It can be two friends, siblings, a character with an animal companion, whatever the player wants, including a romantic interest.
More to that story: The problematic player in the second example is the lovesick player in the first one - same DM for both. It is my opinion (and nothing more than an opinion) that the DM worked with the player to bring a romance arc for him into the second campaign (which I noted first in the post - reverse order). Same character, too.
So, that particular player was not unsalvageable.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Not only do you need to be very aware of the maturity, comfort level, and degree to which the players know each other, you also need to consider how much game time will be soaked up.
D&D is a group activity, and Romance is rarely something the whole group can participate in.
I do not encourage "solo" activities by my players. If there is some activity they want to do that excludes the others, I push that into the background.
That is a good point. Romance between 2 PCs leaves the other players sitting there watching a RomCom or something possibly more extreme. Romance between NPC and PC leaves all but one player out as spectators.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
That is a good point. Romance between 2 PCs leaves the other players sitting there watching a RomCom or something possibly more extreme. Romance between NPC and PC leaves all but one player out as spectators.
I sat in as a guest in one of the other Sat DM's tables last day (Due to Covid, and work, my table did not have enough players). Anyway, I tell him I am playing a Hexblade, and he immediately tells me my Patron demands me to convince one of the other players, a female Shadow Sorcerer, to visit the Shadowfell, by her own volition. We then proceed to have a 2 player conversation, albeit brief, before he has one of his NPC's have the "concerned father figure talks" with regard to my intentions toward this Sorcerer.
The rest of the group had to just sit there and endure this. In a limited time session, this is just a bad use of time overall for the table.
Between PCs or between PCs and NPCs
What do you guys think?
I think it’s great IF the players are into it
I think it requires a tremendous amount of maturity from the players. And you need agreement among the table as to how far a romance will go "on screen" and when there will be a "fade to black." Not everyone has the same threshold, and we all know of the nightmare stories on the internet about some pair of players graphically RPing the equivalent of an X-rated love scene in front of a table that had the rest of the players squirming, or a DM and a player doing the same with a PC-NPC relationship. These boundaries need to be set in session 0 or you could end up with some very unpleasant or uncomfortable play sessions.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Thank you.
There's a campaign where the DM helped a player with the backstory, and they created a love interest for the PC. In the setting, two of the PCs (and one NPC played by a player for oneencounter - a half-brother) have a "dark" equivalent in a cursed town to the west of their home town.
(The story is that the developers of the setting got lazy and copypasta'd the original village with minor, dark changes to create a higher level zone for players. All the NPCs look like their "light" equivalents but act differently.)
The love interest left the PC for the "dark" NPC version. When the love interest showed up in the players' town with the NPC, the DM accidentally said one of the other character's name when speaking as the love interest. It was totally unintended as the two players have slightly similar names.
This led the players to add to the backstory that the love interest had romantic encounters with them, too. They started making double entendres about it and the original PC played like all the references went misunderstood without understanding what the other players were insinuating.
The love interest stated that the "dark" version became an adventurer, which is what happened to the PC - formerly an NPC but force into adventuring. So, the player started showing off with skill checks and the "dark" version did, too. Both succeeding (much to the delight of the love interest played by the DM) until the player failed one and the NPC passed with a high roll.
The player, while too proud to show it publicly, later (while drunk) admitted to still be pining for the love interest while the other players continued to make sly references that never landed with the lovesick player.
(One player kept trying to get the others to stop making innuendos before the PC figured out what the others were saying, but despite being obvious, the PC never figured it out.)
So... we got the point with a piece of character development without getting X-rated.
Then, I saw a campaign where a player kept trying to hit on women NPCs. The DM eventually threatened to call guards when the player started stepping over "no means no" territory.
So, even non-X-rated material can go too far.
It's situational as with many things in D&D.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I'm pretty sure I'm relatively comfortable with romance in my games for one reason and one reason only: the average age of the others in my groups has by and large gone up with mine. There are some cringefests from over a quarter century ago I dearly wish I could forget, but they're indelibly imprinted in my D&D memory. As things stand all my groups seem to default to "flirting is fun, getting physical is relegated to the background", and everyone's old and experienced enough to at least know the difference between **** and real life.
So, in short: I agree with BioWizard and I suggest that if you need to draw a hard line, draw it just about at the moment the clothes come off.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
This! And things can get especially rocky when you’ve got players who might be interested in each other...it’s a credit to my players’ maturity that our mixed-gender group somehow survived those awkward high school years! We just avoided character romance altogether, and it was definitely for the best.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
I had a character that ended up being compelled to love an NPC he'd never seen or met and only knew where she was supposed to be.
I was like, "Nah." ...and that story hook rusted away, unused.🤣
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I totally agree
That sounds like good advice
Very true. I’ve had that problem.
That does sound cheesy 🤣
The worst difficulty tends to happen in text-medium online RP, such as the old school MUSHes and MUXes and such. People did not know each other by sight or voice, and immature or inexperienced RPers would tend to conflate character with player. And there was a type of sexualized RP called "TinySex" (or TS for short) based on the original name for MUDs and MUSHes (TinyMUD and TinyMUS). That kind of thing was... ugh.
MMOs can make it bad too, as they often almost require you to make up a sexy avatar (both male or female) and then players for some reason assume that everyone is as hot as their avatar (even though you know you're not as hot as your own avatar -- many people assume that everyone else is, as if they are the only exception).
For all these reasons I tend to steer clear of romantic plots. As a DM, I don't mind having an NPC flirt with a character, because DMs play so many characters there is no chance anyone will assume that the DM is flirting with them. But player to player flirting in my experience has often caused trouble unless you are in person with people you know REALLY well.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Thank you. You raise some very good points.
It is awesome if the players are into it. Sometimes it is a couple playing, which is nice. Sometimes it is two players horsing around, which can fun.
Otherwise, I encourage players to play two characters. It can be two friends, siblings, a character with an animal companion, whatever the player wants, including a romantic interest.
he / him
More to that story: The problematic player in the second example is the lovesick player in the first one - same DM for both. It is my opinion (and nothing more than an opinion) that the DM worked with the player to bring a romance arc for him into the second campaign (which I noted first in the post - reverse order). Same character, too.
So, that particular player was not unsalvageable.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Not only do you need to be very aware of the maturity, comfort level, and degree to which the players know each other, you also need to consider how much game time will be soaked up.
D&D is a group activity, and Romance is rarely something the whole group can participate in.
I do not encourage "solo" activities by my players. If there is some activity they want to do that excludes the others, I push that into the background.
<Insert clever signature here>
That is a good point. Romance between 2 PCs leaves the other players sitting there watching a RomCom or something possibly more extreme. Romance between NPC and PC leaves all but one player out as spectators.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I sat in as a guest in one of the other Sat DM's tables last day (Due to Covid, and work, my table did not have enough players). Anyway, I tell him I am playing a Hexblade, and he immediately tells me my Patron demands me to convince one of the other players, a female Shadow Sorcerer, to visit the Shadowfell, by her own volition. We then proceed to have a 2 player conversation, albeit brief, before he has one of his NPC's have the "concerned father figure talks" with regard to my intentions toward this Sorcerer.
The rest of the group had to just sit there and endure this. In a limited time session, this is just a bad use of time overall for the table.
My sun, my moon, my starlight sky, without you I dwell in darkness. I love you.
Your power has enchanted me. I stand helpless against it. Come to me now and tonight let me worship you in my arms.
I LOVE YOU.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
Nice! Of course persistence help as well =)
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale