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?
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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?