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 after our characters flirted across the game table. Geek love, baby.
"La Belle Dam Sans Merci," by Frank Dicksee
Over the past week, I've been thinking about what I prefer in fiction and interactive fiction -- I'm a characterphile (rather than a plot hound), and I like stories that revolve around inner turmoil and decisions rather than events driving the characters forward. What's interesting to me is those inner stories, and sometimes those involve romance. Or avoidance of romance. Or both. And I express that in games as well -- I'll replay a BioWare game just to see if I can achieve all the relationship unlocks with the NPCs. I have trouble thinking of more than a handful of my D&D character who weren't romantically involved with an NPC/PC in the story. (Heck, even the NPCs in games I DM often have a love interest at the table, known to the PC or not.)
So you'd think that when I'm writing games, the romantic interests would come easily for me. My first attempt in Choice of Kung Fu had two actual romance stories, then some extra NPCs thrown in just to be spouses, without having much character of their own. For Showdown at Willow Creek, I made all the romantic interests recurring NPCs, and I think it's better done -- although one of my playtesters showed that the coding didn't allow for quite as much snogging as she attempted. (There's still time to fix those bugs before it launches next month, so hopefully, you'll all have a seamless play experience!) I'm starting work on my next Choice game, Choice of Pirate, and I'm thinking about how the romances might work even more smoothly.
But along with accommodating for a number of romance options, it's also important to me to have an option to not get involved with romance at all. Several of the players I've DMed for over the years have run away from romantic hooks like the plague. (And sometimes the hooks were actually plague-bearing monsters of some kind or another, so they weren't wrong in that play style...) So, without losing out on any fun, the option to skip romantic entanglements should be there, too.
I started thinking about this last night after my second Black Gateblog post, which actually had nothing to do with romance, but a lot to do with interactive fiction.
How do you like romance in your games? If you write games, how do you create compelling romance stories?
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.
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!
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?
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.
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...
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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.
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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!
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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?
no subject
I mean, in fiction. Real life romantic interests should be kept out of harm's way, of course.
Oh, absolutely
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