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> Love in the shadows, Dating and romance in character
FuelDrop
post Mar 4 2014, 12:34 AM
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I've seen characters run the gauntlet from 'Sleeping with anything that moves Casanova' to 'Ice queen' to 'Look but don't touch', but so many characters I've run into are almost completely asexual. I think that the reason for this is that most people think that having an in-party romance is creepy (particularly if a player is cross-playing) and having an out-of-party romance takes up valuable time that the GM could be spending making the story move forwards.

However, there are many times that my group has been the exception rather than the rule so I'm interested in hearing how love and sex factor into other people's teams, along with tips on how to handle it. IC examples only please, as OOC romance tends to be a LOT more complicated.
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DMiller
post Mar 4 2014, 12:39 AM
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I've seen basically what you have. Usually if there is in-character romance it is glossed over by the story teller (and usually to most extents by the players) to keep the game moving. The only time it has come up in any detail is when it was a plot device.
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Rubic
post Mar 4 2014, 12:41 AM
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I'd be willing to do in-game romance, either with an NPC or another player's character, but I really don't trust my GM to handle it right. Last time I played a character with a sexual component, he wound up getting railroaded into a relationship out of nowhere that killed his character and negated half his backstory and personal drama. That's why I started making characters that I could use to blackmail the GM with valid threats against his beloved GM PCs, and that lacked any sort of palatable sexual component.
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FuelDrop
post Mar 4 2014, 12:47 AM
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QUOTE (Rubic @ Mar 4 2014, 08:41 AM) *
I'd be willing to do in-game romance, either with an NPC or another player's character, but I really don't trust my GM to handle it right. Last time I played a character with a sexual component, he wound up getting railroaded into a relationship out of nowhere that killed his character and negated half his backstory and personal drama. That's why I started making characters that I could use to blackmail the GM with valid threats against his beloved GM PCs, and that lacked any sort of palatable sexual component.

DAMN! My condolences, that really sucks.
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tasti man LH
post Mar 4 2014, 12:59 AM
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In my current game there's a romance brewing between the team's Mage and the street sam...and both characters are female. And both are played by male players. One who is asexual IRL, and the other...well, is the type that plays female characters for somewhat-perverted reasons.

I admit that in the beginning I had a bad flash of immaturity at the beginning (shower scene....yeah) but after that, we thankfully agreed to retcon that moment from the campaign canon. That said, it's mostly been my layers that have driven the romance themselves. This far my other players are ok with this, and I do keep an eye to make sure nothing gets too out of hand.
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Udoshi
post Mar 4 2014, 01:16 AM
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I've seen games with good interparty romance and drama, and most of them tend to be played online.

IMHO shadowrun is a mature setting for adults, and having a GM and playerbase that can handle things that slightly push the PG13/R rating system WITHOUT being creepy about it can make some nice additions to the game.

But I also think that playing online tends to avoid a majority of creep-factor that can spoil that recipe, due to being able to overlook the 'oh god everyone's a dude factor', and because off-sessions miniscenes that don't take up Primary Play Time are easier.

Personally, one of the best games I ever played with involved 3 really awesome roleplayers, 2 of which were ladies, making such complete and fleshed out characters preferences for things they looked for in people nailed down, and - without working together - ended up with characters that played into those desires.
Over many months, it evolved naturally into attraction, acceptance, a relationship, an actual love triangle, and then tons of drama(the good kind) as someone's Judas quality flipped on.

It can be a wonderful contribution to a game, but at the same time, I'm also aware how RARE it is to get all the ingredients for it in one game, and then not burn the dish.
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Sendaz
post Mar 4 2014, 01:20 AM
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Back in the old days, while playing Robotech I had the good fortune to have a GM who liked playing up the NPCs a lot and could juggle dozens of personalities as well as sketch, so we often got visual card cues for various NPCs. He had actually interned at Harmony Gold in the early days and had picked up quite a few original cells from there.

While nursing a beer and a cold steak over one black eye at the base bar after returning from a nasty battle (one in which I basically pulled a Rick Hunter and returned with only the control stick left of my Fighter, which I handed to the crew chief and told him to fix it--I was lucky I only got the shiner from him and even then it took three of the other techs to hold him back) I was approached by the new acquisitions officer.

Classic stern military librarian look, complete with the BCGs (birth control glasses-real ugly black thick hornrim glasses issued in boot camp so called because the chances of getting laid while wearing these was as close to 0 as humanly possible) and had half the squad terrified as she was a terror for reports and accountability for our equipment. Imagine a Female Q (From Bond, not Star trek)younger of course, but a lot angrier.

Who promptly began lecturing me about something..yadda yadda... probably related to the downed veritech.

Now having been basically shot down and dragged myself back to base with only my control stick in hand, somehow I just wasn't up for being afraid of her and interrupted her with a suggestion that if she was going to talk to me, at least she should take off the fake glasses.

Don't ask me why I said that. I had NO reason to suspect they were anything but standard issue butt ugly black hornrim glasses.

The Officer blinks, probably taken a little aback by the interruption, blushes and removes the glasses as well as let her hair down. The GM hands me the visual cue card of what the new look was. The GM later admitted he never thought he would have to use that card.

Yeah, it was one of those supermodel transformation moments because the whole bar went dead still. He was good, you could tell the before and after pics were the same female face, but just how it changed was amazing.

Anyway, the characters hit it off and it continued in-game through the campaign in a sort of love/hate sort of way as I played the wild ace routine to the GM playing her by the book number crunching, but they balanced each other well
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Rubic
post Mar 4 2014, 02:09 AM
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QUOTE (FuelDrop @ Mar 3 2014, 07:47 PM) *
DAMN! My condolences, that really sucks.

Don't be. A GM that's too in love with his own NPCs/GMPCs to let them die is a GM that can be twisted and broken by the players. I'm just not in it to watch the world burn, but I WILL avenge my wronged characters given the chance.
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FuelDrop
post Mar 4 2014, 02:26 AM
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QUOTE (Rubic @ Mar 4 2014, 10:09 AM) *
Don't be. A GM that's too in love with his own NPCs/GMPCs to let them die is a GM that can be twisted and broken by the players. I'm just not in it to watch the world burn, but I WILL avenge my wronged characters given the chance.

C4 hidden under the drivers seat in their pimped out ride?
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Wounded Ronin
post Mar 4 2014, 02:33 AM
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QUOTE (FuelDrop @ Mar 3 2014, 07:34 PM) *
I've seen characters run the gauntlet from 'Sleeping with anything that moves Casanova' to 'Ice queen' to 'Look but don't touch', but so many characters I've run into are almost completely asexual. I think that the reason for this is that most people think that having an in-party romance is creepy (particularly if a player is cross-playing) and having an out-of-party romance takes up valuable time that the GM could be spending making the story move forwards.

However, there are many times that my group has been the exception rather than the rule so I'm interested in hearing how love and sex factor into other people's teams, along with tips on how to handle it. IC examples only please, as OOC romance tends to be a LOT more complicated.


I have only one thing to say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmA_YfMyX_8
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Rubic
post Mar 4 2014, 03:30 AM
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QUOTE (FuelDrop @ Mar 3 2014, 09:26 PM) *
C4 hidden under the drivers seat in their pimped out ride?

Maxims:
4. Close air support covereth a multitude of sins.
13. Do unto others.
16. Your name is in the mouth of others; be sure it has teeth.
20. If you're not willing to shell your own position, you're not willing to win.
27. Don't be afraid to be the first to resort to violence.
30. A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go.
35. That which does not kill me has made a tactical error.
37. There is no overkill, there is only "Open fire" and "I need to reload."
47. Don't expect the enemy to cooperate in the creation of your dream engagement.

... that should about cover it.
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FuelDrop
post Mar 4 2014, 03:45 AM
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QUOTE (Rubic @ Mar 4 2014, 11:30 AM) *
47. Don't expect the enemy to cooperate in the creation of your dream engagement.

Well the Cutters were very cooperative when I lured them into an ambush last Sunday. That was pretty close on a dream engagement.
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psychophipps
post Mar 4 2014, 03:49 AM
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QUOTE (FuelDrop @ Mar 3 2014, 08:26 PM) *
C4 hidden under the drivers seat in their pimped out ride?


My favorite has always been swapping their airbag for a claymore mine...
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FuelDrop
post Mar 4 2014, 03:51 AM
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QUOTE (psychophipps @ Mar 4 2014, 11:49 AM) *
My favorite has always been swapping their airbag for a claymore mine...

that works.
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Rubic
post Mar 4 2014, 04:02 AM
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QUOTE (FuelDrop @ Mar 3 2014, 10:45 PM) *
Well the Cutters were very cooperative when I lured them into an ambush last Sunday. That was pretty close on a dream engagement.

For me, it's more being the "enemy" in that scenario. "If plot goes THAT way, that would require X of your NPC, and my character would be EXPECTED to kill them, which would just throw EVERYTHING off the rails," or making characters where sex would = major squick factor, like, say, ensuring the "bunny girl" is a metatype that looks like an underaged girl. I've even been given a character to play (male troll shaman) and had designs on playing him, unexpectedly, as gay. Not flamboyant, mind, but rather the Willem Dafoe-Boondock Saints kind of gay.
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FuelDrop
post Mar 4 2014, 04:09 AM
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QUOTE (Rubic @ Mar 4 2014, 12:02 PM) *
For me, it's more being the "enemy" in that scenario. "If plot goes THAT way, that would require X of your NPC, and my character would be EXPECTED to kill them, which would just throw EVERYTHING off the rails," or making characters where sex would = major squick factor, like, say, ensuring the "bunny girl" is a metatype that looks like an underaged girl. I've even been given a character to play (male troll shaman) and had designs on playing him, unexpectedly, as gay. Not flamboyant, mind, but rather the Willem Dafoe-Boondock Saints kind of gay.

Heh, nice.
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psychophipps
post Mar 4 2014, 04:09 AM
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QUOTE (FuelDrop @ Mar 3 2014, 09:51 PM) *
that works.


Especially if you hire an unwitting "swoop and squat" team through a series of online cut-outs to force the issue...
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psychophipps
post Mar 4 2014, 04:11 AM
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QUOTE (Rubic @ Mar 3 2014, 10:02 PM) *
For me, it's more being the "enemy" in that scenario. "If plot goes THAT way, that would require X of your NPC, and my character would be EXPECTED to kill them, which would just throw EVERYTHING off the rails," or making characters where sex would = major squick factor, like, say, ensuring the "bunny girl" is a metatype that looks like an underaged girl. I've even been given a character to play (male troll shaman) and had designs on playing him, unexpectedly, as gay. Not flamboyant, mind, but rather the Willem Dafoe-Boondock Saints kind of gay.


"What a fag..."
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Rubic
post Mar 4 2014, 04:13 AM
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QUOTE (psychophipps @ Mar 3 2014, 11:11 PM) *
"What a fag..."

Indeed.

Edit: While my GM has never been as bad as the one in this example (link below), I have to say, it's an inspiration on the topic of "... so we're going to play that way, are we? Fine, let's play..."

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson
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psychophipps
post Mar 4 2014, 04:23 AM
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I had a pretty good in-team romance going with a fellow player once, but he got a bit too "into it", as it were.

It's tough on many levels. It has to be fun, or it's not worth doing. It has to be consensual, in that both players are looking for the same thing. Finally, it has to add to the story in an interesting way for everyone else or it's just two players running off to the side to masturbate with each other's brains for a while as everyone else twiddles their thumbs and pretends it's not happening.
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Curator
post Mar 4 2014, 07:16 AM
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me and my chick play together. we're a great team. otherwise she might need a bodyguard if im absent but shes not into it much untl the new rules get written for meta-magic
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tasti man LH
post Mar 4 2014, 07:31 AM
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Arranging side sessions for the players to develop that relationship certainly helps, especially if your other players are uncomfortable with the proceedings. And of course, the GM needing to place trust in the players that one or the other won't take things too far.
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Tymeaus Jalynsfe...
post Mar 4 2014, 03:53 PM
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QUOTE (psychophipps @ Mar 3 2014, 08:49 PM) *
My favorite has always been swapping their airbag for a claymore mine...


That... Ouch... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
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Pendaric
post Mar 4 2014, 10:54 PM
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Had virtually every PC have a relationship over the course of the games, with varied sexualities and real life male / female players. One was a female cross played sociopath bio sammie, an it was more of the shared live/kill type of thing. Sadly the player stopped playing before the plot twists resolved.

The others where all shades of PCs as people with needs. We're all adults and pretty chilled. Only got weird once and that was when a player needed to 'ahem' find a real relationship at that time of their life.
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pragma
post Mar 5 2014, 12:11 AM
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I like to bring in romance as a GM to use for plot hooks later. At the table I usually handle it with some (tremendously awkward) flirting RP, a quick die roll, and a fade to black. After that the player has a useful contact until I feel a need to do something mean.

I did this once and a PC, as a result of a few run ins with bug spirits, declared before a session that his character developed a drinking problem and the woman left. Case closed on the relationship.

This formula is nice and light weight, but does keep people thinking about romance and relationships. It's reasonably workable.
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