Looks like I overlooked potential shadowruns involving romance. I know, sounds weird to me as
well.

Please tell me about your Shadowrun games involving romance and love and all that fun stuff.
Walk me through one of these runs. The closest thing I could find would be doing a New Rose
Hotel like game.


And here is a new Negative Quality for all the lovers out there:

Twilight Mojo
Bonus: 5, 10, or 20 BP

When exposed to sunlight, the character glows and glitters, attracting teenage girls.
If 10 BP is taken, the character is more prone to react positively to the girls he attracts,
putting his Shadowrun team at risk. If 20 BP is taken, the character has a permanent
love interest, who follows the character along on shadowruns.

Does the adapted Cyberpunk run that involves a Decker who fell in love with an AI and wound up being snuck into the vent systems of the corp building and left on lifesupport so the two could be together in VR, at least until a corp sweep found him a couple of days later count?

The Runners figured that at VR speeds even that short time was long enough.

Careful not to have too narrow a definition of romance: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/romance

While I haven't done a run with one, if you will allow, I will expound on how I think it could go.

First off, think of it like a mission hook driven by a Contact or Skill the player's character has. As I understand it, we do this in SR all the time right?

Next up, based on the context of that romance, either thread it into an existing mission (example: Mr. Johnson threatens the PCs family to intimidate & coerce them.) or build a mission around it (example: PC wants to put together a specific custom Foci and needs the ingredients, lodge, enlisted ritual help, etc to fulfil their strong fascination with that Foci). Believe it or not, romance is very possible in a game about experts in any field and/or that have meaningful relationships with others. The romance could even be just something two or more of your players cook up together and a GM doesn't even have to change anything about the missions they run, it just provides the juicy side banter.

As a non-SR example, remember that movie Heat? That had romance in it too.

One of my PCs has an unrequited love thing with one of the NPCs.

Said PC is a drake covert ops specialist/mystic adept and in many ways, party Face.
She is an ork Lone Star DPI hermetic mage. The party and her have a long standing 'respect' (but not friendship because neither wants to get too close to the other). Together they've taken down the Mayan Cutter, destroyed a small Insect Hive part of a much larger network (raised it with the FBI), saved her life at least once and shared intel on numerous occasions.

She is attracted to the PC but knows he is elbows deep in 'bad shit' (running with a strong side business in arms dealing). She knows enough to know she doesn't want to know.
He is attracted to her but lacks the cajones to make a move directly (that and he doesn't want to get too close to cops given how he earns his crust).

It's very subtle, rarely makes an appearance in game - but its a nice undercurrent to the game when it does crop up. Romance is not something I've seen in any of my games previously (admittedly this player is a very mature player). It also has started to raise a very good point in game -- what happens when a runner wants to date someone that is not a 'runner. Life becomes a lot more complicated that's for sure.

- J.

In the first SR campaign I GMed, there was a romance between the team's muscle and a crazy fox shapeshifter. It helped the player to give depth to his otherwise bland character and made his life outside runs more interesting. There was also some kind of complicated situation between the team's face and his ex-girlfriend, further complicated by a cortical-bomb induced amnesia. Made for some fun situations, especially since the girl had a knack for getting in trouble.

In my current campaign, there might be something between the hacker with dissociative disorder and his "AI inside a TM" fixer, but as you can guess, it's very complicated. The medic was enjoying a steady relationship with an elf until she got the strange disease that's killing a lot of SINlesses, prompting him to release the cure he was developing with the help of the Vory ahead of schedule (right now, it looks like the cure is as likely to cure as to worsen) even if he knew it's a bad move for the majority of the population.

I also GMed a game where the runners were hired to protect something inside a building (some kind of artist's squat). For the duration of the run, they had rooms inside the building and could interact with the three other people living there: Mr. Johnson and two female artist friends of his. The NPC weren't explicitly designed for romance, but to be likable so that what happened to them during the story really shook the PC (and players). There was a short romance between one of the girls, who was into transhumanism, and the team's cyborg (full limbs replacement not jarhead), I guess it really helped to involve the PC and player inside the story. It also let me insist on the fact that runners aren't and would never be normal people: by the end of the story, the only way the PC could keep the girl sane was to leave her alone.

Tweak, please report to the nearest Incineration chamber so that you will never bring this level of emo-evil (AKA anything Twilight inspired) to any other gaming board ever again. Yes, Tweak, the world will be made much better when you are cleansed off this world by Holy Fire!

Seriously though, for this to be a negative quality, the "love interest" should be more of a Fatal Attraction level of Femme fatale. The fan girl in question should make the character's life sort of hell. For 5 pts, she should follow the 'Runners exploits on the 'Trix and has enough info that she might be able to compromise the 'Runner (hideouts, friends, etc, etc). For 10 pts she should be stalking the character and making social situations more... awkward. For 20 pts... this "queen bitch" WILL interfere with the 'Runner's life. She will always want to be next to the 'Runner, and if the 'Runner looks at another girl... that girl might find herself being a Ghoul snack... while she is still alive!

Also, another way to run the 20 pt flaw is the lady in question is NOT a mundane. She's nasty and she will use all of her power to control the character completely: "I LOVE you Bob, that's why I became a vampire. Now when I change you into one, we'll live together forever!"

* == the above is not limited to males only. It can be applied to females... and more easily too.

Heh, well in the current game I'm playing in my Adept pretty much is only staying in the shadows instead of throwing money at her problems because her love interest is a ghoul with a conscience. She has to make sure he feeds himself, and stays sane, he does the same service for her- although feeding -her- is a lot less problematic, and doesn't involve wetwork. They're amusingly awkward at each other, and have you ever tried to be lovey at someone who spends all their time in a hazmat suit?

I prefer BTLs

Had a NPC I made to be a recurring bit player end up being a major NPC love interest. She was the receptionist for Mr. J. Turned out she was his daughter. The team had been doing a variety of work for Mr. J. and one guy on the team always made small talk with her while waiting for their meetings with Mr. J.

(Mr. J. was posing as an insurance saleman so had a variety of clientele in his office at all times)

The runner in question had arranged for a date with the receptionist (yeah yeah, don't shit where you eat, some runners, I swear). On the day they were to go out, a group kidnapped the receptionist under the premise that Mr. J's 'business' failed to pay "security fees" for... at least that's what Mr. J. told the runners. Turned out he had pissed off a dragon by beating him to the punch on an acquisition for his company. In retaliation, the dragon had his daughter kidnapped. The dragon wanted a simple exchange... the acquisition for the girl. Non-negotiable.

Mr. J. was in a bind. He couldn't make that trade but wanted his daughter back. So he hired the runners to get his daughter back from the gang (dragon). He also indicated he would give his blessing to the runner wanting to date his daughter if they succeeded (he was rather opposed to the idea of them dating. You know how dads are.)

The runners were rather upset as this was interfering with their lucrative jobs. The runner with the love interest was aghast that someone would hurt the receptionist. He was out for blood.

Long story short, they managed to infiltrate the warehouse where the girl was held, only to fall into a trap. They thought they had captured the dragon but it was an illusion. The dragon gave them a faustian deal... either work for him (and against their current employer) and he let's them and the girl go free or the girl gets sent home to Daddy in small kibble sized pieces along with 'proof' the runners were responsible for doing it and other unspeakable things to her.

Sadly, never got to run the conclusion to that. I ended up transferring duty stations.

in a game i was playing about a year ago, the PCs all found themselves at a barrens organized fighting event (we don't talk like that in the game or anything, i'm just trying to recall it in somewhat generic terms, you understand!)... the Mage (moi) was there selling drugs, and i cut the Face a good deal on some eX, so he eats it and is hanging out and he gets picked up by this girl named Children, and they get all spun, then after the fights (we all got chased out in a running gun fight with with some people, though i don't really remember HOW, seeing as i was snorting pixie dust the whole time) the Face gets taken off by this lady Children, right (and what a creepy name, to just keep repeating over and over, but wait, it gets cooler!)...

so yeah Children drags the Face off to some house, i think they were trying to score some more drugs (keep in mind that the Face is still spun out at this point, getting close to crashing), and here's where the real fun happened...

they head up to this apartment somewhere, and as Children is walking down the hall, she flicks out her hand razors, dragging her finger tips against the wall, shearing off the wallpaper in little ribbons. she knocks, announces herself, everyone's kinda shocked to see her, room full of toughs, ya know. find out that Children is supposed to be doing some time, some time they set her up for. long story short she and the face rip apart everybody in the room, they pick up a couple duffel bags full of cloned organs and weight in both red mescaline and psyche.

anyways that Children and the Face's (i really don't remember his name, unfortunately) budding romance... but unfortunately that game never went past that session. i thought it was real cute. i actually had a crush on the face, and was about to go to town with Children before we all knew she was chromed. that games PCs were so self-destructive, we probably would have all gotten ourselves killed after a few more sessions.

The game I'm running started with On the Run. One player, new to the game, made an Ojibwe dwarf gunbunny. So, when her character met Zipper, they actually kinda hit it off. A few encounters later, they end up as a couple. It doesn't come up that often, but pretty much everyone at the table goes, "Awww, look at the cute little dwarf Amerind girls", and moves on. I think it's interesting how spontaneous it is. It wasn't something I'd planned, and it was pretty likely ad lib from the player (who's a very straight female, so this isn't some kind of un-subtle wish fulfillment or anything).

The other major relationship is the elven face in our group, a guy named Leo, who was involved with another NPC runner, a heavily cybered elf woman going by the handle of CC, with an ex-UCAS military background. CC is the sort who's often mistaken for a very handsome male (I told the group to basically imagine Haruka from Sailor Moon with dermal plating as her appearance), which led to confusion and laughs at Leo's expense sometimes. Leo's player had great fun flying off the handle at a couple NPCs; "What, you smoothies think just cause I'm an elf I like cock?! Where do you fuckers think baby elves come from?!" The face ended up selling out the team to Ares and fleeing to Laos, but both him and CC pop up now and again. She's turning into the voice of the anti-technomancer viewpoint on the local shadownet chats that I make up for my players after each run, since we're moving into Emergence now.

Regarding Tweak's negative quality, this same player, since my group is full of English major girls who troll each other about it, was threatening to make an elven banshee named Eduardo if people keep pissing her off. Hmmmmm....