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Roll for Romance
17 Plays2 months ago
In this episode Mark and Ben tackle an often-overlooked but emotionally rich aspect of tabletop RPGs—romance! While romance in games can feel intimidating, especially with its potential for awkwardness, this episode breaks down how to handle it with care. From setting boundaries and ensuring player consent to avoiding cringe-worthy moments, they discuss strategies for making romance an engaging and respectful part of your storytelling.
Learn how to approach romance with NPCs and fellow players, balancing humor and sincerity to create meaningful character development without derailing the plot. Mark and Ben also dive into the potential pitfalls, like unwanted advances or overshadowing the main story, and offer tips on maintaining clear communication at the table.
Tune in for a thoughtful conversation on how romance can enhance your RPGs and add depth to your campaigns while keeping things fun and respectful for everyone at the table!
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Transcript
Valentine's Day Setup
00:00:00
Speaker
All right, come on. Can we just do this? Hi. Hello. I'm Hector, the well-endowed. You've got a bunch of pegasi. Let's make a deal. What kind of deal? All right, I take her by the hand and lead her to the stable. I light a candle and rip off a piece of my tunic, which I fashion into a blindfold. No, Hector, but I don't know if I... I place it gently over the elf name's eyes.
Introduction to Romance in RPGs
00:00:43
Speaker
fun tu because Well, happy Valentine's Day, everybody. We're going to be releasing this episode on Valentine's Day. You are listening to Tabletop Tune Up. My name is Ben Dyer, and I'm joined by my partner in crime. Hello. Mark Lehman, how are you doing?
00:01:00
Speaker
I'm doing OK. How you been this week? OK, yeah. You know, playing games, getting stuff done, getting the work off my desk and having a good time. The work never stops. But here we are. Valentine's Day is quickly approaching as we're recording. What are we talking about today, Ben? Mark, as it's coming up to Valentine's Day, we wanted to celebrate that holiday in true tabletop tune-up style.
Incorporating Romance with Care
00:01:26
Speaker
So today we're going to talk about romance and your RPGs. Not the not the topic I ever wanted to talk about. I'll be honest with you, Ben, but here we are. Here we are. And you know look, it's a part of great stories and great characters, so we shouldn't neglect it. but But I think you can do this stuff with a light touch, and it can be a lot of fun if you're thoughtful and careful with it. That is true. I've seen it. um And yeah, you're right. If it's done with a little bit of tact, I think it it it can be a lot of fun.
00:01:55
Speaker
In this episode, what we're going to do is we're going to talk a little bit about what's fun about it. And we'll talk a little bit about how to keep it from getting awkward and weird and being an actually a way to drive story and character development forward in funny ways. Well, speaking of awkward and weird, Ben, i I think we should start with some boundaries so it doesn't get awkward and weird.
00:02:16
Speaker
I think that's the first rule for this kind of thing. So Mark, what kind of boundaries do you set? How do you do it? How do you make sure that people know before you go into a game that we're not going to get strange? Yeah, you really gotta have some boundaries. If you're gonna ever engage in, you know, like if you want romance in your game, you're gonna have to, there's gonna have to be some clear rules. Let's just put it that way. Discuss that comfort level with your group. What level of comfort are you willing to have at your table, you know, before you have romance as a feature? Player consent's gonna be a big part of that. And this is not just one player consenting to to have this. Remember, we're all at the table together.
Establishing Boundaries and Consent in RPGs
00:02:55
Speaker
There's people who just don't want to see this. Yeah, I think you're right that it needs to be pretty unanimous. I don't think this is one of those things where two players can say, Oh, we consent and we're going to do that. And then the rest of you guys have to sit here and just feel like awkward onlookers as there's PDA going on. And and who knows that is safe, you know, in game PDA, you know,
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah, you gotta to have your establish your safe words. Yeah, that's right. Now, there are groups that are going to be you know that that will want to really kind of, if you'll forgive the term, go deep on that concept. Oh, wow.
00:03:36
Speaker
The cringe has already started. yeah we're gonna Speaking of setting boundaries, I'm not going to use that word again. ah Anyway, ah so good so here's the thing. The important thing here, like everything else you do in your game is find those boundaries, find what players are comfortable with, respect what everybody's comfort levels are with all this stuff.
00:03:56
Speaker
To get a sense of those those boundaries, maybe it could just be a conversation at the start of a game. if Or maybe it just happens over the course of the game where somebody decides, hey, I want to pursue something, and some sort of storyline within the game. Then you could have that conversation. But there are ways people do this beforehand. I've seen these like questionnaires. What do they call these?
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's a a lot of different terms. Usually this happens in session zero and we've talked a little bit about how to do a good session zero. I think in one of our past episodes, having a kind of checklist of things people are, are, are not willing to play with in the game. And this, sometimes this is about people's boundaries with respect to other things that have nothing to do with romantic yeah yeah i've body horror or swear words or I've been in one game and a lot of it was some people just didn't like animals being like mistreated in the game. Oh yeah. and I was in one game where a person said, uh, Hey, my father died from nicotine. And so I'm just going to imagine for the sake of our world building, it was a kind of a modern set superhero game. He said, can we just pretend for the sake of this world and this game that we're building that like nicotine was never discovered as a thing you could smoke. Like there was no tobacco in this world. I thought that's kind of interesting. Sure. Why not?
00:05:12
Speaker
Then you're like dragging the cigarette at the table, right? I mean, no, just kidding. Well, I think, you know, what's funny there is that does kind of challenge you. You go, well, I wonder what other things people would have as bad habits. Yeah. Role-playing. That's right. Role-playing games. Also, yeah, you've got all kinds of safety tools. There's all kinds of things you can do to make sure everybody is comfortable with the kind of stories you're going to tell that may include this.
Narrative Techniques for Romance
00:05:36
Speaker
Mark, what's next? How do we really avoid cringe in the actual gameplay elements of of this kind of stuff?
00:05:42
Speaker
Then let's get to first base and talk about avoiding cringe. There's different like ways you can kind of get around some of the more awkward elements of this. ah One, I found shifting from the first person role playing that is typically done and shift that to the third person. Now you're talking outside the character. My character does this. My character expresses his love. My character expresses these sentiments and you don't have to go through the act of doing the whole thing.
00:06:12
Speaker
Right. I mean, if you make serious eye contact with the other player earlier in first person, I'm just going to say the lines in that game are going to be really tough to maintain. So in that kind of scenario, you're instead describing the romance rather than acting it out.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah, and again, I want to say that there are groups where this might be something people want to do, but I think for most of the groups out there, we're telling a different kind of story and we want romance to be something that our characters have as a part of their story, but it's not really what we want to take our time with a lot. So this idea of shifting from first person into third person is a way of actually creating a little bit of distance so we can actually tell the story as opposed to trying to come up with the dialogue and the expressions and the tones that would make us credible as romantic partners, I guess.
00:07:00
Speaker
It gives the table to other people. They look like they're watching a narrative. They're watching, they're listening to a story rather than, you know, why watching their GM and their player have this kind of awkward conversation. So we're not, they're not part of that improv there, but they are enjoying a story.
00:07:24
Speaker
Right. We'd all much rather be watching Peter Falk as the grandfather talking about Wesleyan Buttercup than watching two players actually trying to perform Wesleyan Buttercup. Yeah. so they're um and And it's funny, we we opened that clip with the community episode where Abed and Annie are, they're really role-playing this out of us. And when she's like, shh, there's just, everybody at the table is just like, what is going on here? yeah But they're all, and Troy's oddly interested.
00:07:57
Speaker
Well, yeah. On that note, just kind of we're kind of talking about the episode how humor plays a big part of it. That's right. I mean, when you think about rom coms, that's a thing that's normal in those shows, right? It's it's the misconnection. It's the fight over something stupid, the misunderstanding. This kind of formula goes a little back to Shakespeare. You know, you'll find all the comedies were like that, you know, where there's misunderstandings and there's words that were said to avoid being vulnerable with that person.
Integrating Comedy in Romantic Subplots
00:08:24
Speaker
But Eventually, you know, you could let your true feelings come out and ultimately they might never kiss until the last scene of the play or the movie Depending on the kind of rom-com that it is and you can do that in your game, right? You can sort of focus on the parts of it that are the suspenseful bit Yeah, and also like the humor is a really fun way to have the others people get involved In a sense because they're they're now laughing right they're part when they're laughing they're part of the scene And that's and that's fun. So
00:08:54
Speaker
but Mark if they're not laughing and they're kind of you're reading the room is the GM and you're feeling like this is taking the sideways turn what do you do aboard. Get out of there. it's right Yeah pause so that's. Some tips on like avoiding the cringe what about. Let's let's go let's go then let's go to second base here. Let's. I never wanted to hear that from you.
00:09:21
Speaker
player and NPC romance. Okay. So yeah, been I'm committing to this bit. Dammit. So yeah, you can see that player and an NPC romance. This is, it's all about commitment after all, isn't it? So we're going to talk about two different things. We're going to talk about when your players have romantic connections to NPCs. And then later when your players have connections, wait, what? Slow it down there, Ben.
00:09:47
Speaker
if all right here we go let's get into this thing ah um So one thing you can do is your players may have opportunities for stories that incorporate an NPC that is a romantic interest for them. And so we've talked a moment ago about how to avoid cringe, but now let's talk about the the things you do want to do. As we said, let them be sincere. Let them have some of the awkwardness and the sincerity. Don't put them on the spot a lot. To give you a couple of examples, as a player,
00:10:21
Speaker
I wrote a backstory into a character who is the, essentially the kind of the shy and and not really romantically viable character. I think we've talked before about my my thief, Renzo, who had this kind of Peter Laurie aspect to him. He sounded very ah not wholesome, not the kind of guy that would be the top of the dating pool list. And and so he he was somebody who pined for the lovely Amelia and Mark I remember his GM you had a lot of fun with Amelia's father Yeah, we played we definitely played some of that a little bit for laughs at the expense of of Renzo I mean honestly, let's let's face it. It was it's true. It was a fun way to kind of
00:11:05
Speaker
take your hero down a peg. um And the the the other players at the table kind of, they kind of rallied around Renzo and said capacity like, yeah, go, go Renzo. It was fun. It was yeah and it was like, ah we didn't plan it too much. It was something that came up every once in a while. Renzo would go off and have adventures. And when he'd come back to town, we might have a scene where he's kind of mooning over her a little bit, or there's an opportunity to have dinner at the house and You know, it was one of those kind of sitcom scenes where the father, his name was Piter. Piter would just be cold and judgmental and things like that. And it was a lot of lot of fun there. um As a GM, I was running a Star Wars game where a couple of characters had a kind of very slow burning on and off again. You know, and it was one of these things that was
00:11:56
Speaker
Interesting to watch the players kind of manage as a thing that would go on between action scenes. And you've seen the thing that happens in action movies where there will be a romantic subplot because, of course, these characters have been put in stressful situations. and They've had to depend on each other and they end up making fierce eye contact. And the players never actually did that. they Did the thing that we just talked about where we stepped back and did a very third person story and it was artful and it was restrained and it was nice and it was cool and it didn't really go very far and so.
Facilitating and Handling Romantic Subplots
00:12:27
Speaker
That was one of the things where there was a GM I never said okay you guys should do this now is always more like.
00:12:32
Speaker
Hey, there's an opportunity to do this here. I could see a possibility if you guys thought it was interesting. Is that something you want to do? So the thing is, in and both your scenarios, is that they're kind of adding ah another depth to the story and to that character. they're giving They're making that character feel a little bit more alive in the world.
00:12:48
Speaker
which is reasonable. We want to inhabit these personas in some capacity. I think it would be odd, like man I remember playing a character that one of his backstories was that, you know, his his wife had been, you know, it was missing and he was trying to track her down. And I mean, he never finished that campaign, but what would have happened if I found her? Now I'm having a role play out this relationship. I didn't think about it at the time when I made that character, but at some point I'm like, oh, what if I ever catch this, McGuffin?
00:13:16
Speaker
It's so funny that you say that because one of the very funnest reveals we had, we talked about cliffhangers at the end of an episode, we talked about pulp. One of my favorite cliffhangers in any pulp game I ever played was my character who was this square-jawed archaeologist, Jack Slate. I fed the GM some lines. We were all kind of creating our own supporting cast characters, so I created this female character who was amazing And I fed the GM in line to to give her about Jack at the end of the episode. And so this is a pulp game now that I've been playing with these guys for three, four years. And Jack, he's every bit the kind of the Harrison Ford figure we all imagine.
00:13:54
Speaker
This woman leans out a second story window and says, Jonathan Henry Slate, you get back in here. you know I'm your wife and blah, blah, blah. I can't remember what the exact line was, but it hit like a bomb at the table. Everybody turned over and was like, whoa. So that was a lot of fun. And so we met Mrs. Slate that day. So that is some player and NPC shenanigans. Now let's go to third base. Oh, no.
00:14:20
Speaker
player, character, and player-character romance. Now, before you say, like, oh, this this doesn't happen, it does. It's happened at the table. Tanis and Lauriana from Dragonlance, for us old Gronards, who grew up with that second edition, that was two players at the table. That was their character's relationship at the table was was a romance.
00:14:42
Speaker
But i'm my understanding, I haven't watched the show. Ben, you back me up on this. I've heard that Percy and Vex and Critical Role are kind of a couple. Is that correct? Yeah. I mean, if you went to Clifson's version, there's an Amazon show out right now and you'll ah you know get plenty of that relationship context. But yeah. And i having not watched it, I think you might have had or listened to it. How did that play out at the table? Was it something that kind of naturally grew or was it like something that they did they planned at in the beginning?
00:15:10
Speaker
I, you know, honestly, I haven't seen the original episode, so I can't say too much. I can say that, of course, these guys are all voice actors and they understand storytelling and character development. And so I think that this was something that certainly was choreographed and they played with it a bit and they they kind of let it evolve. And it plays well, like in the story. It makes sense. They say meaningful things to each other. So I think there's interesting examples of this with players. And this could go, this could go pear-shaped quick though, right? Let's go bad.
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you're really on with the metaphors today, aren't you? Yeah. Do we have rules for setting boundaries in podcasts too? I don't know. Not when anybody listens. Okay. Well, as long as nobody's listening. what What do we need to watch out for? Most important thing is make sure that if this is going to go on between players, that as we were saying up top, the boundaries are present. Everybody's on board with the amount of this that you're going to do and everybody's comfortable with seeing people trying to bring that part of the story to life.
00:16:08
Speaker
yeah With respect to keeping that all kind of under control and bringing story to life rather than graphic details, be appropriate for the table that you're at. You don't want people to have to say, you know, man, get a room. Like, we don't want to be a part of this. Relatedly, is that serving the story or is it gratuitous?
00:16:26
Speaker
you know You want to make sure that this is adding to the game, it's not distracting or derailing the energy of the room. If there's supposed to be a moment where we take a moment for our characters who have a romantic connection before we go into a big battle the next day where they may lose their lives, if they want to sort of communicate that to each other, that's a great story-driving thing that reinforces the really important stakes of what's to come.
00:16:52
Speaker
but You don't wanna thirty or forty minute thing when you got a limited amount of time on that day. I am with you on those those suggestions. I think they're really got to take those to heart because this really could blow up a table. So just make sure that communication is open with everybody. Right. You don't want to explode your game. We do want to take it all the way home. So we've rounded third baseband. It's time to take it home. Let's do some closing thoughts here. I admire your commitment, Mark. ah Thank you. I appreciate that.
00:17:23
Speaker
was what What kind of final advice do you have? We've covered NPC romance, we've covered player character to player character romance, we've talked about how to set boundaries and avoid cringe.
Player Engagement and Balance
00:17:31
Speaker
The closing thought is this guys, just listen. We've already kind of said it, but just listen to your table, listen to your players and be very candid with each other. And um you know, if, if, if we're having a good time, that's, that's the goal. So that's right that's golden rule. That's about it for our session on over the sweater role playing, I think. Can we get out of this podcast now, please? No, no, we got, we have our tune up next.
00:18:02
Speaker
You know, on second thought, that may be exactly the wrong sound effect for this segment. I think we should call this one Pillowtack. All right, let's do that. We need to end this thing gently. ah So what do we got? What do we got here for our tune up then? Well, Mark, we did something special this time. I reached out to my wife, Carrie. She's had a lot of great ideas for us about the podcast. And we thought for Valentine's Day episode, it would be only appropriate to ask her for a good tune up question.
00:18:25
Speaker
What did she got for us? Carrie said that tabletop RPGs take a lot of time and effort, has married people. What advice do you have to keep your relationships healthy with your significant others while engaged in these games? Let's put that question to you first, Mark. I was hoping for an easier question. How long have you been married? Many years. and Oh, you're not going to say. All right. It just gives away my age, man.
00:18:46
Speaker
I think people appreciate knowing that there are some long-term relationships. I know you and Stacey, the lovely Stacey, have been married for a while. Yeah, very many years. Hey, ah the one of the things we we do is I love to talk to her about some of the games and bounce some ideas off her, because she's a great like resource for me to i throw an idea. And she might she might kind of go, that's not as good as you think it is. She'll keep me honest. But like I think you know doing things that she enjoys,
00:19:14
Speaker
because she's not a gamer. She doesn't go out and do two games. And I also give her space for her hobbies. She likes to knit and do all sorts of stuff, go to of knitting shows and yarn and all that kind of stuff. so I remember once upon a time seeing a a trove of yarn at your house. Yeah, they call that a yeah ah ah yarn stash. Oh, okay. And when she's looking at yarn on the internet, she calls it yarn porn.
00:19:36
Speaker
So I will indulge her those as well. So we both have interest in hobbies and we respect our our hobbies and respect is kind of the main thing. I think that's great advice. I think that in your head you should try to keep a little bit of a chess clock and kind of keep track of like how many evenings you're spending doing stuff together, how many evenings you're spending doing stuff that she can't be a part of. and Like any hobby, it could take as much time as you want to give it, but you do need to cultivate that relationship. You need to treat your significant other well. And I think the, the general rules that make any relationship one lasting or apply here as well, you need to make sure you know when to put it away. And I mean, we're both doing something right. I guess we've been very, very to the same person for a long time. So I, I'm very fortunate about that. And I, uh, maybe I don't think Stacy enough. I just always love that she indulges my habits. I thank her that she took you off the market because, you know. she She took one for the team. Side question, Dan. All right. When you first started dating, how long before she knew you you were a gamer?
00:20:47
Speaker
Um, not that long, but let's be clear. I kind of paid that line out, you know, in, in measures, you know, it didn't happen all at once. Yeah. Yeah. I had to, I had to, I remember strategically leaving a book or two out so she might get that little hint. right She could, she could abandon all hope. You see the dungeon master, my guide on the table, right? Maybe don't bring her down into the fully stocked game room. Maybe just happened to leave a player's handbook out on a table somewhere. Oh, this thing. Yeah. i
00:21:17
Speaker
It's too late. It's too late. We're engaged. All right. Well, you know what you guys, you'll find a way to make it work. We believe in you. Yeah.
Closing and Future Episodes
00:21:26
Speaker
That was a fun episode, Ben. I look forward to our next one and what.
00:21:30
Speaker
What have we got coming out of the pipe? Do we have anything loaded up here? Yeah, you know, i've I've been thinking we've got a great opportunity when we can get scheduled. We've got an interview with a game store owner that I think we'll find really interesting. I think the local game stores are a great resource for GMs and I think we as GMs need to support those game stores too if we can.
00:21:47
Speaker
We also really liked the interview episodes. They're like our favorite ones to do. Yeah. And I wish we knew more people. Well, they're real high energy and they're great. Oh, I can't wait. It's going to be a lot of fun guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. Uh, if you have any questions, please send them to a tabletop tuneup at gmail dot.com. If you have any romance suggestions, please don't send them in. No, we're taken. Ben, what did we say? We say it until next week. Keep those dice rolling.
00:24:20
Speaker
It's time for you to know