Romance In Legend?

[alex_greene]

Any thoughts on breaking the usual sterile mould of machismo and action-adventure prevalent in most fantasy and science-fiction roleplaying games and making romance and relationships part of a chronicle or setting?

If not an integral part, then certainly a strong component?

Consider romance as a motivator: the villain of the story kidnaps the characters' Significant Other, and the character has to go after the villain and beard him in his lair? What if the villain turns out to be the Significant Other after all - she'd been lurking at his side all this time, gathering pillow talk and learning what she needed to destroy the character?

And what if, right at the last minute, the villain finds that she can't actually go through with killing the helpless character after all?

You have an instant story.

Perhaps the consequences of romance - a local ruler sends out an army to bring in the character alive because the ruler's daughter, whom the character seduced, is now in the family way. Problem is, he isn't the father - it's the son of the ambassador of the hated enemy of the neighbouring country what did the dirty deed, and the ruler knows it but he can't touch the SOB due to diplomatic immunity ...

Thoughts?

 

[havercake lad]

The Pendragon RPG put a lot of focus on passions, courtly love etc and provided mechanics. Lawrence Whitaker's Elric material for Mongoose featured rules and suggestions for using passions.

 

[alex_greene]

Sounds good to me.

Now to bring something like that to Legend ... any ideas?

 

[Simulacrum]

I wrote up a scenario that I ran for my group that involved a crime of passion and a false accusation against one of the PCs and ended up in a court case. It's not exactly romantic.... you can find it on the Age of Treason blog.

Using the Extended Task rules - which you will find in the Crafting section in Arms of Legend, or in Age of Treason - with the Seduction is a pretty good way to get Romance, and potentially comedy of course, into the game (thanks to Loz for that steer). Each task round requires the player to get their character into a situation they can earn a roll against the skill... in between each encounter they are plotting ways to earn a bonus, or penalise the target's resistance role...etc.

 

[ThatGuy]

I also recall a "passions" mechanic for ruling alot of emotional game decisions.

Loz developed it (I'm sure Simulcrum can suss out what book it's from specifically- though I remember it being in Elric, I could be wrong). If memory serves, it could be applied to everything from romantic love decisions to a players feelings about his country or countrymen- whatever the player was passionate about basically.

Hope this helps!

 

[Da Boss]

My games often have some romance or at least lusty encounters - usually just roleplayed.

As That Guy says there as some rules in Elric for your devotion to another, a cause or a nation etc which can be used.

 

[havercake lad]

I have included scenario seeds involving romance and passion and madness into the Elric material I am hoping to have printed this year.

 

[Big Orc]

Loz developed it (I'm sure Simulcrum can suss out what book it's from specifically- though I remember it being in Elric, I could be wrong). If memory serves, it could be applied to everything from romantic love decisions to a players feelings about his country or countrymen- whatever the player was passionate about basically.

These rules are in Elric of Melnibone CRB, pages 54 - 56.

Hope this helps.

 

[Big Orc]

I have included scenario seeds involving romance and passion and madness into the Elric material I am hoping to have printed this year.

This sounds good. Any idea of the title and when you hope it to go to print?

 

[havercake lad]

I have included scenario seeds involving romance and passion and madness into the Elric material I am hoping to have printed this year.

This sounds good. Any idea of the title and when you hope it to go to print?

The projected book 'Talons of Winter' includes a story seed entitled 'The Cold Maiden' and can be used by a GM as the basis for an adventure dealing with love, revenge, obsession and rivalries.

 

[Big Orc]

The projected book 'Talons of Winter' includes a story seed entitled 'The Cold Maiden' and can be used by a GM as the basis for an adventure dealing with love, revenge, obsession and rivalries.

I like the sound of this. Any idea of a release date, Spring, Summer or Autumn will be good answers?

 

[havercake lad]

Loz's work on passions was printed in S&P#61 according to an index I checked.

 

[Loz]

Loz's work on passions was printed in S&P#61 according to an index I checked.

They've been refined considerably since then with the Passion rules for Elric and additional developments by Pete found in Wraith Recon.

I ran my second part of the Warlord Chronicles campaign for Pete and co in Sweden last week and Passions took centre stage. Just about every plot development centred on how passions were created, used, abused, transformed, reversed and betrayed. We saw everything from true love, to lust, to outright hatred leading to some incredibly intense roleplaying and quite remarkable character-driven plot twists. Nimue, arch-manipulator of people, lost two of her acolytes due to their diversifying passions. The characters helped form the Circle of Britain only to see it destroyed by one character's Passion-driven actions of a much earlier sequence, leading to Arthur's rejection of his position as Briton's protector and the creation of an immense power vacuum that will carry over to into next year's 'Excalibur' instalment of the campaign trilogy. Even Pete (playing Eowald, a noted warband leader) walked away to find a life of peace, away from the passion-plays, elsewhere. Will it last? Course not. I'm too cruel.

The more I play RQ the more I see Passions as a fundamental mechanic. That's more down to my style of GMing, of course, but I find the mechanics so useful and so flexible that they creep more and more into the games I run.