Running OTPs In Legend

[alex_greene]

Somewhat thought-provoking topic, this. What are your thoughts on One True Pairings (OTPs) in your Legend games? Do they crop up? Do your characters develop relationships with one another or NPCs, whether platonic or ... otherwise ... along the lines of Scott Summers/Emma Frost, Sherlock/Watson, The Doctor/Amy Pond or the like?

What would your thoughts be if, in the course of a campaign, you suddenly realised that your character and another recurring character were developing feelings for one another, whether those feelings be friendship or something else?

And how would that affect your game, in your opinion?

I'm tempted to broach the subject on the Traveller board, but I think I'll just open the discussion here first, see if it matures and then consider opening up the topic in the universe next door.

 

[Loz]

All the time.

Several characters in my Arthurian campaign have wives, mistresses, partners and children. The interactions and drives arising from these relationships propel the campaign to an extremely high degree.

My recent Elric campaign saw the development of a 'significant other' during the course of play, and this has already had some serious story ramifications.

Its part of the reason why I deliberately integrated Passions into RQ6 - although I used them a great deal with MRQII, as well. Handled in the right way, relationships between characters and NPCs can take a campaign to new heights and are a complete gift, story-wise, to a GM.

 

[rust]

Do your characters develop relationships with one another or NPCs, whether platonic or ... otherwise ...

Yes, of course. The characters of my campaigns are (fictional) human
beings and therefore act like human beings, which includes to have
friends and/or lovers, to found families, to raise children, to break up,
and all that normal human stuff. Humans are social beings, and with-
out social relations (and conflicts, and ...) the characters would "feel"
more like robots to me.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I agree, having characters fall in and then out of love is a great way to play with the party dynamics.

In one case, we had two characters that were engaged. The male character was seduced by a succubus... INTERESTING developments within that relationship that spilled over to the rest of the party caught in the middle of that.

Good gamers can really play this up.

In another incident a character seduced a barmaid. I had his roll Persuasion and she Fumbled and he got a Critical... Needless to say, his one-night-stand turned into an obsession on her part and she began threatening people that got between her and her "soul mate". She even went so far as to hire a Sorcerer... Things got interesting.

These types of things make the game fuller in my opinion and when I am a player, I TRY to include them with my characters.

 

[Olaus Petrus]

Somewhat thought-provoking topic, this. What are your thoughts on One True Pairings (OTPs) in your Legend games? Do they crop up? Do your characters develop relationships with one another or NPCs, whether platonic or ... otherwise ... along the lines of Scott Summers/Emma Frost, Sherlock/Watson, The Doctor/Amy Pond or the like?

What would your thoughts be if, in the course of a campaign, you suddenly realised that your character and another recurring character were developing feelings for one another, whether those feelings be friendship or something else?

And how would that affect your game, in your opinion?

I'm tempted to broach the subject on the Traveller board, but I think I'll just open the discussion here first, see if it matures and then consider opening up the topic in the universe next door.

No romantic relationships between the player characters unfortunately, because all my regular players are men and every character in the party is heterosexual male. Personally I like the challenge of playing as different kinds of characters and I try to avoid playing always as straight male character, just because I'm straight male myself. But some guys might find playing as female or gay character awkward and I respect their choice.

However as a GM I give my players both long term love interests (who are major NPCs in my campaign) and occasional damsels in distress and other NPCs who serve as temporary love interests for those characters who don't have long term relationships.

 

[Bifford]

Several times I've insisted on my player doing things for women etc. He normally tries to gloss over things by just saying "that's fine" or "okay" whereas I then want detail, to roll it etc. I think he tries to pass over important things too easily.

When I am running games I'm always open to people going on tangents like that and opening up plot options! Never say never.

It's why I like Legend so much - the social rolls are as important as the physical rolls. The best roleplay memories come from such things!!

 

[GreveMagnus]

I recently joined a group playing Warhammer FRPG and this is definitely playing a large part in our current gaming activities. The group already had a male warrior who was quietly in love with a female magician (who has never seemed very interested in him). Shortly after my character (not a romantic type) joined, he suffered a major shock and picked up an insanity. I thought the most fun way of roleplaying this would be to have him become convinced that said female magician had placed a love spell on him. So now we have a nice little love triangle developing... (although admittedly the midpoint of this triangle is completely uninterested). Especially as this warrior, realising he now has a rival, has started showing his feelings more openly too.

And I've decided that the most entertaining way to deal with my rival will be to trick him into making a complete fool of himself in front of the object of both our desires - so now I'm just waiting for a good opportunity to thoroughly humiliate him. :twisted:

I can't say that all this is really driving the plot, but it's huge fun nonetheless. And we're all straight males in this group. For me, that's part of the fun - shamelessly flirting with another man, treating him like a desirable woman and watching how he attempts to deal with it - particularly as my character has absolutely no idea what makes women tick, so I get to make all kinds of outrageously inept passes at his character and then watch him look completely disgusted. It's no end of fun!

Although, it has to be said, if the player was actually a woman, I wouldn't be doing this out of fear that it might be a bit too close to real-life sexual harassment.

 

[GamerDude]

As far as anything "sexual" I don't outright forbid it, but neither do I do a damm thing to discourage it, with many reasons.

1. In my early AD&D days one group had this saying/chant about their mission was to "rape, pillage, rape, burn, rape, loot.. ..oh and did we mention 'rape'?" Was a complete turn off.

2. I game to get away from certain things, one of which being the hyper sexualization of American society (being pushed down to younger and younger kids) and the cultural mindset hammered into us by media that every first date (and every date thereafter) is a complete disaster of the two individuals involved don't end the night in bed screwing each other's brains out like two dogs in heat.

3. More than one GM who made the game completely about their NPCs to the point the rest of us had to listen to long stories of how his main male and female NPCs drew close together got romantic with each other how the Lawful Good Priestess (the female NPC) was now hiding that she broke her vow of chastity - which we all heard happen as she kept screaming her deity's name out over and over and over again.

NOTE: In instance 1. no one from that group was ever welcome in our game. In #2 you do what you want in private but I've had people wanting to be dominatrix's or Mord Sith just so characters can wear fetish and it be the center of discussion. In #3 well, I think you get the point.

Oh and the day a player (knowing how I feel) brought to my table the third-party "Book of Erotic Fantasy" was the last day he played with us. Leave that at home.

 

[GamerDude]

Somewhat thought-provoking topic, this. What are your thoughts on One True Pairings (OTPs) in your Legend games? Do they crop up?

In searching the web for some explanation of this (why does every gamer/geek assume *everyone* even remotely interested in the same thing know every little piece of minuscule tripe?)

That said, here is the definition of OTP I got from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OneTruePairing

"The One True Pairing (usually abbreviated as OTP, not to be confused with OOTP or OotP) is the couple that a fan or group of fans prefers over all other 'ships. Canon and logic do not necessarily apply, and crossover OTPs are not uncommon. "

Basically, it's fans fighting over which two particular fictional characters belong together, mean to be together, are the "one true pairing" out of the mix of their book, movie, tv.

Why would anyone want to force what is basically "excuse for fans to argue" into a good RPG game?

 

[Olaus Petrus]

As far as anything "sexual" I don't outright forbid it, but neither do I do a damm thing to discourage it, with many reasons.

1. In my early AD&D days one group had this saying/chant about their mission was to "rape, pillage, rape, burn, rape, loot.. ..oh and did we mention 'rape'?" Was a complete turn off.

2. I game to get away from certain things, one of which being the hyper sexualization of American society (being pushed down to younger and younger kids) and the cultural mindset hammered into us by media that every first date (and every date thereafter) is a complete disaster of the two individuals involved don't end the night in bed screwing each other's brains out like two dogs in heat.

3. More than one GM who made the game completely about their NPCs to the point the rest of us had to listen to long stories of how his main male and female NPCs drew close together got romantic with each other how the Lawful Good Priestess (the female NPC) was now hiding that she broke her vow of chastity - which we all heard happen as she kept screaming her deity's name out over and over and over again.

NOTE: In instance 1. no one from that group was ever welcome in our game. In #2 you do what you want in private but I've had people wanting to be dominatrix's or Mord Sith just so characters can wear fetish and it be the center of discussion. In #3 well, I think you get the point.

Oh and the day a player (knowing how I feel) brought to my table the third-party "Book of Erotic Fantasy" was the last day he played with us. Leave that at home.

How old are your players? What you describe sounds whole lot like what happens when teenagers try to roleplay love and romance. However my experience is that adult players can handle situations like romance without turning it to erotic fantasy. If you roleplay romance there's no actual need to roleplay sex scenes in detail or at all.

But personally I think that most mature players can even handle erotic themes (for example Elric campaign setting has Chaos cults who have orgies) without turning the whole thing into a pornographic farce. The point being once again that while sexual things happen you don't focus on describing them in the same detail as the letters to Penthouse. But you keep the eroticism in same level as it is in sword and sorcery and dark fantasy stories.

 

[alex_greene]

If you're squeamish about sex as a player, your Games Master is going to squick you out if he throws in such scenes.

As a Games Master, best if you gauge the mood of the players before the story, and let them know that such scenes could crop up in the course of the event. It is weird, but as someone said you could have a story about an axe penetrating a brain described in loving, glorious detail, all gore spatter everywhere and you lap it up, but if you read a story about a man making babies with his woman in the same detail you freak out and call it pornography. Nonetheless, it's important to know when to move, and when not to move, so to speak. That is, if you want your friends to return to the table next week - or to remain friends at all, for that matter.

So, Games Masters, if you do have OTPs, and stories where the Seduction skill gets used more often than Combat Styles and Sorcery, (and the players aren't getting squicked at the thought of more romance than combat in your stories) learn to become the master of the cut scene - that ancient technique where, when the activity's getting a little too heavy, you do the equivalent of the pan and tilt towards the ceiling, fade to black and put out the station ident for a three minute commercial break, otherwise known as "Pass us that can of pop, mate, my throat's parched. Pizzas?"

 

[DamonJynx]

Had an instance of that in my Elric campaign. One of the characters got seduced by a female caravan guard. The whole scene was immense fun, not graphic in the slightest. We role-played the conversation, I was of course the female. The PC had a troubled past-his sibling had murdered his wife because he thought the PC had usurped his rightful place as head of the family once he father had passed away. The NPC was chatting to the PC and towards the end of the scene the NPC said something like, "...perhaps I can help you forget, at least for tonight." Then as GM I mentioned that Brogan and the NPC could be seen walking behind the shelter, hand-in-hand. That was it, the next morning the party awoke and the NPC caravan went on its merry way.

Sexual encounters, regardless of preference, don't have to be any more than that - of course they can be as detailed as you like, but with most players, I don't think any more detail is necessary - the players imaginations can fill in the blanks with whatever floats their boat.