Catullus64
2022-04-20, 11:08 AM
This thread has two purposes. The first is to describe the situation in a current game of mine in which my PC has fallen in love, and to glean people's advice on how to turn that basic idea into a good love story. ("Good" in this instance meaning "dramatic, fun", not "healthy, realistic, or with a happy ending.") If you're interested in my particular story, the spoiler tab contains my rundown of the campaign, my character, and his newly beloved.
So the game is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. If you don't know the game, I would describe it as grim, Low Fantasy adventure in a High Fantasy setting, albeit still a rather grim one. It's a world of great heroes and villains and wizards and gods, but your characters are slightly-above-average scrubs doing deadly but unglamorous adventure work. We're a party of five, who are trapped in the industrial metropolis of Nuln. We've been coerced by a local crime family into investigating some stolen caches of warpstone, which is eldritch bad news in mineral form.
My character is Valahuir. He's generally a low-down, double-talking, back-stabbing rattlesnake of an Elf. He has only very recently started to form a certain degree of mutual trust with the other characters. He has an Elf's typical (for this setting) snobbish disdain for Humans, Halflings, and especially Dwarfs, though he has an odd liking for one Halfling party member.
The most recent lead we were investigating introduced us to the beautiful Magdelena Madrin. She's outwardly a traveling entertainer, but we also discovered that she's also a confidence trickster and a spy, who we had reason to believe was working for a rival criminal outfit. Valahuir, having the golden tongue, was given the task of getting information out of her. He approached her pretending to be a merchant prince looking to hire her entertainment services for a party. Somewhere in the midst of put-on charm and flirtation, he started actually liking her a fair bit.
Through a series of questionable decisions by the whole group, the fake party became a real party, hosted at the tavern we use as our base of operations. While Magdelena was busy entertaining the guests, and the other party members were taking care of a separate objective, I broke into her home and stole her books of ledgers and business records. Encoded in a mix of three language, but we have a party member who reads all three who I figured could crack the code.
Then things got a little out of whack. One party member's family had gotten exposed to the warpstone we had recovered, and were mutated into monsters. They attacked and badly wounded two of our party members in the back alley behind the tavern, before they were slain. We managed to hide this from the guests and sent them home, but Valahuir, angry and fearful after that horrible incident, confronted Magdelena, revealing that he had stolen and hidden away her papers, which are her personal insurance against her many enemies. She agreed to give us information, and break into the secret mines being dug by the rival crime family, before we would return her notes. She's now fairly bitter at Valahuir for having deceived her and stolen something valuable, but she currently has no choice but to work with us.
Somewhere in the process of planning the break-in to the mines, Valahuir realizes he loves this magnificently cunning woman. He is somewhat taken aback, as he did not think himself vulnerable to the charms of a mere human, and he consciously knows this woman is very dangerous. But conscious scruples weigh little in matters of love. So now we're headed into a perilous mission, with Valahuir's judgement about this pretty lady badly clouded, and his usual ruthlessness compromised.
Did I mention this game system is very deadly?
Did I also mention that when I rolled up this character's random fortune-teller prophecy (a fun little part of character generation), I got "A kiss shall end thy days?"
Should be fun!
The second purpose is just to swap anecdotes about love stories in TTRPGs. When has it worked well? When has it not? How can it be made engaging for the players whose characters are not involved in the romance?
So the game is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. If you don't know the game, I would describe it as grim, Low Fantasy adventure in a High Fantasy setting, albeit still a rather grim one. It's a world of great heroes and villains and wizards and gods, but your characters are slightly-above-average scrubs doing deadly but unglamorous adventure work. We're a party of five, who are trapped in the industrial metropolis of Nuln. We've been coerced by a local crime family into investigating some stolen caches of warpstone, which is eldritch bad news in mineral form.
My character is Valahuir. He's generally a low-down, double-talking, back-stabbing rattlesnake of an Elf. He has only very recently started to form a certain degree of mutual trust with the other characters. He has an Elf's typical (for this setting) snobbish disdain for Humans, Halflings, and especially Dwarfs, though he has an odd liking for one Halfling party member.
The most recent lead we were investigating introduced us to the beautiful Magdelena Madrin. She's outwardly a traveling entertainer, but we also discovered that she's also a confidence trickster and a spy, who we had reason to believe was working for a rival criminal outfit. Valahuir, having the golden tongue, was given the task of getting information out of her. He approached her pretending to be a merchant prince looking to hire her entertainment services for a party. Somewhere in the midst of put-on charm and flirtation, he started actually liking her a fair bit.
Through a series of questionable decisions by the whole group, the fake party became a real party, hosted at the tavern we use as our base of operations. While Magdelena was busy entertaining the guests, and the other party members were taking care of a separate objective, I broke into her home and stole her books of ledgers and business records. Encoded in a mix of three language, but we have a party member who reads all three who I figured could crack the code.
Then things got a little out of whack. One party member's family had gotten exposed to the warpstone we had recovered, and were mutated into monsters. They attacked and badly wounded two of our party members in the back alley behind the tavern, before they were slain. We managed to hide this from the guests and sent them home, but Valahuir, angry and fearful after that horrible incident, confronted Magdelena, revealing that he had stolen and hidden away her papers, which are her personal insurance against her many enemies. She agreed to give us information, and break into the secret mines being dug by the rival crime family, before we would return her notes. She's now fairly bitter at Valahuir for having deceived her and stolen something valuable, but she currently has no choice but to work with us.
Somewhere in the process of planning the break-in to the mines, Valahuir realizes he loves this magnificently cunning woman. He is somewhat taken aback, as he did not think himself vulnerable to the charms of a mere human, and he consciously knows this woman is very dangerous. But conscious scruples weigh little in matters of love. So now we're headed into a perilous mission, with Valahuir's judgement about this pretty lady badly clouded, and his usual ruthlessness compromised.
Did I mention this game system is very deadly?
Did I also mention that when I rolled up this character's random fortune-teller prophecy (a fun little part of character generation), I got "A kiss shall end thy days?"
Should be fun!
The second purpose is just to swap anecdotes about love stories in TTRPGs. When has it worked well? When has it not? How can it be made engaging for the players whose characters are not involved in the romance?