Love Stories

[Catullus64]

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.

Spoiler: My Story

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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?

[LibraryOgre]

A possible one for your story is he gets his kiss... and considers his fate to be sealed, so he gets REALLY reckless... even better if she is trying to keep him around for a while, and so he's torn between his own nihilistic fatalism, and his love for her... crazy things, until she tells him to stop, until she occasionally tells him to go, because it's important (or charming). Or he gets his kiss and starts looking for more fortune tellers, trying to find out if it's THAT kiss, or another one that will end his days.

[Batcathat]

Sounds like a very good setup for a love story (almost certainly one that's massively unhealthy at best and tragic at worst, but the best ones usually are) and I'm not sure how much I can contribute with. Do you know how the lady in question feels about Valahuir? Does she seem to reciprocate on some level or is it just bitter mistrust all the way down? Either could probably work (as long as a happy ending isn't required. Unrequited love is still love), but it'd probably lead to quite different stories.

[KorvinStarmast]

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?

Before she went adventuring, my D&D Bard(Lore) was a sailor (background) in love with another sailor on the ship where she was serving. They both got 'the lash' for manifesting their love/passion while underway - against the express directions of the Captain to not do that (they confined their romance to shore visits thereafter).

The trigger to her adventuring life was that a ship run by slavers attacked and boarded her ship; during the fight her lover threw his body between hers and a blade slash coming for her torso; after the blow landed he cried out to her to save herself (as the ship's last few crewmen were overwhelmed by the slavers/pirates/bad guys). Over the side she went (death before slavery!) and she swam away, to her death - except that a couple of triton hunters found her swimming out to sea. They her turned around, and escorted her (more swimming involved) to a beach where she, exhausted, washed up. (The tritons reminded her to stay on dry land, you silly human!).

Adventures 1-20 ensue. She wrote and performed a song about her true love.

Spoiler: Some day soon parody

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(Based off of a Judy Collins song Someday Soon)
There's a sailor that I know
Mathias was his name
We rode the waves upon the southern o-cean
Our ship's most able seaman
My mentor, then my flame
Someday soon, I'll sail with him, someday soon

Our Captain gave us warning
There's no romance on board
But could true love be stopped
by our Commad-der?
He caught is in the cargo hold
It cost us both the lash
Someday soon, sailing with him, someday soon

Oh when we got to port we'd hide
And find our ways to play
We learned to hide our love at sea
And wait for better days

So blow you cru-el trade winds
Blow my love back to me
When I wake up at night
Salt tears I'm cry-ing
He loved me true with all his heart
He took that blade for me
Someday soon, sailing with him, someday soon

Oh, swam I did and hoped I'd drown
Into the deep blue sea
The triton hunting party found me
To land, they returned me...

Now blow you astral trade winds
Blow my love back to me
When I wake up at night
Salt tears I'm cry-ing
He loved me true with all his heart
He took that blade for me
Someday soon, sailing with him, someday soon
{slow tempo down}
Someday soon, sailing with him, some day soon

At the end of the last arc she was in possession (for a while) of an artifact that had True Resurrection as a once per day ability. Before she turned it over to the shadow folk, for whom she was holding it, she decided to use it twice.
Once to bring back a dead adventurer from a previous party in a previous campaign whom she believed would help her battle slavers (that was working out as we ended the campaign)
and
once to to bring back her beloved Mathias - even though she had herself fallen in love with an ancient gold dragon and was pregnant with that being's child. (They were at a wedding and she tried to seduce the gold dragon, who in turn was attracted enough to her to invite her to 'come fly with me by the light of the moon' so she shapechanged and they did ... fade to black.

Mathias was her first true love. He had, when the choice arose, her the gift of life. This was her opportunity repay his sacrifice with a gift of life.
She found him a ship to hire onto as their Bosun ... but that's in the "after the campaign is over after story" so he sailed off into the sunset. She still loves him, but she's also sure that the gold dragon will brook no rival for the affections of the coming child...

[Catullus64]

Sounds like a very good setup for a love story (almost certainly one that's massively unhealthy at best and tragic at worst, but the best ones usually are) and I'm not sure how much I can contribute with. Do you know how the lady in question feels about Valahuir? Does she seem to reciprocate on some level or is it just bitter mistrust all the way down? Either could probably work (as long as a happy ending isn't required. Unrequited love is still love), but it'd probably lead to quite different stories.

The one straitforward remark on the subject was a sad "And I was rather starting to like you." Which was kinda what made Valahuir realize his own feelings. Right now she mostly just seems distrustful and angry at being blackmailed (which she definitely is); if she has any warm feelings remaining for him, she's not showing it now.