Love

Write from experience

No. Fuck no. Absolutely fucking no.

Love is fine, relationships are also fine, but the second the genre shifts to romance, everything becomes a giant self-righteous, substance-less masturbatory aide. Romance is overrated, and strictly for women.

>objectivism
>about something so inherently subjective it can't be understood from the outside
Go back to /pol/ or 4e D&D threads.

Nah, it's just rough to handle in a 4-man-band.

No, it's almost always executed poorly, and quite often used as a crutch to make up for lack of imagination/poor writing.

Right now I am engaged in a tabletop game which is very much like a dating simulator.

It works really well, here's how we do it:

>One of the PC's father has died, so she has traveled to the capital to be anointed by the king to the rank of Baroness when she turns 18. Additionally, she is seeking a husband in order to form political connections, and cement her position.

>The rest of the PC's are playing body guards, retainers, and family who are invested in keeping her alive, and finding her a good match. Our basic job description is 'keep her out of trouble'. Which is as difficult as you would imagine for a group of PC's

>Additionally, all of the PC's also have other motives. I'm playing a semi-immortal character contained in an artifact who is trying to unearth the secret assassin of his last Lord. Of course that was 16 years ago when last he was in the capital, the trail has gone very cold.

>One of the PC's is trying to get himself killed in battle, he's always ready encase we piss some one off enough that they challenge our lady to a duel.

>One of the PC's i have no idea what he's doing, but he has a lot of secret meetings with the GM, and I trust his loyalty to our Lady, so I'm not going to worry about it.

>The rest of the PC's are filler, but they're having an ok time.

>Right now, there's a few of the great houses trying to put us under their thumb, there's three (out of 6 at the start) remaining sutors for our Lady.

>And there's about 4 people, or houses trying to hassle us or even assassinate us.

and THAT is how you run a romance oriented game.

>Should romance be allowed in tabletop?
It'd be weird as hell to try and say, "No, no romance ever in TTRPG plots", but having the finer points be the focus is not something that would usually suit a party.

Hm. Unless perhaps you can reel the whole party into one PCs endeavor to prove themselves/win favor/whatever. That would be fun.

>the idea of loving someone "for who they are" is inherently fallacious and demonstrates a complete lack of objectivism.
So you're unironically arguing for some absolute metric for romance, then?
Also--fallacious HOW? Do you even understand what you're declaring when you say this pap?

>I say that it's a rough thing to handle in a 4-man-band
>claims to disagree then fucking agrees

Are you just contrarian?

Generally speaking, you don't.

As for how to write good romance; read romance novels and non-standard literature, derive appropriate cliches/tropes/whatever, and work from there or just write fapfiction until you understand what people will expect from you. It's what I did.

Truth. Preach it, user.

Sounds like a blast. I've been kicking around the idea of running just this sort of game recently.

People who are in love, people who think they are in love, people who want love, and people who swear they don't need love—all of them make bad decisions in the name of love. And people making bad decisions are what make good stories.

I've successfully run two World of Darkness campaign with romance subplots. They worked because the romances were messy. People did dumb things. People miscommunicated, or failed to communicate at all. People hurt themselves, and they hurt other people. And through all that they still managed to make each other smile.

That's really all you need: likable characters who make bad decisions / have bad stuff happen to them. And, of course, you need players mature enough / interested enough in this sort of thing. But you might never know if you've got that until you give it a try.

Not really. You can get plenty of drama without having to fuck around with a romance.

They are probably shit characters then.

Roll to seduce

Y-yeah, uh, experience, I have some of that...

user, you're not... a virgin, are you?

More than that, it's been so long since I've even felt any romantic feelings toward someone that I literally don't remember what it's like.

The drama can come from other things, user. Your cheap tactics are cheap.

That guy's picture looks like the kind the news plasters everywhere after a school shooting

>Should it be allowed?
Who the hell would disallow it? How? Why?
>How do I do it well?

Make it pervasive in the world in a way that matters before it's in the PCs hands, so they have some idea of how things will go if they opt in.

Have relationships run the gamut of conditions they do in real life (stable stuff, widows and widowers, separation, abuse, affairs, remarriage, cohabitation/informal marriage, the works). The story about some guy getting the girl and then we just kind of handwave the happy ending or worse just tack it on to the end of an A plot is overdone. People already in relationships, and relationships ending for one reason or another, are just as interesting. Especially in large cast scenarios that are RPGs' bread and butter.

Make relationships relevant to things outside themselves unless they're what the game is really about. Shouldn't be hard in fantasy with marriage into a prominent family being a good way to move up in the world.

Also a little research into your setting doesn't hurt. For example it might be a common trope that young women marry older men, but people often forget that the age skewing means you've got many more widows than widowers. Or that widows often have a different social position than young women, hanging on to some vestiges of power from their passed husband and/or gaining a degree of sexual leniency not afforded to a young maid. Depends on setting particulars though.

Read Montaillou if you haven't. It paints a great picture of how to use this kind of drama as a component of something big and complicated and adventure ready.

underage fag detected.

I'm 26.
I just have the relationship skills of an underageb&.

Play a character who's in love. Imagine.

>spaces

>like

>this
Is this a raddit thing? Can you go back, please?

>tfw occasionally write fapfiction
>tfw total virgin
>can only base descriptions off other peoples' descriptions
I'm a loser and a hack, and even my cringiest hobbies won't let me forget it.

You might actually be autistic/asexual/aromantic/all three. There's nothing you can do about it, if that's the case, but I can't say for sure going on how little you've said. It might be worth seeing a shrink or something.

S'okay man, I didn't truly get a girlfriend until I was 29; just go outside and practice some more of your more social hobbies, and you'll find the right lass eventually, yeah? Took me a month or so to get into the groove too.

please provide an example

Not him, but literally anything. Married dude solves a mystery. Deuteragonists fight the empire. Old couple struggles to find a new routine after the kids move out or the husband retires; screwball comedy ensues.

Nothing about a specific type of relationship really necessitates that either partner has a specific role in the narrative. Nor does it obviate the writer's capacity to focus on other material.

>tfw I'm autistic
>tfw my first girlfriend was when I was 19
>tfw I learned what pussy felt like
>tfw I didn't care for it and didn't like men so i gave up