Romance, Happiness, and Expectation

[Laurel]

(building off of Valid Premises thread)

Taking as a premise the validity of Gareth's statement "{Romance} has become the default filler of nearly anything made for TV.... as a way of contriving a happy ending in the Heroic tradition"  

Assuming that many players enter games with expectations regarding romantic interests for characters and 'happy endings' based off of television shows and movies, I'm curious as to speculations as to how this can relate to

a) RPG game design
b) GMing

[mahoux]

you know, I think this kind of lends itself to a swerve - say a CoC character has been out battling cults and keeping the Deep Ones from destroying life as we know it.  What is the wife going to say about him constantly running out of dinner parties, spending time with his crazy friends trotting all over the globe and eventually going so insane that he throws dynamite at the cat when he mistakes it for an elder spawn?

Seems to me that long term characters don't necessarily lend themselves to romance, except maybe with others of their band.  And according to Speed, starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, relationships forged under intense circumstances never last.

thoughts from out there.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

My thoughts on the matter differ greatly from Aaron's (mahoux). I suggest that role-playing has, in PRACTICE, often yielded extremely good results regarding romance in all its facets - but that how this is accomplished, or that it is even accomplished at all, remain disconnected from most discussions, writings, or design of role-playing.

I am drawing primarily from experience and anecdote, unfortunately for my argument. Numerous Champions games were based on romance being a central issue, inspired mainly by the Phoenix storyline from The X-Men (one published scenario, The Coriolis Effect, used it to good effect). I learned this at the time by (a) doing it and (b) contact with many Champions groups around the country. These groups represented a serious "colony" of Champs players who strenuously avoided the game's tendency to reward power-gaming.

More recently, my own Hero Wars game has run primarily off the emotional ties, mainly those of love and sexuality, among characters (PC/NPC), as authored and developed by the players. Certainly Orkworld play lends itself well to this sort of role-playing work as well.

I suggest that this angle on role-playing would be THE best way to "attract people to the hobby," although by that phrase, I do NOT mean the faddism which retailers crave (ie Magic-style collectability or WW-style "gear" based buying).

For those of you who are wrinkling your noses in disgust at the thought of a "Hearts and Flowers" role-playing game, my argument is this: any setting, any "genre," any brand of pop culture is made VALID TO THE N0N-FAN specifically by introducing and resolving conflicts about human love, sex, and commitment.

Some earlier role-playing games that tried to develop this mode of play include Albedo and Lace & Steel (by the same author, Paul Kidd).

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

On 2001-11-28 16:45, Ron Edwards wrote:
Some earlier role-playing games that tried to develop this mode of play include Albedo and Lace & Steel (by the same author, Paul Kidd).

Note, once again, the correlation between fuzzies as characters and Romance as a Premise. Isn't this what James West is doing with TQB?

I propose that romance as a Premise has so much attached baggage that it traditionally is approached from such oblique angles. That is to say, it is seldom approached in a direct and straigtforward manner due to the potential feelings it may raise. It just seems to be too intense a subject to become personally involved in for many.

Separation between player and character for some reason becomes less of a barrier to emotional overflow when romance is involved. This is similar to the "Orc Phenomenon", that being having unquestionably evil and disposable foes, with respect to violence (which is also potentially a touchy issue). In this way the player does not have to question his characters motives, and subsequently his own for having his character have that motive. Similarly, if the PC is a fuzzy dog, the player has no problem explaining why the character chases female characters around all the time; he's a dog after all.

When you don't have the fuzzy thing to separate you from the romance premise, then a player may wonder why he's having his character do the things he's doing. Forces like cognative dissonance come into play. A player might wonder if he has real feelings for the Player whose PC his PC is romantically engaged with. This can become particularly disturbing to some players if the players in question are both of the same sex (and the players are heterosexual), for instance. Or the player may just have issues with romance in general (lots of folks do).

The point is that such emotional issues tend to cloud judgement and players may become uncomfortable for no particularly good reason. This explains attempts to shield the player from such emotions, and the general avoidance of the premise in general. Not to say that you can't find players who are willing to overcome these difficulties, or who do not have such squeamishness. But I think that the overall level of player committment to an RPG is usually less than this; somewhat more on par with the level of commitment that players have to Monopoly.

Might be interesting to discuss the level of commitment of players vs. practical Premises.

Mike