Do you include npcs who are clearly marked as "THIS IS A POTENTIAL LOVE INTEREST?" Back in the Dungeon Magazine days, I recall Paizo used to do this before they got eaten by the mind-virus.
I managed to provoke a lethal fight between two PCs because of it, I've never taken so much joy in the suffering of my players.
No, because no matter how hard you try to "designate" an NPC for literally anything, the players will instead end up glomming on to some random throwaway background filler character that you never expected to use as like... anything more than some merchant or random town guard.
>the players will instead end up glomming on to some random throwaway background filler character that you never expected to use as like... anything more than some merchant or random town guard.
Which is why I don't write more than a handful of words for any NPC that isn't the main antagonist.
can you blame me? Look at that little girl with a normal sized crossbow, I bet she has an interesting story.
can you blame me? Look at that strangely built little man who walks like a penguin, I bet he has an interesting story.
*railroads you*
Hilariously true. I remember describing a character as background detail in an inn the PCs briefly went to, and one of them instantly diverts to go recruit this guy despite him having one sentence of description. Funniest thing was, it was perfectly reasonable for him to be interested in the PC's pitch, so the back leg of their job at the time saw them accompanied by a dwarf slayer.
>Be Me
>Be running a game of Lancer
>Have a Player who is a rich heir to a corporate empire expectected to carry on his family name
>Has so far turned down advances from a literal princess and galactic entertainment idol
>Regularly flirts with and hits on the random "literal who?" ship nurse that stitched up a gash on his arm once after his dumbass jumped through a glass window.
Yeah, checks out.
>Be running a game of Lancer
My condolences
Why? It's a fun game if you ignore the obligatory wokeshit speech the authors put in the book to appease the Twitter morons. I have WAY more fun running it than D&D 5e or Pathfinder 2e. It's a well-designed game that has a relatively low GM-burden compared to alot of other popular systems out there.
Or are you just one of those D&D posters who can't stand the idea of people playing literally anything else?
He is the latter. He goes into every thread ever and bashes discussion of any game that isn't DnD.
>It's a fun game
In a nutshell, it feels nothing like a mech game.
I'll admit I've only played 5e (and hated it), but 5e was so bland I'm willing to believe you. That said I did give Lancer a chance and it was so irredeemably garbage that I'd rather have played 5e. And that is not a point in 5e's favor in the slightest.
You are deranged.
>obligatory wokeshit speech the authors put in the book to appease the Twitter morons
That's a funny way of wording "the devs are gay communists and made a gay communist setting specifically to fight for the cause of being gay, and communist". There's nothing obligatory or appeasing about it, it's the raison d'etre for the entire thing.
Not that Anon, but name a game tgat ISN'T that in 2020+. No dumpster-fire shit like FATAL or MYFAROG, an actual GOOD game
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Honor+Intrigue
Barbarians of Lemuria
Conan d20
WFRP 2e (4e is pozzed)
Star Wars d6 (ancient, but its community is small but stable)
>an actual GOOD game
He says while defending Lancer, lul.
No, more pointing out that every single mainstream TTRPG has this shit in it now. Pretty much every form of western media does
>Actually reading the fluff and giving a shit about the system’s supposed setting, themes, or lore
Do nogames really?
Personally, I just despise the concept of a mech system with no mech customization. Setting sounds gay as frick, but I got nothing to say about the mechanics.
>turns down society's expected matches in favor of someone who rendered him personal assistance and works in a thankless profession
Sounds pretty kino tbh
Anon, "Soldier falls in love with the nurse taking care of him" is one of the oldest tropes in literature ever, how did you not see this coming
Yes, because I mostly run on /qst/ and for narrative-driven quests this is somewhat expected.
Seen this happen in my own quests AND in others, though. One Harry Potter quest on there presented a super-skilled, gorgeous redheaded tomboy, and the players latched onto a tiny brunette waitress from Hogsmeade. In my own quest, while playing a yuan-ti spy, the players genuinely fell in love with their mark.
4e was a much better edition of D&D than 5e, and Heat is a vastly preferable mechanic compared to spell slots in my opinion. I'm sorry you don't like it, but it's nothing I feel like I need "condolences" over. Battletech is a bit too crunchy for me, Lancer hits that sweet spot where it runs nice and quick by comparison, despite the loss of granularity.
How is
>I like Lancer more than 5e
screeching?
Ignore him, he's a shitpost spammer running damage-control for WotC. He does this constantly and his posting style is easy to recognize.
She wasn't intended to be a waifu as such, but a noblewoman NPC the party was working for/traveling with had two maids, one of whom was cool, terse, and professional, the other of whom was cheerful, snarky, and borderline-insolent. They had similar names and appearances , and the noble had hired them as a pair deliberately as a droll little jest. One of the PCs was particularly fond of the latter maid.
Generally no, we have fun and interesting adventure games without needing to throw in romances. I can see how some people would want it, and a lot of literature and movies have love stories but a lot don't and we're happy adventuring throughout the galaxy, busting ghosts or murderhoboing.
On the other hand in L5R very much yes but that was to create tension and political conflict rather than engage in pure character development which is what a lot of love interests look like to me if not something worse.
>Back in the Dungeon Magazine days, I recall Paizo used to do this before they got eaten by the mind-virus.
They even did it well into the Pathfinder days, it has only been relatively recently in their company history, a bit before Starfinder iirc, that the policy of waifu NPCs changed.
Wasn't there some white haired barbarian woman who turned into a wolf or something? That's the only one of those I much remember.
Greta.
She was a wolf who used a magic item to pretend to be human and immediately wanted to frick the first male PC who was wearing a similar (but different) magic item, assuming they're also a big strong wolf, and if the PC went off with her she'd go wolf form and wonder why he's not doing the same.
Every game I manage to get one of my players to fall for a love interest character. I dont really plan them out but I do have a knack for seizing the opportunity and then just running with it.
The love interests I remember off the top of my head from over the years:
>Chess, elf princess that fell for the male human fighter PC when he threw himself in front of her to tank the dragon's breath, got caught in an explosion later on and lost her arm, had 3 children by the end of the campaign.
>Tara'Nobz, redhead barbarian priestess who was enslaved by and eventually fell for the runtling tanarukk PC, was slowly corrupted into worshiping baphomet, had 4 kids by the end of the campaign.
>Eliesa, half elf that was a nascent alu-fiend, succubi powers manifested when the PC took her virginity causing her to run away to "find herself", sadly the campaign fell through rather quickly so I couldnt develop her character more.
>Sophia, 700 year old revenant vampire hunter the Giovanni player fell for, frienemy of the coterie, had the coterie actually devolve into pvp because the Giovanni player wanted her as his wife/ghoul and the toreador player wanted to murder her for humiliating him.
An SCV pilot. She was a chainsmoking blonde with huge breasts who swore like a sailor.
The waifu NPC will either get abused and killed by the players or the players will have PTSD of shitty GM's who constantly honey pot them to either frick them over or to just take away their waifu without a chance to fight back.
bumpgaygoo....
I have ran date sessions for players
Guys and mostly girls alike
One on one time when this style of session happened.
Weirdest and most entertaining one was for a girl who was playing a male who was gay and an npc match maker set them up with a girl (two nat 1s into a nat 20 of finding the best partner). The npc girl ticked every box for the female player in and out of character minus them being a female and not a male. Was fun messing with them for those few hours.
Otherwise I introduce a variety of characters to my players, if the become attached to one then I bring them back.
No, I'm not here to ERP
>Do you include NPCs who are clearly marked as "THIS IS A POTENTIAL LOVE INTEREST?"
Only if my players have an idea on what they wanna do with it I'll allow it like my long running table which had a player who has a SEVERE case of yellow fever irl (he literally won't date any girl that isnt"a pure asian") so when writing his backstory he come up with the idea of his character being inlove with a noble lady who he wanted to see again after being exiled from her homeland, Khitai (China) due to their forbidden romance
No, the last thing I want to do in a game is roleplay a romance with the kind of guy who plays these games.
Not really. One person at the table is a sucker for romance, opting to at least try for a ship in every game I've played with them so far (usually with my characters because I'm the only one that pays enough attention to actually play into it), but in the game I run the waifu he latched onto was a part of the springboard module I was using, and recovering from being a mind-controled cult leader that's been responsible for kidnapping and enslaving their fellow townsfolk doesn't put someone in the best mental place for hooking up. I've since included many other women NPCs, even an actually evil Succubus that almost got away with it. The only other one that stuck after ten whole levels was the throwaway wizard apprentice that I only made to explain why there's a winged cat random encounter, at most she was supposed to be a social bridge to the headmaster of the Arcane College, but now she and the Wizard have had dorky nerd dates at shit-ass taverns to just talk and studying in the same room together.
Also nice quads.
Yes I have one, elf alchemist with a witch hat (for cute points) and a golden claw (for bizarre points) trapped in an island with PCs that ended up on it because of a bigger conspiracy, monsters are berserk and people are returning from the dead, the alchemist used to live in the island with her master when it was still normal, her master died after the weird incidents started happening 10 months ago, then she returned as an undead so the elf alchemist had to desperately use every mix she had around to defeat her master, but that also caused the golden claw thing which is slowly transforming her into a sort of gold entity (once it reaches the brain, she'll lose her free will).
Currently the elf alchemist is guiding the PCs through a cave in the mountain to the sole safe building in the whole place, planning to introduce even more NPCs with different personalities and troubles, plus some paranoia mindgames ala The Thing.
>insert random female characters
>player is interested in one
>plays around her and tries to woo her
>develop the character
>player is forced to balance his own interests and compromise with the character
>funny interactions, plots and story writes itself due to mutual leverage between them
>other players sees
>wants tradwife.pdf plotline
>oblige same way
>he cant handle character having leverage over him
>he cant handle that character is not servile and will force own interests
>plot dies
if they want wish-fulfillment they can do it in their head
if you want to flex the DnD waifu, you gotta earn it
Rate this character as a potential love interest
Shitty AIslop bumphomosexualy/10
not ai
>thread is supposed to be about waifubait NPCs
>someone mentions Lancer fricking once
>suddenly the whole thread is about woke moralist commies vs alt-right tradchuds or whatever the frick is going on
I've really come to hate this fricking game.
>Get assmad that someone disagrees with you politics
>Start flinging shit
>Act like it's still their fault that (you) started flinging shit
Like clockwork.
I hate both sides of this homosexualry, moron. The guy flinging shit at Lancergays is obnoxious and clearly started it but it takes two to tango. You fricks could've just as easily ignored him and left him twisting in the wind if you weren't so damn hypersensitive over your gay robots game.
Like I said, I hate everyone involved in this stupid shit that happens every fricking time someone mentions that fricking game.
>actually BOTH sides
you people are the most annoying
>YOU HAVE TO SIDE WITH EITHER US HOMOS OR THEM homosexualS
>YOU JUST GOTTA
No.
it's the smugposting that gets me
"both sides bad" morons bring nothing to the conversation and should just shut the frick up
"The conversation" was never about your pithy little ideological pissing contest. Go do it elsewhere.
>You fricks could've just as easily ignored him
He and people like him are in every single thread including the dead generals, it's like ignoring rats. They're always popping their head to tell you that he doesn't consent to you playing the gay commie robot game with your friends. "Both sides" is fricking gay
Not only did my Star Wars DM do that, but I suspect he had to do so as an emergency countermeasure to one of our player's lechery. The guy bought a female alien slave at a black market to "free" her before looking at her species description on Wookiepedia and loudly exclaming "WTF SHE LOOKS LIKE A FISH, I DON'T WANT THAT" or something.
And I would have managed to steal both the slave and the designated love interest from him if it wasn't for the DM's last second malus he gave to my seduction rolls.
...he tried to buy a selkath didn't he?
I'm not sure but I think it was a Mon Calamari.
...how? How does that make sense?! It's literally in the fricking name, "CALAMARI." What did he think was it gonna be, a fricking big tiddy cowgirl? A catgirl? jesus fricking christ, it literally translates to "my squid" everyone fricking knows what a calamari is. fricking a, at least with a selkath you could go "Okay that sounds like selkie, maybe she's hot," but a frick
i'm so mad
Well, I tried offering 'happily married' exit ramps for PCs in WFRP, but most players do not at all trust women in that setting that seem amenable to their attention.
Absolutely, all the fricking time.
Friday ACKS campaign
>silver dragon mommy
>broken bird death knight lady; Elf Lord is kind of interested in doing a traditional chivalric thing
>sassy dark elf fixer
>nerdy wizard chick (and descendant of death knight)
>stoner elf princess; picked up by Dwarven Sporecaster
Saturday ACKS campaign
>scheming sexy noble prince; our Dark Elf fricks him on occasion
>sexy vampire queen
>vampire erotica writer
>succubus that got bound to the material plane with a bit of player souls; now recruited as a hench
>dancer naga temple priestess
>corporate-talking Stygian evil trade union leader woman
I should introduce more.
Not really. It makes sense in something like Exalted where you have canonical soulmates and shit and players with go along with it since they understand this premise.
In any other system I can never predict who the players will get attached to, so I just keep a big-ass collection of portraits, traits and names in case someone gets suddenly smitten by the random shopkeeper or hireling.
Any female npc is a potential love interest to my group, so if I don't want to deal with that shit then women just don't exist for a few sessions.
>janniy deletes on topic discussion but leaves /misc/ nonsense
And people wonder why this board's population has fallen by more than half while every other board's has risen.
Truly a sign of how far this board has fallen when such digits go unwitnessed.
Rarely intentionally unless it was a game where political and social maneuvering was part of the setting and system. Weirdly, male characters I never intended to be romanceable ended up becoming husbandos anyway in plenty of games.