How do you guys role-play romance?

TheRussianassassin

I hear you're something of a scientist
I am curious about this since there are all types of romance rps. The most common way is for muse B to meet muse A and do something either that be stop a bad guy or something to make it to the climax somehow. Along the way they find out they have feelings for each other whether it be a straight relationship or a homosexual one, like the movies they both get a happy ending with a wand tap. But there is sometimes outside forces that keeps the two apart like in Game of Thrones where the world is a very hot political climate and people are constantly trying to gut each other to get ahead. Or maybe it is like the Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies where all reason and logic disappears. What I wanna know is how do you people role-play romance in a story? Do you like everything to be normal and perfect like a Cinderella story? No shame in admitting that. I do that a lot in my stories with other people but often I find it become stale so now I like challenges in the relationship and maybe the two demise each other because of class or wealth.
 
Hi Russ, It's probably fair to say that everyone has a favorite flavor of romance, but I think more complex relationships end up being more rewarding to write and reward than simple ones. I like "missing the timing" is a very interesting way to balance the plot progression with character development. I think characters that have obvious interest and attraction but feel compelled to delay their relationship because they have responsibilities and they know they can't afford to be distracted. So like you said, external factors but by way of Arwen and Aragorn. I think it would also be interesting if two characters normally wouldn't be interested in each other but due to constrained circumstances such as imprisonment or while trapped together under siege circumstances find comfort in each other. (Hunger Games) It makes for an especially interesting question when that constraint is lifted. Do the characters pursue their relationship? Do they both admit it was enjoyable while it lasted but now they part ways? Or does one inadvertently fall for the other, even though they both knew going into it that it was only supposed to be something superficial? Oftentimes I like contrasting two sets of relationships in the same story, one idyllic and the other one complicated.

TLDR;
Challenges in relationships are more fun to write and have better cathartic payoffs than Cinderella stories.
 
If a roleplay is primarily focused on romance then I'd like for there to be more challenges throughout the relationship, but if romance is secondary to the plot then I have no preference. My characters tend to lend themselves to "normal" (i.e. non-toxic) relationships, but I don't actually have a preference one way or the other. To me the most determining factor in romances is chemistry so I tend to focus on how my and my partner's characters would interact before deciding how their relationship will play out within the RP. Is it Foe Yay? Friends to lovers? Love triangle? Etc.
 
Romance/shipping is usually an afterthought for me, mainly because I prefer to let any chemistry between characters develop naturally in the RP and then, if the romantic chemistry is there, let it take its course within the context of the RP.

Once upon a time, on another site, I and another player joined a Kingdom Hearts RP as two novice Keyblade wielders. Per the main plot of the RP, each of our characters ended up in Traverse Town following a Heartless attack in each of their respective worlds. The other player’s character (Muse A) had a bit more experience with the Keyblades and whatnot than my character (Muse B), who knew next to nothing and was still worried sick about the state of his own world.

The first sign of potential chemistry between Muses A and B came about when the GM’s character (Muse C) started going into a whole infodump of the main plot, including a big spiel involving Sora, Riku, Xehanort, etc. Muse B had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and nearly walked out on the group altogether, but Muse A realized how Muse B was feeling and convinced him to stay. The thought of romance still hadn’t occurred to me yet, but the way Muse A was able to understand Muse B’s feelings (without actually knowing the full details of his situation) and then calm him down when no one else could definitely hinted at the beginnings of a possible connection between them.

Then the first fight scene began. Muse A, who was primarily a mage, fought more from a distance, while Muse B, a swordsman who didn’t stand a chance in a head-on confrontation with the enemy at the time, focused instead on protecting the group’s two mages (Muse A and another mage character) and providing support for them, including taking out the nearby lights to hide them from the enemy. Eventually the group had to fall back, so Muse B again helped the mages to reach the inn where they had all been told to take shelter. As Muse A was thanking Muse B for the help, she said the line that first led me to see the potential for a much deeper connection between the characters:

“Oh, and thank you for protecting me. You’re the very warrior I thought you were and I'm glad I'll be able to work with.”

This compliment was unexpected on my end, but it resonated really well with Muse B. At the time, Muse B had recently shaken off a toxic ends-justify-the-means mentality that had led him to do some very morally questionable things, so for Muse A to openly state that she had always seen Muse B as a good person from the very beginning was a really positive influence on him and on his self-esteem.

The RP itself eventually died out for external reasons beyond our control, but Muse A’s player and I liked the chemistry between Muses A and B so much that we eventually branched out into 1x1 co-ops featuring the two and in subsequent remakes of the original RP, including talks of possible shipping scenarios. Among the most notable of these was a remake of a “beta test” I had done with a new player to help them with their plans for a new future Keyblade wielder (Muse D). In the original beta test (in which Muse A was not present), Muse D had brutally murdered several guards and priests in a temple while trying to free her father from imprisonment there, and that among other things led Muse B (who was already royally pissed off at Muse D for mistreating Riku earlier) to come dangerously close to giving in to darkness altogether just to stop Muse D. All of this would’ve spelled certain doom for the group dynamic and the main plot, so I called in Muse A’s player to help us retry the beta under practically identical conditions (even copy-pasting most of my and Muse D’s posts from the original beta) and see if Muse A’s presence could provide the balance needed to avert the disastrous breakdown of the original beta. Sure enough, Muse A successfully managed to prevent Muse B from going completely off the rails, whether by directly calming him down during their confrontation of Muse D, by discreetly turning his focus away from the aftermath of the mass murder, or simply by being there to give Muse B a more positive outlet for his emotions (Muse A was horrified to the point of tears, and Muse B stopping to comfort her was a big help in snapping him out of his blind rage mode at the time).
 
Last edited:
I always go into things knowing romance will happen (and that's my hope as it's my fave), but BOY do I like to make my partner work for it lol.

Plot always comes first, period. I'm not in it for the smut, I'm in it for those little moments that slowly turn into big moments, and then that makes them all the more suceptible to all the plotline ANGST.

Yes... I'm terrible to my characters, and totally fine with unhappy endings >.>
 
I think the best romances in a roleplay are ones that build over time. They can be planned or unplanned but starting them off from the very beginning makes it so much more satisfying when you FINALLY get there. Obviously discussing and planning with the other person is KEY- that way you both are in on it and can support one another. Also really important is making sure the other person is comfortable with what you plan.

For example, I was doing a HP roleplay with a friend. We made sure FIRST that we knew what the other was comfortable with writing beforehand, and if that ever changed, we made sure to tell the other person. We had our characters start off not even knowing one another, so when they finally got together after a lot of drama went down (as it does in the Wizarding world in the 1980's), it was amazing and so worth it! And then playing the highs and lows in the relationship is the next step, which can honestly be just as fun! No character is perfect and no relationship is perfect, so playing how whatever is happening on the outside of the story (in this case, it was werewolves and Voldemort and Death Eaters and homophobia and stigmas) affects how that relationship goes from the start.
 
How it begins doesn't matter much to me. Some people I know met, hit it off immediately, got married after a few months, and have been happy ever since. My relationship took almost 2 years to kick off.
Instead, I focus on a different plot point and use a relationship to showcase who the characters are, and how the drama is affecting them.

I am a big fan of troubled relationships, but not in the traditional sense; I'll explain.
Romance and conflict don't go together, even if it just starts from two people that start off hating each other who change their mind later. This isn't a healthy relationship foundation, most of these typically fail, and stories of pure tragedy just aren't fufilling, so I don't typically do this.
If I do, it's because these romances are often not life-long, just like most of the adversarial marriages I've seen have ended in divorce.

Instead, I like to see the two people try and overcome some challenge that either keeps them apart, or threatens their shared life. This can definitely stress their relationship, and it makes a good story when it does. In situations where it feels like the world is forcing two people apart, maybe, they just feel resigned to fate and want to give up, for whatever reason, or put things on hold. Maybe they perservere instead, and give the finger to what the world wants.
The relationship dynamic after that is extremely different, and can actually make for some really sweet moments where people reconcile after mistakes, showcase their loyalty (or lack thereof) to each other, or the lengths people will go to re-claim what they lost.

The latter is to be a major theme in a book series I want to complete one day.
 
Slow burn is the only way I like to go, added with chemistry, and a general vibe, if they work, they work, if they don't they don't have to be more than what they are. I don't go into a Rp with a set "plan" if a Mun comes up to me and wants to ship Muses, I never say no, I say, let's see where it goes. Give the Muses a chance at least, we can plan things, but if they don't flow together right, then it's a waste of time trying to fit them into a mold, even if the end-game is romance. So, it depends but I keep it realistic at least.
 
Back
Top