Steve Arnott
speaker
315 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2024
last heard Sep 2024
Steve Arnott’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And the expectation that you're setting is the GM, right? So I would personally never run anything that was contingent on romance, whether that is a romance RPG or whether that's even just I need someone to be willing to romance this NPC in order to move this piece of the story forward.
I would never do that as a GM unless I had had a conversation with my players to know that they were comfortable with that. And I think as the GM, it's your responsibility to set the expectation of what possibly is coming down the pike as far as you're able to. Obviously, some of these things, especially the PC on PC romance, often develops organically. But...
gm to pc stuff should or npc to pc stuff should always be done more intentionally because that is the responsibility of the person shaping the game yeah absolutely but but that that said that we're talking a lot about romance being like a side part of a game where that's not the main thing but there are games where romance and things is the main draw of it like there's games like
I think that's why a lot of people, even in RPGs that aren't intentionally about anything romantic, I think that's why a lot of times these things do happen and a lot of people do enjoy that. It's a...
It's an interesting way to explore humanity and all the facets of humanity and people that are really into their characters and they're really into RP with their characters, even in games like D&D, where that's definitely not the focus of most D&D campaigns or sessions. Yeah. Those are the kind of people that are going to gravitate towards games like that.
They're also the kind of people for whom a romantic subplot is likely to develop organically within those games. And so it's just important to know that about the people that you're playing with.
I mean... It's almost like that classic thing of, like, if you're trying to solve a puzzle in a TTRPG, and it's like, my character's probably smart enough to solve this, but I'm not smart enough to solve this, so I'm getting stuck.
It can feel kind of like that in romance of, like, oh, my character would probably be handling this really naturally and in a suave way, but I'm feeling really awkward about this, and therefore... It's getting a bit stilted. So you can run into that sometimes. And I think that metagaming is such a bad word, so to speak, in TTRPGs. But I think that's the beauty of them, right?
Is that you can pull out and say, hey, actually, this is what happens. And, you know, ask questions, ask advice, explain an intention, that kind of thing. Use metagaming to your advantage when you're in a situation like that, because it's not cheating, right? It's not cheating to do that. It's just...
creating the encounter that people want to create and not feeling like you have to attach your performance in that encounter to your own ability to flirt effectively or whatever if your character is lifting a boulder the player doesn't have to physically lift a boulder you know it's yeah you say my player my character has a strength of 17 he can lift the boulder yeah you know
And it's the same thing with romance. You've got to be able to separate yourself from that. And I think people do tend to... I don't think you're alone in that. I think a lot of people tend to attach those actions to their own perception of or ability to perform those actions and to flirt well and stuff like that. And that's just not... That's not the reality of it. And that's not the fun of it.
If I wanted to just...
flirt with people as myself i'd just go flirt with people as myself the point the point of it is to explore that character and what that character is experiencing and so sometimes quote unquote metagaming can help with that because it's clarifying intentions and it's creating opportunity for things to happen that might not otherwise be organically possible in rp with me as a player
Yes.
You need the ability to do that in the moment. Not just between sessions, but in the moment. So my campaign that I'm running, I actually have one player that I have a code word with because they have a few things that they're uncomfortable with in the romance area and in other areas. And we developed code word. And I said, if at any point you say this code word,
I – or it's actually – no, I'm not going to be specific about it just in case people are listening. But if at any point you say this code word, I, as the DM, know that I need to redirect the situation. I need to interrupt. I need to redirect. And then you and I can catch up afterward and I can figure out exactly what it was that – scratched, that hit things wrong.
And if that sounds like a lot of work, if you're a GM that's like, God, I just don't want to have to create code words with everyone. That's the job. You have to be ruthlessly committed to the comfort of every single one of your players. And if that's not you, that's fine. Just don't include any of this. Don't include any of it.
Err on the side, like Jess said, of not doing any of it because that's the safer choice. Yeah.
With my horror games. And that can be a lot to manage. It absolutely can. And I only have a code word with that one player. We have a phrase as a group that we can use and that's included in the Lines of Vale spreadsheet and in the form that they fill out, so they all know that.
I developed it with this one player because I knew that there were some things that they were uncomfortable with and I got the sense that they weren't going to be comfortable standing up for those boundaries. Yeah.
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