In Character Relationships

In the 15 or so years I've been playing tabletop RPGs, my perspective on this has changed.

The thing about in character relationships is that it requires everyone at the table to be mature about it and ensure that the IC/OOC boundary isn't being blurred.  And I haven't always been in a group where that was a realistic expectation.

When I first started playing Dungeons & Dragons, I was the only woman at the table.  Any attempt by anyone to get their character into a relationship with mine would have been met with great suspicion by everyone there.  When the GM had an NPC from a small tribe propose to my character because it would be a way for him to get away from his fairly horrible home, suddenly the entire group felt the need to leave the room.

(My later livejournal whinge: "Guys, the GM is not trying to get into my pants.  Even if he was, I doubt he'd be attempting it through the medium of dispossessed swamp nomads.")

At that point, any attempt at an IC relationship would have looked far too much like an attempt to blur the IC/OOC boundary, so it simply didn't happen.

More recently, several important things have changed in the group dynamic:

• Two of the guys brought their girlfriends into the group, so I'm no longer the only woman (even though I am the only woman in the current subset of the group that I play in).
• While previously a lot of the group were single or in fairly casual relationships, most of us are now married or in long term relationships.  (I did, in fact, marry the GM from that first game.)
• We've all matured a lot.

Meaning we're now in a place where in character relationships are possible without it getting weird, as it's a lot easier for us to maintain the IC/OOC boundary.

I forget exactly what sequence of events lead to my character waking up in a hammock with one of the other female PCs.  Both our partners were also at the table, and nobody was going to read anything into this brief hammock-based relationship, the details of which were almost entirely glossed over.  It was a minor character detail that added a bit of flavour to things and a note of pathos when my character died.

It was a critical failure that lead to another party member inviting my character on a date.  I could have had her turn him down, but having known the player for over a decade, I felt confident we could play this without making it weird.  The resulting tale of obsession and ego was more creepy than romantic, and served to drive character development and generally make things more interesting.

So while at one time I would have said IC relationships were a hard no, I now feel that they can have a place providing everyone is able to deal with them sensibly.  Relationships done in a way that everyone at the table is happy with can make a game more interesting.

That said, I still can't see it happening often in the groups I play in, because it's just not the focus of most RPGs.  And the few where it is (e.g. Monsterhearts) aren't games I'm interested in playing.  Romance bores me (on occasions I've accidentally picked up a crime novel that's turned out to be a romantic crime novel, meaning my other half is treated to the sight of me yelling at my Kindle, "Stop shagging and solve the murder!")  If I'm going to roleplay a relationship, it's going to have to have a lot more to offer than mere romance.