 Howdy how's it going? My name's Davy Chappy and I hate everyone. I think that you're all gross creatures and any romantic interest that I might have is caught in the paradoxical snafu of wanting an equal in life and simultaneously thinking that I am the greatest and no one can get close to me. That said, acting out a romantic plot for my own characters when I play Dungeons and Dragons is something that I never have to worry about since I play D&D to fulfill my fantasies and like I said, I hate all of you. But that doesn't mean I haven't seen plenty of romantic plots play out at my table, both interplay between characters and experienced amongst the players, since everyone knows that if you kiss in the game, you kiss in real life. So today I want to help you duck your head and get through the social minefield of love and lust by talking about romantic relationships in RPGs. As always, keep in mind that the majority of this is just my opinion. So if you feel like I give love a bad name, feel free to play your games however you want. And really quick, I'd like to give a brief shout out to my new patrons this month. Slick sick. KJNinja. Build out 00. Thank you so much for pledging to my Patreon. It's because of you that I can continue to talk about races and classes without showing any signs of stopping. But with that out of the way, let's begin. So relationships are these weird concepts where you sacrifice some of your individuality to make another person happy, but not like how you do for most people, since this is for the purpose of tricking them into not leaving you alone forever, which makes it a pretty nebulous concept for me to try to wrap my head around. As far as I can gather, the ultimate goal is to find eternal happiness by matching your character traits with everybody else's until you find the match that's perfect for both of you and you can finally hang the DJ. That doesn't work for me of course, because the only trait that I see when someone approaches with romantic interest is the nerve of that bitch. But the point still stands that as we creep through space on a remarkably fragile green rock, the only power truly pushing us forward is love. So what do you do when you find love in the strangest of places? Well, there's two kinds of romance to watch out for. Fake theater romance and the real actual PDA that makes incels shatter their teeth. Fake romance is role-play romance. Your character has fallen in love with another character or an NPC and you're acting out with another player or a dungeon master. This is most often done when the players are dating out of game as well, but it happens plenty of times otherwise like when a character has a significant other as part of their background or when the bartender starts swinging his eyebrows around and you happen to catch them. In either case, the significance of this relationship is down to how well the player's role play it out and it can be dropped like a sack of heart shaped potatoes if the plot line isn't vibing with the group. So if you end up on the wrong side of a love triangle, have fun with it. Treat it as you would any other part of D&D where you can tell your DM if it's making you uncomfortable and then you could just move on to better things. If you are having fun with it, keep in mind the sensitivity of other players because some parties will fall in love with the water genasi stoner slash fire genasi himbo combo, but others might see it as a distraction from murdering goblins in graphic detail. Not everybody wants a romance and some people want it a whole lot, so find that middle ground where your group is able to wipe the crust off of their emotions for once. Now, the dark side of role-playing love interests is that some people have a hard time differentiating between what is on the board and what is secret innuendo meant to indicate genuine romantic interest. It's not an uncommon thing to be fair. Some people treat me like a 1000 IQ chess master after watching me play Nathaniel on Necro Hunt, and I still don't know what the horse's name is, and I refuse to learn. It's easy to pick up on character traits from our friends Adventure Sonas, and then start to see those traits more prominently in the person themselves. So, when Morgrog the half-orc starts hitting on the dragon, maybe that means that Martin is into bad dragons. The important thing to remember here is that you can talk to your DM if anything is making you uncomfortable. Even if it's all in the realm of make-believe, this game is meant to be an escape from stress, so if the bartender isn't taking no for an answer, you're within your right to tell the DM that you want it to stop. And if the DM doesn't listen, or if, in the worst-case scenario, the DM is the one perpetuating the kissy vases, then you need to just pack up and go home. The DM is in a position of power over the players by the inherent nature of having cosmic authority, so if they're not wielding that authority to the betterment of the group, abscond, egress, GTFO, and find a better cosmic lord, either they'll realize their mistake and do better next time, or they'll think that you're overly sensitive, in which case they can sit and spin. Never let anybody pressure you into a romantic subplot that's creepy and it's weird, and sometimes the romantic interest isn't subtextual, it's tub-sexual. It's no secret that boning makes the world go round. Long ago, I experimented with my videos by doing a couple of vlogs on my channel, and while the format didn't do too well, the topics were still good, and the romantic relationships vlog did the best out of all of them, which tells me one thing, y'all are some horny father markers, and some of you are willing to bring it to the D&D table. Now, I'm not about to go into the details of how to pull this type of scene off because there are probably children watching, but in the case that a scene like this does occur, I feel like it's important to state for your own well-being that it is not normal for a hand-holding scene to be described in any more detail than they go into a private space and the world fades to black. Unless the table has been prepped for that beforehand, and everyone has said they're cool with it, it is not okay to just subject your players through that. I bring this up because I have had players who didn't know where the bar was, due to playing with creepy DMs, so I'm saying it here for safety, because I want you to hear it from somebody in a position of authority, and nobody is more authoritative than a white guy on the internet. Anyway, now that my PSA is over, we should talk about the opposite side of the spectrum, which is actual relationships at the D&D table, as in real life non-roll played significant others, like the kind foretold in the scrolls. There's nothing inherently wrong with players bringing their dates to D&D, and I actually have a few couples in my game to no problem at all. Most people who have a relationship don't want to flaunt it, as much as the involuntary sidekicks will tell you differently. And when one person is the DM, favoritism isn't as common as you would think, especially in groups that consider D&D to be a cooperative story more than a competitive game. The true power move would be to have a D&D game consisting of five prolific players in a polyamorous relationship fighting their way across Faerun with the power of love, but I have yet to see the hexa-sexual seduction coven in action, so for now it's just a myth. However, I have seen a correlation between games that have a competitive mindset, and games where couples try to bend the rules to give each other an edge. When you make the game about winning something, it puts the fear of losing something into people's minds. And a quick way to minimize losing is to have someone on your side, so if you're a DM that's worried that the fight or druid combo is getting too strong, perhaps your game would do better by you taking a step back and reevaluating what parts of the game you emphasize. Of course, that's not possible to control as a player, and sometimes people are just dumb and they see competition where none exists, like the person who cuts in line at Windy's. And when the DM is unable or unwilling to put a stop to it, then you have to treat it the same way that you would with fake romance stories. Aggress the fuck out of there. Some people might tell you, oh, they're your friends, you should try to talk to them, but love makes you dumb, and you feel justified in being dumb when it means protecting your significant other, because blind faith doesn't take brainpower. So I'm not saying cut your friends off, but don't get in the middle of a romantic problem unless you're already sure you can fix it. Especially if the problem isn't just that there's a romance at all, but that the romance has gotten toxic, and the people in the relationship are fighting. With things like that, you've gotta be willing to say, not my circus, not my monkeys, and go find some other games for a while, because you're not a therapist, and you're definitely not being paid like one. Once things have cooled down, you can see what's left to work with, but love quarrels tend to rip the heart out of most D&D games, and being honest, your friendship is probably more important than dice, so prioritize keeping that friendship over keeping the campaign running. Overall, love is strange. It makes people do dumb stuff, and I refuse to take part in it because I am an elder being that has ascended past the need for want of touch. But for those of you who still pilot your meat machines, hoping to crash into somebody else's, the romantic side of D&D is nothing to be scared of. Just play it until you stop enjoying it, and then switch to something else once it no longer pleases you. It's your free time, spend it how you want it, and if somebody tries to come at you with their romantic troubles, you tell them that you're in a very committed relationship with the backlight of your phone. But that'll about do it. I hope you enjoyed this video. Be sure to leave a like, comment, subscribe, make sure you ring that bell, and check out all my social media in the description below, and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can love myself, so no one has to. But yeah, Dabby out.