How To Do D&D Romance Right (& Wrong)
Fantasy roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons are traditionally designed to tell stories of magic, exploration, combat, and adventure, but can easily be tweaked to tell tales of romance, passionate rendezvouses, and star-crossed lovers. A DM trying to run an RPG campaign with romance should always be mindful of what the players in their group are and aren't comfortable with. Indeed, the best romance-focused tabletop RPG campaigns frequently de-emphasize competition and dice-rolling in favor of collaborative storytelling, high-stakes decisions, and consent-based negotiation between players and DMs.
Early roleplaying games like Dungeon & Dragons took the tactical combat rules of war-games and used them to simulate the trials and tribulations of dungeon-crawling fantasy adventurers modeled after the roguish protagonists of classic sword-and-sorcery tales – unscrupulous heroes such as Conan the Barbarian, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, and Jirel of Joiry who braved fearful underworlds, spilled the blood of their enemies, and occasionally fell in love with dangerous beauties. Early attempts at depicting romance in games like D&D sometimes trended towards the crass and juvenile (as depicted in the stereotype of the snickering tabletop gamer rolling dice to see if their PC can seduce the barmaid). At the same time, these early RPGs were cauldrons of imagination that empowered both players and GMs to collaboratively tell RPG stories of community, togetherness, friendship, love, and heartbreak.
Related: Other D&D Literary Inspirations That Aren’t Lord Of The Rings or Conan
Most of the rules in the 5th edition of Dungeon & Dragons are centered around simulating combat, exploration, and the casting of magic spells. That said,
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