Love & Romance in and out of Amber Diceless

[Ian Sturrock]

Hi folks,

First-time poster, long-time Amber player.    I first ran an Amber game around 20 years ago, and though I don't get to play as often as I might like, it remains my favourite RPG.

These days, as well as being a gamer and game designer, I'm an academic, studying games and gamers, among other things. I'm currently researching love and romance in tabletop RPGs, both in terms of game mechanics and in actual play.

I'm interested to hear people's experiences of love & romance in Amber games, including any experiences of relationships that bled out of the game and into the physical world of the players. I may end up writing about those experiences, elsewhere, but if I do, I won't identify anyone by name.

[Arref]

I'm interested to hear people's experiences of love & romance in Amber games, including any experiences of relationships that bled out of the game and into the physical world of the players. I may end up writing about those experiences, elsewhere, but if I do, I won't identify anyone by name.

Would this be the entire range of romance inside the genre or would it be limited to 'boy meets girl' in RPG and they collaborate on intense story with romance qualities?

Are you favoring stories where the Characters inspired the Players to hook up?

[Ian Sturrock]

The entire range of romance, and the entire range of love, too, I guess. Certainly not limited to boy meets girl: non-heteronormative and/or ethically non-monogamous would both be interesting.

And, certainly I'd be interested in portrayals of PCs falling in love with NPCs.

[RPGPundit]

I think pretty well every Amber campaign I've ever run featured romance, at levels that have never been equaled in any of my normal campaigns.  

In my last campaign, it featured a loyal retainer falling in love with her lord (the PC), an Amberite PC ending up snogging Coral, not knowing she was a daughter of Oberon, a case of lost love for one PC with a shadow-scientist who turned out to be working for an organization of mortals that spanned across dozens if not hundreds of alternate-earths with the express plan of studying and developing combat safeguards against "alien" Amberites, and a couple of others I'm sure I've missed.

Not to mention all kinds of NPC romances.

RPGPundit

[Taewakan]

I once played in an Amber game based upon the Dating Game.
It was wild.
Imagine a dozen (rather than the three in the original version) women from different shadows vying for your affection.
Now imagine having to fight their champions to get a chance to date them.
My PC went through everything from dinner and dance to seduction of an assassin in the dark.
He was a LoC with Adv SS.
Bioluminescence can be very neat.

Good luck!