Romance

A romance follows the ebb and flow of your intimate relationships. Romances take place during narration, and can extend out across many sessions of game play. There are rewards for being involved in a romance, but also risks. Once involved in a romance, you will need to track its progress on a separate romance sheet. You may choose to begin play with up to three relationships with denizens you create, however the referee will control those denizens during play and has input on the obstacles.

Meeting

Romances happen across a series of meetings. A meeting may include sexual contact but doesn't necessarily have to. Starting a meeting requires that you be in the same location as those you intend to invite, and that no one else is present. Meetings are most common between two characters, but any number of characters may be invited. Inviting others ('calling a meeting') costs you 1 wits. If anyone rejects the invitation there is no meeting. If all accept then you all attempt a heart check (called a flirt), and note your success or failure margin for the outcome below. A meeting counts as a project if you are in a crisis. The referee has final say on whether a denizen will accept an invitation or not, but as a rule of thumb a reaction bonus usually equates to participation, and anything else results rejection.

Flirting

Look at the outcomes for the flirt checks of all participants. If any check fails, the meeting ends prematurely due to an interruption. If all checks succeed the meeting is considered a success and all participants are happy. Just exactly what success means can be defined or left vague according to player desires. Note that having a successful meeting is a goal, which grants you +1 AP the first time you achieve the goal and recovery of wits on every subsequent success. The participant with the highest success margin is in control of the meeting, and may choose if it initiates a new romance or grows an existing one.

Creating a New Romance

If you win control of the meeting, you may choose to create a new romance if one doesn't already exist for the participants. Starting a romance is optional. You give the romance a name from of each participant, and optionally a name made of components of the participant's names. So if it was Bob and Jenny in the meeting the romance might be called Bob/Jenny (Benny) or Jenny/Bob (Job). If Doug was included too the romance might be named Bob/Doug/Jenny (Bugny), and so on. The romance sheet then has a space to list the participants, and the introduction is a brief description of how the participants first met one another. Then there is space for obstacles and tragedies.

Obstacle

A romance must have a minimum of three obstacles, but may have more. Each participant selects or rolls for an obstacle, and if there are only two participants the other players select the third. Faults may add extra obstacles, and even more obstacles may be added during play. After a successful meeting you may eliminate one obstacle, so long as its listed elimination condition is also met.

1. Apathetic Attitude: Cleared when all participants have quit the romance, suffered a tragedy, and then rejoined it.
2. Cheating hearts: Cleared after all participants reject 3 other invitations in a row.
3. Contradictory promise: Cleared when all participants lose 2 dots of loyalty.
4. Deal breaker: Cleared after all participants eliminate a fault.
5. Influential rival: Cleared when any participant beats the rival to a contested goal 3 times in a row.
6. Socially unacceptable: Cleared when all participants have a Prestigious Reputation.

Interruption

If one or both checks fail the meeting is interrupted. If interference occurs the interruption is upgraded to a tragedy instead. The referee may select an appropriate interruption, roll randomly,or create a unique interruption. Consequences for the failure margin depend on the interruption. If you fail you must suffer at least half the consequence (rounding up) on your own, but successful partners may choose to take up to half of your consequences (rounding down) if they choose to. If everyone fails, then everyone suffers their own consequences.

1. Embarrassing situation: Lose wits equal to the failure margin.
2. Inconvenient illness: You and individuals equal to your failure margin catch a disease. If the disease is dangerous each person infected counts as two.
3. Mood shift: Lose focus equal to the failure margin. If you don't have enough focus you quit the romance.
4. New arrival: Add an influential rival to the romance, participants will reject meetings from you and accept meeting from the rival equal to the failure margin.
5. Overlooked loss: Lose a tier 0 asset if the failure margin is 1-2, a tier 1 asset if the margin is 3-5, or two tier 1 assets if the margin is 6-9.
6. Sudden danger: Lose hits equal to the failure margin.

Tragedy

A tragedy is a significant unfortunate event results from the participants' romance or their foes' reactions to it. A tragedy may have multiple consequences such as injuries or deaths, the loss of assets, or the addition of new obstacles to the romance. A tragedy may force checks, complications, or encounters to mitigate the results. When a tragedy occurs, you negotiate the effects with the referee. Other players are encouraged to suggest complications and effects. The optional table below may be used either directly or for inspiration:

1. Bitter betrayal: The betrayer is forced to quit the romance, and may only accept meeting invitations again after joining a different romance. Once all participants have become a betrayer and been betrayed this tragedy is resolved.
2. Dire disappearance: A participating denizen (or close ally denizen) is kidnapped or lost. Participants lose either all hits or all wits, whichever is larger. Once the missing denizen is found this tragedy is resolved.
3. Falling fortune: Participants are strapped and lose all equipment assets. Allies are also strapped from being caught in the crossfire. Once you regain equal value worth of assets this tragedy is resolved.
4. Public shame: Participants continuously lose any positive reputation assets and gain a reaction penalty. Once all participants lose a Prestigious Reputation this tragedy is resolved and the effects end.
5. Senseless death: A personality is killed or commits suicide. You will reject all meetings until after a respite. An investigation is required to determine whether the death was malicious, an accident, or suicide. Once the investigation is solved the tragedy is resolved.
6. Trying revelation: A new obstacle is added to the romance, but it costs the romance a devotion. If the romance has no devotion to lose then all participants quit.

Union

Once you have a total of five devotions the next successful meeting will upgrade the romance to a union. A devotion is either a resolved tragedy or a cleared obstacle. Note that devotions may be lost, so you may have to earn more than five. After that last meeting, all participants in the romance gain a Lasting Union asset and a Legacy. A lasting union only allows meetings within the union, but participants in the union may share focus with each other. All participants of other romances are forced to quit, and any devotion in those romances is lost. A union asset may be lost, most often when a participant dies or commits a particularly bitter betrayal. If a union is lost so is all devotion in the romance (if even still applicable) and you may start new romances normally. Note that even if the union is lost any legacy remains.

Quitting

Not every romance is forever. After any meeting where you have control you may quit. Some events may force you to quit a romance without requiring a meeting. Once you quit you hand over the romance sheet to any remaining participant, who has the option of either taking it or quitting too. If all participants quit the romance is eliminated without further effect. However if the participant holds on to the sheet the romance continues without your participation. The participant suffers a penalty (-2) on any check against you, but may also redouble any check against you. If you fail a flirt for another meeting then the holder may give you interference at the cost of a devotion from the romance. If there is no devotion to lose the sheet is eliminated as though all participants had quit. If you accept a meeting within the romance you become a normal participant again and regain possession of the romance sheet.

See Also

• Romance Sheet
• Narration
• Dilemma
• Expedition
• Investigation

Relevant Abilities and Faults

• Seduce
• Lovelorn

Version 2.5.1
©2014 Frameworks Games

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