Sup /tg/, I am currently DMing a homebrew (Medieval, closest parallel would be D&D) and I’m looking for some advice.
So I introduced a temporary DMPC to round out the parties skills (Namely in knowledge religion and Sense Motive). The result was an extremely charismatic druid who was once a Shrine Maiden from my setting’s !NotJapan. It was a given that I wanted this character (who is aligned CN) to uncover the party’s (of which 2 are evil, and the rest neutral) illicit deeds and plans to invade hell and release and/or depose a number of high-ranking demons. I wanted this to be the thing that eventually drove her away as she realized how insane the rest of these dudes were.
Now this backfired – Hard. When I introduced her friendly, charming, and crafty demeanor, two of the parties more quiet characters perked up to this and started to get loose lips. OOC they asked about her description and I explained that she was very attractive (a trait which I picked to fit with the super charisma to make the party open up) and I noticed that both the players started expressing a strange possessiveness over this NPC. Even more unfortunate the party took her straight with them to their meeting with one of the major (evil) players and got the NPC involved so deep that there’s no way the party could let her go without having a major loose end.
And now I stand, with a DMPC who is in too deep and of which two separate PC characters have set their sights on for a romantic relationship. So my question is this: how might I remedy this situation?
Do I live with the guilt of baiting two players and hope they lose interest?
Do I find a lame, if not probable, excuse to have her bail without a trace?
Or do I say fuck it and simply prepare for the horrendous amount of spaghetti sure to be falling from the heavens as two nerds try to woo an imaginary Japanese bombshell?
Also ITT, times which NPC romantic interest in your tabletops have worked or failed miserably.
>>43863005
try converting the neutrals to be a little Good?
>>43863005
Kill her. She's in deep as a loose end, show them what happens when they pursue this path; people they care about die. Live with your guilt and finish this, she is not a people but a plot device, one you use to fuck with your player's hearts. You hooked them, now follow through.
DMPC must DIE.
>>43863282
Very honestly was the option I was considering, but I was thinking it would be better to have her sink in more first for this way.
Although that can be a powerful lesson.
>>43863005
1. Make the plan backfire. Some demons catch wind of a plot to depose some of them, come investigate, and find your NPC there. They kidnap her thinking she's the Mastermind. CUe dungeon crawl/ investigation.
2. She gets called back by her superiors for something.
3. Replace with a much more aggressive Kangaroo lass. Not an anthro, just a talking kangaroo.
Have her kidnapped. The PCs definitely got interested in her, so they'll shake heaven and hell to rescue her. Use the opportunity to clear whatever she was involved with. Once she's safe, have her leave because her job is done.
>>43863314
>STRAYA, CUNT
>>43863005
Having two players compete for a love interest is a huge amount of fun. I mean if they're actually being creepy about it that's one thing, but I've had it before where my players will do the old Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck thing and compete in progressively more ridiculous events to win somebody's love, and it's great. Duels, horse races, increasingly outlandish and expensive nights out. And that's about the time where you have the love interest get kidnapped, and now the PCs team up to rescue her and oh my god it's so easy to DM and so hilarious to watch I love it.
Encourage that kind of shit.
>>43863005
wait why the fuck do you need to ensure knowledge religion is known
>>43863309
Execute it how you will, death is a great way to tear at their heartstrings. Sink those claws in deeper if you want, but make sure you know when to hit the switch to cause the damage you want to.
But if we're going for maximum hurt, go ahead and sink those in deeper, make them feel it.
It would also help if you can explain their level of involvement, both your players and the DMPC and also other NPCs. Can you give a rundown of notable events or roles she's participated in or acted as? This would help a little.
>>43863389
If we're cruising for maximum hurt it needs to happen after one of the PCs manage to win her heart over.
Not right after though. You need a couple of buffer sessions to make the impact stronger.
>>43863005
Let it play out and hope your players are mature enough to handle a romantic rivalry without letting it devolve into weirdness.
If you know for a fact they can't handle it, have the DMPC sabotage the party's plan spectacularly, see how much shit they'll put up with in the name of their waifu. When the game ultimately blows up it will be entirely your fault, but at least you'll have fun burning it to the ground.
Either way you're in too deep to just disappear her now so why not just enjoy the salt?
>>43863426
I like it, give them the treat for a few nibbles and then just throw it on the ground and stomp on it.
>>43863385
Just so happened that they're getting a bit into the nature of undead around, and aforementioned evil dude is a partially ascended lich (whose ritual was fucked by unknown things)
>>43863389
We'll call the first guy "Necro", and the second guy "Psion".
Necro and DMPC had been travelling together for a week or two before meeting the party. The player (and character) knew of her before the rest and had already grown attached. She saved his ass on his journey to the party and have been strictly friends since.
Psion saw her and fell in love. He's a fucking psycho paranoid dude, and he noticed how she managed to so easily manipulate the rest of the party and I think the character pulled a half-chub.
Since they've been together, she has managed to leak a steady stream of extra info about what they're getting into and generally been useful to them. Specifically she has:
Calmed a few nasty encounters by using her instrument companion (a wind chime).
Convinced a few greedy merchants to be a bit more lenient with information.
Defused a sticky situation in another group supposedly meddling in the party's magic items.
I'm also attempting to play her as her character would allow, so she's somewhat teasing and leading the two on for extra info on the parties big plans.
>>43863512
You've got a good setup for capitalizing on the character/player's investment, however you choose to execute it. Sounds like you know what you're doing, too.
>>43863005
Kill them Johnny. Kill them all.
Have her tell either Necro or Psionics that she's leaving because the party is a bunch of evil cunts.
>>43863429
>>43863426
>>43863389
>>43863655
Thanks for the suggestions, seriously. Probably leaning towards the "Let them fight" followed by a brutal kidnapping/possible murder if they continue to be evil dickwads.
Now, does anyone have a clue about how to realistically RP as a maiden falling in love?
>>43864011
Depends on her character, but practice makes perfect and practice means heading to an ERP forum.
>>43864011
I happen to be an expert on this topic.
The secret is to come up with little signs of affection to serve as indicators to the players or characters as to how she feels and what's on her mind. Make them subtle enough to be overlooked at first and consistent enough that their absence is jarring. Make note of them, always in passing. Let them think whatever they want to think, and if they push things, have her respond however you feel is appropriate, be it fading to black or something else entirely.
In short, make them work for it, but let them know she cares, if she does.
Correct me if i'm not following properly OP but didn't you say she's been spying on them/conning them from the start? And she's like, the only non-evil one? Why would she have genuine romantic interest for any of these people if they're all edgelords?
>>43864174
The two which have a romantic interest in her are not the ringleaders of the evil half of the party. Psion is secretly aware of the parties goal, and Necro is too new, and she's been with him for awhile.
So she's not gotten genuine feelings yet, but they aren't evil enough to be instantly disqualified. However, that asshole archer and crazy gnome and dwarf....
>>43863512
>leaking steady stream of info about what they're getting into
>Party plans to invade hell
Go straight to the point. Accelerate/accentuate their plans by having some demon straight-up abduct/kill her and drag her down to hell. Alternately, go all out NTR if it suits you and have her WALK into hell and give away the info, and make them either hate her or hate the demon she's working for. Hell hath no fury like a PC scorned.
>>43865111
There's asshole DMs,
Then there's DMs who purposefully attempt to NTR their players.
>>43863332
STREWTH
Help me /tg/
I keep unintentionally introducing my waifus as NPCs in my campaign and I think my players are starting to notice.
How do I stop myself from sinking any deeper into this pit of despair and spaghetti?
>>43865231
You don't even know.
The party wizard fell in love with a long-haired blonde bard. The party brought her along on an assault against a psionic boss several times the party's level that was known for his cruelty. She got hit with save-or-die and turned into a statue of soap, just before the party's fighter got hit with the same power and almost got turned into a pillar of salt.
Did he cry and moan? No. He upped his game, beat the psionic into a fucking pulp, and then threw himself into meatgrinder of a continental war to capture another psionic capable of turning her back.
Another character was a dual-wielding barbarian who fell in love with a female warrior who shared the same fighting style as him. When she was mind-controlled by a technomagic cult that was planning to spellnuke the continent from orbit to generate enough death to fuel their necromantic seed ship, he delved through an active volcano to find their teleporter, gasped his way through the vacuum of space with an axe and a grappling hook to breach their security, and led an assault on their power nexus... only to find the woman he had loved waiting to kill him. He had to fight against her for several long minutes, carefully that let the rest of the party fire the spellnuke at the moon instead of the planet thus slaying the banished primordial dragon that was granting the cult their power and freeing the woman from mind-control.
I'm not denying that I'm an asshole. However, there was always a choice; beta through it crying about me being an asshole, or man the fuck up and be the hero she needs you to be. My players chose the second option.
>>43867416
M8 that's not NTR, that's just making the characters go to great lengths and epic adventures to defend their loves. Those are good plot hooks that cultivate character growth through healthy drama, and don't have the waifus betraying the PCs on their own volition.
You do know what NTR means right? Because it is a well established fact that there is no way to inflict that on your players in any conceivably positive way.
>>43863005
Make her a slut.
>>43866937
so bubbly
>>43863005
Do they like her and want to have her become a major character? Indulge them, sick ass /tg/ memes aside, let them havefun.
>>43867385
>Waifus
>Plural
Stop.
>>43865111
Triple 1 of justice. You know what you must do OP.
>>43867416
That's not really NTR, is it?
>>43863005
Let them fight. This is probably the most roleplaying your PCs are going to ever do, so enjoy it! Now they're invested in the game, keep it going and see where it takes 'em. It'd be interesting to see who wins the girl in the end, but play it out for maximum drama.
>>43863005
You'll be surprised, but I think at least one DM has run various players through variants of encounters with the same potential waifus. You know, the guy talking about the quintet girls.
>>43863005
Killing off everyone the PCs take an interest in is lame and just teaches them not to invest in NPCs. Keep her alive; get her kidnapped, have her have issues with her religious duties, have her form a magical barrier somewhere she needs to maintain and make that the PC's base-town, whatever. Just don't kill her off. Killing NPCs the party likes is the GM version of edgelord shit.
>>43863005
Have her have second thoughts about the whole dealing with upper level demons, and have the party either kill her or have her working against them.
DMPCs are there to be the "friends that die" nothing more. Just make sure that they have no other option than to kill her or their plot gets out, and they will weep as they murder her.
Let her be a loose end, let them kill her. And don't ever introduce a DMPC that you aren't prepared to do exactly that with.
Also in almost all cases DMPCs are a monstrosity, that serves little purpose other than heavy railroading.
>>43869290
Jesus, man. Just let them fuck her instead. Romance is the most fun part of an RPG, and makes for an intriguing sub-plot if done right.
>>43868984
Yeah, it's a lot easier and it's interesting to see how PCs respond each time.
>>43869312
Three neckbeards sitting around a table talking about how they seduce a super hot magic-girl.
I have better things to do on a thursday evening than watch that.
>>43869319
This is mainly why I run roll20 games. Easier to sustain the illusion. But yeah, at the tabletop it could be really awkward. Still fun, though.
>The result was an extremely charismatic druid who was once a Shrine Maiden from my setting’s !NotJapan.
The first character this reminded me of was Stella Glow's Sakuya, so you might find good reference material regarding your character's romance.
>>43866937
>>43867808
>>43863332
>>43863314
How about on the next morning just DM like she was a kangaroo the whole time?
>You party is awoken by the last guy on watch.
>It's a rather foggy morning, but even still, Necro and Psion can't help but notice how sexy DMPC's ears are.
>"Her ears?"
>Yes, her ears. As you look closer you're also enticed by the ruddy orange color of her fur-
>"What the fuck?"
>And the seductive way her legs bend are truly a lovely sight.
>It almost makes you want to put a little joey in her adorable pouch.
Just roll with it
If they say something cringe-worthy punish them trough her
OP here after a session to give an update.
So a small group of bandits came by (and were very much over their heads) but managed to grab the DMPC girl before they started to get killed. Obviously Necro and Psion were gung-ho for getting her back, and fruitless search later they were getting desperate. When they checked into the local inn they found a note addressed to “Several Adventurers Looking for a Friend” and listed inside was a ransom location demanding 50g for her safe return (a rather shallow sum for the party’s capacity).
Now instead of staging a daring rescue or paying the ransom Necro and Psion went to ransom site alone and placed two separate notes (Necro went first, and Psion read Necro’s before writing his note). Necro’s Note read: “I’ll front 60g and you should tell her that [Necro Name] fronted the cost since he felt guilty about letting her out of his sight”.
Now Psion couldn’t stand to be outdone, so he took out another parchment and wrote “Disregard Necro’s note, I [Psion Name] will pay 75g for her safe return if you tell her that I paid and that Necro didn’t lift a damn finger”.
The next morning the group found another note addressed to them on the town’s wanted board and it expressed the bandits confusion and demanded one straight note with ransom attached by noon or else she’ll be killed. Psion then explained to Necro that he placed a larger sum for her return after Necro had gone to the rendezvous. This caused a dispute, in the middle of town, where two adventurers were yelling out random (relatively large) sums of money.
Eventually the bandit head found 275g and a parchment paper (front and back) listing various demands and requests for what to tell his prisoner. He ripped up the paper, lead the DMPC in the clearing, told her which way town was and fucked off with nearly 5 times the requested gold.
I think this may be the start of a glorious adventure.
Heh.
That's pretty good.
>>43871637
Hahahahaha
Even the bandit leader didn't want nothing to do with that shit. Keep us updated OP.
>>43863314
>3. Replace with a much more aggressive Kangaroo lass. Not an anthro, just a talking kangaroo.
Wait. what?
>>43871637
>He ripped up the paper, lead the DMPC in the clearing, told her which way town was and fucked off with nearly 5 times the requested gold.
For some reason I'm imagining this guy as a recurring villain now. He's just trying to do his petty banditry but keeps running into the PCs and accidentally involving himself in their crazy antics, leading him to doing damage control to try and get as far away from these fucks as possible. And of course failing and running into them again.
>>43871637
Yes! That what I wanted to see!
>>43872362
You have an excellent ability to guess.
The party once participated in a large scale bandit hunt and this dude was among the 3 survivors. He's been slowly building his power and hunting down those who stopped his original operation.
He is a recurring villain who is going to try his damnedest to make the party miserable while knowing full-well that he can't lay a finger on them in full combat.
>>43872686
Those are the best kind. The kind that manipulate guards and townfolks into believing the PCs are mass murderers (ain't they anyway) or spreading rumors about an ancient treasure in a ruin filled with traps (placed by yours truely). Double fun when they leave a call sign behind, like say a hastily engraved gryphyn on the wall, and its only revealed much later he was behind it all.
