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#they've helped me several times in my life and i'm indebted to them
skullchicken · 2 years
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The one time I played Four-Dimensional Love Chess in Shadowrun
I like giving love interests to my player's characters cause romance is cute and fun and helps flesh out their personalities. Usually I go about it fairly straightforwardly - this time I did not.
The Set-Up
So it, in a way, started when I began playing with my current shadowrun group. It was after the first mission, when we were still in the phase of establishing characters, their backstories, their current lifestyles.
The decker of the group, Prometheus, is a sort of Robin-Hood-style decker. Well, mostly he's the typical driven-by-revenge-stoic-guy, but in his backstory he explicitly has a line about looking out for the little guy.
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Symbolic Picture
The player himself was sort of new to roleplaying and to coax him into getting some experience with being in character, built on that during downtime, like:
Me: You said you live in an appartment building in Stuttgart, right? Your character is currently probably gaming, yeah?
Prometheus: Yeah he doesn't leave his room much except for missions.
Me: There's a knock on the door. It's the owner of the restaurant on the ground floor. You remember her because some days ago you helped her out when some gangers caused a fuzz in her establishment. You overheated their gear into sparking and spooked them out of the building.
Prometheus: Ah, okay, I open the door a smidge, but leave the chain on and go "Uh... hello?"
Me (as owner): "Hello. Thank you so much for helping out recently. I brought you some peking roasted duck." And she does indeed have a plastic bag with a container in it with her.
Prometheus: ... I open the door and accept with a thanks.
Me: "You know, you should really make sure you eat enough."
Prometheus: "Uh... sure."
Me: "You can come over anytime, if you like."
Prometheus: I nod and start closing the door. "Um. Thank you."
Me: There is a glint in her eyes. "How about next week? My daughter will be over. She is very smart."
Prometheus: "I'm sure she is."
Me: "Studies medicine. Very pretty."
Prometheus: "Great. Well, I gotta go, so..."
Me: "Oh, sorry for keeping you." And she leaves.
The Wind-Up
Over the next few missions (and in real life several months), a few things happen, as you can probably imagine. They save a decker from a rival gang named Duster, who was employed by the german branch of the mafia, for example (the game takes place in the ADL/the Allied German States). She has now become indebted to them, which is why she sends them some money every month. Every once in a while I also mention the restaurant owner. You could say that her trying to set the very reluctant Prometheus up with her always off-screen daughter becomes a bit of a running gag.
Then one day my group decides they'd like to go on a trip to Gran Canaria in their downtime. Shadowrunners need vacations, too!
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Now me, I don't know shit about Gran Canaria. But I do know some stuff about Teneriffa, since I went there on vacation once, which is close-by. So to save myself some GM-prep, I decide to relocate the group through railroading, like so:
The first day after they've arrived on Gran Canaria, they get a call by Duster, who informs them that the mafia has arrived in droves on the island and there's word of mouth that they're looking for them. Lucky for them, Duster has a friend who works on a resort in Teneriffa in her semester breaks and they just had a cancellation on short notice. Of course, Duster will foot the bill - she owes them a lot of money anyways, might as well pay it off this way.
You might see where this is going.
They did not.
The Bait
So they arrive in Teneriffa after a very stressful 24 hours of packing, traveling, bad news, packing, traveling - and Prometheus has insomnia as a disadvantage as is. And to top it off, Duster's friend, Xiang, who's welcoming them, informs them that since they arrive so very late, they can't really offer warm food.
Prometheus: Can I at least get drink?
Me: Yeah sure. Xiang, even though she has bags under her eyes as well (because of course they're short-staffed) mans the bar. And since you look just that pitiable and she's hungry herself, she offers to make you a ham-sandwich.
Prometheus gratefully accept - and so they get talking. Xiang, as it turns out, has a habit of diving into deep questions quite quickly (she's bad at small-talk, she admits) and soon they are talking about a bunch of different things. Their view of the world, altruism, capitalism etc. In short, it's what counts as flirting with people like them and they seem intrigued by each other.
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Probably didn't hurt that she looked like this.
So the days go by and they keep having cute little moments, like her offering to make him a herbal tea to help with insomnia ("scientifically proven that it helps. I study medicine, I wouldn't just plop down some placebo in front of you."), he gifts her a mug with a capybara on it from his trip to the animal park and finally, on the second-to-last day, they agree on going on a date at the local carnival.
The Snap
After some shenanigans with the rest of the group, e.g. getting lost in a mirror labyrinth or competitive snack-eating with the fighter/tank of the group, Xiang and Prometheus decide to retreat into the ferris wheel for some romantic alone time.
And then...
Xiang: "Hey, if you don't mind me asking: Your English is really good, but you have an accent I can't quite place..."
Prometheus: "Ah, yeah. I'm British by birth but lived most of my life in Germany."
Xiang: "You speak German, too? (Switching to German and laughing) Man, what have we been speaking English for all this time? I'm from Germany, too! Where do you live?"
It was around this time that the coin dropped.
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Group (OOC): ooooooooOOOOOooooh....
Prometheus: (flatly) "... Stuttgart..."
Xiang: "Really?! Oh my, that's great! That means we could meet up sometimes. I mean, I study in Dortmund right now, but my Mom owns a restaurant in Stuttgart!"
Group (OOC): OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Prometheus: "... really now..."
Xiang: "You know, it's a bit funny, since we're speaking of her. She's been trying to set me up with this rando from our apartment complex for months now. Maybe this will finally shut her up, haha."
Group (OOC):
OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Prometheus: "You know... I don't think it will."
Epilogue
This wouldn't be the last time I would foreshadow some stuff like that, but it was definitely the funniest because no-one saw it coming. Prometheus' player mentioned he had kinda forgotten about the restaurant owner until it came up again here.
By the way, they're still together in-game and a pretty cute couple at that. To end a long-ish story, here's Xiang's reaction when she also put two and two together on the ferris wheel.
"Oh my god, Mom is going to be insufferable.
She must never know."
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