Romance and Relationships in Games

It always depends on the kind of game, to be honest. If it's mostly about combat and dungeoncrawling, nah. If it's more slice-of-life, or something like V:tM where such things can really fuel the story forward, whether by shining a light on a character's personality, propelling the action forward or giving enemies a target, by all means.

I've only really bothered back in my teenage years, when The Book of Unlawful Carnal Knowledge was circulating online as a Notebook/Word file. Besides being teenagers, my group was also curious to see how applying such "rules" would impact romance and, more importantly, sex, at a time when, new to the RPG hobby, we enjoyed thinking how real world stuff would be translated as D&d rules. I'm glad we took a rather light-hearted approach to it, with the rogue or bard PC successfully Charisma check-ing to "seduce" an NPC at a brothel, then needing to roll a Dexterity check (open to interpretation, some players proclaimed it was about positions and flexibility, while others joked it was about whether he could "fit the key into the keyhole") and a Constitution check for bedroom endurance. Fittingly enough, the Con dice was a 19 and the Dex a natural 1, so we burst out laughing about how the PC fumbled their way around all night.

That said, I've never pushed for it, but wouldn't be against it if it came up either. Especially since I'm usually the DM, so it's rewarding to see players engage with the world and get invested in it (and give me something to fiddle around for future hooks, mishaps and adventures). My only pet peeve that I'm quite a grognard about is what I call "Bioware romance" a.k.a. feeling like the whole romance angle is forced and hamfisted instead of something that happens in a more organic way.

As a GM, I typically let the players take the lead on matters of romance, but it's always been PC - NPC, typically of the carousing variety. In the distant past, there were serious relationships between PC & NPC. Never PC - PC though. The crowd I gamed with, their characters were a mirror of themselves. And we were gaming at a table back then, so no one wanted it to get awkward. In all cases, sex happened off-screen.

On occasion, there have been PC - NPC "dates" and NPC flirting. I've had NPC - NPC relationships to add in as a subplot, complication, or even as background flavor. I'm always open to adding it to a campaign. I feel like it's good practice for my character development skills in my writing.

As a player, which is something I hadn't been for decades before coming to GP, I find myself open to the idea. But it really depends on the game, the other players, the GM, and if the storyline presents itself. I confess that I had a character develop a crush on another character because she was kind to him, something that he'd never really experienced in his miserable life. The character died before it went anywhere, but he did so trying to be brave—he didn't want to appear cowardly in front of her. If anything, it was good practice at character development.