>>6345237>>6345277>>6345270>>6345229>What KIND of unhealthy?This is sort of key, I think. People on /qst/, as with most other places where roleplaying happens, generally don't like being unlikable. They want to be liked. The more developed and realistic your NPCs are, and the consequences for being cruel are, the less comfy most players will be with outright abusive acts to anyone they don't outright hate. This becomes more and roe pronounced as a quest goes on.
However, I stand by my earlobe statement at
>>6345222: that doesn't stop /qst/ goers from pursuing unhealthy romance options, or relationships more broadly. it just changes what KINDS of disorder they tolerate, or enjoy. In my experience as a guy who plays a lot of quests and has run several, /qst/
broadly speaking, we're not a monolith, yadda yadda yadda...
>LOVESBeing stepped on by hot evil women
Bullying shy nerds and haughty antagonists
Mind-controlling people into dubiously-consensual relationships
Exploiting positions of power to score with a subordinate
Building harems through charisma and conquest
Using sexuality as a weapon
>HATESEnacting sexual violence against kind characters
Cheating on loyal characters
Causing pronounced psychological distress in a way that fundamentally changes the psychology and behaviour of a sidekick
Arguably, many of the things /qst/ loves can lead to things they hate, but that all comes down to the tone and psychological realism. Not to get too navel-gazey, but for me as a QM, this has been sort of fascinating to experience from the other end of things, because my first two quests were very much 'villain quests", where the player characters were awful people who did awful things... But the longer and more tenderly I wrote recurring NPCs, and the more I dwelt on consequences of behaviour, the less willing the players were to act with outright cruelty or selfishness, at least towards NPCs the player character had a reason to care about. I'm not saying I'm some great writer, but adding internality and social stakes (ie likable characters will hate your guts or leave if you are mean or gross) often curbs the worst instincts of players away from being malicious in love just as it can be sued to limit murderhobo behaviour in a TTRPG.
