I’ve done a one-shot based around a wedding between two NPCs the PCs didn’t know, but that doesn’t really count. I’m talking about one involving PCs or somebody else major.
This realisation follows an RPGnet help request for an urban fantasy wedding episode. Having run much urban fantasy and having been to weddings and receptions I could provide some ideas, on both the urban fantasy and wedding sides, with the two colliding in a couple of cases.
The closest I’ve come was inevitably in The Watch House, where William and Charlotte were planning to tie the knot at some point and then made a common law commitment in the hospital after one of the times he was nearly fatally injured. It went happier than the wedding episode of Buffy anyway!
But a ceremony like this that isn’t tiny can easily be the focus of a session, maybe with some run-up ahead of it as well.
There’s a lot to decide. It can look like setting up a formal party and a diplomatic meeting at the same time, which are both things I have done in games.
Of course how much happens on screen depends on how much you want to possibly go Horribly Wrong.
Venue, officiator, guests, cake, band...
Who sits together at which table? And who absolutely cannot sit together? Tactical mappers might come in handy!
Researching Cinderella for a writing gig led to watching Sleeping Beauty which is where the offended monster left off the guest list cursing the couple’s firstborn came from.
And to When In Rome, a cartoony modern fantasy rom-com involving various unfamiliar wedding traditions going wrong before the plot which is also about accidentally misused fairytale love magic actually kicks in.
It would probably have to be a pretty light game like that. Enemies like to target public occasions and I could easily do a horrible wedding episode in my current series and most of my recent games but that’s rather different.
Besides the character(s) who are getting married, what is everybody else up to? Are the other PCs involved in the ceremony, on the guest list or not? Fighting off some threat who wants to ruin the big day, retrieving the groom after the stag do / bachelor party, stopping the families feuding, getting the ring back after it was stolen by a confused dark rider, that kind of thing.
They could also be involved at one remove. Guests but not that close. Security for a high-profile event. The reception band.
I’m thinking about this one now. Players be ye warned.
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