Dungeonmaster's Girlfriend: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
Term used in roleplaying game circles for a player - often literally the DM's girlfriend, sometimes a younger family member - who is getting special treatment from the gamemaster due to an out-of game personal relationship, specifically because the GM either wants to curry favor with them or is afraid of incurring their ire. This is often at the expense of other players, who showed up at the table to participate equally, but have somehow ended up playing sidekicks to the '''Dungeon Master's Girlfriend'''. (Or, if they're playing something other than ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', the [[Game Master's Girlfriend]].)
This trope is much older than tabletop gaming and far from limited to gaming situations, though. Before there were RPGs, it was was a situation that would arise in theatre, film, and TV — the director would give his girlfriend a large or important role, or a producer would insist that his current girlfriend be given a part as a condition for his backing. In most cases, she is not competent enough to handle the role; in some, she's not competent at all.
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{{examples}}
== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'': The queen of this trope would be Heidi Jackson. She doesn't merely manipulate a local GM boyfriend, she actually acquires control of the ''Hackmaster RPG'' intellectual property (their world's [[Dungeons & Dragons]]) as the creator's heir's guardian and after a couple of game sessions decided to radically overhaul the game system in ways that led to rioting in the gaming community.
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== Film ==
* ''[[Bullets Over Broadway]]''. In this case, a ''mobster's'' girlfriend.
* ''[[Underworld (film)|Underworld]]'' has [[Kate Beckinsale]], who met the director on set and is now married to him. Guess who all the action in
* In a very similar vein, [[Milla Jovovich]] in the [[Resident Evil]] film series met the director on set and they are now married. Might explain some of her telekinesis, super strength, replication and [[Healing Factor]] when the video games are mostly about [[Badass Normal]] people fighting zombies and mutant creatures.
== Literature ==
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== Web Comics ==
* A case of Dungeon Master's Boyfriend in [
** [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in another arc where Davan plays DM straight, even though this causes Vanessa's character to die. At first it seems like she may be ticked/upset about this, but [[Milholland Relationship Moment|she isn't]], [[It Makes Sense in Context|she just ate too much junk food]].
* The Princess in ''[[Rusty and Co.]]'' claims to have this "[http://rustyandco.com/?p=103 VERY obscure and VERY powerful prestige class]", which may explain her ability to [[Save the Princess|save herself]].
* Throughout [http://www.heroesoflesserearth.com/ Heroes of Lesser Earth], the character known as Freya is given special treatment due to being the Dungeon Master's Girlfriend, most notably in the comic entitled [https://web.archive.org/web/20131019232910/http://www.heroesoflesserearth.com/2005/12/were-live-theres-still-plenty-of-work-to-be-done-but-we-are-officially-an-up-and-going-concern-super-thanks-to-my-wife-lena-without-whom-this-project-would-absolutely-never-have-gotten-off-of-th/ Preferential Treatment].
* Gabe of ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' gives this [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/4/20 treatment] to Vin Diesel, not because of a relationship, but because he is abjectly terrified of Vin Diesel.
{{quote|'''Gabe:''' The skeleton lashes out at you, Vin, for... [Vin glares] ...zero damage! He missed! Again. And then... he died. So you get a million XP. And all the gold. And you win the whole game, forever.}}
* It seems the DM's younger sister gets away with a lot more silly behaviour in ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' than the rest of the cast. For good or for better, she comes up with most of [[Star Wars]]'s unusual fauna.
* In [https://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=1216 this] instalment of ''[[Sequential Art (webcomic)|Sequential Art]]'', the DM's girlfriend's character is stuck in a tunnel. "You'll get to roll again each time it's your turn. You'll ''wriggle free'', I'm sure." She rolls a 1. In response, the DM has [https://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=1217 the next strip] take place. "I found treasure?"
== Web Original ==
* Variation with Asenath Summerisle in The [[Binder of Shame]]; she's introduced as Deviant Boy's girlfriend while he's running a game. She herself is an okay gamer and ends up getting along fine with the guys, but he warps the entire game to revolve around her [[Mary Sue]] character; "She got to play hero while the rest of us swam through raw sewage being chased by vaguely alien sex slavers."
*
{{quote|421. I will not convince the GM's noob GF to play a psychotic combat monster.
435. No bribing the DM's new GF with chocolate so he'll go easy on us.
1347. Hooking up with the gamer chick the Storyteller was angling for gets me banned from the game.
1905. No nailing the GM's girlfriend's character.}}
** In another project of TheGlen, analysis of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' [[Death of the Author|from PoV of a millennial gamer]], he makes [http://theglen.livejournal.com/448853.html a case] of Frodo being a DMGF character:
{{quote|As the realization set in that the entire Fellowship of the Ring was just an extremely badly run game, Frodo has gone from the DM's pet character to be revealed what he actually was. The poor bastard being played by the chick the DM had eyes for. I was fooled into thinking Frodo was some sort of [[Pollyanna]] [[Mary Sue]] type character, but the more I watched the more I felt sorry for the poor girl playing the hobbit. It rapidly became obvious Frodo didn't want to be there anymore. }}
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