You know the first town at the start of many RPGs? The one full of NPCs that guide you through short Tutorials to show you pretty much all the basic Skills and Items you’ll need? Harris O’Malley is your NPC dating guide in this book, and he covers every step of the journey: from building charisma, to approaching someone, getting the first date, arriving to your apartment, your bed, and even some pretty scary scenarios you might find on the way and how to overcome them.
This guide has some theory, but it’s mostly full of applicable tips you should be learning and using every single day. So I don’t recommend reading it once and then forgetting about it. Instead, you should treat it as a game full of mini-quests. And though you could technically go from start to end developing each Skill, it might be best to focus on your weakest points first. After the first read, look at the Table of Contents and ask yourself “what would give me the most results?” or, even better, “which skill do I feel like I want to level up?”
For example, for those of you who aren’t Bards (so… everybody?), you’ll find some Charisma buffs here. Harris covers the art of conversation, building confidence, and approaching others. If you’re shy, just start with becoming interesting. Spoiler alert: it just means finding an activity you like and doing it!
Barbarians will learn that there’s more to wardrobe than a loincloth, boots and a scabbard. You don’t have to go full Paladin, but you could probably use some armor. And a bath. There’s a full chapter just to teach you how to choose the right outfit for you and taking care of your smells. All of them. It even has grooming tutorials for those Hobbitses with hairy feet!
If you became a Ranger or Wizard because you’d rather avoid getting touchy-feely with the Orcs but now realize that you’re missing the skills to get touchy-feely with the Elves, just go to the “When to Kiss Her” section, but don’t forget all the steps on building rapport and sexual tension.
And if you’re playing on the monsters’ side and are a Troll… please follow the steps to make your cave at least “livable.” Nobody enjoys making Nausea saving throws.
While Harris O’Malley could write whole books on pretty much every one of the topics, you’ll find an outline of the theory as well as action steps to work on each Tutorial. So probably the best way is to use this book is to (yes, read it once fully, and then) focus on one How-To at a time and treat each as a Quest.
Once you’ve made your choice, he already deconstructed the skills so they’re easy to learn; all you need to do is remove your barriers and start Leveling Up!
