Concrete ways on how to marry NPCs to NPCs *Spoilers*

[EasternTime]

I know this has been discussed before, but if you’re interested in a new take, hear me out.
(Also, if you think my take is entirely not new, what can I say, I’m sorry, I thought it was.)

First, I think this should be in the game not only because it would be interesting and cute but also because it would be more realistic. When many marriageable characters in town are locked in a one-sided love that will never be answered, when all you wanted was just to be friends with them, it feels like you’ve broken so many relationships that were on a good start before your character moved in that town, so you want to fix them. Who feels the same way I do? X)

So here how it could work:

-Method 1-
-Step 1-
At the 8th heart event, when the NPC hint at the fact they love you, you would have a dialog choice between “What about [Name of a NPC who likes the NPC you’re talking to]?” or “Say nothing.” If you say nothing, the game stays the same as it is right now. If you say “What about [Name]?”, the NPC will react a little differently depending on the NPC. For example, if you tell Emily “What about Clint?”, she could say “What about him?”, since she’s completely oblivious that he likes her, but if you tell Haley “What about Alex?”, since she seems to be fully aware that he likes her, she could say something along the lines of “I like him, but I like you more” or “He’s just a friend” (obviously the dialog could be written in a more interesting way than the simple lines that I’m writing right now, but I would be happy even with these simple lines). (Also, for most NPCs, like Haley, there would be only one choice for the other NPC who likes them, like Alex in Haley’s case, but maybe for some NPCs, like Emily, there could be more than one choice, like not only Clint, but also maybe Shane, for example, since they do dance together at the flower festival, even though they don’t seem to be close in any other events…)
-Step 2-
Following in the same dialog, you would have the choice between saying “I like [Name of any other marriageable NPC]” or “[Name of a NPC who likes the NPC you’re talking to] likes you” (implying you don’t want to get in the way) or “Say nothing”. If you say nothing, again, the game stays the same as it is right now. If you say one of the other two options, the NPC will react differently depending on the NPC. But, no matter their reaction, they might lose a few friendship points with you, and, most importantly, they will stop having romantic dialog with your character (unless maybe you change your mind and offer them a Bouquet). That would solve the strange feeling of having half the village being stuck in a one-sided love with your character. (Also, there could even be a 10 hearts non-romantic friendship event that could be unlocked with each of these NPCs by maybe giving them a “Friendship Item” instead of the Bouquet. That would be interesting, but that’s another story.)
-Steps 3 and 4-
You do the same as in Steps 1 and 2 with the other NPC. If you said the other lines than “Say nothing” with both NPCs, you can go to the Steps 5 and 6.
-Step 5-
This would be different for each NPC, but basically it could go along the lines of, you enter the house of one of the two NPCs, an event starts where the NPC tells you they thought about your last conversation and asks you for love advice. (The way to go through this event could be just giving a few simple advice or maybe it could even be as complex as having to complete many quest like steps to get the two together. Even though I’d be happy if there were very complex stories surrounding this, there doesn’t need to be.)
-Step 6-
You do the same as in Step 5 with the other NPC.
-Conclusion-
There’s some sort of event where you learn that they are now dating. Maybe the next time you talk to each of them they may have a line where they thank you for your advice. Then maybe they could occasionally have lines where they mention being happy and in love with the other NPC. And eventually, after some time, you receive a letter in the mail inviting you to their marriage. And there’s a marriage event for the two NPCs. (They could maybe even have kids eventually. And maybe, if there’s a lot of kids in town, at some point, there could even be a school being built somewhere. But that’s also another story.)

-Method 2-
Similar to Method 1, but instead of doing the Steps 1 to 4 at the 8th heart event, it would be done at the 10th heart even, for one or both of the NPCs, after turning down their love confession.

-Method 3-
Similar to Method 1, but you would skip the Steps 3 and 4 by doing something else. This could be for the players who are at 8 or 10 hearts with one character and want to see them happily married with someone else, but are at 0 or so hearts with that other someone and are not really interested in becoming friends with them and see their story, for some reasons. Maybe you could buy a love letter somewhere, which would be advertised as an item that the character can send to the one they love (maybe for a few romantic friendship points, or maybe not), but the real hidden use is that you can sign the letter with the name of someone else. Sending the letter to an NPC (one that you personally are at 8 or 10 hearts with and did Steps 1 and 2 while saying the lines other than “say nothing”) and signing the letter under the name of the NPC who likes them, asking them to meet the NPC that likes them at their usual place. Then later there would be an event at that place, different for each couple, where the two NPCs are confused by the letter and the event that it caused, then they see you spying on them and asks for answers. NPCs at 8 or 10 hearts may lose a few friendship points with you, but may say they understand you tried to help them. NPCs with less than 8 hearts may lose more friendship points with you, and may be less likely to have forgiving lines during that event. Regardless of what happens during the event, it would unlock Steps 5 and 6. (The love letter could also be used for characters who do not have romantic 8th and 10th heart events with the main character. For example, send a letter to Emily from Clint, or a letter to Lewis from Marnie and to Marnie from Lewis…)

-END-

Everyone, thanks for reading and tell me what you think.
And if ConcernedApe ever reads this, I want to say that I really love your game.

[Kitsune Dzelda]

I know Method 2 would be disasterous for Penny. She has her eyes set on you, and if you let her down in the spa room... well, lets just say youll feel the heartbreak too.

I think a mix of these methods would be best, because they react differently to each method, but Im not sure how or even if they should be implemented.

[EasternTime]

Originally posted by Kitsune Dzelda:

I know Method 2 would be disasterous for Penny. She has her eyes set on you, and if you let her down in the spa room... well, lets just say youll feel the heartbreak too.

I think a mix of these methods would be best, because they react differently to each method, but Im not sure how or even if they should be implemented.

Thanks for replying. Sorry for the wall of text, don’t feel forced to read. x)

I'm at 10 hearts with 15 non-marriageable NPCs and at 8 hearts with 10 marriageable NPCs. When the game starts, it seems like many of the marriageable NPCs are romantically interested in other NPCs; they say nice things about them and they hang out with them. I wanted to know more about their stories and become friends with them, so I interacted with them and got more hearts. But at some point, they all stopped hanging out with their initial love interests, they stopped talking about them or started talking about them in a dismissive way, and they all started talking about my character a lot, often saying very romantic things while blushing. It feels like my character is a love magnet who broke up all the couples in town. While all I want is to be friends with most of them. I’m not sure whether, once I’ll marry one of them, the others will stop acting in a romantic way towards my character, but as far as I learned, they won’t.

I think, even if there is no method to marry NPCs to other NPCs, I still would very much like that “Friendship Item” I talked about earlier, which would work in a similar way to the Bouquet, but with friendship instead of romantic relationship. When you give this “Friendship Item” to a marriageable NPC at 8 hearts, it would not only unlock a non-romantic 10th heart event with them, but the marriageable NPC you give it to would stop acting in a romantic way towards your character and restart acting in a romantic way towards their initial love interest (even if they never marry or have kids). That would solve the strange feeling stated in the above paragraph. Plus we would have 12 more heart events without having to break everyone’s heart.

I’ve played other games, like Rune Factory 2 for example, where marriageable NPCs get married to other NPCs once you get married and they all have kids at the same time as you (In RF2 you even get to play as your kid after a time skip).

But I’ve read some people who wrote something like that wouldn’t work in Stardew Valley because of the divorce and remarriage mechanics; you can’t remarry if everyone else gets married to someone else, unless they divorce too. I don’t plan on divorcing and remarrying, but thinking about the ones who do, I tried to come up with some ways where NPCs could marry other NPCs, but only if you actively do something to make it happen. So NPCs wouldn’t marry other NPCs automatically if you don’t want too. That’s a little strange to have a hand to play in every marriage in town. But not as strange as everyone staying single forever. And not as strange as having half the town being in love with you. And it’s often fun to play cupid or to ship characters in video games, even though that’s not something I would recommend to do with people in real life. X)

[lizardmang]

Originally posted by EasternTime:

I think, even if there is no method to marry NPCs to other NPCs, I still would very much like that “Friendship Item” I talked about earlier, which would work in a similar way to the Bouquet, but with friendship instead of romantic relationship. When you give this “Friendship Item” to a marriageable NPC at 8 hearts, it would not only unlock a non-romantic 10th heart event with them, but the marriageable NPC you give it to would stop acting in a romantic way towards your character and restart acting in a romantic way towards their initial love interest (even if they never marry or have kids). That would solve the strange feeling stated in the above paragraph. Plus we would have 12 more heart events without having to break everyone’s heart.

I think this is a really good idea. I've recently gotten a lot of villagers to 8-10 hearts and got Abigail to 10 hearts after giving her a bouquet, and it's definitely a little weird how all of the bathelor(ette)s show romantic interest toward the player character as soon as they hit 8 hearts. I mean, I get it from the perspective that it nudges the player toward giving someone a bouquet to begin dating without making it feel like it's coming out of nowhere, and I do appreciate the option to date multiple people. But it feels a bit strange when every bachelor(ette) in town is flirting with my character on a monogamous playthrough, and I think your friendship item idea would be a perfect solution.

I also like the idea of "playing Cupid" as a solution to allow marriage candidates to marry others. It could be as simple as the non-romantic 10-heart events including a question along the lines of "Hey, <player>, what do you think of <character I'm interested in>?" with the player's answer being the deciding factor in whether that villager will pursue the person that they're interested in or remain single. The game already allows the player to make life decisions for most NPCs in other heart events, so I don't see this really being an issue in that regard.

[Nixie]

I absolutely love this whole idea and I really hope that in future updates things like this are implemented even to go as far as having a town upgrade thing at Robin's to be able to build additional housing for the NPCs like what you can do for Penny and Pam. Or there could be a matchmaker that shows up in town one day a week or even one day a month where you could suggest different NPCs be put together.

[EasternTime]

Originally posted by silentprotagonistsays:

It could be as simple as the non-romantic 10-heart events including a question along the lines of "Hey, <player>, what do you think of <character I'm interested in>?" with the player's answer being the deciding factor in whether that villager will pursue the person that they're interested in or remain single.

Right. That's a good idea. I didn't think of that.

Originally posted by Nixumia:

I absolutely love this whole idea and I really hope that in future updates things like this are implemented even to go as far as having a town upgrade thing at Robin's to be able to build additional housing for the NPCs like what you can do for Penny and Pam.

I also didn't think of that. That would be really nice.

Well, there is not exactly a need for new houses, but they could definitely need house upgrades to add new stories and rooms. Leah and Elliott each have their own home. Harvey has his own home and Maru could move to his place. Emily and Haley share a home, but sometimes Emily talks about how their house is too big for just the two of them, so maybe two families could live in the same house with Alex and Shane moving in, or Emily could go live with Clint who has his own home. Since Jodi is tired of house chores, Sam could go live with Penny and Pam after the house upgrade and have a multigeneration home. And since Sebastian is tired of living in a basement, he could go live with Abigail, Caroline and Pierre also in a multigeneration home.

Originally posted by Nixumia:

there could be a matchmaker that shows up in town one day a week or even one day a month where you could suggest different NPCs be put together.

A matchmaker...? That sounds a little too easy. How would it work more precisely? X)