Do you think that a fairy could experience true love/friendship? I personally think yes, but I would love to hear what other people think!
A faerie might have True Love as long as it fits its role.
Faeries cannot lie. Their is true anyways, in a sense.
I would generally think not. There are comments in RoP:F about humans having the potential for strong emotion and that faeries need this. True Love is noted as one of the strongest emotions. (Emotion might not be the best word for them all, like True Faith). If faeries are capable of such strong emotion, then they don't need humans for a source strong emotion. But they do. So that leads me to think they cannot have True Love.
Some people don't like the premise behind the fey in RoP:F and change it. Changing that could significantly impact the possibility of those fey having True Love.
Hi,
Canonically, Faeries can pretend to have True Love but don't quite have the real thing, ever.
Faeries can also lie; otherwise it would not be possible to have Faeries play roles in which deceit is required, and there are many of these.
Anyway,
Ken
I think this question is better rephrased as:
In game terms, if a faerie simulates True Love as part of its story, is it in faerie power terms functionally equivalent to True Love?
For example, if a faerie's story is to fall deeply in love with a man passing through her woods, and he returns the affection, whether or not it counts as True Love for him, if we argue that the faerie is experiencing as close to True Love as a faerie can get, does that mean this faerie's feelings are more resistant to supernatural intervention, as they would be if they were True Love?
Hi,
No.
Love is Divine, so Faeries cannot have it. Essential Nature Virtues and Flaws are Magic, so Faeries cannot have that either.
Supernatural intervention does not normally matter for Faeries, who usually have sufficient Might to deal with that. Magi get to blow through that kind of resistance; as for a Pilum of Fire, if a SG wants a Faerie to resist, he should get a bigger Faerie.
EDIT: Of course, there are Lesser and Greater Immunities, which can simulate some aspects of this.
Anyway,
Ken
I had thought that, too. However, the core book states that True Love is probably either Divine or Essential Nature without definitively placing it in either one (ArM5 p.80). RoP:tD does say "Through Charity comes all lesser forms of love; in Charity is found True Love, which is the earthly manifestation of Love of God," (p.65). This implies True Love can be from the Divine, not that it must be. So perhaps it only comes from the Divine or perhaps it can come from either. Coming from either would probably result in the disagreement over which of the two is its source.
I'd argue that, no, they are not. There are certain Church faeries which may differ from this, but generally there's no proof that faeries aren't p-zombies. The game centres on humans. Faeries are supporting characters that blur the boundary between character and scenery, but they don't have the capability to channel the Divine inherent in True Love.
As a counter-example: if a character is mind-controlled such that she performs all of the actions of someone who has True Love, does she have True Love? I'd argue that, no, she does not.
Hi,
I remembered that too, so I talked both about Magic and Divine. Either way, Faeries don't have it.
I think the reason that Faerie powers are not necessarily limited by Essential Nature is that Faeries really don't have one. They have a meta Essential Nature (NPC! 
/2389523498), but within ME, they are whatever they need to be.
Anyway,
Ken
A fae could experience it, however can not reciprocate it unless highly cognisant. It would bind them in a way they could not quite understand and may fight against. Friendship is a pretence and always an exchange. Nothing about them is genuine without a major story.
I think one has to distinguish between the only strict definition of True Love in ArM5, as a Story Flaw, and other various definitions that tie it to essential nature etc. Ultimately, I think there's nothing against a Faerie having True Love as a Story Flaw. In fact, it seems perfect for faeries as "essentially support characters", and indeed, it's not listed among the "Inappropriate Virtues or Flaws" for Faerie characters.
In Faeries it may be only a pretense, like everything else, but this has no impact on the mechanics.
It has everything to do with it.
So faeries can have the faerie pretense of True Love which does not have the mechanisms of Divine True Love. Unless of course the divine decides otherwise in which case the rest of the world can shut up about it and sit down because the divine does what it wants for its own reasons and there isn't much anyone but the storyteller can do about it.
I was worried that was the case. I have a magus character who has a True Love relationship with a Faerie Queen, and at this point his entire personal world depends on her love being likewise true. If someone tried to convince him she is a philosophical zombie, he may react violent denial and worse.
But then...
That could be a saving grace. My character is of strong faith, though not True Faith as in a Virtue. But he has True Love as a Major Flaw. And, as we have established, True Love is a manifestation of the Divine, which can manifest through the Faeries if He so wills it. Therefore, if his True Love for her is bold and honest, so much so that it captures His attention, is it not possible that her own passion may become manifest as reality and thus be likewise True Love? Hence, if his faith is honest (not the True Faith Virtue, just a strong faith as a roleplaying trait), if he really believes in God and salvation, then he should proceed as if she does have True Love.
An interesting comparison. The original Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. She had a deal where she would be granted a soul if she killed the prince, but she refused. The angels in heaven were so moved that she was granted a soul anyway and lifted to heaven. Looking at it in these terms (as laid out above), I think that is what had happened. The Prince had True Love, which is what inspired the mermaid to have actual True Love, which is why she was able to refuse to kill him out of True Love, which is what enabled her to be given a soul and be saved.
The version I read was very different, and was also supposedly by HCA, where the mermaid could only gain a soul if the prince fell in love with her, she failed and became sea foam for eternity instead, because as a being of magic she lived forever without a soul...which she had originally though she had given up to be with the prince when she made her bargain with the sea witch.
I just read a brief summary for The Little Mermaid on Wikipedia. You are mostly correct, she failed to win the prince and dissolves into sea foam. But she would normally cease to exist, and instead becomes a spirit for 300 years during which she has a chance to earn a soul through good deeds. So the Divine and possibly True Love fit in there somewhere.
Wait, have we? I must have missed some point.
True Love is certainly a manifestation of the Divine in the sense that snails, dreams or baked apples are, which is a rather vacuous sense for purposes of debate.
In a more mechanical sense, True Love can be a manifestation of the Divine (like Second Sight can).
But it need not be a manifestation of the Divine (unlike True Faith).
Incidentally, it seems that a Faerie bound as a familiar (by a magus with Faerie magic) would become a True Friend to that magus (and viceversa) just as a normal familiar would.
Is it in the official rulebooks ? Because I remember reading in Mystery Cults that Faerie Familiars become suicidal or psychotic. The Familiar bound contraries their changing and fluid nature, leading them to melancholy or hatred to their master.
I personally find that rule a bit ennoying because I prefer seeing Merinita Magi as nice guys who befriend Faerie creatures. It is not the case RAW.
I am still abroad and far away from ArM books. But have a look at the Melusine-stories (good summary here: the English and French articles are inferior).
So in the 12th and early 13th centuries these faeries are rather demonic, but later gradually transform into viable ancestresses over time.
Figures like de la Motte-Fouqué's Ondine, Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci, the various Rusalki and finally Andersens little Mermaid are far later literary adaptations. None of these are pleasant beloved, though.
Cheers