D&D (2024) DMG talk: Additional Starting Attitudes

[Minigiant]

Base 5e and the 2024 version both use the Friendly, Indifferent, and Hostile as the base starting attitudes of encountered NPCs.

Do you think the Unfriendly and Fanatic attitudes should return.

Unfriendly would sit between Indifferent, and Hostile.
An NPC that is unhelpful and will oppose the party and but will not take risks to harm the party.

Fantatic would be helpful an willing to take minor risk by default.

What about a (Player) Hating?
An NPC who at best can be convinced cause no harm.

I hate you. And I hate you. I hate you. I don't even know you and I hate cha' guts. I hope all the bad things in life happen to you, and nobody else but you.

 

[Yaarel]

Base 5e and the 2024 version both use the Friendly, Indifferent, and Hostile as the base starting attitudes of encountered NPCs.

Do you think the Unfriendly and Fanatic attitudes should return.

Unfriendly would sit between Indifferent, and Hostile.
An NPC that is unhelpful and will oppose the party and but will not take risks to harm the party.

Fantatic would be helpful an willing to take minor risk by default.

What about a (Player) Hating?
An NPC who at best can be convinced cause no harm.

For general attitude, I feel Friendly, Indifferent, and Hostile are useful enough. Indifferent can be polite or impolite, but will generally be civil and constructive.

I dont see a need for an "Unfriendly" attitude.

But "Fanatic" is a useful concept. I prefer to see it be an Advantage or Disadvantage to whatever the situation. If someone is fanatically Hostile or fanatically Friendly. There is even a fanatically Indifferent if the creature really has no time for this social encounter.

An enemy that is a hater with a personal grudge against the player character, might even be fanatically Hostile.

There would even complex situations, where the creature is conflicted with different goals. So that appealing to the fanaticism could make a situation friendlier, where it would normally be Hostile. Or vice versa.

 

[Andvari]

I think it's great for when the party encounters a group of monsters somewhere who clearly do not appreciate the party's presence, or are at the very least highly suspicious of them, but aren't necessarily interested in stopping (or even aware of) their efforts. This is a situation that comes up regularly.

 

[Hriston]

I make a reaction roll for Starting Attitude and have the extreme results of “violently hostile and attacks on sight” at one end and “enthusiastically friendly and will accept some risk to help” (which aligns with your “Fanatical”) at the other. I consider these subsets of Hostile and Friendly respectively.

ETA: I think opposing a party of PCs is inherently risky, so the way I would get a result like your “Unfriendly” is if a Hostile NPC fails its morale check.

 

[Minigiant]

I dont see a need for an "Unfriendly" attitude

Unfriendly is the attitude where someone is opposed to you and will do against your plans but only if there is no extra risk or work involved.

5e's Hostile is a more mean pre5e Unfriendly. Definitions would have to change.

But if not.

Reaction	Hateful	Hostile	Indifferent	Friendly	Fanatical
Harms the adventurers’ actions and will take risks to do so.	0
Opposes the adventurers’ actions and might take risks to do so.	10	0
Offers no help but does no harm	20	10	0
Does as asked as long as no risks or sacrifices are involved		20	10	0
Accepts a minor risk or sacrifice to do as asked.			20	10	0
Accepts a significant risk or sacrifice to do as asked.				20	10
Accepts an extreme risk or permanent sacrifice to do as asked.					20

 

[Eis]

I just hate it when my players are fanatically indifferent

 

[CleverNickName]

I still use the five-tier system (Hostile --> Unfriendly --> Neutral --> Friendly --> Helpful) from 3.5E. The DC to improve an NPCs disposition is 12, +5 for each tier.

So for example, let's say the party is attacked by assassins (Hostile). The bard tries to smooth-talk them into letting them go, and makes a Persuasion check. The player rolls well, and gets a 19 total. That's enough to improve their disposition 2 levels (DC 17) to Neutral, but not quite enough to make them Friendly (DC 22). The assassins now have a Neutral disposition toward the party, so they will probably accept a bribe.

 

[bedir than]

fanatically indifferent

new alignment just dropped?

 

[Yaarel]

new alignment just dropped?

"Fanatically Indifferent" means "very busy".

Any Alignment might be busy at times.

 

[Gorck]

Fanatically Indifferent = "I DON’T CARE! Now go away and leave me alone."