Do your characters ever go to make friends\allies?

[Sigurd]

It occurred to me that most game setups always begin with the lone party discovering something terribly wrong and then trying to fix it - largely by themselves.


How often do parties, in your experience go out looking for friends & allies - no maiden to save, no impending doom, just ask the DM to show them their setting and have a good time?


Do people think this breaks too much.

s

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

You're really asking two separate questions.

Q: How often do PCs seek out NPC allies.

A: Most of the time. Those NPCs rarely offer direct aid on adventures, but they change the nature of the scenarios the PCs encounter; instead of fighting alone against a monolithic evil empire they can't hope to overthrow, they have a real chance to cooperate with a deposed monarch's loyalists, for example. Also, I often use allied NPCs to provide the PCs with their gear, cutting down heavily on the amount of usable items found in shops/dungeons.

Q: How often do PCs ignore an overarching storyline and wander around 'having fun.'

A: I like to think the players, at least, have fun completing a major story arc. In my experience, this happens quite a bit in Spelljammer, but not much in other settings. Nor do I find it palatable in any non-Spelljammer setting.

 

[rgard]

It occurred to me that most game setups always begin with the lone party discovering something terribly wrong and then trying to fix it - largely by themselves.


How often do parties, in your experience go out looking for friends & allies - no maiden to save, no impending doom, just ask the DM to show them their setting and have a good time?


Do people think this breaks too much.

s

One of our PCs once allied himself with the BBEG we were trying to kill.

 

[Nifft]

One PC in my game is working towards the Craft Construct feat... soon he hopes to be making Craft: Friends checks.

-- N

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

One of our PCs once allied himself with the BBEG we were trying to kill.

Heh... one of the PCs in a campaign a couple of years ago did something really similar... Out of character, it was highly amusing. In character... not so much.

To steal MoogleEmpMog's format:

Q: How often do PCs seek out NPC allies?

A: Depends on the group of PCs and the plot of the game. I'd say about 50% of the time... sometimes for help on the current adventure, sometimes just for roleplaying fun.

Q: How often do PCs ignore an overarching storyline and wander around 'having fun.'

A: Not very often, although I've been in groups that have had some really great adventures spawned from the DM having to run off the cuff because the PCs zigged when he expected them to zag.

 

[SavageRobby]

It depends on the game and the system. Savage Worlds makes using Extras (both allied and not) easy, and their settings usually take advantage of that, so after the characters have advance a bit, our games tend to have lots of allies running around. (SW can also be deadly, so having extra allies around to red shirt is often useful.)

Previously to SW, that kind of thing in our games was a rarity.

 

[kensanata]

In the early stages of homebrew campaigns I like to use tough foes, eg. average party level is between three and an evil priest summons a barbed devil, or a horrible spider demon rules this corner of the valley, having enslaved the males in the main castle. To succeed, the party has to make befriend interest groups. To make it more interesting, all of them have drawbacks. The nature guys don't support more human settlements; the religious guys are fanatics; the castle's women are not well respected and require lots of subterfuge; the merchants are only interested in the money, and so on. Wizards are shunned, so finding one to get some scrolls is a subplot. Not all the males were enchanted; finding the second son and freeing him is a subplot. Three evil priests are attacking surrounding villages; stopping them is a subplot that will befriend the religious guys. And all this time the shadow of the spider demon looms over the land...

 

[Mark CMG]

We use the contact rules from UA as part of such an effort to ensure available allies.

 

[jefgorbach]

Depends on the plot-arc.
Given time/opportunity, PCs tend to have a side-goal of establishing a permanent position of power so gather as many NPCs/extras as possible to do the boring mundane stuff - maintain the base-camp(s), scouting rumors, etc so the PCs are free todo the down-n-dirty fun stuff (commando raids, clearing out dungeons/etc) to bolster their growing Border Kingdom.

 

[WayneLigon]

We normally make quite a few friends in most games I've been in, especially allies who are working towards the same goals we are. Our characters date, fall in and out of love, make allies who often turn into friends.. pretty much the whole gamut of human relations.