Asmor
First Post
I've been really into Boardwalk Empire. I'm in the middle of season three, and had a bit of an epiphany as I reflected on the story of it... The next portion of this post is going to be in a spoiler tag, as it contains spoilers for the first 2 seasons of Boardwalk Empire.
So it occurs to me that this could be very applicable to RPGs as well, if you want to drive a wedge between your characters and someone they count as an ally. It's a very similar situation: both parties are predisposed to treating each other honestly and fairly, and wouldn't do something to harm that relationship.
You arrange a situation where the PCs agree to some proposition with their ally. Fetch the MacGuffin. Whatever. Through no fault of their own, you sabotage the PCs' mission. Maybe they retrieve the MacGuffin, but they're attacked by bandits. They defeat the bandits handily, but in the course of the fighting the MacGuffin is damaged and becomes useless. The benefactor demands payment in excess of what the PCs are able to provide, whether a sum of gold or forcing them to provide a magic item with similar properties to the lost MacGuffin. Maybe there is nothing they can do to make up for the lost MacGuffin. Boom, former ally turned enemy.
So I realized that two of the main characters, Nucky Thompson and Arthur Rothstein, have almost always dealt honorably and honestly. Despite this, the first season of Boardwalk Empire was largely about the conflict between the two. This conflict was initiated because a third party hijacked a shipment that Nucky sold to Rothstein.
So it occurs to me that this could be very applicable to RPGs as well, if you want to drive a wedge between your characters and someone they count as an ally. It's a very similar situation: both parties are predisposed to treating each other honestly and fairly, and wouldn't do something to harm that relationship.
You arrange a situation where the PCs agree to some proposition with their ally. Fetch the MacGuffin. Whatever. Through no fault of their own, you sabotage the PCs' mission. Maybe they retrieve the MacGuffin, but they're attacked by bandits. They defeat the bandits handily, but in the course of the fighting the MacGuffin is damaged and becomes useless. The benefactor demands payment in excess of what the PCs are able to provide, whether a sum of gold or forcing them to provide a magic item with similar properties to the lost MacGuffin. Maybe there is nothing they can do to make up for the lost MacGuffin. Boom, former ally turned enemy.
