"I will lend you horses."

[pemerton]

In the LotR (The Two Towers, Book 3), Aragorn, Gimil and Legolas meet Eomer and his Riders of Rohan. The encounter begins as a hostile one, but after Aragorn announces himself ("Elendil!") the tone of the encounter changes, and Eomer agrees to let the three companions continue on their hunt for the captured Hobbits. And "what's more", says Eomer, "I will lend your horses."

Other fantasy fiction has instances of encounters in which alliances are made and gifts are given. In REH's story The Scarlet Citadel, Conan encounters the wizard Pelias, who helps him return to Aquilonia so as to retake his throne.

In the Foreword to Moldvay Basic D&D, the warrior hero slays the dragon tyrant wielding a sword they received from a mysterious cleric.

In your FRPGing, what techniques do you use to emulate these sorts of events?

 

[aco175]

There tends to be various factions in my games that will aid the PCs or report them to hinder them. Depends on the mission they are on and how noble they are. Some in 5e games depends on background and if we are using the Forgotten Realms (FR) factions such as the Harpers. 5e also has backgrounds where things like food and lodging are automatically offered.

I have played one on one with my son who was the hero and I ran a sidekick. There was some items given by the local church to aid them in the mission.

 

[Arilyn]

Beowulf has a great system for the hero to receive gifts from clan kings and Queens if they have proven themselves, either by word or deed. Having strong social skills is just as important as being a strong warrior because you need that silver tongue to convince others that your tales are true.

 

[Krachek]

I try to keep track of honor and reputation for the PCs in my adventures.
As well as cheap shot and other nasty things.
But is not so easy but it worth it.
and once in a while I make a npc tell that he heard about …. Something the PCs have done.
on the long run it establish the effective alignment of the PCs.

 

[pemerton]

There tends to be various factions in my games that will aid the PCs or report them to hinder them. Depends on the mission they are on and how noble they are.

<snip>

I have played one on one with my son who was the hero and I ran a sidekick. There was some items given by the local church to aid them in the mission.

How is this worked out, at the table?

 

[aco175]

I try to make it a bit like movies where the heroes hear about a place or group that may be able to aid them. There is usually a group that does not like the Emperor or the Thulsa Doom and there will be some that resist that. If the heroes begin to oppose the power, some will hear about it and seek the players out to offer to help. This may be minor like giving horses to help their journey, or showing up to save the heroes in a timely fight.

Of course the opposite effect begins to happen. The bad guys find out about the help the heroes are getting and begin to prison/torture/kill the villagers helping them in order to get the heroes to show up to the trap. I find I can get some cool reactions by the players if I kill a trusted NPC.

 

[kenada]

In your FRPGing, what techniques do you use to emulate these sorts of events?

That could be one interpretation of a 12+ on a reaction roll in Moldvay Basic (“Enthusiastic Friendship”), though it’s effectively at the referee’s discretion. What “Enthusiastic Friendship” means isn’t even defined. However, I do like that interpretation because it provides a concrete and tangible benefit.

My homebrew system has Critical Success on Skill Checks, but it’s mostly just used to increase the degree of success currently. I’ve been hesitant to expand its usage with prescribed benefits otherwise, but that would be the place to put it (e.g., you get a Critical Success on your Rapport, so they like you enough to give you horses).

 

[Manbearcat]

Let me just throw out a few instances that are fresh in my head from various recent games I've run:

DOGS IN THE VINEYARD

In the Town of St Edward's Lake, Brother William (god I hope that was his name...Brother Fel, Brother Isaiah, and Brother William I think!) saved a married couple that had fallen into a few Sins (Worldliness and Deceit). He saved the wife from her downfall and her husband's wrath and he saved their union from failing. There was a spiritual mediation which was a conflict. This was won by the priest. Then there was a follow-on conflict that threatened to go from social to violence which he also mediated and resolved.

In the course of those two successes, the husband (the Town's cartwright) gave him his finest hammer as a token of appreciation. This is a Belonging with a dice value which can brought into various conflicts to amplify dice pool and change the fiction. This Belonging can also lead to various other fiction and open up other PC advancement schemes (like a Relationship with the Sins in question that were resolved by grace and finesse rather than the hard swing of a hammer).


THOUSAND ARROWS (PBtA Warring States Japan)

The player of the Yagyu-allied, Farmer (playbook) PC is landed gentry in the Yamato province. His river valley home was attacked (successfully repelled) by Clan Hojo with the help of the other two PCs and their Sections (squads led into conflict). Morikawa (the Farmer PC) was particularly moved by the success of the Samurai Courtier's, Yamada Norioki, regiment of Arquebusiers in defending the valley with their muskets from an elevated position. So he decided to go by ship to the southern island domain of his clan and attempt to make a purchase of muskets for his own Section in defense of future Hojo aggression.

Scene 1 involved the rough-seas journey south through storm and the potential internal conflict issues (with the PC's Drive and his eldest daughter, travelling with him who shares the same spirit for "Play" as he does). Via the snowballing of GM soft moves, player declarations, triggered moves, and snowballing results, the PC's Drive and his daughter's own inclinations were mitigated and the PC made a friend and advocate in the way of the Quartermaster (who shared his secret conversion to Catholicism) for the coming negotiations upon arrival.

Scene 2 involved an annual commemoration at the memorial on the beach for a famous Samurai who died defending the homeland against the Mongol invasion. This involved an on-the-spot haiku during the memorial/commemoration by the player/PC (a move) which would, in turn, court an important elder of the clan in the process. The follow-on negotiations themselves (another move) only yielded a 7-9 result so the choice was either (a) the Farmer's entire Section of 12 Duelists could be outfitted with poor muskets (which will yield downstream move impact and potential snowballing consequences when crisis hits) or (b) only 1/4 of the Section (3) can be outfitted with battle-tested, mechanically-robust muskets. The player chose the latter.

---

Those are two recent ones that pop into my head. One via the follow-on conflict resolution framework and PC build apparatus of Dogs and the 2nd via the snowballing fiction and move triggering architecture of Thousand Arrows (which outfitted 1/4 of a Section with the ability to deploy ranged attacks when an inevitable subsequent defense of their valley arises).

 

[Darth Solo]

Pretty ubiquitous tropes.

I like going with "The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend": the party encounters someone who, while morally-opposed to them, hates the Big Bad even more and grants them aid/the MacGuffin to defeat the Big Bad. Of course, once the BB is routed, there's a chance the party's new "friends" might betray the alliance. IME players tend to avoid making allies for that very reason (looking at you Shadowrun!), so throwing in "the Drow will help the party only if they vow to rescue the daughter of their High-Priestess who has been kidnapped by the Witch-King" situation that makes a Drow double-cross unlikely.

I use "Something Ordinary" as well: for whatever reason some players love scenes where their characters can buy things. So, I'll throw in what seems to be a normal weapon/item, but is actually the MacGuffin they can use to defeat the BB. IME players enjoy the surprise but at some point I'll have to provide some backstory as to how the object ended up where they found it. George Lucas is great at this.

For alliance-building, I'll toss several factions (Monarchy/nobles, military, thieves' guild, clergy, other races) with tangled relationships at the party, each with something to offer but, each also posing a real threat to the party if spurned. The goal is to have the players on eggshells, forcing them to seriously consider the possible consequences of their choices as they interact with the factions. This IMO is when "player agency creating meaningful impact" arrives and drives everything forward in ways the GM hasn't planned.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In your FRPGing, what techniques do you use to emulate these sorts of events?

In Spire, the PCs begin play with some Bonds, which are contacts, relatives, friends, and/or sidekicks that they have. These Bonds are meant to be resources that the characters can use. When you rely on a Bond, what happens is that you roll a dice pool for the action for the Bond NPC rather than for the PC.

This puts the risk of Stress (consequences from a low roll) onto the NPC rather than the PC. Whenever a Bond has Stress at the end of a session, we roll for Fallout (possible consequences of the Stress). The more Stress, the greater the risk of Fallout and the higher the severity.

Another way this kind of thing comes up is through class abilities. Most classes have abilities that let them establish contacts during play. So the Knight class for instance (not a chivalrous knight as we tend to think, but more like the member of a biker gang sworn to a pub rather than an order) has an ability called Pub Crawler. Once per session, he can declare that there is a pub nearby, and that he knows the owner. It’s up to the GM to decide how the owner thinks of the Knight.

In our game, the Knight player used this ability to establish a starting home base for the group. They were assigned to a virtually lawless district called Red Row. The Knight declared that the Lone Wolf Pub was nearby, and he knew its owner, Hogan. Because his Order’s Pub was the Wolf and Hound, I decided that Hogan was a former member, but had managed to retire as a Knight, and moved to Red Row to open a pub. The last thing he’d want is a bunch of Knights showing up (trouble generally follows them).

So I decided he was kind of indifferent to them to start. However, one of the other player characters was an Idol, a kind of Bard type character, who uses magic through art or performance. We madea roll for the Idol to see how they performed, and how much business the Lone Wolf pulled in as a result, and the roll went well. Hogan allowed them to stay as long as the Idol would perform there regularly.

I didn’t immediately make Hogan a Bond of either PC because I wanted to see how things developed. The Knight player made attempts to ingratiate himself to Hogan… telling Knightly tales and helping out with a couple of things. So eventually we made a roll to see if he could gain Hogan as a Bond and he did.

Of course, this led to the Lone Wolf eventually being burned to the ground… but hey that’s what bonds are for!