Relationship/Team Mechanics

[Morrus]

This has been trickling round the back of my head for a few days. Various games use different types of relationship or teamwork mechanics. This is where I'm at right now, but it's just barely conceptual.

Before play, every character must declare a relationship with at least one other character. A relationship might be sibling, partner, teacher, squad-member, etc. The player of the other character must agree to it.

Each relationship grants those within it some kind of ability.

I haven't thought of many (any) yet. Here's something off the top of my head, in terms of d&D or Pathfinder, though I want to try to avoid magic in these.

TWINS
Two characters are twins (or three are triplets). Both twins gain... errr. Dunno.

SQUAD MEMBERS
Every member of the party must take this relationship. If any member does not, no benefit it gained. You have all worked together and developed tactics and procedures, along with knowledge of how each other works. Every member of the squad gains a +2 initiative bonus.

TEACHER/STUDENT
One character is the student of another. His teacher grants him a +2 skill bonus on a selected skill when within 30 feet.

Thoughts? Ideas?

 

[Michael Silverbane]

FRIENDLY RIVALRY
The competition between these two characters pushes both of them to achieve new heights. Whenever the two characters are engaged in a competition with each other (who can get to the top of the mountain first, whoever can kill the most orcs, etc.) each character gains a +1 bonus to checks related to that goal.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The title of the thread is off-putting, but the content is not. Fate does this very well, and there's no reason another game can't either. For my games, I insist that PCs are friends ahead of time, so this is a way to give a benefit to that.

I'd be reluctant to include mentor as a link, as that's creating an unequal relationship.

 

[Tom Strickland]

I do think that unequal relationships (e.g. Merlin to Arthur) have a place in fantasy fiction and also provide opportunities for different types of role-play.

When I hear the term "teacher" in an RPG I immediately associate a martial arts perspective. Here is an "ancient" rendering of relationships that might provide a framework or inspiration for some players and DM's within a (pre)medieval or alternate setting:

The Five Relationships

Confucius specifies the five important relationships that an individual is a part of. If he maintains each of those relationships dutifully, the society will stabilize and prosper automatically.

​

• 
  [*=1]King to subject
  [*=1]Father to son
  [*=1]Husband to wife
  [*=1]Older brother to younger brother
  [*=1]Friend to friend

If we observe them, each of these relationships is like a chain that binds individuals in a society. The range of these relationships connect everybody in one single unit. If all these chains are strong, the fabric of a society is strong.
​

 

[Morrus]

Well, Confucius clearly wasn't trying to play an exciting fantasy roleplaying game!

 

[GMMichael]

Some of the later D&D 3.5 books had oodles of teamwork feats in them. Of course, I can't remember the name of a single one right now.

You might not need rules/bonuses for teamwork though, if the rules system already supports it. Case in point: the system I'm working on, Modos RPG, keeps whispering in my ear that it has huge tactical battle potential. All I did was toss out the D&D standard action-movement action-full round action model, and just instituted a generic-action system. After a little tinkering, it seems like using teamwork will:

- allow teammates to distract/divert enemies
- enable combat specialists to maximize their combat usefulness
- provide cover for weaker teammates
- result in coordinated team actions over the course of each combat round.

The downside to systems featuring intrinsic teamwork benefits: they might be too complex for some people! In which case, adding teamwork rules onto a simpler system might be the safer way to go.