Is there any way for tricksters practical jokers and the like to be used in dungeons and dragons, without the party deciding they are enemy number one and hunting them down?
I'm thinking of having a young but skilled child have this element but I have a feeling I know where it would go already.
1: Make people the PCs hate the primary target of the trickster's (humiliating) tricks.
2: Make the trickster actually kind of suave/charismatic when they aren't doing the tricksy things.
3: Have the trickster like the PCs, and thus randomly do weird but beneficial stuff for them.
For my own game, I have a character that more or less fits these. His name is Rahim. He's, effectively, a prince of thieves--but in the Robin Hood tradition. He's an old friend of the party bard, and
loves his job, stealing from the rich, wrecking their schemes, building up poor communities. Whenever the party wants an ear to the ground in the underworld, they turn to Rahim first. And every time they meet him....it's in a completely different house, with completely different hosts, and they eat a nice meal. Rahim is
usually extremely laid-back and casual, even with serious things, so the few times that he's buckled down and gotten serious, they know things have gotten Really Righteously Real.
He's absolutely a trickster. He's just not a trickster
f**king with the players. And with that one tweak, he goes from a frustrating, annoying thorn in the party's side, to a delicious and hilarious ally the party can trust (though they know he'll also do things his own way).
Edit:
If it's
genuinely essential that the trickster be playing tricks on the party, you have to earn it first. The trickster has to ingratiate themselves, and has to keep justifying their presence
despite the tricks being played. Think of it like you would any relationship you personally engage in. If a person just plays dumb practical jokes on you, and you don't get anything else out of it...are you going to keep associating with that person outside of the times you HAVE to? If this were a business relationship (which is more or less what an in-game ally is for an adventurer), are you gonna
enjoy hanging out with them if, whenever you do, something happens to you that's embarrassing or frustrating or putting you in a humiliating position?
So yeah. Consider it a matter of social capital. The trickster archetype,
if targeting the PCs, is a huge spendthrift in terms of social capital. That means you either need to make up for that expenditure with really, really great rewards, or you need to have banked a large amount of social capital in advance, so that you can spend more than you earn for a while. You can get it to work, but it won't work forever unless you start saving up more than you spend, proverbially.
