D&D 5E Rivals

[pukunui]

Some good points all. Thank you for taking the time to give me lots of ideas and things to consider.

As with many things, Order of the Stick presents a very realistic take on the rival party in that OotS's rival party the Linear Guild really is only Nale with a rotating cast of disposable and replaceable generic rivals so that the GM would really only have to keep Nale alive and not the entire opposing party. This would be much more doable than a full party of reoccurring characters.

This is a good point. The leader of this rival party is someone the PCs have met and worked with briefly before, and he's really the only one "important" enough for me to want to keep alive. He could indeed have a rotating crew of underlings the PCs have to wipe out every so often.

 

[Quickleaf]

Hi all,

One of the supposed selling points of Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep is the rival adventuring party.

However, according to Justin Alexander, the concept doesn’t really work as written because the rivals are most likely going to wind up dead (if hostile), superfluous (if indifferent), or as challenge-breaking DMPCs (if friendly).

I do not own Netherdeep so I can’t read it for myself. I am, however, running Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and I would like to insert a rival adventuring party, but I am unsure how best to do it.

If the two parties come into conflict, one side is likely to defeat the other, and the losing side can’t teleport away due to Halaster’s restrictions on magic in the dungeon. So basically a fight between the two parties will almost surely end in defeat for one side, and that side will almost certainly be the NPC rivals unless I make them much stronger than the PCs.

So what I would like is some advice on how to use a rival adventuring party effectively (and how to keep them alive for more than one encounter).

• A reason not to go all out or use lethal force against each other. This might be an emotional reason (e.g. one of the NPCs is a family member of a PC, or you've established endearing/intriguing personalities for NPCs which your players previously fell in love with). This might be an externally imposed reason (e.g. a chivalric game with strict rules, or that area of dungeon makes the types of magic used by PCs and NPCs hazardous). This might be a pragmatic reason (e.g. there are good chances of NPCs taking action that will support the PCs' goals down the road...but killing them would prevent that).
• Personal connections / parallels to the PCs' story beats (e.g. the rogue PC and rogue NPC studied under the same despicable guildmaster and share the scars to prove it).
• Multiple goals with complexity, as opposed to one goal provoking binary views.
• If conflict does break out between NPCs and PCs, then either (a) events transpire to suddenly make cooperating seem like the better idea (e.g. dungeon floor collapses, or a deadly foe emerges), or (b) the NPCs use a potent escape hatch (e.g. word of recall), or (c) you drop a plot bomb which reframes something the players thought they knew (e.g. "I wasn't in Caliyr two nights ago - I was kidnapped by redcaps - so I couldn't have killed your uncle the duke!").

 

[hawkeyefan]

Make it so that killing the rival party may make more problems than it solves.

Perhaps they’re scions of noble houses and killing them will incur the wrath of some powerful people.

Perhaps the rival group is devout, backed by a non-evil church. Killing them may make the PCs outcasts or criminals.

It doesn’t have to be kill or be killed. Have the rival group complicate things, but not outright attack the party. Not until/unless you want it to go there.

 

[Older Beholder]

Lots of good ideas already. I just wanted to add, I think the mega dungeon setting of Mad Mage might make it a little harder then usual to avoid bloodshed as the environment tends to put things into survival mode. It should still be doable, but is easier to pull off in a city based campaign for example.

I've done the rival party for minor things, like the group needs to hire a boat, but it's already been promised to the rival adventurers. Little annoyances that don't warrant straight up murder.

 

[pukunui]

Lots of good ideas already. I just wanted to add, I think the mega dungeon setting of Mad Mage might make it a little harder then usual to avoid bloodshed as the environment tends to put things into survival mode. It should still be doable, but is easier to pull off in a city based campaign for example.

I've done the rival party for minor things, like the group needs to hire a boat, but it's already been promised to the rival adventurers. Little annoyances that don't warrant straight up murder.

Yeah, and the way the module is written, Undermountain is meant to attract adventuring parties like moths to a flame, and yet there are barely any written into the adventure already. There's one adventuring party that has split up on levels 1 and 2 but that's about it really.

My PCs briefly joined forces with the leader of that ill-fated party, Rex the Hammer, but they left him behind after he got paralyzed for 24 hours by one of Halaster's elder runes. Later, after the PCs TPKed fighting the drow on level 3, the replacement PCs learned that a different party had come through and defeated the drow. I had it in my mind that it was Rex plus some new cronies who were that other party.

Now it's time for the PCs to meet Rex and co again. I'd really like for Rex to be a continuing thorn in their side. Based on other people's comments above, I think the best way to do that is to make it so his fellow adventuring NPCs are expendable. As long as Rex lives to annoy the PCs another day, it doesn't matter if yet more of his underlings die by the PCs' hands. (Rex is a big bully and thinks of himself as a party of one and the others are just hirelings he can boss around.)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

However, according to Justin Alexander, the concept doesn’t really work as written because the rivals are most likely going to wind up dead (if hostile), superfluous (if indifferent), or as challenge-breaking DMPCs (if friendly).

Thes do seem like the most likely outcomes. It can work, if the players lean into roleplaying "I don't like you but I'm not a murder hobo" or "we are the bad guys, you are the good guys, but you are too tough to beat in a straight up fight".

But the adventure doesn't need the rivals, it will still work if they are written out early on. But note, at the start of the adventure, it's more likely that the rivals will kill the PCs, rather than visa versa, if it comes to a fight. Taken as a combat encounter the tier 1 CotN rivals are a deadly encounter for up to six level 4 PCs.

This is the way things are going in our current playthrough of CotN, but with a little less evil sneering.

 

[Shiroiken]

I am, however, running Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, and I would like to insert a rival adventuring party, but I am unsure how best to do it.

Unless the party is a bunch of murdohobo psychopaths, simply have the party meet them in the Yawning Portal at some point. Establish who they are and their goals/motivations, so the party sees them as more than just a monster, then have them run across the rival group during an adventure. You can have them forced to work together to survive or both seeking the same goal for themselves (or their own reasons), depending on your particular needs. If you need a good example, see The Mummy (1999) with Brandon Frasier.

 

[Remathilis]

When I ran my hack of Savage Tide, the PCs were on retainer with a noble patron (who helped provide them a boat) but had also hired a second crew to aide her ventures, creating a race to curry favor with the Lady between the PCs and NPC rivals. They couldn't kill them, and sometimes their goals conflicted but never to the point of hostility. Eventually, the PCs got their wins by having to rescue the rival party from capture (proving that they were more capable) and later teaming up with them to save Farshore and defeat the bbeg.