Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="eris404" data-source="post: 1575474" data-attributes="member: 5338">Although I see your point, many campaign worlds are hostile places anyway. Even if their villages aren't killed off by orc barbarians, the whole point behind becoming an adventurer is that the character's life is lacking something, whether excitement or a chance for a better (that is, wealthy) life. In real life, there are lots of examples of people doing extremely risky things, such as becoming a sailor or settling in an unknown territory, for a chance to earn a fortune, marry their childhood sweethearts and live a better life than they would have had otherwise.I also think that many players just find the "dangerous lone wolf" archetype, a la Wolverine, to be very cool, no matter how stereotyped it has become.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> But to the original question, have you considered using the rule for contacts in Unearthed Arcana? Basically, characters get NPC contacts every so often that they can use for certain (minor) things, usually for influence or a special skill. They aren't followers, just ordinary people, for example a noblewoman's maid who can persuade her mistress to help a PC or a beggar who keeps an ear open for gossip or rumors. You could take that a step further and have those contacts be people from the character's background, maybe a sister, a father or a childhood friend, who would have reason to be friendly and helpful to a PC.</blockquote>

Verification