Friendships and rivalries are powerful character relationships, from Frodo and Sam to Belkar and Roy. But our games don't often have any way to encourage that to happen. Here's a way to add some dimension to your steadfast friends and your bitter frenemies in your games!
Psychopathic Murderhobos
A dwarf, an elf, a halfling, and a human walk into a bar, meet for the first time, and decide to go risk their lives to slay a dragon together.
It’s a patently absurd set-up. We accept it largely because it facilitates our gameplay. Ultimately we’re more interested in rolling the dice and playing the game than in setting up a back-story. What we were before we walked into that bar, or why we trust this elf in this mortal endeavor, never really come up. And if we DON’T trust the elf – maybe we’re the party’s Gimli – we’re at risk of being a bad player simply for getting in character as a character that doesn’t trust elves.
We can improve this scheme. We can make it easier to describe our relationship with the party elf, without putting the kibosh on the whole adventure. We can even make it dynamic and interesting and evolving over time, so that as the elf helps us or we help them, we can grow closer and work together more, or our rivalry can become something that improves us both.
And to help with that, we’re going to give your characters some important relationships, and some important things to do with those relationships.
The Power of Friendship
Affinity is something forged during character creation, much like class or race. When creating your character, pick another player’s character for your character to be friends with. That player can then either approve (and become friends with your character) or veto. Each character should have one “friend” on the party.
Your “friend” and your character have a relationship of some sort. Perhaps you grew up together. Perhaps you’ve always been close. Perhaps you’re romantically linked. Perhaps you work alongside each other. Perhaps you’ve been on previous adventures together. The exact nature of the friendship is up to you (and the other player). The important bit is that this other character is someone that your character trusts, and wants to help. When things get bad for your friend, you help them out. When things get bad for you, they help you out. It’s a person you can trust and depend upon.
Both you and your friend both get this ability:
A Friend In Need
”Look out!”
Reaction * Usable Once Per Day
Trigger: When your friend suffers a Critical Hit or rolls a 1 on a saving throw.
Effect: You force the attacker to re-roll the attack roll, or allow your friend to re-roll the saving throw. You lose your next action.
So now, when your friend is in trouble, you can help them out. This is you, paying attention to your friend, seeing a particularly grisly and unexpected hit that is going to land, and shouting a warning. You can do this for your friends because you’re paying close attention to them in combat, because it’s dangerous and you care about them. There’s a sacrifice with this – you need to take time out of what you’re doing to help your buddy.
You can have as many “friends” as you’d like, but you can still use this ability only once per day. More friends expands the pool of allies you can use this on, but doesn’t allow you to use it over and over again. So if every character in a party of 5 wants to be friends with the party fighter, each character can protect that party member once (so the party can perhaps negate 4 crits against the fighter each day, if each other party member opts to use the ability). If that fighter is also friends with everyone in the party, they can negate a crit on any one of them, but only once per day (so the fighter can negate one crit, but on anyone in the party). If everyone is friends with everyone, the pool is maximized: any individual party member can force a re-roll on a crit against any other party member. They all watch out for each other.
This mechanic encourages your character to make friends with the party, which helps your character get drawn into adventures that center on or start with other characters, too. The more friends you have, the safer your party potentially is (if everyone is friends with everyone, everyone can force crits to be re-rolled, as many times as you have party members), and DM’s having “lucky days” can’t necessarily overcome the power of a strongly connected group of friends fighting together, who care about each other. This reflects actual combat psychology, as well: there’s a reason military training involves an intimacy and bonding that is stronger than most other relationships. If you care about the people around you, and you trust them as much as or more than family, you’re more likely to do all you can to protect them.
Keep Your Enemies Closer
Okay, friends are all well and good, but what if you’re not playing a “friendly” character? Or what if you’re an outsider? Or what if all this hugging and camaraderie and filial love just leaves a bad taste in your gritty, thin-lipped mouth?
The other side of the friendship coin is Rivalry. In addition to picking a friend at character creation, you can also pick a rival. The same terms apply: the other player can approve or veto the choice to be a rival for your character.
You and your rival also have a relationship, but it’s not one born out of mutual trust and affection as much as it is built out of grudging respect and a competitive spirit. This is the Gimli/Legolas relationship, or the Wolverine/Cyclops relationship. Best frenemies. You share ideologies and even goals, but that doesn’t mean you have to really get along. Like with friendship, the nature of your rivalry is up to you: perhaps elves and dwarves don’t trust each other, perhaps one of you is Lawful and one of you is Chaotic, perhaps one of you is a jaded psychopath like Belkar and the other is a warrior for good like Roy. You don’t like each other. You probably wouldn’t want to hang out together. But there’s something about the other person that drives you to be better. Maybe you want to beat them. Maybe you want to show them up. Maybe you want to prove that they’re wrong. The rivalry shouldn’t be enough to inspire hatred or true enmity, but it should perhaps be like the other side of the filial love coin: sibling rivalry.
It's....complicated
You and your rival both get this ability:
Goading Insult
”My grandmother can do better than that!”
Reaction * Usable Once Per Day
Trigger: When your rival rolls a natural 1 on an ability check, saving throw or attack roll.
Effect: Your rival can re-roll the check, save, or attack. You lose your next action.
So when your rival is being weak and pathetic and not trying hard enough, you inspire them to do their best, to try and prove to you that they’re not as sad as that die roll would indicate. Using this ability represents your character, paying close attention to your rival, and calling out a taunt or sarcastic remark when they’re struggling or stumbling. That taunt can inspire them to do better, and not suck quite so hard, at least while you’re around. It takes some effort to harass your rival, but you know they’ve got something better in them – if not, they probably wouldn’t get under your skin so much. They’d be too weak to notice. You know your rival is better than that!
Like with friends, you can have as many rivals as you’d like, but can only use this ability once per day. Extra rivals just increase the amount of people who could care about being insulted by you. If that party of 5 all really finds the party thief super-annoying, then they can all potentially constructively insult that thief, helping them possibly overcome 4 natural ones per day. If that thief in turn finds the party super-preachy, the thief can insult any of them, but only gets to insult one of them each day. A party entirely made up of rivals can all insult each other and drive each other to greater success.
This mechanic encourages making competitive relationships with other party members – the more rivals you have, the better the party performs. A turn of bad luck can’t affect a party with some rivalry in it as much as it might affect others. This reflects what competition can actually do to people psychologically: it can bring out the best in you when you try to beat people you’ve got an investment in beating.
It’s worth noting that mutual respect and fundamental tolerance is essential for a good rivalry to work. Rivals don’t hate each other – Wolverine and Cyclops are on the same side – they just don’t really like each other, they have different ways of doing things, and big, fundamental disagreements. But they share an agenda, they share a goal, and ultimately they share a purpose. They want the same thing, they just have different reasons and different ways of going about it.
For flavor purposes, it’s also not possible to have a rivalry with a person you are also friends with. It’s a different sort of relationship. While you can become very close and reveal much to your rival, it’s not a relationship of trust or compassion – your rival isn’t someone you tell your deepest secrets to. And your friend, even though they can encourage you and support you, you know they like you, that you’re OK in their book – they can’t push you quite as hard as a rival can.
Developing Relationships
These relationships are presented as things that you make at character creation, with other people in your group, while you’re picking your race and class and spells and whatnot. Relationships can be that defining and central, but they’re also dynamic and changeable over time. Your actions and adventures can change these relationships.
And that’s where the DM comes in. Your adventures can focus on the relationships between characters, and can include elements of friendship or rivalry as challenges or rewards. You can create adventures where your party members will need to make new friends, or where they face new potential rivals, or where the lines of tension and compassion within the party are highlighted. You can also limit friendships and rivalries initially, to let them develop over the course of play: if everyone can only have one friend and one rival, you can show the party growing closer over time by offering Friendship and Rivalry as a reward for role-playing or for completing an adventure that brings that out. Maybe the party cleric doesn’t start off as anyone’s close friend but, over a few adventures, that friendship might arise.
Your Stories
So, I’m interested in hearing about what you think. I’m also interested in hearing about the great friendships or great inter-party rivalries that you’ve had. Let me know what you think about this mechanic, and tell me your stories of friendship and rivalry down in the comments!
Psychopathic Murderhobos
A dwarf, an elf, a halfling, and a human walk into a bar, meet for the first time, and decide to go risk their lives to slay a dragon together.
It’s a patently absurd set-up. We accept it largely because it facilitates our gameplay. Ultimately we’re more interested in rolling the dice and playing the game than in setting up a back-story. What we were before we walked into that bar, or why we trust this elf in this mortal endeavor, never really come up. And if we DON’T trust the elf – maybe we’re the party’s Gimli – we’re at risk of being a bad player simply for getting in character as a character that doesn’t trust elves.
We can improve this scheme. We can make it easier to describe our relationship with the party elf, without putting the kibosh on the whole adventure. We can even make it dynamic and interesting and evolving over time, so that as the elf helps us or we help them, we can grow closer and work together more, or our rivalry can become something that improves us both.
And to help with that, we’re going to give your characters some important relationships, and some important things to do with those relationships.
The Power of Friendship
Affinity is something forged during character creation, much like class or race. When creating your character, pick another player’s character for your character to be friends with. That player can then either approve (and become friends with your character) or veto. Each character should have one “friend” on the party.
Your “friend” and your character have a relationship of some sort. Perhaps you grew up together. Perhaps you’ve always been close. Perhaps you’re romantically linked. Perhaps you work alongside each other. Perhaps you’ve been on previous adventures together. The exact nature of the friendship is up to you (and the other player). The important bit is that this other character is someone that your character trusts, and wants to help. When things get bad for your friend, you help them out. When things get bad for you, they help you out. It’s a person you can trust and depend upon.
Both you and your friend both get this ability:
A Friend In Need
”Look out!”
Reaction * Usable Once Per Day
Trigger: When your friend suffers a Critical Hit or rolls a 1 on a saving throw.
Effect: You force the attacker to re-roll the attack roll, or allow your friend to re-roll the saving throw. You lose your next action.
So now, when your friend is in trouble, you can help them out. This is you, paying attention to your friend, seeing a particularly grisly and unexpected hit that is going to land, and shouting a warning. You can do this for your friends because you’re paying close attention to them in combat, because it’s dangerous and you care about them. There’s a sacrifice with this – you need to take time out of what you’re doing to help your buddy.
You can have as many “friends” as you’d like, but you can still use this ability only once per day. More friends expands the pool of allies you can use this on, but doesn’t allow you to use it over and over again. So if every character in a party of 5 wants to be friends with the party fighter, each character can protect that party member once (so the party can perhaps negate 4 crits against the fighter each day, if each other party member opts to use the ability). If that fighter is also friends with everyone in the party, they can negate a crit on any one of them, but only once per day (so the fighter can negate one crit, but on anyone in the party). If everyone is friends with everyone, the pool is maximized: any individual party member can force a re-roll on a crit against any other party member. They all watch out for each other.
This mechanic encourages your character to make friends with the party, which helps your character get drawn into adventures that center on or start with other characters, too. The more friends you have, the safer your party potentially is (if everyone is friends with everyone, everyone can force crits to be re-rolled, as many times as you have party members), and DM’s having “lucky days” can’t necessarily overcome the power of a strongly connected group of friends fighting together, who care about each other. This reflects actual combat psychology, as well: there’s a reason military training involves an intimacy and bonding that is stronger than most other relationships. If you care about the people around you, and you trust them as much as or more than family, you’re more likely to do all you can to protect them.
Keep Your Enemies Closer
Okay, friends are all well and good, but what if you’re not playing a “friendly” character? Or what if you’re an outsider? Or what if all this hugging and camaraderie and filial love just leaves a bad taste in your gritty, thin-lipped mouth?
The other side of the friendship coin is Rivalry. In addition to picking a friend at character creation, you can also pick a rival. The same terms apply: the other player can approve or veto the choice to be a rival for your character.
You and your rival also have a relationship, but it’s not one born out of mutual trust and affection as much as it is built out of grudging respect and a competitive spirit. This is the Gimli/Legolas relationship, or the Wolverine/Cyclops relationship. Best frenemies. You share ideologies and even goals, but that doesn’t mean you have to really get along. Like with friendship, the nature of your rivalry is up to you: perhaps elves and dwarves don’t trust each other, perhaps one of you is Lawful and one of you is Chaotic, perhaps one of you is a jaded psychopath like Belkar and the other is a warrior for good like Roy. You don’t like each other. You probably wouldn’t want to hang out together. But there’s something about the other person that drives you to be better. Maybe you want to beat them. Maybe you want to show them up. Maybe you want to prove that they’re wrong. The rivalry shouldn’t be enough to inspire hatred or true enmity, but it should perhaps be like the other side of the filial love coin: sibling rivalry.
It's....complicated
You and your rival both get this ability:
Goading Insult
”My grandmother can do better than that!”
Reaction * Usable Once Per Day
Trigger: When your rival rolls a natural 1 on an ability check, saving throw or attack roll.
Effect: Your rival can re-roll the check, save, or attack. You lose your next action.
So when your rival is being weak and pathetic and not trying hard enough, you inspire them to do their best, to try and prove to you that they’re not as sad as that die roll would indicate. Using this ability represents your character, paying close attention to your rival, and calling out a taunt or sarcastic remark when they’re struggling or stumbling. That taunt can inspire them to do better, and not suck quite so hard, at least while you’re around. It takes some effort to harass your rival, but you know they’ve got something better in them – if not, they probably wouldn’t get under your skin so much. They’d be too weak to notice. You know your rival is better than that!
Like with friends, you can have as many rivals as you’d like, but can only use this ability once per day. Extra rivals just increase the amount of people who could care about being insulted by you. If that party of 5 all really finds the party thief super-annoying, then they can all potentially constructively insult that thief, helping them possibly overcome 4 natural ones per day. If that thief in turn finds the party super-preachy, the thief can insult any of them, but only gets to insult one of them each day. A party entirely made up of rivals can all insult each other and drive each other to greater success.
This mechanic encourages making competitive relationships with other party members – the more rivals you have, the better the party performs. A turn of bad luck can’t affect a party with some rivalry in it as much as it might affect others. This reflects what competition can actually do to people psychologically: it can bring out the best in you when you try to beat people you’ve got an investment in beating.
It’s worth noting that mutual respect and fundamental tolerance is essential for a good rivalry to work. Rivals don’t hate each other – Wolverine and Cyclops are on the same side – they just don’t really like each other, they have different ways of doing things, and big, fundamental disagreements. But they share an agenda, they share a goal, and ultimately they share a purpose. They want the same thing, they just have different reasons and different ways of going about it.
For flavor purposes, it’s also not possible to have a rivalry with a person you are also friends with. It’s a different sort of relationship. While you can become very close and reveal much to your rival, it’s not a relationship of trust or compassion – your rival isn’t someone you tell your deepest secrets to. And your friend, even though they can encourage you and support you, you know they like you, that you’re OK in their book – they can’t push you quite as hard as a rival can.
Developing Relationships
These relationships are presented as things that you make at character creation, with other people in your group, while you’re picking your race and class and spells and whatnot. Relationships can be that defining and central, but they’re also dynamic and changeable over time. Your actions and adventures can change these relationships.
And that’s where the DM comes in. Your adventures can focus on the relationships between characters, and can include elements of friendship or rivalry as challenges or rewards. You can create adventures where your party members will need to make new friends, or where they face new potential rivals, or where the lines of tension and compassion within the party are highlighted. You can also limit friendships and rivalries initially, to let them develop over the course of play: if everyone can only have one friend and one rival, you can show the party growing closer over time by offering Friendship and Rivalry as a reward for role-playing or for completing an adventure that brings that out. Maybe the party cleric doesn’t start off as anyone’s close friend but, over a few adventures, that friendship might arise.
Your Stories
So, I’m interested in hearing about what you think. I’m also interested in hearing about the great friendships or great inter-party rivalries that you’ve had. Let me know what you think about this mechanic, and tell me your stories of friendship and rivalry down in the comments!
