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RPG Ideas — Relationships

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is relationships, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of relationships another creator we’ve developed a great relationship with is Penny Dragon Games, who’s giving a free hard cover copy of Firestar Falling to everyone who backs a physical tier of the Bergin’s Book of Beasts Kickstarter in the first 48 hours. The cosmic horror adventure takes characters through an investigation of an abandoned village and battle against creatures twisted by a mysterious entity from another plane. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

Nerdy News

Pierce the illusion of the weeks that were! The special mid-week newsletter following the end of our Mage Forge Kickstarter put us a little off track so enjoy this double-sized Nerdy News covering two weeks from the website and YouTube channel including new live chats with industry pros and creative folks and live game plays round out this week’s Nerdy News. Check it out here. (Our weekly Nerdy News will be back on track starting next week.)

Delving Dave’s Dungeon

One of the things setting tabletop roleplaying games apart from other activities we do are relationships. Whether it’s the lifelong friendships you make with the people in your RPG group or the NPCs your characters interact and bond with in your campaigns RPGs create a unique experience where we get to build relationships in the games we play as well as at the table we sit around. This could be a real table or virtual one — it doesn’t matter. As the world widens for us because of technology and social media I feel like we can connect with more people than ever but those connections seem to be less deep and meaningful than the ones I made in my pre-internet life.

Roleplaying games are fundamentally about telling stories and achieving goals by being cooperative with a group of other people. This shared activity whether done online or in person helps us come together as a community and groups of friends. I’ve always considered an invitation to my gaming table as an invitation of friendship. I find gaming with friends is so much better than gaming with strangers. The process of bonding and becoming friends enriches the RPG experience at the table. This is just the out of game part of relationships.

Building relationships in game can be an amazing experience. I’d say there are two ways this develops, both of which are awesome and can make your games so much more fun. First there is player to player and second you have a player to NPC controlled by the Game Master.

Let’s look at player to player. We take on the role of a character who isn’t us when we game. Building a new relationship with someone you know through these roles you take on is one of the few ways we get to experience relationships with the same people for the first time. Every time we create new characters and introduce them to each other we are meeting each other for the first time again. It’s also a chance to explore different types of relationships with other people you otherwise would have never been able to do. I don’t know of any other way to do this in real life, virtual life or otherwise. It seems very uniquely something that happens in RPGs.

Now we’ll dive into player to NPC relationships. As a GM one of the most rewarding parts of running RPGs is the players having strong reactions to your NPCs. This could be the old crone they visit for tarot card readings, a crazy gnome tinker who sometimes has something useful for the group or a silly goblin belly dancer who performs at their favorite tavern.

Players reacting strongly to NPCs ties them more deeply to the world and the stories you all create together. They can even have lasting relationships with bad guys and recurring villains. These can even mundane encounters the players enjoy having in your world. I’ve seen players get emotional and cry over these in game moments. I don’t think there is any higher praise for a GM than to make your players feel something. As GMs we sometimes want to rush the game in order to get to the story but I think if you step back and let the players play, explore and build these relationships then new stories and adventures unfold from them. I love these moments — the stories I didn’t plan for but players made happen.

From Ted’s Head

There are so many ways to explore relationships in RPGs. Each table needs to set their own ground rules for how deep you are comfortable roleplaying. But aside from romantic relationships the relationships between the player characters as well as between them and NPCs important to the story are incredibly valuable.

In my current games I try to make sure I am connected storywise to other characters. A perfect example is in Nobody’s Heroes, our Cypher System superhero campaign. While initially we had not discussed how my character and Robin’s character knew each other, we found out we were roughly the same age and therefore were at least loose acquaintances in high school.

I love connecting with other characters.

In Dawnbringers, the game I play on Mini Terrain Domain, Jeremy plays Talmud who is my character’s cousin because we are both dwarven barbarians. In the game we just started of Shadow of the Demon Lord I am playing a changeling who looks like a goblin and one of the other players chose to play a goblin so we decided we were going to be “brothers.” As I write this I am getting ready to have our first session tomorrow and I am very much looking forward to this game.

Years ago our roleplaying was very much between player and GM. The only discussions we had between players was to figure out our next move and usually it was out of character. There is nothing wrong with this style if it is what you do but since I learned of the interconnectivity and building relationships among the characters I have enjoyed gaming even more than ever.

Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos has a small section about building a relationship with NPCs. This system could be extended over the course of a long campaign based out the same location whether you are looking to build a romantic relationship, get a discount at a local merchant or even the local librarian. In my first fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign Nerdarchist Dave built a rapport with the librarian who became crucial to the plot but started out as very antagonistic towards him. Dave took it as a mission for his dwarf to win over this elf. It was very fun to play out. In my kids’ game the crazy dwarven wizard decided he wanted to propose to the pixie-like fey creature who randomly popped into the story.

We play these roleplaying games typically with our friends. We play with those we normally want to be around. So strengthen the relationship with your friends by keeping your games alive and keep those hours of roleplaying fun and full of conversation.

From the Nerditor’s Desk

During the live chat with Nerdarchist Ted we talked mostly about relationships between players, their characters and NPCs within an RPG campaign setting. In their editorials this week Dave and Ted expand further in this aspect with the former focusing on relationships between players and the latter on characters.

One of the points I touched on in the chat, which I’ll explore further here, are the other kinds of relationships found within the RPG experience. A relationship represents any sort of a connection, association or involvement. This includes both players and their characters’ relationships to a huge variety of things in and out of game.

• Wealth. What’s your characters’ relationship to affluence and prosperity within the setting for your game? If they come from humble means do they hold ambition in their heart to attain money and resources? If the character comes from a wealthy background how does this affect their perception of the world? In a science fiction future Earth game I run one of the characters is extremely wealthy and this creates lots of intriguing situations for the story.
• Status. Does your character see status among any group important or do they disdain the concept of hierarchies of any sort? What does status within a structured organization mean to and for them? Do they take others’ status into account during interactions? In our Dungeons & Delving game my character started off completely indifferent to her status within the context of the campaign but it wasn’t long before she recognized the lucrative opportunities status could afford.
• Society. How does your character associate with the larger population? Do they strive to avoid contact with strangers? Are they an extrovert or an introvert? Do they feel alienated or connect with a strong sense of community? A misanthrope character can be fun to play without being problematic for the other players or story being told. Raistlin Majere made it work. In my experience it’s not uncommon for players to feel empowered by a consequence free environment to demonstrate antisocial behavior through their characters, which alternately fascinates and disturbs me. That’s a topic for another time!
• Culture. Does your character share a strong relationship with a particular culture or subculture in your game’s setting? This sort of thing can vary wildly in the RPG experience from high fantasy to hard science fiction and everything in between so there’s infinite possibilities upon which to hang some character relationships. I love to imagine this sort of stuff. Wondering what life was like growing up on the Elemental Plane of Fire helped my character Vent flare to life during Those Bastards!
• Supernatural. Where does your character land on phenomenon not of their world? Magic, the occult, unidentified alien entities and far flung technologies, super powers — do any of these things exist in your game? If so does your character possess any of them and how do they feel about those who do either way? I’m so used to playing games with this catchall category of stuff in some fashion that when I play a game without any of these elements it’s refreshing and fun in the most relatable way. Never count out a little good old fashioned regular life adventure.
• Themselves. What’s your character’s relationship with themselves? Are they introspective and reflect on the extraordinary circumstances they no doubt find themselves in continuously? How do they feel about the marvelous events they’ve been witness to and moved forward from? I find this relationship impacts my roleplaying experiences the most. Seeing things from my characters’ perspective is the most alluring aspect of RPGs to me and my most rewarding times are when I feel like a character’s relationship with themselves propels them through a story.

*Featured image — Bergin’s Book of Beasts features 200+ new animals to be used as encounters, familiars, party pets, character companions, or with the polymorph spell, and of course wild shape. It includes 12 new beast-flavoured subclasses and 30 new beast-flavoured magic items, including items for your familiars, mounts, and animal companions. Learn more about it here!

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