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| #1HebitsuikazaJul 28, 2014 9:12:57 | These are rules I am working on to help make a more character-driven campaign. I have viciously stolen these rules from other RPGs and modified them, I am not at all going to deny that. But, good ideas ought to spread. Forewarning that this is going to be quite a read. So TL/DR trolls need not bother to continue past this sentence.
Now, there are going to be those who say that they don't need these kind of rules. That they do all this kind of stuff perfectly and intuitively on their own. Well... great. This is more for the people who find themselves munchkining, rules lawyering, roll up a character that they can only describe as "elf.. rogue... and... thief background?" or those who find themselves sitting at the table not knowing what to do. These rules are to get them more involved and immersed in the game by putting right in front of them extra details about their character that they cannot forget and will be directly rewarded for carrying through (why should rewards come solely from murdering things anyway?).
But, I am not perfect. That's why I am offering these up for other people to look over and critique. Maybe the labels I chose for these things are wrong, maybe I am not being clear enough about how they are meant to work, maybe the mechanical bits are a little wonky and need tightening up, maybe I made horrendous spelling mistakes. Sure-- I am open to all honest critique.
There is also a more intense and detailed character background system I'd like to be able to put together, but the inherent min/max nature of the game doesn't allow for my original plan (background details adding or subtracting from stats through the point buy system) to be remotely functional.
Nature and AspirationsCharacters in fiction can often be boiled down to a number of very simple tropes. Although a good character can have a lot of minor details about it, it will be most memorable to other players if the personality of the character can be simplified and adheres to their expectations. This is where Nature comes in. The most basic role you see the character fulfilling in their world, the essence of their personality is their nature. It should be one or two words that basically describe the core essence of the character, their personality and so forth. However, many if not all characters are going to be less than happy about their true selves and will try to aspire or pretend to be something they are not. You can choose or create a second archetype that will describe what the character attempts to present himself or herself as which will be the character’s Aspiration. Example Natures and Aspirations
Character Marks It is said that destiny marks those who will be large players in it. It is a well-known trope throughout fiction that those who become major players in the world often have something unique or special about them that clearly marks them as not someone to be ignored. Often it is small sign from their past that their future might be great. Often these signs can be very unclear as to what they really mean, leaving their interpretation up for debate. Perhaps we know a person was affected by some way that may mean they could become a great force of good or evil, or perhaps it was nothing at all and they will die in obscurity before they ever achieve whatever destiny had in store for them.
Character marks are a way to tie the world into the character, providing evidence that the character is important in the continuing narrative of the world. They are specifically not meant to have any mechanical effect, but to rather be a story hook. However, perhaps there are times that these marks can lead to major resolutions for good or for ill or might occasionally, at the DM’s discretion, have very powerful mechanical effects, though perhaps only once when the meaning behind the mark suddenly becomes crystal clear at the climax of the character’s story arc. But for the most part they are there primarily to reinforce the idea that the characters are important to the overall story and cannot merely be swapped out at any second for any generic wanderer on the street.
Players should decide on their own what marks their character as special, there is a list of options here. It is up to the DM’s discretion whether their choice is appropriate to the plans the DM has in mind. Once the marks have been set, the DM should keep a small list of them by his side and try to bring at least one up in every adventure. Perhaps the adventurer has that reoccurring dream again, perhaps the adventurer’s mysterious scar burns when danger is near, perhaps the adventurer comes across a dire enemy or powerful ally who has a similar heritage, perhaps the adventurers come across an ancient prophecy that seems to apply precisely what is special to the adventurer or a seer or fortune teller says that only those born under a certain sign can save the village and that just so happens to fit the description of the adventurer. Try to be creative, but feel free to be cliché if necessary.
Although it is usually best if everyone in the group has different character marks, sometimes the meeting of those with the same or similar marks could mean that they are tied together by kharma and that they are meant to work together to accomplish whatever fate has in store for them. Example Character Marks
GoalsThis works in direct conjunction with Ideals. While Ideals describe your character’s code, a goal is something a character wants to accomplish. A goal should be something that is very personal the character—probably the very reason they began adventuring in the first place. The goal should be something that can be accomplished, but only with considerable work. The goal is something that really hooks into the character’s motivation. Too often there are games where the players sit down and the characters participate in the adventure simply because it is there to be participated in—or the character’s only purpose is to make money and collect magical items to increase their own power. Greed may be a perfectly functional goal, but certainly not the most heroic one. Other times a threat has to directly present itself and the characters seek out to end the threat at its root as a rag-tag team, which seems quite odd if the place being threatened could rally an army to deal with the threat. It makes the NPCs seem quite lazy and complicit.
But by having a very specific and concrete goal in mind means that it becomes quite a bit easier to get the character and the player motivated in the outcome of the particular adventure. Whenever there is an opportunity to take a step towards that goal, the character will naturally be drawn towards taking it. Goals can also be used to tempt characters off the right path—evil beings might offer shortcuts towards accomplishing the character’s goals in exchange for assisting evil giving the character the chance to either give in to or resist the temptation. Goals should not be accomplished in a single adventure, but rather they ought to take several adventures to complete. A goal could well motivate a character from level 1 and not be accomplished until level 5 or level 10.
When a goal is accomplished, two things happen. First, the character receives an inspiration point and experience points equal to having defeated an opponent with CR equal to its level. But also, it creates an existential crisis. The player must answer the question—what is going to motivate this character to continue adventuring? Is there any reason for the character to not simply retire now that it has achieved its happy ending? If this question cannot be answered, then perhaps the character becomes a powerful allied NPC to the party and the player begins a new character with new motivation. But, if that question can be answered then the answer becomes the characters new goal.
There might well be times when character goals are going to clash, when the party has the opportunity to seek out fulfilling one of its member’s goals or another and they have to choose which to follow. This can create good inter-party drama as the players suddenly have very clear circumstances under which they can display their character’s alignment and ideals. It will also be possible that sometimes circumstances will occur where the character’s goal is no longer possible to accomplish. In such a case, the character doesn’t receive the benefit of having accomplished the goal, but will still have to face the existential crisis of whether to continue adventuring or to simply retire.
Although it might be cleaner to have every member of the party with the same goal, it is often unsatisfying and lacks the dramatic tension and complexity of all the adventurers having personal goals that they hold dear to themselves. However, as a campaign is closing to and end it may be useful to have all character goals coalesce around a single goal. Often when other character’s goals have been accomplished early on, their new goal might simply be to help the other members of the party achieve their own goals. Example Character Goals
Character DynamicsWith ideals, bonds, marks and goals you have well established who the character is as an individual. The character’s actions are now guided. But Dungeons and Dragons isn’t a solo adventure. Instead the character is going to be working within the context of a party. And why are they together as a party? Why should they trust one another? All too often characters are just tossed together randomly at first—they all happen to be in the same tavern or town when an opportunity arises. Or they are drawn together by a powerful NPC as complete strangers. Although this can work, it often makes things awkward between players as they either rely on their pre-existing player dynamics or there is too much about their characters that they need to explain and maybe it is done in the form of sitting around a table and giving a description and background of their character—which may be fine, but what do the character’s mean to one another?
It is relatively rare in fiction for characters to be brought together as complete and utter strangers and told to trust one another from the start. Instead, most fiction either introduces characters slowly over time—which Dungeons and Dragons hardly allows time for—or the characters start off with a history. It is this later form that Character Dynamics tries to mimic. By starting off with character dynamics, players know more fully how their characters interact with others in the group and how to behave towards them and the degree to which they trust them.
Character Dynamics take the form of mini-goals. A character is connected with the other character because they want to accomplish something through that dynamic. These goals ought to be generally (seemingly) selfless—there is something they want to do for the other character or a debt they need to repay to the other character. Of course, there are probably deeper details about what action in the past of the two characters caused this to be the case and the players should work out the finer details between themselves. It is important that both members in an exchange agree to a particular dynamic and are happy with how it works out. Although it may take a bit of time to choose them all and cannot be done until the characters are gathered, the process ought to leave the PC with potentially 10 events that happened in their life previously that now help uniquely define this PC apart from every other one the player has previously played.
At the end of every adventure, the players should check their character dynamics. If both players agree that a goal was fulfilled, it should be marked off. The character receives an inspiration point and experience equal to having defeated an opponent equal to ¼ their level’s CR. In addition, the player should reflect upon what happened during the adventure. If the player feels that another character in the party did something meaningful or shocking to their character, they can propose a new character dynamic. If both players agree to the new dynamic, then the player adds that one to his list.
A character should generally start off with one character dynamic for each other character in the party—to a maximum of 5. A character may not have more than 5 dynamics at a time. As dynamics are added over the course of adventures, it is entirely possibly for a character to have more than one dynamic with the same other character, however when first starting there should only be one per a character in the group. If players feel it is best for their characters to be total strangers who happen to have some acquaintances in common, it is perfectly allowable not to start with a dynamic with one of the characters in the group.
If a character is slain, the dynamics involved with that character are removed and the opportunity to fulfill them is lost unless the dynamic involved a debt that could still be paid to the character’s family. Example Character Dynamics
Character RelationshipsNow that the player has decided who their character is, what their character’s basic history is like, what their morals are, what is important to them in the world, what sets them apart from all other similar adventurers, what they have set out to accomplish and how they are tied to the people they are working with, there is one more step to completing the portrait of this character. How does this character interact with the powers that be in the world?
If adventurers are accomplishing much of anything, then they are going to be either delighting or angering the major players of the world. And chances are, if they have gotten thrust into adventure, then they are a little blip on the radar of one of the major power brokers as it is. Through relationships between the character and the world around them, we create our supporting characters and antagonists of the campaign. Before we begin, we are going to want to set down who the major powers of the region the campaign is taking place in are. There should be 6 to start with, but this roster can expand and will perhaps shrink as the campaign goes on. The powers work best if the relationship seems personal—so it is often best to personify the relationship as it is with a person. Instead of having the relationship be with “The Lords of Neverwinter” have it be a relationship with “King Neverember” even if the PCs are generally only going to be dealing with low ranking minions and agents of that particular person. Even if the person is slain, the relationship can go on with now leaderless supporters of that person until they too have been vanquished.
Generally speaking there are a number of roles you want to cover, though these are hardly set in stone and some will simply not apply in some campaigns. It is also important not to have too large of a list or else the story will get too unfocused and confused. Stick with 6 to start or with as many as you have players (even if no player chooses to have a relationship with that person). These characters should be CR5 or level 20
If the DM cannot think of characters to fill the role, it is generally fine for characters to suggest the existence of some such NPC who the DM can then accept as being part of the world. The alignment of these particular entities should be left as a bit mysterious, but not their actions, what sort of people work for them, in what sphere and regions they have the strongest authority and so forth.
Each player should choose one of these that their character has a relationship with and select whether the relationship is positive or negative, whether they are a friend or foe to this particular NPC. At the beginning of each adventure the player rolls a D10 for each point of relationship whether positive or negative they have with that NPC.
If the relationship is positive—then on a 9-10 the character will receive a boon from that NPC’s supporters and on a 1-2 the character will receive trouble from that NPC’s opponents.
If trouble arises because of this relationship, then at any point (preferably least expected) someone will come in to ruin the party’s plans. Whether it is something as simple as a direct attack or it will be to spread bad word about the party or sabotage their ability to be able to replenish their supplies or find a safe place to rest.
If the character receives a boon then at any point during the adventure the player can choose to use the boon. The character is unaware they are to receive any assistance, but somehow assistance will come to them at a time the player feels best. One of the agents or supporters of the NPC (or its opponents) will recognize the character and lend whatever help they can. This can be sudden, unexpected reinforcements from a losing battle, assistance to by-passing an obstacle the party doesn’t seem to have a way to get past to vouching for the party during a social interaction.
As a general guideline, the help or harm done by the relationship roll shouldn’t be any more than the addition of a helper or opponent equal to ¼ the player’s level in CR. However, at DM discretion the help or harm can be far more sweeping than this, but be wary of doing this for the players will begin to feel as though their own character’s skills are being under-utilized. At the close of each adventure, the players and DM should reflect on what happened during the adventurer and what NPCs were helped or harmed by the player’s actions. The players should then suggest that their relationships with certain NPCs should be increased as a result of what happened. As long as the DM consents, each player may add a dot of positive or negative relationship with the NPC of their choosing. There may well be times that players to increase their relationship with what was meant to be a minor NPC. This means the players enjoyed the DMs portrayal of this NPC and want him/her to become an ongoing part of the campaign. This is perfectly acceptable and can help really shape who the major players of a campaign are going to be. If a player cannot think of which NPC their character might have impacted, the DM can offer a suggestion.
Also, if a DM is feeling particularly dastardly, there are times when the PC’s actions can help or harm an NPC that they are completely unaware of having impacted. In such a case, the DM should keep his own secret tally. If the adventurers harmed an NPC, then the DM should mark up a secret relationship with that NPC equal to the number of players in the party. At the beginning of each adventure the DM should make these secret rolls by him or herself and use these enemies and secret boons to additionally shape the story.
Players may gain no more than 3 boons from their relationship roll, but they must roll their all of their relationship dice. After they have done so if they have more than 3 boons, they choose which three they want to use for this adventure. There might be exceptions to this rule, however, for instance if the players are trying to form an army then each additional boon can add soldiers to their army. However, all the opponents that arise from their relationship rolls are certain to appear. This means that while at lower levels when the adventurers are small blips on the radars of the world’s major powers, at higher levels the adventures may practically write themselves as the relationship rolls themselves indicate who all the opponents are. |