Diss
Stories are made out of conflict. Sometimes these conflicts are baked right into a setting, with whole nations or entire peoples at each others’ throats. Just look at all the dwarf vs. orc conflicts filling the pages of fantasy literature. Perhaps your demons and devils are locked in a self-destructive war of evil vs. evil. Maybe your vampires hate your werewolves. It might even be something as small-scale as a petty gang squabble. These sorts of conflicts make for big, sweeping power struggles, but for me they aren’t the most interesting.
Whenever I find myself sitting around the tavern table at the start of a new campaign, I make a game of waiting for the first insult. It might come in the form of a little casual racism directed at a half-orc PC. (“Nobody told me I’d have to work with no greenskin.”) It might happen because some unlucky sod makes the game’s first unlucky roll. (“Is this your first tavern brawl?”) It might even come from an NPC looking to remind the players that they’re low-level scrubs (“Don’t cause no trouble. I’ve tossed out bigger and meaner than you sorry lot.”) In every case, I think that these jabs are more than mere pettiness. They’re an effort to generate conflict. And by that I mean that they’re a shortcut to interesting story.
Just because the bunch of disparate weirdos who showed up at the inn this time around are destined to save the world together, it by no means follows that you have to like each other. In fact, I think that it’s good policy to have a range of relationships within the group. Admire the clever thief. Despise the pedantic wizard. Fear the half-mad barbarian. It’s from this web of relationships that interesting intra-party conflict emerges.
What do you think? Have you ever had a frenemy in your party? How’d it work out? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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during my first, proper game of D&D (AD&D, 2nd edition. during the pathfinder days, mind you) there was a wild mage who, upon meeting my Ranger, immediately used magic to brainwash my character and puppeted him to pretend he was the captain of the town guard. Then the wild mage Mage Marked my Ranger, and claimed to transfer ownership to his pet elephant.
Our two characters did not get along.
That… Seems like a dick move. Was it at least amusing out of character?
the initial event was annoying, since i had control of my (very first) character taken away during the first session, but it’s generally agreed the gm’s at fault and the wild mage player didn’t actually expect it to go that far.
after that, our two characters just hated each other, but it was fun out of character. when my character finally left, he had another mage make him a Mage Mark Scroll to get back one last time.
Nice. Glad to hear it didn’t turn into one of those gaming horror stories. So long as it’s fun out of character, you’re doing it right.
My character, Ariana, has been mentioned previously but her whole character arc started with some inter-party insulting of her signature weapon (a scythe). She went from trying to be reserved, but friendly, duskblade follower of Weejas, to a much darker/scarier, but still LN follower of Weejas. “She’s not evil!” became a catchphrase.
On the macro scale, my campaign worlds tend to be rich in possible conflicts because I find it helps characters define themselves better. The overall setting I made and can move forward/backward in time or locations and still be in it has multiple kingdoms with some rivalries, but it isn’t just “The evil kingdom of evilness versus the good kingdom of goodness.” The kingdoms have disputes about land, river use, woodland use, trade, etc.
Within the main kingdom though I have noble houses which have different outlooks on the world, and none of them are really evil, and all are a bit backstabby, so the party sometimes would find itself in conflict with them. And of course, as they rose in prominence with one it would drive rivalries with others. Trying to be universally popular, even in a fairly LG kingdom, was basically impossible for any party.
Out of curiosity, what kind of insults get hurled at a scythe-wielding duskblade?
Poorly thought out ones.
Dwarf bard, focused on insults. Truly a site to behold.
I think I might have a suspicion what that looks like in practice (NSFW, language):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjHclWPVij0
I knew what that was even before I clicked the link and it puts a smile on my face to hear that again.
#GigglingAtWork
On the topic of insults, my first encounter in 5e ended with the party’s Bard using the Vicious Mockery cantrip on the boss, a relatively elite goblin. The DM required any player using Vicious Mockery to supply an insult. The Bard’s player wasn’t quite expecting this and so went with “You’re fat!”
The boss DIED from that.
In terms of intra-party smack-talk, we recently acquired a Sanctified Slayer Inquisitor (new player) who uses a greatsword. With a flank and his Bane power, he can do like 7d6+14 damage per swing with a +20 to hit. Really strong DPR. We’ve been through two massive battles with him, and he hasn’t even made an attack roll with that greatsword. Not entirely his fault – he opens with Blistering Invective, he got thrashed into single-digit HP in the first fight, didn’t get healed much between the fights, first fight had us flanked in narrow corridors, the second one was a largely ranged affair, etc, etc. But still, it’s sort of amusing.
My STR-based Magus primarily uses a longsword, but has a big ole’ cold iron greatsword for when she’s low on spells and/or is using her one level of Bloodrager. It doesn’t come out much, but when it does, it usually leaves a mark.
In the second battle that I mentioned above, the Inquisitor was at such low health that he basically had to hang back behind cover (we were fighting 7 guys with crossbows, elevated positions and a narrow door we’d have to pass through to get to them – and a LOT of readied action shots). As our Sorcerer disrupted their formations with Create Pit, The enemies unleashed the big monster they had chained up in the back and it rushed out of the door and one-shot the low-HP Inquisitor. (Unconscious, not dead.) Right before this happened, I had started to move in, and so the monster was now between me and the party but focusing on everyone else. A goon approaches me with a big hook and the banter begins:
Goon: “Well, well, well. Haven’t had an elf around here in a while. Get over here, girlie. I wanna make you squeal.”
Me: “Yeah… Hold that thought, please.” *switches to greatsword and leaps screaming at the monster*
ONE ROUND AND A MONSTER DEATH LATER:
Me: *still holding greatsword covered in monster guts* “Okay. I’m back. What were you saying?”
Goon: “Uh…”
Me: “Oh, come on. You were talking so big just a second ago. Got me all excited. Let’s dance!”
That goon did not have a pleasant few rounds after that.
Anyways, at the end of the whole fight, we revive the Inquisitor and he asks what he missed.
Me: “Oh, you know. Just some real greatsword work.”
A little rivalry never hurt anyone, did it?
lol. I think maybe your group comes down on the “pro insult” side. And that’s appropriate, since it seems like their pros at insulting people to death.
We also had to tease the Catfolk Bloodrager who got hit with Blindness that we couldn’t get rid of for a session and a half. You see why we can’t give up the chance to make as many sight puns as possible, right? Eye sure do.
I hope you set him up on a blind date.
We did leave him alone with that nice female Elf Ranger NPC while we searched the rest of the building.
…She talked him into giving her some of the loot we’d left with him for safekeeping. Tables were flipped.
Fortunately for us, Inquisitor doesn’t have a code of conduct to follow, and hanging Bard by his ankles and beating the pithy stuffing out of him is entirely acceptable in the eyes of the gods. Hell, there are one or two I can think of off the top of my head that -love- to see a witty piñata.
The paladin I was so proud of with the glabrezu some comics back had a Lawful Evil counterpart, a cleric of Nerull, I believe. As a Heironean, we didn’t get along, but both of us were good friends outside of the chat. Obviously, this made a lot of things more ‘acceptable’ because we knew that the other wasn’t doing it maliciously. He killed one of my family members, I scorched his hidden temple and a bunch of acolytes to ashes in a fiery purge, and we got up to around level 14 from starting level 3 together without managing to finish the other off.
It got to the point where we actually didn’t mind going on adventures with each other, because we were -absolutely- familiar with our personal enemy’s capabilities and knew what to expect when they wheeled on the other at whatever opportune moment there was (and could prepare accordingly…Death Ward was important part of the repertoire for me). There was even a measure of trust. Eventually, I used my Grey Guard levels to justify buying a gem worth several thousand gold pieces, and put it in a box, and offered it to him without saying much. He accepted it, and Trap the Soul went off successfully and I won our years long battle.
Shortly afterwards, the gods exploded the gem and resurrected the cleric because the Big Shit was about to happen and our unhappy pairing was necessary. He was pissed at me, and reasonably so, but with our respective deities telling us to play Nice Nice, we both capitulated.
Fast forward a few years more and we’ve both gone our ways in real life and chat every so often on Skype maybe, when one day he asks me if I’d mind joining a call for a little while. Apparently, my paladin has been ordained as Emperor, and his cleric is a plot mover for a game he’s running for some other folks, and he wanted me to have a little casual sitdown with his players and offer an explanation as to why a devout follower of Heironeous allows a death cleric to be so influential in the empire.
I’m pretty sure that to this day, we’re still forbidden from actually taking each other out entirely. You’d best believe my region has a healthy shadow ops keeping an eye on the Nerull temples, though.
I’m working my way through the Annals of the Black Company at the moment, and I’m reminded of the constant feuding and squabbling between the wizards Goblin and One-Eye. It’s constant one-upmanship, minor magical practical jokes, and a glimmer of actual friendship underneath.
In my Storm King’s Thunder game the entire party is split between Lord’s Alliance Members and Zhentarim members (and a Druid). One of the Zhents is racist against elves. Despite being a half-elf. My character is also a half-elf. My character is also nobility. The other Zhent is a street tough. My character basically tries to loot whatever isn’t nailed down (how else do the rich stay rich?). The druid and cleric couldn’t care less about material things and the street tough looks down on gaining things they didn’t earn through force. The sorcerer is secretly a yuan-ti pureblood. My character repeatedly tries to be the party face despite the fact that we have a sorcerer and bard in the party and she has a whopping +0 to all social skills. The dragonborn just laughs when other party members don’t get along. The sorcerer basically wants the bard dead or in chains.
Is that enough conflict for ya!?
Well that depends. Do you hurl petty insults at one another? 😛
I’ve already shared my best rivalry stories. Actually I think I’ve shared most of my best stories. Fortunately I have some new campaigns coming up. 🙂
YEAH! Do like Wheaton says: play more games! It sure seems to be where I get most of my material from. For example, I was unconscious at the start of last night’s Out of the Abyss session. That’s madness chart, lugging around the KO’d ally, and teleporting out of the dungeon topics all in an hour’s worth of play. 😀
You and your girlffriend are gonna kill me you know that ? finally seeing a good, clear look at inquisitor’s design reminds me of what you said of her and Laurel’s book and become a painful reminder i cant afford it.
Curiosity killed the cat…cause he died waiting
I’ll have to see if I can’t get Laurel to release a few full-body character designs. Ya know. For the culture.
Oh, the clearly-an-Autumn wearing GREEN has something to say about crimes against fashion…?!
=p
You can’t wear orange after the Fest of Melodies. Everybody knows that.
I used to abhor PvP, and absolutely so. Mostly (but not only) because in my limited experience, in-game conflicts often mirrored IRL-ones (or even became them), getting pretty awkward pretty fast. Furthermore it is no fun to be at the recieving end of many a slight if you have no interest to retaliate in kind. So when I finally tried my hand as a GM (PF, just for the record) I developed some mechanism for PvP: The players who wanted some action had to agree beforehand on WHO, WHY, WHAT is allowed and WHEN is the conflict resolved. I imagined it quite some fun to throw insults or worse at one another, because it was in the script! It´s not personal, it´s just a role! Problem solved, me genius, everybody happy.
It was a spectacular failure: Obviously this bunch of rollplaying murderhoboes couldn´t stand the „loss of immersion“ due to a short spell of metagaming. (Noo, not bitter anymore, who, me? I´m over it, dammit!) I think, they switched to WoD now…