Shared Interests
On the off-chance you forgot, Arcane Archer is more than a cute fox boy. He is a kitsune, and that means he’s got access to the fox shape racial feat. Now scooping up field mice and boppin’ ’em on the head is not what you’d call a conventional first date, but I think it’s the sort of thing that a pair of shapeshifters could bond over. It’s also a good example of finding common ground between PCs.
Over the course of your roleplaying career, you won’t always have access to a full-fledged Session Zero. Intertwining character backstories are a luxury, and in-depth planning won’t show up in every game. If you’re sitting in on a one-shot at a con, guest starring in a long-running campaign, or playing BESM, you’re going to wind up with some wildly disparate PCs. Figuring out the connections between a half-dragon gnome monk with a Ruby Rhod personality and a blatant ripoff of Optimus Prime isn’t easy. It is, however, a skill worth developing.
In lieu of today’s discussion question, what do you say to a little character workshop? First, describe your favorite PC. Next, tell us about the party member you’ve got the least in common with. Finally, invent at least one new way to develop their relationship. For example:
- A flamboyant martial artist with a gift for gab, half-dragon-gnome-monk-Ruby-Rhod is his own best hype man. Unfortunately, his diminutive size means he isn’t half as intimidating as he thinks.
- Totally-Not-Optimus-Prime is an honorable warforged paladin. His player mostly presents him as a strong silent type, but he does like to make the occasional speech about teamwork.
- As it turns out, it’s easier to talk a big game when you’ve got a badass metal man in your entourage. Ruby treats Optimus like his personal bodyguard, leaving the long-suffering warforged to talk his way out of fights he didn’t pick.
Of course, this is the sort of thing you’ll want to hash out with your fellow player before implementing it in-game. But the larger point is that it’s always possible to find connections between characters, even when they seem to have nothing in common. In fact, that’s when it’s most necessary.
So now I put the challenge to you. How would you forge a stronger relationship between your favorite PC and a dissimilar teammate? Let’s hear your best brainstorming down in the comments!
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Session zero?
Whats a session zero, i’m so far into my campaign and i’ve lost so many players i dont have time for session zero. Inter party relationships? Whats that 18 pc’s have come and gone with only two veterans left, whats bonding when the gnome gambler suddenly poofs and goes away because he doesn’t like the campaign? And the little post poned conversation or reveal that he may have had is gone because the player is gone.
o-or or
….
Lies down
Online gming is hard.
Ouch. You’ve got my sympathies, man. So like… What’s one new way to develop your relationship with Roll 20? :/
shrugs
Roll20 is a okay service it lets me use maps, it lets me make handouts on lore for my players, and it lets me list my campaign as active for looking for players. It’s a tool and its a pretty good tool all things albeit a bit worn and outdated.
The hard part is the players part, or more importantly looking for them.
Theirs so many games so many GM’s, so many story tellers wanting to tell their story that people can easily pick and choose what they want.
They have that luxury of being able to choose their time, their type of world, and most importantly the group they want to play with. And if they don’t get the world they want, well theirs the ‘exit call’ and ‘leave group’ button on discord and roll20.
Their not restricted to your local gaming store where the same people usually hang out and if they want to play a game they have to make a few sacrifices in order to play. I would say in online you have the luxury of being able to look and scour around for the campaign you want. Want to get a high quality GM and fork a few bucks for him? Sure sure.
Want a casual pick me up session where you play for 1-2 hours and never speak to them again? Sure.
Plus with roll20 being as it is, THEIRS A GIANT POOL OF PLAYERS AND GM’S TO PICK FROM. So if the current game your in isn’t working out dont worry you can start over and look again. Anonymity is the Internets blessing and it can be a double edged sword.
And im not saying it is just for players, the Gm’s do the same with setting up interviews, asking for information on the player to the point where it would rival a resume and more!
Both the GM and player are looking for the best they can get and it can create this weird point where players can drop like flies, and Gm’s are quick to boot anyone that doesn’t fit their ideas of what they want for their player while they are still applying to be a player.
I like to think of it as fishing, just gotta reset the line change the bait and cast my line out in deep wide ocean (web). I’m sure someone with a high will and the want to find a good group -like gunslinger- will find his ideal group. You just gotta look hard enough, inform newbie players what they are getting into so that they can decide if this is the campaign they want. Improve your presentation and be a better GM, take the feedback from your players so you can fine tune your campaign so you can find good players that want to stay. And improve yourself on the way so you can be a better GM for yourself and for your players.
The same thing if your a player, you develop the skills needed for finding a group, you learn to make more intriguing chars, how to voice act a bit, how to write creatively, how to state what you expect when your playing better, how to better judge if this is the group for you. And etc, you get better at looking for games and soon you find a group you like and you stay with them.
The same thing goes for a GM eventually after cycling through players you find the players that want to stay and they do, they like your Gming and you like having them as players.
Sure it may seem rough now but keep in mind not having a group is better than having a shitty one. Without a group you can start looking and trying out systems, and etc. With one you have to deal with that burden of being with a group when you want something better. After all your trying to find something that fits with you not providing a fit for somebody else at the expense of your own happiness in playing.
I’m sure someone like gunslinger will find the group he wants given time and enough applications into groups. I know I did with a group of mine and two of my players 😀
Who’re the two veteran’s PCs?
I have to say, arcane archer and druid are really cute together. My favorite PC that I have ever made was probably Elliot the Unlucky. The question of how he would have forged better bonds with his most dissimilar ally is a difficult one though. You see he had the problem of being a very good character, in a party of neutral, slowly sliding into evil characters, or just plain evil characters, and while he atleast made some bonds with most of the other guys, including the ranger who had in his backstory a specific extreme hatred of bards, I don’t really see how he would have bonded better with the dwarfish arcane fighter. You may remember when I had previously talked about mordred, I mentioned that mordred was sorta a more self-aware version of some of his previous murderhobo type characters. Well the fighter was one of him, and he followed the belief that in DnD, neutral meant you just did what you wanted, not going out of your way to hurt people, but not caring if you did, so the fighter ended up pretty much just being a typical sociopath without really feeling empathy. The only way I could see them bonding was if Elliot started making great poems to his works in battle, or making drinking songs for him, but I just can’t see Elliot willing to do that for him.
What about reciting poems in his general direction? Maybe some dwarven version of Aesop’s fables, patiently showing him the basics of morality from a dwarven perspective and hoping he’d listen?
“Why are you always going on about Little Belzen Shortbeard?”
“It’s to help me remember, lad. I’ve been too long away from dwarven lands. Now let me tell you about the time Belzen fixed his father’s forge.”
I mean, how would a good PC that didn’t outright murder this character actually deal with him? At the very least something like this could help your own sanity and immersion!
That would have been a good idea. What Elliot actually did was largely try to ignore him, or play damage control, which for the first half of the campaign at least was often not very successful due to the whole unlucky part of Elliot the Unlucky. A big part of what kept Elliot going for a while honestly, besides the fact that he knew the job was necessary and the group would be even more evil without him, was the fact that he knew that, as the bard, his story would be the only one people would listen to afterwards, especially since he was seen as a wildly popular saint like hero in the eyes of most of the sword coast due to his charity, diplomacy, and time spent healing people, while the others were much less well known, except for the barbarian who was famous for his blood knight tendencies, the fact that he could kill almost anything that wasn’t a epic boss in a 1 v 1, the fact that he wore nothing, and I mean nothing, but belts, and for the fact that his “second sword” was surprisingly tiny.
Also, to be fair, I should probably say me and the ranger weren’t particularly great at rping back then either. I definitely could have put more character into Elliot, and the reason I like him so much was less because of him, and more because of how much my absolutely horrid luck while playing him, and the fact that he kept going despite his teammates and bad luck, endeared him to me. Also because of all the hilarity his bad luck caused. Seriously, it had gotten to the point where we could somewhat accurately predict exactly what the dm would roll, because we knew any enemy would make their save, but the save dc was very high, and the enemy saves low enough, that they could only save on things like a 17 or higher, meaning there weren’t many options for what the die could roll. The dm rolled in plain view too, so we all saw his constant amazing saves and crits against me, and knew it wasn’t dm fiat. The fact that in a lot of sessions I never rolled above a 10, and rolled 1s around 1/4th of the time, was notable too. 1 in a million cases of bad luck seemed to happen regularly to Elliot. I had always known that natural statistical probability meant that some characters would just be consistently freakishly unlucky simply because with all the characters made in the world, a few would have to be, but I never actually expected to play one of those incredibly rare few.
I imagine this is more like Cupid and Eros having a Robin Hood style ‘splitting your opponent’s arrow’ contest with Arcane Archer as the bullseye.
I think they crit the poor guy either way.
Alternatively, he temped for either or both of them at some point, and this is their idea of a Solstice-Festival bonus…
Just shotgun it!
Player A: sets backstory down“My character is a loner, who lost her family to bandits when she was a child”
Player B: looks at Player A “Well mine is a loner too, but his family disowned him because he wanted to go adventuring”
Player C: glances at his notes “Uh, well mine is a loner also, but he is super angry about the world for not being fair so he wants to clean it up and stuff”
Player D: looks at each other player, rolls his eyes, then puts his backstory in his pack and smiles “My character is their older brother. He’s always trying to look after his siblings and keep them out of trouble-”
Other players: “What!?” “We aren’t related!” “Mine doesn’t have any family!”
Player D: “He’s a little saddened by their distant nature and constant insistence that their families are gone, despite being raised in a nice manor by busy-but-well-meaning parents.”
GM: 😀
See everyone’s backstory is nice and tied together, and Player D just needs to keep calling everyone by a shortened version of their first name, and relaying messages from mom and dad.
This got a good laugh from me. Perfection.
Now you’ve got me curious. Which version of events became canon?
I ship these two.
Let’s see, we have Caleb and Shadarkan, a human paladin and dwarf rogue. They met while fighting with in the Underdark in a drow city, and both acted dependable enough for occupational or racial reasons (respectively) that they were comfortable with each other’s backs. Caleb turned a blind eye to the occasional theft as long as it was in the vein of Robin Hood.
Then there was Andalus and Bartuc, a wizard and knight-assassin? I don’t actually know how Bartuc built exactly, but full plate and absolutely lethal and did the wetwork for the crown, while Andalus enjoyed life by teasing younger adventurers and trying to play matchmaker. Eventually Andalus got betrayed by the woman -Bartuc- had set him up with and his apprentice tried to line him up for a stab from a (different, less adept) assassin, but a sad chiding and dismissal, followed by a Teleport to Bartuc’s manor solved that pretty quickly. Bartuc was really apologetic about the whole thing when he heard.
And now there is Rhodon and Savrah. Used to be a group of four, now it’s just these two against the world, and there’s a hell of a lot of world. LE Conjurer, NG Bolt Ace (Gunslinger Archetype for those unfamiliar), Savrah can buy time for Rhodon to make a front line with Summon Monster, Rhodon can tell Savrah what bolts to use to kill it as fast as possible, Savrah talks to the people when it’s time to be diplomatic, Rhodon talks to people when it’s time to argue. It’s a nice Jack Sprat division.
Interesting that you’ve got the mechanics bound up with the personality traits in that last pairing. Do they actually like each other though? When they’re just killing time in a bar, how do they interact?
And so begins Katalmach and his topsy-turners adventure into wealth and romance. Katalmach is a half-orc barbarian/rogue, having grown up on a pirating vessel and made stronger and smarter for it. You see he never could match other orcs sheer bull and strength (though he was certainly strong in his own right) and so instead of focusing on being a raging warrior like most of his kin, he took a more cunning route of a rogue. Tricks, deceptions, and sneak attacks were his trade, but in following this path he discovered more to life than just raiding and looting; he grew a fondness for a simple delight meal. After his ship suffered a case of violent mutiny Katalmach escapes to an adventuring guild and takes up a job as an adventurer so that he could lay his way through chef’s college.
During his time as an adventurer he befriends a rather shy and demure wood elf Druid. Young and naive, she had recently escaped her own hardships and was simply looking for a new direction in life. Many took pity in the girl and showered her with lavish gifts and praises, but her fate took a bigger change when she dared stepped into Katalmach’s Domain: the kitchen. Despite being a Druid she was a poor chef and had burnt many a pans making fried eggs, angering the orcish barbarian. But instead of violence he gave the girl something no one else had: a chance to be better.
The two began to meet up from time to time in order to improve on her cooking. Katalmach meanwhile made a new friend and lover in one of the most expected persons: an aasimar Paladin of an order of light. A lawful good warrior who had no hesitation to Smite evil, and Katalmach himself was as far away from a good guy as you could get short of the most common depictions of orcs. Yet somehow through Kat’s Ability to do more than fight, and his interest in philosophies and introspective moments, he had somehow gained the paladin’s love and affection. But not all would last.
The orc and the elf drifted apart as he spent more and more time with the aasimar, who herself was going through a crisis. For the longest time her world was black and white, one with good and evil, yet her lover was big evil yet a kind man who despite his race and class seemed thoughtful, intelligent even. During their journies they tackled threats that began as good intentions but twisted into evil. Seeing her world view shattered made the aasimar leave on a journey, one that she couldn’t take Katalmach on.
Meanwhile the Druid had made new friends and new enemies. Ones who didn’t pity her but instead sought to manipulate her nativity and weakness. She wished to become stronger by facing greater threats, but failed to realize that fighting and being defeated by greater forces does not make your stronger. She suffered many defeats before once more, the heart-broken orc and the body-broken Druid met up again. In the blazes I’d an inferno.
Fury and anger had taken the orc as his lover left him and his best friend was used and abused by the hands of those she calls her friends. In his fury he created his ultimate dish, roasting the entire guild hall in smoke and fire. He stood there as the ashes settled and he confronted those who wanted to know what had happened. He admitted to all crimes and submitted to whatever punishment would be given to him. Most of all of he was to be put to the sword, he wanted it to be done by his dear friend, the Druid who he had cared for since the beginning.
But no such fate would befall him. Instead of being an outcast and hated the adventures pooled their resources together and raised a new, better guild hall. Though he was imprisoned Katalmach was later released to co tongue cooking, and through those hardships he kindled a new flame with the wood elf, who had taken time to reflect and learn on her mistakes. It was rough and they continued to have personal struggles, but out of the ashes the orc and the elf were reborn as better people, and lived happily ever after.
Their children, on the other hand, is a whole different story.
Sounds like you had some pretty well-established relationships from the start. No need to invent new intraparty dynamics when you’ve only got 2-3 players. It’s really those times when you’re at a large table–say 5-7 PCs–when one of your buddies might get left out of consideration. Have you ever run into one of those?
Aww, Unspecified Subclass Druid and Arcane Archer Fighter are adorable together. I suspect “Hunting voles” is a euphemism as voles’re monogamous and mate for life.
My Paladin made a point of knowing every party member and developing a good relationship with them. “A commandah needz ta’ know ev’ry strength n’ weakness ‘f theyuh subohdinates, including theyuh poysinality.”
The Wizard I’ve been playing cares not for his comrades, as they are the expendable distractions whose job is to be a buffer of flesh between him and the foes he dispatches with his “unparalleled magical potency”.
I suppose a one-relationship-fits-all approach is appropriate for an arrogant PC. Still, is there no room for a slightly different relationship with one or more of your party-mates?
Wasd (My Wiz) has different forms of contempt for different PCs.
Sorcerers did not earn their power, and as such are the most contemptible.
This group contains two Warlocks who he has different forms of contempt for. One is a Great Old One Warlock who was a scholar who got some Hastur in their brain when they read the wrong book. Wasd is actually tolerant of him due to his academic background.
The other is a Hexblade who is a pre-teen noble empowered by his family’s sword. Wasd despises this child for his nobility, his naivete, and for the fact that he decided to wear a similar hat to Wasd. He did not earn the right to wear the hat of a Wizard!
Wasd actually kind of likes the Monster Slayer ranger. They’re competent, but defer to Wasd, and have a skillset that in no way offends Wasd.
The greatest target of Wasd’s enmity though is a shopkeeper. He made Wasd wait behind other customers for 20 minutes, charged him 25 gold for 20 gold worth of reagents, and most unforgivably of all, made Wasd say “Please.” This incident was last session, and Wasd is still trying to think of appropriate revenge. He was thinking of setting the shop on fire in the night, and offering to Dimension Door the shopkeep out after charging him 5 gold, and awaiting a “Please” before taking a moment to lecture him aboot not needing niceties to do what’s expected of you.
Sounds like you’ve got this mess on lock. Well done you!
A word of warning though. If you pursue your vendetta against this shopkeeper, make certain he is not secretly “Sharkoom the Titanslayer” in retirement:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/epic-level-npcs
Considering the most he could do about the Hags abducting children in his village is call a community meeting where Wasd traumatized several grieving parents by explaining that it was Hags that were abducting the children, (presumably to eat because that’s how hags reproduce) rather than deal with it himself, I don’t think that’s an issue, unless he’s an Elminster figure who should probably be solving all the problems in the setting on his own.
“We are, more than anything, a union of like-minded individuals. We kill for profit, for enjoyment, […]. We are family, with bonds forged in blood and death.”
– Lucien Lachance, about the Dark Brotherhood.
What other thing is necessary? When your pc face death with his companions, when they suffer, win and profit in carnage and pillage, what other form of connection do you need? But if you are so inclined people can bond for many things hatred about the BBG, catharsis about their doomed hometown. What really works in my opinion is real-life bonds. When you have been in a group a time, and you know your fellow real-human players, you can anticipate what they like and make the party according to that. You know that Jimmy likes sexy elves, girls if possible, and dislike spiders, so you ca make a drow priestess of Lolth obsessed with spiders and Jimmy’s pc. That way he can have many funny times running away of a sexy, and probably girl, priestess of Lolth who want to do some seriously Naughty things… surrounded by spiders that is.
Now i have a question. “Arcane Archer is more than a cute fox boy”. What? Is that thing a boy? Why nobody say anything about that? Everything anthropomorphic being with animal ears looks like a girl to me 🙁
Watch more anime. 🙂
My favorite character (and the one I’ve been most eager to play again) was a Chaotic Evil Gnoll Barbarian named ‘Runt’ and its interactions with a party paladin. Every gnoll tribe has a gnoll named ‘Runt’, and he was his tribe’s. Runt was in an entirely Good-aligned party, including a paladin.
He was introduced to the party as having been caged up by the evil necromancer the rest of the party had been tasked to track down – given up by his own pack as fodder. In that moment, the party became his new pack and the only ones in the entire world that mattered. Really, the only reason he woke up in the morning was to see them. It took a few missteps, but he eventually figured out that his new pack didn’t want him killing townsfolk who were ‘rude’ to him, or stealing for them. So he saved his ultraviolence for things his party members already hit.
The problem was that he was a CE monster in a party with a paladin. Though distrustful, the paladin couldn’t bring himself to slay something that so earnestly tried to help them. It took an event talked about with the DM ahead of time to get the party well-mended: when a group of townsfolk began to throw and assault Runt in the middle of a town. Though he snarled and swiped falsely, he never actually attacked anyone, prompting the paladin to come to his rescue.
Though still Evil, Runt had proved to the paladin that he could at least keep his word, and attempted to set the gnoll towards redemption. While the gnoll would never get there, his reasons for staying Chaotic Evil would become clear a few adventures later and bring a wealth of clarity about the character with it.
So you, the paladin player, and the GM all got together and planned out this progression ahead of time? Or did you decide on this storyline after you’d already been on a few adventures together and discovered the tension between the two PCs?
After a few adventures! Runt was actually a replacement character after my previous character died, the paladin had been in the party since the beginning.
I absolutely adore Druid and Arcane archer together and I hope this romance is as continuous as Wizard and Rogue’s, in any case, to address the whole dissimilar PC’s question I had my weary worldly Cleric Vladraan take on a fatherly role and try to mentor and guide the capital E edgy assassin, Vexx It ended up being really really good character development for both of us and reconciled two previously conflicting character ideas.
I agree about Druid and Arcane Archer remaining ‘an item’ (is that a dangerous colloquialism in D&D context?) and look forward to the first time Druid asks Arcane Archer to animal-companion-sit over the weekend…
*takes notes furiously*
I was shipping her with Vigilante, but this works too!
Naw man. That’s illegal in this kingdom:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/secret-identity
Nice detail with the Japa-I mean Kitsune ‘sound effects’ on the hearts. Got a translation?
It’s “doki-doki.”
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=doki%20doki
“Dad, how did you and mom meet?”
“Well, my child, when two wildshapers/shapechanger classes love each other very, very much…”
Oh lordy, now I’m imagining that scene from Lady & the Tramp, but with vole entrails….!
If you think about it, the phrase “And we call it bella notte” is a pretty good replacement for “The aristocrats!”
Put them in life-or-death situations, so that one character may save the other by bringing them back from the brink of death with a well-placed healing effect or by protecting them from an effect by shielding them with their body.
My not!Hulk did that sometimes, after I gave him the Interpose advantage, so he could dive in front of his teammates that were about to get hit by something nasty. Being a very tough dude, he could shrug it off much easier than they could.