I recently watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/KrPExvt2dUMIt got me wondering: is there a good way to make relationships between PCs a central feature of a scenario or campaign, while still making it compelling and memorable for the players?Or is that just pure theorycrafting fantasy?Are there any good practices for nudging players in that direction, even if they ultimately don’t bite?For example, I vaguely remember something like: >each player invents one NPC>then comes up with two relationships their PC has with NPCs invented by the other players.nb: I'm putting together a distantly Evangelion-inspired campaign, that's why
>>98197953Yes. But not in DND (or at least not with these rules).
i don't think nudging it to happen deliberately is a good ideaoccasionally a nice one will happen, but even the best ones that i had happen to my characters were like 33% romcom memes played for laughs, 33% theoretically spicy scenes faded to black, and 33% just being married and having kids as a background fact of life while continuing the adventures afterwards, it never ended up central to the plot itselfit did not happen in dnd, for what it's worth to the other anon
>>98197953If you mean relationships as in dating, then no. If you mean how the characters interact with each other, then it'll require your players to be either "storyshitters" or "theatre kids" (you know, the things /tg/ seems to hate) and then putting them in situations that may cause them to be at odds based on their backstories which you'll have to go through.>>98197961What rules would work better?
>>98197953Theoretically sure, but its more of a "we all know we want to do it this way" situation. If everyone wants to play a drama game then it can work. If they dont... it wont.vtm does that touchstones thing for NPCs so it can work really well, you just have to get everyone on board
>>98197961Well I'm not running my game in DnD.I am not running an Evangelion-inspired campaign in DnD, heaven goodness
>>98198042>>98198048That guy is just a weird autistic troll. He spams a D&D hate shitpost in just about every thread, even if it's an extreme stretch to try and spam it.
>>98198042>>98198048>What rules would work better?For NGE and big mechas with pubescent pilots with big issues ? Definitely Bliss Stage. Be warned tough, is even edgier than last episodes NGE.
>>98197953For starters not watching your slop. Its premise is wrong. I outgrew anime way faster than cartoons. There aren't really any media worse than anime made after the aughts. Not even disney slop. Not even DC comics after 2015.Beyond that relationships(assuming social and romantic here) between PCs in my experience become a central feature of the campaign organically or not at all.e.g. In my current campaign one of the players unleashed, due to carelessness, a curse that resulted in the deaths of several npcs and a near TPK. Everyone was mad at him. There was drama both IC and OC. Fast forward a couple of sessions and the same player sacrifices his IC goals to save a NPC the party had befriended (although most of the time I forgot he even existed). Instant redemption moment. You can't nudge this things because that makes them insincere. You would be just masturbating with fake drama instead of playing a game with frens.If you are still looking for the secret sauce for player drama it's for the players to have conflicting goals. None of that NPC love triangle bullshit
>>98197953>For example, I vaguely remember something like: >each player invents one NPC then comes up with two relationships their PC has with NPCs invented by the other players.We're doing it in our current campaign. We're playing a small noble house in some sort of Game of Thrones style highly political campaign and DM told us to come up with one NPC who would act like a most trusted person to our PCs. They would serve various functions like messengers, squires, biographers, personal librarians or just simple errand boys. I'm still not sure why they are needed exactly since we are only a couple of sessions in, but they may be some kind of safety net in case we as players don't have info on something that our characters should know (since it's GM's original setting).
>>98198220>DM told us to come up with one NPC who would act like a most trusted person to our PCsHey, that’s a great idea.What I’m currently going for is this:>You create one NPC, but only define a few of their aspects: pick a role from a campaign/setting-dependent list. So for Evangelion it would be something like administrator, doctor, technician, and... eh... hot mess operations officer? Then maybe give them a name and a few traits.>All of these NPCs are displayed in plain sight for the players.Each player chooses two NPCs to have a history with, following this template: “A while ago, we ......... and now .......” Then they either pick or roll for a type of relationship:>I owe them.>They owe me.>We are rivals.>Stuff like that.“I trust them” would be a perfect addition to that.>>98198220By the way, your picrel is really nice. The composition and personality are amazing. Is that your PC?
>>98197953Make them gain XP for interacting with others as friends, rivals, lovers, buddies, etc. You can also make them have dark secrets or interwined personal quests.
>>98197953Having sat through multiple systems that try to add mechanical incentive to relationships like Fabula Ultima and miscellaneous PBTA slop like Avatar Legends, it just isn't the sort of thing that you can force. Roleplay is emergent, and trying to "telegraph" how characters should interact in advance often pigeonholes them in my experience, especially when you tie character progression to it.
>>98197953I'm not giving you adsense, astroturfing jewtube faggot
>>98200332You totally got me, anon. I actually am an attractive young Asian girl, with a starting youtube channel about anime. You thwarted my evil plan to get rich by advertising anime vlog on /tg/. I would have made millions!
>>98200185Ok folks, help me there:Roll 1d6 for the type of (game actionable) relationship with NPCs:>1) He owe me one>2) I owe him one (not sure about this one. It's not much of an asset, it just indicates a quest giver)>3) I fully trust him>4) I want to impress him (for either rivals or love interest)>5) I go to him for comfortWhat could be the last one?
>>98200185>your picrel is really niceThank you>Is that your PC?Yup. The big guy is my PC and the drow loli is NPC. He is a diplomat and she is his record keeper/secretary.
>>98204421do they fuck?
>>98205985No.
>>98197965but it's easier for the good one to happen if you give players promts or chances for it to happen. And while that means that you'll also get more of the bad ones, a lot of times players make empty or meme relationships because they never tried before and have no frame of reference. Just like tactical combat, you won't do it perfectly without seeing someone else do it and fucking it up a few times.
>>98198042>What rules would work better?Pasion de las Pasiones
>>98204132There are tons of those already madeI've used this one for one shotshttps://jahoodi.itch.io/character-connection-engine
>>98211285So, what about all of these meme games, Powered by the Apocalypse and such, which are heavily centred around PC relationships? Do they work? Are their mechanics helpful in any way?
>>98211315It depends on the game and the group.I said PdlP earlier as a half joke, it did push a couple more tactical combat oriented players to have fun being melodramatic bitches. But if you try to run a PbtA or FitD game like a trad game it's not gonna work at all, you have to run it a certain way. I don't think mechanics alone can make a player act different from their default. You can see it the other way around too, theatre kids pushing for social interactions in a game that might as well be pretend with toys because it wasn't made for that like 5e.
>>98211315Depends on the game. Most are good, the baseline is certainly way better than your dnd third party slop (even not considering the different base game and the fact that even a close to AW PBTA is more distant than your third party 5E).Of course, there are flukes - less obviously, the premise tend to be less universal than "enter the dungeon, kill the monsters, enjoy the loo" with the nerd crowd.Anyway for your purposes, the relationships part is more different than you would expect between games. Monsterhearts' strings are not the same of Undying's debts. Kinda hard to generalize.(technically not ALL pbtas are focused on relationships, but 99% are)
>>98211390so... which game would fit Evangelion better, in your opinion?I checked >>98198059>Bliss Stageit's not PbtA, but yeah it looks like a straight Eva:the ttrpg.
>>98211818As for how PBTAs go, I don't think there is one that is really EVA-similar (there are some mechas ones, of which I know little, but nothing seems to go into that direction)There is Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands which is roughly Gundam-ish if Gundam was all about romance. You'd probably better to try or at least read its second iteration of sorts tough, which is The King is Dead (Game of Thrones style noble sheanigans) first, as the implied setting and style is kinda strange at first.Girl by Moonlight actually has something more, let's say, Anno style, if you count that as PBTA. On A Sea of Stars, the playset, has the distinction of having like the worst example they could find (fucking Diebuster) but it has mechas, bigass starships, space aliens, desperate fights, and I think he would like a "Eva" game on the frame of magical girl RPG.That being said, Bliss Stage is if not exactly NGE what NGE-lovers will love, and yes, it's a good game that precedes Apocalypse World. (the differences: it's more about relationships, it's actually really fucked up, it has underage sex...and the minimalistic setting is actually not much NERV-like. The apocalyptic feeling is not 1-to-1 but I think that works well)
>>98211930>Mobile Frame Zero: FirebrandsI would recommend that.MFZ is a rules lite wargame meant to be played with legos, Firebrands adds minigames to cover things outside of the wargame but it's very story first and kinda cringe in their approach to anime meets victorian style romance.It's also not a PbtA.
>>98211968I meant I wouldn't recommend it at all
>>98211978I've had pretty good games with The King is Dead. Would assume the mechas are more less window dressing, if yeah, kinda strange as settings go.Vincent put MZF as a PBTA when he still had a list on the site, which I suppose is open to debate but not the most far out shit he labeled PBTA (I'm looking at Midsummer Wood, which is another of his own games, even).Anyway I've been reminded that there are TWO official NGE rpgs. And they've been translated!https://archive.org/details/@sylogician?sort=-downloadsToo bad they're almost if not literally unplayable trash, but I mean, it was the ninties.
