I had two players who were friends but very weak role players so we made them brothers and they loved it. All the mock arguments, fighting and teasing was great to watch. I would definitely recommend it.
+Bacon Battalion RPG The campaign ended with them finally finding their long lost father being held prisoner and freeing him. I wanted to end it with them finding him tragically dead. But the players were desperately wanting to find him alive by the end that I caved in and went with the happy ish ending. (I never told them about the sad ending plan!) Sometimes you have to give the audience what they want I guess.
I find having characters related is a great way to work in an evil PC in an otherwise good party. For example, say you have a good cleric and an evil warlock that are brothers. They grew up acolytes in the same temple but one delved into forbidden lore and made a pact with a demon. However, despite being evil the warlock loves his brother and won't let harm come to him or those closest to him. On the other hand, the cleric hopes that his brother can be redeemed and will spare the warlock from the ire of the rest of the party
Adoptive sibilings is also funny link betwin caracters. I was a dwarf and my sister was an orc that my father didn't have the nerve to kill. Everyone was like how a dwarf, and a orc can be so much freind ? & that's one of my best experience of role playing. Our caracters didn't get the rivalry that oppose orc and dwafves to us it was non sense.
In a GURPS Traveller game, my wife and I played an Aslan couple, which worked out well. It gave us a reason to be together, and it gave us (and by extension, the entire party) a reason to have a merchant ship. Gender roles are very strongly defined in Aslan culture, which added another interesting dynamic to the situation.
I played two really close sibling relationships One a pair of twins, they were as children really close but their parents were assholes, my female magical dancer was treated as protigé child all expectations on her, her brother also had magical talents but when he failed magic school he brouight shame to the family and was cast out but promised to come back to get his sister some day. Well that happened once the two were adult and my character ran away with her brother. They were still really close and protective of one another it was really fun toplay in our current group we have an older brother and younger sister of a rather large family of wealthy farmers. Both were kind of the "odd one out", her brother probably even child of a fairy partly (the mother got kinda bored...) which is why the fatehr was always rather harsh with him (he didn't know for sure but really felt like this wasn't his son) and finally sent him to a huntsman for trainuing. My character was always way to curious and lively, totally bored with the farm life which everyone expected her to lead. Fianlly the parents decided to also sent her away to become a priestess of the god of riddles and knowledge which they felt fit her character best. she and her brother stayed in touch, even during her training her brother would move to the city she trained in after his learning was over and now that she too has finished her education they decided to travel together ^^ Interestingly it's with the same Player that I created these siblings XD
This is strangely timely. We just started a Numenéra campaign where one of the other players is playing my sibling, and I was just bringing up concerns for how to correctly have a shared background. It is also odd that this video was that well timed for at least one other viewer. We ended up using a very similar process after deciding to be siblings, and so far it's going very well. Thanks for the video!
Glad it found you at the right time and perhaps you could share it with your sibling then at least three viewers will enjoy it :) Thanks so much for the comment and feedback, hope it helps and let us know how your game goes.
I do find it interesting when you're exploring the feudal type noble family as a party. While some of the party might be some form of retainer the chances are that several of your party is going to be at least somewhat related. For example I recently did a game where we played a family in the dune universe which went quite well.
Guy, have you been spying on me for ideas. Next campaign my group is planning, we are all going to be related. I'm very excited about this and this video is perfect timing. Thank you.
Hahahaha... once you become a fat GM you get extra-sensory powers... usually in the form of detecting missed cookies in the bag... Glad to hear it! Let us know how it goes!
"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." While first typing this as a correction to the reference, perhaps the culture would want family to battle for one another to form a stronger bond than mere family
R. Jeremy Howard Music I knew someone would bring this up. The earliest record of that twist on it is from the early 20th century if I remember correctly. Basically it's not actually a phrase.
Loved the video I tried a father daughter relationship with a party which sadly ended on bad terms but at least I got my fun out of it. Rather than it be a simply close relationship it was an almost mock close relationship as my character the father in this instance had without telling her or her mother another whom he cared about more. It was an interesting aspect to explore as rather than be disenfranchised with his daughter he slowly came to care for her more and more eventually leaving his new family, coming clean to her and her mother and trying to make things work. Too bad it fell through (blame the dm, he really just made the whole game too much about the adventure rather than the players)
Sadness for the game falling through, but it sounds like you had a great time and really explored the dynamics of being related. There is nothing better than a character growing in a way you hadn't thought they would. That's what's great about creating relationships with the other players.
I would say a great example of a father and daughter relationship in a fantasy type setting would be belgarath and polgara in the belgariad and mallorean (two connected series) and the two connected stand alone books belgarath the sorcerer and polgara the sorceress all by David Eddings with the plot and setting of the stories of the books they'd be to show as examples for role playing (based on most table top rpgs ive played have been fantasy based)
I was playing a game where two of the players were playing brothers. The one brother loved the other and wanted to be close to him. He would do anything for his brother. The other brother was an evil anti paladin, and wanted to secretly murder his brother because he thought he was annoying.
Sadly they didn't really get to explore it that much. We went maybe three games, and the evil one ended up dying. The other character decided to retire his character instantly, because he felt losing that connection kind of ruined it. Which is a real shame. There could of been a lot of potential roleplay based off losing his brother, especially since it happened in game. He just wasn't feeling it though.
That is a shame, there is absolutely a lot of wonderful roleplaying that comes from death and revenge, avenging , justice whichever :P. Did they come back with new characters?
Yeah, they both made new characters. It actually kind of worked out for us, because the evil anti paladin wasn't a very good fit for our party. His new character was more neutral and was a much better fit. Though he ended up dying again, to the same monster as the first time. He did get revenge, and killed the monster with his third character. Which was more of an ooc victory than anything else, but still amusing.
I have dragonborn who as been whith he's wife for one year he is very protective over her but he never talks to her so she is trying her Best To be as close as possible
The "blood is thicker than water" saying is often misinterpreted to mean the opposite from what it was intended. The full line is: "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." This is in reference to the idea of swearing friendship by drawing blood.
Player developed it and then consulted with me if it fit into my world. Since no one in the campaign had ever played a Dragonborn before, there were now established norms so I was like: that's awesome! Let's do it! And so now my Dragonborn are ALWAYS born in a clutch to fight it out between themselves lol.
Hello! Messaged a while ago asking for some advice on my Swordsage/Barbarian relationship, going well enough just about to go up against a badass vampire. A quick question about interacting with family though. The Barbarian is related to the rogue and Sorcerer members of our party through adoption, a little bit of friendly adversarial relations actually ended up pitting those three vs my lonely Swordsage. Any ideas on how to interact with those connected without antagonising?
Look at the relationship from a different point of view. It takes courage to do so, but it takes two to tango. Unless the one is willing to be the bigger person and either apologize or offer guidance instead of ridicule. Often it also comes down to chatting with the players involved and seeing if they are enjoying it or not.
I have a question, how do you make a backstabbing character? Such as a younger sister who wants to become like her older brother - but she wants to use assassination to get rid of him while having a cover on, any ideas for that sort of character? I've been struggling to think of ways to role play this.
Is the older brother an NPC? If it's a PC - take a breath and discuss with your GM. Also there are a couple videos on how to play evil characters. If he is an NPC well - you need to establish why she feels assassination is the route to take? Why not simply lock him away in a tower to gloat over her power over him? Killing him removes the need to be better than him. Maybe she's tried that and is now bitter? Also I'd see what your GM says about the whole story idea, and also think of how your party will react to it. Will she trick them into killing her brother? What happens after that? I'm not sure if any of this helps?
I had a story where it was the younger sibling and the older sibling were both members of the assassin's guild. the younger always striving to the better/equal to the older. but one of the masters of the school came to the younger brother, and offered a contract to off the older one that he saw as a rival. the idea being 'prove your better, by killing someone who is higher in the ranks'
In a campaign that sadly fell through, me and another player resolved that my character would be the business partner and off-and-on-again boyfriend of her sister. It's a shame it fell through, that's not the kind of relationship you see often.
The way that we did things was, because they both came from a society where it's common for family members to sell each other into slavery, her sister had been sold a decade ago and freed by my character with his first successful bounty. This lead to a relationship that was honorbound, but distant. They hadn't seen each since they were teenagers. What I find most rewarding about playing relatives, is doing so with someone who quickly understands cues for improvisation. "Hey, do you remember when you brought me to the lake to catch frogs?" That's when roleplay really shines for me.
That is a sadness that the campaign fell through as it seems tyo have a really great backstory to your characters. Absolutely agree when both players are responsible but also adaptable with their characters backstory and story involving the other person it grows into a fully fledged character with depths you never would have found on your own. Definitely when Roleplaying is at it's best when we build the story together.
I had two players who were friends but very weak role players so we made them brothers and they loved it. All the mock arguments, fighting and teasing was great to watch.
I would definitely recommend it.
Sometimes pairing up players helps bring out better role playing both between them as well as the rest of the table. Is this game still running?
+Bacon Battalion RPG The campaign ended with them finally finding their long lost father being held prisoner and freeing him.
I wanted to end it with them finding him tragically dead. But the players were desperately wanting to find him alive by the end that I caved in and went with the happy ish ending. (I never told them about the sad ending plan!)
Sometimes you have to give the audience what they want I guess.
I find having characters related is a great way to work in an evil PC in an otherwise good party. For example, say you have a good cleric and an evil warlock that are brothers. They grew up acolytes in the same temple but one delved into forbidden lore and made a pact with a demon. However, despite being evil the warlock loves his brother and won't let harm come to him or those closest to him. On the other hand, the cleric hopes that his brother can be redeemed and will spare the warlock from the ire of the rest of the party
That's a good example yes. Really cool!
Adoptive sibilings is also funny link betwin caracters. I was a dwarf and my sister was an orc that my father didn't have the nerve to kill. Everyone was like how a dwarf, and a orc can be so much freind ? & that's one of my best experience of role playing. Our caracters didn't get the rivalry that oppose orc and dwafves to us it was non sense.
In a GURPS Traveller game, my wife and I played an Aslan couple, which worked out well. It gave us a reason to be together, and it gave us (and by extension, the entire party) a reason to have a merchant ship. Gender roles are very strongly defined in Aslan culture, which added another interesting dynamic to the situation.
I played two really close sibling relationships
One a pair of twins, they were as children really close but their parents were assholes, my female magical dancer was treated as protigé child all expectations on her, her brother also had magical talents but when he failed magic school he brouight shame to the family and was cast out but promised to come back to get his sister some day. Well that happened once the two were adult and my character ran away with her brother. They were still really close and protective of one another it was really fun toplay
in our current group we have an older brother and younger sister of a rather large family of wealthy farmers. Both were kind of the "odd one out", her brother probably even child of a fairy partly (the mother got kinda bored...) which is why the fatehr was always rather harsh with him (he didn't know for sure but really felt like this wasn't his son) and finally sent him to a huntsman for trainuing. My character was always way to curious and lively, totally bored with the farm life which everyone expected her to lead. Fianlly the parents decided to also sent her away to become a priestess of the god of riddles and knowledge which they felt fit her character best.
she and her brother stayed in touch, even during her training her brother would move to the city she trained in after his learning was over and now that she too has finished her education they decided to travel together ^^
Interestingly it's with the same Player that I created these siblings XD
This is strangely timely. We just started a Numenéra campaign where one of the other players is playing my sibling, and I was just bringing up concerns for how to correctly have a shared background. It is also odd that this video was that well timed for at least one other viewer. We ended up using a very similar process after deciding to be siblings, and so far it's going very well. Thanks for the video!
Glad it found you at the right time and perhaps you could share it with your sibling then at least three viewers will enjoy it :) Thanks so much for the comment and feedback, hope it helps and let us know how your game goes.
I do find it interesting when you're exploring the feudal type noble family as a party. While some of the party might be some form of retainer the chances are that several of your party is going to be at least somewhat related. For example I recently did a game where we played a family in the dune universe which went quite well.
Guy, have you been spying on me for ideas. Next campaign my group is planning, we are all going to be related. I'm very excited about this and this video is perfect timing. Thank you.
Hahahaha... once you become a fat GM you get extra-sensory powers... usually in the form of detecting missed cookies in the bag... Glad to hear it! Let us know how it goes!
"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." While first typing this as a correction to the reference, perhaps the culture would want family to battle for one another to form a stronger bond than mere family
R. Jeremy Howard Music I knew someone would bring this up. The earliest record of that twist on it is from the early 20th century if I remember correctly. Basically it's not actually a phrase.
Loved the video I tried a father daughter relationship with a party which sadly ended on bad terms but at least I got my fun out of it. Rather than it be a simply close relationship it was an almost mock close relationship as my character the father in this instance had without telling her or her mother another whom he cared about more. It was an interesting aspect to explore as rather than be disenfranchised with his daughter he slowly came to care for her more and more eventually leaving his new family, coming clean to her and her mother and trying to make things work. Too bad it fell through (blame the dm, he really just made the whole game too much about the adventure rather than the players)
Sadness for the game falling through, but it sounds like you had a great time and really explored the dynamics of being related. There is nothing better than a character growing in a way you hadn't thought they would. That's what's great about creating relationships with the other players.
I would say a great example of a father and daughter relationship in a fantasy type setting would be belgarath and polgara in the belgariad and mallorean (two connected series) and the two connected stand alone books belgarath the sorcerer and polgara the sorceress all by David Eddings with the plot and setting of the stories of the books they'd be to show as examples for role playing (based on most table top rpgs ive played have been fantasy based)
Oh hell yeah, it can be great depending on the system.
It's really great in Paranoia... Not so great in FATAL though.
I was playing a game where two of the players were playing brothers. The one brother loved the other and wanted to be close to him. He would do anything for his brother. The other brother was an evil anti paladin, and wanted to secretly murder his brother because he thought he was annoying.
Sounds like a legitimate sibling relationship where one wants to murder the other :) And how did the game end?
Sadly they didn't really get to explore it that much. We went maybe three games, and the evil one ended up dying. The other character decided to retire his character instantly, because he felt losing that connection kind of ruined it.
Which is a real shame. There could of been a lot of potential roleplay based off losing his brother, especially since it happened in game. He just wasn't feeling it though.
That is a shame, there is absolutely a lot of wonderful roleplaying that comes from death and revenge, avenging , justice whichever :P. Did they come back with new characters?
Yeah, they both made new characters. It actually kind of worked out for us, because the evil anti paladin wasn't a very good fit for our party. His new character was more neutral and was a much better fit. Though he ended up dying again, to the same monster as the first time.
He did get revenge, and killed the monster with his third character. Which was more of an ooc victory than anything else, but still amusing.
lol
I have dragonborn who as been whith he's wife for one year he is very protective over her but he never talks to her so she is trying her Best
To be as close as possible
*sees thumbnail* WE ARE FAMILY!!!🎵🎶🎵🎶
Love your vids, been showing my dnd group out here in Los Angeles these special gems lol
As long as they making your games a little more fun, then I am happy! :)
The "blood is thicker than water" saying is often misinterpreted to mean the opposite from what it was intended. The full line is: "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." This is in reference to the idea of swearing friendship by drawing blood.
That Dragonborn backstory is amazing! Was that piece about the strong eat the weak established before or did the player come with that themselves?
Player developed it and then consulted with me if it fit into my world. Since no one in the campaign had ever played a Dragonborn before, there were now established norms so I was like: that's awesome! Let's do it! And so now my Dragonborn are ALWAYS born in a clutch to fight it out between themselves lol.
I can imagine! This is great!
Hello!
Messaged a while ago asking for some advice on my Swordsage/Barbarian relationship, going well enough just about to go up against a badass vampire.
A quick question about interacting with family though. The Barbarian is related to the rogue and Sorcerer members of our party through adoption, a little bit of friendly adversarial relations actually ended up pitting those three vs my lonely Swordsage.
Any ideas on how to interact with those connected without antagonising?
Look at the relationship from a different point of view. It takes courage to do so, but it takes two to tango. Unless the one is willing to be the bigger person and either apologize or offer guidance instead of ridicule. Often it also comes down to chatting with the players involved and seeing if they are enjoying it or not.
Are they Lannisters?
I have a question, how do you make a backstabbing character? Such as a younger sister who wants to become like her older brother - but she wants to use assassination to get rid of him while having a cover on, any ideas for that sort of character? I've been struggling to think of ways to role play this.
Is the older brother an NPC? If it's a PC - take a breath and discuss with your GM. Also there are a couple videos on how to play evil characters. If he is an NPC well - you need to establish why she feels assassination is the route to take? Why not simply lock him away in a tower to gloat over her power over him? Killing him removes the need to be better than him. Maybe she's tried that and is now bitter? Also I'd see what your GM says about the whole story idea, and also think of how your party will react to it. Will she trick them into killing her brother? What happens after that? I'm not sure if any of this helps?
Thank you so much, this helped, I never thought about that! :D
Glad to have helped then :)
I had a story where it was the younger sibling and the older sibling were both members of the assassin's guild. the younger always striving to the better/equal to the older. but one of the masters of the school came to the younger brother, and offered a contract to off the older one that he saw as a rival. the idea being 'prove your better, by killing someone who is higher in the ranks'
In a campaign that sadly fell through, me and another player resolved that my character would be the business partner and off-and-on-again boyfriend of her sister. It's a shame it fell through, that's not the kind of relationship you see often.
The way that we did things was, because they both came from a society where it's common for family members to sell each other into slavery, her sister had been sold a decade ago and freed by my character with his first successful bounty.
This lead to a relationship that was honorbound, but distant. They hadn't seen each since they were teenagers.
What I find most rewarding about playing relatives, is doing so with someone who quickly understands cues for improvisation. "Hey, do you remember when you brought me to the lake to catch frogs?" That's when roleplay really shines for me.
That is a sadness that the campaign fell through as it seems tyo have a really great backstory to your characters. Absolutely agree when both players are responsible but also adaptable with their characters backstory and story involving the other person it grows into a fully fledged character with depths you never would have found on your own. Definitely when Roleplaying is at it's best when we build the story together.