Giving your D&D players Rivals!
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- *anime rival voice*: smell ya later! Every time i've run longform campaigns in D&D I have given my players a rival team to befriend/befoe/belove. How do you go about doing that in DnD, and why?
Check out the rival team creation guide HERE!
docs.google.co...
Video Editing by the amazing Bia: / bnazf
Writing, Illustration, and Narration by me: / antodemico
What if we had a ship-teasing, thinly-veiled-ridden swordfight duel at midnight over the roofs of the city?
haha just kidding
Unless? 👀
Sir you are writing the kinds of campaigns I long to be in ಥ_ಥ. Btw used your phantom rogue character idea for Belinda as my PC in Icewind Dale. I kept the cinnamon role aspect but amped up the creepy cute factor (think Sadako from The Ring but super friendly lol). She's been so fun to play!
this... is filled with tumblr energy.
Place and time ??
You laugh, but I introunced a narrative foil for my warlock and now he dreams of kissing the guy under the moonlight.
My first reaction to end of this video was gonna be "you forgot the most crucial part of rivals..... ROMANCE".... but then you post this banger of a response and now im beat 👀
Another cool idea is to have a conflict triangle involving the hero(es), the villain(s) and the rival(s), bonus points for having the "enemy of my enemy" moment, give your players one or two chances to temporarily join forces with their rivals to defeat the villain, depending on how the players treat their rivals have the rivals join the Villain or the Heroes
Yo.. you just saved me from trying to think up this plot hook, holy hell man ty
Came to the comment section to say exactly this. The "this one time..." moment can be so good.
I was thinking even in this video, using the example characters, that the villain team could be like:
Cyrilla's personal villain is an eldritch knight/warlock who used his force of will (and some backroom deals) to bind the other Dwarven nobles to his ambition, and is so corrupt that he allows his nobles to wreak havoc on the kingdom - the same kind of havoc as her father. Alois' personal villain could be the right hand of this tyrant, a knight whose sense of honor has him do everything the king demands to the letter, even if it's fucked up; He never refuses an order, and has made himself a loyal ally. Turmeric's could be an assassin who, like Turmeric, never knew his parents and was born in a gutter, but the Usurper saw potential in him and raised him as his own son like an adoptive father. He now serves the Usurper loyally, feeling like he owes him his life for raising him from poverty.
Uses the same model as Pointy Hat proposed (an opposite, a mirror, and a mix) but they're just straight up villains that the rival party would *also* have a reason to hate. Alois and Fornata would hate the deeds that the right hand of the Usuper would do because they'd be so fucked up, Cyrilla and Dario would hate the Usurper because, in Cyrilla's mind, he'd be destroying her father's legacy, but in Dario's mind, he'd be another tyrant but worse. For Turmeric and Moira, Turmeric would hate that the Assassin got the opportunity that he never had, to have a parent, and Moira would hate that the Assassin just *listened to* and *obeyed* their parents and would be confused by the sense of duty that he feels to the Usurper.
Also @Pointy Hat, followup video about creating good villains? I liked this one a lot.
I think another triangle that could be fun is like the Pokémon rival method.
You have one you counter, one that counters you.
Maybe a more antagonistic force and a more friendly competition.
Like one team will buy you a drink and swap stories with you. After a successful dungeon crawl, challenging you to drinking competitions, or “which team can catch the most bounties, winner gets half the losers earnings”
The other might be like Gary muddafuggin oak and challenge you to duels right after a dungeon. Then call you a “edit for UA-cam” for losing.
Oh totally. Even had the rivals become a lot stronger during a period of time the party was missing or they were far away on an adventure.
When my party went to the feywild, they returned only to hear how strong they became, and they tried to challenge the Campaign villain, and one member of them died and their leader lost an arm.
Later on during another Villain's arc, that villain encountered the rivals, and that gave time the players to escape the scene with the npc they were trying to rescue from a public execution, and my players stopped halfway through and said; "wait. We still don't want to leave. We want to know what happens, and who wins!"
I will never forget that session, they were truly hooks and for many sessions, I left the mystery of who won that fight and my players were trying to investigate what happened
Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, inspires more murderous hatred in my players than me trying to set up a rival team for them to face. Like, I don't know why they always jump straight to "we must slit their throats in the night" mode... but they do. Always. It's kinda frustrating....
Aww :(
Have you tried leaning into that expectation and used the rivals to bait your party?
Maybe you could have the local authorities get mad at the party for straight up murdering other adventurers? That might make your players calm down
Some DMs adopt the rival team so much that they switch to a DM Vs player mindset, backing the rivals over the development of story (together, not the DM alone). I'm not saying it's what you're doing but perhaps consider it. If players who play for freedom feel like they're being restrained they'll often lash out as murder hobos.
The villain has been observing this behavior and sets up a team of assassins to cosplay as a foil party
Rival players can be very dangerous narratively, as their very existence questions protagonists in ways not every player wants to deal with. For example, the player behind the dwarven princess in the video may not have any desire to explore what her rival brings to the table, opting instead to just goad them into combat and kill the perceived 'disruption' to their character's planned arc. It's a good idea to let rivals occur naturally, or at least broach the subject with a player before trying to give them one.
I gave my players a Cambion Rival, he fought them 1v5 at like level 2 (he had no armor) with no magic items. Quite close, and they won. He escaped with his superior flying speed.
They met him a few times after, mainly doing his own thing.
Any he made his own little party that is doing many quests the party ignores, they even worked together once.
To keep up with the party, he also gained levels at Barberian (his AC is made from DEX+CON+CHA ;))
He mainly focuses on gainning political influence and getting in with the important tribe leaders
I absolutely love how both Moira and Turmeric have round animal companions
and Adaine
Vodar nice profile picture
Turmeric's little buddy came part and parcel with their Urchin background. Moira's familiar? Purchased from a pet store for the aesthetic.
I like the idea of the cleric/healer that doesn't have a rival in the rival team, and when the parties fight the two clerics just sit on the same rock healing their party while complaining to the other about all the stupid stuff they had to fix.
Better yet... They are lover
That’s a fun interaction, I love it
Hardly a fortnight ago, the orc sired moron drank a bottle of alchemists fire Thinking it was ale. By the gods, it would be easier to train a displacer beast to use a litter box...
In our Call of the Netherdeep campaign, the pre-made cleric ended up becoming a solo version of that. Our PC party was oddly-numbered and perfectly paired off with the rest of the pre-mades EXCEPT for their cleric, who had no foil on our side. So every time we interacted, their cleric ended up playing the third wheel / beleaguered parent chasing after both parties to mitigate the gas-fire the rest of us would inevitably become.
It honestly made the odd-man-out cleric somehow a foil of the whole of the rest of us, and made the rivalry interactions that much more entertaining. That experience and watching this video is making me want to deliberately add odd-man-out characters for the rival party in future games of my own.
I Love this.
I ran a rival group delving into the Underdark alongside my party once. At first, tensions were very high. They travelled together for the majority of the time, but they weren't as high levelled. Instead, I built them to be perfectly working together while the party still had a few issues with communication. Instead, they were proactive and had strong opinions, as the rival teams were all basic copycats of the party, with classes switched. The rogue-sorcerer became the bard, both being the heart. The Coffeelock became a cleric. The cleric and bard had a small fling, where as the Coffeelock and rogue-sorcerer were an active thing. They spoke about relationship stuff during downtime. The ranger became the... ranger... Different subclass. Planeswalker to horizon Walker, and from skeleton to aasimar. Lastly, our cleric, which became the eldritch Knight. Firbolg to Goliath. They had similar backstories to the party, but they were all based around a prominent location the party was exploring, where an elder Evil had touched the earth and permanently scarred the land. Had a lot of fun making new aberations for Y'chak.
Anyways, the party had a lot of fun bouncing off these NPCs, and without prodding, they gravitated to their counterpart, as well as the party's leader, the dwarf cleric. When they had to split up, I swapped a character out for a doppleganger, and that doppleganger was caught within minutes. The problem was the doppelganger was hunting the party and had his own group of baddies actively hunting the party down for main plot reasons. Long story. However, because they got caught early, the rest of the enemy party wasn't ready, leading to a 7 v 2 against a monk and hexblade. The monk and hexblade where higher leveled than the party. Level 14 to the party's level 9, and the rivals' level 7. With the numbers advantage, the doppelganger monk fled, covered by the revenant hexblade, who perished for the 4th time. Suicides, killing the rival ranger. One revivify later, and the only question was what happened to the eldritch Knight....
He was killed hours before, body lost in a river.
He was revived via clever use of a homebrew item that summoned a Coatl to aid the party, and brought back to life later by the party's cleric, his foil.
god damn ur pfp goes so hard
What if, hear me out, what if we had a Wizard Hat tier list? I honestly believe humanity needs it.
Gosh Darn It, you constantly impress me. Rivals, Angels, and pop singers (burlesque bards with fan blades). I'm not surprised that your views are getting close to the 100k, because every aspect impresses me: Animation (Love your aviator btw), voice (made for voice over - figure you either L.A. or Miami), and number one...your creativity. Gosh, that's where it gets hard to quantify. Creativity. You have it and your whole production shows it in spades. Keep up the great work, your steady growth in subscribes, shows that you've got "it". Now, get sponsors.
I adore your art on this episode. Top notch. Also, I used your Hag and Tiefling ideas on my campaign and it's great, you, my dude, are a genius.
Had a tough day and this really cheered me up. Thanks pointy hat. Love the vids.
Your content is excellent. Thank you.
I would love to see how you portray "Pointy Hat" as: an NPC, a Monster, and a magical item.
I personally have always been an item and a person
This is INCREDIBLE material. I'd honestly never thought of non-villain antagonists in D&D, and I absolutely love this concept and how you approached it. Thanks for this video!
You are quickly becoming one of my favorite dnd creators. You are amazingly creative ane put so much love into your work. Your energy and passion is honestly contagious, thank you for your work.
I'm am so happy your Dwarven princess has facial hair ❤️❤️❤️
I always get excited whenever I see a new pointy hat video. Seriously, I love all of the stuff you make!
I love your videos so much! It's not just the very interesting content, but also your edgy humor & superb editing skills.
My favourite kinds of foils are the mirror foils. There’s something incredibly cool about seeing all the cool tricks of your hero in the hands of someone he who may not share your protagonist’s morality.
Correction: not all villains are antagonists. Villain protagonists are possible. Which would make the hero, the antagonist.
This video is an absolute goddamn gold mine of DMing advice. You, sir, are awesome and you should feel awesome. I inadvertently already came up with a rival character for one of the players in my upcoming campaign before I watched this, now I'ma make up one for everybody else.
This was fantastic! Thank you so much. I can't wait to try this out in the campaign I just started running for my friends. Love you, Antonio!
I love the classic trope with mirror matches. I've been in games with rivals like these, and it's so fun to interact with them!
I never make comments on videos but I was extremely impressed by the quality of this video and decided I HAD to leave a comment. I was already impressed by the first half of the video, then came the stunningly illustrated example characters and I was blown away. Bravo!!
Most recent campaign had a team of npc mercenaries also going after the same villain target. Wanting the fame/ recognition/ reward for themselves of taking down the big bad so from time to time they show up just long enough to try and throw a wrench in the players plan. It was great. The main hatred was still directed at the final boss, but the excitement of the players throwing the rivals off course or beating them to a quest objective was real. And nothing stoked the fires more than the players reaching the end of a dungeon only to find the objective already gone and a snarky note left behind for them.
I used rivals in my last long term campaign.
Seeing as there was a power vacuum after the world's greatest adventures had not returned from their mission. The call went out to any adventurers to investigate their disappearance and compete the quest.
So the party was required to come up with their own group name, as they went up against multiple other groups.
They found themselves in constant competition with one other likely group, but if course they came out on top.
They would pop into each other from time to time but it all came together when the party accidentally stumbled into my big bad plans early and turned to their rivals for help.
They worked together and achieved a lot but the accidental death of one of their rivals in a warehouse fire was juicy drama and my friends loved it
Had a fun set of foils for a character. Child of an angel and a devil, hates his dad, all that stuffs. His foils were his 2 siblings, both trying to get their fathers respect. But the father only respected the players character, who doesn't want his respect. Was great to make his siblings villians. The younger sister was a necromancer trying to bring back accerak. The older sister was meant to be the strong knight type but failed at it and uses illusion magic to pretend
Huge trick to making your rivals seem clever, make them use plans the PCs came up with. This is my favorite tool in general, anything the players theorize but go "naaa, thats crazy" is platinum for writing your story.
"Is the wife of the tavern keeper the bbeg?"
"Naaa." But actually she is now.
Same goes with quests that the rivals are also going on. Maybe the PCs have been told to find someone, and now they know they're being held by a faction that isn't strictly evil. Someone in the party jokes that they could just kill everyone and rescue the prisoner after, the party laughs and someone says "but really". As DM your rival wheels should be turning; maybe when the party gets there they go over the wall and sneak past a couple guards, everything seems normal, but suddenly they come across a trail of bodies and the target has already been extracted. Eventually it turns out that their rivals were working for your quest givers rival all along.
Then force them to team up to beat a big boss 😂👌
Love the fact that the autosubtitles changed Palpatine to Papa Putin
Leverage has a great rival team with one of the rival characters actually being villainous. The characters' responses to their mirror foils are: the two hitmen are competitive but mostly attracted to each other, hilarious; comparing strategies awkwardly but excitedly; absolutely hating each other; hating being compared to each other but mostly caring about their relationship to another character
Straightforward, very fun.
I think its fun to get the players involved to some extent in the creation of the rivals. Depending on the campaign/setting/themes, having insight into player’s ideas on what would make for good growth-inducing conflict could take the rivals a step above
I just found you recently and I hopping around your videos randomly as they catch my intrest and I gotta say the message at the end of this where you're excitded that you're close to 100k and me seeing a year later you're nearly 4 times that amount. Wonder what caused your big breakthrough haha. You deserve it! Enjoy your videos a lot!
I've actually slowly been making a rival team for my players as the campaign went on. They began as former pirates turned goods shippers because their captain had been captured. The party helped rescue him and got their mojo back. Here and there i throw them in to help the team out, be it advice or travel services. But as the campaign progresses, their power will too and eventually they are gonna fight. Now if only my friends stopped cancelling
Amazingly, solo tools like Mythic GME are often really good at creating rivals for the player character. Any New NPC that comes along has a chance to be a competitor rather than an outright villain.
From an overachiever to another.
This is an amazing channel. It’s refreshing and nothing like other channels. Congrats on that! You are very inspiring!
I'm currently running Call of the Netherdeep for my players and the rivals have been a pretty good aspect of the campaign. My players are on friendly terms with them so it's less of an antagonistic scenario (my players tend to play friendly characters so it just happens) but just having them in the game has added more opportunities for RP and a sense of urgency because the rival party are also trying to accomplish what the party's goal is. They've been working with the party so far but, later on, they're going to be joining a rival faction and there's a couple more things I'm going to do to make it more adversarial.
You put Durarara on the video. I cant believe It. I was thinking about shizuo and izaya. And then they came out of nowhere. Such an underrated show
a PC who grew up in a noble family who had pressure and expectations due to his standing and an NPC who grew up from a "lowborn" class but it was textbook home and hearth scenario.
The best part of this channel is everytime I pause it to screeeeeee about something you said, I stop and then click to continue and I mean LITERALLY the next second you cover the exact thing I was about ScreeEEeeEEeeEEeeeeeee about.
This is awesome. My brain feels so full and I love it.
"A dwarvern princess."
Artistic inclusion of a subtle, well-kept beard.
CULTURED!
For building rival teams, you can also steal main cast's personalities and motivations of any series, then tailor them as rivals to your player group.
Rivals in D&D, reminds me of a relatively old web comic called "Order of the Stick," a D&D 3.5 web comic with a secondary antagonist group trying very hard to be opposite to the heroes with varying success. Note any one wanting to read it, it is done in a stick figure style to compound the comedy.
I had questions about how you actually set up rivals but this man explained everything in detail, even with examples to help out. This video will help out so many of us, thank you for making it❤
just wanted to point that I think it's very cute that you've given a little goatee to the dwarven princess
I've been begging my dm for the intire campaign to give us a rival team but he says it's stupid and unrealistic I'm so happy that someone has finally talked about how cool this is
In my experience, rivals are a lot like pets; great to have, if occasionally disruptive, but a terrible surprise present.
Always ask before showing up to a session with one.
Thank you so much, this has been something i have been trying to work out, your explaination and ideas have been absolutely inspiring. And the PDF is an added bonus. Thank you again.
I really appreciated the shoutout to Preminger, this has made my day.
I love that the party is she/her, they/them and cool -definitely not pointy- hat
Pointy hat, thank you so much for this video. There's some great advice for storytelling too, but this is the first video I've seen that talks about the narrative of rivalries specifically for DnD. I've just started DMing a campaign where my players form one of several teams that will be in (indirect) competition to solve tasks and earn merit, and although I knew I wanted one of the other teams in particular to become their rivals and grow with them, I had some doubts as to how exactly design their characters. So glad you made this, thank you again
I don’t like that the princess gives up being queen that easily. She seems more like the type to become a benevolent monarch in order to right her fathers wrongs
Also sometimes rivalries are just pointless petty shenanigans instead of combative or competitive.
Pranks, leaving bar tabs for the other team to pay for, taking the better bounty before you can, you get to a dungeon chest but they somehow got their first and replaced the treasure with a bag of rocks
I absolutely love your simplistic smol character designs you did. And I would like one please and thank you.
A new video in less than 2 weeks?? I'm blessed.
That half-orc drawing is so badass. Make me want to play one next campaign.
Brilliant writing theory. First video I've seen on your channel. Already subbed. Thank you for the PDF, that's a gift. 🙏
"At the same pace" is what I need to work on.
so, i often put one or two other adventuring groups into a campaign, usually they're little more than set dressing or maybe a source of a lead or two on a quest, but mostly they exist to demonstrate to the party that they're not the only adventurers out there in the world, and maybe highlight how dangerous things can get when luck isn't on your side when that other group of adventurers you run into now and again shows up, but their sorcerer is missing an arm and their fighter's eye is missing. A rival party is great, because they can fill that same role of making the world feel more alive, while serving a greater narrative purpose.
just remember not to use them too often, bring them out as an obstacle or detail every now and then, but dont have them pop up in every adventure, the story is about the PCs, not their rivals.
I had a couple ideas for rivals.
The first was the result of a split story narrative. The party could follow 1 of at least 2 clues. The other clue would be discovered by the rival, who could show up later and reveal that half of the chapter. But their leader would be an idiot, so after they get the full picture they’ll go in the wrong direction.
The second idea was fellow adventurers. Because if a world has adventuring guilds, why not have other parties of adventurers? Maybe a party failed a mission, so the reward was increased. Maybe you got kidnapped, so somebody got the increased reward for rescuing you and helping complete the mission. Or you just run into them during a job, and it’s now a race to take out the target.
I’m slowly working on a campaign of my own. And I have 3 parties planned, and can change their specific characterizations based on which party member I want them to foil.
I can't express how good of a video this is. Your ideas are immaculate
this video will be VERY helpful in the coming months, ive started a new campaign that will rival team will fit perfectly
My guy, my dude, my dome piece
I found your channel today and literally watched I think everything you've made with 1 or 2 exceptions and downloaded all the pdfs I could. Theyve been hilarious, entertaining and informative, and I think I'll be incorporating many of your ideas and showing my players these new options. I'll be following your channel with great interest, keep it up. I had no idea I needed a cowboy ranger and a girl boss coven of hags covering every major emotion till today. NO MORE WILL WE DABBLE IN BASIC 🚫
The absolut taste of mentioning Preminger, still not over it
First video I’ve ever watched of you and I was surprise how good it was keep up the content.
Unironically the best dnd channel on UA-cam also NOT PREMANGER😭😭💕
My favourite class to create/have rivals for are monks.
Monks are basically made to fight each other away from everyone else. Their extreme mobility allows them to chase each other across roofs, through alleys up and down walls and all of it at a breakneck speed that nobody else can keep up with. And their weaponless kind of fighting makes things a lot less lethal and a lot more personal as they tangle with each other.
- If the PC monk is more relaxed and chaotic, make the rival a rigid adherent to structure and vice versa.
- If the PC monk is poor and taught themselves, make the rival the spoilt 5th child of a family, sent off to a monastery to be kept busy and educated (And vice versa, of course)
I'm going to be DMing my first big campaign shortly and this honestly feels like it will fit perfectly into the Strixhaven setting, I'll make sure to let you know how it goes !
I would’ve never guessed I could fall in love with a video
On "if your playing the game right, you have multiple protagonists": I have seriously considered running a game where we pick 1 player at the beginning to be the super-powered chosen-one protagonist, and everyone else goes in knowing that they will be playing a supporting character. I think if you get total buy-in from your players ahead of time, this could be really fun.
I joined a party that had a rival party late, so it was fun to both observe and participate in friendly banter between each other. Lots of fun.
Hilarious as always. Especially the wheel to determine the villain's motivation. Stay you man, I love ya. You are good at this.
Two Aarakcocra siblings, both in the same warzone as chicks, both gained a major fear of death, but one became a paladin because safety in numbers, the other seeks to become a Lich.
Oh... I just realized a baddies team in the campaign I'm preparing could perfectly fit in the rival team considering its inspiration. Thank you, I love it!
I run a game where the party had a sorcerer NPC as an ally, but he was secretly possessed by a lesser demon. He betrayed the party by transferring the demon to the Paladin, which eventually resulted in her death (she got better). It was his only way to escape the possession, and he claimed she would've done the same to him. But now every time we cross paths, our Paladin tries to kick his ass. So I decided he was going to get some backup for security: Several other previous NPCs who had wronged the party in some way.
wow, i wasn't expecting this video be filled to the brim by stevetony, thank you
I once had a really good rival during a game session. I was a down-on-his-luck knight who was press-ganged into a criminal organisation and saddled with a crew that mostly just saw me as a tool (I'm kind of masochistic)
Meanwhile my rival was a gambler with Fallout New Vegas levels of high luck that had a party of loyal followers and was overall really cool. I think what amplified the experience for me was that the gambler guy was played by my friend (a Player Character as a rival? Funnier than you think) who did such an amazing job at portraying that sort of confident trickster kind of guy. Honestly I was rooting for him half the time, the other half I was suffering
We never got to finishing the campaign but it was fun as hell
Thank you so much! I'm currently planning a steampunk campaign by merging Cyberpunk and the Witcher systems and I was wondering how to make one of my side stories with rivals well written and interesting. Not only did you give me exactly what I was looking for, but you also inspired me to extend the rivalries to the party! Thank you so much, I'll update you how it's going once my players get to know the rivals and grow with them
Love this rivals are such a fun concept and I love them almost as much l fun as tournament arcs. Though my favorite is when you have a cool one on one fight where a player and rival Pc duke out their differences for better or for worst (though those can definitely go poorly depending on how you make it go)
It's actually interesting cuz back when I was DM'ing I made an NPC adventuring group that, instead of being rivals to the main group, were equal but opposite(?) to them.
The face of the PC group was a caring dwarf cleric who focused on healing, so I made the face of the anti-party someone who was also caring but they were a heavy-hitting fighter who focused on taking the bad guys out before people got hurt. The PC group had a loud talkative paladin who liked to fight, so I made a ranger who was basically Longshot from the Last Airbender that only fought as a last resort. The PC group had an Awakened™bird wizard who was bright-eyed, inquisitive, and looking for their lost master, so I made a tabaxi wizard who was kinda jaded and masterless/self-taught. Lastly, the party had a cynical, slightly murder hobo rogue, so I made a gentle-hearted bard half-orc.
Sadly the DND group fell apart a few sessions after I introduced the anti-party to them, so I was never able to actually utilize them after their introduction.
This is a phenomenal idea. Just about to start running my first ever campaign as a DM, using LMoP as a basis but leaning into a subsect of Zhentarim as worshippers of Llolth as the overarching story they'll uncover after defeating the black spider. This video gave me an idea about introducing a rival group as 4 sleeper agents that have infiltrated the Zhentarim, it'd be interesting to see the players unintentionally out them, fight them, or side with them. Great video, man! Very informative and entertaining.
Okay but why do I love all the characters in this video so much
I love how much you care for the game and experience it provides.
Rival groups are also a handy source if you lose a character and they need a replacement character.
This was a incredibly interesting watch! Your videos are both informative AND funny at the same time. Its remarkable! Its inspired me to start working on a rival team for my own players :D
In my current game, I am playing a jester (celestial warlock with the entertainer background, because bard is just what they would be expecting!) and my solution to basically every problem is either putting on a disguise or using Silent Image, which warlcoks can cast without using a spellslot.
Our current enemy is enemy is a wizard (in this specific game, wizards can only use spells from one single school of magic) called The Illusionist who is impersonating my character.
Kinda love your taste in bearded dwarven women in your videos. It's a good touch.
I never even played DnD, but your content is amazing! Really happy to have found this channel
How convenient that this pops up just as I sit down to write rivals!
Antonio you are a treasure. I showed this to my DM and he loved it
POINTY HAT UPLOAD LETS GOOOOOOOOOO!!! :) I actually love your videos and have watched all of them.
I honestly can't believe you create so much interesting and useful content, I'm flabbergasted, delighted but flabbergasted.
rivals were introduced in xanathar's guide to everything
This is your best video Yet! I’m using this in my home game.
Another option for rivals is the "rival organisation" approach. This suits games with a high rate of PC deaths or similar character turnover.
Instead of designing each member of the rival group to foil a specific PC, you determine what the PARTY's goals are and then create a party of rivals as a foil to that.
E.g. you're running a low-fantasy, high mortality dungeon crawler. The party are swords for hire and part-time grave robbers who call themselves "The Bloody Magpies." They're not "evil", they don't harm innocent people and mostly slay monsters for cash or loot the tombs of forgotten death-priests.
Their foils, then, might be a group of "heroes." They're devoted to a "cause" of some sort, maybe backed by a rich patron, a merchant guild, an "adventurer guild" like Golarion's Pathfinder Society, or a church. They don't demand payment for their work and they aren't big on looting... but also, they're well funded by their backers & their "good deeds" are putting the PCs out of work.
Introduction: The party knock on the door of a governer's manor, following an "adventurers wanted" posting from a nearby town, only to find out that the Holy Avengers got there first, destroyed the bandit camp, and then returned the reward to the grateful townsfolk.
Like I said before, this works well if you've got high turnover of characters, PC or NPC. Your arcs & themes aren't linked to specific characters, which is a downside, but your rivalry doesn't rely on specific characters opposing each other's personal goals.
This is also surprisingly flexible. Maybe the Bloody Magpies are full of "good-aligned" heroes sworn to protect the innocent, but they're forced to be pretty uncompromising on payment & loot every bandit they kill because running an adventuring company is expensive. Meanwhile, the Holy Avengers might be largely "neutral-aligned" or just self-serving jackasses, but they're getting material support from their backers & so can afford to turn down 100gp from poor villagers every now and again as a publicity stunt.
Maybe the party attacks the rivals & makes an enemy of the Fantasy Pope for killing his pet adventurers? Maybe the party convince the Fantasy Pope that the rivals aren't worth the expense, and get them cut off? Maybe the party JOIN the rivals, or they work together for a time, until they're drawn into a new conflict since they accidentally took sides in a Fantasy Religious Schism by joining the Fantasy Pope's personal militia?
Confession:
I've used the Bloody Magpies as hostile NPCs or a rival organisation in at least 2 campaigns so far. In 5e games where my players have -tended- heroic, a bunch of swords-for-hire taking advantage of political turmoil for profit have been great as an opposing faction that aren't kill-on-sight Evil.
In another campaign I had the party essentially serve as "secret police" for a colonial power. The obvious rival organisation was just the secret police of a rival colonial power! That campaign didn't go far, but I think the idea was solid. The party's nation were mostly "neglectful and ignorant" compared to the rival nation's "brutal and efficient," with natives AND colonists alike caught in the middle of the conflict.
This one video and a good ass spliff n I wrote a whole campaign in my head before the video ended.
Glad I subbed. It's not just informative, or educational, it's actually *inspirational* for real
I love how the intro song feels like a TV show intro song.. but at the same time it isn't??
I was already planning a campaign for some friends with a rival group that is totally not DnD Weezer, so this is very good timing
At this point I’m just waiting for the kickstarter for Pointy Hat’s Guide to Everything to be announced.
Lol, i saw this video and like "oh that's the campaign i just played"
Great campaign. We actually were able to 'stop' them from being antagonistic by being super kind, always.
Rivals in this game are the absolute best. I recently had a session where another player and I realized that our characters were funhouse mirror foils, and I've never felt closer to another PC.