Relationships

Relationships, whether with sole individuals or whole factions, can affect your life by your deeds, words, and shared or opposing ambitions. During play, you can call on allies for help, or try to avoid your enemies, as their facet capabilities work as either advantages or disadvantages for you in a given challenge.

A relationship is formatted the following way;

[(Name or Description), [role], [skill or interest facets] – [relationship state facet] [Favor] O O O

When leveraging a relationship to gain an advantage in a challenge, clearly state your goal and how the relationship’s facets can aid your endeavor. If you suffer from an enemy’s bad will or ill intentions, the GM will tell you what it is. The GM will then outline the challenge, incorporating the relationship’s influence directly into its setup. This streamlined approach involves:

Assess the Situation – When you wish to draw upon a relationship in a challenge, first describe your intended action, how you ask for help, and how you envision the relationship aiding your endeavor. Specify which skill or interest facet of the relationship you plan to utilize.
Face the Challenge – Based on your description, the GM will outline the challenge, modifying the influence attempt with your relationship state as either an advantage or a disadvantage. If any enemies are present and working against you, or if other factors (disadvantageous facets) apply, the GM will tell you which ones they are and how they oppose you.
Determine the Outcome – Resolve the challenge by rolling your dice pool. The outcome will determine whether you will get access to the chosen facet for the next challenge and how the attempt to leverage the relationship affects the state. The friend will be present for help during the next action, according to your setup.

Ambition and Purpose

All individual and faction relationships have role, skill, and interest facets. These become available for use as additional advantageous facets after successfully influencing that relationship, which is explained in detail below. When doing so, the outcome of the influence attempt affects the relationship state and informs the players and the GM what it values and what is important to them. These facets are both opportunities to be used, but also how they can best be interacted with.

Relationship States

A relationship is described by a scale state facet as either good or bad, spanning from loving (the best) to hateful (the worst). During play, the state reveals how you’re generally perceived and treated by others within that relationship. When tested in a challenge, a positive relationship state will provide an advantage for you, while a negative will provide a disadvantage. New acquaintances during play start as indifferent.

The states look like this:

Loving – Marks the pinnacle of mutual affection, offering help when seeking assistance even in the most terrifying of challenges. This state necessitates continuous attention and respect to maintain. Without proper care, love, and attention to it, it can deteriorate quickly.
Admiring – Denotes deep respect and friendship, granting acceptance even through failures and mistakes. Maintaining admiration requires consistent engagement, respect, and readiness to aid when called upon.
Good – The default positive relationship and the starting point for friends during character creation, characterized by a friendly outlook and mutual respect. This level brings the benefits and responsibilities from the relationship but allows for occasional refusal of assistance without causing it harm.
Indifferent – Reflects a neutral stance where others are neither helpful nor obstructive. Influencing someone indifferent is challenging and requires effort to improve the relationship.
Unfriendly – The default negative relationship and the starting point for enemies during character creation indicate a strained relationship due to past actions, making interactions difficult. Mending an unfriendly relationship demands addressing the issues that caused the strain.
Hateful – The lowest relationship level, with proactive opposition and potential harm to your objectives. Overcoming hate involves significant actions to rectify past wrongs and rebuild trust.

Favor

In addition to the relationship state facet, the relationship favor further describes it, with a set of favor slots that works similarly to the PC’s health’s scratch slots or wealth’s pouches. Favor describes how well the state holds and how much friction it can take or additional benefaction is required to improve it. Each attempt to affect or influence a relationship usually either adds or removes favor.

Waxing and Waning Favor

To actively change the state of a relationship, you need to increase the favor of it. When the favor slots are filled, and you get an additional favor slot, your state increases one step, and all slots are emptied. If your favor slots are empty and you lose one more favor slot, you decrease your state by one step.

Influencing Relationships

When you ask for a favor or help, or when you try to make someone do something for you, you are influencing your relationship with an intentional action. The request should be played out, and if the request potentially jeopardizes the relationship, you must face a challenge with a disadvantage. In addition, at least one of the following conditions must be met:

Intentional Actions – You actively play out your intent to influence an individual or faction, either for personal gain or to align with their goals. This requires a challenge, and the outcome will determine both the attempt’s success and any effect on the relationship state.
Narrative Influence – Sometimes, your actions have indirect effects on relationships. Through the shared story, actions that support or oppose certain values or goals tied to a relationship can alter how others perceive you. The GM decides if this influence adds or removes a favor slot or changes the relationship state without requiring a challenge roll.
Resolved Story Hooks – Successfully resolving story hooks that impact the values or goals of a relationship may shift the relationship state by one step. The impact should be meaningful and clearly connected to the PC’s actions. The GM will decide if this results in a change in favor slots or relationship state.

The challenge is set up as usual: deciding which trait to use, which facets apply, modified by the relationship’s nature (positive or negative), using any factors that pose additional insults, frustration, danger, or risks as disadvantages, and rolling the dice.

Outcomes of Influence

The outcome of an influence attempt will always change the narrative and sometimes also the relationship itself.

Triumph – Your request or attempt to influence not only succeeds spectacularly but it is highly appreciated and also improves the relationship state. Your triumph lets you use the chosen facet and improve your state one step.
Success – Your request is approved, and the efforts bear fruit, maintaining or improving the relationship without further complications. Your success lets you use the chosen facet and adds one favor slot.
Costly Success – Your request is just barely accepted, but with a significant cost or with unintended negative consequences. Your costly success lets you use the chosen facet and doesn’t affect the favor but GM determines how you are asked to return the favor somehow. Failing that, you have to reduce a favor slot instead.
Failure – Your attempt fails to sway opinion and is seen as a slight or wrongdoing, potentially causing minor harm to the relationship. The failure won’t let you use the chosen facet and makes you lose one favor slot.
Catastrophe – Your actions deeply insult or cause severe harm to the individual or faction. It won’t allow you to use the chosen facet and drastically worsen your relationship, which reduces your state by one step.

Successfully attempts to influence offer the relationship’s facets to use for the character in an upcoming challenge, as if it was their own, to be played out either directly or in another scene. Their facets borrowed this way are considered to have one single use if the context of the narration doesn’t say otherwise.

Types of Influence

There are basically three types of influence in play. First, there is the non-aggressive persuasion in which logic, arguments, and charm are most important. Second, there is negotiation, which requires an exchange or compromise between the involved parties as both want something. Finally, there are threats, which is the forceful way of getting one’s will through.

Persuasion

Persuasion involves convincing someone to see things your way or to act in a manner that benefits you without offering anything in return. Success in persuasion depends on the strength of your argument, your relationship with the target, and your character’s personal charm or logical reasoning.

In a challenge, persuasion is usually based on the character’s Charm trait and influence skill. The relationship state facet between the character and the target modifies the dice pool: a positive state (e.g., admiring) adds dice, while a negative state (e.g., unfriendly) subtracts them. High-status facets might grant additional advantages in certain contexts.

Negotiation

Negotiation is a more formal exchange where both parties aim to reach a mutually beneficial agreement. It involves compromise and trade-offs, requiring characters to offer something valuable in exchange for what they want.

When facing a negotiation challenge, it is usually based on the character’s Wits trait and skills like influence or trade, depending on the context. If status comes into play, any relationship state might affect the situation, or if money or resources matter, the wealth state can be used as a substitute. If wealth is used, costly successes, failures, or catastrophes will affect pouches, assets, or the wealth state instead. Successful negotiations might improve the relationship state or add favor slots, reflecting the strengthened bond or indebtedness. New relationships can also be established this way, created from any mutual benefits or bitter lessons.

Threats

Threats involve coercing someone into action through intimidation or promising negative consequences. While effective in the short term, threats can damage relationships and may lead to retaliation.

Using threats in social challenges can be based on the character’s Vigor or influence skill, with the relationship state and status facets affecting the outcome. A threat might temporarily compel compliance but could worsen the relationship state, turning a neutral party into an enemy or deepening existing animosities. Catastrophic failures can easily escalate to physical violence.

Individuals and Factions

Relationships are counted for both individuals and factions and can be developed over time.

Individual Relationships

Individual relationships are the people who have a great impact on the PC. From the start, each PC starts with one friend and one enemy. Friends need attention, respect, and care during play, and careless or unsympathetic “use” of them can turn the relationship sour. Enemies work the opposite way. If fought, ignored, scorned, or further humiliated, unfriendliness can become hate.

Friends and Allies – Comradeship or alliance with individuals can be your beacon in the darkest times. These bonds, formed over extensive periods of time of shared adversity or mutual interests, evolve through respect, assistance, and understanding.
- Example – Guard Captain Rolf, soldier, archery, leadership, melee – good O O O
Enemies and Rivals – Past allies can become your staunchest opponents, their objectives diverging sharply from yours. Such relationships are fraught with conflict, requiring caution or reconciliation.
- Example – Mara the Betrayed, mage, spellcraft, rituals, witchcraft – hateful O O O

Faction Relationships

Faction relationships reflect the PC’s connections and reputation with various groups in the world. When starting the game, the PCs don’t have any faction relationships, but during play, they can become known to powers in the world and make their relationships with them evolve based on their deeds and decisions. Maintaining positive relations requires aligning actions with faction interests, providing them with resources or influence, and demonstrating loyalty. Successful alliances offer resources, allies, or knowledge. Conversely, adverse actions can lead to conflicts, turning potential allies into formidable adversaries, and even make the PCs targets marked for destruction.

Friendly Factions – Groups that share your cause or enemies can become invaluable allies, offering resources, knowledge, or manpower to support your endeavors.
- Example – Villagers of Maydew Valley, food & safety – admiring O O O
Hostile Factions – Actions perceived as antagonistic will earn you adversaries on a grand scale. Hostile factions pose a significant threat, leveraging their influence to hinder your quest.
- Example – The Crimson Cabal, dark sorcerers seeking dominion – hateful O O O

Crumbling Relationships

A faction or individual (friend or not) that is harmed or insulted from a failed attempt should generate a scene designated for the character to deal with its reaction in the fiction. If reduced to unfriendly or worse, to be excused the insult must be solicited with additional compensation.

Amendments and Celebrations

You can, at any time, make additional compensations in the form of amendments to a relationship that has been degraded or celebrate one in need of honoring or praise. To do so, you must face a challenge to influence the antagonist by attempting to please it (an attempt affected by its current state). An amendment or celebration is treated as a project with a progress bar with three sections that must be completed. A success allows for marking one section, and when the bar is completed, the friendship state increases by one step. You can only attempt to mend a broken friendship once per adventure.

A few suggestions for amendments and celebrations;

Atone – Plead for forgiveness in the most honest way, admitting the wrongdoing publicly if needed, and taking full responsibility, can help. Most effective
Paying Up – Solving a problem by paying up to make the problem disappear. This seldom works for wealthier subjects but can, depending on values and goals.
Offering Gifts – As an extra compensation, a gift on top of atonement or when paying up. It can provide an advantage when done right.

For example; Arnay the One-Eyed must find a way into the well-guarded castle of Archduke Moruwn, to find an old copper key kept there. He seeks out his old friend, Harlin Miller’s Son, from a nearby village. Harlin hates the Archduke, as most people in the duchy do, as he is forced to sell almost everything he mills through the gates to the castle, just for a few, mere pennies. Harlin’s occupation is a miller and his interest is freedom, and their relationship is good, which both works well for Arnay, who wants to sneak in there. Arnay’s player, John, tries to negotiate with Harlin and sums up his dice pool (two dots of Charm, skilled in influence, and with an inspirational ability) and rolls four dice, which ends with a result of 5 – a costly success. The GM decides that the cost is unknown for now, but secretly decides that it is tied to Harlin’s brother who can’t keep his mouth shut, and accidentally slips his tongue when the guards later interrogates the population.