Relationship Tracker (game mechanic idea)

Here’s one for you DM’s that need an easy way to keep track of how npc’s view the players of the world & eachother in the world.

The relation tracker, tracks relationships (as if the name wasn’t a dead give away). It does this by using a negative to positive point tracker but adds a layer of complex by adding a maximum amount that it can go positively or negatively, this is due to the pretense of the relationship.

For instance let’s say we have a generic NPC that works at a shop. When a player interact with them, a relationship scale from -10 +10 will start at 0. If the player interact with them in a positive way, it may go from 0 to +1 or +2. If the player is rude to the shop keep, the amount may go from 0 to -1 to -2. This amount is remembered till nextime & will affect how the NPC interacts with the player on their next interaction. Their relations can go from just random customer/shop-keep -} that jerk customer/crappy shopkeep -} Ughhh it’s this *expletive again. But at the end of the day the player & the shop keep will never go beyond this since the only pretense of their relationship is just customer/worker.

But let’s say the player is interacting with someone under a different pretense. For example they could be interacting with the main villain & or their love interest. In these examples, the relationship matter will increase in the direction of how one of these relationships would be perceived to go. Ie the in the love interest one it can go from -10 to + 30, & in the villain one it can go from -30 to +10. Of Course the pretenses of relationships also tend to change over time so there amount may get there maximum increased or lowered depending on the pre-tense change.

With all of this being said, the article writer would like to note that this system only works when both the player & npc are on the same page about the relationship. If they are not, the article writer recommends that both the player & npc have an seate relationship tracker with how they perceive how the relationship is going & then have a third one which is just the official one (which works by being the average of the two put together.)