Player created relationship maps

[mindwanders]

OK folks,

I'm working on an idea for a LARP system at the moment, and one of the core ideas behind it is that everyone that is important within the society is either a PC or has the potential to become a PC later.

To this end, I've been playing with a system that requires the players to establish thier place in a relationship map during character gen. Has anyone seen an example of such a system before or tried something similar?

FATE comes the closest that I have seen because of the way the aspects can work, but I'm hoping that someone out there has seen a better example.

Here's the section I've got written so far, it might help you understand what I'm looking for. If you have specific thoughts on what I have so far please start a new thread and link back to this one, I don't want to muddy the waters here.

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Establish your place within the setting

The next stage is to begin to establish where your character fits in to the society. The way that we do this is through the use of relationships with other characters. As was stated in the introduction, "no man is an island" and that means that there will be many characters within the game that your character will have known before the game begins.

Relationships

Relationships represent the people your character has met and spent time with before the game begins. Your character must pick at least 5 at character creation but you are free to add others later in the game as you see fit. Note that you are not required to add relationships to characters you meet and become friends with in the game, that is only required  if you decide to tie the character into your past.

We sugest you include the character of at least one player you know and ejoy roleplaying with as a relationship if possible. It gives you an easier introduction to the game and means that you have an exuse to talk to your friend at the game.

We have provided a sugested list of relationships with a short description. These are simply sugestions and they must be tailored to your character. Each of the examples is left specifically vague in order to allow this tailoring.

You will also need to decide who or what your active relationships refer to. In many places these will be existing characters who currently have passive relationships awaiting activation. However you can leave the target undefined by making the relationship passive and as such open to new characters who join the game.

It is also possible to target your relationship to an organisation. The Organiser will give you a list of existing organisations. But you should feel free to speak with the organiser about creating a new organisation should you feel the need.

You should take a look at the examples and pick five Relationships that you find interesting and that you think would suit your character. You next need to decide whether a relationship is Active or Passive.

Organisations

Organisations represent a group or ideal that ties many characters together. Normally an organisation is built to only accept one type of relationship, however you should feel free to contact the other members of the Organisation if you would like to use a different relationship from the one that is listed.

Sample Organisation

Name: The Scottish Crown
Type: Fealty

The scottish crown represents the office of the king rather than the person of the king. This allows many characters to pledge Fealty to the crown rather than pledge it to the person who is actually the King. The king has the relationship of Superior with The Scottish Crown to represent the fact that he can give orders to those who owe fealty to it. Of course it is entierly up to the player whether the character decides to follow those orders.

Active Relationships

An Active Relationship is one in which you decide to tie your character to an existing character and have that relationship effect the way you play the character from the beginning.

If you decide to make a Relationship Active then you should speak to an organiser and get a list of characters and organisations currently in the game who have a passive relationship of the sort you wish to add to your character. You should then consider each of the characters and decide which one best suits the relationship you wish to have. Once you have picked a target character you should contact the player and work to flesh out the basis of your ralationship.

Passive Relationships

A passive relationship is one that you decide to leave open for use by a new character joining the game. You do not heavily define the relationship at character creation, although you should still consider what effect you wish it to have on the character so that you do not have to alter the charcters behaviuour later in the game.

You must still choose the type of relationship you want and write a breif description of what you are looking for in a character that you will link the ralationship to. However it does not become active until a new player wishes to link their character to yours through the passive relationship.

It should be noted that you have every right to turn down another player who wishes to connect their character to yours through your passive relationship. However we strongly recommend that you at least consider any request (which should be at least similar to what you imagined) that is made.

Fleshing Out The Relationships

You should work with the other player to expand the basic information provided by the title of the relationship into something that actually ties your characters together within the setting in some way. The background of this game is left deliberately open in order to allow you to weave the history of the setting around what you think is cool for your characters history. This means that great battles and and mighty alliences that formed many years ago can evolve as the game progresses rather than being locked in place at the beginning of the game. The relationships that are given as examples are diliberately not positive or negative. It is up to you and the other player to establish what kind of relationship you have.

The organisers will be able to provide you with a list of Events and Organisations of note to help inspire you when expanding your relationships. Although you should not be afraid to work with the organiser to create new Events and Organisations to suit the history of your character.

Some of the things you should probably consider when talking with your counterpart in the relationship are:

How did the characters meet?

This is usually the area that is most easily covered by the description of the ralationship, however if forms the basis for the rest of the background.

What were the characters initial impressions of each other?

Did they hate each other on sight or develop an immediate bond or somewhere in the middle? Maybe they were only barely aware of each other for  long time and it was only later their relationship blossomed.

How did your relationship develop?

Did the relationship turn into a lasting rivalry or a bond of trust? Did it evolve quickly or slowly or was there some specific incident that sudenly cemented the relationship?

What has tested your characters relationship?

What hardships has your relationship gone through? Did they change the relationship for better or worse?

What advantages has your relationship brought your chracters?

What gains have you made because of the relationship? Has it given you the drive to climb the social ladder so that you can finally destroy your enemy or has the other character given you a much needed foot up in high society?

What disadvantages has your relationship brought your characters?

What has the relationship cost you? Have you passed up a good opportunity in order to maintain your relationship? Maybe the other person has turned against you and used information gained through your relationship to harm you in some way.

Has your relationship affected any of your other relationships?

What effect has this relationship had on your other relationships? Has your father disowned you for consorting with an enemy family? Or does the King smile upon you for being the friend of a favoured relative?

What is the current state of your characters relationship?

Relationships represent what has happened between your two character before you actually begin playing the game, so you must establish what the relationship is now. Do you still meet each other regularly? Will you greet each other with a warm embrace or harsh words or avaoid each other all together? Do you have a lot of catching up to do or are you happy to just say your greetings and let things rest at that?

Relationship Ideas

Spouse
Brothers In Arms
Trained Together
Foster Brothers
Sibling
Cousin
Distant Relation
Common Interest
Fealty
Chance Meeting
Lover
Business Partner
Childhood Friend
Employee
Faced each other in battle
Neighbours
Superior[/b][/i]

[TonyLB]

In Capes I wrote in the notion of Exemplars:  People who are specifically entangled in some of the moral and emotional issues that heroes are wrestling with.  So you don't just say "My character wants romance in his life", you say "My character wants to win the heart of Sister Mary Claire, but it's hard because she's a nun".

Then player-generated relationship maps are created just by saying that you must share two of these Exemplars with two different other player's characters.  So far we've had love triangles (two people share the same Love Exemplar), two variations of an older brother who doesn't approve of the PC trying to court his little sister, journalists who slander one hero while helping another discover the truth about his shaded past, and so on and so forth.

In playtest I've seen this highlight two things:  

One, your relationship with the Exemplar is one that is inherently driven.  The moment they are in a scene you have things that you want to achieve with them.

Two, the relationship with the Exemplar is hugely influenced by your indirect relationship with the other player you share them with.  If you both share a love exemplar (love triangle) then you're talking about winning him over.  But if you're the older brother trying to protect your sister then most of what you're doing is establishing your right to judge the prospective boyfriend.

It's also a tremendous opportunity for GMs to link together weaving sub-plots.  Even in large groups there is generally a link or very simple chain between any two characters.  It's a whole "N degrees of separation" thing.

[mindwanders]

Ah, that's something I've not included in my system. There's nothing in there about what the character wants out of the relationship, only what they have already gotten from it. I'll have to change that.

Is there somewhere I can have a look at capes or is it on sale?

[hix]

You should definitely check out Legends of Alyria. Its Storymapping technique sounds similar to what you're aiming for.

[mindwanders]

You should definitely check out Legends of Alyria. Its Storymapping technique sounds similar to what you're aiming for.

It sounds like this is similar to what I'm trying to do, however it doesn't really support adding new characters after the original storymap has been created that well.

Has anyone tried adding new players to the game after the original storymap was in place? how did it work out? how much input did they have on the existing storymap?

[TonyLB]

A quick-downloading version of Capes is available here.

Or, if you want to see it being designed in real time, pretty much all of the action has been happening in the various "[Capes]" threads on this, the Indie Game Design forum.  Most everything in the rules is in there because it got posted here first.

[mindwanders]

Cool, Thanks Tony.

I've caught a few of the capes threads, but I've not read everything.

Did you decide to add in the requirement for 2 exemplars linked to players after playtesting or was it something you added in from the begining?

I've had it sugested that I should require at least 2 active relationships for every character and that I should include something that forces people to take both positive and negative relationships. I'm not sure if it's necessarry, but it might be.

[hix]

Has anyone tried adding new players to the game after the original storymap was in place? how did it work out? how much input did they have on the existing storymap?

Ron Edwards did so, here.

[TonyLB]

The Exemplars structure is one of the very few things that was in the very first revision of Capes.

In terms of the one positive, one negative thing, I can't speak for your game but I can give you my experience.  I've seen six people make eight different characters.  Each has three Exemplars.  In every case they have created one Exemplar who supports them, one who opposes them, and one they are trying to get something from.  Every single case.

It's not in the rules.  It's not even recommended.  But it may well be hard-wired into people's minds.  

Or maybe it's a statistical fluke.  My sample size certainly isn't large, and I'm doubtless projecting all sorts of non-verbal cues that help people guess what I like to see.  YMMV.

[mindwanders]

Cool, thanks for your help Tony.

I'm going to pass on the idea of requiring people to take a mix of positive and negative relationships. If it becomes obvious I need to in playtest then I'll consider it then.

I think I will run with another sugestion that was made at the same time, where every character must have at least two active Relationships at the begining of the game.