Relationships

In this article I want to talk about the Relationship system for Copper Coins! and how it is changing in the next revision. Furthermore, it might hopefully give you some ideas for your own game – given that the system itself is actually pretty portable.

There was a lot of surprise (and some indifference) expressed toward the “secret mechanic” of Copper Coins! when it was released. Relationship Points were points a character (any character) could tag any other character with. They came with some mild benefits, the most important of which was that you got extra XP for roleplaying with people you gave relationship points to. But the section was sort of convoluted in that you had to track what characters gave you points back, and stuff like that. I’ll be changing that.

In the next revision, Relationship Points will be a larger part of the social mechanics of Copper Coins!. They will be more useful to characters in general, including characters who aren’t very socially-minded. There will be more talents and Perks that modify them. The basis of them now, is a series of three tracks that provide benefits. Each point you give an NPC tells you where you are on that NPC’s Relationship Track. Instead of buying points, you get 3 points to spend each Expedition.

The relationship tracks now are a more abstract and mutual thing – rather than accounting for the “one-sided” relationships of the past by implying that the NPC HAD TO give you points for your relationship to be mutual in any way. Now your relationship is always mutual the moment you can stick a point on an NPC – there are no strictly “one-sided” relationships. Though you both might not have the same feelings toward each other, what matters is whether the feelings that exist constitute a relationship, and whether that relationship is Positive or Negative. You can roleplay the rest – if the relationship is one-sided that’s for your GM and you to decide as you roleplay. Not for a series of points exchanges to keep track of. This makes it simpler and freer.

The benefit track has 8 levels. The first level is a flat bonus to social skills, not terribly exciting, but from there on you can request assistance of various kinds, get free drama points, get an Plot Point during the expedition (Plot Points can be spent on player-invoked Events) and even beg for money. On the negative track, you can sway allies of your enemy to your side, dig up dirt on your enemy, blackmail and extort him or her, and so on. One of the benefits of the Negative track is that you will refuse to die except by the hand of your enemy, which is a payout that absolutely nothing else in the game will give you. However, the highest three levels cost more relationship points than the first six, so they entail more dedication on your part to a specific character.

Whenever you first create a relationship, you tag it with a Keyword that describes it. Each Keyword has some benefits. You can get pretty creative with them – you could tag a Negative Relationship as “Romantic” and suddenly you’re roleplaying your character’s attraction to the big bad! If you roleplay your relationship’s keyword well, you can grow it by adding more points and thus gaining better benefits. If you just tag an NPC with a point without doing anything to justify it, the GM will give you back your point and tell you to try again, this time with feeling.

The tracks offer the same benefits for every character at the same levels. Keywords add additional benefits at certain levels (including at the otherwise uninteresting first level). All you have to do to keep track is write down the NPC’s Name, the keyword for your relationship, and how many points you’ve spent on it. This is much easier to track than wondering whether you have a One-Sided Positive Relationship at 3 points and whether the NPC has even given you any points back.

Player characters have their own Track, the Camaraderie track. It is not Positive or Negative strictly like the other tracks, but rather a working relationship to be roleplayed as you wish. The Camaraderie track does not have Keywords, unlike the NPC tracks. This track is only 3 levels long, and you can only advance one level each expedition, and you can only advance with one Player in each expedition. Unlike the NPC tracks, you do not have to spend Relationship Points on the Camaraderie track. You just have to pick a PC that you want to advance the track with during this Expedition. The payouts are worse on the Camaraderie track – you’re not gonna be begging the other players for money and equipment and forcing them to give it to you, for example – but they are free.

The Negative Track has a few quirks. Enemies on your Negative Track gain the Master enemy class, which gives them a ton of buffs. They also gain the Recurring enemy class, which makes completely unkillable, but also makes them unable to use Nemesis Points, so they can’t invoke negative events within their own dungeons. This basically means they’re relegated to “not really big bad evil guy, more like diet evil guy” role. However, you can hit up the bastards for XP, to spice up the narrative, to blackmail and extort them for mission critical information or just for cash, or humiliate them. Just beware that they can get the one-up on you too. This is unlike the old system, where a negative point could be tagged on a random goblin and gave you a damage bonus to smacking it.

Multiple characters can tag the same character with whatever keyword and on whatever track they want. This could cause drama among the party (why is my lover on your negative track), but I’m not gonna put in artificial safeguards against that.

The only real drawback to the track is you have to have somebody to roleplay with, and time to do it, and a lot of people seem to think we should go back to the days where every NPC was there to be killed or never there at all. And I don’t really care because that’s not how I play, so. If you stick a relationship point past 4 on somebody, you can force the GM to use those characters for something so you can roleplay with them. Yes. That’s a benefit that is written there. You get to force the GM to give something important to do to your BFF Farmer Bob whom you met a few expeditions ago, to give you a chance to roleplay and add more relationship points to your track. You get to force your GM to incorporate Chuckles the Evil Clown from your negative track into the dungeon SOMEHOW. If that doesn’t make you wanna use the track I don’t know what will. You can only do this to 1 NPC every Expedition, but you can do it.

This was mildly inspired by the heart points system in Rune Factory games.