Integrating Relationships into the System

I keep harping on about the way I want relationships to be a central and fundamental element of the Walkabout system. The communities whose attitudes are the driving force for the setting's worldview all rely on relationships as a way to define people, places, concepts and virtually everything about the world. The cosmology of these groups is an interconnected web of relationships, where stories help define individual strands of the web and the way different strands pull on nodes of the web in dynamic tension.




Thankfully, there are many games that have touched on the idea of relationship maps over the past few years. Such maps help players visualise who is connected to whom, and what the nature of those connections might be. I like the way Monsterhearts addresses the concept of relationships, and that game certainly has a focus around the way different people's relationships can be used by them or against them. A few other games have done similar things, so I'll probably be drawing on inspiration from a few of them as I refine the concepts that will settle into Walkabout.

While relationship maps are good tools for looking at the overall interconnectedness of things in a story, I'm now looking at the specific definitions of those relationship and how they can be used more directly rather than simply looking at them as abstract concepts.

My first idea here was to apply different dice based on the strength of the relationship. There would be a specific numerical value indicated, and this would determine what die might be applied to the relationship.

0 – no relationship

1-2 – loose relationship [d4]

3-5 – general relationship [d6]

6-9 – close relationship [d8]

10-14 – intimate relationship [d10]

15+ – profound relationship [d12]

At each level of the relationship, something else needs to be defined. In this way we see that the loose relationships don't mean much to the character's story, but as relationships grow stronger, we get to know more about them. When a character is working with something they have a relationship with, they gain access to a bonus die. When someone is using that relationship against someone, the bonus die is applied to the person leveraging the relationship.

This concept generally seems to fit smoothly with the rest of the game system.

My second idea was to use flat values. Instead of adding a die, the player simply declares the relationship that they are applying to the situation, if the relationship value is higher than the dice they roll for the task, they may simply use that value to determine the action's outcome.

I'm not sure how much sense this makes out of context, but here's a chunk from my current working document.

Relationships may be used in place of die rolls. Simply declare that the relationship is being used in the roll, then roll the dice. If the relationship score is one of the higher results, its value may be used in place of a die, but then it is temporarily exhausted by a level. There are only so many times you may use a relationship to your advantage before it starts to strain and lose its effectiveness.

Relationships may be restored through a successful roll specifically targeting them. A success restores an exhausted point, but may not increase a relationship above its standard value, additional successes may be used to further restore exhausted levels, or provide story hints associated with the relationship. Any sacrifice on these targeted rolls may see a permanent reduction of the relationship’s standard value, provide complications to the story based on the relationship, or cause a defence to be lost in a manner that is appropriate to the roll.

In some cases a target’s relationships can be used against them. An example of this might see a nomad with a strong connection to their car more easily coerced by a thug when their vehicle is threatened. The same nomad might be more easily befriended by a mechanic if their car is upgraded. In each case, the Nomad may accept the relationship used against them, allowing the action targeting to use their relationship. But the nomad may also choose to ignore their relationship to their car for these actions. Ignoring the relationship is a conscious decision with repercussions, any time someone deliberately ignores a relationship that might be used against them, a level of it is exhausted.

If any levels in a relationship remain exhausted at the end of a session, they remain exhausted when the next session begins. People must constantly work on maintaining their relationships and should not take them for granted.

The idea has a distinct difference to the rest of the system... which has the advantage of setting it apart as a system that require the characters to think about the use of relationships in the context of story and play, it has the disadvantage that it could feel "bolted on", and that's a pet hate of mine. I like everything to feel like it's a part of a fully considered ecosystem of play.

I really like certain elements of both ideas, and the final version will probably integrate elements of each. We'll see how things go as I start plugging these concepts into the existing components of the SNAFU system.