#rpgaday2025

Day 1 : Patron

This is an idea I want to develop more in a longer blog post:

Treat every magic as a patron. Give magic a personality, a different one depending on the PC’s culture or school of magic. Give me spells that whisper in my PC’s mind to use them.

Magic doesn’t even need phrases. Give me feelings and sensation, give me fire trying to say my character’s name,

Let's play #RPGaDay2025 solo Spindlewheel!

1. Patron

#RPGaDay2025 - 6 Motive

A motive is a drive. A character without a motive is a flat entity with no direction, no agency, no desire of their own. I like to have characters with at least two motives. One of which my be a primary driving factor aligned to the plot of the story, capable of interacting with the motives of other players. But I also like to have a lesser motive or two that might impact on that larger driving force. My character wants to save their family, but their moral code says that they won’t hurt children, this could lead to some interesting moral quandaries if the two motives come into conflict.

RPGaDAY Day 9: Inspire!

#RPGaDay2025 Backfill day 1: Patron

Fuck you, I’m not gonna talk about warlocks. Done to death ass topic. anyway the best patron is 4e’s Pact of the Vestige, and I probably only think that bc @borimmortal had an insanely cool take on it back in Critical Hit.

Ok enough, now let’s talk about something I’m seeing creep more and more into tabletop roleplaying games not only as a fluff element but also as a mechanical feature: Group Patrons. Essentially, who is the person or faction or entity backing your group of characters?

For some groups and indeed, some systems, this isn’t a consideration at all. Sometimes this is because characters entirely self-direct and pursues their own in-universe goals while directly reacting to the world around them (superhero/villain rpgs like Mutants & Masterminds or Necessary Evil are usually like this, and investigative games like Call of Cthulhu or Eureka! can be as well), but it can also be because a group’s patron is an assumed element of the system (Delta Green comes immediately to mind here) and so isn’t something that needs to be decided on. Most often, a group’s patron is decided on either by the players or gm as part of a game’s premise (are the pilots at your Lancer table Union auxiliaries? A colonial militia unit? Mercenaries?), or it changes from scenario to scenario(who’s issuing this quest to your D&D party? Is your Blades in the Dark crew doing this job for themselves or for a reward from someone else?). As a game element, I feel this is often overlooked, both in discussions and mechanically. Off the top of my head, the game systems I know that put explicit mechanical emphasis on group patronage are Blades in the Dark and, oddly enough, The One Ring 2e.

In Blades, this occurs incidentally as a result of the faction reputation system- completing a Score on behalf of one of Doskvol’s power players increases your crew’s relationship with them while worsening your relationship with whoever was victimized by the Score. Navigating the resultant web of alliances, favours, wars, and enemies is a major part of Blades as a game, so choice of patron is important even in this incidental context. Taking it a step further is The One Ring 2e. Second edition takes deliberate steps to avoid being D&D 3.5 but in Middle Earth, as its predecessor often was: It sets its adventures West of the Misty Mountains (far from the high politics and danger of Gondor and Mordor, a thematically meaningful divide in Tolkien’s work) and its starter box has players take on the role not of hard-bitten adventurers but shire hobbits preparing for Bilbo’s birthday party. However, without the core concept of sword-and-sorcery heroes wandering Arda in search of gold and glory, The One Ring requires a new premise to bind diverse fellowships together and send them out into the wild. Its solution is Patrons - the players choose from one of several canon figures with an interest in the wider world who employ the characters to investigate rumours, gather information, and resolve problems. These patrons include Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey, even Tom Bombadil and Saruman. Patron choice informs not only the types of adventures that the fellowship might go on, but also grants that fellowship unique perks and advantages. It’s a very cool way to take the burden of bringing a party together off the GM’s shoulders while immersing the group in the setting!

#RPGaDay2025 - 5 Ancient

I haven’t made a game about vampires yet, but I like the idea of ancient beings lingering in the shadows of history, perhaps guiding it, perhaps just claiming to guide it (while they barely hold the reins in desperation for continued existence as the mortal world screams away in a chaotic frenzy toward destiny or oblivion). A vampire who gradually loses touch with an accelerating people while being forced to live among them to feel relevant. It probably doesn’t even have to be vampires, it could be mummies, or gumiho (ooohhh, there’s an idea), or some other immortal spirit.

#RPGaDay2025 - 11 Flavour

All games need flavour, but adding flavour is a delicate thing. If you don’t have any flavour, the game ends up boring and monotonous, and players don’t see a reason to come back. If there’s too much flavour, a game can seem too intense, or might just lose its way with conflicting ingredients leading to a muddied mess.