Giving your D&D players Rivals!

hello hey potent it's me again Antonio D'Amico this is poinihad and welcome to tip of the Hat that's right this is not DND with a Twist this is a show where I give you DND advice I pick something people need help with and you way to run the game or whatever I feel like and at the end I give you something that you can use in your games well that's enough of an introduction let's get right into it DND rivals [Music] the concept of a rival and Specialty of a rival team is anything but new we have seen it in everything from anime to music romance superheroes superheroes more superheroes they're everywhere they are particularly common in eastern media the protagonist team fighting a rival team is a staple of the Shonen anime genre but it extends to nearly every genre in anime including Shojo but what is a rival team well contrary to what you might believe they are not necessarily a villain team that is an entirely different thing they can be that but they don't have to be that they are often a team of comparable size and skill to the team of the heroes and as opposed to a True Villain team they can be antagonistic but they don't have to be villainous the difference between villain and antagonist is tenuous most of the time with people using both as synonyms but there is a difference especially in storytelling which believe it or not is what we're doing when we play DND you could say that all villains are antagonists but not all antagonists are villains a villain is a character archetype it's a character that has active malicious intent that goes against what the protagonist is trying to achieve or prevent Sauron from The Lord of the Rings is a villain Emperor Papa Putin from the Star Wars is a villain preminger from the director video musical fantasy film Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper is a villain as opposed to this an antagonist is not a character archetype it's a specific role in the plot an antagonist is a test for the protagonist either through their differing goals or because of their actions they are something that the protagonist has to overcome Elsa in Frozen spends a good chunk of the movie as an antagonist to Anna she isn't the villain but her goals put her at odds with the protagonist although if you want to get super technical you could say that the movie has two protagonists who are each other the antagonist of the other but anyway her role in the plot is that of an obstacle for Anna to overcome at least in the beginning she overcomes it with sisterly love but she's still an antagonist whenever an anime of the we go to a high school where we fight each other variety has a tournament Arc which is roughly 86 percent of the time most if not all the characters are in antagonist to the protagonist even if they aren't villainous they might even be friends but their role in The Narrative at that moment is that of antagonist obstacles to overcome in d d there isn't one protagonist that is if you're playing the game right and yes I don't mind saying playing the game right about this and God help you with an NPC as the protagonist oh God no all the player characters equally share the role of protagonists in the story which is very very rare in fiction even ensemble cast and cast of thousands like Game of Thrones have one or two protagonists that Rise Above the Rest of the main cast so that's why we're talking about rival teams and not one single rival in D there's not one protagonist so we need a rival team but okay we get it rival teams are something quite common in media but why put rivals in your games there's something very very powerful in having a team of antagonists in your game DND often suffers from Power creep when it comes to the stakes in the narrative you might start off your adventure by saving some randos from some brigands at like level one but it very very quickly turns into we must defeat the evil wizard apostrophe hyphen name unless he says seeds in this plant too um destroy the world but where do you go from there that's where the power Queen comes in and destroying the World is Not Enough the next guy wants to destroy the plates then all the planes then it goes on and on and on the stakes that our rival team brings aren't as life for death or world ending as others but conversely they are way more grounded more realistic they feel more real and the consequences of failing ring more true we as people can understand a rivalry between two groups of peers that want different things much better that we can understand the ramifications of like trying to stop the nefarious plans of the evil guy that wants to destroy the world by starting a war against the concept of bosses and trades and building bad Transportation infrastructure wait maybe that was a bad example point is the stakes that a rival team brings feel lower but feel more real but this is not the only plus to having them in your game rival teams can be much more of a presence in your campaign if they are run correctly you will run into them several times during the story which means you can see them grow and change as people and as Warriors Villa and DND are often pretty static they start at a very high power level and then the whole campaign is about the party catching up to that and being either ass yes at one point they might gain the I don't know baby rattle of Doom and sorrow which allows him to unlock their baby hairs of dark mystical power which is just what they needed to destroy the Multiverse as we know it but that's a pretty steep jump in power level a rival team conversely grows slowly and methodically just like the player characters and more importantly at the same Pace as the player characters having them in your game allows the PCS to fight against equals for once and test how much they've grown as Heroes another thing that rival teams bring to your DND table is a sense of a living breathing world the heroes might be the protagonist of the story but that doesn't mean that the rest of the world is completely Frozen while they are off training goblins to do their bidding or whatever your PC is being able to see how their Rivals have moved around and done their own thing in this same world will make it feel much more alive like the world is real complex and filled with actual people and not 20 to 25 NPCs that stay completely most on this as they wait for the players to press a in front of them so they can pop up their little dialog box it's much more realistic the third reason and my favorite reason to have a rival team is that a rival is an incredibly effective way to facilitate change and a character Arc for your PCS if the Rival characters are done correctly the PCS could see their own thoughts on them or they could become aspirational or cautionary tales as examples of what not to do they could see the rivals growing and changing his people and becoming better or vice versa all of this hinges on one thing the rival team must be constructed by you the DM to be foils to your characters but how do we do that how do we make a rival team in general so many questions good thing that's an exception how to make a rival T So before we get into the thick of it I should acknowledge that call of the nether deep the official DND book for which Matthew Mercer coded the design for it has its own cast of Rivals see here they are right on the cover I was honestly so happy to see this in an official book because I've been making rival teams for my players for as long as I've been dming d d I had watched way too much anime and played way too many jrpg is for me not to try that out with my campaign and I think it's such an incredible tool that people rarely if ever use the book is very good on integrating the rivals into the story letting you always know where they are their reactions to something their plans their goals and all of that is fantastic go check that out if that's interesting to you but the book offers you a set of five pre-written characters as your Rivals and I think that pre-written Rivals Miss some of the most fun aspects of the rival team having those Rivals be foils to the heroes and that's where this video you're watching comes in so let's get into it so I've been talking a whole lot about foils but what is that exactly well just like an antagonist a foil is a rule a character can take in a story the role of a foil is to highlight another character's personality and character traits they do this by simply existing in the proximity of another character they are contrast the foyles character traits bring out the other characters attributes by inhabiting the same story the most basic example of this for example is a nice humble character having a mean vain sister the mean sister is a foil to the nice sister because she serves as a comparison she contrasts the nice sister's character traits now we can get into something much more complicated and fun maybe we have a protagonist that always believes in doing the right thing and being kind and that protagonist has a friend that also wants to do good but believes that sometimes we must do the wrong thing to achieve that those two characters are foils to each other because even if they share a common goal the way in which they get to that goal and their belief system contrasts one another a foil doesn't have to mean opposites it just means that their characters bring out each other's attributes hell you've probably had foils in your own party without even trying pressy Noble pragmatist and Country Bumpkin idealist foils so let's see how we go about using foils to make a rival team for the sake of convenience I'm going to divide foils in two groups now the distinction between these two is not good and dry it's more of a spectrum but they can be useful when trying to come up with characters the first one is what we would call an opposite this is the easiest one to make and the easiest one to identify caution easy does not mean bad characters are the opposite can be extremely effective foils as a matter of fact if you're starting out and you've never done this sort of writing before maybe do this one exclusively for your rival team this one is the easiest to do and delivers great results take a PC in your party for example let's say one of your players made a heart of gold Paladin that always follows the rules and always strives to always do the right thing always always portfolio to that character could be an ex-confict that believes that laws are often unjust and that everyone should be out there just for themselves that's it it's that easy you just created a foil those two characters are the Opposites of one another and they will interact and highlight each other's characteristics beautifully and could start a really cool really fun rivalry neat the second type of foil I call a mirror or a fun house mirror these two characters are very similar to one another in many ways but they have One Singular thing in which they are the opposite of one another I found that these types of oils tend to make for great rivalries because these characters often share flaws and nothing upsets you more than seeing your flaw in someone as an example let's say that one of the PCS in your party is a rich air of a wealthy Noble House whose parents have put an insane amount of pressure to carry on the family name the fun house mirror foil to this character could be another child of a wealthy Noble house except they are the eighth son and their parents have quite literally never cared for them even a little bit perfect fools and Rivals the PC can present the Rival because they were constantly put under impossible expectations while they weren't while the Rival might resent the PC because their parents cared about them and expected so much from them whereas their own parents didn't expect anything and basically forgot about them do you see now why this is cool this is why making your own is so much better you can tailor them to your PCS store bought is fine but make your own you know if you can okay so we have our first and most important ingredient to make a rival team we have to make them foils to the PCS the second step is to make them equal empowered to the players level them up as they go this is something that call of the nether deep does beautifully as I said before this allows the rivals to always be a fun Challenge and allows the PCS to actually measure themselves against peers that learn and grow it also makes the world feel like a breathing living thing yada yada yada you get it the third step is to put them in a rivalry against the players but not in direct opposition at least not at first we are not going for villains but rather antagonists for your players maybe they want to accomplish something similar to The Players but they want to do it in a completely different way maybe both the player team and the rival team are in competition with each other this way they can serve as antagonists at the start of the campaign and based on how their relationship with the players evolves they can grow and mature into something else maybe allies maybe actual full-blown villains who knows certainly not you that yep you gotta wait to see what your players decide alright we arrive at the fourth and final step to make a rival team for your DND game give them their own personal arcs that mirror those of the players if the player character is looking for their lost memories maybe their rival is also looking for their lost memories and they find out that the memory they lost is the memory of each other they were siblings this whole time their arcs mirror one another just was like they were foils and mirrors of each other having the players and the rivals Arc mirror one another offers you very interesting ways to propel a player's own arc this is a fantastic way to get some actual character growth out of the player characters okay that's the recipe to do rival characters but it's hard to actually see what that means in an actual game so why don't we just do that why don't we make some PCS and a rival team for those PCS why don't I make it extra hard for myself and add some custom art to go with it let's go so as we have established in order to make a rival team composed of character foils we need an actual party as a starting point you can't be the Rival of nobody in particular for the sake of brevity and for the sake of me not having to draw too much let's say that this is a player Party of Three adventurers I like the example I gave for the mirror foil before so let's expand on that our first PC is Alloys the Paladin Alois was born the only son to a famed night of a very prestigious order he has an insanely powerful sense of Duty and honor that was instilled in him basically since birth his mother gave him everything she had and pushed seem to be the very best out of all his classmates and decided for him that he would follow in the family tradition and become a knight he said to Bear an insane level of expectations on his shoulders since day one and is deathly afraid of failure very typical for me as a character I know I don't know why I just love and overachieving nervous wreck who is constantly afraid that I'm not good enough and I have to make my family proud and be as good as they want me to be or else I'm a failure I mean he him otherwise I'm fine I'm fine there's nothing wrong with it I'm not projected shut up for our second PC what if we went with one of the most overdone and yet one of my favorite tropes ever Sorella is a Dwarven princess but she isn't disguise and literally not a single person is fooled by it everybody can tell she was muggled out of her castle the night where her parents were murdered in a political coup by another Noble family now she travels as a Bard hoping to visit her father's Bannerman and raise an army to take back her kingdom despite what she's gone through she's still very very new to living in the real world and has a pretty idealistic and not very realistic vision of how the world Works she's naive and cheery a bright-eyed princess she still assumes that the world functions like it does in stories with hidden princesses and Valiant Knights and finally to contrast a bit with these two let's make our third PC a bit of a criminal turmeric the thief was born to a mother they never knew in the deadly criminal underbelly of a big poor town the criminal underbelly of this city swallowed them instantly and before they could spell they were going on missions to steal stuff from ships they discovered pretty early on that they had a great nose and developed a great reputation as a spice Thief which is where they got their name one day in one of these missions they stole what they believed was a shipment of Highly valued saffron but when they opened the box they found a mysterious glowing plant inside and every guard in the city was looking for them they are ruthless cynical have an awful sense of humor and don't trust anyone but their pet rat named baby neat okay we have our party Alois Sorella and turmeric let's give them a common goal I am as sucker for competitions and they lend themselves so well to the Rival structure so let's do that these three have entered a Monster hunting contest several teams of three are said to hunt beasts that are a thorn on the side of fantasy City working title and if they succeed they get a cash prize and a good serving of Fame and Fortune Alois wants to win this contest to bring even more glory to his family and for his parents to finally be proud of him turmeric wants the cash so they can pay someone to identify these weird glowing plants and why the guard wants them back so badly and Sorella wants to be declared the Victor so she may have an audience with the mayor of fantasy City working title who is one of her father's Bannerman and try to convince him to help her take back her throw we have a motivation for our party we have our party members we are ready to make those Rivals so let's recap we know that one the rivals must be foils to our PCS either opposites or mirrors two they must be of equal power level to the players three they must have a rivalry with the players but not be villainous or at least not yet and four they must have their own personal arcs that also mirror those of The Players let's get into it for always let's go for the mirror method to make the foil much like Alois Fernanda was born in a rich and Noble family of knights but she was the seventh child her family basically forgot about her as soon as she was born she wanted to keep the tradition of the family and become a knight but her parents were focused on her older siblings who had already taken great steps towards that nobody expected anything out of her when she announced that she was also planning to become a knight she barely got anything more than that's nice dear she has fought all her life to be seen by her parents and is stopping at nothing to make that goal a reality that's it perfect for little Eloise they are very similar but they have a key difference that makes them Clash constantly Alois envies for NADA because she got to choose what she wanted and she wasn't under constant crushing expectation meanwhile for another envies Alloys because his whole family expected great things from him and gave him everything they had for him to become a knight the drama it writes itself for sorella's foil let's go with the Opposites method if Sorella is a princess Dario is the son of a poor blacksmith with in the same Dwarven Kingdom that Sorella comes from turns out sorella's dad while a very sweet and gentle parent was a pretty awful King that let his kingdom come to ruin while under his rule Dario and his family had been plotting a revolution against the king for a while when the noble coup against the king happened he has now left the kingdom with a goal he is looking to amass money and people so they can use this time of political unrest to Rise Against the new king and end the monarchy system once and for all nice foil finally for turmeric let's do a foil that is somewhat in the middle between an opposite and a mirror Moira is a shady pirate that enjoys crime and hanging out in dark corners while her back is against the wall and she's holding a dagger a professional Edge Lord but she wasn't always like this no Moira was once the Beloved daughter of a very very very rich Merchant couple her parents were the most helicopter parents that have ever parented and she was basically treated as a porcelain doll that was too fragile to leave the manor so she read constantly and became absolutely obsessed with pirate it and the freedom they had on her 18th birthday she left under the cover of night after bribing one of her handmaidens to help her escape and she's never looked back but her parents sure have been looking for her and will do anything to get their dear precious daughter back while on the Run Moira is basically playing out her fantasies of being a badass dancer lead Rogue but who knows for how long this fantasy can go on these three have entered the same competition as the player characters all of them for their own goals they are antagonists and Rivals but they aren't villainous and now depending on how the party acts they could very much change and become allies or foes during the course of the adventure maybe I'll always recognizes that he was lucky to be born under a family that believed in him while Fernanda comes to understand that the expectations that always was put under were unfair and wrong maybe after meeting Dario Sorella comes to understand the crimes of her father and how a system like a monarchy is inherently unfair and not like the story she was told as a kid and she decides to join Dario's Rebellion instead of putting herself on the throat maybe turmeric and Moira hit it off and become best of friends until turmeric realizes that Moira is lying about having been poor and they become mortal enemies or not who knows your party gets to dictate that but now this can happen at your table it's awesome so yeah that's my method to come up with your own rival team it's just a shame that this wasn't written down neatly in an ice PDF with questions you can ask yourself to help you come up with Rivals for your players and all fortunately you don't have to worry about that because it's written by me and it's in the description for free bars yes the method for coming up with your own Team of Rivals to using your DND games is in the description of this very video and you can access it right now for free so go out there make some foils for your PCS and run the anime tournament Arc you've always wanted to have and welcome to the end of the video I was waiting for you my arrival my throat is so sore I was so excited to make another tip of the ad video and since I recently started running another long-term campaign that features Rivals I wanted to turn what I learned from running them in the past into its own video I love Rivals so much much I think they add so much to a campaign and all my players seem to love them and really respond to them so I would love for you all to try this out and tell me how it goes please do please tell me it's also a lot of fun for you to come up with the characters and think of foils for your players so yeah super excited for the comments on this one as always thank you so so much for watching leaving comments liking and subscribing we are steadily approaching the 100K Mark it's getting scarier and scarier by the second in the meantime go to my Twitter to hear me scream it's in the description below and yeah that's the end of the video don't forget to have a lot of will they one day tension with your rival make sure your dual and Moonlight has a lot of romantic tension and yeah love you I'm gonna go

Channel: Pointy Hat

Views: 508,970

Keywords: DnD, D&D, DnD with a twist, 5e, TTRPG, How to, Illustration, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D with a twist, d&d battle music, pointy hat, animation, rant, hat, homebrew, trailer, D&D trailer, monsters of the multiverse, monsters of the multiverse dnd, OneD&D, one d&d, onednd, one dnd, stranger things, rivals, rival, dnd rivals, d&d rivals, netherdeep, call of the netherdeep, anime rivals, anime rival

Id: xIKxk96ZFwg

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 16 2022