I’m always interested in new condition tracks, and in this post I’m proposing a Loyalty track. This modular rule is for two kinds of campaigns. The first is the deep old school, where a small number of PCs lead one or more NPCs each for dungeon delves (and the NPCs can be reasonably assumed to die like Star Trek redshirts). The second is a more experimental model, where one PC is openly acknowledged as the “main” character of the story arc or whole campaign. I haven’t played either style, to be clear.

Alternate Threat Tracks | Companion NPCs

Large-Group Styles

Discussions of old-school dungeon-crawling styles often describe the PCs – always low-level, except in Gygax’s own games – leading multiple NPC hirelings into the dungeon. I get the impression that interaction with those NPCs becomes a significant part of play, or if it doesn’t, it really should. After all, the hirelings are even more schlubby and ill-equipped for the dangers ahead than the 1st- or 2nd-level PCs who hired them!

For this style, I’m explicitly assuming that we’re talking about multiple PCs played by separate players (at least 2, maybe more… maybe a lot more, from some accounts). If you’re talking about a single-player game where the player controls one character and leads a team of NPCs (an unconventional but valid style), you want to use the second Loyalty model, below.

Each PC’s collection of hirelings has a Loyalty stat that represents their collective morale and loyalty. The point here is to avoid Loyalty being fiddly, with a lot of modifiers.

Gain Loyalty when:

• you award each of your hirelings bonus pay equal to their base pay
• you promise pay raises equal to 100% of their current pay
• you award any hireling a non-cursed magic item
• you complete a goal that matters to them personally, such as defending their homes
• you win a battle against unfavorable odds
• you expend Inspiration to increase Loyalty

Keep in mind that pay can take forms other than coin and gems; increased rations, improved gear, preferable lodgings, and providing them with entertainment could all take the place of pay.

Lose Loyalty when:

• you add new hirelings equal to or greater than your current number of hirelings (this cannot push Loyalty below 1)
• your group of hirelings suffers casualties equal to 20% of their number
• your hirelings lose confidence in your ability or willingness to pay them

These lists are deliberately not exhaustive; Loyalty should follow the narrative. When in doubt about whether an event should affect Loyalty, a Charisma check can improve Loyalty and a Charisma saving throw can prevent a loss of Loyalty.

New hires typically have Loyalty 2. If your new hires (hirelings who have not yet completed one adventure, or one non-adventuring month, with you) are less than 20% of your total, they do not affect overall Loyalty. Otherwise, your new Loyalty is the average Loyalty of each individual hireling, rounded down.

Lead and Supporting PCs

The idea of this style is to imitate the structure of narrative-driven video games, such as Mass Effect, Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, or Dragon Age. There’s one main character, while the rest of the players agree to play supporting PCs. This doesn’t give the main character freedom to bark orders at the supporting characters, but in general, their choices should carry the greatest weight. On the other hand, they know in advance – out-of-character and possibly in-character – that one of their primary goals in the campaign is earning the loyalty of the supporting characters, who have their own aims (some of which may be in conflict). Depending on the game, this may go as far as keeping them from killing each other.

Now, there are going to be a lot of players who aren’t okay with knowing that they aren’t the main character in the narrative. Others won’t want the pressure of being the main character, or won’t be able to commit to attending every game. This definitely isn’t for everyone! That’s fine. On the other hand, if you’ve wanted to play around with more intra-party conflict as part of your roleplay, the lead character is a kind of safety net to justify characters who hate each other (but are loyal to the lead) continuing to adventure together. (Barik and Verse in Tyranny, for example.)

Ideally, supporting players should slightly exaggerate the effect that the lead’s choices have on their own character development. During character creation, try to imagine at least three different potential character arcs, and each time the lead character makes a decision, consider which of those arcs it pushes your character toward.

This model for the Loyalty track also works if you’re playing a one-to-one game, where the player is Commander Shepard and the rest of the Normandy’s crew are NPCs. In this case, they’re all important enough to justify the extra bookkeeping load on the player or the DM, and they’re not played to be disposable (unless you’re really into using the bad decision pistol. Dagger. Whatever.)

Every character except the lead has a Loyalty value. At the start of play, supporting characters have a Loyalty of 3, while supporting characters who join the campaign later or replace characters who die have a Loyalty of 2.

Gain Loyalty when:

• the lead character takes your advice over that of your rival within the party
• the lead character grants you an exorbitant reward
• the party completes one of your personal goals (you know, Loyalty Missions)
• you have been adventuring with the lead character for a year of in-game time (cannot increase Loyalty above 4)
• conflict with a rival within the party is amicably resolved
• ignore a loss of Loyalty if the lead character expends Inspiration

Lose Loyalty when:

• the lead character mistreats you or rejects your advice in favor of a rival
• the lead character refuses a chance to complete one of your personal goals
• the first time a rival within the party has Loyalty 5
• the first time you gain a rival within the party

As before, the gain and loss conditions are by no means intended to be exhaustive. More so than with hireling Loyalty, one of the core campaign goals is for the lead character to build up to Loyalty 4 or 5 with every supporting character, possibly resolving rivalries and always, always completing all of the supporting characters’ personal stories. Really, once the lead character has helped you with your personal story, your Loyalty probably can’t fall below 2 for anything short of open violence against you. (Dragon Age‘s character-removing consequences notwithstanding.)

In the campaign’s climactic arc, set up a series of Loyalty checks – that is, to succeed or gain advantage in some task, the characters need to roll d20 + their Loyalty score against DC… let’s say 10 or 15. To steal a page from Robin Laws’s Gumshoe One-to-One, try a rules variant where the lead character cannot stay dead until the end of the campaign – in much the same way that you’d just reload a video game, the whole campaign just isn’t interesting if the lead character dies. After fighting the final boss or doing whatever other horrible thing you have to do, the surviving supporting characters have a chance to prevent the lead character from dying from (wounds, being plunged into a magical abyss, whatever), so in addition to the very useful buffs, Loyalty also determines whether you get a happy ending or a noble sacrifice. (Season to taste.)

Finally, consider running medium-length arcs, changing out which character is the lead when you finish one arc and begin the next. My hope is that a lot more players would be interested in this model if they felt confident that they’d not only get interesting personal stories when someone else was the lead, but they would also get their own story arc in the spotlight.

---

You can now buy Under the Seas of Vodari in PDF!

Under the Seas of Vodari is a 300-page book that provides 5E/Fifth Edition material for both gamemasters and players to dive into a world full of action and adventure set beneath the waves of Vodari or your own campaign world. This book is a follow-up to The Seas of Vodari, a setting book filled with swashbuckling action and magical adventure. Dive into your first adventure today!