Unusual couples in the party

Strictly- the actual characters, not the players!

Now, I don't necessarily mean romantic couples here, but it can be included. I've got a weird fascination for characters that are just so different that they don't seem they should work together, but somehow, they just do. Last night we started a new game that revolves around a elven noblewoman mage, paired up and adventuring around with an orc mercenary veteran, and yes, they are a romantic couple that were designed to be different from the beginning. In a more ongoing game, we have a young, naive good aligned witch, who somehow through plot reasons is stuck with a 100% evil through and through tsuchigumo. Somehow they can work together, despite the constant bickering that comes from their different outlooks on life, that they can have a weird sort of partnership/friendship (other than that one time he manipulated her into agreeing to let him break one rule a day...I'm sure that will come back to haunt her)

Im curious to hear of anyone else who's had games with characters like this, where they seem like they should be complete opposites, but it just somehow works together. Hit me with your stories!

I can't recall a story at the moment, but I wholeheartedly agree. Conflict and complicated relationships are so important for RPGs - or really any story, in my view. Firefly is made great by Mal fighting with Inara and Jayne (in two completely different ways, mind you) and nobody trusting Simon and River and the myriad of smaller happenings between the crew.

Way too often I find that RPG parties become hyper-efficent faceless, slightly socialist SWAT-teams. Well, they're seldom hyper-efficent, but everyone is co-operating with great focus on solving the quest and moving forward, leading to next-to-nothing in personality of the characters showing.

To find interesting characters, in my experience, you have to move away from the party-centered, traditional games where there's a mission where you have to bash a buch of goblins. And while Apocalypse World and several other games are great, I sometimes want party-centered goblin-bashing and intra-PC relationships that matter.

I think the best way to get it to work is to be open about it. You can't play Jayne - constantly on the verge of mutiny - without co-operation from the player playing Captain Mal. Without open intention from you as a player, any sort of conflict within the party is going to come across as if not only your PC but you too is a ****.

In one of my 5E games when the main campaign isn't played due to player absence of a small group, I play a pair of back up characters for same world non-campaign related games. They are a sorcerer and monk, both with the Entertainer background. The sorcerer uses Minor Illusion for background music and Twin Enhance Ability for the performance. They'll do acrobatic stunts, juggling, but usually dancing of a sort. The monk's name is Chip. The sorcerer's name is Dale.

I was once playing a hyper-pragmatic ends justify the means 40-ish year old inquisitor who was protecting a young necromancer from persecution by his own order. He was 80% certain she was his illegitimate daughter (he was called away from the mother for a mission, and then war broke out and she disappeared), but he couldn't say anything or the order would look more into her backstory. Meanwhile, the girl had a huge crush on him (to the point where he occasionally bought sleeping drugs from the party alchemist to knock her out so she wouldn't do anything).

Also in the party was a superstitious pirate - which caused a lot of problems when we split up to flank an enemy platoon, and my character stepped out of the woods and took control of an evil soul-powered robot (in the game, you had to know things only evil people should know to be able to mind-control evil robots. My character had specifically studied that information).

Later, my character and another got in a huge fight about what to do with the remains of a diabolical, self-healing robot with no visible power source (he wanted to put it in a museum, I wanted to use it as a weapon).

I remember a short-lived furry anthropomorphic adventure in the style of "PCs as the A-Team". My raccoon ex-US Army guy started getting into a thing with the team's cat Russian sniper. We had in common the fact both of us were dishonorably discharged from service, and were very sarcastic, but my character was a slacker and she a hothead and it was a fun chemistry not unlike Taming of the Shrew

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Originally Posted by DigoDragon

My raccoon ex-US Army guy

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Any relation to Guardians of the Galaxy?

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Originally Posted by goto124

Any relation to Guardians of the Galaxy?

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Nope! This was around the year 2011, before I even knew who Rocket was.

Had a Pathfinder game where a young, high-strung and kinda useless Barbarian ended up forming a friendship with a young, laid-back and kinda useless Paladin, which grew so strong that some other members of the group started shipping it.

In another game, a young Chelaxian bastard of a noble house, the result of a regrettable fling with an Orc woman, who tried hard to live up to Chelaxian ideals while still influenced by his youth in an orc warcamp ended up forming a contentious friendship with an Andoran halfling and freedom fighter. A friendship which culminated in them rescuing a young slave together, for completely different reasons, and soon ended up in pseudo-parental mentor roles for the boy.
Then they regrettably both died, because mutated, intelligent strangler vines are absolute bull, and should not be fought in confined spaces whilst surrounded by animated object, like, what the hell were we thinking?

We resorted to dice rolls a drow PC fell in love with an orc NPC that became leader of the party.

The player stated love is strange tossed the dice it came up the only number she called as the relationship number.

I remember DMing for two couples that always had a tendency to swing through their characters. All in good clean fun, maybe a bit of trolling the husband/wife to see how they'd react this time.

In the game I'm running there was a drow mook that the party captured to interrogate and ultimately befriended. Coming up with a name and personality for a non-character that I expected the party would kill within a few minutes of meeting was odd enough, but one of the players seemed to really like what I came up with despite my efforts to make her come off as unpleasant. So much so, that her character ended up forming a close friendship with the drow, which later resulted in the two forming a romantic relationship. That player even drew a little portrait of the drow, which wasn't what I imagined but was so cute that I decided it was 100% accurate.

Aasimar disney pricess and tielfing warlock of the fiend they satrt as adventuring companions and it eventualy blossoms

He ended up not going through with it, but when my buddy heard about my PFS bard who uses Perform: Oratory to tell stories about the greatest of all Pathfinders (himself) my buddy almost rolled a cleric who worshipped The Greatest of All Pathfinders (since technically in Pathfinder you can worship a concept). It would have been highly amusing.

Unfortunately, he couldn't make Origins that year and then my bard was too much higher level for them to party up.

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Originally Posted by Sariel Vailo

Aasimar disney pricess and tielfing warlock of the fiend they satrt as adventuring companions and it eventualy blossoms

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Ha, that sounds like a future game of our's. I have a pirate lady who's hooked up with an aasimar paladin and by the end of the game they have 3 kids. We started talking about a future game revolving around the next generation (kids of the previous one's npcs and such) and I said I'd probably play the aasimar daughter of the previous characters, and we thought it'd be interesting if she ends up somehow working with a tiefling assassin type.

Does it count as an unusual relationship if the relationship is false? Because my rogue is dating the BBEG of my campaign for purposes of espionage and political advancement.

In a 2e game, my wife was playing a wizard Rowena, who had literally been raised in an ivory tower. Due to our adventures, Rowena was a lady of the court for the first time in her life. She played her as a nerd who had no understanding of human relations.

I was playing an elf wizard / thief who had grown up as an outcast who had no idea what an “elf” was. I named him “Treewalker”, an Elfquest style name. I played him as somebody who trusted nobody, liked nobody, because nobody had ever trusted and liked him (until the party got together). Once he learned about elves, and the elven language, he translated his name to “Ornrandir”. I was deliberately trying to play the changes in his outlook based on the fact that the party, uniquely, treated him like an equal. When we saved the prince and helped him prove his patrimony and claim the kingdom, Ornrandir was named the Earl of Devon.

[Dirk is the DM. Lorelei is the paladin in the party. Aduphus is a party member who recently married.]

When Dirk started talking about the potential politics of marriages, we sent the following to the gaming group.

Spoiler: Romance spoilered for length

Show

A situation has occurred (or will occur – we don’t know Dirk’s timeline). It will affect the party to some extent, and may affect Dirk’s current plans, so I guess you should all hear about it. The two of us decided to explain it to you in character, so here it is.

(You may ignore which account this email came from; it was written by Diane and Jay together.)
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Rowena has been traveling to Devon Manor regularly to do magical research stuff and help set up the schools there, make scrolls, etc. The next time she visits after a Certain Conversation with the Queen, once she and Ornrandir are alone in the study where they work together on magic, she initiates the following conversation:

Rowena: The Queen tells me I really ought to give some thought to perpetuating magical bloodlines and recommends I consider marrying you.

Ornrandir: I’ve heard similar rumblings. Elanor told me I have to find someone to marry, too. Something about an heir for the county.

Rowena: It is a rational idea. It is just that I have never really considered it before. I have been rather busy learning magic; all that physical stuff seemed so…worldly.

Ornrandir: I certainly know little about it. I’ve never had any family, and I've been an outcast all my life, except for those occasions when the only female I’ve traveled with was a paladin.

Rowena: The gaggle of giggling girls I must spend time with these days seems so focused on the idea.

Ornrandir: I know. Everyone but you is so stupid.

Rowena: I am already spending a lot of time here anyway.

Ornrandir: My servants wouldn’t have to prepare separate rooms for you each time. That would be convenient. And we seem able to get along.

Rowena: After all, we worked well together blasting hundreds of goblins with lightning bolts.

Ornrandir: I enjoyed casting coordinated lightning bolts with you. I’ve never felt so connected to another person before.

Rowena: After that, how difficult could this marriage thing be?

Ornrandir: Love is one of the strongest and most mysterious forces of the universe. Of course, controlling arcane cosmic forces is what wizards do. Maybe we should research a spell for it?

Rowena: As a mage, I will not age as quickly as normals; being elven, you of course will not age at all, so I really do not see why we need to be in a big hurry. And why should I care about being considered – how did she put it? Oh, yes – an “old maid”.

Ornrandir: That seems like a meaningless phrase. Everybody becomes old, and an unmarried woman is of course a maid.

Rowena: On the other hand, your life expectancy, given your penchant for getting into trouble, isn’t exactly eternal.

Ornrandir: I suppose I should tell you that one of the tasks I’ve been assigned is to distract the assassins, so I’ll be assassinated instead of a real noble.

Rowena: Ummm, right. [looks him up and down appraisingly] At least if I marry you, you won’t keep getting ripped off by the tailors. You paid far too much for that rag you’re wearing.

Ornrandir: Fine by me. I’d be happy not to have to think about clothes any more.

Rowena: You thought about … that?

Ornrandir: Of course. It has a fleece collar, so I always have the material component for Phantasmal Force, feathers as decorations so I can fly, and several pockets worked into it here for other components. It has two internal pockets for scrolls, this hidden pocket for a dagger, and Lorelei will never figure out where the thieves’ tools are. It's green, for easy concealment in the trees. See? I carefully considered every relevant sartorial issue.

Rowena: I see. Yes, I believe I should take over those decisions. [Pause.] I would prefer to avoid that spectacle that Aduphus went through to marry Lady Stanley. The collective intelligence of her Majesty’s ladies dropped like a stone the instant someone said, “wedding”, and all they could talk about for weeks was fripperies and lace. Why do you think I spent so much time here writing out scrolls?

Ornrandir: Believe me, I understand. All the nobles were throwing their daughters at me. A year earlier they were offended that I was allowed to carry a weapon, and now they want me to sheathe one in their daughters.

Rowena: So how quickly can we get this over with?

Ornrandir: Well, when they assigned us to go fetch the Prince, we started out on the task immediately. Is the priest available today?

Rowena: I suppose we need to tell the Queen first. She might an opinion about how it is done. So we are fully agreed about the marriage?

Ornrandir: It does seem like the logical thing to do [says the pointy-eared member of the couple].

Rowena: I’m glad we were able to work this out rationally, without the usual tawdry, emotional mess.

Ornrandir: Of course. We may be the two most intelligent people on the planet. We won’t let maudlin sentimentality distract us from rational analysis.

Rowena: Well, I am glad that that is settled. Now back to important matters - about that scroll we were discussing…

Ornrandir: Does this mean I get to look at your boobies?

Rowena: [sigh.]

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Originally Posted by Sajiri

Strictly- the actual characters, not the players!

Now, I don't necessarily mean romantic couples here, but it can be included. I've got a weird fascination for characters that are just so different that they don't seem they should work together, but somehow, they just do. Last night we started a new game that revolves around a elven noblewoman mage, paired up and adventuring around with an orc mercenary veteran, and yes, they are a romantic couple that were designed to be different from the beginning. In a more ongoing game, we have a young, naive good aligned witch, who somehow through plot reasons is stuck with a 100% evil through and through tsuchigumo. Somehow they can work together, despite the constant bickering that comes from their different outlooks on life, that they can have a weird sort of partnership/friendship (other than that one time he manipulated her into agreeing to let him break one rule a day...I'm sure that will come back to haunt her)

Im curious to hear of anyone else who's had games with characters like this, where they seem like they should be complete opposites, but it just somehow works together. Hit me with your stories!

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I had a Paladin of Wee Jass who intended to become an Arclich in a party with a Lawful Evil Hellknight. They ended up becoming best friends and occasional lover-like in their interactions. The two tended to balance each other out in a way, and both respected each other, and the two became pretty protective of each other (including the Hellknight making a point to be responsible for her when her mind was damaged by a combination of various poisons and supernatural attacks).

I had a cannibalistic witch that was kind of a jerk towards a paladin in the party because he was a witch hunter, really hated her a lot, and regularly put her and witches in general down. Then she later found out that he survived a witch who intended to cook and eat him as a child, but his sister wasn't as fortunate and was eaten in front of him by the witches. After that, she stopped being snarky to him and tried to treat him as a person rather than someone just tolerating her breathing out of a sense of greater duty. Later, after a battle with a witch who she tried to interact with positively - but relations with sour quickly - he felt deceived by her and attacked her without provocation. In doing so he fell and his goddess withdrew her favor. The witch was devastated, not because he had struck her (in truth he didn't even scratch her) but she couldn't stand how broken he had become.

I had a vampire and a worshipper of Urgathoa who aided a band of paladins who were ambushed by a sect of whispering way assassins. They weren't aware of what she was, or the nature of her faith, but she decided to remain with them when she found that they had a dhampir that they were escorting and who was the target of the whispering way assailants. While her escorts were urging the young dhampir (who was mute) to reject her instincts and were treating her like a victim of a disease (albeit kindly and gently), she would take the dhampir aside and show her how to be a proper lady, instructing her not to be ashamed of her heritage but to embrace it because it meant she had noble blood, etc. She used the fact the dhampir was mute to openly hide what she was up to. She bit the vampire when nobody was paying attention (because having tasted her blood allowed her to track the dhampir down if they got separated) and even snuck her away to feed for the first time as a real vampire. She was later slashed open by some orcs and buried because the Paladins thought her dead. She awoke some time later, crawled her way out of the ground and tracked them down (blood for the blood hound!). The dhampir had kept her hat, but buried her with a memento. She reclaimed her hat and replaced it with the memento in the dhampir's room and assumed the role of her guardian angel for a while.

I once played a tiefling malconvoker that traveled around with a kobold sorcerer (played by my brother). He was kicked out of his tribe for being a heretic (he wanted to do crazy things like make peace with upworlders and not treat the muggle kobolds like second class citizens) and left in the cold to freeze. She found him and warmed him up in her tent on the fringes of civilization. They became the best of friends. They later met up with a lumberjack turned wizard and a halfling prophet of Ilmater. When she was bordering on losing herself to her dark powers, her party kept her grounded, especially the little kobold who reminded her of that day when he would have froze to death had it not been for the kidness of the estranged.

A friend of mine and I planned to make a pair of sibling paladins, one a paladin the other an antipaladin, who traveled together. The idea would be that the two had a sort of rivalry and despite their drastic differences is ideals, loved each other just the same. Unfortunately the game we were making the for dropped before it started but it was a nice idea.

Most any party that I play a necromancer or something similar. They tend to be pretty nice folks. :smallamused:

My sister and I usually end up as this, because we're so good at role-playing off of each other. My favorite couple was my drow bard Elanna and her Tengu rogue Kanga. Kanga's very paranoid and standoffish, and Elanna is overly friendly and can't deal with people not liking her, so Elanna keeps baking cupcakes for Kanga in an attempt to befriend her. Kanga was suspicious of her intentions at first, and thought that the cupcakes were maybe poisonous, but she has started to accept them as sugary peace offerings.