If your character concept calls for a side kick or apprentice, do you ever just run with the secondary character? Sure, they were invented as part of the main characters storyline, but they were also given a full burn and are characters in their own right. I like it when my wizard has an apprentice that way I can still have an active, although less powerful character involved in the story while my wizard is too busy doing research or tending to guild politics.
I recomend player characters have someone that is involved in their adventures that the player can run during their main characters down time. It’s also fun to watch the “sidekicks” go it alone some times.
We do it all the time. We’ve spun off whole campaigns based on these background characters.
Not quite what you’re talking about. But in on BW campaign my PC took a Mortal Wound (spent the Persona to not die). Instead of passing all the time for him to recover I instead did a full burn on one of my relationships (my brother) and played him for a while. After a while as that new character I killed my previous character. heh
We used a sidekick once. The Orc warlord’s troll body guard, Grit.
Grit’s most memorable moment was when he argued with his mother. He wanted both of them to go to the Warlord to help him. She wanted them both to go to work for the new Dark Lord. The argument resulted in Grit’s mother joining the Warlord and Grit going to work for the Dark Lord. Supid trolls.
It felt like I was cheating to split Grit from his master in the first place. But it seemed to work out for the best.
Has anyone tried this in reverse? I mean, burn up a two or three lifepath character who has a four or five lifepath relationship mentor in the wings? The main storyline being about the apprentice rather than his mentor, letting the mentor fill in the gaps with their courtly duties, research, or what ever it is that they do. Stepping into the limelight every now and then when it’s appropriate to the storyline? Or is this a really bad idea, rules-wise?
Playing out those secondary characters’ adventures on their own will add incredible depth and breadth to your campaigns. A whole new perspective can be added, including one that doesn’t necessarily align with the main PCs. It allows for major events to happen simultaneously in your world without the players missing the action. Play out the main PCs fighting the demon’s armies, pause it to play out how the sidekicks got hold of the Holy Avenger +5, then switch back to the main PCs as the sword is delivered. Or something.
This is a good option and another excellent reason why every character should have at least one relationship (or at least one circled up friendly contact) in essence, training your next character so that if you need one it’s already there. (Also great for those intances of player boredom when you just want to try something a little different without mucking up the standard game).
That’s what we’re doing in our 1-1 campaign. The player’s character first story arc ended when he entered The Church and wanted to become a priest. Then we changed roles and my friend became the GM. I’ve decided to play a Priest in the Church, scholar-kind of monkish character, who was assigned by the Church to do some errand, and I have to bring the first character along. So my character will accomplish his “last vow” and my friend’s character - now a convenient NPC for the GM - try to accomplish is “first vow”. It’s one of the funniest character I’ve played in my 20+ years of gaming. And it was not something I thought of - It was just one of NPC I spawned when I was GMing, and I was like “Hey, I want to know this guy a little more”. And I burned him…