Okay here’s a thing if you’re looking to bring a bit of cozy or romantic crunch to your game. It could be helpful, too, if you’re moving from Expert to Companion level play. Compatibility scores!
Now, this may or may not be your thing, like all hacks and homebrew. So, if not, no harm. And it’s just a quick take on one way to approach, meaning it’s meant to be suggestive, not definitive.
Here we go …
Start with 10 (out of 18) for each relationship. If you want to modify it right away, roll a die (probably not less than d3 or more than d6) and apply that to the score.
For example, Ahren meets Teresa. Their relationship begins with a score of 10. Teresa meets Nida. Their relationship begins with 10 modified by d5 (lemme roll it …) 15! So they really like each other right away, whereas Ahren and Teresa are more indifferent to one another.
Obvi you can split this a few different ways. (World Anvil has easy ways to do this, btw. It’s not a shill cos I get no coin fer it.)
Teresa’s feelings about Nida might be modified by Nida’s Charisma + any other stat that might be high or low; and, perhaps off set by Teresa’s Wisdom or Intelligence—whichever is better.
So say Nida has (rolling) S: 15 D: 3 C: 13 I: 10 W: 8 Ch: 12, we might have that 15 (overall relationship score) modified like this (imma use 3-5e/Shadowdark modifiers, but you do you): 15 +1 (Charisma) -1 (Wisdom) +1 (Constitution) -4 (Dexterity) + 2 (Strength) = -1. So Teresa’s feelings about Nida are slightly lower than the quality of the relationship itself—her Feelings being a 14 but the relationship score being 15. So Teresa slightly underappreciates the relationship.
And you could do the same for Nida’s side. Boom. Crunchy dynamics!
You can make checks (over or under; you do you) based on Feelings and Compatibility scores. If you’re looking to include pregnancy and childrearing into the game, you could also have it be how compatible they are in these ways, as well; or, have separate scores for those compatibilities.
Anyway, this was an idea that popped in my head during meditation this morning, and I thought I’d share it with you. May you have excellent journeys through your own secret dungeons!
Xoxo,
T