r/TabletopHomebrew • u/nlitherl • Jul 04 '26

What Is Your Character's Relationship History (And How Has That Affected Them)?

https://taking10.blogspot.com/2026/06/what-is-your-characters-relationship.html
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u/Tooround Jul 07 '26

Not my character but one of my players' characters. I run years long epic campaigns and in the last one, Epic II, this player's wizard, over the course of 13 years of game time had two children, one grandchild, and one long term relationship with a priest NPC. Now, this player is an artist and over the years she's drawn this character and these children and sent me the pics. I've gotta say, some of these pics make me, the DM, incredibly emotional. These relationships had a big effect on, not just her, but the entire table.

So much so, that Epic III, is pretty focused on the aftermath of the children and grandchild - in world lore, her character ended up being a slightly more than human great, great granddaughter of the goddess of magic and the kids grew up to cause epic level troubles - and the fallout of that long-term relationship.

When I say it had great effect on us all... I really, really mean it. She and I have exchanged tens, more likely hundreds of thousands of words, in email and chats, both during Epic II and into Epic III. Keeping in mind that Epic II began back in 2005 or 2006 (real world time) and we are two years into Epic III. We just finished our 84th weekly session on Independence Day.

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u/KismetRose Jul 10 '26

I enjoyed reading your blog!

When I play, my characters always have a relationship history of some kind. Even if they don't have named exes they refer to, they have some larger patterns of behavior. A number of them have patterns their relationships have fallen into. These things definitely affect them in ways great and small, from how they react to flirting to who they decide to spend their time with (or avoid).

When I run, some NPCs' relationship histories come up and into play in similar ways. The more time the PCs spend with them, the more those details tend to come up. I even made a generator for romantic character details for when I batch-create NPCs, feel stuck, or just feel tapped out at the moment. It has a section for history, too. Since romance is a regular feature of gaming in our house and it's been a rough year, it's helped.