Something like a song of fire and ice gives you a lot of interaction from multiple points of view. RPGs are seen from the players point of view (usually as a group but occasionally from their own solo side quest/ pm'd role playing)
The kids may not know they're adopted, so that's not something a random stranger may find out from casual dialog.
People that are just always together without kids may be friends or something more. Its not likely to come up on the way to the dungeon. Its not just a murderhobo setting where you won't see it, you need to be going pretty heavy into "the adventures of our lives" end of the spectrum to have it come up without a little push.
Of course you're not going to get it immediately, but supposing you stay put for any great length of time you're going to eventually find out what people's relationships are even if just through inference. Like even taking books that only include a single forced perspective the first trilogy of Black Company books give you more than enough information directly know or infer everyone's relationship and feelings toward each other. Most of these aren't romantic but you're going to know the generals even though they happened off screen and despite the fact that the narrator's primary focus is a military campaign.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I do need to work on bring in Disabled people into my settings. When I made this thread, I forgot about Disabled people. That just says how lacking they are in my games.in my games, it's simple: everybody gayNot bisexual? How do they have kids in your world? Is it looked down upon in your world to like the opposite gender? My questions to you.trans girls
Ok but for real: my setting does include probably more gay people than straight people, with a whole lot of bi/pan people, aces and demis and probably others too, and of course, as mentioned, transgender folks. My wife's PC actually provides HRT potions for my friend's PC, it's great. (Note that it's a homebrew setting, so magic is extremely limited and there's no Elixir of Sex Change.)
Races (in the "skin color/features" sense, not "orcs/elves/etc" sense) are all over the place, with a lot of "mixed."
Definitely more important ladies than otherwise (personal preference, as my wife and I are both sapphic).
Body types all over the place, too.
Disabled people are A Thing, but I haven't thought to include many in my actual writing/campaign, so maybe that's something I can bring into it.
It's interesting to me, because you can go three ways with this (that I can think of):
1. Disabled people whose disability is worked around or otherwise a non-issue (ex. "fighter with wooden leg who is statistically no different than other PCs")
2. Disabled person whose disability is actually disabling (more likely to be an NPC, probably, unless the way that it's disabling is outside of their class utilities, like a wizard with the aforementioned wooden leg, in which it may actually negatively affect their stats with no "equalizing" positive)
3. Disability as superpower (ie. the Oracle class).
One thing I can think of for that "grim realism" aspect is to show the wealth disparities in a society. High level clerics can cast Regenerate, but do they take the time to do so? What if demand is so high they can't fix the problem, just reduce it?
The former adventurer who runs an inn, but is missing an eye, hand, and leg. Plus he's got a story for each.
A Stephen Hawking style wizard.
The stable-boy who can tell you the name of every adventurer who stayed one night, and the name of their most famous pieces of equipment, but always forgets something when caring for the horses.
Of course point-based systems like the Hero System tend to feature a lot of disabled PCs - this is because you can gain extra character points at the cost of disadvantages like physical limitations, so characters with missing limbs and eyes etc. are quite common.
Is there a negative trait in pathfinder that I can lose an arm or a leg, lol.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
