Trust and Loyalty

So we are 1 week into adjudicating the Patron Orders and as a DM I can say that the things they are doing are not things I would have necessarily thought of having those NPCs do.

But we've run into our first snag, or rather a place where what the characters are doing has butted up against the rules and I've found the rules fall short. 

In this instance it is the 5e rules for Loyalty.

Taking a leaf from AD&D I have implemented the 5e optional rules (found in the DMG) for Loyalty and Morale. This is to once again reduce both my bias and the cognitive load when handling interactions.

Will those dwarves face the on coming horde of greenskins? Well, there king is with them and they have a 10+ Loyalty to him, so they will "risk life and limb". Their Thane has fallen in an honour duel with the Warchief, will they try to avenge him (Loyalty) or will they break (Morale). 

Thanks to the smart folks on Twitter (Crossface et al.) for reminding me of this.

So where does that leave us, well a botched robbery saw one of the Patrons Henchmen being picked up by the City Watch, who promptly called in Force Grey as a Mind Flayer is above their pay grade. The second Patron immediately moved to interrogate the criminal, and I thought excellent lets see how loyal he is to his employer.

I flicked over to the rules to clarify how the check should be made...

and found nothing on the subject.

Yes, this is probably on me for not fully understanding how it worked. 

#RTFM {Read. The. Fucking. Manual}

The 5e rule has directions for determining starting loyalty, and how to track it. When they gain increases (+1d4) or when it decreases (-1d4/2d4). It tells you that at 10+ the creature will risk its life for you. While at 0, it becomes disloyal, and may actively start plotting against you. And that between 1-10 its loyalty is considered tenuous, but doesn't show how to determine if in that instance they may betray you.

[Taken from the AD&D DMG]

Once again I returned to better versions of the current game to see how they handled it. Gary knew exactly what might test the loyalty of a characters men-at-arms. And because of that he knew how to handle it; d% roll under Loyalty score is a failure.

So I've decided to adopt a similar approach, which took me a while because I forgot that you add penalties and subtract bonuses to the percentile in the AD&D example. 

Also because an NPCs loyalty is only called into question when it sits between 1 and 10, that means instead of a d20, I can use a d10 when looking for the roll under result.

Putting this into practice to resolve to the scenario that started it all:

The Mind Flayer (Loyalty of 8), rolled an 8 on a d10, responded that he "ain't no rat", and that Force Grey could go kick rocks.

We shall see how both Patrons respond to this incident during the 2nd week of [Patron Orders].

[Next Poast]