Giving your D&D players Rivals!

*anime rival voice*: smell ya later! Every time i've run longform campaigns in D&D I have given my players a rival team to befriend/befoe/belove. How do you go about doing that in DnD, and why?

Check out the rival team creation guide HERE!

[pointyhatstudios]

What if we had a ship-teasing, thinly-veiled-ridden swordfight duel at midnight over the roofs of the city?
haha just kidding
Unless? 👀

[coolgreenbug]

I like the idea of the cleric/healer that doesn't have a rival in the rival team, and when the parties fight the two clerics just sit on the same rock healing their party while complaining to the other about all the stupid stuff they had to fix.

[tennoyamamoto]

Another cool idea is to have a conflict triangle involving the hero(es), the villain(s) and the rival(s), bonus points for having the "enemy of my enemy" moment, give your players one or two chances to temporarily join forces with their rivals to defeat the villain, depending on how the players treat their rivals have the rivals join the Villain or the Heroes

[theminism]

i literally met my party's rival team in a session today so this is perfect timing... i hate them so much and it's so good ♥

[oldmanofthemountains]

One of my favorite rival teams was the first I created. It was entirely to prevent a TPK in a low-level dungeon. The PCs were pretty deep in the dungeon and after a few bad rolls they were ALL making death saves as the monsters loomed over them. Then another adventuring party showed up at full health (because most of the dungeon was already cleared!). The players HATED that they had to be rescued so THEY made this adventuring party their rivals!

[palehunter]

I thought of a funny rival being a necromancer wizard who is jealous that one of the PC's has such a large group of friends so the necromancer summons and takes control over undead to have their own friends. The further you progress in the game the more powerful undead they have like at the start they have a skeleton or zombie for each PC -1their idle. Then they slowly turn some them into stronger undead such as wights, ghouls and vampires.

[oliverdown]

Antonio, you’re so creative and hard-working, it blows my mind. I’m so happy that you make videos for people to tune into to enhance their roleplaying experiences.

You should be so proud of yourself

[OC]

Remember, you don't have to make rivals for the group ahead of time. You can turn an npc that a player has interacted with into a rival. This way you can see what basic premise the players respond to, then build from there.

[michaelrigg]

I feel called out by the Wizard Apos'Trophee Hyphen-Name, and I am here for it. I need a Wheel of Goals for villains to let the players spin for what is happening.

[davididiart]

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, inspires more murderous hatred in my players than me trying to set up a rival team for them to face. Like, I don't know why they always jump straight to "we must slit their throats in the night" mode... but they do. Always. It's kinda frustrating....

[vodar]

I absolutely love how both Moira and Turmeric have round animal companions

[yonatanevron]

I gave my players a Cambion Rival, he fought them 1v5 at like level 2 (he had no armor) with no magic items. Quite close, and they won. He escaped with his superior flying speed.
They met him a few times after, mainly doing his own thing.
Any he made his own little party that is doing many quests the party ignores, they even worked together once.
To keep up with the party, he also gained levels at Barberian (his AC is made from DEX+CON+CHA ;))
He mainly focuses on gainning political influence and getting in with the important tribe leaders

[DanielGalllego]

one very important thing, a "devil is in the details" kind of thing, is that it is VERY important thing actually know your players characters before even considering a rival. i'll say to give your characters a session, or two, or half the campaing ok maybe not that much, to get to know yout players, what they actually do what they actually think how do the actually react, it's never easy to get any of that on the character sheet the first time without some experience precisely because characters are always iterating upong themselfs while playing. your paladin may have syad that he is the shining face of honor and piaty but maybe the player themself isn't actually aware of sayd details and missed an oportunity to help someone or an insult to the crown simply flew over their head whem they heard it idk, a very important and specific detail that informs that a rival atacking sayd desire may not be able to fully succed in their objective but a ruval constructed in other direction upon the same character might have a bigger impact.

but still, rivals are their own people even if the narrative role they have isn't "as strong" as it can be, and it can also be worked arround in the same self iteration and improvement the character they are reflecting is going throw.

be careful and have fun, after all that's always the goal

[GunnarClovis]

I appreciate that Dwarven girl's beard quite a lot

[Elipus]

I ran a rival group delving into the Underdark alongside my party once. At first, tensions were very high. They travelled together for the majority of the time, but they weren't as high levelled. Instead, I built them to be perfectly working together while the party still had a few issues with communication. Instead, they were proactive and had strong opinions, as the rival teams were all basic copycats of the party, with classes switched. The rogue-sorcerer became the bard, both being the heart. The Coffeelock became a cleric. The cleric and bard had a small fling, where as the Coffeelock and rogue-sorcerer were an active thing. They spoke about relationship stuff during downtime. The ranger became the... ranger... Different subclass. Planeswalker to horizon Walker, and from skeleton to aasimar. Lastly, our cleric, which became the eldritch Knight. Firbolg to Goliath. They had similar backstories to the party, but they were all based around a prominent location the party was exploring, where an elder Evil had touched the earth and permanently scarred the land. Had a lot of fun making new aberations for Y'chak.

Anyways, the party had a lot of fun bouncing off these NPCs, and without prodding, they gravitated to their counterpart, as well as the party's leader, the dwarf cleric. When they had to split up, I swapped a character out for a doppleganger, and that doppleganger was caught within minutes. The problem was the doppelganger was hunting the party and had his own group of baddies actively hunting the party down for main plot reasons. Long story. However, because they got caught early, the rest of the enemy party wasn't ready, leading to a 7 v 2 against a monk and hexblade. The monk and hexblade where higher leveled than the party. Level 14 to the party's level 9, and the rivals' level 7. With the numbers advantage, the doppelganger monk fled, covered by the revenant hexblade, who perished for the 4th time. Suicides, killing the rival ranger. One revivify later, and the only question was what happened to the eldritch Knight....

He was killed hours before, body lost in a river.

He was revived via clever use of a homebrew item that summoned a Coatl to aid the party, and brought back to life later by the party's cleric, his foil.

[greysonjones]

I appreciate that you've given the dwarven princess a beard. It's a travesty what they did not giving dwarven women beards in rings of power

[GuilhermeSRPG]

Zuko and Aang is a fantastic example of god tier rivals

[bwanamatata]

Gosh Darn It, you constantly impress me. Rivals, Angels, and pop singers (burlesque bards with fan blades). I'm not surprised that your views are getting close to the 100k, because every aspect impresses me: Animation (Love your aviator btw), voice (made for voice over - figure you either L.A. or Miami), and number one...your creativity. Gosh, that's where it gets hard to quantify. Creativity. You have it and your whole production shows it in spades. Keep up the great work, your steady growth in subscribes, shows that you've got "it". Now, get sponsors.

[anoaktree]

Had a tough day and this really cheered me up. Thanks pointy hat. Love the vids.

[calliclassic]

the little chibi illustrations of the party are SO good!!! I love it