I was thinking of how to make D&D encourage more emotional growth and vulnerability. Initial thoughts:
You have a handful of aspects (ala Fate) and earn Inspiration when they cause you trouble.
Inspiration cap of 2 instead of 1.
Once per session, if someone emotionally comforts someone else and they open up, the party gets a chunk of XP and either of those PCs can spend inspiration to instantly give the party the benefits of a short rest.
I'm thinking also of a way for everyone to chip in an inspiration to give the team the benefit of a long rest but I'm not sure what the right trigger is
I think I'd allow either in the middle of combat, too, because I love it when people shout at each other and cry and fall in love during swordfights
Oh, and the XP boost is available once per session per character (only one short rest tho)
OH! Maybe one of your inspiration slots is for your aspects and your other is more like 'friendship is magic' friendship gems and awarded by other players when you do stuff that embodies the Virtue their characters care about ala Epyllion?
They both spend the same, or maybe the long rest requires that everyone spend Friendship Inspiration so you can only do the big magic thing when you're all charged up with teamwork feels
@aprrrl This sounds like you want to be playing Chuubo's :D
@nightpool i like the idea of emotion xp. Emotion, genre, and quest, as that game categorizes the things that earn xp, are all good things. I thin aspects cover genre and quest
@aprrrl my other, more tongue-in-cheek point is that by the time you're done hacking D&D to do all of these things, you might as well have started with a different game to begin with :P
@nightpool
I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you were not doing that, because it's annoying and unhelpful to assume that I'm doing this because I'm ignorant of other game options. Bye
maybe resolving a more longstanding emotional subplot? like a really significant positive shift in any relationship is the trigger for potentially doing the friendship is magic thing