My Patron, My Enemy
 

I'm writing up a character for a friend's game and I've been toying with some ideas, and something occurred to me that I thought I would bring to the board.

I was wondering if in the event that your (Secret) Patron puts you through horrible crap for no particular reason other than to toughen you up for his later plans, is this simply what you got the point break for the Secret limitation on your Patron advantage for, or at some point would they qualify as an Enemy (maybe with a price comparable to a Watcher or Rival) to offset this? Helping me out when the Patron frequency came up and putting me through hell when the Enemy "rolled in"?

Or maybe it should just be an Duty? Would the character having no idea what the heck was going on the whole time be compatible with a Duty?

(If there is an existing thread on this subject that my search-fu has failed me on, I would be most grateful to be pointed in the proper direction.)

In this fantasy game, I was considering a Patron, a minor deity, maybe a secret one at that. combined with a rare Reputation reaction modifier with their clergy (who only know he's marked for an unknown, presumably good something, that they probably shouldn't mention to him, just be nice to him (which may turn into a claim to hospitality.. not sure yet)). The (still rough) idea is that this god has somehow taken an interest him and decided to groom him for who knows what for good or ill, wether he likes it or not.

Re: My Patron, My Enemy
 

I see absolutely no problem with having the same entity be both Patron and Enemy. At least for a Watcher or Rival type Enemy, but even Hunter might be explainable (some sort of entity that is willing to treat you as either a client or a snack depending on the circumstance, for instance).

I think there would be no modifications to the costs of either for this. You could make their availability rolls the same and roll once for both, making the NPC always a mixed bag to encounter (Harry Dresden's Fairy Godmother, maybe), you could make them different and roll for each aspect so that helpfulness and opposition are independent, or you could flip one of them around and make one roll for both so that if you roll above a certain threshold you get hostility, and if you roll below another threshold you get help, and in between they're uninvolved (which would work even for NPCs that you can't play as Patron and Enemy simultaneously).

Re: My Patron, My Enemy
 

One of my players had a character like that. His patron was a loa written up as a Patron, but with a lower chance of being an Enemy (a Rival). The reasoning was that sometimes, the loa did embarrassing or disgusting things while riding the character, or just didn't care about the character's plans and waltzed off to have some fun.

It worked out very well.

Re: My Patron, My Enemy
 

Harry Dresden's fairy godmother springs to mind as a fictional example that works exactly this way.

Just role the frequency of appearance to find out if the character is going to be helpful, harmful, neither, or both in the course of a certain adventure.

[edit] oops, I see I was ninja'd by many hours by Ulzgoroth. Serves my right for not reading every post carefully.

Re: My Patron, My Enemy
 

I had a character in mind that got power from his C'thulu-esque heritage, but was never the less virtuous.
His evil mother prefers him to be evil as well. So she periodically sets up situations to test his morality trying to corrupt him, all the while protecting him from death or discovery.

Re: My Patron, My Enemy
 

The thing is, an Enemy is supposed to be permanent campaign furniture. A "god" who fundamentally wants you to succeed but anonymously sends you challenges to toughen you up...well that's just the game master.

Re: My Patron, My Enemy
 

I think a patron/ally with split personalities (or even just two different identities (like a super hero)) could be an enemy at least some of the time.


So I think this should work as you have outlined.

Re: My Patron, My Enemy
 

Hmm. If you had a more normal character write-up involving those two traits. where the Patron was one entity, and the Enemy was another, there would always be the chance of both being involved in any given adventure. I'd be reluctant to change that dynamic, myself. The danger is that since the two are not mirror opposites (that is, the aid you might get from a Patron is not balanced by the same things being taken away by an Enemy), you might end up undercutting the value of one by reducing its effective frequency. This seems like it might be more of a problem if the two traits had different absolute values.

Re: My Patron, My Enemy
 

In the television series Supernatural, Heaven was a sort of combo Patron & Enemy to the Winchesters. They threatened, tortured, pressured, bullied, pressured them, were a constant thorn in their sides. But since they wanted them alive, they always brought them back to life (whether they went to Heaven or Hell) so that they could keep bullying them to accept their parts in the final battle.

In my campaign a character started with an a recurring powerful enemy that later turned out to be his father, who had sold him into slavery and neglected him and later reinserted himself into his life as an enemy bent on killing him, all to "toughen him up". Now, after 20 years, they are finally starting to have a quasi-friendly father-son relationship. Although I wouldn't have made him a Patron, more like just an Enemy with limitations on his IQ and some other traits so that he'd behave less intelligently in battles with his secret son than his IQ would normally suggest he would have. I would have suggested a Vow (Don't Kill Him), but several times he did try to kill his son, just he pulled punches to give him much more of a fighting chance but would have killed him if his son still couldn't muster the strength and skill to survive.

In some other fiction you have enemies that are rivals - they occasionally let you live, even help you or either openly or secretly foster your development, just so you'll be a challenge because they see some potential in you they see in no one else, and they've grown bored with the lack of challenge. For an example of this, see the Bleach manga and anime, with Aizen and Ichigo. Was Aizen Ichigo's Patron? No, I think that's a tough sell. But he did things along the way that seemed geared to make Ichigo the powerhouse he became in the end, because there was something in Ichigo that he thought could give him that challenge. And that wasn't totally out of generosity... he needed someone to push him so that he'd evolve to the next level himself and no one else could fit that bill...

Re: My Patron, My Enemy
 

In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Q entity is arguably a personal Enemy to Picard and also Picard's Secret Patron. Or more precisely, Picard perceives Q to be an Enemy, though whether he actually is an Enemy is another matter. Further, over the course of the series it became reasonably clear that Q, unlike some Secret Patrons, really was on Picard's side...secretly.

In the case of Harry Dresden, Queen Mab might just possibly fall into the Patron/Enemy combination as well, though in her case both are fully sincere.

There is an NPC character in my Orichalcum Universe who has a peculiar sense of humor, she is fully capable of playing the Trickster not with her actual enemies, but with people whom she is particularly fond. Some of those on the receiving end don't always immediately see the humor, or recognize that she is actually usually manipulating them in some way that benefits them long-term.

In some myths, Coyote might be perceived as an Enemy when he's actually acting in your interest...