Relationship System

In the Afterfall, you won't get far without pissing some people off. However, you won't get far without making friends, either.
You don't interact with people in the vacuum, they will consider past interactions when they deal with you.
Hence, relationships between PCs and important NPCs are mapped to keep track of previous interactions.
Relationships are considered to have several dimensions, each one with a value ranging from -5 to 5:

• Distrust/Trust -> -5: Treacherous bastard! | 5: I would trust my daughter's life to him.
• Difference/Affinity -> -5: We're so opposite | 5: Lots of common ground.
• Hate/Love -> -5: I'll spit in his grave | 5: I would do anything for him/her.
• Repulsion/Attraction -> -5: I'd rather fuck a cactus | 5: I would do anything to fuck him/her.
• Boring/Fun -> -5: I'd rather hang out with my plants | 5: I've never laughed so much in my life.
• Envy/Pity -> -5: Fuck him, that should be mine | 5: I would help him/her if I could.
• Threat/Harmless -> -5: He's scares the shit out of me. | 5: Fleas are undoubtedly far more dangerous.
• FearYou/FearMe -> -5: Last time I saw him/her I shat my pants | 5: I'm pretty sure he/she actually fears me!.
• Useless/Useful -> -5: Complete waste of water | 5: I totally need him/her, can't live without him/her.
• OweYou/OweMe -> -5: I owe him/her my life | 5: He owes me his life.

5 means something good for the NPC, whereas -5 something bad.

The GM will take note of how relationships between the characters and NPCs develop, through Relationship Sheets. Each sheet belongs to one of the PCs, and displays 9 NPC Relationship Cards.

Short Term and Long Term

Relationships have short-term highs and lows, but also long term historic trajectories.
Someone that is having a great relationship with another can forgive a little misdeed once in a while. On the other hand, receiving unexpected help from a long-time adversary will seem very suspicious.
Hence, in the Relationship Card, the GM can fill with an "L" the long term rating, and with an "S" the short term value in each dimension. During a session, the Short Term Rating can move depending on the PC's actions and interactions with the NPC, however, the Long Term Rating won't move.
When the session ends, the GM can change the Long Term rating, considering the final Short-Term Rating. If the Short Term rating is higher than the Long-Term rating, the Long Term rating increases by 1 point. If the difference is of 4 points higher or more, then the long term rating can change by +2.
If the Short Term rating ends in a value lower than the current Long Term Rating, the Long Term rating decreases by 1 point. If the difference is 4 points lower or more, then the long term rating can change by -2.

The First Interaction

First impressions are very important.
At the beginning, the ratings in all dimensions should be 0.
After that, the GM should consider the following.

1. What is immediately caught by simple perception:
   1. Appearance
   2. Gestures and body posture
   3. Cues that can give away the player's affiliation to a certain faction (tattoos, dresscode, hairstyle, lingo, etc.)
   4. If affiliation is evident, consider how the NPC's faction gets along with the PC's faction.
2. What can be caught during conversation:
   1. Language used
   2. Gestures
   3. General disposition
   4. Subjects treated
   5. Opinions given
3. How the NPC takes all the previous, considering his/her background, affiliations and biography.

Examples: A Healer or Tinker can interpret fancy words as a sign of a proper education, but a peasant might perceive the same as a sign of arrogance and ignorance when it comes to survival. Be it positively or negatively, it would unndoubtedly affect the Difference/Affinity rating in both cases.

Raising or Lowering Short Term Ratings

The GM can modify the Short Term ratings during play, taking into account the PC's actions and interactions with the NPC.
Actions and interactions can have null , minor (1), major (2) or huge (3) effects on the rating of one or more dimensions, be it lowering or increasing their value.
The GM needs to use judgement to determine how different actions or interactions effect different dimensions, and how strongly.
The GM can only change the ratings in the NPC is aware of the actions a PC makes.

Example:
Dermot, an NPC, is betrayed by Tom, his friend, a PC. The betrayal is major, but it doesn't affect the relationship, since Dermot is not aware of it. Nonethless, Dermot finds out what happens in the next session. Hence, since the effect was major, the GM determines the affected dimensions are Distrust/Trust (-2), Hate/Love (-2), Threat/Harmless (-1) and OweYou/OweMe (+2), applying the full major modifier to the dimensions he thinks are more relevant, and a lessened modifer to the ones he thinks will be affected in a less direct way. Hence, the GM proceeds to change the Short Term Ratings in those dimensions according to the modifiers indicated in parentheses.

Effect on Social Skill Rolls

The value in each of the dimensions considered, can be used by the GM to modify the difficulty of the social skill rolls PCs make involving the NPCs. Modifiers to the difficulty of the rolls should be between -4 and 4. With a -5 or +5 the GM can rule that no roll is necessary, since it is reasonable to think that what is being attempted simply succeeds or fails automatically.


Example:
Clarita, a PC, is trying to seduce Rocket, an NPC. Rocket has:

• Repulsion/Attraction rating of 2 towards Clarita
• Difference/Affinity rating of 1 towards Clarita.
• Hate/Love rating in 0 towards Clarita.

Hence the GM decides that Rocket has enough in common with Clarita to make friendly small talk (1), and even though the Rocket does not have feelings for Clarita , he finds Clarita clearly attractive (2).
The player doesn't know all this, but she decides that Clarita will appeal to sexual desire rather than feelings, so the GM determines the player should roll Appearance & Seduction with a modifier of -2 to difficulty, the inverse of the Repulsion/Attraction rating Rocket has for Clarita.
If Clarita had tried to be romantic, the GM might have chosen the Difference/Affinity rating as more relevant, giving only -1 as difficulty modifier.