“With great responsibility comes great amounts of complaining.” — Me

Today’s is an interesting prompt. The concept of a character having some kind of burden to carry is typical in most fiction, going waaaaay back. There are a couple of movies dealing with this concepts front and center in the theaters: Spider Man: Brand New Day and the Odyssey. In the first, there’s the weight of being separated from friends to protect them from the enemies that come with doing the superhero thing; the second is the weight of guilt from a decade of war, the burden of having incurred the wrath of the gods, and the burden of command — trying to get your men home. All good beats for drama and character development.

But even every day burdens can be a good foil to a character. What about the responsibilities of family weighed against those of your job? A good example of this is Jerzy Novak — a player character from our Blade Runner campaign. He’s been on the force since before the Blackout, and now 15 years in, he’s on the Rep-Detect Squad. He’s got a wife, a nurse at a city hospital; and a 10 year old son that they are trying to get into an exciting Off-World Development Corporation education program that all but assures a good job and a life Off World. Novak has to balance his work with the LAPD, where — when he’s not retiring “defect product”, he’s subbing in with the Robbery Homicide Division. There’s always a crime, there’s always a court date, there’s always lead or stakeout or or or…

His marriage has been rocky for a while and during play, Novak discovers his son might not be his (biologically) — he and his wife were having issues around that time. He accepts the child as his responsibility, anyway. He tries to rebuild the marriage with his wife, all while juggling a high profile case that has gotten steadily more dangerous. He’s got to miss meetings at work occasionally; he’s got to miss family time, occasionally. It’s not the mythic levels of burden we see in the two previous examples, but it’s the kind of burden that wears just as much, just quietly.

A burden could be a promise made — to a loved one, a dear friend, a patron. The last is a classic for a fantasy character: a king, a patron, a god demands a labor…the penalty for not following this could be the loss of reputation, banishment, imprisonment, the loss of your soul. A more pedestrian one could be breaking the promise to a friend or spouse, parent or child losing you that NPCs support — it’s not earth-shaking, but for those that have lost a loved one over a stupid argument or a series of failures to follow through, it can have a heavy effect on a person. It might not lead to a fight with a big bad; but it could lead to a great emotional through-line for the character.

Picking up a burden that isn’t really yours is a good character beat, as well. One of the best examples of this is Ripley’s taking on Newt in Aliens as a surrogate daughter (made better by a two minute cut scene dealing with Ripley discovering her daughter had recently died, while Ripley was undiscovered in cryo.) She doesn’t have to take on the girl, but she does — and that emotional connection changes her motivation from one pure survival to one of protector. Taking on that apprentice or other responsibility doesn’t just give the GM a pawn to be targeted, if can create the kind of tasks that can interfere with the main story line just in the day-to-day upkeep of that relationship.

Becoming a leader is another example. In Ted Lasso, Roy Kent — the aging football star, is a grouchy, prickly piece of work that wants nothing to do with sorting out his teammates and helping to build them up. Coach Lasso’s use of a Wrinkle in Time to nudge Kent into taking on the responsibilities of team captain lead to a hysterical scene where Kent is reading to his beloved niece and he gets to a passage something like “It has to be me…” Kent tosses down the book with a “faaaaaaaaaaaack” and storms off to set things right (in this case the bullying of the kitman by some of the players) — but not before stopping to his his niece good night and growl when she tells him he said a bad word. Moments like this can really make for a good night at the gaming table.

Being the mentor to another character can also make for good roleplaying. Two of the players’ characters in our Star Trek campaign were fresh out of the academy, and the older characters not only have the responsibility of training them to be the best they can be, but they are legally responsible for the well being. Starfleet is dangerous, and putting these newbies out there to learn their jobs with some level of safety, while letting them make the mistakes they need to learn from, made for an interesting interaction.

The notion of burden for a character is a central character building point — be it the need to avenge your fallen whatever, to follow orders and do your duty, to taking on responsibilities because your the only one that can do it. It doesn’t have to be heavy, but it will always help develop the characters.