I am hosting this month’s RPG blog carnival on the topic of making and breaking oaths, vows and promises and was wondering if any of you here have interesting ideas on this topic.
Taking oaths is a staple of certain sections of the fantasy genre most adventure games take place in and making promises is something my players tend to do a lot. But despite this seeming like fertile ground for wonderful worldbuilding or useful little mechanics I haven’t come across much.
So how do you all handle oaths, vows and promises?
2 Likes
I do a bunch of different things depending on the setting, but my absolute favorite is in my science fantasy setting.
I had lots of characters tell the PCs that oaths cannot be broken, that the gods would curse anyone who tried, etc.
The PCs took this very, very seriously, often having discussions about swearing an oath or not.
However, there was really nothing in universe that made this true other than the fact that everyone believed in it. And not in a silly “belief equals power” baby’s first magic system, in the real fact that nobody would dare break an oath.
1 Like