Today we will be talking about how the concept of the Tribe can impact your games, and how to use it effectively.
As humans, we are primed to need to be in a group. Groups provide us with security, support, resources, relationships, and comfort. The first group most people come to know is the Family (immediate circle of parents or guardians and siblings), then the Clan (wider network of relatives). As the person grows, they find their Tribe, the individuals not related to them which make up their social support network and the majority of their social interactions.
In old times, this may have been a small village. Today, it could be the people at your place of work, the people in your church, or even the group of people on your favorite gaming site. A Tribe is whatever group that person most identifies with, feels most secure around, and can most relate to. In the case of adventuring parties, the group will most likely become their Tribe.
The formation of the Tribe
Characters of any race, class, background, obligation, duty, or alignment come together in order to achieve an objective and survive while doing so. We usually keep the day to day activities off-screen, but these things are important for recognizing the formation of your Tribe. Eating every meal together, sitting around the campfire while the meal cooks, learning everyone’s relaxation preferences, hearing others snore, hearing others whimper or call out in their sleep, learning about everyone’s bathroom habits and routines, bathing together, hunting together, walking together for hours upon days upon weeks upon months… Characters come to know each other very intimately. Even characters who disagree on every topic know each other quite well.
An important point to make here is that the Tribe can be formed by either instant chemistry or routine familiarity. In fact, of the two, familiarity is far more important. You don’t have to like someone to be part of a Tribe together. In fact, you may hate the other person; they may be your rival in everything that you do. But you still share a Tribe.
And all those months spent fighting together count for something. You can disagree with the Paladin on how to handle prisoners, but you still catch his hand and haul him up the cliff edge, and he still stands firmly between you and the charging Chimera. Remember that a Tribe is about survival first, and comfort second.
The bonds of Tribe
Once the Tribe is formed, there is a bond there. It may be one of friendship, romance, or rivalry, but the bond is there. And players need to account for this when making decisions.
The Paladin and the Rogue may disagree. They may argue loudly. They may choose to spend time apart. But if one of them leaves, they are losing their Tribe. If one of them murders the other, they are killing a fellow Tribe member with whom they have shared every meal and watched over them while they’ve slept. You aren’t eliminating an inconvenience, you are permanently ending a fixture of your life and a member of your Tribe. Remember that before you slit their throat.
The other side, of course, is that members of a Tribe often enjoy helping each other. Yes, even rivals may get a kick out of putting the other in their debt just to watch them squirm. “What is important to you is important to me,” as the saying goes.
And remember that the two people are not the only members of that Tribe. The overall Tribe takes on a life of its own, with each member striving for harmony and group cohesion the best they know how. No one wants to live in constant strife. In fact, in times of danger, we need those bonds to be stronger than ever. That’s why this Tribe formed in the first place, in order to survive together. If one person threatens that, the rest of the Tribe is likely to step in. “You’ve made it our business,” they might say. This isn’t just a convenience, this is each member’s survival on the line. If the Rogue and Paladin need to be beaten into unconsciousness and then tied together at the leg until they learn their lesson, so be it.
The Tribe will set overall expectations for behavior, and will expect members to adhere to them. The Tribe also typically has a natural leader, someone around whom the other characters will naturally gravitate. This leader often sets many of the expectations by enforcing certain codes and rewarding compliant individuals with more trust, responsibility, and social power. And all people crave social power, as a mechanism for increasing security within the Tribe. You don’t want to be the bottom one on the food chain who gets sacrificed to the tigers for the survival of the group.
Okay, but how do I use this?
As a player, keep in mind what is happening between your character and the rest of the party. These people have guarded you while you slept, fed you when you were hungry, tended to your wounds, stitched up your clothes, bathed beside you, slept beside you, fought beside you, bled for you, watched your back and your front, placed themselves in danger to protect you, trusted you, and lived beside you. You’ve watched them suffer and heard them cry out from their nightmares. Even your rivals have done small kindnesses for you out of the natural bonds of the Tribe. Keep this in mind when making decisions.
One thing I have done to keep this in mind is to write an adventure log. As the game goes on, my logs begin to mention my party members more and more, and often in a future sense. My character may look ahead to the future, and see those people still beside him. He may try to set up family marriages with the party members: “You know, my cousin really liked you when we stopped off in my hometown last week.” He may make sacrifices for them, making a final stand to give them a few extra seconds to make it out. He may just sit around the camp fire and show an interest in what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. He will definitely ask them about their past, in order to find out who they are now. And he will come to trust them, and open up about himself.
As a GM, you can gently remind your players about this. Include scenes that show these bonds growing. Something as simple as a camp scene without any combat can help your characters get to know each other better. One nice thing is that this is a completely natural process to us, our first nature in fact. We NEED to do this, we crave it. Give your players the chance, and they will do it automatically. And this may hold your group together much more intensely, when things get hairy down the line.
A note on those without Tribe
I have played with many players who perpetually create the lone wolf character type. These characters are either traumatized and refuse to trust anyone, serve some dark purpose and want nothing to do with anyone outside of it, or otherwise are designed to have as little closeness with other characters as possible. Be aware that you are playing a sociopath, and that your very existence is a threat to the Tribe. You will likely find yourself on the outside looking in, other characters will have a difficult time engaging with you, and may feel slighted when you brush them off entirely. Your GM may, as a natural reaction, give you fewer personal scenes, because you won’t allow other people to engage with them, and you don’t want yourself known. At the very least, the Tribe may become resentful of the drain on resources you’ve become.
This isn’t so much a problem with characters who just start out cold and warm up later. The issue is with characters who refuse to ever warm up. Players and GMs, be aware that this is purposely creating a wall against the Tribe effect, and may strain the bonds in-game. If this is the sort of story everyone is comfortable telling, then don’t let me scare you off. But be aware of the natural flow toward the Tribe, and keep in mind that you’re purposely playing a sociopath who is incapable of truly functioning as part of a close group. If you’re going to take this path, let everyone know at session 0 how it’s gonna be, so they aren’t badly surprised when you casually let them fall to save yourself from inconvenience.
Remember that your character is now without the security, support, resources, relationships, and comfort that characterizes the Tribe, while watching everyone else inside the Tribe’s circle enjoy those benefits.
None of this is meant to say that people cannot or should never play these types of characters. But it is definitely something to keep in mind, as it affects not only your own play, but also the play of those others in the group with you who now will be actively excluding you from the circle. If you enjoy entire campaigns with this feel, then go for it.
What about evil characters?
Evil characters still form bonds. They still form a Tribe. They may be rivals, and their bonds may be strained or more loose, but they are still there. Familiarity goes a long way toward creating good will and sentimentality, which can infect even the most evil of hearts. The party may all be playing the sociopaths described above, but chances are very good that they will still form bonds and be willing to help each other. They just do a much harsher cost-benefit analysis each time they’re asked for help.
An important thing to remember is that even evil characters are naturally going to long for this Tribe connection. Dark side characters and light side characters can still come together as Tribe and look out for each other. Just because you disagree, sometimes even violently, doesn’t mean that you don’t care about each other. Even dark side characters have people they care about.
When building your group, keep in mind that bonds will form. These can be excellent additions to story arcs and add a tremendous amount of depth to the game. And when you decide what to do in life and death situations, remember your bonds to your party members.