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Fun stories about characters hating each other in a TTRPG
Usually when playing a game of dnd, pathfinder, etc. You want the party to be nice to each other. But at times when done right, you just have two characters who hate each other, yet it's fun for everyone.
Do you have any such stories?
This is more one character hating another, who has no idea, but it's a fun (if lengthy) tale.
I once had a dwarf bard called Erika, and she was delightful, if a little dense. She had a luscious ginger beard, elegantly knotted and plaited, and was renowned throughout the city as a brewer of prodigious skill. After inventing stout, she temporarily left her brewers apprenticeship to lend her skills to a party of adventurers, trying to uncover a tangled web of political intrigue, involving numerous factions of were-beasts.
One member of the party was an elf cleric named Noena. She was beautiful and charming, exceedingly well dressed, and if she was a little spoiled as a result of her wealthy upbringing, what of it? She had abandoned her rich and powerful parents in order to try and do some good in the world, and found adventuring entirely to her taste.
The two initially were as thick as thieves. Both shared a passion for drinking and for clobbering bandits who preyed upon the weak. Erika shared her love and knowledge of beer and some of her own songs with Noena, who in return educated Erika about fine wines and art.
One day, when Erika was recovering from a nasty hangover, the party went in search of information about a local politician's missing son. The search led them to a tavern, with a rather handsome keeper, whom Noena successfully attempted to charm with her feminine wiles. In his post-coital stupor, he gave up many valuable secrets about the whereabouts of the young boy, and the party were well rewarded for his rescue.
Upon her recovery Erika returned to the group to hear all of the congratulatory stories of Noena's prowess and skill in getting the information from the innkeeper. As a token of friendship, Erika promised to immortalise the exploit into song, and thus set about composing what would be her magnum opus.
She toiled for days, writing verse after verse, each becoming more elaborate and florid. One verse consisted entirely of hand gesture, which still somehow rhymed. Another included an interpretive dance to the rhythm of the song, and was far from tasteful. Yet another was an audience-participatory call and response. And tying it all together was a rousing chorus that would have listeners swinging their flagons, stomping their feet, and singing at the tops of their voices.
At last, the composition was complete, and that very evening the bard would perform her new song in dedication to her friend, and hoped to commend it to the lore of the city forever. With the party all present, and Noena in a place of high honour, Erika began to play the pipes and sing. Now Erika was a skilled bard, and she knew her craft deeply. However she wasn't the brightest reed in the bagpipe, and after managing to critically misread the tone of the misadventure and Noena's attitude towards it, had composed an 80 verse epic entitled "Noena the Whore."
Verse after verse of lavish detail at the grunting passions of the beautiful elf, seducing any who set eyes upon her, and stealing their innermost secrets, only to betray them, time and again. All set about with a chorus that the audience caught after its very first outing, and who then sang along to the rest with rapturous abandon.
After the performance was over, there was stunned silence from the subject of the song, while the audience rushed the stage to congratulate Erika on what they thought might well be the song to put their city on the map. Representatives from the bard's college were summoned, and the song performed a second time as these masters of the city's repertoire critiqued the ditty. They found not a single fault with the song, and demanded that Erika come to the college at once, to have her name permanently etched into the Singers' Stone, and to teach her new hit to the apprentices of the school. This was going to make them rich.
Noena, meanwhile, was utterly apoplectic with rage. Her fine and good reputation dashed in an instant. Her noble standing sullied by a song with a chorus that began:
Cut to the very soul by this betrayal, Noena vowed vengeance upon the bard she had once called sister.
That very evening, while Erika lay in drunken stupor at the bard's college after an evening of celebration with the city's finest musicians, Noena and a hired assassin crept into the room where Erika slept, oblivious to all around her. The assassin stood by silently, while Noena took from her pocket a silver razor, and began to meticulously and with not so much as a knick, shave the beard from Erika's face. When she had finished a few short minutes later, Erika's face was as smooth as a goblin's lie, and her magnificent plaits lay on the floor beside the bed in tatters.
Noena nodded to the assassin, who drew their own blade as the elf silently left the room, with a sense of smug satisfaction at her plan's fruition. Just as the assassin was about to plunge a poisoned dagger into the sleeping Erika's heart, Noena burst back into the room, slamming the door against the wall and waking the intoxicated dwarf to the sight of a sinister individual holding a dripping blade above her chest. With a roar, the pair despatched the assassin with violent efficiency, and Erika hugged her friend tightly in thanks.
Through tearful eyes, Noena pointed out Erika's shaven visage, and the clumps of hair on the floor beside her cot. Erika let out a cry of primal pain, the loss of her beard too much to countenance. As she sobbed, Noena searched the would-be killer's corpse for clues as to what had happened, and found a note, allegedly from the masters of the bard's college. The instructions stated that the song Erika had written was too valuable to be owned by some independent singer, and should be the property of the masters so as to avoid paying out any pesky royalties. The murder of the dwarf would mean that the song would pass into the hands of the school, and it would be the sole beneficiary of any proceeds from its future performance. The addition of removing the beard was to ensure that she died in disgrace, and none would attend her funeral ceremony and suggest foulplay.
Upon reading the produced missive, Erika (too drunk and not clever enough by far to notice that it revealed far more than an assassin would ever need to know) swore that she would revenge herself a thousand fold against the masters of the college, and vowed that her face would remain unshaven until she was satisfied. Erika begged Noena's assistance in this endeavour, and she -- of course -- agreed, pleased in the knowledge that Erika had responded exactly as she had hoped.
Over the following weeks, Noena would subtly and consistently hinder Erika's efforts both within the party, and for anything unrelated to her revenge against the masters of the bard's college. Batches of beer went bad, bagpipes were constantly out of tune. Traps went unreported, and healing seemed mysteriously not to work when it came to Erika. Subtle (and not so subtle) barbs coloured every word Noena spoke towards the dwarf, who remained utterly oblivious to the nastiness between the two. The worst of the insults (and one which Noena always avoid making herself) were the near-constant misgendering Erika received at the hands of the rest of the world, due to her lack of beard.
Finally persuaded by all of her misfortunes to make good her plans to avenge her honour, Erika purchased thirty six barrels of explosive powder, and secretly set it all about the sewers beneath the bard's college. They were strategically placed so that the entire massive building would be reduced to so much rubble and ash, and the masters of the college vaporised in the explosion. When the preparations were ready, Erika lie in wait to detonate her revenge from afar. As midnight approached, the dwarf readied the fuse and tinderbox, prepared to flee with all haste from the blast zone.
Unknown to Erika, Noena had tipped off a massive contingent of guards that a plot was underway to destroy the college. Before she could light the fuse, two dozen heavily armed guardsmen erupted into Erika's hiding place, and took her by force off for trial, and presumably execution.
We never did find out what happened to Erika, as lockdown then hit and scuppered our party. I like to think that she was put to death for the attempted destruction of a public building, and mass loss of life, thus ultimately giving Noena her revenge. But she would never be able to escape the song that her one-time friend had written about her, and that no matter where she went, she would always hear that glorious chorus:
To not bloat the one above I post my story here.
I only had one such story. It was in a game where me and my wife were both players. She was a human paladin, I was a tiefling bard. The two characters just hated each other. The paladin saw the tiefling as a demon spawn and useless, meanwhile the tiefling couldn't stop trying to annoy the paladin. It was a lot of fun to roleplay, even though the game didn't last long.
I don't often like not getting along with others but you've kind of changed my mind a little. That does sound like fun.