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I'm currently running an ongoing TTRPG campaign wherein each individual adventure has gameplay that fits their respective story and themes, so they each have a distinct feel to them (if I'm doing my job right), and mechanic that support this. The current adventure among other things discusses--

--themes around parasocial/exploitative relationships vs genuine and mutual care, and so I initially added a sort of friendship mechanic inspired by Nectar from the Hades games. During the main mission, players could find and gather a resource called God Favor that they could either use to heal--

--themselves, or instead (and ideally) they could selflessly give them to friendly NPCs as a gift, gaining their affection. Each of those NPCs would have a sidequest that would then unlock and allow the party to get to know them better, and eventually gain a personal item in return--

--(yes, similar to Keepsakes in the Hades games). This by itself was great, but I realized that it would encourage players to view these relationships as transactional, and likely only engage with NPCs as long as they still had an item to give. So I removed God Favor and made the whole--