Team of Rivals

So Chris mentioned that Dwimmermount has rival adventuring parties and was wondering how to model their actions and leveling.

If you’re in the Hill Cantons, you’re lucky enough to already have a rival adventuring party that doesn’t need modeling, because it’s another group of players. (Lookin’ at you two fellas.) But for those of you who aren’t as fortunate/awesome as we are, here is a potential hack to deal with it.

The Traveller RPG has lifepaths that you roll your character through for seeing what they did before becoming a space murderhobo. I figure that we can use the same sort of system here.

Generate the NPC party that you want to have running around as a bunch of rivals. Keep track of what the levels of your PCs are; every time a PC levels, go ahead and follow this chart for all NPCs in the rival party. All rolls are on a d6.

Er...sure. Something like that, I guess.
Image via io9

NPC Levelling Table
Make a throw on each of these to see what the NPC has been up to while you haven’t been looking.
Survival – 3+. +1 to the throw if the NPC is 5th level or higher, -1 if they are 1st level.
Swag – 5+. If they get this, throw on the Swag Table to see what cool thing they’ve acquired in their off-screen gallivanting.
Success – 5+. +1 to the throw if they're 1st level, but -1 if they are 5th level or higher. This sees if they gain a level or not.

Swag Table
1 – Henchman. They get a henchman serving them, who is their level –d4, to a minimum of a 0th-level squire or retainer. Add the henchman to the NPC party for all future rolls on the levelling table.
2 – Big Haul. They hit a good haul in their delving. The NPC can take another throw on the Success line.
3 – Minor Item. They either get something that’s cool and helpful but not magical – awesome horse, treasure map, ancient artifact – or some relatively low-powered magical item.
4 – Magical Item. As 3, but this is the good stuff.
5 – Temporal Success. Gain a minor title? A parcel of land? A decrepit old wizard’s tower? Figure something out.
6 – Trollface. Reroll on the chart (ignoring this), but figure out some way that whatever they get, screws with some current PC plans or goals.