Mods for manipulating NPC Disposition / Relationship Rank

[Antiope_Apollonia]

Hello everyone!

 

I'm interested in any mods you like that create ways for the player to increase and decrease the relationship ranks with NPCs.  This always felt like an unfinished feature in vanilla Skyrim, and periodically, I go searching for mods that expand on it, but I've never really found anything interesting.

 

I'm open to pretty much anything you think is cool here—I have no sacred cows in this.  I think I'm mostly interested in something at least loosely lore-friendly and not entirely adult-content-focused, but I have no particular objections to sexual content being involved.  (I think my ideal would probably be to only involve sexual content for developing relationships from Rank 3 to Rank 4, but again, I'm not set on anything.)  Conversational progression, favour quests, broader second-order effects of milestone events (e.g., perhaps winning the Battle of Whiterun for the Empire would raise your rank with all the Jarl's court and all the Battleborns and so on and lower it with all the Grey Manes et. al.)—I don't know what people might come up with for this.  I just feel like there has to be something out there in this space.

 

In addition to ways of increasing / decreasing Relationship Rank, I might secondarily be interested in mods that add more consequences to different ranks.  Once again, I'm not really looking for something overly specific.  I just think developing the Disposition system further could help to flesh out many of the vanilla NPCs and make the world of Skyrim more alive.  I already have one cornerstone of my modlist that makes use of NPCs' Relationship Ranks as it is in Submissive Lola: The Resubmission, so between that and the limited vanilla effects, that's enough, but I'd be interested in more development here if you have any cool tips.

 

I'd also prefer something that is at least moderately light weight and fairly focused.  I generally try to avoid huge mods that do a ton of different things—especially heavily scripted things—when I'm only interested in a single feature, but I'd still be happy to hear about any big mods that include some features along these lines in the mix.  Who knows, maybe I'll end up liking the other things it does, too!

 

Finally, just a few random considerations that may or may not be relevant.  When it comes to sexual content, I play strictly lesbian stuff; I've never even installed SoS.  I'm still running SSE 1.5.97.  

 

Thanks in advance for any ideas or input you may have!

[FauxFurry]

This might help as they give options to boost NPC disposition through means other than verbal skill checks, some of which still involve using one's mouth to convince someone to change their position on things.

 

[Aldid]

I believe Trade and Barter has an option to change the prices offered by merchants depending on relationship rank, so that's something at least. Troubles of Heroine has a tiny feature where you can have sex with merchants who have a relationship rank less than 0 to make them neutral again, but it's basically just one piece of dialogue, so not really worth installing just for that.

[Antiope_Apollonia]

SLEN is definitely in the "huge mod with a ton of unrelated scripted content" category, but it's a good shout.  I've considered incorporating SLEN into my modlist in the past, but given its footprint, age, and lack of ongoing support, I've always decided against it—I wouldn't use most of it—but maybe it's worth reconsidering.

 

I'm not familiar with SexLab Solutions; it looks like it just adds favour quests to a dozen or so NPCs, which would presumably raise their Relationship Ranks upon completion?  

[Antiope_Apollonia]

4 minutes ago, Aldid said:

I believe Trade and Barter has an option to change the prices offered by merchants depending on relationship rank

Interesting find.  Relationship-influenced pricing is only a small part of it, but it looks like a pretty solid merchant overhaul. ?

[Seijin8]

Speaking of LE here (but I'm sure these exist for SE as well), I use Relationship Dialogue System for conversation-based friendship development, and The Manipulator if I want to force it directly.

 

Trade & Barter as has been mentioned is very useful for this, too.

[Antiope_Apollonia]

9 minutes ago, Seijin8 said:

I use Relationship Dialogue System for conversation-based friendship development

I've had my eye on RDS for a while, and it's on the shortlist of possible additions to my modlist for my next playthrough.  Can you speak a bit more to how it relates to the issue at hand?  From the description, I'm unclear on whether it utilises the vanilla Disposition system at all, or whether it does everything with its own independent, parallel system for NPC–PC relationships.  

 

Also, bearing in mind the lesbian caveat, how well do you think it'd fit for me in that respect?  Most of the similar mods I've experimented with feel very clearly aimed at male players.  I've been meaning to ask for opinions on RDS in the SLTR thread at some point when the half-dozen open lines of discussion I'm already currently involved in in that thread reach some kind of lull, lol, but if you have any ideas about how well those two mods would play together—in narrative / roleplaying terms—I'd be very interested to hear them.  SLTR is a non-negotiable cornerstone mod for me, so that's an important consideration.

 

12 minutes ago, Seijin8 said:

The Manipulator

This one looks like basically an MCM interface to do all the stuff I could do with console commands or my bespoke xEdit patch if I wanted to.  Not a bad tool, but not really something I need.  

 

Thanks for your input!

[Seijin8]

51 minutes ago, Antiope_Apollonia said:

Can you speak a bit more to how it relates to the issue at hand?  From the description, I'm unclear on whether it utilises the vanilla Disposition system at all

 

It does use the vanilla system and not every conversation leads to sex.  It is possible to find people who are just natural friends and slowly generate disposition that way.  Over time the characters talk a lot and become closer.  It does have many of its own internal systems as well, but those don't find expression in the disposition system (for instance, someone who just wants a quickie won't be your friend afterward).

 

51 minutes ago, Antiope_Apollonia said:

Also, bearing in mind the lesbian caveat, how well do you think it'd fit for me in that respect?

 

The MCM can alter the initial approach parameters for NPCs, but keep in mind if it can't find your preference, it'll grab anyone at all.  I've used this with straight, bi and gay playthroughs with no issues at all.  It isn't a perfect mod (there are some oddities to how it works), but it does give a strong basis for using conversational interactions to define relationships with an NPC and develop friendships more naturally.

 

Something that I've slowly modded into RDS over time is more personality-driven variables.  If nothing else, RDS makes a fantastic framework for further conversational relationship development.

 

I don't use SLTR, so I can't speak to that.

 

51 minutes ago, Antiope_Apollonia said:

This one looks like basically an MCM interface to do all the stuff I could do with console commands or my bespoke xEdit patch if I wanted to.

 

Essentially, yes.  Replaces console typing with MCM menu clicking, but I'll say it is very well crafted and has a lot of optional components under the hood to do more complex things (turning a dungeon into a non-respawning player home or base, creating and maintaining harems, switching outfits of NPCs, etc).  Most importantly, it is unintrustive and does nothing unless you tell it to.  Just a wonderful toolbox overall that has direct disposition control on the first page.

[imai8312]

Sidequests of Skyrim https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/54245 

[Antiope_Apollonia]

Huh, well I've never run into that before:

  

1 hour ago, imai8312 said:

Sidequests of Skyrim https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/54245 

Nice find.  That's right in line with the kind of stuff I'm looking for.