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RPG companion approval is usually a separate, character-specific relationship state that changes when you make choices, complete quests, give gifts, or spend time with a party member. Morality describes the values a companion reacts to, loyalty is a game-specific trust or commitment outcome, and party banter is authored dialogue unlocked by travel and story progress. These systems overlap, but none has a universal formula or threshold.
What a companion approval system actually measures
Approval is best understood as a relationship variable between the player character and one companion. It records how that companion currently responds to the player’s behavior, rather than assigning one permanent moral grade to the entire party. Some games show a bar, rank, or label; others reveal changes only through dialogue, body language, quest options, or combat behavior.
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Larian’s official Baldur’s Gate 3 modding documentation makes the relationship structure explicit. GetApprovalRating reads a rating, while ChangeApprovalRating changes the value between the character who owns the rating and the character being rated. In the usual companion scenario, the companion owns the opinion and the player is the person being judged. That directional design matters: two companions can react differently to the same decision, and one companion’s approval does not automatically represent the party’s view.
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Approval is not one RPG-wide formula
There is no standard number of points for helping a villager, refusing a bribe, choosing a romance option, or completing a quest. A designer may use hidden integers, broad relationship states, scripted flags, or a mixture of all three. Even when two games display a percentage, the events behind that display can be entirely different.
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Approval can also be asymmetric. A companion may admire your willingness to take risks while another dislikes it. A choice can raise one relationship, lower another, and leave a third unchanged. This is why a high party-wide score is not a reliable goal: many games do not have a party-wide score at all.
What the player can see
- Explicit meters: a bar, number, tier, or adjective such as friendly or hostile.
- Soft signals: approving or disapproving subtitles, facial reactions, short comments, or changes in camp dialogue.
- Consequential signals: a new quest, a romance invitation, altered combat support, a confrontation, or a departure.
- Hidden state: no immediate feedback, with the relationship revealed only when a later scene checks it.
When the interface is opaque, treat each reaction as evidence rather than a precise score report. A single approval line does not tell you how close the relationship is to a major threshold.
Approval, morality, and loyalty: three different layers
These terms are often used together, but they answer different questions. Approval asks, “How does this particular companion currently feel about me?” Morality asks, “Which values or ethical positions does the companion support?” Loyalty asks, “Has the relationship reached a level of trust or commitment that changes what this companion will do?” A game can implement all three, only one, or none as visible statistics.
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| Layer | Typical scope | Common inputs | Possible outputs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approval | One companion’s opinion of a target, usually the player | Dialogue choices, quest outcomes, gifts, travel, combat decisions, romance interactions | Dialogue tone, relationship tiers, personal scenes, support, conflict, departure |
| Morality or ethics | A companion’s beliefs, or sometimes a global reputation system | Mercy, deception, lawbreaking, political choices, treatment of factions and civilians | Approval changes, arguments, faction reactions, access to ethical or ideological options |
| Loyalty | A game-specific trust, commitment, or personal-quest state | Resolving a companion’s problem, honoring promises, defending the companion, sustained approval | Personal quest resolution, stronger cooperation, romance access, survival or availability checks |
Morality usually belongs to the character, not an objective scale
Many companions are written with a code rather than a universal good-and-evil meter. One may value order and legal authority, another independence, another compassion, and another practical survival. The same action can therefore be compassionate in one context and reckless or dishonest in another. Bethesda’s support guidance describes a broad pattern: moral and ethical choices can affect relationships with allies and can sometimes create lasting consequences. It does not establish that every RPG uses a numeric morality scale.
Loyalty is an outcome, not a synonym for approval
A companion can like you without being ready to risk everything for you, or distrust one decision while remaining committed to the group. Designers may make loyalty a separate flag, a personal-quest result, a high approval tier, or a scripted combination of conditions. Because the definition is game-specific, do not assume that maximizing visible approval automatically completes a loyalty state.
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Romance can use the same relationship data without being identical to it
Romance systems often read approval, personal-quest progress, identity flags, and specific conversation choices together. An official Veilguard romance guide explains that the way you interact with a companion determines romance access, and that romance offers deeper connections and additional dialogue. That is relationship gating, not proof that romance equals a single approval score. A companion can be a trusted friend without being romance-eligible, or romance access can require a particular personal decision in addition to favorable feelings.
How choices change companion relationships
Most approval systems combine immediate reactions with delayed checks. The following sequence describes the design pattern without assuming a universal point value.
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- An event supplies a trigger. The trigger can be a dialogue line, quest resolution, gift, combat decision, travel conversation, faction choice, or romance interaction.
- The companion evaluates the event through their beliefs. The same outcome can produce approval, disapproval, rivalry, or no reaction for different characters.
- The game stores a change or flag. It may adjust a hidden rating, move a relationship tier, set a loyalty condition, or unlock a future scene.
- A later checkpoint reads the state. Personal quests, romance offers, banter, confrontations, combat behavior, and departure decisions can all use the accumulated state.
Dialogue decisions
Dialogue is the most visible trigger because companions can comment immediately. A response that sounds polite may still conflict with a companion’s principles; conversely, a blunt answer may earn respect from a character who values directness. Read the companion’s established motives rather than choosing the option that sounds universally virtuous.
Quests and their outcomes
Quest approval often depends on the resolution, not merely on accepting the quest. Choosing whom to protect, which faction receives a reward, whether to expose a secret, or whether to spare an enemy can matter more than the number of objectives completed. Some games evaluate the companion who is present; others evaluate the entire party or check a later debrief scene.
Gifts
The Dragon Age: Origins review presented at GDC describes gifts as a way to raise loyalty or approval when the item fits the companion. “Fits” is the important qualification: a gift system rewards knowledge of a character, not indiscriminate spending. A suitable item can strengthen a relationship, while an unsuitable one may provide little benefit or create a comic reaction. The review also describes companion personality change as an unusual narrative mechanic, showing that relationship systems can alter characterization rather than simply unlock a reward.
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Travel and ordinary party use
Travel can be a trigger even when no quest objective changes. A companion who is routinely placed in the active party may receive more conversations, reactions, and opportunities for personal scenes than one left at camp. This does not mean every game rewards constant use with points; it means party composition can control which authored reactions you are able to see.
Can moral choices make a companion leave?
Yes, in some games, but the conditions are specific to that game and sometimes to a particular companion. The Dragon Age: Origins review states that if approval drops too low and cannot be repaired, “they will leave the party for the rest of the game.” That is a documented consequence for that design, not a universal threshold that applies to every RPG.
Departure can be permanent, temporary, conditional, or avoidable through a confrontation, gift, quest, apology, or different story choice. A companion may also leave for reasons unrelated to approval, such as a faction commitment, a story chapter, a failed personal quest, or an incompatible world-state decision. Check the game’s own dialogue and quest feedback before assuming a low reaction guarantees a loss.
Signs that a relationship is approaching a hard consequence
- Repeated warnings that the companion no longer trusts the protagonist.
- A personal confrontation that asks you to choose between the companion and a faction or principle.
- Approval reactions becoming more severe while repair options disappear.
- A companion quest or main-story decision that explicitly changes availability.
- A save-point warning, if the game provides one, before a point of no return.
Keep a manual save before major faction decisions and companion confrontations. That is useful for testing consequences without treating every disagreement as a mistake.
How party banter is triggered
Party banter is authored reactivity: short conversations, arguments, jokes, observations, or callbacks that make companions respond to the current journey. It is not necessarily a random generator selecting any line at any time. The game may require a location, a travel interval, a party pairing, a completed quest, and a story-progress flag before a scene becomes eligible.
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BioWare’s developer explanation for Dragon Age: Inquisition says additional banter can be unlocked by “talking to your party members, playing through their personal plots, and advancing the main story.” That places banter alongside relationship and narrative progression systems rather than treating it as purely ambient noise.
Common eligibility conditions
- Party composition: two or more specific companions must be present.
- Travel time or distance: the game needs a movement interval in which to fire the scene.
- Personal conversations: camp or hub dialogue can unlock later lines.
- Personal quests: resolving a companion’s plot can add callbacks and new pairings.
- Main-story progress: a chapter or major reveal can unlock context-sensitive exchanges.
- Location and state: a region, faction status, or completed event may be required.
What to do when banter seems absent
- Return to the hub and exhaust available companion conversations.
- Complete or advance personal quests that have unresolved objectives.
- Change the party so the companions you want to hear are traveling together.
- Move through a region for a reasonable interval instead of repeatedly entering and leaving the same doorway.
- Advance the main story if the party has exhausted location-specific lines.
- Check whether a companion is temporarily unavailable because of a quest or story state.
Do not assume a quiet journey means the system is broken. A queue may be waiting for another scene to finish, or the current party may not satisfy the next pairing requirement.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Five axes for comparing approval systems
When evaluating an RPG, compare its system on these five axes rather than asking whether it has “approval” in the abstract.
| Axis | Questions to ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility | Is there a bar, label, number, or only dialogue feedback? | Visible scores support planning; hidden states preserve uncertainty but require careful listening. |
| Scope | Is the state per companion, per faction, or global? | Per-companion systems allow distinct relationships; global reputation can simplify broad political consequences. |
| Triggers | Do dialogue, quests, gifts, travel, combat, or romance choices count? | Knowing the trigger set tells you which actions actually shape the relationship. |
| Disagreement model | Can companions be friends, rivals, or both depending on the issue? | Rivalry and partial agreement feel more believable than a binary like/dislike response. |
| Consequences | Does the state affect banter, romance, quests, combat, betrayal, or departure? | Consequences determine whether approval is meaningful or merely cosmetic. |
A strong system lets you disagree while preserving a believable relationship. If every companion must approve every decision for you to access their content, the optimal strategy becomes playing for a meter rather than role-playing a character.
A practical way to play without chasing invisible numbers
1. Learn each companion’s priorities
Listen to introductions, personal conversations, and reactions to other characters. Identify whether the companion values mercy, order, independence, loyalty, pragmatism, faith, wealth, or another principle.
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2. Bring the relevant companion to consequential scenes
If you want a relationship to develop, include that companion when a quest or faction decision is likely to matter. This also lets you hear the immediate reaction instead of discovering the effect later.
3. Separate role-playing from optimization
Choose an action because it fits your protagonist, then accept that different companions may disagree. If a personal quest or romance is a priority, make a manual save before irreversible choices rather than rewriting every decision to maximize approval.
4. Use repair opportunities deliberately
When a companion reacts badly, look for a follow-up conversation, personal quest, gift that suits the character, or opportunity to explain your reasoning. A single negative reaction is not evidence that the entire relationship is lost.
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Note which conversations, quests, banter scenes, and support abilities become available. These outcomes reveal how the game actually uses relationship data more reliably than an isolated approval notification.
Common misconceptions and failure modes
- “Morality is the same as approval.” Morality is a value framework; approval is an individual relationship response. A companion can respect your honesty while disliking the result of an honest decision.
- “Loyalty always means the highest approval tier.” Loyalty may require a personal quest, promise, or story flag separate from the visible relationship state.
- “Every companion reacts to every choice.” Reactions can be limited to companions present, a quest owner, or a scene with a specific authored response.
- “Banter is completely random.” Travel, party pairing, personal plots, conversations, and main-story progress commonly determine eligibility.
- “A negative reaction means a companion will leave.” Departure rules vary. Some games permit repair, some use a later check, and some never make approval affect availability.
- “A high score is automatically good role-playing.” A coherent relationship with occasional disagreement can be more meaningful than universal approval.
What these systems are designed to accomplish
Approval, morality, loyalty, and banter give designers a way to make companions feel responsive without requiring every line of dialogue to branch the entire plot. Approval personalizes reactions, moral beliefs create disagreements, loyalty turns a relationship into a commitment, and banter fills routine travel with context. The best implementations connect those layers to decisions that matter while allowing relationships to remain complicated.
For players, the practical lesson is simple: treat approval as a character-specific relationship, morality as the companion’s reasoning, loyalty as a possible commitment state, and banter as authored content unlocked by use and progress. Read the signals, keep a save before irreversible decisions, and do not assume that a number—or the absence of one—explains the whole relationship.
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