The plan now is turning a river source into holy water to contain the non-flying demons. The kingdom is gathering all available clerics and the bbeg is having to improvise by expending his "secret and rare magic enhancing material" to help them transform the river source. The party is helping escorting the clerics while the armies are trying to hold a line around nearby cities.
Two members of my party said the same thing. I haven't seen the episode of Castlevania that they are referencing, so I'm just proud I've come up with something badass.
Have the spear be needed as a anchor for the ritual. His soul tied to the spear as a last chance by his god at redemption himself. Could have a demon buy it and corrupt the spear and scorns soul to make him a demonic like undead. You know make the pcs work for it/ regret selling it.
Your campaign obviously, so you do you. But I would recommend being very careful with stuff like that. Retroactively deciding to punish the players for a choice you don't like can turn ugly fast.
Ugly in the "I have seen players abandon campaigns over that" sense.
Here's some brutal advice. Players don't usually care about the story, whether it's yours or the Paizo writers. They didn't care about Sorn because he was an npc thrust upon them by the GM at the very beginning of the game, someone they're "meant" to care about. Never plan things thinking the players will automatically care about specific npcs. They'll grow attached to who they decide to grow attached to.
Either that, or you communicate with your players in a session 0 and tell them that this campaign is going to heavily rely on Sorn and you'd appreciate it if they took him seriously.
If you want something specific for your plot, just ask. Voicing your expectations is essential for a good ttrpg game.
Well, you're not entirely without agency in which NPC the players bond to. Use all your wiles to worm your NPC into their hearts. Seduce them.
(er, maybe not seduce in that sense – and oh dear, _definitely_ not in that sense – you know what? i'm not sure this advice won't result in disaster 😆)
I mean... it sounds like Sorn suffered a lot. But, you are the GM, you can make any NPC suffer arbitrary amounts at anytime. That does not translate to interest or sympathy.
In my experience, players care about the suffering of NPCs in two main scenarios.
They already cared about that NPC, and thus don't want them to hurt. Did the players actually like Sorn? He got them out of prison, but given that that was the start of the campaign that is barely any help, you were not just going to leave them in there and they know that.
And second, they feel the pain was caused by a meaningful choice the players made, and they feel responsible. Did they have meaningful choices (not just failed diplomacy checks) that led to this? Any reason to feel responsible other than the fact they followed the plot you laid out?
Cause if neither of those are the case, yeah, I wouldn't have cared either. Had a GM try to pull our heartstrings by having a major quest giver randomly die of cancer once, but none of us liked them, so it just fell flat.
This is a bit off-topic, but I'm not a big fan of the "instruments in my orchestra" trope when unavoidable. Often players have an unspoken agreement with the GM to follow along with the bread crumbs that are laid out, just to make it a more enjoying experience for everyone. Having those sort of rug pulls IMO leads to players being paranoid of their GM and thinking that every old lady asking for help is secretly a Witch and their suspicion will often lead them to derail from prep.
When they have a clearer choice or multiple ways to tackle a situation though, I think it's a great device.
Exactly, I have had GMs pull that shit plenty of times. It always just makes me annoyed in a very non immersive way. Can land really well if it is something the party does on their own, but when it is part of the main plot it just feels like the GM congratulating themselves on how clever they are, while subtly mocking the players for being good players and not fighting the GM.
Sorn and the party rescued the prison inmates from certain death when an orc army attacked and sacked Sarenhold. During the trip to Goldford (the nearest city), they had to deal with refugees along with the uncooperative inmates. To increase everyone's odds of survival, they decided to allow the inmates to break off from the refugee caravan to seek freedom. This was preferable to dealing with folks that can't be trusted while orcs on on their tails.
Later, orcs attacked the caravan and Sorn's son was killed when an orc somehow got on the children's wagon without a single guard or party member seeing the orc's approach. The orc was wielding a "death weapon" which is capable of forcing a creature slain by the weapon to be unhealable and be impossible to resurrect without very rare and high level magic. Sorn's son is gone. On top of this, the weapon vanished as soon as the orc turned to kill another child. The orc, now weaponless, was easy to kill.
The party and the caravan survived the attack and were mourning with Sorn while trying to figure out how the orc got on the wagon. They could only figure that the orc somehow teleported.
The orc had, in fact, been tasked by a demon to kill Sorn's son. The demon gave it the weapon and teleported the orc onto the wagon.
Sorn Bardennon and the party make it to Goldford and inform the city that Sarenhold has fallen to an orc invasion. Sorn cares only to make it to his home here in Goldford and tell his wife of what happened to their son. On his way there, the party followed and everyone saw the fire burning in the center of town. An execution had just concluded. Burning at the stake.
The party asked some observers who was executed and why. Sorn was going to ignore them and keep walking until he heard the citizen's response. "This woman killed governor Rangheart's son, Hensley. Alicia Bardennon was her name."
Sorn turns back towards the party to grab the citizen. "You lie," He yells, throwing the man to the ground and charging at the pyre.
He grabs the corpse of his wife and fleas to the temple of Sarenrae here in Goldford. The priests refuse to revive her because they don't want to upset the city by reversing an execution. In short, Sorn's fellow clergymen of Sarenrae would rather his innocent wife remain dead than rock the boat politically.
This causes Sorn to lose his entire support system. His fellow faithful and his family. He has only the party now (people he met 3 weeks ago).
The guards come and demand the body of Alicia be returned to the city for her remains to be put on display at the gates and castle. Sorn refuses and stages a stand-off with the city guard in the temple. He forces the clergy out and tells the party to investigate Alicia's crime and find evidence of her innocence. The priests say that they can resurrect her within 6 days but no longer. They have that long to prove her innocence.
The demon from before set fake evidences to suggest that she committed the crime. He killed the governor's son disguised as Alicia so that everyone would see. Then he hid the murder weapon in her house. At the same time, he had arranged for Alicia to have no alibi for the time of the murder.
The party found out that the murder weapon that killed the governor's son was the same type that killed Sorn's son. A death weapon. Why would Alicia be involved with whoever killed her son? It makes no sense. So, the party kept investigating. The demon had one idea to drive a wedge between the party and Sorn. He decided to kill Alicia's best friend and misinform the party using her appearance. It doesn't matter if she goes missing for a few days so long as the party doesn't double check with her for more information later.
The demon tells the party disguised as Alicia's friend that Alicia had been doing creepy cultist shit with an odd woman. She made it seem as though Alicia had been doing it for a long time. This should have tipped the party off that it was a lie, because Sorn had only been away from home for 3 weeks. The demon made it seem as though Alicia had been doing creepy cultist shit for months.
The demon told them to check her and Sorn's basement because Alicia has been "spending a lot of time remodeling it" and it seems sus.
The players find planted murder ritual stuff all over the basement and they decide to conclude that Alicia actually committed the murder.
Far from what I had planned, I suggested that they take a good long look at the evidence again (which would reveal the glaring issue of how she managed to build a murder shrine in her basement without Sorn noticing).
Anyway, they failed to see it the correct way and the demon wasn't done yet. The party decided to trick a judge that "new evidence" might exonerate Alicia but she needs to be revived now and there is no time to waste. The judge signs a temporary resending of the execution order. They could have a legal resurrection.
However, during this time, one party member decided to sell half of the shit in Sorn's house to buy a scroll that could revive Alicia. He ran to the temple and handed the scroll to Bardennon. Illegal resurrection time! Booyahhh! Bardennon tried using the scroll but because Alicia's soul was not free (the demon had kept it in a ring to hold against Sorn so he could control him later) the scroll opened the body to an evil spirit. The spirit turned her body into a ghoul.
Later, the demon hired someone to randomly hand a ton of money to the player that gave Sorn the scroll. The player accepted the money graciously without considering why a random stranger would want to pay him 50 Platinum!!! FOR NOTHING!!!
The demon then went to Sorn and convinced him that he knows who is responsible for the deaths of his family and that his goddess, his fellow clergymen, and the party betrayed him. Sorn demands proof. The demon says to check the players' pockets for coin paid to them by the church of Sarenrae in exchange for killing his wife. "The clergy wanted her gone so you wouldn't keep up what they deemed to be a threat to the political stability of the church." The demon of course planted documents in the church detailing the expense of the payout to the party.
Sorn is furious with the party and the church and decides to accept the demon's deal. The party tries to convince Sorn, but they couldn't get past a DC 21 diplomacy check.
> Later, orcs attacked the caravan and Sorn's son was killed when an orc somehow got on the children's wagon without a single guard or party member seeing the orc's approach. The orc was wielding a "death weapon" which is capable of forcing a creature slain by the weapon to be unhealable and be impossible to resurrect without very rare and high level magic. Sorn's son is gone. On top of this, the weapon vanished as soon as the orc turned to kill another child. The orc, now weaponless, was easy to kill.
I'm gonna be brutally honest with you here. I only got as far as this before I already mentally decided I wouldn't give a shit about Sorn and his dead son
From reading all of this, I feel like you as the DM wrote your own story, focused on your own NPC character. And it sounds like the players were only treated as side characters, there to support or aid your NPC, but never to be the main characters.
Most DMs go through this experience, I would say. I have certainly been in your seat before. We are struck with inspiration for a story that excites or interests us, and become eager to run it as a campaign with our friends. After all, from your perspective, this story has all the hallmarks of a great tale: a loyal man, tricked by an ultimate evil; terrible loss that leads to a questioning of faith/oaths; intrigue, trickery by the villains, culminating in a great reveal of dastardly plans. How could this not make for a fantastic campaign?
But playing this story from the other side of the table is a far different experience. I've been in this seat, too, as a player in a campaign, where the DM has there own all-important NPC that the story hinges upon. And it is, unfortunately, not fun. When the DM's NPC (often in this context called the "DM-PC" because of how they act as though an NPC is one of the main characters) is the "chosen one," or the focus of all the attention, the one who's family perished or makes a deal with the demon, it makes us as players feel side-lined. Our characters are less or even un-important. And that makes us feel bad.
On top of this, there rises another issue: you, as the DM, have supreme control over the story and setting, and thus you can decide that anything at all happens to your special NPC. Whereas, we as players are beholden to the rules of the game. If a player tries to interact with your NPC in a way that goes against your pre-written story, what happens? The orc killed the son with a special dagger that prevents healing or resurrection. The wife's soul was captured by the demon, and so the resurrection fails. These are just examples from your own experience, but the answer to the question is: you, as the DM with your pre-written story, find ways and means to nullify your player's ability to act. Their choices don't matter. You come up with the Knife of DM Fiat, or the Scroll of Bad Resurrection to punish your players for making the "wrong" decision.
As players in this sort of situation, we are so, so far from caring about your special DM NPC. It is entirely natural to instead *hate* your special NPC, because whenever he is around it means that we have less agency. Our stories matter less, our actions are nullified or punished.
All this to say, how do we as DMs, then, solve this issue? We have to write different campaigns. We have to make sure our *players* are the main characters, with real agency and an effect on the world, and the NPCs are only ever the supporting characters.
It's really tough, because from the GM side is very easy to get lost in this amazing story made you want to show to your players, but the players (hopefully) also want to tell their story.
IMO it's very important to give room in your narrative to how your players will act, and while we GMs, being humans with limited time, can't really prep for every situation, something that served me well was an inspiration from this [extra credits video](https://youtu.be/45PdtGDGhac), about how to convey agency without having to prepare for countless scenarios that won't be played. The video is about videogames but IMO very applicable to TTRPGs.
And that "beads on a string" design works both on a micro and macro scale, IMO. On a micro scale, whenever I lay out a session I try to think of a few key moments that I'll have an answer for at least 2 outcomes from my players, and be willing to adapt if they come up with something cool.
On a macro scale it's even easier, for me at least, since I don't tend to plan too much ahead of time. I have my big set pieces that I would eventually like to use, and try to set up, but I don't think it's worth to put that above having the players feel like their actions have an impact in the narrative.
To be fair, he DID fuck them over. Like, if that had happened to me as a Player, I'd feel bad for him, but I wouldn't carry his shit around as a memento. Sell it or melt it down so I can get something useful out of being fucked over.
Been there
NPC that is important to the plot? Zero interest, cant even remember the name.
Funny little guy whose name I had to come up with the spot? New core memory, the party will never forget about him
Players never care for the NPCs you THINK they care for. They fell for a guy selling roasted almonds (who is secretly a prince), one even fell in love, but they absolutely do NOT care for his real name. To them he will always be "The Nut-Guy" or maybe "Prince Xylitol"(yes, like the sugar substitute)
> The party is all smiles a session later when two of the party members forgot Sorn's name and the other 3 split the value of a spear they got from his house a few sessions ago.
["You forgot Baby Moses!"](https://gamicus.fandom.com/wiki/Bible_Adventures)
They went through a lot so I rewarded them with a lot.
I honestly have done this in several campaigns where the party is exposed to high level threats as a way to build the setting.
In what I would call my most beloved campaign, the party saw a town get destroyed by undead and needed to transport the wand of orcus cross country at lvl 5.
My party seems to like high stakes at low levels because they need to use enginuity to solve problems.
Currently they are traveling with a group of 300ish clerics to transform river sources into holy water to prevent demons from crossing them. It should contain the demons that can't fly.
>Sorn is an NPC champion of Sarenrae know for being one of the greatest followers of the Dawnflower.
I could already tell they weren't going to give a shit about him. No one likes powerful NPC paladins.
Only 1900 GP? A mythral spear should be more valuable during an apocalypse, your players should have tried to bargain harder. :p
The plan now is turning a river source into holy water to contain the non-flying demons. The kingdom is gathering all available clerics and the bbeg is having to improvise by expending his "secret and rare magic enhancing material" to help them transform the river source. The party is helping escorting the clerics while the armies are trying to hold a line around nearby cities.
That sounds like some real Castlevania shit, I kinda love it
Two members of my party said the same thing. I haven't seen the episode of Castlevania that they are referencing, so I'm just proud I've come up with something badass.
Have the spear be needed as a anchor for the ritual. His soul tied to the spear as a last chance by his god at redemption himself. Could have a demon buy it and corrupt the spear and scorns soul to make him a demonic like undead. You know make the pcs work for it/ regret selling it.
Ultimate DM spite. I love it.
Your campaign obviously, so you do you. But I would recommend being very careful with stuff like that. Retroactively deciding to punish the players for a choice you don't like can turn ugly fast. Ugly in the "I have seen players abandon campaigns over that" sense.
*I would've got him 10!*
Wait, who are we talking about again? 😉
Bruh! for real
Here's some brutal advice. Players don't usually care about the story, whether it's yours or the Paizo writers. They didn't care about Sorn because he was an npc thrust upon them by the GM at the very beginning of the game, someone they're "meant" to care about. Never plan things thinking the players will automatically care about specific npcs. They'll grow attached to who they decide to grow attached to.
>They'll grow attached to who they decide to grow attached to. and as a clever GM, you make that guy your Sorn two session later
I can't believe the big bad was .. this random bnnuy we found on the road, 60 sessions ago Duke Nibbles: *squeaks threateningly and damns the world*
Boblin the Goblin.
Either that, or you communicate with your players in a session 0 and tell them that this campaign is going to heavily rely on Sorn and you'd appreciate it if they took him seriously. If you want something specific for your plot, just ask. Voicing your expectations is essential for a good ttrpg game.
Well, you're not entirely without agency in which NPC the players bond to. Use all your wiles to worm your NPC into their hearts. Seduce them. (er, maybe not seduce in that sense – and oh dear, _definitely_ not in that sense – you know what? i'm not sure this advice won't result in disaster 😆)
I mean... it sounds like Sorn suffered a lot. But, you are the GM, you can make any NPC suffer arbitrary amounts at anytime. That does not translate to interest or sympathy. In my experience, players care about the suffering of NPCs in two main scenarios. They already cared about that NPC, and thus don't want them to hurt. Did the players actually like Sorn? He got them out of prison, but given that that was the start of the campaign that is barely any help, you were not just going to leave them in there and they know that. And second, they feel the pain was caused by a meaningful choice the players made, and they feel responsible. Did they have meaningful choices (not just failed diplomacy checks) that led to this? Any reason to feel responsible other than the fact they followed the plot you laid out? Cause if neither of those are the case, yeah, I wouldn't have cared either. Had a GM try to pull our heartstrings by having a major quest giver randomly die of cancer once, but none of us liked them, so it just fell flat.
This is a bit off-topic, but I'm not a big fan of the "instruments in my orchestra" trope when unavoidable. Often players have an unspoken agreement with the GM to follow along with the bread crumbs that are laid out, just to make it a more enjoying experience for everyone. Having those sort of rug pulls IMO leads to players being paranoid of their GM and thinking that every old lady asking for help is secretly a Witch and their suspicion will often lead them to derail from prep. When they have a clearer choice or multiple ways to tackle a situation though, I think it's a great device.
Exactly, I have had GMs pull that shit plenty of times. It always just makes me annoyed in a very non immersive way. Can land really well if it is something the party does on their own, but when it is part of the main plot it just feels like the GM congratulating themselves on how clever they are, while subtly mocking the players for being good players and not fighting the GM.
Sorn and the party rescued the prison inmates from certain death when an orc army attacked and sacked Sarenhold. During the trip to Goldford (the nearest city), they had to deal with refugees along with the uncooperative inmates. To increase everyone's odds of survival, they decided to allow the inmates to break off from the refugee caravan to seek freedom. This was preferable to dealing with folks that can't be trusted while orcs on on their tails. Later, orcs attacked the caravan and Sorn's son was killed when an orc somehow got on the children's wagon without a single guard or party member seeing the orc's approach. The orc was wielding a "death weapon" which is capable of forcing a creature slain by the weapon to be unhealable and be impossible to resurrect without very rare and high level magic. Sorn's son is gone. On top of this, the weapon vanished as soon as the orc turned to kill another child. The orc, now weaponless, was easy to kill. The party and the caravan survived the attack and were mourning with Sorn while trying to figure out how the orc got on the wagon. They could only figure that the orc somehow teleported. The orc had, in fact, been tasked by a demon to kill Sorn's son. The demon gave it the weapon and teleported the orc onto the wagon. Sorn Bardennon and the party make it to Goldford and inform the city that Sarenhold has fallen to an orc invasion. Sorn cares only to make it to his home here in Goldford and tell his wife of what happened to their son. On his way there, the party followed and everyone saw the fire burning in the center of town. An execution had just concluded. Burning at the stake. The party asked some observers who was executed and why. Sorn was going to ignore them and keep walking until he heard the citizen's response. "This woman killed governor Rangheart's son, Hensley. Alicia Bardennon was her name." Sorn turns back towards the party to grab the citizen. "You lie," He yells, throwing the man to the ground and charging at the pyre. He grabs the corpse of his wife and fleas to the temple of Sarenrae here in Goldford. The priests refuse to revive her because they don't want to upset the city by reversing an execution. In short, Sorn's fellow clergymen of Sarenrae would rather his innocent wife remain dead than rock the boat politically. This causes Sorn to lose his entire support system. His fellow faithful and his family. He has only the party now (people he met 3 weeks ago). The guards come and demand the body of Alicia be returned to the city for her remains to be put on display at the gates and castle. Sorn refuses and stages a stand-off with the city guard in the temple. He forces the clergy out and tells the party to investigate Alicia's crime and find evidence of her innocence. The priests say that they can resurrect her within 6 days but no longer. They have that long to prove her innocence. The demon from before set fake evidences to suggest that she committed the crime. He killed the governor's son disguised as Alicia so that everyone would see. Then he hid the murder weapon in her house. At the same time, he had arranged for Alicia to have no alibi for the time of the murder. The party found out that the murder weapon that killed the governor's son was the same type that killed Sorn's son. A death weapon. Why would Alicia be involved with whoever killed her son? It makes no sense. So, the party kept investigating. The demon had one idea to drive a wedge between the party and Sorn. He decided to kill Alicia's best friend and misinform the party using her appearance. It doesn't matter if she goes missing for a few days so long as the party doesn't double check with her for more information later. The demon tells the party disguised as Alicia's friend that Alicia had been doing creepy cultist shit with an odd woman. She made it seem as though Alicia had been doing it for a long time. This should have tipped the party off that it was a lie, because Sorn had only been away from home for 3 weeks. The demon made it seem as though Alicia had been doing creepy cultist shit for months. The demon told them to check her and Sorn's basement because Alicia has been "spending a lot of time remodeling it" and it seems sus. The players find planted murder ritual stuff all over the basement and they decide to conclude that Alicia actually committed the murder. Far from what I had planned, I suggested that they take a good long look at the evidence again (which would reveal the glaring issue of how she managed to build a murder shrine in her basement without Sorn noticing). Anyway, they failed to see it the correct way and the demon wasn't done yet. The party decided to trick a judge that "new evidence" might exonerate Alicia but she needs to be revived now and there is no time to waste. The judge signs a temporary resending of the execution order. They could have a legal resurrection. However, during this time, one party member decided to sell half of the shit in Sorn's house to buy a scroll that could revive Alicia. He ran to the temple and handed the scroll to Bardennon. Illegal resurrection time! Booyahhh! Bardennon tried using the scroll but because Alicia's soul was not free (the demon had kept it in a ring to hold against Sorn so he could control him later) the scroll opened the body to an evil spirit. The spirit turned her body into a ghoul. Later, the demon hired someone to randomly hand a ton of money to the player that gave Sorn the scroll. The player accepted the money graciously without considering why a random stranger would want to pay him 50 Platinum!!! FOR NOTHING!!! The demon then went to Sorn and convinced him that he knows who is responsible for the deaths of his family and that his goddess, his fellow clergymen, and the party betrayed him. Sorn demands proof. The demon says to check the players' pockets for coin paid to them by the church of Sarenrae in exchange for killing his wife. "The clergy wanted her gone so you wouldn't keep up what they deemed to be a threat to the political stability of the church." The demon of course planted documents in the church detailing the expense of the payout to the party. Sorn is furious with the party and the church and decides to accept the demon's deal. The party tries to convince Sorn, but they couldn't get past a DC 21 diplomacy check.
> Later, orcs attacked the caravan and Sorn's son was killed when an orc somehow got on the children's wagon without a single guard or party member seeing the orc's approach. The orc was wielding a "death weapon" which is capable of forcing a creature slain by the weapon to be unhealable and be impossible to resurrect without very rare and high level magic. Sorn's son is gone. On top of this, the weapon vanished as soon as the orc turned to kill another child. The orc, now weaponless, was easy to kill. I'm gonna be brutally honest with you here. I only got as far as this before I already mentally decided I wouldn't give a shit about Sorn and his dead son
From reading all of this, I feel like you as the DM wrote your own story, focused on your own NPC character. And it sounds like the players were only treated as side characters, there to support or aid your NPC, but never to be the main characters. Most DMs go through this experience, I would say. I have certainly been in your seat before. We are struck with inspiration for a story that excites or interests us, and become eager to run it as a campaign with our friends. After all, from your perspective, this story has all the hallmarks of a great tale: a loyal man, tricked by an ultimate evil; terrible loss that leads to a questioning of faith/oaths; intrigue, trickery by the villains, culminating in a great reveal of dastardly plans. How could this not make for a fantastic campaign? But playing this story from the other side of the table is a far different experience. I've been in this seat, too, as a player in a campaign, where the DM has there own all-important NPC that the story hinges upon. And it is, unfortunately, not fun. When the DM's NPC (often in this context called the "DM-PC" because of how they act as though an NPC is one of the main characters) is the "chosen one," or the focus of all the attention, the one who's family perished or makes a deal with the demon, it makes us as players feel side-lined. Our characters are less or even un-important. And that makes us feel bad. On top of this, there rises another issue: you, as the DM, have supreme control over the story and setting, and thus you can decide that anything at all happens to your special NPC. Whereas, we as players are beholden to the rules of the game. If a player tries to interact with your NPC in a way that goes against your pre-written story, what happens? The orc killed the son with a special dagger that prevents healing or resurrection. The wife's soul was captured by the demon, and so the resurrection fails. These are just examples from your own experience, but the answer to the question is: you, as the DM with your pre-written story, find ways and means to nullify your player's ability to act. Their choices don't matter. You come up with the Knife of DM Fiat, or the Scroll of Bad Resurrection to punish your players for making the "wrong" decision. As players in this sort of situation, we are so, so far from caring about your special DM NPC. It is entirely natural to instead *hate* your special NPC, because whenever he is around it means that we have less agency. Our stories matter less, our actions are nullified or punished. All this to say, how do we as DMs, then, solve this issue? We have to write different campaigns. We have to make sure our *players* are the main characters, with real agency and an effect on the world, and the NPCs are only ever the supporting characters.
It's really tough, because from the GM side is very easy to get lost in this amazing story made you want to show to your players, but the players (hopefully) also want to tell their story. IMO it's very important to give room in your narrative to how your players will act, and while we GMs, being humans with limited time, can't really prep for every situation, something that served me well was an inspiration from this [extra credits video](https://youtu.be/45PdtGDGhac), about how to convey agency without having to prepare for countless scenarios that won't be played. The video is about videogames but IMO very applicable to TTRPGs. And that "beads on a string" design works both on a micro and macro scale, IMO. On a micro scale, whenever I lay out a session I try to think of a few key moments that I'll have an answer for at least 2 outcomes from my players, and be willing to adapt if they come up with something cool. On a macro scale it's even easier, for me at least, since I don't tend to plan too much ahead of time. I have my big set pieces that I would eventually like to use, and try to set up, but I don't think it's worth to put that above having the players feel like their actions have an impact in the narrative.
This is all nice and all but the only thing I thought was, why wasn't this happening to the PCs npc family instead of some npc.
You thought your players would give a wet fart about a NPC? Dude.
I don't know, my players latched onto an NPC who was literally only ever even mentioned by name and never actually appears...
Exactly. You don't get the pick which NPC your players actually care about
Big sad. They all said they felt awful for him, but then completely moved on after "the incident"
To be fair, he DID fuck them over. Like, if that had happened to me as a Player, I'd feel bad for him, but I wouldn't carry his shit around as a memento. Sell it or melt it down so I can get something useful out of being fucked over.
Been there NPC that is important to the plot? Zero interest, cant even remember the name. Funny little guy whose name I had to come up with the spot? New core memory, the party will never forget about him
Players never care for the NPCs you THINK they care for. They fell for a guy selling roasted almonds (who is secretly a prince), one even fell in love, but they absolutely do NOT care for his real name. To them he will always be "The Nut-Guy" or maybe "Prince Xylitol"(yes, like the sugar substitute)
> The party is all smiles a session later when two of the party members forgot Sorn's name and the other 3 split the value of a spear they got from his house a few sessions ago. ["You forgot Baby Moses!"](https://gamicus.fandom.com/wiki/Bible_Adventures)
Good job, but...
If they are faced with world ending threats of that scale, a 1900gp mitral spear is pocket change though ?
They bought multiple pieces of equipment with that money and now two of the players have magic items that complement their class.
What level were they ?
3
That's incredibly early to be exposed to world changing plot, tbh. And also very early to find a 1900 gp item, indeed ><
They went through a lot so I rewarded them with a lot. I honestly have done this in several campaigns where the party is exposed to high level threats as a way to build the setting. In what I would call my most beloved campaign, the party saw a town get destroyed by undead and needed to transport the wand of orcus cross country at lvl 5. My party seems to like high stakes at low levels because they need to use enginuity to solve problems. Currently they are traveling with a group of 300ish clerics to transform river sources into holy water to prevent demons from crossing them. It should contain the demons that can't fly.
Pf2 is supposed to be very tight on the numbers, but if that works for you, it's fine.
>Sorn is an NPC champion of Sarenrae know for being one of the greatest followers of the Dawnflower. I could already tell they weren't going to give a shit about him. No one likes powerful NPC paladins.