Orryn Emrys
Explorer
Would somebody please kick me in the head...?! I've apparently exceeded my ego limit concerning my ability to gently (and frequently not-so-gently) provide my player characters with a likely and perfectly logical direction in which to drive the campaign.
Get this. My players are devoted roleplayers, and one of the best is my good buddy Dark Eternal (who should stop reading this now and go on about his business!). Well, he's currently playing an exiled prince of a small northern kingdom... and the other PC's have been with him since Day One. This was only session 10 of this campaign. It's a homebrew world... ARCANA UNEARTHED ruleset.
Lately, his character, a young magister, has been fairly noncommittal about a number of things... riding the edge of despair, having difficulty coping with the new course his life has taken. Despite the fact that he was raised to rule, and Dark Eternal would eventually like to forge him into something of a leader among his peers, he has been significantly out of his element. Regardless, the other PC's have been somewhat drawn to him... a combination of a well-played high charisma score, and the natural deference in the presence of royalty. And, as his physical stats, and consequentially his hit points, leave something to be desired, they have become protective of him, as well. So I developed a brilliant plan to make them feel trapped into pursuing a particular quest.
Note: I am generally very gentle when it comes to pushing my PC's in a particular direction.... Now I remember why.
Here's the basic sitch: The PC's just escaped an island where a cult of mojh, led by a dark-hearted high-level runethane, were practicing blood-sacrifice rituals in their quest to resurrect an ancient fallen wyrm. While their master was away, the PCs swept into the cultists' lair, slew them to a "man", then fled the island with the cult's intended sacrifices aboard their own ship. Needless to say, the runethane was not pleased. He sent a trusted NPC, under the influence of a rune of dominion, to rejoin the party, and had him slap the young prince with a magical rune which, he explained, would slay the prince outright if he did not retrieve a distant magical artifact and return to the mojh by a certain date. With the magister's recent depression and uncertainty, it seemed very likely that he would feel that he had no choice and would comply, and the others would go along to lend their aid and protection.
This is when my worldview started to crumble. The player character in question, after a period of shock at this tragic course of events, decides to snap out of his vulnerable state and become the leader he was born to be... and intends to lead his small force in a direct assault on said villain... assuming he can find him. That's it... the course is clear. Whatever happens, he fully intends to ascertain that the villain will gain nothing from attempting to coerce him.
It suddenly appears that my next session is going to go considerably differently than I had initially intended. I may find a way to get things back on track, but I refuse to be obvious about it, so it will likely take time. With the recent trend in discussing plans gone awry, I thought I'd seek therapy here on the Boards. I was depending on my own estimate of the PC's reactions, and I had become too confident that I knew what to expect. I frequently build my campaigns around such an understanding of the PC's, but it was obviously too early in this campaign to pull such a stunt. Similar experiences, anyone? Moral support, perhaps?
Get this. My players are devoted roleplayers, and one of the best is my good buddy Dark Eternal (who should stop reading this now and go on about his business!). Well, he's currently playing an exiled prince of a small northern kingdom... and the other PC's have been with him since Day One. This was only session 10 of this campaign. It's a homebrew world... ARCANA UNEARTHED ruleset.
Lately, his character, a young magister, has been fairly noncommittal about a number of things... riding the edge of despair, having difficulty coping with the new course his life has taken. Despite the fact that he was raised to rule, and Dark Eternal would eventually like to forge him into something of a leader among his peers, he has been significantly out of his element. Regardless, the other PC's have been somewhat drawn to him... a combination of a well-played high charisma score, and the natural deference in the presence of royalty. And, as his physical stats, and consequentially his hit points, leave something to be desired, they have become protective of him, as well. So I developed a brilliant plan to make them feel trapped into pursuing a particular quest.
Note: I am generally very gentle when it comes to pushing my PC's in a particular direction.... Now I remember why.
Here's the basic sitch: The PC's just escaped an island where a cult of mojh, led by a dark-hearted high-level runethane, were practicing blood-sacrifice rituals in their quest to resurrect an ancient fallen wyrm. While their master was away, the PCs swept into the cultists' lair, slew them to a "man", then fled the island with the cult's intended sacrifices aboard their own ship. Needless to say, the runethane was not pleased. He sent a trusted NPC, under the influence of a rune of dominion, to rejoin the party, and had him slap the young prince with a magical rune which, he explained, would slay the prince outright if he did not retrieve a distant magical artifact and return to the mojh by a certain date. With the magister's recent depression and uncertainty, it seemed very likely that he would feel that he had no choice and would comply, and the others would go along to lend their aid and protection.
This is when my worldview started to crumble. The player character in question, after a period of shock at this tragic course of events, decides to snap out of his vulnerable state and become the leader he was born to be... and intends to lead his small force in a direct assault on said villain... assuming he can find him. That's it... the course is clear. Whatever happens, he fully intends to ascertain that the villain will gain nothing from attempting to coerce him.
It suddenly appears that my next session is going to go considerably differently than I had initially intended. I may find a way to get things back on track, but I refuse to be obvious about it, so it will likely take time. With the recent trend in discussing plans gone awry, I thought I'd seek therapy here on the Boards. I was depending on my own estimate of the PC's reactions, and I had become too confident that I knew what to expect. I frequently build my campaigns around such an understanding of the PC's, but it was obviously too early in this campaign to pull such a stunt. Similar experiences, anyone? Moral support, perhaps?
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