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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 9172278" data-attributes="member: 63">(Very mild spoilers for BG3.)I just finished BG3 last night, and (aside from the very ending which needs a fuller epilogue), the game has some really stand-out character arcs for the various companion NPCs. If you go the route most players do, you'll design your own character, and along the way pick up Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Astarion, Gale, Wyll, and Karlach, plus potentially a few others. And while you're busy fighting all manner of baddies, you'll also be with those characters as they confront situations that challenge their assumptions, or force them to grapple with dilemmas that can steer their personalities in different directions.By the third act, you could be in a party of do-gooders struggling to make right the sins of their past and break various cycles of abuse, or you could have gathered a cadre of calamitous scoundrels set on out-eviling the villains. Or, delightfully, a bit of a mix. A big chunk of gameplay involves quests that are personal to the NPCs, whereas your own character kinda doesn't have much of an arc (unless you pick the 'Dark Urge' origin, but shh, no spoilers!).Now, I've run plenty of long campaigns in tabletop D&D where I've striven to give the PCs their own personal storylines. But that's the work I did as the GM. When I think about published modules, particularly adventure paths, I wonder whether it's possible for them to write in story arcs for NPCs that would have the same sort of impact that these quests in BG3 have had. While the dialogue isn't, y'know, scripted and professionally acted in an adventure module, is having important NPC character arcs something I, as an RPG writer, should even want to attempt?Over the years I've played five or six published adventure paths. I wrote two myself. But I don't think I've ever seen a prewritten character in an adventure path whose story had as much impact on me as when I helped Shadowheart undertake the Gauntlet of Shar, or brought Astarion to confront the vampire Cazador.Then again, in BG3 you're one player with 6+ companions. In a tabletop game, there are maybe 4 players with their own characters. Players want the game's story to be their story, and if the GM has an NPC tag along with their own character arc, people can grumble that the spotlight is being taken away from them. "DMPC" is a term of mild derision.Now, that doesn't mean NPCs in adventure paths can't have written in arcs. In the ZEITGEIST adventure path that I directed, there are a few NPCs who show up often enough in the course of the ongoing series that your party can have an impact on them. Lya Jierre gets introduced in the first adventure, and by adventure six might be a stalwart foe, or might regret that she's forced by circumstance to be your enemy . . . or you might turn her to your side. (Or you can drop her in a volcano.) But most of the NPCs exist to pose dilemmas for the PCs, to give the players a situation where they might turn in one direction or another. Do you have experiences playing or running pre-published adventures where there are NPCs who have a genuine character arc? Did it feel like you were getting pulled out of the game and being forced to watch someone else's story? How might it be done well?</blockquote>

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