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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kaldaen" data-source="post: 5195570" data-attributes="member: 69206">I've got one from a Star Wars game a couple of years ago.  I had been  running an original campaign for my friends for a few months, and they  had taken their characters from level 7 to 10 in that time.The  story had the players investigating the murder of a Jedi Master who had  been operating undercover among one of the larger Hutt crime  syndicates.  Since the characters had only just been promoted to Knight  status, and the perpetrators had taken down a Master, I created a couple  of NPC allies that would travel with them.  I planned to use them as  vehicles for in-universe knowledge, to get them access to information  that was above their pay-grade, to give them a nudge in the right  direction if the players were stuck, and to back them up in combat if  necessary.  One was a Jedi Investigator, and she had been the  handler for the undercover Master who had been slain.  I ended up using  this character a lot when interacting with the players, and they really  enjoyed her role in the story.  Even after their characters outgrew the  need for an NPC bodyguard, they still insisted on bringing her along as  the story advanced.The other character was nowhere near as well  developed.  She was a bounty hunter, and the party ran into her when  they tried to apprehend the mark she was trying to collect on.  Beyond  that, I really didn't have much of a background for her.  The players  invited her along anyway, but they didn't like her as a character nearly  as much as the Jedi Investigator.Three levels and many sessions  later, this bounty hunter was still tagging along with the party, and I  still didn't have a really solid reason for her being there.  Then the  party started looking into a story hook that involved the backstory of  one of the player characters.  The player had wanted to have a ship so  he could be the group's pilot, so he wrote that he had worked for a  hyperspace freight service, got tired of answering to a boss and stole  the ship.  The players discovered that said boss may have had some  information that could help them in their investigation, so they went to  the headquarters where the pilot used to work.  Just in case the boss  was holding a grudge, they came prepared to pay for the stolen ship.What  I should have done:  Upon landing at the spaceport for the  freight company, I should have had the bounty hunter insist on going  with the players to see the owner.  When they entered the main office, I  would have had the boss exchange pleasantries with the party, disarming  them with kindness, and acting as though he was willing to let bygones  be bygones.  Then I would have had him start addressing the bounty  hunter on very familiar terms, at which point she would have drawn her  weapons and held the group's pilot at gunpoint, stating that she was  there to collect the bounty that the boss had put out for him.What  I actually did:  I left her on the ship.  I didn't realize the  potential there until we had taken a break for dinner that evening.  By  that time the players had met with the boss, smoothed things over with  him by purchasing the deed to the ship, and then picked his brain about  the things he might have known regarding their investigation.As  the story moved forward, the bounty hunter NPC became less and less of a  factor, until she faded out of the collective consciousness entirely.   We finished the arc that she was involved in some time ago, but I may  try to reintroduce her as a story-driving character if we revisit the  campaign.</blockquote>

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