How do i keep NPC's around?

[thedearhunter]

I've recently started up my first campaign, and one issue thats presenting itself is that my NPC's aren't lasting beyond an encounter or two. I build all these great enemies, storywise as well, and then they die immediately, before any of that matters.
Last session, the main villain escaped midway through the fight, and a player commented that it felt anticlimactic. So, i let another NPC in the fight (of another faction) who was supposed to escape, die.
So...I want to know how i can introduce NPC's, have them last a reasonable length of time, without my players feeling frustrated and cheapened?

 

[Crothian]

If the PCs feel that they should be able to kill the NPC in the battle it doesn't matter what you do they will feel frustrated and cheapened.

You can try to give reasons for the PCs not to kill the NPC. Maybe they have to bring him back alive or something like that,. Maybe the NPC surrenders and killing him then would be an evil act.

You can always talk to the players and tell them that sometimes villians escape to cause more problems. If it seems anti climitaic to them tell them this is not the climax of the story but a builder to that.

Or just have him escape. It will frustrate the players but that can be good. If you can have a villian taunt and frustate the PCs it can lead to greater fights and the players get into it more. Of course they could aslo feel mad at you for it and get so frustrated they don't care. It is a hard thing to do and requires knowing the players well.

 

[Barastrondo]

In a "lethal solutions" game like D&D, generally the first rule is not to send them into fights with the PCs. That may seem like kind of unhelpful advice, so let's look at it a little more.

Generally speaking, D&D doesn't have much of a superhero comic tradition of "take the villain prisoner, or watch him escape/stage his death, so that he can recur." Players are generally aware of this; the expectation is that if they're defeated, they're more likely to die than to wake up in a clever deathtrap. (Though the latter works well with D&D, too.) Therefore they like the NPCs they fight to undergo the same risk that they do in a fight.

The most simple solution is to have long-running villains just not show up face-to-face at first. You first run into people in their employ, maybe with letters written by the villain explaining what's expected of them. Then maybe you run into a lieutenant or five. Gradually you can get a sense of a villain through their actions, before it's time to draw swords against him. Depending on your players, you might be able to get away with a face-to-face meeting or three where violence isn't an option -- meeting the corrupt baron at a royal ball, for instance, where neither side is willing to risk the king's wrath -- but some players would find that frustrating in a bad way instead of frustrating in a good and exciting way.

Also consider organization-as-antagonist. Say, a vicious monastery called Sons of the Blind Star; players can be running into their acolytes all the time, and meeting specific named lieutenants that provide interesting stepping stones, but the actual threat won't be ended until they meet the Grand Master of Flowers in charge. This lets you get away with a lot of the recurring motifs of a single villain, particularly if the organization has a dominant "personality" -- and the players can kill off individuals within the organization to feel better without getting it all over with at once.

Mostly I find that the best villains that recur who actually cross swords with the players and then get away, only to fight them again, are the ones that aren't planned for; they just happen. There's nothing wrong with setting up an escape plan for a villain, mind; just be certain that the players have half a shot at preventing it. And if an escape plan is set up, it's usually not a bad idea to make sure that the players can achieve a secondary objective over killing the villain in the same fight, something that will ruin the villain's day. It's a little more satisfying for many players to watch the villain escape if he's pissed off and cursing the day you got involved, or wide-eyed with terror, than if he's got a smug smirk on his face.

 

[fba827]

Give them a big boss during the fight that they can kill. But at the end of the fight, as they look around with the blood and sweat dripping off their blades and brow, (name of PC with high perception) notices a tall lanky man off the in the distance, who was apperently watching the entire time... but in a blink of an eye, he vanishes.

You did best this foe.. but who was that lanky man and why was he just watching. Was it just your imagination or did his shield bear the same crest as the man who lays dead at your feet ...

-- basically, putting them at a distance.
the couple times I have tried to put in a NPC that is meant to be a recurring villian, it either went as ...
a) he was an obviously surprior foe who did not want to trouble himself with the PCs so he made it clear he was leaving and left his goblins to do the work. However, the PCs insisted on fighting/slowing him. so it led to a very poor confrontation
b) the villian has his easy escape and it feels cheap to the PCs, the players, and to me

I think it's okay to have a couple villians that do have an easy escape (i.e. fly, teleport, etc) but done more than once and it gets frustrating (for both characters and players), plus, basically, the players still need to have accomplished some sort of victory... i.e. maybe they didn't get to stop the villian from flying off, but they can still stop the zombies from destroying the damn , thereby protecting the village, etc.

 

[Mark]

Don't sympathize with the frustration, use it to motivate them.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Don't sympathize with the frustration, use it to motivate them.

here here!

Have the villain mock them as he or she escapes just beyond their grasp - it will make the eventual kill even more satisfying. (The main bad guy from Lethal Weapon 2 - a South African - kept claiming Diplomatic Immunity throughout the movie. Finally, at the end, when it appeared he'd get away due to his final claim of "Diplomatic Immunity" Danny Glover's character shot him and said, "has just been revoked." and the theatre erupts in cheers)

In my last campaign (3.5) that went on for almost 2 1/2 years, I had a recurring villainess (drow duskblade) that managed to kill at least one PC in each of the first four times they met her in game. (Granted, kill is relative in D&D with Resurrection, Raise Dead, Revivify, etc in 3.5) Each time, she barely escaped... once, on the back of a dragon after her boss (an evil cleric) scooped her up in the middle of battle.

Finally, in the last battle with her (the penultimate encounter in the campaign overall) and her drow brethren, she managed to off one PC before they finally ganged up on her and dropped her. The evil drow priestess then Revivified her, bringing her back to -1 and stable. Then, another drow cleric Healed her (it was a big encounter) and the duskblade did a Swift Invisibility to frustrate them even more.

Finally, they managed to take her out - for good - and also kill the drow priestess just before she could Mass Heal her drow brethren. But, it was high fives around the table when she finally died for good.

 

[IronWolf]

The most simple solution is to have long-running villains just not show up face-to-face at first. You first run into people in their employ, maybe with letters written by the villain explaining what's expected of them. Then maybe you run into a lieutenant or five. Gradually you can get a sense of a villain through their actions, before it's time to draw swords against him. Depending on your players, you might be able to get away with a face-to-face meeting or three where violence isn't an option -- meeting the corrupt baron at a royal ball, for instance, where neither side is willing to risk the king's wrath -- but some players would find that frustrating in a bad way instead of frustrating in a good and exciting way.

Also consider organization-as-antagonist. Say, a vicious monastery called Sons of the Blind Star; players can be running into their acolytes all the time, and meeting specific named lieutenants that provide interesting stepping stones, but the actual threat won't be ended until they meet the Grand Master of Flowers in charge. This lets you get away with a lot of the recurring motifs of a single villain, particularly if the organization has a dominant "personality" -- and the players can kill off individuals within the organization to feel better without getting it all over with at once.

I think these are solid ideas that will help you out.

At the beginning stages of the campaign it might take a bit for the party even realize some of the events they have encountered are being driven by a central villain. As the game progresses they can start picking up clues that start to draw things together as things start to point to one organization or individual. Then that person can start making appearances in the offing as he allows his lieutenants and such to deal with the situation as he rapidly leaves the premise. As the campaign progresses the party eventually starts to find themselves facing the villain directly in an encounter and so on and so on.

 

[ExploderWizard]

As Shrek would say, campaign threats and villians are like onions, they have layers.

Having the villians constantly get away or escape somehow will get tiring to the players fast. The best way to introduce an NPC that you want to be in the picture for a while is to arrange for the PC's to hear about him but never encounter him. You can build up the reputation an infamy of an NPC by having underlings that would commit suicide instread of betraying him/her and stories about the exploits of the NPC long before his/her first appearance.

 

[korjik]

I have found that there is a direct relationship between the amount I want an NPC to recur and the amount of crits he eats if the PCs get him into a fight.

Started in 3e when I had an 6th level Orc ranger who only had to survive 3 rounds against the party before his minions would show up and cover his escape. I even gave him a 5th level cleric to keep him alive. Cleric even held person the party's ranger.

Then the paladin critted him twice in a row on full power attacks.

That story thread got just as decapitated as the orc.

However, the paladin did go on to have a long and glorious career of killing everything he saw.

Except: The proof that it is the amount I want the NPC to live that makes it easier to kill.

I had a big black dragon at the end of an adventure. Pretty much a disposable character, intended to stay alive just long enough for the paladin to get within greatsword range. It took forever for them to kill it! I very nearly had to let the thing get away. Heck, IIRC, the only reason it got killed was because of a dimensional anchor that was cast for almost no reason. That and the ranger (the one that got held before) who ended up shooting the dragon to pieces.

I think the moral of the story is: If you want the bad guy to live, dont let him get into combat.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Well, first of all, know that you can't directly control how your players react. You can influence them to some degree, but it's up to them to decide how they react in and out of character. That said, it's good that your players are giving you some constructive feedback on their experiences with this. Keep that up as you try different strategies. Speaking of strategies, the most important one is knowing your pcs and the probabilities of how they will react to certain situations, how you expect different things to go down.

Here's what worked sometimes in my experience (in no particular order). No single strategy has worked for me all the time- no strategy is 100% (or even approaching it) effective.

1)build up your characters relationship with the villain before the direct confrontation. Give out clues and start exposing them to the back-story indirectly before the first throw-down. This can give them some context for understanding the villain’s context, whatever it may be.

2) Give your characters some way to identify with empathize with the villain. It may be giving him some degree of sympathy (like an extremist with good intentions). It may be some sort of past relationship with the PCs (blood kinship, for example). It may even be a common, greater foe that unites the antagonist with the heroes (if perhaps briefly). Just be careful to not overuse this one; it’s perhaps the easiest one to abuse (especially with former loved ones and associates turning bad- this can make your players paranoid).

3) Reward your players for letting a baddie live. Give full XP and some sort of treasure to compensate for the antagonist’s gear if they can’t loot his body (directly rewarded by other npcs for bringing the baddie intact, for example). If a villain is left alive, sometimes allow that to make for a positive change- perhaps with time the villain can be redeemed or at least become a useful resource against a common foe. Make the players have more use for keeping the bad guy alive for now than killing him.

4) Give your players other objectives other than simply killing the baddie. Make them have a choice- between personal vengeance and saving the village, for example. Again, this can get rail-roady if it’s done too heavy handedly.

Here’s an example of something along these lines that happened in a 3e Oriental Adventures game. This is something I hadn’t really expected, but upon reflection most of the elements of NPC “endearment” happened here. This involved a pretty despicable blood-magic using, tainted lich. First of all, he didn’t start off in direct conflict with the PCs. His initial contact with the PCs was just some cloaked weirdo who would approach them and ask some questions, going as quickly as he came (strategy #1).

Later on after the PCs had done some secret investigations into the dark side of the Empire, they learned of his somewhat tragic origins at the hands of the Empire’s secret researchers on blood magic and immortality. He was coerced into becoming their test subject, the choice: do it or see them use his sister instead. After things went awry, he became equally hateful of the tainted lands and the Empire itself. This provided some back-story and explanation for his actions- revealed not through villainous monologues but various second hand sources and conversations he had with the PCs over time.

The villain’s hatred of taint and the shadowlands also gave him a common enemy with the PCs (strategy #2). This was the villainous Seven Chosen of a dormant tainted god- seven villains doing more damage than the blood mage lich. Luckily, the PCs eventually convinced him to go after the seven chosen first.

Another interesting plot twist I threw in was that the lich eventually came to think that one of the female PCs was a reincarnation of his sister (again #2- the kinship thing). Surprisingly enough, for reasons I don’t entirely understand, the player of the particular PC (and maybe the rest of the group) returned a feeling of sympathy, albeit somewhat ambiguously. Several of the PCs themselves had had stints of darkness and experiences of reincarnation, so perhaps this was an element? Regardless, there arose from the uneasy peace a sort of kinship between the lich and the party through this character development.

Although the lich and the party conflicted with each other several times, there were always greater threats (the corruption within the Empire, the Seven Chosen, etc, strategy #4). Through their continued interactions with the blood mage lich, they were occasionally able to make use of his resources (strategy #3).

Over time, they began to affect the blood mage’s character (a more subtle #3). One time they scryed on a meeting of him and some of his allies. When they heard him turn against them and said that “Sometimes there are more important goals than revenge,” I was astonished to hear the players cheered as he said this.