DrunkonDuty
he/him
Some really good advice here folks. And interesting tales too.
cheers
cheers
How do i keep NPC's around?
- Thread starter thedearhunter
- Start date
Variants of this is the main technique I use. The PCs meet minions, see the effects of the villain's plans, etc, but don't actually meet the villain for many sessions.
LostSoul
Adventurer
In past games, the best NPC antagonists were the ones who were way too tough for the PCs to handle directly but didn't want the death of the PCs.
Too tough because they were more powerful from martial prowess. Too tough because they were father and son. Too tough because they were married. Too tough because the PCs (at least some) agreed with the NPC's goals. Too tough because the political fallout would be disastrous. etc.
Martial prowess is the easiest to pull off, though.
Too tough because they were more powerful from martial prowess. Too tough because they were father and son. Too tough because they were married. Too tough because the PCs (at least some) agreed with the NPC's goals. Too tough because the political fallout would be disastrous. etc.
Martial prowess is the easiest to pull off, though.
That is so true.
Anyway getting back to the thread have you considered having one of the NPCs agents recover his masters body and have him resurected? That might be a interesting surprise for your PCs when someone they thought was dead turns up looking for revenge, or more likely learns from the experience and tries not to make the same mistake twice, (under estimating the group).
The question I always try and ask myself when considering NPCs is "what would they do if they were a PC?".
First and most important: the NPCs don't have to be enemies. They may be allies, may be rivals (aiming for the same resources as the party does, but without direct aggression), they may just want something from the PCs or have something that the PCs want. There's a lot of kinds of interaction that aren't combat. Even if you plan to have the NPC eventually defeated, don't present him as a villain the first time he meets the party.
Second: The NPCs may be ambivalent - that's how I love to have them. They have goals and personality traits that my players may identify with, but also has ones that conflict with PCs. It leads to many narratively powerful situations. You may have the party temporarily ally with someone who's goals and methods they don't accept, because the one common goal is more important at the moment. You may have a PC fight and kill someone who they like and respect, because he can't agree on something that person wants to do and the NPC won't have it another way. You may have two conflicted NPCs, with your players being able to understand and at least partially agree with both, but having to take sides.
The last point: sometimes it is fine for the NPC to win. I had several such situations in my games, most of them unplanned. If an NPC is attacked by the party, beats them and then lets them go, it establishes her as a honorable person and puts PCs in debt. It's hard to kill someone who let you live. Once, such situation led to the party and the NPC becoming allies, at least for some time. Another time, an NPC beat a PC in a duel; at the end of the session he was defeated by the same hero and left alive, as he left the PC before.
Second: The NPCs may be ambivalent - that's how I love to have them. They have goals and personality traits that my players may identify with, but also has ones that conflict with PCs. It leads to many narratively powerful situations. You may have the party temporarily ally with someone who's goals and methods they don't accept, because the one common goal is more important at the moment. You may have a PC fight and kill someone who they like and respect, because he can't agree on something that person wants to do and the NPC won't have it another way. You may have two conflicted NPCs, with your players being able to understand and at least partially agree with both, but having to take sides.
The last point: sometimes it is fine for the NPC to win. I had several such situations in my games, most of them unplanned. If an NPC is attacked by the party, beats them and then lets them go, it establishes her as a honorable person and puts PCs in debt. It's hard to kill someone who let you live. Once, such situation led to the party and the NPC becoming allies, at least for some time. Another time, an NPC beat a PC in a duel; at the end of the session he was defeated by the same hero and left alive, as he left the PC before.
Movies and TV shows do this trick all the time: The villian is "killed" but somehow returns next sequel or episode. Players won't mind the villain coming back, they just like to have the satisfaction of kicking his butt.
Try to have the fight take place in a memorable, hazardous, environment. Have the npc "die" by being reduced to zero hit points, give the players the full satisfaction of beating him during the combat encounter. Describe how he collapses, bleeding from his wounds, maybe gasps some final words. Then describe how he is somehow killed EVEN MORE by the environment:
1.) The magic castle collapses all around him, the party has to rush out or they are buried, or as the castle collapses the villain's body falls through one of the many ever expanding cracks.
2.) The villain falls off the cliff, rope bridge, rooftop, cloudship, etc.
3.) The villain is sucked into a boiling pit of mud, lava, etc.
4.) Buried in an avalanche
5.) Some player destroys a rope or pulls a switch, and a rope around npc's leg wraps around him and drags him off to some gruesome fate
6.) Knocked into a mine cart that goes careering off into darkness.
7.) The blow that knocks him to zero hitpoints breaks his concentration and the spirits, monsters, magic, etc. he was using against the party or attempting to harness turns against him and carries him off screaming.
Bonus points if the player is actually able to use a combat power that accomplishes this (using a push to knock him off the edge, into a gnomish food processor, etc). Anyhow give him a brutal, punishing, fate over and on top of whatever attack the players did to drop him to zero hp. The trick is, whatever fate happens, doesn't involve recovering the body.
So of course the villain returns from certain death. Be sure to give him a prominent scar associated with how he was defeated last time. It doesn't matter how he returns he just does. Just like every villian from tv shows and movies manages to.
Be sure the next time to make his death even more outrageous. When one player inevitably mentions that he is probably not dead, reply "Surely no one could have survived [insert gruesome fate]. He's gone for good this time." Dramatic pause. "Or is he?"
Eventually let the players kill him. Then bring him back all over again as an undead villain.
Try to have the fight take place in a memorable, hazardous, environment. Have the npc "die" by being reduced to zero hit points, give the players the full satisfaction of beating him during the combat encounter. Describe how he collapses, bleeding from his wounds, maybe gasps some final words. Then describe how he is somehow killed EVEN MORE by the environment:
1.) The magic castle collapses all around him, the party has to rush out or they are buried, or as the castle collapses the villain's body falls through one of the many ever expanding cracks.
2.) The villain falls off the cliff, rope bridge, rooftop, cloudship, etc.
3.) The villain is sucked into a boiling pit of mud, lava, etc.
4.) Buried in an avalanche
5.) Some player destroys a rope or pulls a switch, and a rope around npc's leg wraps around him and drags him off to some gruesome fate
6.) Knocked into a mine cart that goes careering off into darkness.
7.) The blow that knocks him to zero hitpoints breaks his concentration and the spirits, monsters, magic, etc. he was using against the party or attempting to harness turns against him and carries him off screaming.
Bonus points if the player is actually able to use a combat power that accomplishes this (using a push to knock him off the edge, into a gnomish food processor, etc). Anyhow give him a brutal, punishing, fate over and on top of whatever attack the players did to drop him to zero hp. The trick is, whatever fate happens, doesn't involve recovering the body.
So of course the villain returns from certain death. Be sure to give him a prominent scar associated with how he was defeated last time. It doesn't matter how he returns he just does. Just like every villian from tv shows and movies manages to.
Be sure the next time to make his death even more outrageous. When one player inevitably mentions that he is probably not dead, reply "Surely no one could have survived [insert gruesome fate]. He's gone for good this time." Dramatic pause. "Or is he?"
Eventually let the players kill him. Then bring him back all over again as an undead villain.
Barastrondo
First Post
By the way, thedearhunter, many kudos on differentiating between player and character frustration. Being able to judge the acceptable levels of both, and figure out how to feed one while not feeding the other, is a critical skill for running games. It's the distance between dramatic tension and players wondering why they bother to show up.
An additional thing to consider, perhaps, is that killing the bad guys is another form of progression, like leveling up or finding magic items. This is another reason that many of us tend to place minions, then lieutenants, before you actually confront the main villain; you're essentially progressing your way up the chain. Whereas a villain that consistently escapes may feel to the players like being stuck at a certain level; they don't feel like they're progressing on to bigger and better things. This may depend on the players, of course, but it's a good reason to look at fights where you may like your villain to escape and consider how, if they do well but not quite good enough to prevent his escape, the fight can be considered a good victory that gives the players a sense of advancement. It's sort of like "drama XP" -- do the players feel that they're achieving more dramatic things even as more dramatic challenges loom before them?
It's tricky to pull off, but one final option is to give the players positive incentives to let the villain escape. For instance, if the villain knows where the Big Interesting Thing is and the players decide to track him there, or if they know he'll flee back to an interesting lair to regroup. Or maybe the villain can bribe the PCs outright in some fashion. In that sense, they can weigh alternate rewards: do they want the rewards gained by the surviving villain, or is the satisfaction of killing him superior?
You can do this with negative incentives, too, but at that point you're basically asking the players to choose between punishments instead of rewards. "The bad guy goes free or the hostage dies" -- picking the lesser of two evils, really. Now, that works great for some groups, but some players really like to soak up adversity, even angst. If you suspect your players aren't that sort of people, negative incentives might not be the way to go.
An additional thing to consider, perhaps, is that killing the bad guys is another form of progression, like leveling up or finding magic items. This is another reason that many of us tend to place minions, then lieutenants, before you actually confront the main villain; you're essentially progressing your way up the chain. Whereas a villain that consistently escapes may feel to the players like being stuck at a certain level; they don't feel like they're progressing on to bigger and better things. This may depend on the players, of course, but it's a good reason to look at fights where you may like your villain to escape and consider how, if they do well but not quite good enough to prevent his escape, the fight can be considered a good victory that gives the players a sense of advancement. It's sort of like "drama XP" -- do the players feel that they're achieving more dramatic things even as more dramatic challenges loom before them?
It's tricky to pull off, but one final option is to give the players positive incentives to let the villain escape. For instance, if the villain knows where the Big Interesting Thing is and the players decide to track him there, or if they know he'll flee back to an interesting lair to regroup. Or maybe the villain can bribe the PCs outright in some fashion. In that sense, they can weigh alternate rewards: do they want the rewards gained by the surviving villain, or is the satisfaction of killing him superior?
You can do this with negative incentives, too, but at that point you're basically asking the players to choose between punishments instead of rewards. "The bad guy goes free or the hostage dies" -- picking the lesser of two evils, really. Now, that works great for some groups, but some players really like to soak up adversity, even angst. If you suspect your players aren't that sort of people, negative incentives might not be the way to go.
tylerthehobo
Explorer
Not all NPCs need to be adversaries.
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