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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RHGreen" data-source="post: 5304940">A lot of the problems with this sort of thing come from the fact that the characters are not actually a part of the world in which they live. I mean, what is the difference between a party of characters and group of bandits. Bandits don't care about the world, they just go around trying to find someone to steal from. They are very one dimensional. Make them a part of the world for starters. Even the most loner of us is integrated into the world by many things, whether we want to be or not. Family, friends, jobs and clubs(guilds). The pubs, shops and cafs we always go to. We have religions, churches and un-religions. Political beliefs and the groups associated with them. Partners - love and business. We have bosses and employees. Towns we grew up in. Places we like to take prospective girlfriends. Areas we avoid. We have places around the streets and towns we live that inspire good and bad memories, and when those places are levelled and used for new buildings or roads we are gutted. We remember the way our gran used to make pies and how no-one else ever gets the taste the same. STEP 1: Make them fully integrate into the world.Use NPCs and groups that give the PCs something for free. It's selfish-I like them because they give me stuff-but it is a start. Give them personality and they will associate free stuff with liking their personality.  They help a pub owner and now everytime they go in he gives them all a free drink and toasts them to the rest of the bar. ADDED - His mother sits behind the bar complaining and digging at him. He tells her shut up and just croak already. STEP 2: Kill it, smash it, burn it.An idea from an old Dragon Mag. If the players keep going around wanting to do evil stuff tell them you want to do a one-off. They all get to be monsters and they are allowed to do the most awful things they can imagine. They are to raid a town. Don't give much description - except in the details of all the horrible things they do. Make notes of what they did. STEP 3: WTF has happened to my town.Give them back their normal characters and have them return to town. Describe all these NPCs that give them free stuff in how badly damaged they are. Try to keep a lot of them alive. For example if they kill an old lady by pinning her to a wall - have a bloodstain on the pub wall with a hole in the middle where a spear has been. The barman doesn't toast the PCs he just sits and stares at the stain, muttering about his poor mother.  Make them feel bad about being bad. (Aleena! Damn you Bargle.)</blockquote>

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