"If this problem is so bad, why aren't YOU doing it, NPC?"

[Nifft]

Another way to fix the "problem": Don't use NPC patrons. If the campaign is structured so that the PCs are uncovering the BBEG's grand scheme slowly, bit by bit, then the roles reverse: The PCs go to NPCs for information and aid, and become the driving force behind stopping the growing evil. The PCs become the ones shouting "Wake up! To Arms!" at the NPCs rather than vice versa.

This requires that the players (not PCs) be both interested in details and good at putting them together coherently.

In my experience, if you give players six clues, they'll recognize three of them, invent a fourth, and go off in a random direction looking for gods know what.

This is why I mine B-movies for plots. If it's obvious enough that any competent audience can guess it during the first 5 minutes, it's obvious enough that players -- who have to worry about stuff like rules, ordering food, rolling dice and writing their own lines -- can guess it during 5 hours of play.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

In my experience, if you give players six clues, they'll recognize three of them, invent a fourth, and go off in a random direction looking for gods know what.

Hehehe, fair enough! I do tend to overly idealize how quick the players will be to "get it".

I've never actually tried to run a game such that the PCs themselves ultimately provide the motivation to save the world without the urging of NPCs. But maybe it's worth a try in a sandbox setting sometime, on a small-ish scale campaign. Meh, I'll give it a shot sometime-- provided I can get enough player buy-in

 

[Desdichado]

In my experience, there are very few players who can take a game and run with it right off the bat. You've gotta be prepared to hand them some blatantly obvious plot hooks to get going. After they've been playing their characters and the setting for a little while, maybe not so much, but at the beginning you do. That's when patrons come in really handy.

I just think the notion that a powerful patron would come up to these nobodies that he meets in a shady tavern and ask them to go save the world is ludicrous beyond all reason. If you have to do "the world is at stake" plot arcs, don't telegraph it that badly. Let the patron ask them something reasonable, like guard a caravan, or investigate a strange murder or rumors of a cult or something. From there, you can slowly build up the threat.

Plus, it's time honored suspense building protocol. Read any thriller, mystery or horror story to see that concept in action.