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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aenghus" data-source="post: 6086536" data-attributes="member: 2656">The most gentle way to introduce an NPC with a deep history, given the luxury of time, is to foreshadow them in multiple previous sessions *before* they turn up. This allows mixed opinions about the NPC to arrive naturally - refugees from a destroyed village consider him a mass murderer, whereas a prophet may consider him the only chance for survival in the end times etc etc.An NPC appearing out of the blue, especially if they  could be a bad guy, has a decent chance of being killed by the party before any exposition or monologue, in my experience (or TPKing the party, but that is almost always a sign of terrible DMing). Nowadays, I typically decide NPCs are important only *after* they have survived their first encounter with the PCs, especially if they inspired strong emotions of any sort amongst the players and/or PCs.Re any apocalyptic storyline, remember one or more players may not believe in the end of the world scenario, in which case the NPC will appear to be just be another murderous nutcase. Clear objective evidence of such plot points can be very hard to provide, and forcing such plot points on unwilling players becomes very obvious. I say this because I personally tend not to like extreme end of the world scenarios that distort all morality, and one roleplaying approach is just not to believe them IC, and fight nihilism every single step of the way - this may not be your situation, but I mention it because mismatches of basic philosophy or taste can derail a game from the very start.</blockquote>

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