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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ZSutherland" data-source="post: 3069479" data-attributes="member: 7638">My group and I have just started a new Arcana Evolved campaign taking place in the game's Diamond Throne setting.  The characters are all human and level 3.  IC, they are cousins and each members of middle-class merchant families.  They adventure to avoid the drudgery of mercantile life.Enton (Bear Totem Warrior) - played by my younger brother who is very new to gaming.  The character is a pretty stereotypical fighter for a new player.  He made a spectacular newb mistake last night by charging into a room where 4 kobolds were standing around examining a gem unaware of the PCs.  He one-shots one of the kobolds, and the others proceed to drop their spears and sob pitifully about their fallen companion before demanding recompense of the large and edible variety.  He felt pretty bad about it.Xorn (Magister) - played by a long-time friend of mine and the most seasoned gamer.  He's the least into the "role-playing" aspect of gaming, but more into it than he lets on.  Very tactically minded and he's always enjoyed the challenge of a caster's limited resources.Ada (Wood Witch) - played by my wife.  She's nearly as seasoned as Xorn's player, but she focuses more on the IC aspects of play and less on rules and character maximization.My typical campaign strategy is to start the PCs off with a fairly light adventure, usually a short dungeon crawl, that introduces the epic nature of the campaign.  From there on out, it's usually them against the campaign's villian (via his lackeys of course) and the rest of the game world is little more than back-drop for their struggle.  This time, I want to try something different.  The PCs did set off the main story arch last night, but they don't know that yet.  Instead of having it jump up immediately, I'd like to give it a few sessions to pick up steam.  I'd like to drop some hints that something is going on during those sessions, but mostly occupy them with other things.Right now, what I have in mind is to do a 3-part series.  Each part (roughly one session I hope) will focus on one of the characters and give them some room and spot-light time to flesh out their characters' personalities and backgrounds a bit.  I intend to start with Xorn and send the PCs into a ruin from the original dramojh invasion to recover a magister's staff that has some minor magical properties but is mostly just an historical artifact.  I'd like to use the adventure to point out some non-casting facets of being a magister, such as "magic is a powerful tool, but real power comes from knowledge, wisdom, and understanding."  I'd also like to include some obstacles that require magister abilities (easy since he's the only one who has complex spells and all knowledge skills) to overcome.The second part is where I get a little hesitant.  My wife has been playing in my games for years now, and we've always just treated her characters (all female) as one of the guys as it regards social custom of the game world.  I'd actually like to take the opportunity to explore some notions about female characters in a pseudo-medival game world.  I discussed it with her, using pretty vague terms so as not to give anything away, and she was interested in a story that involved some romance and the notion of arranged marriage.  What I have in mind is for her parents to announce that they've arranged her marriage to the son of a wealthy merchant (for a dowry of course).  I would need to make it clear that such a marriage would put a stop to her adventuring days, but I want to present it in such a way that she actually has to make a hard choice, so her husband-to-be will have to be appealing enough to accomplish that.  I'll actually let her make the choice.  If she marries him, she can retire the character but we can certainly keep her around as an NPC.  If she doesn't, she'll have to deal with the ramifications of that decision.So, onto questions.  1) What would sensible ramifications be if she chooses not to marry the guy?  2) Other than making her betrothed dashingly handsome and incredibly likeable, how can I pressure the decision (such as family pressure or the weight of social custom)?  3) How can I spread the "awkward situation" love around to the other characters, who are her family members but also her friends?  4) Is this just a really horrible idea to begin with?  5) Does anyone have any stellar ideas about what to do with part 3 when I focus on my brother's totem-warrior?  He's a bit of a munchkin at this point, but I think that's mostly due to not being familiar with the concept or how much he can stretch creatively inside his character.</blockquote>

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