It's the little things

[thejc]

Hey everyone I am curious what little things you guys add to your campaigns to make them feel more believable. Much akin to Otiks spiced potatoes in the Dragonlance setting.

I remember one character in a campaign I ran was a drinker and wanted to know where the brewery was located ect. Convinced a medium sized town to hold a brewfest celebration after the party defeated a big monster that had terrorized their countryside for some time. The winner was the Wolf Falls brewery with their "Winter's breath pale ale", "
Blood Stone lager" and the famed 502 brew.

The players really engaged this and became huge advocates. always collecting different reagents for the brewery always making contacts in other cities to try and get them to sell it ect.

What about you guys what little things have you guys thrown in that you pc's plugged into?

 

[steeldragons]

Those kinds of touches can be as varied as you like.

The short answer:

• Food & drink.
• Noteworthy but Nonessential NPCs (3N-PCs if you like.
• The 5 Senses-and their varied intensities for different races
• Flora & Fauna
• Fashion

And combining 2 or more of these elements whenever possible is even better.

Foodstuffs are always a first stop, for me...and since you mention it, this very well may be because of Otik's spiced potatoes, now that I think about it. (I am also an avid cook and so think in "food terms" from region to region quite a lot.) Your example of the local beer/brewery is great. I generally try to incorporate some certain dish or drink dependent on a particular ingredient available/specific to an area...not everywhere/every village certainly. But local regions.

Even if it is something rather generic like the "Elfvine" I use in my setting- wine made by the elf nation. I think it's a white wine, but not even entirely set in stone there. There are probably multiple types of elfvine. But it's something only found in certain parts of the world, where the elves do business or has to be imported (i.e. more expensive and rare) in other areas.

Another example is the halfling chef NPC (Beflin Sweetplates) & his bakery (called none too originally, "Sweetplates Bakery") I put in my kingdom's capital city. He's not known for any specific dish, but is renowned as the best pastry/dessert/cake maker in the city. This combines two "little touches", a specific area foodstuff AND a decent NPC.

A good NPC can bring sooo much to the table/feel of the world without having to be some ruler or wealthy merchant or great warrior. Would Otik's spiced potatoes have been such a "real feeling" touch if they were just "spiced potatoes"? I tend to think not. If they weren't "Otik's" then they just weren't the same.

So, think of...at least ONE, interesting NPC per village/town/city for the characters to at least hear about even if they don't have to interact with them much (or ever). Say...1 non-essential NPC per...50 inhabitants.

This could be the local tanner, the blacksmith, a baker, fishmonger...a low ranking soldier, a handmaiden. Pick a "run of the mill" profession in town, and make the person interesting...something they sell, something in their appearance or personality (Bob the butcher is, by far, the nicest friendliest guy in town. He'd give his right arm for a friend...if he still had it.)

Another thing I try to use, which are little touches but requires at the same time, a bit more thought and a bit more off the cuff in game...SENSES! The players have 5, the characters have (presumably) 5 (maybe 6 or 7!). Different races have different acuity with their sight or their hearing...maybe even their sense of smell...USE ALL of the senses!

I find throwing in a simple 1 sentence about the odor of a place..."The salty air from the nearby sea catches your nose." or "The smell of burning wood that fills the tavern from the large fireplace."...or a common random sound. "The cold night wind rustles the dried autumn leaves about the campsite. It sounds for a moment like pouring rain that passes quickly as the branches again go still." This will also begin to keep your players on their toes..."Was that just the wind? I'm going to pay more attention to anything going on in the trees..."

If the only time a character hears something is that "snapping twig" that sets off the encounter/awareness that they're being followed...then the players always know if you are detailing something it is BECAUSE an encounter is nigh. ...if you'll forgive the pun, throw them off that scent.

So, in addition to whether it's dark or light enough to see, remember sounds, smells, textures/sensations and tastes (since we already discussed using food & drink)...that have nothing to do with the goblin ambush waiting in the woods or the monster around the corner (unless, of course that monster is giving off some terrible odor that is blocking out anything else.

Other little touches (I often use) are flora and fauna. Perhaps this village or region sports a particularly fine/beautiful flower. It's not magical. It's not (necessarily) medicinal. It's just pretty and/or unique to that area. Think, like, edelweiss...or Simbelmynë in LotR. Things like lilies, orchids or roses that are/have specific climatic requirements.

And fauna, hey it's a fantasy world, go nuts. Pick a bird whose plumage the PCs never seen (and call they've never heard. 'Member the senses. , a beast of burden used in a specific geographical terrain, a species of cat or dog bred specifically for that region...prized as hunting dogs or lap-pets of the aristocracy. Maybe the people of Swampytown prefer to keep the "fuzzy-tailed red mongoose-like thing" as pets to root out rats and snakes...but you can't find the creatures north of Themthar Hills.

Specific/regional flora and fauna make a world of difference (huh. I'm punny today.) in bringing a "realness" to an area/setting.

Fashion! This could be as simple as "The people of Dustyville are particularly fond of wearing cloaks of deep violet dyed in the Verypurple Berry found in abundance in the nearby bog." or as complex as "Among the women of the Duchess' court large-brimmed hats with leaves, flowers and multi-colored pixie wings are all the rage. The faeries in the nearby Enchanted forest, as well as the wood's powerful druid protector are in an uproar/readying for war!"

Any of these elements can be easily used to incorporate into plot hooks but, I personally think, are more effective for "flavor" and evoking a "realness" or immersion to a region.

The fate of the kingdom does not rest on Beflin Sweetplates' custard-filled pastry horns or seeing (and smelling!) a "Moonrose" bush in Old Herbwoman's garden but your PCs will definitely want to grab some next time they're in town...and probably remember places more vividly by the details than the actual name! ("Let's go back to that village with the silver roses.")

Have fun and happy detailing.
-Steel Dragons

 

[Ryltar]

Excellent suggestions, steeldragons.

NNW had an article up this week regarding something similar, which you can read here.

Another quick & easy way of adding details is from computer games. These games quite often have long descriptions for magical weapons (e.g., the Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights series). You can either browse the web for a site collecting all item descriptions and steal from there [for example: from gamebanshee's NWN page], or use the game's editor to access the respective data files and extract the descriptions directly from there. I find that in a pinch, this lets me add a nice backstory to an item quickly, and only requires me to make minor changes to 'fit' the setting.

In the end, the condensed answer to your question is 'details, details and more details'. Describe things that seem trivial in the real world, because everyone experiences them without giving it much thought; these things tend to get lost in the DM's narration.

 

[kitsune9]

Hey everyone I am curious what little things you guys add to your campaigns to make them feel more believable. Much akin to Otiks spiced potatoes in the Dragonlance setting.

What about you guys what little things have you guys thrown in that you pc's plugged into?

Consistency with the little things was what worked for me. For example, my current campaign has gone two years of game time. When it started, it was approaching a national festival time of harvesttide, when everyone celebrates the gathering of the harvest and can rest for about a week. As the campaign progressed, it came around harvesttide again and I let the players aware of the upcoming festival, the festivities that went on during that time and the after-festivities.

I am also focused on very few locations throughout the entire campaign even though the PC's run around all over the place in the nation. When they go to one city, they are always at one particular inn, when they go to the capital, there's another particularly inn they stay at. Now that the capital is currently occupied by usurpers of the throne, the inn was destroyed, and it hit the players kind of hard.

 

[aco175]

My current campaign has a home base town the party stay in mostly. When they go, they stay in their favorate inn and know the bartender and several of the staff. They are like 12th level now and have done a few things for the innkeeper Arvis, like assist in the inn not burning down and retrieving his nephew from the snake people along with a few other kids. If they walk in from being away for a week, they know when the sit down a round of ales and plates of apple venison will be forthcoming.

A few levels ago Arvis would boot out people staying in their penthouse room, but now it is on hold from them. I even have business being up for the inn due to the famous pc's staying there. The taproom walls hold several unusual beast heads from their exploits.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I try to do stuff like this when I am DM'ing.

One enduring example:
In a 3E Forgotten Realms campaign I ran, the elven wizard saw some dwarves bowling in an alley behind the Dancing Goat in Silverymoon. Dwarven bowling isn't something I made up--I've seen many other people use it. But it was just a flavorful touch for her character to experience while she was out wandering the streets at night.

The elf got involved in the bowling game. Then she bowled with them. I made up simple rules on the spot. She rolled pretty well and the dwarves were impressed. After that, she hung out with those dwarves from time to time and learned their bowling slang.

When she would meet some dwarves, she would often throw in some bowling slang. They would be curious and much of the time a bowling game would happen.

After a couple months of game-time, when the group was spending a few days in Baldur's Gate, one of the other PC's commissioned a set of Dwarven Bowling pins and balls for her and gave them to her as a surprise present. Now the whole party could bowl.

Fast forward six years to my current 4E game. The guy playing the dwarf says his character is really into Dwarven Bowling. I asked him where he came up with that idea and he said he thought it was V's idea--V was one of the players in my old 3E game!

 

[lamia]

I'm always intimidated coming into a thread when all the other comments are so good!

Anyhow I'll just continue on in the interesting NPCs vein.

I always like to think of the NPCs private lives, what they might be doing when the PCs inevitably hatch some scheme and go bounding off to ask someone a question in the middle of the night.

Maybe when they barge in on the ship's captain at 2 in the morning he is doing something creepy like playing with dolls. This is fun, because the players start rolling sense motive all the time and assume he must be evil due to his unusual hobby.

Or maybe he is engaged in some scandalous activity like stealing kisses with the navigator.

Anyhow, it makes for fun. My players have thus far tried to recruit 3 NPCs to join the party. One of the players started romancing a half-orc bard that I had initially only thrown in to deliver a hook or two.

Hope more people come along, I think this is a rather fun thread to read!

 

[thejc]

nahhh Lamia post away. Thank you for your contribution. I like that I had never really thought of it before. This shall add yet another facet of my npc development.

And there are no bad ideas. Sometimes a vein of thought may not be exactly what the poster is looking for but in my experience hearing something you don't want to use is sometimes as helpful as the one you do want.

Thanks!

 

[TarionzCousin]

I had an NPC merchant who ate dinner with the PC's, hoping to hire them to guard his caravan. It would have been a boring job, and he offered them far too little coin to do it. His main purpose in the game was simply to give the PC's some information about the world outside of their community. But during dinner he occasionally tucked food in his belt pouch. Of course a PC noticed it.

They spied invisibly on the merchant in his room after dinner. He was feeding a ferret and talking to it and calling it by name: Nibbles. Obviously, they thought, the merchant was a wizard and the ferret was his familiar!

Initially, that was as far as I had planned. But when the PC's failed to notice the obvious plot hooks, I took my ordinary flavored NPC and converted him to a Plot Point.

When that merchant disappeared, everybody figured he had just gone with his caravan--until a couple days later when his ferret was found in the inn's kitchen. It turned out to be an ordinary ferret, but Speak with Animals led the party to believe that the merchant had been kidnapped (or assassinated).

The NPC merchant was eventually found dead. The PC's seriously debated bringing him back to life--they would have needed to sell a couple of their magic items to afford it--but in the end they kept Nibbles the Ferret as a pet instead.

 

[Dragon Sin-Camealot]

Here I go letting balance and truth ruin the story.

When you maintain a balance I'll quote that you can challenge something indefinitely. Whenever the heroes or villians procure some magic item it tends to tip the balance to one side.

The less powerful you make your characters, the more believable it is. These non-diety characters do have weaknesses.

It's more interesting to discover and rediscover something new and challenging at any level. Slaying some dragon, fighting in bars, could get redundant imo.

Unless you don't care and like more of the same. The most prepared side should win the adventure. Either the DM or the players. Be prepared.