pointofyou
Hero
It sounds like what you are doing is preparing without deciding. At least deciding as little as possible.
That makes sense. I didn't realize the same player had ties to both NPCs, and that Gerda was also an NPC.Gerda, the Dwarf who might try as for take the gem, is a NPC, though a friend (ie an established relationship) of one of the PCs.
What the ranger - also a NPC and a friend of a different PC, the one with the gem - knows hasn’t been established yet. The cursed gem doing a “one ring” - whether that is tempting the ranger, or calling to the enemy - us something that might follow from a twist. Though I’m thinking of Gerda rather than the ranger as the target/victim of the gem, because I think it might be a bit unfair to further attack the position of the player of the cursed PC by also going after the ranger friend.
Torchbearer is an interesting experience for me, because it relies more heavily on GM prep than I am used to, but also incorporates Burning Wheel-ish scene framing techniques (in the application of twists on failures). There's a sense in which this should be no surprise, as the game is an adaptation of BW (via Mouse Guard) to deliver a Moldvay Basic-esque experience. But this is still a new thing for me; and I was never very good as a Moldvay Basic-type GM.It sounds like what you are doing is preparing without deciding. At least deciding as little as possible.
For the first one, that is also something that would be part of a twist. There is a sufficient basis for that in the fiction, because the PCs befriended Gerda by persuading her away from the other bandits she was hanging out with, who were themselves the kidnappers of the ranger under the instruction/payment of the enemy. So it is possible that - in the time that the PCs have taken to return to town with Gerda following their encounter with the bandits, and then in the time that they will spend in town phase before they start their next adventure (which I am assuming will be the rescue attempt) - the other, still loyal, bandits will have let the enemy know about developments.I guess, in an attempt to be helpful, I would need to ask
- Is the villain aware of a possible rescue attempt?
- Do you specifically want to have or avoid the villain be present at home when the rescue is attempted?
- Do you have a pattern of activity for the villain that the PCs might be able to exploit? Either to avoid or confront him?