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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5406962" data-attributes="member: 42582">Two examples from a 4e game, both using H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth.One involves duergar slavers. As written in the module (i) they have bought some prisoners from the goblins and hobgoblins, who captured them by raiding human villages, and (ii) they are assumed to be a combat encounter, fighting alongside the hobgoblins when the PCs raid the hobgoblin fortress.As I ran it, I kept the backstory for the duergar and their slaves, and added two clear motivations: protect their investment and protect their own lives. Given the second motivation, I decided not to have them enter combat alongside the hobgoblins unless the PCs attacked them, or the hobgoblins were being overwhelmingly successful. In fact the PCs were overwhelmingly successful against the hobgoblins, and when they encountered the duergar opened up negotiations. I then resolved this as a skill challenge. Given that there were 2 duergar, I resolved it as a complexity 2 challenge of their level, so as to not muck up the overall XP budget I had in mind.The actual negotiations ended up involving a combination of intimidation and diplomacy on the part of the PCs, and were far more conciliatory on their part than I had anticipated. The duergar emphasised the sanctity of contract and of property, with frequent references to Erathis (the god of law and civilisation). One of the PCs is somewhat of a devotee of Erathis, and another is a dwarf, and so this carried some weight. It also gave credibility to the duergar's promise to keep whatever bargain was arrived at. The upshot was a signed contractual agreement between duergar and PCs, to redeem the slaves in a month's time at a nominated neutral town, for a share of the loot taken from the hobgoblins to be paid to the duergar - some in advance, the rest upon redemption.Within the 4e action resolution framework, I think it is incumbent on the GM to stick to the resolution of a skill challenge. In the same way that a monster killed by the PCs in a combat encounter is dead - and it would be a type of "cheating" by the GM to ignore this - so the outcome of a skill challenge is also something that the players have "earned" by playing their PCs in a certain way, and it is also binding on everyone at the table. So assuming that the PCs keep their end of the bargain, so will the duergar.The second example involves some tiefling devil worshippers spying on the demonic activities of some gnolls. Here I amplified the background given in the module a bit - fleshing out exactly which devil they worked for (Levistus, "the Master Trapped in Ice") and how they had entered the temple complex. I kept their motivation the same as in the module - that is, trying to identify the causes of increased demonic activity, and if possible trying to stop it. I also kept the module's suggestion that, when encountering the PCs, they would at first try to pass themselves off as simple montebanks hoping to cheat and rob the gnolls.The PCs met these tieflings after dispatching said gnolls. Another skill challenge was used to resolve this interaction, with the PCs trying to find out what the tieflings were doing there. Using more intimidation and less conciliation than with the duergar, they eventually learned the truth. Having successfullly cowed the tieflings, I (as GM) took the view that betrayal by the tieflingswas off the table, at least while the balance of power remained more-or-less unchanged.What was interesting was that getting information from the tieflings about their purposes and their devilish master gave rise to some interesting tension within the party, as one of the PCs canvassed doing a deal with the tieflings' master to get extra magical help ti fight the demons in the temple, while another PC very strongly opposed this idea. That second PC in fact ended up summarily executing a tiefling (another had died earlier of rot grub poisoning) as the party fled the collapsing temple after ending a demonic ritual, in part in order to preempt any subsequent diabolic dealings between the tiefling and the first PC.Anyway, two examples of how NPCs with fairly simple backstories and motivations - but motivations that make them likely to engage with various elements and commitments dear to the PCs and the players - led to unforseen outcomes in the course of play, using skill challenge mechanics as the vehicle for reaching those outcomes.</blockquote>

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