Simple yet vital question

[Maikl]

Hi there.
I recently faced a serious problem while DMing. Moreover, I couldn't figure out how to solve it. Well, I guess I should get straight to the point...
Basically, the campaign included an evil cult willing to flood an area with an army of demons (not very original idea, I know). Of course, the players were supposed to stop them, and they did... With the help of some high-level paladins.
This example illustrates a serious issue:
Why should the PCs handle some problems, if there are others who can take care of it.
My players reasoning seems logical. Why should they save the world, if there are lots of people, more skilled and experienced who can and should take care of it.
I did allow PCs to seek help, as this was possible and logical. This is quite a problem for me, becouse I know they were right not wanting to risk their own lifes when there are others who can do it. However, they are the adventures, so they should help ppl. and so on...
Any solutions?

 

[MarauderX]

Oh, I never have the help of the high-powered NPCs. Usually the characters are isolated, far away from help, and any who might be able to take care of the situation have no interest.

 

[Maikl]

Isolation is some solution
However, they are in a quite urbanised realm at the moment.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

IMC, it's pretty much been a non-issue. Adventurers and heroes of any kind are rare; at low levels the PCs are dealing with low-level threats and those few who are more capable are too busy taking care of the real dangers. At mid-levels, they're helping those same few deal with real threats, plugging the gap as it were. And at high levels, there is no one else who can confront the world-threatening BBEGs, so it's do or die for the PCs.

I've never had any interest in a world where every time you turn around you're running into another uber NPC.

 

[Merkuri]

There is an assumption in the Eberron campaign settting that PCs are rare, special individuals. People who are higher than level 5 are few and far between.

In the case of Eberron, there is no one else to help. This is one of the things I like about Eberron, and one of the things I don't like about Forgotten Realms, where the opposite is true (many high-level NPCs).

If you can't completely remove high-level NPCs from the setting, make them indifferent, or far away, or crippled, or give them some other reason not to be able to take care of it on their own. The "why can't other people take care of it?" point is a valid one, and really the best way to take care of it is to take away or otherwise render useless other people who could've taken care of it.

 

[Clavis]

I almost never try to motivate the PCs by appealing to a sense of duty or altruism (since they tend to have neither). Instead, they tend to do things for the obvious rewards: money, sex, magic, status and fame. They want to be the first ones to save the village, because this way they get the reward money and all the local girls will give them the "heroic treatment". They want to raid the tower of the evil necromancer, because he certainly will have treasure and magic to steal. They'll battle the evil cultists, because nobody cares if you loot the dead bodies of demon worshipers.

Needless to say, there are no Lawful Good or Paladin PCs. The PCs are in no sense the "good guys", but are often the "less bad" guys. They sometimes get mistaken for the "good guys", which is situation they'll exploit for every gold piece its worth.

 

[Maikl]

I guess it is my fault that I added a mages guild in the setting(with some good magicians in it) and confronted the PCs with something "too big" for their skills ( they would be able to handle it themselves, it is just they did not want to).

 

[C.W.Richeson]

If they're peasants and there are powerful knights and sorcerers then yeah, I don't see why they would even try.

Play up the badassery of your PCs a bit and try to downplay level and such. If they believe they are weak then they may end up doing things in response to that belief, such as turning the big threats over to the powerful NPCs.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Well one option, as others have stated, is to just make your world without a full range of NPC levels, but personally I find that one dissatisfying unless it is well built into the history of the world and consistent. And for some players, lack of anyone else to count on can also become lack of anyone else to keep them in line, so it's always a gamble to establish such a world.

If your gameworld includes high level npcs with compatible goals, you have to establish why they aren't doing it for the PCs. Without knowing the exact details of your demon invasion, heres a few options to consider...

1) omnipotent but not omniscient. Some situation, either temporarily part of the problem at hand, or part of your game world, stops the npcs from knowing about the problem unless someone directly tells them, and everyone who could tell them is busy dealing with the situation as it happens. The weakening of the "world wall" which led up to the demon invasion has made divinations and teleporting more difficult for some time now, and the order of paladins has been spread out trying to keep a physical eye on things, and won't even know about the exact location of the breakthrough unless the PCs tell them.

2) Bigger fish to fry. From the PCs' lower level perspective, this certainly looks like a demon invasion, but the truth is this is a minor rift spreading from the point of real invasion, which is occupying the paladins completely. They are saving the world while the PCs save their home. (I'm reminded of the movie Armageddon, where the millions of residents of Paris are killed as a small reminder the there is something dangerous happening, but at the end of the film they are celebrating saving the world. If the movie was set in Paris, it would have been about the complete failure to "save the world", and could have used some be precision based heroes. )

3) Personal connections. Make sure that something other than noblis oblige is motivating the PCs in this matter. If the point of invasion is 10 miles from the PCs' home village, they should be ready to do all they can whether or not there are high level npcs handling part of the problem.

4) Not Exactly How We Would Have Done It. Somewhat related to the bigger fish to fry, very powerful people may see problems differently, and the little guy often takes issue with Big Picture Thinkers. The order that the paladins belong to believes that after the main issue of closing the rift is done, eliminating demonic influence from the area is best handled the Ripley way

Spoiler

I say we take of and nuke the site from orbit - it's the only way to be sure

The PCs, who may be more interested in the lives of the locals than the long term (as in eons) alignment integrity of the plane, could decide to keep the paladins out of it on their own when they realize exactly how they will be "fixing" things.

Other possible solutions to the general problem that don't necessarily apply to this instance :

Get the PCs involved in situations that are very important to them, but in the world view of the uber npcs would be fine either way - succession battles, border skirmishes, situations where the PCs can feel themselves to be the Good Guys, but in the grand scheme of things they just have a side.

Make sure that there is a personal reward to being the ones to solve the problem.

Have an out of game talk with your players and tell them to embrace the joys of metagaming, because this is a game about them saving the world damn it, and getting occasional help is fine but makes a lame story.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I guess it is my fault that I added a mages guild in the setting(with some good magicians in it) and confronted the PCs with something "too big" for their skills ( they would be able to handle it themselves, it is just they did not want to).

I think it's an "error" that is not uncommon. (Some say that the Forgotten Realms setting has this problem).
You need to find a reasonable counter here.

An example might be that the mage guild might have something else to do. But that doesn't work on a regular base. Another step is to ensure that the guild is to make the guild less pwoerful (if that's still possible). They might be able to do what the PCs are supposed to do, but then they need the PCs help in another matter, because they risk over-extending themselves.
Or the guild - confident of itself - tries to take the matter into its hand, but somehow fails, taking serious losses. The failure must be for something the party could have forseen or somehow countered better than a group of wizards from the guild. (Probably something magic resistant?)

Add a personal motivation. That can range from "getting all the cool treasure" to "rescue my lover". The motivation is either pracical (if the mages do it, we don't get the treasure) or emotional (I can't just sit around doing nothing when my hometown is attacked!)

If you find out that your guild is too much trouble in the long run and all the "excues" while the PCs need to perform a task instead of the guild, destroy the guild. Add a threat to the game that either occupies the guild, or obliberates most if it. The remaining survivors go into hiding, and need the PCs to help them.
This can be a cool moment in a campaign, when suddenly the PCs know that their "safety net" is gone - that it's them that decide the fate of this world, and not some ancient organisation.