"What's my motivation?" or weirdness in the Sunless Citadel...

[Mathew_Freeman]

Ah, now I've done that.

We were playing in FR, in Tilverton, and after about 8 hours of gaming I was no closer to understanding what the heck was going on than I was at the start. But then we had a TPK, so it sorted itself out...

 

[Piratecat]

So anyone else have been part-way through an adventure and said to themselves "Why the heck am I here?"

I had a player who did this all the time. It drove everyone else nuts, and he's no longer in the group. I think it's really the player's responsibility to create a character who is fun to play and interested in adventuring.

Sometimes it is the fault of the DM or the adventure, and that's understandable - but sometimes it's a player being a prima donna (my ex-player, not Arravis!), and that's frustrating.

 

[Arnwyn]

No, it's not just you - it really is the module's problem. Generally, I've discovered that WotC modules have poor "hooks", and that DMs (virtually as a rule) must set up the adventure to best fit the party.

Sunless Citadel is definitely one of those adventures. However, this adventure does have the potential for some killer RPing opportunities.

 

[Mercule]

When I ran it, I said the other adventurers went to explore the reasons behind the cattle mutilations. The module never really says _why_ they went in, just that they did.

They could have just as easily gone in because the goblins were stealing the sapling trees. Sure, there's no reason why the goblins _have_ to sell the apples and they aren't a "right" guaranteed to the villagers. Still, the village bought the whole apple, including the seeds. If the goblins cut down the product of those seeds, they _are_ stealing from the village. That's at least worth sending a team to negotiate.

 

[Erithtotl]

I only know the module from a version someone did for Neverwinter Nights, so it might not be a direct translation.

In that version, the Goblins also came in the winter and sold another apple that was horribly poisonous. Evil people from all around came to buy this apple, so it wasn't so good for the town.

Additionally, there was no initial direct connection between the Citadel and the goblins, that came up later (so the players were just exploring the citadel initially for 'adventure' purposes. Also, there was the cattle mutilation subplot as well.

Perhaps this is different from the PnP version, or perhaps your friend had trouble handling all the subtlities, which is common when you're not used to DMing.

 

[Wicht]

Without giving away too much of the backstory, the module assumes that the PCs are interested in exploration and adventure. The very first hook suggested is simple adventure. The ruins of the sunless citadel are assumed to be well known to the local populace and something of a mystery. The NPCs who are lost were themselves simply trying to explore and find adventure in the mysterious ruins of an ancient sunken citadel. The hook involving the apple is a bit more complicated but essentially the townsfolks believe that each year after they plant the seeds the goblins steal the apple tree saplings in order to force the town to continue to buy off of them.

 

[WizarDru]

The module makes specific references to the fact that the goblins have STOPPED selling the apple mysteriously, after a history of doing so. The goblins have NOT been stopping the apples from being grown, though the villagers believe this to be the case. The cattle mutilations are another part of the mystery, and the combination of events causes the local merchant to send her children, a paladin and a ranger to see if they can find out what happened. It's also made clear that the sale of this magic apple is important to the local economy, as they can sell it places that the goblins can't. It's a domino effect. They're not just being greedy fools, although that would be an equally legitimate reason to go (paladin excepted).

While the module could possibly have stronger hooks, it provides almost a half-dozen to use.

 

[Creeping Death]

What my DM did for the module

What my DM did was to say that the goblins also sold the seeds for the trees to the villagers. These seeds would sprout and grow into sapplings within a few days and then one night they would disappear. Three people from the village went to investigate and dissappeared. One of the the party members was a cousin to one or two of the people that disappeared.

So we had plenty of reason to go. Of course, it helps to have a good DM.

 

[Zad]

I think the module provided a ton of reasons for why you're there, but may perhaps need the DM to close the last 5% of the motivation.

When an unnamed DM ran this module for us *coughWizardrucough* there was a very simple and effective motivation.

We had been retained by a rich noble who needed the fruit to heal his sick daughter. Our job - go buy the fruit. Ah but wait, the fruit isn't being sold any more. If we were to succeed, we needed to go talk to the goblins trying to get a fruit. And since the previous group had gone to do the same thing, we could find out what happened to them also, and there was a cash motivator from the NPC in town to do exactly that.

I don't agree totally with Piratecat saying

I think it's really the player's responsibility to create a character who is fun to play and interested in adventuring.

The statement is true in that the character should have "handles" by which they can be motivated - be that money, power, helping people, etc. However it's up to the DM to leverage those handles.


Arravis - this leads me to a suggestion. Wizardru basically had the party in service to a Greyhawk noble. This made life a heck of a lot easier overall. He handed out missions for us (no dark strangers in inns) and could provide rewards as needed. For a starting DM this might help them inject plot lines more easily.

(Of course, Wizardru is an experienced DM, and he uses it to create twisting convoluted story arcs that two-and-a-half years later, we still don't know much of what's going on.)

 

[EricNoah]

In the version I ran, the PCs were sent to investigate why the goblins stopped coming to town to sell the apples, not wipe them out and steal from them. A subtle difference, but it was definitely more of an investigation than a raid.