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

[Wicht]

The module makes specific references to the fact that the goblins have STOPPED selling the apple mysteriously, after a history of doing so.

Are you sure it says this?

 

[EricNoah]

Yeah, I thought the idea was that the newly arrived Kobolds had the goblins pinned in and they couldn't get out. Not that this made much sense since the kobolds left the key room in the hands of Meepo...

 

[geezerjoe]

This sounds like a classic example of a paladin being a Lawful-Paladin and not just a kill-all-evil-paladin For many people, the fact that evil critters exists is motivation enough to go kill them, never mind the legality of it all or many ethical questions like the value of life in general, just kill all evil.

I had a simular situation where I held up a gaming session for almost 45 minutes because some NPC "claimed" that someone else had taken over thier property wrongly. I was intrested in following the LAW (checking records, ensuring the claims were acurate) which DnD moudules don't always consider and simularly many DM's dont know how to handle that kind of game device. In some ways I don't worry too much about it, not many people want to play lawyer in a fantasy world. Most games are about doing, seeing, and being things that you couldn't be in RL so why focus on RL things except to bring more realistic elements into the game which possibly defeats the purpose of the game (anit-circular logic )

(side note, playing the basic Neverwinter Nights module I saw this too ... there were MANY MANY times when you could modify your alignment by doing notably good or evil acts but I NEVER got a modification to my alignment in regards to Law and Chaos. This shows me that the problem is not only a DnD problem, but a problem with games in general.)

sorry for the rambling ... I guess it comes to this ... Just have fun and don't sweat the small stuff, its just a game

l8r

Joe Too Old

 

[Arravis]

Mercule wrote: "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."

That's exactly what my character agreed to. He's going to the citadel for two reasons. To investigate what happened and to retrieve the bodies of the dead adventurers and rescue them if they live.

The Paladin I'm playing was created in the old fashion way... we rolled Str: 3d6, Dex, 3d6, etc... you couldn't switch the stat numbers to what you wanted. Anyway, I ended up with a 17 wisdom character (I didn't want to go with the classic cleric, so I chose paladin). I don't often play high wisdom characters, so it's been an interesting experience for me. I suspect a paladin with a wisdom that high is certainly not going to be the "kill all evil" style paladin, but more a Buddha with a sword kind of guy. He's aware that most violence is self-defeating and that it often leads to even worse things. He's aware that stereotypes like, all goblins are evil, are rarely true and that the truth is often far more complicated... anyway, playing a character, with what I consider a VERY high wisdom, has it's own challenges, especially when I don't consider myself a very wiser person, lol.

 

[Zaruthustran]

The motivation of the villagers may simply be "Goblins sell us 1 apple a year, and we want more". Greed is plenty motivation for most folks.

Your Paladin's motivation could be "These goblins have a source of healing apples, and they don't share! They only sell--SELL--one each year!" or it could be "Some people went to the citadel and have not returned! They could be in trouble! I must go and see if I can lend aid!"

But beyond these specific examples, it's at least halfway *your* job to find your character's motivation. More than halfway your job if you're playing a canned adventure. And almost totally your job if you're playing a canned adventure run by a newbie DM.

-z

 

[Moe Ronalds]

Perhaps the townspeople have become suspicious of the apple-selling goblins for one reason or another. "Beware greeks bearing gifts" I believe is how the saying goes.

 

[WizarDru]

Are you sure it says this?

Actually, you're right...AFAICT, it doesn't. It DOES say that the villagers deal for the fruit twice-yearly and it DOES say that the goblins are hard pressed and appear to be cut-off from exiting to the outside by the kobolds...so I extrapolated that fact, and then misrememberd it being in the module.

The module breaks it's motivators down into three primaries: simple adventuring (an ancient temple? Let's go!), Contracted (I'll pay you to go in there and find my children and my signet) or Mystery-solving (how did a bunch of lowly goblins get their hands on these magic fruit, who was that mysterious stranger who came into town all those years ago looking for the citadel, how are the goblins stealing the saplings...and what's killing all the local cattle?). You can easily extrapolate more. I don't see that as a fault of the module, I see that as a strength. It's much easier to customize the module this way.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

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

ALL THE TIME! This is one of the reasons I stopped playing with a group that ran too many canned modules. This high level party had all of these resources and options, but suggestions that we do anything but run bloddymindedly through the module till we made it to the end were always rejected out of hand.

see also my new poll about what roleplaying is. I consider railroading and roleplaying incompatible when it comes down to it.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Femerus the Gnecro]

I'm actually running this module right now... here's what I used.

1. they got hired after hearing about the situation in town

2. the sorceror wanted to go anyways because of the old 'dragon cult' thing

3. the goblins had been attacking traders on the old road sporadically

The whole apple/tree plot is just kind of a secondary concern... most of their adventures so far have been in dealing with goblins and running missions for the kobolds, with whom they have reached an agreement (no paladins, fortunately).

-F

 

[Gizzard]

...so I extrapolated that fact, and then misrememberd it being in the module.

I'll bet it is somewhere in there - because thats the hook that our DM ran for us. "We townsfolk are sick and need the Happy Apple. But the Goblins are late this year! -sob!- Please find the Happy Apple!" Actually, he combined several of the hooks together, but that was the main one.

... he was as surprised as I was that the module didn't really seem to make alot of sense, motivation-wise.

There are plenty of decent motivations to pick from, but a new DM can easily confuse himself here, especially if he is contemptuous of modules in general. Basically, there are a couple things that don't make sense in some of the hooks -- because they are lead-ins to the mystery component. If the DM misses the fact that Person A is saying "X", but really "Y" is true then chaos may result.

Let me put it another way. There should have been good answers to all the questions your Paladin asked straight from the module.