Quest Support
Poor Quest Giver. The guy can’t catch a break. Whether it’s convincing recalcitrant heroes or struggling with basic communication skills, the role of guy-with-floating-exclamation-point-over-his-head is a thankless one. And as the closest thing Handbook-World has got to a GM stand-in, it should come as no surprise that I sympathize with the dude.
As a forever-GM, I’ll often find myself sitting there with a wealth of backstory information and no way to convey it to my players. This happens most often whenever I’m running a module, but it’s just as likely to come up when you’ve got a surplus of homebrew exposition.
The Axebeard Clan settled in these parts after the Jabberwocky Wars.
Lord Flake was Lady Duplicity’s first betrothed, but he left her at the altar.
Local legend tells of a beast that haunts the roads outside of town. It’s known by many names, but folks ’round these parts call it That Monster You’ll Totally Have to Fight Later.
Long-time readers may recall my early struggles with a certain elven ranger from Varisia. It remains my best example of the phenomenon. Exposition is hard, and finding a natural outlet for that exposition is harder. As the guy behind the screen you know that there’s useful intel buried in the info-dump, and so there’s a temptation to bust out ye olde plunger and ram it down the players’ throats.
And so, pointy hat in hand, I turn to the rest of you for advice. What is your favorite narrative device for exposition? Do you go for handouts, complete with calligraphy and coffee grounds stains? Do you populate your taverns with skalds and bards and troubadours, all armed with plot-relevant epic poems? Of is it simply a matter of switching into narrator mode at the drop of an Intelligence (History) check? Tell us the best way to Insert Knowledge A into Player Head B down in the comments!
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Setting up backstory helps. For instance, starting the story with the PCs already doing a job, like guarding a royal procession headed for a political marriage as part of a peace treaty (with a tasty payoff at the end)… and then having a pack of masked Goblins attack the carsvan and abduct the royal bargaining chip — er, princess.
They want the money. They want adventure. Here are some Goblins getting in the way of their payday, and chasing them down will be an adventure.
Classic carrot and stick.
Backstory and exposition come along the way, because the PCs want to know who is behind it all, why they’re doing it, and what they need to do to get paid.
Are you saying to give them all that as the opening?
“You’ve been hired for a job. As the adventure begins, you’re guarding a royal procession headed for a political marriage. It’s part of a peace treaty (with a tasty payoff at the end)… But as you royals come to a bend in the road, a pack of masked Goblins attack the caravan. It looks like they’re headed for the royal bargaining chip — er, princess. What do you do?”
Or is there a more subtle way to weave that through?
Just play the Star Wars theme over it; guaranteed to make any exposition dump fun or your money back!
I give them the premise “You are here to escort the princess to a neutral site for the big political wedding. It’s peace in your time and money in your pocket!”
The attack by the ‘Red Debbuls’ (Goblin tribe pretending to be evil Outsiders) was the first surprise.
The wizard on an enlarged gryphon nabbing the sedan chair with the princess in it while the Red Debbuls kept the PCs busy was the second.
They decided to chase after the princess all on their own.
How about the natural strangeness of not knowing why you are where you are? Is it just a matter of the players asking questions like, “What was the princess’s name again”?
In my experience there is no best way. It all depends on the players, their characters, and the way that they are into the story. Some players or characters will want to know everything, and ask for any info, even if it is not in any way related to the plot. Other happily go adventuring with only the smallest of hints, and do not care for backstory or meta plots, or info. Which is totally fine, as we, in real life, also mostly do not have either the luxury, or the inclination, to have all the relevant info on our special endeavours. So roll with it, and maybe tell them some of it afterwards, if they realise that they missed things. Or not, and keep the mystery going (which may be another adventure hook). However, if you do want to give them info, handouts, even just plain pencil on white paper, is better then telling them. In my experience the James Bond 007 RPG adventures have some of the best handouts, in full colour, and appropriately themed. My own scenarios usually do not have such elaborate ones, but like I said, any handout is better than none. It also is a good way for the players to examine when their character is not actively engaged in the action. I have had, both as a player and as a GM, games in which one of the players was able to figure something out about the plot, just by being able to study the handout, while the rest was engaged in other activities.
So, in my view: No best possible way, because dependent on players, but if you want to do it: use handouts.
COVID has sort of stepped on my handout game… I’m beginning to wonder if there is a digital equivalent, or if those are somehow inherently less engaging.
I know that platforms like Roll20 have digital equivalents, where you can share a photo/piece of art with players, and probably also text. If nothing else, you can always photoshop up an old-timey looking piece of parchment and write stuff on it.
It varies by circumstances, but in my experience allowing the players to tell you what they want to find out and then sprinkling a little extra information in the resultant narration (more and more relevant if they roll better) is the strategy to go with, generally speaking.
I also give them a Knowledge card for each int skill they have at the start of the game, with basic information about that skill and its role in the setting.
Do you have those knowledge cards handy in digital form? I’d be curious to see what you put on ’em.
I have them as word files. Later on, I’ll screenshot them and put them up on my Tumblr so I can link you to them.
Cheers! Always interesting to see best practices from another group.
Sorry! Completely forgot about this. I’ve put a couple up now – here’s the link.
https://illogarithmil.tumblr.com/post/645383667525500928/a5-knowledge-cards-that-i-give-out-to-players-with
As far as handouts go, we’ve been playing APs, so there’s plenty to use from the official content – character/monster artwork, lore handouts (writing, letters, the occasional puzzle or bit of info we NEED to remember).
Our brand new 4E homebrew game (yet to start), our DM gave us a list of NPCs to start off, and certain PCs have ‘bonus info’ about the NPC (through relations/knowing those people better) that others don’t, which in Roll20 is done via handouts that only specific PCs can see.
Best experience I’ve had was in Foundry Virtual Tabletop, playing an W40k Dark Heresy game with modified rules. Being a gritty investigation game, we needed a LOT of lore handouts to keep track of the plot, which Foundry provided – from having a map with interactive icons that explained locations, to lore summaries, to links within journals leading to other entries. We even had animated rain in the perpetually-raining city.
Any chance of a link to the assets for that Foundry game? I’d be curious to see what they offer.
The environmental effect with the rain sounds particularly evocative.
I can ask the guy that set it up. I think it’s mostly a dark heresy preset of some sort, plus a bit of coding / setting macros up.
Asked the guy who set it up, in their words:
“Most of the text was just copy pasting from various warhammer 40k wikis and from the adventure book, then adding cross linking to it.”
“Rain was just a weather effect you can apply to a scene, either part of foundry itself or a module I installed for it, can’t recall right now.”
“Everything I used was comparatively simple and easy. There was nothing particular I had to do except find some modules that had functionality I wanted, and then just configure things.”
“The exception, and most of the work I did, was actually configuring up the game system itself, since it was a homebrew system. If foundry already supports your system (either natively or because someone has implemented and shared it) then I have nothing bad to say about it.
“In particular, if you run any supported “open source” system, such as Pathfinder 2e, then it is likely that all information (spells, feats, classes, etc) are already imported and immediately available.”
Other stuff of interest foundry-wise you can see on their videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fu48nvvUY4
It’s very useful for a DM who wants to go an extra mile to put players in the scene / mood. E.g. you can make windows openable/closable and make a smashing glass sound if the players break them.
Only hiccup I think that might exist is that you’ve got set up your own server for the Foundry game, or have a dedicated one. It’s a one-time price of 50$, so it’s expensive, but high-end.
Checked up more on it, yeah, the biggest flaw is that you have to self-host the server / game you’re playing (as opposed to it being hosted on their own site like Roll20 does). So you might have issues with that Foundry-wise.
For map handouts (or using maps in general), look no further than Dungeon Map Doodler. It’s free, has no ‘paywalls’ to use it’s features, requires no logins, and is absolutely stellar for making RPG/Tabletop maps in various artstyles presets.
https://dungeonmapdoodler.com/
It has it all: option for multiple layers which you can put filters/colors on, a library tokens/icons (plus you can import your own), a random-dungeon generator, different artstyles/layouts for different genres, snap-grids or free-drawing options… You can even experiment with layers and make different-looking sections (e.g. a yellow-tinted lava area, or a blue-tinted underwater one).
It so happens that I’m working on a couple of mini dungeons for a module. This just might come in useful in a rather immediate sense.
Thanks for the recommend!
Will the Village of Brie finally see the light of day? 😀
Naw. It’s a project for AdventureAWeek.com. Independent of Handbook.
I typically give information as it comes up. At the start of a campaign, I’ll write out a few paragraphs describing the main quest so the players know what they’re getting into; after that, I’ll give more info as they ask for it (whether in-character through consulting with allies or out-of-character through GM questions and skill checks). Sometimes I’ll have NPCs give them a nudge if they can’t decide what to do next, but if they’re doing fine with what they know, I’ll leave them to it. As long as they like the setting, characters or what-have-you, it doesn’t matter if they don’t know ALL the details.
There’s always an interesting tension between “let’s investigate” and “it’s the GM’s job to lead is to the next encounter.” If the PCs are asking questions and curious, it’s a whole lot easier bring on those necessary details with NPC “nudges.”
I’m rarely upfront with that information, but I use it to fill in the details as appropriate. I’ll use it to inform me how buildings are constructed, what foods are being eaten, what labels or insignia are present on equipment. That way if the player asks for information about such things, I can answer with a concise form of history- probably inessential but rounding out the world.
I’ve been trained as an archaeologist and one of the first things you learn is that just about everything humans make is extremely identifiable. Pottery, for example, is so distinctive and specific one can use it as an alternative to carbon-14 dating with a comparable degree of accuracy.
Even though the module doesn’t explicitly say how the background information is supposed to come up in game, I’ll make sure to bring it up whenever relevant.
How much of this are you writing down ahead of time vs inventing on the fly?
I tend to play information retrieval as realistic as possible – which means most information requires effort from the players to find, or at least ask about. NPC’s might give them some information they find relevant if the NPC has reason to know (And the given NPC is intelligent enough to deem it relevant information on their own). I also generally make it very important for them to know information about what they’re dealing with – and my players often head to libraries to seek information about such things, or hit the rumor mills.
And then the exposition dump varies. Mostly it is more of a verbal summary of what they’ve heard/read to avoid filling entire sessions with a single exposition dump (The vast majority of my stuff does not get written down in full as it would be severely constraining on time, it just gets some directive notes), sometimes I give written handouts, if it is applicable, such as them finding journal entries or letters, and sometimes its conversations.
There was one time they mentally saw a number of memories of an Archfey (a very evil archfey), and while I started off with a basic summary, they expressed an interest in actually hearing full details, so that ended up actually getting fully written out for their next session.
And then I was a dick and made them roll d100’s for whether or not their character saw the memories in order or not. Most of them got the memories out of order.
But ultimately, I think exposition, how they receive it, and how it is delivered should really vary on context and scope. If they read six books on the Elemental Plane of Water, I’m not reading them six books of exposition. If they’re looking at a letter, I will more likely give them the full letter.
And sometimes I’ll share little pieces of lore with my players on stuff they missed, if it is no longer capable of being relevant.
I tried to use the PF1e library subsystem once upon a time. Sadly, the Int-based PC died shortly before that session, and so the rest of em ignored the mechanic. Sad times.
You know QuestGiver is not in a good place when you can see his eyes.
As I’ve said before: Characters like Elminster are bad for a setting. If it’s important, why aren’t they handling it? If it’s not important, why are you playing unimportant busywork?
I was unaware that he had eyes. Or all the powers of Elminster for that matter.
Giving the PCs some sort of boss to report to usually works the best for me. Not necessarily somebody more capable, but somebody more knowledgeable and/or better connected. A monarch, a studious (non-combat) mage, a local administrator… somebody with a bunch of problems and money to throw at it basically.
Beyond that, any information the players want is on their own to find out. Theyll have to capture an informant or pay their way to it.
In other words, you’re talking about a clearly defined Quest Giver who can serve as the mouthpiece of the GM.
The best advice I can give is to make sure the adventure is comprehensible without any big exposition dump. I ran Rise of the Runelords, and it was…not great at that. Or at leaving exposition in convenient locations. (It seemed to assume the players would start using divination spells to figure out what was going on or where to go next once they got to a high enough level.)
By contrast, look at the simple adventure I threw together once our group came back together earlier this year. It’s simple; you’re animals protecting a forest (long story), some animals report unnatural behavior from local centipedes, go investigate. Turns out there are demons there, along with giant corrupted centipedes, and when questioned they give a few vague words about preparing for some kind of summoning ritual. It’s dirt-simple, but it works, and dirt-simple is good for an adventure mainly meant to get people back into the swing of things and used to playing animals.
Weird. Laurel always brings up Rise of the Runelords as a good example of a well-organized plot. I think she liked discovering letters and ledgers and secret documents that linked one plot to the next, making it clear where the adventure wanted to head every step of the way.
What didn’t work for you?
The folks I play with have little patience for exposition, even when it’s necessary to navigate the adventure. When I’m running (which is often), the designated bard gets to make THE DIE ROLL THEY TOTALLY WON’T SCREW UP and get handed the backstory packet. They’re now the keeper of the lore, and can dole it out, horde it, or summarize it as they see fit. I have now literally put it in the hands of the players and gleefully washed my hands of it. Another tactic of mine is to have certain impatient NPC party members start the adventure without the rest of the group. The players are so busy playing catch-up they’re grateful for anything that will explain the chaos around them and will listen to storytime.
When I get to play, it’s often left to me to read the 20-page packet of world building one of our group generates. Unfortunately, my halfling rogue isn’t a reliable narrator and often translates things like High Elven Enclave as “country club for racist pointy-eared bastards” and Lower City as “ghetto for everybody who wasn’t privileged enough to be born an elf.”
Oh yeah. DMs love my halfling. Really.
This is an option I never considered. Neat!
How big is this packet?
„That Monster You’ll Totally Have to Fight Later.“
where is the emphasis on that?
„that monster you’ll totally have to FIGHT later.“
„THAT monster you’ll totally have to fight LATER.“
It’s one of those sentences that can change meaning by putting emphasis on any single word.
Translating from Common to English is the hardest part of this job.
Something that my group thinks could be cool but have never had the chance to actually do is that if a former PC is an NPC in the DM’s story, that the player should be the one “voicing” them but be given a list of info they need to get across to the other characters, somehow.
Ooh. I do like that. It becomes a temporary “co-DM” sort of setup.
I find that generally, if my players are interested in background, they’re looking for information, and so I use a combination approach.
There are a group of well studied bards in the Adventurer’s Guild!
There is a semi-mysterious NPC who knows a lot about a lot of things, but not necessarily the most useful or relevant information about them, though frequently they know stuff that would be useful to know regardless.
Sometimes they walk into a room and get exposited at, though a certain amount of that happens whenever you set the scene.
And sometimes, they need to be smart enough to make a roll on a relevant lore skill. They might even have to SCRY their answers depending on how specific they want their information.
No one approach should define the game or how reality works, but I think being aware of all the tools and expecting them to be used is the way to go. Because they might not use all the tools, or come to the wrong conclusion, we go back to being flexible enough to allow the “wrong” solutions to work.
It’s all interconnected.
Variety also have the advantage of keeping things fresh
I just like to make sure the options are on the table. I find the players are self-selecting, in a sense. They’ll go to the reliable source most of the time, but sometimes they look for other situations.
You give people freedom and they use it, often enough.
Do you ever have to remind them of the tools at their disposal? I’m particularly imagining new players who might not think to roll for lore or scry or cast commune.
This is actually a REALLY interesting question.
So, YES, all the time. But, in my session zero, I explain to everyone that I feel part of me being the best GM/DM I can for them is to NOT give them hints or tell them their options. That I’m running a game which gives them the reigns to make their choices and it’s my job on my end of the table to deal with and address their choices as best as I can, no matter my opinions on them.
And I flatly tell them that sometimes this makes it harder on all of us. But I want them to feel like they are driving the adventure, not following my prompts. In some ways, since I play in their games, they get ideas of how they might do things in my game from seeing how I explore different options in theirs.
Since I forced the matter of not being The Forever GM, I feel there’s been a lot more exchange of ideas and people being inspired to try things. We’ve not had a lot of opportunities for characters to scry, but this group actually has characters that could do it, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
It’s a difficult approach because it’s more based on your players believing you respect their autonomy rather than you being that jerk behind the DM screen. I’ll say this, though. We just started my game up again, both sessions, it’s gone into serious overtime. Like multiple extra hours of player RP after the session ends. Something is going right.
This is one of my big gripes with Pathfinder APs. They give you all this cool lore and background info on characters, items, and locations that the PCs come across in their adventures, but no way to actually communicate that info. Even a lot of one-off fights sometimes get two or three paragraphs of background info that nobody except the thing the PCs are trying to kill would know, and it has no reasonable motive to share that information with them. I feel like a lot of the APs try to plant plot seeds that connect the earlier books to the later ones, but there’s no real way for those seeds to actually grow.
I’m always confused by this tactic. On the one hand, I get that you’re writing for two audiences when you write an AP. You want to engage the GM first so that they can engage the players second. And in the same way that the events of the Silmarillion are only hinted at on LotR, this kind of backstory detail can provide the illusion of depth to PC interactions with the world.
I get that.
But do we really need to spend hundreds of words on this stuff? Like, I remember Troy Lavallee in the Glass Cannon Podcast trying to explain the fire giant king’s motivations after the fight. It had something to do with his kids getting murdered by “small folk,” but trying to wedge that mess into the game just don’t make no sense.
As an adventure designer myself, I prefer for those explanations to be there, but I want them to be concise.
Contrary to today’s advice i think having good intel depends on the players. The NPC and the DM can completely lie about the quest at hand and it’s up to the pc and the players to handle things on the field. Faulty intel may complicate things, but how those complications are handle is up to the players. Players can’t expect to get intel give to them on a silver plate 🙁
Which leads to today question to which i say that our prefer method is to switch to narrator mode and just give the players intel on a silver plate 😀
I think there’s a difference between “exposition” and “intel.” The former sets the scene, builds the world, and helps players to understand the context of the adventure. The latter is actionable information that can provide a tactical advantage.
There may be bleed between the two categories (e.g. “Let’s enrage Strahd by brining up his failed love life.”), but I think you’ve got to have some method for getting a bare minimum of lore to the players.
I said intel because they would need to tape my mouth shut for my to stop talking lore. And intel in the problem in the comic 🙂
Lore tells you about the monster. Intel in the answer to: “How do you kill this thing?” 😀
It’s funny… My mind is always on the blog post rather than the comic. Sometimes they don’t match perfectly.
Don’t shun your creation, you and Laurel make an outstanding job 🙂
My favorite device, when I can pull it off, is the players.
Either something from their backstory (roll what roll, this is something the PC has already experienced so of course they know this even if the player doesn’t), or they make a lore skill check and I PM them the result (since I’m almost always playing online; if offline, note passing works). This works best when it’s information that particular player knows the rest of the party needs to know, so they know their PC needs to relate it.
My current campaign, being sci-fi on a starship, has a backup method. The ship’s computer has a database, including a vast selection of lore about thousands of worlds – and thus, a variable amount of info about the specific world the PCs are at this session, as well as nearby worlds the PCs might head to given various needs. (“Your FTL drive needs lanthanum to fully fix. Checking the database, the only source within your ship’s remaining range is this world here.”)
I’m experiencing a lot of this in my current Blades in the Dark game. I’m a PC for once, and I haven’t taken much time to read up on the setting. In consequence, there’s been a lot of, “As a lifelong resident, you hardly even think to remark upon the lightning walls that protect the city from ghosts.”
This is exactly why I hate playing stupid characters, particularly in Pathfinder. Sure, it’s hard to play a character that’s almost certainly smarter than me, but there’s almost nothing I hate more in game than to miss out on information (or treasure. Treasure is probably higher). Getting to hear about all of the cool stuff going on in whatever game I’m playing is half the reason I’m in any given campaign. The other is to roll lots of dice and make the enemies explode into little gobbets.
My GM generally doesn’t force the information on the players, but encourages us to seek it out for ourselves. If we get past the point where it would be important/spoilers, he’ll give it to us for free. He does try to provide ways to discover things in game without making rolls, but sometimes the group goes charging in without properly investigating or goes a route where he can’t provide convenient exposition. This isn’t helped by my group generally playing very dumb characters. Majenko the house drake is smarter than any of our characters (though I did briefly have a magus that was smarter).
In regards to your players’ perspective on the NPCs being more central to the story in Jade Regent than the PCs, that’s something I’d also read in u/TOModera’s review of the AP. It’s cool to have callbacks in APs to things that happened in previous ones, but I prefer to not have to have read those APs as well just to get the reference or to have a connection to them.
What tactics are you imagining here? Simply asking the right NCP the right questions?
Yeah, JI only learned that Jade Regent is something of a sequel to Runelords after the fact. I just thought it would be nice to lead in from We Be Goblins.
Little things. Minor emphasis on certain things when doing descriptions, free hints if we look in the right spot (if it makes sense, like a wizard’s spellbook etc), references to things our group has done in different games (we were going to run into some gugs and he referenced an in-joke we have regarding gugs in a Lovecraft game), and yes, asking the right NPC the right questions.
Homebrew rule: Sapience arises because of the existence of a force called “narrativium” and any PC has sapience and can choose to attempt to interact with Narrativium at will.
When there’s a bunch of exposition I don’t know how to convey, I tell the players,
“You sense a concentration of Narrativium up ahead. Anyone who wants to interact with it, move forward to receive insight. Anyone who doesn’t, kitchen’s over there grab yourself a snack, or take the chance for a powder room run.”
Then anyone who stays gets subjected to Infodump I Couldn’t Gracefully Sneak In Another Way.
PCs who want further information are welcome to attempt to interact further with Narrativium (attempt knowledge/insight checks, etc).
They can also attempt to force one of these, as Players, doing a Search/Perception check for Narrativium.
If there’s stuff I want to give them at the time, I ignore the roll and give it to them then. If it’s borderline, I let the roll decide. If there’s nothing really there I treat it like a “gather information” attempt and give them whatever local gossip and NPC story things are happening.
Which can sometimes end up accidently derailing the entire campaign (So what if there’s a shapechanged fey living in a birdnest in the chimney of the old charcoalburner’s condemned hut being harassed by a(n actual) robin? That is throw-away fluff!! Why is finding a better mate choice for a mundane robin more important than tracking down where the mysterious plague came from, or finding a way to stop it from spreading?! NONE OF YOU ARE EVEN DRUIDS OR RANGERS! Darn right that three whole weeks later another group of adventurers took care of the plague and the village worships a different god now, thank you passing cleric. Find a new quest! You abandoned that one! It didn’t wait for you! No, you don’t get equivalent xp for playing Robin Yentas! Aaargh, players.)
A man of culture I see!
https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Narrativium
Does this “meta” approach ever ruin immersion? Or do you find that players are able to take an info-dump on the chin when it’s presented as such?
It might well ruin immersion -but if they complain too much, they get invited to DM the next session, so I don’t get a lot of complaints.
We’re all at the point in our lives where if we can take the time to play, we’ll let a lot of things slide just so we can play, even if it’s not ideal.
Dealing with a zombie-brained GM who can’t remember how to gracefully interject lore is something they’ll put up with so they can try out that will-o-wisp town sentry idea they came up with last session.
I’m pretty sure at this stage not a single one of us remembers the original plot anyhow, so Random Lore Dumps tend to be a welcome pointer at What We Should Probably Address At Some Point.
These things go on long enough, and even if they already got resolved somehow or another no one remembers it, so we can do it all over again.
Immersion breaking sometimes also breaks down the random-side-track-we-all-got-lost-on so you can recognize it was a rabbit hole and decide if you want to deliberately keep following that rabbit or get back to where you started.
Pratchett references are almost worse than Monty Python or Mel Brooks ones with our group. They show up with great regularity.
For anyone who uses Roll20, take a look at this big thread which lists a ton of Roll20 tricks, hacks and gimmicks you can pull off to make your DMing/Player life easier. There’s probably something for everyone.
https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/5899495/stupid-roll20-tricks-and-some-clever-ones
And… bookmarked.
I really need to up my Roll20 game. A buddy of mine just bought the full Blades in the Dark package for Roll20, and I had no idea the software was capable of half that stuff. I’ve just been using it as a digital grid this whole time.
I’m running a heavily homebrewed game for some friends over Discord and came across a case of these-characters-have-no-real-stake-in-the-plot-itis. Luckily, a bit of gold and magic items can get any broke magic roommates invested in political drama.
In retrospect, do you feel like that’s on you as the GM? Do you need to tailor plot hooks to PCs? Or should players build adventurers that actually want to adventure?
Since I generally organize my campaigns over Discord, I generally have a channel with a title relevant to the campaign in some way- Example, I used ‘#Gathered-Recollections’ for a campaign where the party had collective amnesia.
The use of this channel was to give players inklings of what’s going on elsewhere in the world, without it taking up session time for me to basically just talk about npcs for an hour. I found it useful both to drive player theorycrafting (they even ended up guessing correctly a couple times) and as practice for writing elsewhere.
As for in-session, I’ve found that an effective way to go about it is to tie a bunch of independent pieces together at one central point- but let the players discover from the outer edges and work inwards. For example, discovering three separate ongoing plots and letting the party uncover over time that as they investigate, these plots are converging on one central point. Of course, this works better with villains that tend towards the behind-the-scenes mastermind than the ones that tend towards the in-your-face-force-of-nature.
I like the idea in theory, but I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it. Got any concrete examples?
War For the Crown has a pretty good example in its main villain. As the main villain of a political intrigue campaign, he has his hands in every major plot thread in the entire campaign, from the Red Wedding-style slaughter that kicks off the campaign, to the subplots about the princess the party supports and her brother. Each of the 6 books the party learns a bit more about him, his organization, and his goals, until the final piece clicks into place only AFTER his death in book 6, revealing the actual final boss of the campaign.
This is the classic strat, right? We’re talking “Against the Giants” here. Kill the hill giant chief and find out he’s working for the frost giant jarl who is in league with the fire giant king who is secretly being influenced by the drow.
In essence, it’s an answer to that question of, “How do you have the PCs get to know the villain without giving them the chance to roll initiative against them?”
Does that sound about right?
Sort of, yeah. Its hard to explain without spoiling the actual story, but it’s sort of an ‘all roads lead to rome’ situation. You might not be fighting all of his subordinates on your way to him knowing he’s the end goal, but each time you dig up more information on him it becomes more and more clear how he’s masterminding everything.
This is the reason why taverns are staffed and patronized by people who absolutely LOVE to tell you the most inane stories they know. Never fool yourself into thinking that you’ll ever have more chances to convey information to them.
The most important information you can ever convey to a party just starting out? No matter who they talk to, whether than NPC knows the answer or not, the following piece of information is conveyed; “of course, I’m not really all that well informed about X topic. If there’s something people want to know, we all ask Y NPC, they seem to know pretty much everything there is to know about anything” Make that NPC’s name memorable and make them easily accessible, and if at all justifiable, make them magical and no matter where you go, everyone tells you the same name, and they can be accessed from just about anywhere.