Repackaged
Here’s the thing about quests: Players can refuse ’em. And that sucks the giant suck when it happens.
“Naw, I don’t feel like interacting with that objective you’d put so much time and effort into constructing for the explicit purpose of my entertainment. Instead, I’d like to talk to this sentient mop you improvised in a churlish display of agency-for-agency’s-sake. We’ll be a few hours.”
The blood boils. The forehead vein throbs! Or at least, it used to do. Then I wised up and realized that I could just make the players do my quests anyway.
“You don’t want to go to the Bone Orchard to retrieve the Strange White Fruit that grows there? Very well. Here is a druid who needs to inter her adorable hamster at the local cemetery. Maybe you’d like to do that Bone Orchard Quest on the way?”
In the same way that Fighter hates Mousefolk but loves getting treasure, your players might prefer some specific tactic. Reward, altruism, mysteries, backstory tie-in… If one doesn’t get them excited, it’s time to try the others.
And that brings us to our question of the day! How do you tempt players back to the ‘correct’ path? When the game is off the rails, the players are refusing to cooperate with your plans, and you session is in imminent peril, how do you refocus attention on the quest? Should you? Hit is down in the comments with all your finest tactics for repackaging quests into something shiny and appealing!
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It’s kind of incredible,and also kind of horrible, that Fighter still thinks he’s being “good”. :-/
Dude is a Hero. That’s good by default, right?
…
Um.
He’s very good at what he does. Is there any other meaning of “good” you were considering?
Yes.
Several.
L.E. at some point considered Fighter a ‘Pure Hearted Child’. Of course, pure hearted doesn’t mean it’s a *good* kind of pure heart…
If anything, he probably just wants to avoid getting coal this year. And in typical child logic, he thinks he compensate for a year of bad deeds in the span of the Yule season.
Eeee more Ratfolk. Also, a potential mini-Christmas arc?
Quest giver better be careful of Artificer coming over to clobber him with a giant candy cane.
I wonder if Fighters hatred of Ratfolk is cause they’re cute, cause they give poor treasure/loot/exp, or cause Fighter in general doesn’t trust anything cute as per the Handbooks advice.
I think you just about have it covered. Fighter’s heart shrank three sizes that day!
Of course they had to be a Ratfolk. A lot of Yules ago Wizard fought for the freedom of the elves that worked in Santa’s Workshop, now all mall Santas need to be acompanied of another small companions in place of the elves.
Usually there’s at least *one* Goodie two-shoes in the party that I can guilt into doing the right thing, or at least one Lawful that I can have a superior *order* to brave the perilous peril. But sometimes, just sometimes, when the PCs (or the players themselves, despite the PCs on-paper alignments) are, at best, on the greyer half of the alignment grid, I remind them that–as DM–I am the only source of Scooby Snacks.
Oh, you wanted to get paid? Sprinkles are for winners.
If you spend any more time in town, one of the other 5 billion adventurers served will be the one snuggling the macguffin tonight.
And –my favorite, and an actual example– you don’t want to explore the scary crypt, though your benefactor and liege told you to? Fine. He sends a squad of low-level soldiers to investigate instead, and they don’t come back. Hey, remember when you leveled, took the Leadership feat, and the boss said he’d give you command of a regiment? Yeah, guess whose would-be followers just disappeared down the Big Gaping Maw of Certain Death? If you want the henchmen, then you better go save them. Your leveling reward from last session now numbers “however many are left intact when you find them.”
This is the reason I run open world campaigns. Like I’ve said before, if I’m running a story arc (which I seldom do), it’s easy to just move the target to make sure the players hit it.
Wow, QG’s eyes are visible and he’s in a good mood?!
I’ve never had to tempt a party back onto the path. I do feel that Baldur’s Gate 3 is a masterclass of keeping all parties of all motivations on the path.
(Referring to your linked page: Walk Away) Well to be fair, you DID call it the “Dungeon of Perma-Death.” You had that one coming. Sometimes it’s not a matter of repackaging a quest. You have to know why players refused the call of adventure. If they feel like there’s too high a risk, they won’t go in. This isn’t the Tomb of Horrors, players in a regular game aren’t throwing wood into the grinder unless they agreed on that ahead of time of don’t know until it’s too late. And if your dungeon really is that dangerous, time to add some guardrails. Of course, there IS the problem of players incorrectly assessing a level of unfair danger that isn’t there. That’s when you can circle back to the above idea and redecorate the door with less edgy skulls (Obstacles within notwithstanding in such circumstances).
I use the notion of 3 different style of plothooks that appear different but are the same thing followed by a ticking clock tied to a plot harpoon full of consequences. Failure is always an option and should amuse the DM if nothing else.
Here is my version of the example;
1. A Wizard wants someone to go to the Bone Orchard to retrieve the Strange White Fruit.
2. A spice merchant has a caravan missing on Via Ossum in the western mountains
3. The Knochen river has all but dried up and the halflings who live along it need help.
Plot: some of the Strange White Fruit have fallen down the mountain and taken root, giving rise to a massive bone willow that is blocking the Knochen and feeding on the caravan.
The consequences clock is now ticking. Two weeks game time later, the halfling refugees arrive and the harpoon is loaded. If the players ignore it, it launches when a company of troops are sent west a few days later. If the players don’t accompany it, the harpoon hits when the few surviving soldiers come back at full speed, reporting that when damaged the Bone Willow fronds fall off and become skeletons and now a massive horde of undead are on their way.
Boom, consequences. You have less than 1 hour before the undead arrive. The townsfolk are in full panic. Tick tock.
I usually have 2 or 3 plots available, each ticking away with their own clock and flavors of hooks. Some have minor harpoons (“another company defeated the kobolds and received a small cottage in the town as a reward”) others major (see above). Usually one of them is little more than an idea I have set far enough away I can get away with a “travel” session so I can write it up the details later.
This also creates a trickle of news in the world about events resolving without the heroes that makes it a living, breathing setting.
I usually take those unchosen plots and save them for later, when I reskin them and up the threat ratings. Sometimes they are my “far away” plot.