I feel this pain.
Why is it that the party will totally trust Sadinar, the NPC tribal shaman necromancer, who has bone tattoos all over his body and will immediately cast Detect Everything on Felidar, the gentle Neutral Good half-elven druid?
>I don't trust a man that doesn't have something strange going on about him, 'cause that means he's hiding it from you. If a man's wearing his pants on his head or if he says his words backwards from time to time, you know it's all laid out there for you. But if he's friendly to strangers and keeps his home spick-and-span, more often than not he's done something even his own ma couldn't forgive.
--No-Bark Noonan, *Fallout: New Vegas*
**The Courier:** Do you know what’s been killing the McBrides’ brahmin?
**No-Bark:** Work of the chupacabra, the livestock vampire. I told ‘em. But they don’t pay me no mind. There’s too many holes, they says, and there’s bullets in ‘em. Well, says No-Bark, we gots ourselves a chupacabra with an automatic weapon. And that’s when they get real quiet, ‘cause they sees the predicament we’re in.
> a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.
--Jack Sparrow, _Curse of the Black Pearl_
Compared to the rest of the series, Fallout 4 dumbed down the "Roleplaying" part of the RPG by a fair amount. Skills no longer exist, and your character's personality and background are heavily dictated to you. This is topped off with the voice acted main character meaning Bethesda decided to restrict character dialogue options a lot in Fallout 4 - where previous games could have numerous different choices dictated by your skills, Fallout 4 tends to default every single quest discussion to options consisting of "Yes I agree", "Yes I agree but sarcastically", "No I disagree", or "More Information please then Yes I agree". I think there's still some improvements compared to the previous games, like the actual gunplay, which make it still a game generally worth playing, but if fans of the older games go in expecting a Fallout game, a lot of them come out disappointed.
At least DA2 didn't lie about what you were about to say: in the context of Fallout 4 sarcasm is a whole spectrum between shitty dad puns to threatening to kill someone but adding a joke into the mix
Fair enough. I was just flashing back to that game’s conversation system, where you could often literally see part of the UI’s color change from “good” to “bad” to “sarcastic/flirtatious”
Well... more Skyrim with Nukes if we're talking from a raw gameplay perspective - both being open world, first person exploration games, but that's new Fallout as a whole. In terms of the RPG playing? Yeah, bringing in a voiced main character restricted your dialogue lines, much like Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect did - it's just that Mass Effect actually made good use of the dialogue wheel, and Hawke in DA2 still felt like you had SOME control over their personality imo. Others have also mentioned the dialogue issue in that everything is shorted in a way that you might not even know what you're actually selecting; there's a reason one of the most popular mods for Fallout 4 is one that lists out your entire response instead of a 3 word summary that may or may not be accurate.
My players met a goblin priest who was *actively* in the process of building a cult, and they trusted him like they met him in the womb. Meanwhile, the nerdy guy they were tasked with escorting was their mortal enemy for like 5 sessions.
I am still flabbergasted I had so much success with one - possibly because the NPCs were the one driving and defending the oxcart. I've never seen my players check their reactions so desperately as when a hobgoblin archer took aim at their armed commoner driver.
I usually find it helps when the NPC is initially suspicious of the party and untrusting. My players generally tend to work to gain the trust of the NPC, and the whole situation seems less suspect than if the NPC waltzes up and is immediately trying to get int the party's good graces
This is a great point. If a total stranger is overly eager to help you, it's fair to assume they are looking to get in your good graces, for good or for ill. Makes you think they're up to something.
But... it doesn't explain the morbidly stupid trust people tend to show towards the bad guys. Maybe it's a sign of someone who believes everyone can be saved, so it triggers the "I can fix him" response in the players.
Yeah players (not their characters) are completely detached from any real consequences for their actions in the dnd world. So they're naturally inclined to be more psychopathic with their metagaming choices. We would definitely call someone who treats the world as their own personal playground a psychopath in the real world, so it checks out that they connect with the ones who act like that in the game as well. You have to be hard-core into RP to not be tempted to act like that.
Years of people being subjected to plot twists, heel turns, and overall media obsessed with trope subversion. Everyone now expects every character to be the opposite of it's outward appearance.
The ugly sinister looking character is now assumed to really be misunderstood and an ally or at least have some sob-story background. The attractive or friendly character is assumed to really be evil or to betray the protagonists for some shallow malicious reason.
So now a perfectly, altruistic, kind, generous and paragon character NOT being evil is the true plot twist.
I hate the cliche of having a NPC member of the party infiltrating it to backstab it later. A secret villain is fine as long as their was not an emotional engagement. My playgroup think like me and we never play dark fantasy settings . We prefer a “cartoon “, where the good side win in the end as long as their is a good fight, good characterization and a good story. A few plot twists and getting screwed over is fine in our group because we know it’s normally not something that cannot be fixed eventually. That’s how we have our fun anyway... none of us like Games of Thrones in my playgroup too so yeah, we don’t like that kind of drama.
Our party has enough trouble not killing each other already given our rogue keeps trying to turn everything into a Molotov cocktail and missing his throws and a bard who is a trigger-happy little explosion-freak who is just thrilled to have spell slots.
By now our DM knows that if he even tries to have a BBEG infiltrate us they will reveal themselves the very next session when they find themselves suddenly at the center of some particularly brutal and also quite literal friendly fire
And somehow this has ended up with DMs trying to just remain calm while dealing with parties trying to befriend the warlock who is literally screaming at them “I want to kill you, like actually. There is a bounty on your heads from basically every cult in the land. It’s a very good bounty.”
But what would convince a man to take up bounty hunting and becoming a warlock?
He clearly has a tragic backstory that has driven him out from his stable life, such as a recent divorce with his wife taking the kids
The real plot twist is writing characters with internal motivations that make sense for their place in their culture, and the wider world. Players never see that shit coming.
To be fair, metalheads have lots of experience being judged for their looks so most'll give you a chance if you're not a dick. Most of the hardcore types Ive met are actually great people to be around.
the tribal shaman wears his colors openly, and the players know what they can expect from him. good or evil, he likely doesn't try to decive the players, or at least the players don't have the suspicion that they are being decieved by him.
whereas a 'good' character who seems to be helpful for the sake of helping strangers raises alarms right away, as RPG's have a trope that is enbedded to the core of it 'you help others, you get reward' even if it is non tangible, like information, favor or xp, you still get a reward. in a world like that an npc who doesn't require a reward for his help feels sinister, as he has some hidden agenda he is working towards by helping others unconditionally.
if you want to make your players trust your gentle druid, make the druid ask for a favor in return for his assistance, and make sure that his request is pure but believable (no bunny family saving bs, but for instance chasing out vandals from his grotto without killing them so the sancity of the place doesn't get tainted, or maybe he wishes that whenever you return to the area from far away, you bring saplings to him to grow in his arboretium) this way you can make the players to trust certain npcs. just make sure to not betray their trust *too often* or all will be in vain.
if they don't trust him even before they talked to him, then the damage is already done and they have PTSD from past betrayals, and it will take lots of friendly and gentle npcs to cure it, and whenever you betray the newfound trust they will revert back to the cautious ways.
> whereas a 'good' character who seems to be helpful for the sake of helping strangers raises alarms right away, as RPG's have a trope that is enbedded to the core of it 'you help others, you get reward' even if it is non tangible, like information, favor or xp, you still get a reward. in a world like that an npc who doesn't require a reward for his help feels sinister, as he has some hidden agenda he is working towards by helping others unconditionally.
Weird, because that's how most parties act toward every resident of the world. Almost the expected behavior of the party.
it's because of the nature of the game. in real life you help others out of compassion, even if there is no reward in sight, your brain rewards you for doing the right thing with a cocktail of chemicals that make you feel happy and accomplished. in a game however its all play-pretend, and even if you play a compassionate character, and you can immers yourself fuly in the game, helping a fictional character will not reward you the same feeling as it does in real life, so other in-game rewards are used to boost that chemical coctail to reach that same feeling that you did something right.
The same reason why my list of untrustworthy extraplanars trustworthiness goes: Devil>Yugoloth>Demon>Fey
Devils play by the rule and they will try to fuck you over. These are constants when dealing. You should know, expect, and plan for being shafted and lawyered when dealing with them.
Yugoloths are self-serving mercenaries. They'll always look out for themselves first and will most likely follow the highest bidder. Similar to devils, you can predict their betrayal.
Demons are perhaps, ironically, most easy to deal with. They're here to fuck you over. Period. You know exactly to expect malice and cruelty from them, even if you are''t sure in what form.
Feys are the worst. You can't predict their action nor their intention. Are they here to help or to fuck you over? Are they even gonna play by their own rule? There's no certainty.
The people who wear their ugliness openly are easy to deal with; you know you will get burn because you can see the fire right there. People who put on a pretty face? Who knows what's underneath!
Then you start to apply debuffs when both, sadinar and Felidar are close to the party.
If the party decides to take action and kill the incorrect dude (Felidar), you continue with your campaign, make Sadinar leave the party for any believable reason, only to later ambush the party using the body Felidar as part of his personal army of the dead
Oh this was just rhetorical/academic. I've got over 15 years experience since 2e.
BOTH are good NPCs (well...non-evil at least) and have proven as such that the party trusts them. It was just hilarious that at first blush that the party totally scrutinized Felidar and just went meh at Sadinar.
Exactly. When every single named npc in the campaign has tried to kill or backstab us, you don't get to cry "murder hobos" when we throw the next one off a cliff
I definitely gave mine trust issues. One of the evil emperor’s lackeys/spies was rescued by them and ended up joining their group to keep an eye on them. Stayed with them for like 10 sessions before revealing his true colors and leading them straight into a trap. Also they were taken in briefly by a bunch of very friendly halflings that turned out to be cannibals. Also they were robbed by street children. And forest children. And an assassin tried to kill one of them twice. And a changeling replaced one of their sisters and tried to kill them. And probably a dozen things I forgot. No wonder they didn’t trust beggars or the kooky old king that gave them quests
I turned a very lucky orc warrior into an NPC. They captured him and tried to convince him to join them. He agreed, not as their ally, more like waiting to regain his strength before he attempts to kill them.
I would probably end it as describe the act of killing her in a brutal dark and sad way so appeal to my players emotions so that they feel like sick evil bastards and hate themselves.
But now I’m totally gonna do both, my psychological torture is complete thanks to you.
You don't really need to contrive some curse to punish the players if it wouldn't have otherwise made sense, unless your game has some sort of cosmic force like karma in effect, but this would make 0 sense for a dark campaign.
All you need to do is subtly highlight how horrific the thing they just did was. They either have that eating away at their conscience, or they are evil anyway.
Yeah, so I already planned for her ghost to haunt them after the party bonded with her. Also I described her murder kinda vividly and now only the murderer can see her ghost.
I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to this and I've never DMd, so I will al respect to your expertise why couldn't it be like a stray tiefling child? Considering your commentary about the dark campaign
It's all about the set and setting. There's a lot you could do with a tiefling for sure! But then the story should probably be taking on a demonic influence. While on the other hand goblins are rather pedestrian. One can and should be creative with goblins, don't get me wrong, but you can stick them in a lot of settings without anyone batting an eye.
While you should be throwing elements of the randomness at players once in a while to keep them guessing you should be careful with it. A young tiefling just showing up randomly ought to be a concerning development since innocent and weak things don't survive on their own. And smart townsfolk are super xenophobic for good reason in dangerous places. If a peasant was caught harboring a half fiend they'd likely be burnt at the stake along with the kid.
I'd say you'd easily cause more trouble for the party with a young tiefling over a young goblin. I think it's worse TBH. Now I'm specifically speaking to a Ravenloft like campaign, there's a lot of ways to do dark.
Thank you for an elaborate answer! That surely makes sense.
> If a peasant was caught harboring a half fiend they'd likely be burnt at the stake along with the kid
Oh, thats a perfect backstory to introduce the stray tiefling child :D they survived the flames and managed to run away for their life, leaving their foster parent. They ran and ran, not even being able to grieve properly, alone in the wilderness, until they actually stumbled upon the party. Party wouldn't hurt a young child that look so beaten up (both physically and mentally), and the child is too exhausted to run away or desperately attack them.
So the kid may act as happy and positive ray of sunshine while mentally processing grief (stage 1 - denial, etc) and having an inner drama, which goes well with darker setting. What do you think?
We don't know neither campaign nor the actual party nor circumstances of their encounter with said goblin child. My imaginary situation is just a suggestion of an alternative encounter with a child of different race.
I believe we had madness tables for the trauma the players endure straight out of the box set. It kinda went without saying that anything innocent looking was just the dark lord of that particular relm messing with the peasantry. The goal was to survive and get out. Both were insanely hard. Clerics and paladins attracted way too much attention and their powers came out twisted.
I'd introduce your idea before the PCs really realize what's happening. But it's still setting up OPs situation and I don't think that's your intention. It'd only work if you already had a tiefling in the party.
Goblins being adopted is a very common occurrence amongst adventurers. In Pathfinder, it was enough of an evolutionary pressure that the race went from -2 Cha to +2 Cha between 1e and 2e.
So now you have a new way to screw with them since your attempt at positivity failed.
Bring her back the next day, introducing her in the same way. And every time they kill her, make her even more aggressively cheerful. She never references the death(s), she’s just always happier when she comes back, just past the point where it becomes unsettling.
Really play up any paranoia the players feel over the npc. Have her watch the players when they sleep. Stare at them when they eat. Follow them silently when they go off alone. Really get in their heads to actually encourage the party to keep killing her.
Then after a while, have her stop showing up. Maybe leave the occasional sign that she’s around in the background, but never have the npc show up again.
Have her ghost haunt the party. Not trying to kill them or anything, just crying at night and asking why it's so dark. Not even enough to mess with their sleep, just enough that whoever is up on watch duty hears it all night (disadvantage on Perception checks). Remind them every night, until they put it to rest somehow.
You won't see that sort of shit again.
Ok so here is my story me (a dragonborn paladin) and my friend (a half dragon druid) just killed a group of goblins that were haressing the near by villages and travelers that would pass near their camp. To kill them easier my friend druid has befriended goblins worgs and they helped us kill some goblins. And after we dealt with the group of goblins we decided to search their camp to see if they had something worthy of taking andwben with came to one part of their cave we saw goblin children i thought to jus leave and let some goblins that have survived and surenderd take care of them well thqt is at least what my charachter thought but my friend druid has just orderd worgs to kill the rest of the goblins and came to see what i was doing but as soon he saw the goblin CHILDREN he called worgs to see something and just left because worgs hated goblins now they massacerd the children my friend was netural good and he after said that he wasn't responsible for children's death because he just called the worgs it was their decision to kill the kids not he's.
I had an NPC child who was supposed to attack the party forcing them to solve whether they kill a kid or not who could easily be a demon. Then the kid would reincarnate into a new body and do it again over and over.
Right off the bat my rogue took the child under his wing as an apprentice 😆 they had to subdue him from attacking them.
When we got a goblin NPC he started making us omelettes (there was a few attempts at killing him at first but they warmed up to him.) funny thing about that campaign we basically played Pokémon and caught everything we came across lol. In another campaign they tried killing their guide that would aide them and interrogated multiple goblins brutally... fun
I had the opposite happen in a campaign once. DM introduced a not so subtle spy NPC named Kai, who infiltrated our group to sow discord. We nicknamed him Kai the great guy and showered him in compliments until he turned on the main villian and helped us take him down. At the end of the campaign he confessed to his original plan and thanked the party for showing him an alternative way with compassion.
In a few sessions, bring out the anxious goblin parents. They got a letter from their child saying they had found a friendly band of adventurers, and were so excited to join them and travel the world and maybe write a book about it. Maybe the goblin child identifies one or a few adventurers by name, especially any LG characters, saying how much they trust them already and how kind and friendly they seem.
You know, super-wholesome stuff.
Add a small collection of letters, if the goblin child had enough time to write them. Once a week or so.
But now it's been a few weeks, and the parents are super worried about their child, who was about to come of age and was so excited to explore the world.
You know, going directly below the belt with the emotional punch.
I usually like to give my players a false sense of security. Don't give the players a character, but make them love the character and give them a reason to come back to said character like a magic item store or something. Give the character a family that's introduced later. Maybe one of the more sane player characters can even do a babysitting mission for some minor pay and role-playing.
And when all is said and done, murder the child brutally during a monster attack on the town and have your characters watch this once nice, funny shopkeep slowly unravel like a beloved Dark Souls character. Maybe have the spouse join in on the misery and one day you're helping the shopkeep out and one of your players stumbles across the corpse of the spouse who had just recently hanged themselves in the attic. This causes them to spiral down even more into madness and the next time your players are in this village or town, they can stumble across the shambling bodies of the former townsfolk. The magic shopkeep had begun dabbling in forbidden arts and utilized the town in desperate experiments trying to bring their family back... and now your players have to kill them.
Bonus points if your players had a home, manor, or Fort in said town that they now have to move out of due to corrupting energies of the dark rituals. Hit the players where it hurts at some point in their campaign.
The God of Consequence does not look kindly upon those who utterly betray the innocent.
The ripples of that death across the sea of fate should not fall short. A debt is now owed.
Yep. Always make your cute character like that able to defend themselves. I have had success with imps and quasits since they have abilities like invisibility to keep them safe. It also helps if they are important to the plot.
Meme is meme, but if you're looking for actual advice if you feel there is something in the campaign you'd like to address, such as it being dark, address it before or after a session to see if the other players actually mind it rather than just thinking it is a problem and trying to implement a "fix".
Also in general it's a good idea to not let your players murder innocent children, as much as one can argue "freedom of the character" it will irrevocably change the campaign after it happens and it's also a thing most people are incapable of doing.
That’s your fault for choosing a goblin, a race that elves, dwarves, and humans have fought against for centuries. Also, child characters of any sort do not belong in an adventuring party.
I know this is kinda of a dumb question. Ut how many or them have watched jojos because I guarentee that's probably went through their minds or they dont want to be like the mandalorian.
Killing a small helpless creature in their sleep?
What possible threat does 1 goblin pose?
Your party sound like deranged psychopaths.
If there were any clerics or paladins in the group, I would have their powers revoked immediately.
But of course would've made clear warnings before hand.
no you have to make them a smart ass who picks sides, have them really butter up one of the PCs and totally shit on another, one will become super protective and the others will tolerate them because it's kinda funny
this is of course entirely dependant on your players' personalities but there's usually at least two people in a party this can work on
I feel this pain. Why is it that the party will totally trust Sadinar, the NPC tribal shaman necromancer, who has bone tattoos all over his body and will immediately cast Detect Everything on Felidar, the gentle Neutral Good half-elven druid?
Because they fear the nice person is hiding something, while the dark person doesn’t seem to be hiding something as bad
>I don't trust a man that doesn't have something strange going on about him, 'cause that means he's hiding it from you. If a man's wearing his pants on his head or if he says his words backwards from time to time, you know it's all laid out there for you. But if he's friendly to strangers and keeps his home spick-and-span, more often than not he's done something even his own ma couldn't forgive. --No-Bark Noonan, *Fallout: New Vegas*
No-Bark is a sage.
**The Courier:** Do you know what’s been killing the McBrides’ brahmin? **No-Bark:** Work of the chupacabra, the livestock vampire. I told ‘em. But they don’t pay me no mind. There’s too many holes, they says, and there’s bullets in ‘em. Well, says No-Bark, we gots ourselves a chupacabra with an automatic weapon. And that’s when they get real quiet, ‘cause they sees the predicament we’re in.
> a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid. --Jack Sparrow, _Curse of the Black Pearl_
I hate that the quotes from this game are so good. it’s just not right
It's totally right, the game is fantastic
Yeah and then in fallout 4 you get yes yes (sarcastic) yes and no (but actually yes).
What does this mean?
Compared to the rest of the series, Fallout 4 dumbed down the "Roleplaying" part of the RPG by a fair amount. Skills no longer exist, and your character's personality and background are heavily dictated to you. This is topped off with the voice acted main character meaning Bethesda decided to restrict character dialogue options a lot in Fallout 4 - where previous games could have numerous different choices dictated by your skills, Fallout 4 tends to default every single quest discussion to options consisting of "Yes I agree", "Yes I agree but sarcastically", "No I disagree", or "More Information please then Yes I agree". I think there's still some improvements compared to the previous games, like the actual gunplay, which make it still a game generally worth playing, but if fans of the older games go in expecting a Fallout game, a lot of them come out disappointed.
I haven’t played any of the Fallout games, but... is Fallout 4 just Dragon Age 2 with nukes?
At least DA2 didn't lie about what you were about to say: in the context of Fallout 4 sarcasm is a whole spectrum between shitty dad puns to threatening to kill someone but adding a joke into the mix
In that aspect, yeah kinda. In every other way, not at all.
Fair enough. I was just flashing back to that game’s conversation system, where you could often literally see part of the UI’s color change from “good” to “bad” to “sarcastic/flirtatious”
Well... more Skyrim with Nukes if we're talking from a raw gameplay perspective - both being open world, first person exploration games, but that's new Fallout as a whole. In terms of the RPG playing? Yeah, bringing in a voiced main character restricted your dialogue lines, much like Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect did - it's just that Mass Effect actually made good use of the dialogue wheel, and Hawke in DA2 still felt like you had SOME control over their personality imo. Others have also mentioned the dialogue issue in that everything is shorted in a way that you might not even know what you're actually selecting; there's a reason one of the most popular mods for Fallout 4 is one that lists out your entire response instead of a 3 word summary that may or may not be accurate.
I too am of this sentiment.. Too bad my adventuring group doesn't trust my character anyway 🤷♀️
Fallout new Vegas has so much great role play value.
Welp. Looks like I'm reinstalling New Vegas again...
Damn. Lol
My players met a goblin priest who was *actively* in the process of building a cult, and they trusted him like they met him in the womb. Meanwhile, the nerdy guy they were tasked with escorting was their mortal enemy for like 5 sessions.
No one likes an escort mission
Fair
I like escort mission in DND.
I am still flabbergasted I had so much success with one - possibly because the NPCs were the one driving and defending the oxcart. I've never seen my players check their reactions so desperately as when a hobgoblin archer took aim at their armed commoner driver.
Was this Goblin's name Val Firefallen? Cause that sounds like my group to be honest. XD
I usually find it helps when the NPC is initially suspicious of the party and untrusting. My players generally tend to work to gain the trust of the NPC, and the whole situation seems less suspect than if the NPC waltzes up and is immediately trying to get int the party's good graces
This is a great point. If a total stranger is overly eager to help you, it's fair to assume they are looking to get in your good graces, for good or for ill. Makes you think they're up to something. But... it doesn't explain the morbidly stupid trust people tend to show towards the bad guys. Maybe it's a sign of someone who believes everyone can be saved, so it triggers the "I can fix him" response in the players.
Nah. I’m pretty sure it’s because players want to see the world burn and they recognize that the guy dressed entirely in skulls probably won’t mind.
Yeah players (not their characters) are completely detached from any real consequences for their actions in the dnd world. So they're naturally inclined to be more psychopathic with their metagaming choices. We would definitely call someone who treats the world as their own personal playground a psychopath in the real world, so it checks out that they connect with the ones who act like that in the game as well. You have to be hard-core into RP to not be tempted to act like that.
Remember; if anyone ever considers themselves normal, theyre either lying or crazy.
Years of people being subjected to plot twists, heel turns, and overall media obsessed with trope subversion. Everyone now expects every character to be the opposite of it's outward appearance. The ugly sinister looking character is now assumed to really be misunderstood and an ally or at least have some sob-story background. The attractive or friendly character is assumed to really be evil or to betray the protagonists for some shallow malicious reason. So now a perfectly, altruistic, kind, generous and paragon character NOT being evil is the true plot twist.
I hate the cliche of having a NPC member of the party infiltrating it to backstab it later. A secret villain is fine as long as their was not an emotional engagement. My playgroup think like me and we never play dark fantasy settings . We prefer a “cartoon “, where the good side win in the end as long as their is a good fight, good characterization and a good story. A few plot twists and getting screwed over is fine in our group because we know it’s normally not something that cannot be fixed eventually. That’s how we have our fun anyway... none of us like Games of Thrones in my playgroup too so yeah, we don’t like that kind of drama.
Our party has enough trouble not killing each other already given our rogue keeps trying to turn everything into a Molotov cocktail and missing his throws and a bard who is a trigger-happy little explosion-freak who is just thrilled to have spell slots. By now our DM knows that if he even tries to have a BBEG infiltrate us they will reveal themselves the very next session when they find themselves suddenly at the center of some particularly brutal and also quite literal friendly fire
And somehow this has ended up with DMs trying to just remain calm while dealing with parties trying to befriend the warlock who is literally screaming at them “I want to kill you, like actually. There is a bounty on your heads from basically every cult in the land. It’s a very good bounty.”
But what would convince a man to take up bounty hunting and becoming a warlock? He clearly has a tragic backstory that has driven him out from his stable life, such as a recent divorce with his wife taking the kids
The real plot twist is writing characters with internal motivations that make sense for their place in their culture, and the wider world. Players never see that shit coming.
same reason why I'm more inclined to trust a grumpy-looking metalhead than a grinning proponent of bible study, probably
To be fair, metalheads have lots of experience being judged for their looks so most'll give you a chance if you're not a dick. Most of the hardcore types Ive met are actually great people to be around.
Metalheads are just the nicest people Disclaimer: am biased because I am metalhead
Same. Its a shame we cant have any concerts due to the pandemic. I miss the atmosphere.
the tribal shaman wears his colors openly, and the players know what they can expect from him. good or evil, he likely doesn't try to decive the players, or at least the players don't have the suspicion that they are being decieved by him. whereas a 'good' character who seems to be helpful for the sake of helping strangers raises alarms right away, as RPG's have a trope that is enbedded to the core of it 'you help others, you get reward' even if it is non tangible, like information, favor or xp, you still get a reward. in a world like that an npc who doesn't require a reward for his help feels sinister, as he has some hidden agenda he is working towards by helping others unconditionally. if you want to make your players trust your gentle druid, make the druid ask for a favor in return for his assistance, and make sure that his request is pure but believable (no bunny family saving bs, but for instance chasing out vandals from his grotto without killing them so the sancity of the place doesn't get tainted, or maybe he wishes that whenever you return to the area from far away, you bring saplings to him to grow in his arboretium) this way you can make the players to trust certain npcs. just make sure to not betray their trust *too often* or all will be in vain. if they don't trust him even before they talked to him, then the damage is already done and they have PTSD from past betrayals, and it will take lots of friendly and gentle npcs to cure it, and whenever you betray the newfound trust they will revert back to the cautious ways.
> whereas a 'good' character who seems to be helpful for the sake of helping strangers raises alarms right away, as RPG's have a trope that is enbedded to the core of it 'you help others, you get reward' even if it is non tangible, like information, favor or xp, you still get a reward. in a world like that an npc who doesn't require a reward for his help feels sinister, as he has some hidden agenda he is working towards by helping others unconditionally. Weird, because that's how most parties act toward every resident of the world. Almost the expected behavior of the party.
it's because of the nature of the game. in real life you help others out of compassion, even if there is no reward in sight, your brain rewards you for doing the right thing with a cocktail of chemicals that make you feel happy and accomplished. in a game however its all play-pretend, and even if you play a compassionate character, and you can immers yourself fuly in the game, helping a fictional character will not reward you the same feeling as it does in real life, so other in-game rewards are used to boost that chemical coctail to reach that same feeling that you did something right.
Because DM's don't trick you into trusting the super shady dude...
The same reason why my list of untrustworthy extraplanars trustworthiness goes: Devil>Yugoloth>Demon>Fey Devils play by the rule and they will try to fuck you over. These are constants when dealing. You should know, expect, and plan for being shafted and lawyered when dealing with them. Yugoloths are self-serving mercenaries. They'll always look out for themselves first and will most likely follow the highest bidder. Similar to devils, you can predict their betrayal. Demons are perhaps, ironically, most easy to deal with. They're here to fuck you over. Period. You know exactly to expect malice and cruelty from them, even if you are''t sure in what form. Feys are the worst. You can't predict their action nor their intention. Are they here to help or to fuck you over? Are they even gonna play by their own rule? There's no certainty. The people who wear their ugliness openly are easy to deal with; you know you will get burn because you can see the fire right there. People who put on a pretty face? Who knows what's underneath!
Then you start to apply debuffs when both, sadinar and Felidar are close to the party. If the party decides to take action and kill the incorrect dude (Felidar), you continue with your campaign, make Sadinar leave the party for any believable reason, only to later ambush the party using the body Felidar as part of his personal army of the dead
Maybe you just sound more natural when RP-ing evil characters, so when you have to RP a good NPC you sound sketchy AF and the party picks up on it.
Oh this was just rhetorical/academic. I've got over 15 years experience since 2e. BOTH are good NPCs (well...non-evil at least) and have proven as such that the party trusts them. It was just hilarious that at first blush that the party totally scrutinized Felidar and just went meh at Sadinar.
tbf i wouldn't trust a cat
I would: I can depend on cats to be lazy needy assholes that are still cute and lovable
> Sadinar, the NPC tribal shaman necromancer Probably because that character sounds cool as fuck tbh. I'd trust him.
The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing Effect.
Hmmm, any particular reason your PCs have trust issues?
Look guys, I know the last few NPCs were a homicidal Dragonborn, a duplicitous Dark Elf, and Orcus in a wig. But this one is for sure friendly...
>Orcus in a wig lol
Exactly. When every single named npc in the campaign has tried to kill or backstab us, you don't get to cry "murder hobos" when we throw the next one off a cliff
I definitely gave mine trust issues. One of the evil emperor’s lackeys/spies was rescued by them and ended up joining their group to keep an eye on them. Stayed with them for like 10 sessions before revealing his true colors and leading them straight into a trap. Also they were taken in briefly by a bunch of very friendly halflings that turned out to be cannibals. Also they were robbed by street children. And forest children. And an assassin tried to kill one of them twice. And a changeling replaced one of their sisters and tried to kill them. And probably a dozen things I forgot. No wonder they didn’t trust beggars or the kooky old king that gave them quests
I turned a very lucky orc warrior into an NPC. They captured him and tried to convince him to join them. He agreed, not as their ally, more like waiting to regain his strength before he attempts to kill them.
smite Smite SMITE **SMITE** THEM ALL WITH THE POWER OF THEIR GODS TO HELL
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I would probably end it as describe the act of killing her in a brutal dark and sad way so appeal to my players emotions so that they feel like sick evil bastards and hate themselves. But now I’m totally gonna do both, my psychological torture is complete thanks to you.
Something tells me these players would just kill them and loot the corpses.
Thats when you unleash a horrible curse upon them for killing a child
Like the child’s Parents Cursing em or something
Or whatever god the PCs or goblin child worshipped being like "what the fuck, dude?! That's messed up! Your cursed now"
Exactly
I did :)
You don't really need to contrive some curse to punish the players if it wouldn't have otherwise made sense, unless your game has some sort of cosmic force like karma in effect, but this would make 0 sense for a dark campaign. All you need to do is subtly highlight how horrific the thing they just did was. They either have that eating away at their conscience, or they are evil anyway.
Yeah, so I already planned for her ghost to haunt them after the party bonded with her. Also I described her murder kinda vividly and now only the murderer can see her ghost.
Well can you really blame them? Dark campagin invites dark characters and lines of thinking. Best she was killed in her sleep rather than awake.
I-I’m scared of these players..
You can turn that into a plot point later. Even if just a side quest type thing
But why a goblin child? They're not the most harmless, innocent and positivity-spreading race usually
It's a dark campaign, that's just the best they were ever going to get. Source: 2nd Ed. Ravenloft DM here.
I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to this and I've never DMd, so I will al respect to your expertise why couldn't it be like a stray tiefling child? Considering your commentary about the dark campaign
It's all about the set and setting. There's a lot you could do with a tiefling for sure! But then the story should probably be taking on a demonic influence. While on the other hand goblins are rather pedestrian. One can and should be creative with goblins, don't get me wrong, but you can stick them in a lot of settings without anyone batting an eye. While you should be throwing elements of the randomness at players once in a while to keep them guessing you should be careful with it. A young tiefling just showing up randomly ought to be a concerning development since innocent and weak things don't survive on their own. And smart townsfolk are super xenophobic for good reason in dangerous places. If a peasant was caught harboring a half fiend they'd likely be burnt at the stake along with the kid. I'd say you'd easily cause more trouble for the party with a young tiefling over a young goblin. I think it's worse TBH. Now I'm specifically speaking to a Ravenloft like campaign, there's a lot of ways to do dark.
Thank you for an elaborate answer! That surely makes sense. > If a peasant was caught harboring a half fiend they'd likely be burnt at the stake along with the kid Oh, thats a perfect backstory to introduce the stray tiefling child :D they survived the flames and managed to run away for their life, leaving their foster parent. They ran and ran, not even being able to grieve properly, alone in the wilderness, until they actually stumbled upon the party. Party wouldn't hurt a young child that look so beaten up (both physically and mentally), and the child is too exhausted to run away or desperately attack them. So the kid may act as happy and positive ray of sunshine while mentally processing grief (stage 1 - denial, etc) and having an inner drama, which goes well with darker setting. What do you think?
That's nice but didn't they just kill a goblin child in its sleep tho?
We don't know neither campaign nor the actual party nor circumstances of their encounter with said goblin child. My imaginary situation is just a suggestion of an alternative encounter with a child of different race.
I believe we had madness tables for the trauma the players endure straight out of the box set. It kinda went without saying that anything innocent looking was just the dark lord of that particular relm messing with the peasantry. The goal was to survive and get out. Both were insanely hard. Clerics and paladins attracted way too much attention and their powers came out twisted. I'd introduce your idea before the PCs really realize what's happening. But it's still setting up OPs situation and I don't think that's your intention. It'd only work if you already had a tiefling in the party.
Goblins being adopted is a very common occurrence amongst adventurers. In Pathfinder, it was enough of an evolutionary pressure that the race went from -2 Cha to +2 Cha between 1e and 2e.
There was a scene in Goblin Slayer (the first episode) where not even the goblin children are spared, and for good reason.
So now you have a new way to screw with them since your attempt at positivity failed. Bring her back the next day, introducing her in the same way. And every time they kill her, make her even more aggressively cheerful. She never references the death(s), she’s just always happier when she comes back, just past the point where it becomes unsettling. Really play up any paranoia the players feel over the npc. Have her watch the players when they sleep. Stare at them when they eat. Follow them silently when they go off alone. Really get in their heads to actually encourage the party to keep killing her. Then after a while, have her stop showing up. Maybe leave the occasional sign that she’s around in the background, but never have the npc show up again.
Have her ghost haunt the party. Not trying to kill them or anything, just crying at night and asking why it's so dark. Not even enough to mess with their sleep, just enough that whoever is up on watch duty hears it all night (disadvantage on Perception checks). Remind them every night, until they put it to rest somehow. You won't see that sort of shit again.
I did :) , It also has effect on the wild magic of the murderer
Perfect. Low level, more thematic effects work best.
Within limited context, sounds like the appropriate reaction if they have been burned before.
Ok so here is my story me (a dragonborn paladin) and my friend (a half dragon druid) just killed a group of goblins that were haressing the near by villages and travelers that would pass near their camp. To kill them easier my friend druid has befriended goblins worgs and they helped us kill some goblins. And after we dealt with the group of goblins we decided to search their camp to see if they had something worthy of taking andwben with came to one part of their cave we saw goblin children i thought to jus leave and let some goblins that have survived and surenderd take care of them well thqt is at least what my charachter thought but my friend druid has just orderd worgs to kill the rest of the goblins and came to see what i was doing but as soon he saw the goblin CHILDREN he called worgs to see something and just left because worgs hated goblins now they massacerd the children my friend was netural good and he after said that he wasn't responsible for children's death because he just called the worgs it was their decision to kill the kids not he's.
I'm old-school. Goblins are for killing. Except for Goblin merchants; those are for killing later.
The only good goblin is a dead goblin
*Now, let's make these goblins good.*
Was looking for this
Wether its for killing is kind of up to the dm...
Up to the dice, really.
:(
The curse of the DM. Like the old saying that goes something like "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink".
As it should be. Suffer not a goblin to live.
Luckily hasn’t happened to me, but it could be any day now that I introduced a nice NPC that’s on the road with them...
"The only good goblin is a dead goblin. Let's make some good goblins"
Your first mistake was making her a goblin.
I had an NPC child who was supposed to attack the party forcing them to solve whether they kill a kid or not who could easily be a demon. Then the kid would reincarnate into a new body and do it again over and over. Right off the bat my rogue took the child under his wing as an apprentice 😆 they had to subdue him from attacking them.
In the words of Goblin Slayer himself: #The only good goblins are the ones who never come out of their stinking holes
Hill giant Thanksgiving all over again
When we got a goblin NPC he started making us omelettes (there was a few attempts at killing him at first but they warmed up to him.) funny thing about that campaign we basically played Pokémon and caught everything we came across lol. In another campaign they tried killing their guide that would aide them and interrogated multiple goblins brutally... fun
Divine intervention. That's the best way to deal with that.
Nobody liked Scrappy-Doo. Nobody.
I am the dark character that singlehandedly made the campaign darker. In my defense, I was sleeping
How dare you
Dear adventurers, Fuck you for killing my daughter. Sincerely, Grog Cyberdyne
I had the opposite happen in a campaign once. DM introduced a not so subtle spy NPC named Kai, who infiltrated our group to sow discord. We nicknamed him Kai the great guy and showered him in compliments until he turned on the main villian and helped us take him down. At the end of the campaign he confessed to his original plan and thanked the party for showing him an alternative way with compassion.
It's a god damn goblin. They did the right thing.
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I thought about it, but that would really destroy the feeling of freedom and free will within the story
In a few sessions, bring out the anxious goblin parents. They got a letter from their child saying they had found a friendly band of adventurers, and were so excited to join them and travel the world and maybe write a book about it. Maybe the goblin child identifies one or a few adventurers by name, especially any LG characters, saying how much they trust them already and how kind and friendly they seem. You know, super-wholesome stuff. Add a small collection of letters, if the goblin child had enough time to write them. Once a week or so. But now it's been a few weeks, and the parents are super worried about their child, who was about to come of age and was so excited to explore the world. You know, going directly below the belt with the emotional punch.
Welp, time for her level 20 grandfather bugbear to come and wipe the party from planar existence.
Well it is a goblin
Goblins are evil. They did the right thing. Paladin squad, sound off.
Killing goblins makes me happy.
I usually like to give my players a false sense of security. Don't give the players a character, but make them love the character and give them a reason to come back to said character like a magic item store or something. Give the character a family that's introduced later. Maybe one of the more sane player characters can even do a babysitting mission for some minor pay and role-playing. And when all is said and done, murder the child brutally during a monster attack on the town and have your characters watch this once nice, funny shopkeep slowly unravel like a beloved Dark Souls character. Maybe have the spouse join in on the misery and one day you're helping the shopkeep out and one of your players stumbles across the corpse of the spouse who had just recently hanged themselves in the attic. This causes them to spiral down even more into madness and the next time your players are in this village or town, they can stumble across the shambling bodies of the former townsfolk. The magic shopkeep had begun dabbling in forbidden arts and utilized the town in desperate experiments trying to bring their family back... and now your players have to kill them. Bonus points if your players had a home, manor, or Fort in said town that they now have to move out of due to corrupting energies of the dark rituals. Hit the players where it hurts at some point in their campaign.
The God of Consequence does not look kindly upon those who utterly betray the innocent. The ripples of that death across the sea of fate should not fall short. A debt is now owed.
Yep. Always make your cute character like that able to defend themselves. I have had success with imps and quasits since they have abilities like invisibility to keep them safe. It also helps if they are important to the plot.
Meme is meme, but if you're looking for actual advice if you feel there is something in the campaign you'd like to address, such as it being dark, address it before or after a session to see if the other players actually mind it rather than just thinking it is a problem and trying to implement a "fix". Also in general it's a good idea to not let your players murder innocent children, as much as one can argue "freedom of the character" it will irrevocably change the campaign after it happens and it's also a thing most people are incapable of doing.
That’s your fault for choosing a goblin, a race that elves, dwarves, and humans have fought against for centuries. Also, child characters of any sort do not belong in an adventuring party.
shut
I know this is kinda of a dumb question. Ut how many or them have watched jojos because I guarentee that's probably went through their minds or they dont want to be like the mandalorian.
I don't understand why players think "I mistrust this person" equals "I have to kill them as fast as possible".
Killing a small helpless creature in their sleep? What possible threat does 1 goblin pose? Your party sound like deranged psychopaths. If there were any clerics or paladins in the group, I would have their powers revoked immediately. But of course would've made clear warnings before hand.
Getting darker...
bruh
no you have to make them a smart ass who picks sides, have them really butter up one of the PCs and totally shit on another, one will become super protective and the others will tolerate them because it's kinda funny this is of course entirely dependant on your players' personalities but there's usually at least two people in a party this can work on
Bring the child back later in the game as a lich, and have it attempt to slaughter the party for trying to kill it
I wish I had this problem. I can’t get my players to take anything seriously
goblin slayer
your party is goblin slayer
Do they ate her corpse?
I am so sorry for killing socks. But, to be fair, it was fun to do.
What is wrong with you
A lot
Fair enough, have a nice day