JadedDM
2010-04-22, 01:13 AM
Okay, so...in my current AD&D game, all of my players but one have dropped out for varying reasons. The lone player remaining is sticking with me, though, so we're just going one-on-one.
Recently her character died (Javelin of Lightning to the face, boom!) and so she rolled a new character--a bard.
Since she is my only player at the moment, I see no reason not to try and come up with lots of quests and sidequests that focus more on the things bards are best at, like diplomacy, intrigue, and performing. I try to come up with quests that are open-ended with lots of different possibilities that involve heavily on interaction (which is a style of gaming she prefers anyway, so it's all good).
The problem is, I think I'm being too subtle here.
One quest I used recently was a spy quest of sorts. A little background...
There's this town with a ruling noble family. The nobles run everything in town (except the temple) and so are quite powerful. Anyway, the bard is approached by a servant and brought to the manor for a job. The town's lord has a brother who is leader of the constables. It was this brother's wife who actually wanted to hire the bard. See, she suspects her husband is up to something illegal. He's always sneaking off and staying late at work, and she's afraid if he is up to something, it might prove a scandal and make the family look bad. She can't rely on anyone in town, because they might secretly be in her husband's pocket, so an outsider is needed. So the bard's job is simple: Spy on the captain and see what he's up to.
The bard does so, using an Invisibility spell to follow the captain around, and she learns the captain is having an affair with a young barmaid at the tavern. The bard immediately reports back to his wife, tells her what she saw, promises to keep it to herself and collects her reward.
Seems pretty straightforward, but there were lots of possibilities here. She could have tried blackmailing the captain or exposed the truth to create a scandal and ruin the family's name (not necessarily a bad thing, as the family mostly consists of bullies and jerks). She could have also talked to the barmaid, who would have hired her to break the captain and his wife up, so they could be together. So lots of different ways to play it out.
But she played it straightforward, and when I talked to her about it afterward, she said she had no idea she had all of those options. She just assumed there was only one way to go about this. So I guess I need advice on how to make these choices more visible to her. As a rule, she's never been terribly good at thinking outside of the box on her own. Any thoughts on this problem?
Recently her character died (Javelin of Lightning to the face, boom!) and so she rolled a new character--a bard.
Since she is my only player at the moment, I see no reason not to try and come up with lots of quests and sidequests that focus more on the things bards are best at, like diplomacy, intrigue, and performing. I try to come up with quests that are open-ended with lots of different possibilities that involve heavily on interaction (which is a style of gaming she prefers anyway, so it's all good).
The problem is, I think I'm being too subtle here.
One quest I used recently was a spy quest of sorts. A little background...
There's this town with a ruling noble family. The nobles run everything in town (except the temple) and so are quite powerful. Anyway, the bard is approached by a servant and brought to the manor for a job. The town's lord has a brother who is leader of the constables. It was this brother's wife who actually wanted to hire the bard. See, she suspects her husband is up to something illegal. He's always sneaking off and staying late at work, and she's afraid if he is up to something, it might prove a scandal and make the family look bad. She can't rely on anyone in town, because they might secretly be in her husband's pocket, so an outsider is needed. So the bard's job is simple: Spy on the captain and see what he's up to.
The bard does so, using an Invisibility spell to follow the captain around, and she learns the captain is having an affair with a young barmaid at the tavern. The bard immediately reports back to his wife, tells her what she saw, promises to keep it to herself and collects her reward.
Seems pretty straightforward, but there were lots of possibilities here. She could have tried blackmailing the captain or exposed the truth to create a scandal and ruin the family's name (not necessarily a bad thing, as the family mostly consists of bullies and jerks). She could have also talked to the barmaid, who would have hired her to break the captain and his wife up, so they could be together. So lots of different ways to play it out.
But she played it straightforward, and when I talked to her about it afterward, she said she had no idea she had all of those options. She just assumed there was only one way to go about this. So I guess I need advice on how to make these choices more visible to her. As a rule, she's never been terribly good at thinking outside of the box on her own. Any thoughts on this problem?