ClothedInVelvet
2011-07-11, 11:02 AM
Right now I'm DMing a solo adventure for a friend. I had him build a lvl 10, and he's basically on a treasure hunt. I wanted this to be an exercise in non-linear thinking (get out of the mindset of "I walk into the next room and kill everything there. Rinse and Repeat.")
So the rich man's daughter was kidnapped, and he hired the PC to find her. She really ran away to marry the tailor, but her father thinks she's been kidnapped and that seems to be the story the PC bought. The lead the PC took was that a powerful wizard cast a crazy protection spell on her and he might be able to sense her location through that bond somehow. So the PC went to find the wizard, but found out that he got power hungry and turned evil (Dread Necromancer/Pale Master). There's a paladin who's trying to kill him, but the paladin understands that, while they could probably kill the wizard, they're not going to get by the hundreds of HD of vampires.
So the PC has a couple options. He could leave the wizard alone entirely, and pursue the quest some other way (pay for a locate...). He could find some more powerful ally against the wizard. He could do what the wizard asks and just kill the paladin to get his help. But the player seems to be stuck, unsure of what to do.
So how much do I help him? I've rescued PCs when they did stupid things before, but I'm not sure how much is helpful and how much is just me taking over. What have you done in the past? What's worked? And what would you advise?
So the rich man's daughter was kidnapped, and he hired the PC to find her. She really ran away to marry the tailor, but her father thinks she's been kidnapped and that seems to be the story the PC bought. The lead the PC took was that a powerful wizard cast a crazy protection spell on her and he might be able to sense her location through that bond somehow. So the PC went to find the wizard, but found out that he got power hungry and turned evil (Dread Necromancer/Pale Master). There's a paladin who's trying to kill him, but the paladin understands that, while they could probably kill the wizard, they're not going to get by the hundreds of HD of vampires.
So the PC has a couple options. He could leave the wizard alone entirely, and pursue the quest some other way (pay for a locate...). He could find some more powerful ally against the wizard. He could do what the wizard asks and just kill the paladin to get his help. But the player seems to be stuck, unsure of what to do.
So how much do I help him? I've rescued PCs when they did stupid things before, but I'm not sure how much is helpful and how much is just me taking over. What have you done in the past? What's worked? And what would you advise?