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Elmoserpe
2018-07-04, 05:01 AM
So, i wanted to ask if the way my NPCs act in my game is wrong and what i could do to improve it. But to have a grasp of the situation, i'll try to briefly explain my campaign.

So, my D&D 5 campaign in short (kinda).

Basically a group of adventurers sets sail for a "new continent" and they get involved with political machinations of a noble to obtain control of the first colony so he can work on his agenda as a cultist. That's the first part, and the group had no problems with that, they even liked it. Then the second part begins, and they discover that the great continent that they were exploring was in fact already inhabited by two factions at war, one wants to expand its domains and the others is trying to repel the invaders while protecting one of many magic seals connected by ancient sorcery to, you guessed it, seal away apocalyptic creatures (ancient dragons, in this case). The party did nothing about it (not that that's a problem,mind you), and when they returned almost a year later from a planar travel, the seals were broken and the dragons basically destroyed the world, driving the survivors to hide.

Now, the problem starts here: even though most of the survivors are afraid and obviously won't go out of hiding to fight army-destroying dragons, resistance is present (mainly in the forms of elite dwarven knights hidden in the mountains, human enigneers that developed a prototype of "meteor-shooting cannon", a bunch of druids and a minotaur tribe), but the party says that NPCs are basically without personality and such, and that there is no space for actual role playing in this part of the campaign.

So, am i acting the wrong way for depicting most of the survivors as scared and unwilling to cooperate in ways that puts their life in danger (even if the resistance acts with their own reasons and motivations)? Let me know your opinions, and i hope the post wasn't too long.

Cheers!

DeTess
2018-07-04, 06:23 AM
I'd say that we lack information to answer your question, and you really should talk to your group more. The setup you described sounds reasonable, but we don't know how you play the individuals themselves. I suggest you talk to your players more to find out what exactly they don't like, not just that they don't like something.

Elmoserpe
2018-07-04, 06:42 AM
I will talk to my players before we start our next session, but maybe an extra example will help (extra details always help).

Remember the elite dwarven knights? They survived and kept fighting to protect the king while dragon cultists were spreading their word to convert more civilians into serving one the dragons, which we'll call dragon A. Then once dragon A was out of the way the party went to fight dragon B, and this time they weren't so lucky and had to retreat.
Now, since dragon B rallied an army including a lich, it was a matter of time before the same dragon ordered the lich to kill the dwarven king, who was a capable cleric (and of course an asset to the players in a war), and soon after that the players ranted that, for example, there was no grand funeral or celebration in honor of the king.

But i think is reasonable to not announce or make public the murder of a king in a city that just resolved a civil war, with the people on edge because DRAGONS.

As i said i'll have a talk with the players because, even without being a psychologist, i think the reactions of my NPCs are kinda reasonable.

DeTess
2018-07-04, 07:16 AM
I will talk to my players before we start our next session, but maybe an extra example will help (extra details always help).

Remember the elite dwarven knights? They survived and kept fighting to protect the king while dragon cultists were spreding their word to convert more civilians into serving one the dragons, which we'll call dragon A. Then once dragon A was out of the way the party went to fight dragon B, and this time they weren't so lucky and had to retreat.
Now, since dragon B rallied an army including a lich, it was a matter of time before the same dragon ordered the lich to kill the dwarven king, who was a capable cleric (and of course an asset to the players in a war), and soon after that the players ranted that, for example, there was no grand funeral or celebration in honor of the king.

But i think is reasonable to not announce or make public the murder of a king in a city that just resolved a civil war, with the people on edge because DRAGONS.

As i said i'll have a talk with the players because, even without being a psychologist, i think the reactions of my NPCs are kinda reasonable.

So did anyone tell the players those reasons? Because I agree that what you're doing sounds very reasonable, but that doesn't mean the players know enough to realize that. In your example, the second-in-command of the king probably should have told them exactly why the king's funeral wasn't held the way they thought it should. In the same vein, did the players have their characters bring this up? If not, why didn't they, as the players believed it's something that needed to happen?

Elmoserpe
2018-07-04, 07:22 AM
The session basically ended mintues after the players came to know that, then they brought it up privately. I'll explain it to them since it seems in order even though i imagined it to be pretty obvious (edit: especially since one of them is a wizard, an intelligent person, so i thought that a simple concept like that didn't need explaining since it was late at night too). That of course as a person with no experience in psychology or politics, as said before.

Resileaf
2018-07-04, 08:46 AM
Sounds like players who can't appreciate a good wham line revealing a terrible event at the end of the session.
Still, if possible, I would suggest making a couple of NPCs representing the factions that they interact with often and fleshing out their personalities so they can be people they can always talk to and interact with to discuss various world events. Perhaps you have too many NPCs they interact with and they are not given enough personality traits to be memorable.

Quertus
2018-07-04, 09:41 AM
the party says that NPCs are basically without personality and such, and that there is no space for actual role playing in this part of the campaign.

Oh, you didn't engage this part of the game? Apocalypse! Eh, I'm not a fan.

But that's not your issue. Your issue is that the players say that there is no opportunity for role-playing. So, ask them what they mean by roleplay in this context. Also, ask them what the most similar scenario that they can imagine would look like where they could roleplay, for their definition of roleplay.

Knightofvictory
2018-07-04, 12:15 PM
I'll try to answer from a player perspective. Awesome dwarven knights hiding underground is a cool piece of world building, but when you make it clear that they are hiding, and mistrusting of outsiders, my fist thought would be "ah, we're going to have to fight them because the DM doesn't want us to get too close." You didn't give a name of any specific individuals, so they all might as well be faceless rebel soldiers.

Now, if the players win a fight against some baddies, and find that they had a dwarven knight captive, who goes by the name Sir Risca Axfire (or whatever), and that dwarf needs the Players help to get back to his Resistance, then I would think "ah, a dude with a name, taking us to a bunch of npcs. Maybe we can ally with them. Maybe these dwarves can help us. Maybe they will betray and kill us because they don't want outsiders to know where they are." So I would want to ask Sir Axfire questions, maybe try some diplomacy or insight checks, definitely try to get a read on him so i know what he (and his knights when we meet them) will do. In other words, roleplay! Maybe Sir Axfire drinks too much. Maybe he's really, really violent. maybe he's a jerk with a heart of gold. maybe your players love/ hate this guy. More roleplay!

Main idea is give them a reason to talk to the rebels, or give a rebel a reason to talk to them. As a player sometimes you need those obvious quest markers to get the ball rolling and make a better story. Good NPCs either need to 1. need something from Players, or 2. have something players want and sometimes 3. both. Do this for me, and I'll give that to you.

Elmoserpe
2018-07-04, 03:01 PM
I'll try to answer from a player perspective. Awesome dwarven knights hiding underground is a cool piece of world building, but when you make it clear that they are hiding, and mistrusting of outsiders, my fist thought would be "ah, we're going to have to fight them because the DM doesn't want us to get too close." You didn't give a name of any specific individuals, so they all might as well be faceless rebel soldiers.

Now, if the players win a fight against some baddies, and find that they had a dwarven knight captive, who goes by the name Sir Risca Axfire (or whatever), and that dwarf needs the Players help to get back to his Resistance, then I would think "ah, a dude with a name, taking us to a bunch of npcs. Maybe we can ally with them. Maybe these dwarves can help us. Maybe they will betray and kill us because they don't want outsiders to know where they are." So I would want to ask Sir Axfire questions, maybe try some diplomacy or insight checks, definitely try to get a read on him so i know what he (and his knights when we meet them) will do. In other words, roleplay! Maybe Sir Axfire drinks too much. Maybe he's really, really violent. maybe he's a jerk with a heart of gold. maybe your players love/ hate this guy. More roleplay!

Main idea is give them a reason to talk to the rebels, or give a rebel a reason to talk to them. As a player sometimes you need those obvious quest markers to get the ball rolling and make a better story. Good NPCs either need to 1. need something from Players, or 2. have something players want and sometimes 3. both. Do this for me, and I'll give that to you.

Additional info: there was a notable npc they could interact with (so the dwarves weren't just faceless people). A knight known as Maverick "The Wall", a giant hunter who loves battle and almost ignores the risks of death and with occasional short term memory lapses. He served the king because that's one of the few things he can reliably do. Also, there was no problem in joining the dwarves since a party member is a dwarven Moradin paladin. I gave the king a personality too, since that was basically a previous character of mine: a pacifist cleric/druid who even TRIED (with debatable results) to accomodate drows between the refugees. I try to do that for most npcs, i know that non descript characters are bad.

WindStruck
2018-07-04, 03:27 PM
Well, given that you are only giving us a brief summary of events, it's not like anyone can just say your NPCs are faceless and devoid of personality.

Honestly it sounds like your players just made bad choices, and when the consequences arise from those bad choices, they complain they have no RP opportunity and that things did not unfold as they envisioned.

Elmoserpe
2018-07-04, 03:30 PM
Well, given that you are only giving us a brief summary of events, it's not like anyone can just say your NPCs are faceless and devoid of personality.

Honestly it sounds like your players just made bad choices, and when the consequences arise from those bad choices, they complain they have no RP opportunity and that things did not unfold as they envisioned.

I don't know, i don't even think there are actual bad choices, just choices that make the story unfold in certain ways.

WindStruck
2018-07-04, 08:20 PM
I don't know, i don't even think there are actual bad choices, just choices that make the story unfold in certain ways.

Well let's see. They...

-were totally fine with an aristocrat trying to subvert a colony and turning it into a death cult.
-did nothing to help ensure the seals containing the great evil in a can were kept intact
-pissed off one of the ancient evils and (probably?) caused it to go after one of their few remaining allies

I mean, sure, technically in an open world, sandbox type game where any choice is a valid choice... letting the world turn into a crapsack world is still a pretty bad choice. Cause then I'd say it's not really fun playing in it.

Darth Ultron
2018-07-04, 08:39 PM
Well, this is tricky to answer as we don't know what happened in the game word for word.

You might be over doing the player character focus too much. Most RPGs in general, and most fiction, do the sort of thing where everyone in the world is useless and only the heroes can do anything. This really makes no sense, of course, and to someone paying attention they will point this out.

And to a player IN the game, it can really seem and feel on the spot. When every NPC is like ''well, we are not going to do anything no matter what you say or do" (so, ok players you have to do everything all on your own), some players will complain.

Though, you do kind of want the world to be useless and the player characters to do everything: that is kind of the whole game. But for some players this is like sticking their characters out to be easy targets. They want some felling of defense and security: to feel like they are not alone in the whole world.

Often this support can just be stuff. The players want ''something'' so they can feel a bit powerful and have a chance against the Big Bad. And the bigger the bad, the better stuff they need. They don't want to try and stop the Big Bad with like a stick and a rock. So you really can't just say ''well here is a masterwork sword, now save the day". Of course, you don't want to give out artifacts either...you really want things with great power, but limited use.

At the same time you don't want all NPCs to be like ''yup, save the day PCs, I will be hiding over here". Add in some ones to help the PCs, even more ones that can be convinced to help with a bit of work by the PCs.

You might also need more 'random' NPCs, that are not on the 'scared' bandwagon.

Elmoserpe
2018-07-05, 08:14 AM
Well, this is tricky to answer as we don't know what happened in the game word for word.

You might be over doing the player character focus too much. Most RPGs in general, and most fiction, do the sort of thing where everyone in the world is useless and only the heroes can do anything. This really makes no sense, of course, and to someone paying attention they will point this out.

And to a player IN the game, it can really seem and feel on the spot. When every NPC is like ''well, we are not going to do anything no matter what you say or do" (so, ok players you have to do everything all on your own), some players will complain.

Though, you do kind of want the world to be useless and the player characters to do everything: that is kind of the whole game. But for some players this is like sticking their characters out to be easy targets. They want some felling of defense and security: to feel like they are not alone in the whole world.

Often this support can just be stuff. The players want ''something'' so they can feel a bit powerful and have a chance against the Big Bad. And the bigger the bad, the better stuff they need. They don't want to try and stop the Big Bad with like a stick and a rock. So you really can't just say ''well here is a masterwork sword, now save the day". Of course, you don't want to give out artifacts either...you really want things with great power, but limited use.

At the same time you don't want all NPCs to be like ''yup, save the day PCs, I will be hiding over here". Add in some ones to help the PCs, even more ones that can be convinced to help with a bit of work by the PCs.

You might also need more 'random' NPCs, that are not on the 'scared' bandwagon.

Well the resistance is there for that reason. Minotaurs and dwarves put everything they had at their disposal, resource-wise and soldier-wise, the enigneers were scared but fought anyway because "surviving is not living", basically, and the druids did a lot even thought they are reclusive people. And by the way, that might just be a case, but at the beginning of the campaign (when they were level 1) there were NPCs more AND less powerful than them helping them throughout their adventures, and they felt like those NPCs were stealing their spotlight. Now, i know that things can change, but you didn't want help at low levels and you want it at high levels? The PCs are now some of the most powerful entities on the material plane and they want help from the LVL 5 fighter they met, like, at the third session?

Elmoserpe
2018-07-05, 08:22 AM
Well let's see. They...

-were totally fine with an aristocrat trying to subvert a colony and turning it into a death cult.
-did nothing to help ensure the seals containing the great evil in a can were kept intact
-pissed off one of the ancient evils and (probably?) caused it to go after one of their few remaining allies

I mean, sure, technically in an open world, sandbox type game where any choice is a valid choice... letting the world turn into a crapsack world is still a pretty bad choice. Cause then I'd say it's not really fun playing in it.

Well point 1 and 2 are not entirely correct, since they did overthrow the aristocrat (when i said they didn't have a problem i meant that they liked that part of the campaign, story-wise, i should have written better than that) and they knew about some of the seals (they just decided that going into the feywild to look for someone was more important)

kyoryu
2018-07-05, 10:22 AM
So, am i acting the wrong way for depicting most of the survivors as scared and unwilling to cooperate in ways that puts their life in danger (even if the resistance acts with their own reasons and motivations)? Let me know your opinions, and i hope the post wasn't too long.

Cheers!

A) even in such a situation, individuals will have their own goals and desires.
B) in desperate times, people may be afraid, but they'll also be desperate for any edge that they can get. Once they get on "the inside", that's where relationships can develop. Think of the town in the Road Warrior. They didn't want to let Max in, but once he proved himself useful, he developed at least some level of relationships with many of the people on the inside.

Elmoserpe
2018-07-05, 10:37 AM
A) even in such a situation, individuals will have their own goals and desires.
B) in desperate times, people may be afraid, but they'll also be desperate for any edge that they can get. Once they get on "the inside", that's where relationships can develop. Think of the town in the Road Warrior. They didn't want to let Max in, but once he proved himself useful, he developed at least some level of relationships with many of the people on the inside.

I get it, but that's exactly what the resistance is for, except that the party isn't very appreciative of the help either. Because of course a minotaur can't deal with a dragon, what can you expect? It will help, but it's not a hero, it's a minotaur. The king? To them he was basically a bank and a "cast resurrect!" guy, not someone with a personality (even though he had one, as i wrote above). The druids? They helped on their own terms (because they had rules and such) and when the party didn't like those terms anymore instead of saying "thanks for the previous help" they were like "we hope the other dragons chew you up". Luckily in a couple hours i'll talk to the players so we can get to the bottom of this.

kyoryu
2018-07-05, 11:05 AM
I get it, but that's exactly what the resistance is for, except that the party isn't very appreciative of the help either. Because of course a minotaur can't deal with a dragon, what can you expect? It will help, but it's not a hero, it's a minotaur. The king? To them he was basically a bank and a "cast resurrect!" guy, not someone with a personality (even though he had one, as i wrote above). The druids? They helped on their own terms (because they had rules and such) and when the party didn't like those terms anymore instead of saying "thanks for the previous help" they were like "we hope the other dragons chew you up". Luckily in a couple hours i'll talk to the players so we can get to the bottom of this.

So, it sounds like you didn't give them any personalities.

Elmoserpe
2018-07-05, 11:15 AM
So, it sounds like you didn't give them any personalities.

Then we get back to the original question, what can i do to improve them other than giving them goals, desires and personality traits (that apparently aren't enough)?

kyoryu
2018-07-05, 01:37 PM
Then we get back to the original question, what can i do to improve them other than giving them goals, desires and personality traits (that apparently aren't enough)?

Were those visible to the players? Because you certainly didn't mention them. Were their goals acted on? Did the players see the results of this?

Roleplaying is very much a "show don't tell" type of situation.

Darth Ultron
2018-07-05, 01:43 PM
And by the way, that might just be a case, but at the beginning of the campaign (when they were level 1) there were NPCs more AND less powerful than them helping them throughout their adventures, and they felt like those NPCs were stealing their spotlight. Now, i know that things can change, but you didn't want help at low levels and you want it at high levels? The PCs are now some of the most powerful entities on the material plane and they want help from the LVL 5 fighter they met, like, at the third session?

Sometimes players just complain no matter what happens.


Then we get back to the original question, what can i do to improve them other than giving them goals, desires and personality traits (that apparently aren't enough)?

Give them full personalities and not just traits?

Maybe just have more varied NPC? A good trick is to add NPCs you don't like and would not think of. Just grab a book or movie or TV show and look at the characters and ''convert'' them to your game.

WindStruck
2018-07-05, 01:44 PM
Who was so important that the players went into the feywild to look for them?

Elmoserpe
2018-07-05, 01:55 PM
Who was so important that the players went into the feywild to look for them?

The warlock's patron.

Elmoserpe
2018-07-05, 01:57 PM
Sometimes players just complain no matter what happens.



Give them full personalities and not just traits?

Maybe just have more varied NPC? A good trick is to add NPCs you don't like and would not think of. Just grab a book or movie or TV show and look at the characters and ''convert'' them to your game.

That's not a bad idea, i guess. I'll see what i can do.

Quertus
2018-07-05, 02:25 PM
I get it, but that's exactly what the resistance is for, except that the party isn't very appreciative of the help either. Because of course a minotaur can't deal with a dragon, what can you expect? It will help, but it's not a hero, it's a minotaur. The king? To them he was basically a bank and a "cast resurrect!" guy, not someone with a personality (even though he had one, as i wrote above). The druids? They helped on their own terms (because they had rules and such) and when the party didn't like those terms anymore instead of saying "thanks for the previous help" they were like "we hope the other dragons chew you up". Luckily in a couple hours i'll talk to the players so we can get to the bottom of this.


So, it sounds like you didn't give them any personalities.


Were those visible to the players? Because you certainly didn't mention them. Were their goals acted on? Did the players see the results of this?

Roleplaying is very much a "show don't tell" type of situation.

If your players don't understand (and cannot manipulate or otherwise interact with) the NPCs personality traits, they may just believe that you are railroading them along a set storyline, giving or withholding aid as suits the needs of your story.

Or the players may dislike role-playing, may dislike NPCs having personalities, and may prefer Diplomacy DC X to mind control get the NPC top do what I want.

Or numerous other possibilities.

Let us know what you find out.

Elmoserpe
2018-07-05, 04:40 PM
Ok, session over, here's what i've got:

1- the party, even though demands more interaction with NPCs, admits that they were limiting it too, since they were pretty much teleporting in and out of their "safehouse"

2- they're still dissatisfied with being the only ones with actual chances of beating the dragons, although they got there a bit underleveled because of stuff that happened and i didn't manage to "level" (no pun intended) the fights. I guess this is on me.

3- and last but not least, they didn't actually understand some of the motivations of the NPCs so i HAD TO explain it to them. It could have gone better, but it could also have gone way worse.

Problem solved i guess? I thank all of you for your opinions and suggestions.

Untill next time,
cheers!