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Cikomyr
2019-04-08, 11:21 AM
All right. So I have a few ideas to passively setup temptations for my players. Doing the greedy/lazy thing va doing the heroic thing. No punishment either way, it's mostly about seeing the way the wing is blowing, morality - wise.

The setup of the party is that they are all seeker of a Lost Oracle. The reason they meet is because of shenanigans with a sage, etc.. That part is not important. What's important tho is that I independantly checked with them and all of their backstory has some aspect of a personal quest that is very important to them at a personal level. And all of them are looking for the Oracle to answer one question each.

However, here's the dilemma I want to throw at my player: for some reason, there's a question that would help other people/the world/?????? that needs answering.

So if they want to have that answer, one of them would have to sacrifice their question. Obviously, they could always all ask their own questions and allow the 3rd party get screwed if they wish so.

Here's my problem: I don't know how to setup the situation that would explain why there's a need for that 3rd party question, while the 3rd party, or its representative, not being there to ask the question.

Any suggestion?

noob
2019-04-08, 12:02 PM
All right. So I have a few ideas to passively setup temptations for my players. Doing the greedy/lazy thing va doing the heroic thing. No punishment either way, it's mostly about seeing the way the wing is blowing, morality - wise.

The setup of the party is that they are all seeker of a Lost Oracle. The reason they meet is because of shenanigans with a sage, etc.. That part is not important. What's important tho is that I independantly checked with them and all of their backstory has some aspect of a personal quest that is very important to them at a personal level. And all of them are looking for the Oracle to answer one question each.

However, here's the dilemma I want to throw at my player: for some reason, there's a question that would help other people/the world/?????? that needs answering.

So if they want to have that answer, one of them would have to sacrifice their question. Obviously, they could always all ask their own questions and allow the 3rd party get screwed if they wish so.

Here's my problem: I don't know how to setup the situation that would explain why there's a need for that 3rd party question, while the 3rd party, or its representative, not being there to ask the question.

Any suggestion?
Questions such as "what is the way to feed all the poor people dying of hunger" can work well.

Cikomyr
2019-04-08, 12:07 PM
Questions such as "what is the way to feed all the poor people dying of hunger" can work well.

That is not a bad idea, but there's no one they would have to let down directly. It's too... Vague of a "betrayal" (?) if you know what I mean?

noob
2019-04-08, 12:20 PM
That is not a bad idea, but there's no one they would have to let down directly. It's too... Vague of a "betrayal" (?) if you know what I mean?

I guess it means the characters of your players do not see getting a solution to world hunger as heroic so it already means that they are not ready to do a sacrifice for an huge number of people they do not know which is usually considered as heroic in the selfless way.
I guess you could present multiple options like "you could ask for how to help that cute puppy you can see which will die horribly","insert question that could save a lot of people they do not know","whichever question they were going to ask","ask a question about the meaning of life (not interesting if it is a setting where the gods created life and have picked a meaning for it)" and possibly a question on where is the phylactery of a lich a band of heroes could not find or another violent question of this kind.
There is tons of questions that people wants answered so if someone is aware the adventurers will go ask a question to an oracle tons of people might go and tell those adventurers interesting questions to ask to the oracle.

Friv
2019-04-08, 12:20 PM
Maybe there is someone else with them, and that person goes first but doesn't get a critical bit of information?

Random example: The PCs could get hired by an NPC who's a capable healer but a terrible combatant, and he wants them to escort him to the Oracle as well so that he can learn how to cure a plague spreading in his homeland. Along the way, he can help out with injuries and do his share of chores around the campfire, and he gets out of the way when there's a fight, so it doesn't feel like a "keep this dumb-dumb from getting killed".

And he reaches the Oracle, who picks people in an arbitrary order, and chooses him first, and he asks how to cure the plague, and the Oracle tells him that it requires a mixture of three parts Bloodwort, one part Glimmerroot, and one part Senjeng leaf. But when the guy asks where to find Glimmerroot and Senjeng leaf, the Oracle shrugs and tells him that he got his answer, and he just slumps to the ground, devastated.

And then the heroes can decide whether to help him or not (or as a third route, whether they're willing to spend a lot of time to find that answer for him after getting the answer to their own question. Multiple options are always nice!)

*EDIT*


Questions such as "what is the way to feed all the poor people dying of hunger" can work well.

The thing is, usually when you go to an oracle you want concrete questions and answers. The answer to "how to feed all the poor people dying of hunger" is "restructure all of society such that the rich give their resources to help the poor eat." Which is great and accurate and all, but also totally useless from a heroic perspective because you're up against massive societal forces instead of things that can be punched.

jjordan
2019-04-08, 12:21 PM
Questions such as "what is the way to feed all the poor people dying of hunger" can work well.Kill half of them and feed them to the other half? Too derivative?

Sorry. I like Friv's response on how to set this up. You could vary it, have the questioner trying to end the plague and save his dying children and have him die before he reaches the Oracle. Players are now faced with not only asking the question but taking the answer back.

noob
2019-04-08, 12:26 PM
Kill half of them and feed them to the other half? Too derivative?

It does not works because in the process of killing half of the hungry poor people you made more hungry poor people than before because you disrupted society massively.
Also the systems to kill half of the poor people and of bringing those poor people to the poor people to feed would be massively hard to build and maintain.
Essentially stuff like "convince the kings to place more resources in helping the poor and producing more food" is easier to do and will not worsen the problem unlike your solution while being easier (threaten the kings and the like).

Segev
2019-04-08, 12:40 PM
Their quest eventually provides them a crucial lead: a man who knows where the Oracle is because he visited it once before. In fact, he learned from it how to make one particular woman with whom he was passionately in love happy. She has, of course, since married him.

But now, she's dying of some unknown ailment, and is far, far too sick to travel. He will tell the party how to find the Oracle if they'll ask it, for him, how to cure his wife. He may or may not trust their word; that's irrelevant: he's desperate enough that he'll give them the information in return for their word that they'll ask his question for him.

hotflungwok
2019-04-08, 01:15 PM
You could go with the tried and true: the Demon Lord of Bad Things is coming back, and last time he did some heroes used the Thingy of Ultimate Power to stop him, only now the Thingy is gone, it's not where it's supposed to be resting (someone stole it?) and they need to know where it is OR ELSE. Maybe the Thingy is in 3 pieces and several players have to sacrifice...

noob
2019-04-08, 02:16 PM
You could go with the tried and true: the Demon Lord of Bad Things is coming back, and last time he did some heroes used the Thingy of Ultimate Power to stop him, only now the Thingy is gone, it's not where it's supposed to be resting (someone stole it?) and they need to know where it is OR ELSE. Maybe the Thingy is in 3 pieces and several players have to sacrifice...

It is not even sightly a sacrifice to spend a resource to save your own life from a coming invasion of a demon lord.

hotflungwok
2019-04-08, 03:15 PM
It is not even sightly a sacrifice to spend a resource to save your own life from a coming invasion of a demon lord.
Just because you're saving yourself in addition to other people doesn't mean you aren't sacrificing something to be able to do so. I mean c'mon, which player is going to forego his personal quest to save the world?

Or maybe it's not coming to take over the world, maybe it's here cuz it wants to destroy one city, or get revenge on the heroes who defeated it last time, who are now in Ye Olde Adventurer's Nursing Home. Lot's of ways to swing this.

Cikomyr
2019-04-08, 03:59 PM
Just because you're saving yourself in addition to other people doesn't mean you aren't sacrificing something to be able to do so. I mean c'mon, which player is going to forego his personal quest to save the world?

Or maybe it's not coming to take over the world, maybe it's here cuz it wants to destroy one city, or get revenge on the heroes who defeated it last time, who are now in Ye Olde Adventurer's Nursing Home. Lot's of ways to swing this.

That last one can be really funny actually. Aventurers' old. Home