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Mike Miller
2020-05-13, 08:58 AM
As a player, what actions do you like to initiate on your own? What are your preferred interactions with NPCs? I am setting up a new campaign and I want to make sure I have interesting options available to engage the players.

For example, as a player I like to use my character's chosen skills. I also like to interact with small scale guilds or factions instead of overall politics. I am looking for general feedback to come up with new ideas. Thanks!

Robert's Dragon
2020-05-13, 11:39 AM
I'd recommend asking your group what they like, as every group and person different.
I personally like being able to work my way around combat situations, but I know a lot of players that perfer just hurrying into the obvious combat encounter (murder hobo is the cliche for a reason, after all).

Democratus
2020-05-13, 12:10 PM
For a hex-crawl campaign I like combing the town's rumor mill, doing research about nearby treasures, and shopping for maps of nearby points of interest.

For story-driven campaigns I look to perform whatever interactions are most likely to assist in storytelling. In particular it is fun to create some kind of friction with either another PC or an NPC (or organization) and create a player-made story where this resolves itself.

MoiMagnus
2020-05-13, 12:21 PM
Creating NPCs. Once your PCs start gaining some responsibilities and/or statue, they should have peoples to help them. Not another set of fully fledged PCs, of course. But that does not prevent your players from participating to the creation of those PCs. Simple question like "Do you think your PC has an advisor of some kind? How do you see it? Or maybe a squire/apprentice? A lawyer? What kind of person would you chose for this role, the serious and strictly lawful, the one that understand what you mean when you say 'is there a way to make this look legal?', or one mildly incompetent but has competent friends that do all the job for him?".

Quertus
2020-05-13, 05:44 PM
As a player, what actions do you like to initiate on your own?

What do you mean by this question?

I often measure the "measure" of my characters by how many "goals" they have (avenge this person, craft that item, etc). Rarely do my PCs *start* the game with more than a single goal (like "kill the gods" or "immortality"); the rest are developed organically through play.


What are your preferred interactions with NPCs?

You put the pointy end in the other man, of course!

What do you mean by this question?

I want NPCs that are indistinguishable from PCs or real people. I want them to have personalities, goals, motivations, histories. I want it to be worth my time, intellectually, to interact with them.


I am setting up a new campaign and I want to make sure I have interesting options available to engage the players.

For example, as a player I like to use my character's chosen skills. I also like to interact with small scale guilds or factions instead of overall politics. I am looking for general feedback to come up with new ideas. Thanks!

I like maximum player agency, including in character choice. I want my character to succeed - and/or fail - on their own merits.

I like to change the world. Be that slay the gods, found a kingdom, change the underlying laws of reality, whatever, I want my characters to leave their mark on the world.

But that doesn't matter. What do *your* players want?