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Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 13A: AT THE SINKHOLE’S EDGE

December 16th, 2007
The 1st Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

There was trepidation among those standing at the edge of the sinkhole and surrounded by rotting fungus, sickly slime, and malformed corpses. Tee, in particular, harbored deep misgivings. To her the sinkhole was filled with a horrible foreboding and a sense of nameless doom.

But when the group decided, collectively, that there was no other path to follow, she had no hesitation in leading the way. Agnarr hammered a piton into the rock of the cavern floor and she quickly tied off one of their ropes.

Tee worked her way down the rope, reversing herself in mid-air as she came level with where the bottom of the sinkhole opened up into a larger cavern. Peering over the ceiling’s edge she found herself looking down into a long hall.

The near end of the hall, just beyond where the sinkhole was located, had completely collapsed. In the opposite direction, two enormous troughs — each running at least eighty feet along the length of the hall – were filled to the brim with the insidious olive slime. Beyond these troughs, the hall ended in a short flight of stairs and a set of double doors wrought from iron.

Tee stared into this hall for a long while, but perceived no motion or threat of danger. When she was satisfied, she reversed herself again and completed her climb. Looking up, she motioned for the others to follow.

Tor was next, and he quickly joined Tee below. But Dominic, who was to follow, had no confidence in his ability to manage the long climb. So a crude harness was furnished from another rope, and Agnarr lowered the priest to the hall below.

THE WARCASTER

As Tee was working to release Dominic from his harness, however, Tor suddenly gave a cry and drew his sword: The troughs of ooze were beginning to undulate.
(more…)

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

Session 12C: To the Aid of Goblins

Final Fantasy VII - Allies

“The rest will be needed here. To hold the bridge,” Itarek said. “And they would not last long against the horrors that we have seen.”

Here’s something that I wish I was better at as a GM: Running NPC allies accompanying the PCs.

The internet is filled with horror stories of the dreaded “GMPC” – where the GM essentially tries to be a player in their own campaign by running a character indistinguishable from being another PC in the party. Although technically possible (and you can find a few success stories here and there), what usually happens is that the GMPC becomes the unabashed star / spotlight hog of the entire campaign and/or is used to forcibly railroad the players.

Because, frankly, the GM already controls the entire world, which should be power and participation enough for anyone. So 99 times out of 100, for a GMPC to exist there has to be some other shitty agenda motivating it in the first place.

The idea of running a GMPC isn’t just an obvious anathema to my whole ethos as an RPG gamer, I’m pretty sure it’s something I’m actually incapable of doing.

When circumstances, like those in the current campaign journal, dictate that NPCs will be allying with the PCs and traveling with them for some length of time, what generally happens is a simple, three-step process:

  1. I make an effort to make sure those NPCs are contributing and present in the group.
  2. I get distracted.
  3. “Oh, crap. Right. Robert is here. Uh… I guess he was standing in the back this whole time?”

Itarek and the other goblins in the current sessions actually work out pretty well because so much of their time onscreen is spent in raid-type or combat situations, which means that I’ve got an initiative list which constantly pushes them back into the center of my attention.

It’s odd, really, because I can successfully run incredibly complex social interactions featuring dozens of characters without a hitch. But as soon as an NPC gets firmly aligned with the PCs, it feels almost inevitable that they’re going to turn invisible.

I think there’s probably a couple of factors at play here.

First, to pat myself on the back a little bit, I am usually pushing myself to the limits of my mental gymnastics when it comes to running a game. I’m a pretty big believer in the idea that there’s always another element you could be adding to improve your game, it’s just a question of whether or not you can. So if something seems non-essential, it’s easy for it to get replaced by a different ball and fade away unnoticed.

Second, I think I have a strong, instinctual predilection towards viewing NPC allies as non-essential. One of my primary pleasures as a GM is seeing how player-driven decisions interact with the situations I’ve created in the game world. NPC allies, who should logically and naturally become part of the group’s decision-making process, aren’t just superfluous to that creative agenda, they’re actually kind of innately hostile to it.

GMPCs being anathema to my values as a gamer? I meant that pretty literally.

So whenever things heat up in the campaign, NPC allies are just naturally the first thing to get dropped in favor of almost literally anything else.

When you have a weakness like this, there’s generally three things you can do about it. First, you can steer away from it. And you will, in fact, notice that it’s a rather rare day when you’ll see me deliberately pushing scenarios in which NPCs will naturally ally with the PCs. (When allies do crop up, it’s far more likely to be because the PCs are seeking them out.)

Second, you can focus on improving it. In the case of losing focus on NPC allies, part of that is just literally focusing, of course. But you can also try other methods of keeping the NPC in the forefront of your brain. Giving them a unique miniature, for example, can help. (Although in some of the chaotic battlefields I run, they can still get lost.) An idea that just occurred to me as I was writing this: Clip a picture of the NPC ally to the inside of my GM screen so that the NPC is literally looking me in the eye. (Not sure why something so obvious has never occurred to me before.)

Third, find alternative techniques to achieve the same ends. For example, I’ll often kick an NPC ally to one of the players and ask them to run them as a secondary character if at all possible. (Often it isn’t, unfortunately, because the NPC has an independent agenda that can’t be assumed by the players, for reasons rather similar, actually, to why GMs shouldn’t be running GMPCs.) For NPC allies that are sticking around for awhile, I’ve even been known to invite in temporary players to assume the role. Having a co-GM who can focus on the areas where you’re weak can also be effective.

When you can have successes in the areas where you’re weak, of course, you’ll enjoy a real sense of accomplishment. That turned out to be the case with Itarek and his goblins, who came – as you’ll begin to see in Session 13 – to assume a very special place in the campaign.

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 12C: TO THE AID OF GOBLINS

December 2nd, 2007
The 1st Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

In the carriage on their way back to the Ghostly Minstrel the group discussed its plans. A consensus was reached that they should return to the aid of the Clan of the Torn Ear.

And so it was, early the next morning, that they found themselves working their way back through the increasingly familiar tunnels beneath Greyson House. Passing through the vaulted passages of Ghul’s Labyrinth they made their way into the caverns of the goblins.

As they came to the cave of stalactites and stalagmites where they had first met Itarek, Tee was hailed by a goblin they did not know.

He knew them, however, and welcomed them back to the caverns of the clan. Only two of the clan were on duty here now. The true danger lay elsewhere, but the clan had an ancestral duty to guard this passage.

The goblin dispatched his fellow guard to escort them to the chieftess. Crashekka greeted them in her great hall. Few goblins were to be found there now, and she explained that nearly all of the clan had been placed as a guard upon the stone bridge.

“Have you been attacked again?” Tee asked.

“Not yet,” Crashekka told her. “But we live in fear of an assault. I am glad to see you again. Without you I fear we would be lost.”

Crashekka personally led them to the stone bridge, and there they met with Itarek. He reported to them that there had been no sign of movement within the noisome caves beyond, but no further attempt to breach them, either.

Itarek gathered to him his three finest warriors.

“Is that all that can come?” Elestra asked, with Tee translating.

“The rest will be needed here. To hold the bridge,” Itarek said. “And they would not last long against the horrors that we have seen.”

Tee nodded her understanding, and then saw to distributing the cindershards they had purchased. Each of the six companions had one strapped to their body in one way or another, and a seventh was given to Itarek.

Ten of them crossed the bridge – six from the surface world and four of the clan. (more…)

 IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

Session 12B: A Party at Castle Shard

Ptolus - Castle Shard Invitation

It was not the evening that any of them had expected – it had been both more and less than that. But it was an evening that none of them would ever forget.

I’ve had a couple of people mention, when they realized what the heart of Session 12 was going to be, that they were interested in seeing what the Party Planning game structure I wrote up awhile back would look like in actual play. Unfortunately, this is one of those occasions where the nature of writing up a campaign journal entry creates something of a distortion field.

Everything that’s described in the campaign journal actually happened at the table, of course, but events have been both rearranged and heavily condensed. My goal was not, in fact, to provide a transcript of the session, but rather an effective summary that could serve as both entertainment and reference document as the campaign moved forward.

Perhaps the most significant “deception” to be found here, for example, is the degree to which the campaign journal fails to represent how much cutting back and forth there was between scenes: When the party split up and went to talk to a bunch of different people, I would engage in conversation for a couple of minutes and then swap to another group and then again and then again. These interactions have not only been boiled down to their key highlights, they’ve also generally been grouped together into complete conversations.

With this limitations in mind, however, let’s take a closer look at how the Party at Castle Shard worked in actual play.

SETTING IT UP

To start, let’s consider what the function of the party was. This was several fold, actually:

  • It was a reward for their hard work. In Getting the Players to Care I talk about how one of the methods of doing that is to make it treasure. This is a somewhat unusual variant on that principle, but by making this party clearly part of the lavish pay-off for the hard work (and near death experiences) they had put in for Lord Zavere, the players became deeply invested in the party and were anticipating it for months in the real world.
  • It was a signal that the PCs had risen to a new level in the world. This inherently meant closing one “chapter” of the campaign and beginning the next.
  • It was an opportunity to introduce a bunch of new characters, drastically expanding the supporting cast of the campaign and setting up relationships that would drive the campaign forward into Act II (which is still a little ways down the road at this point, but which was definitely on my horizon).

It was also, of course, intended to be an entertaining evening of gaming.

THE GUEST LIST

Ptolus - Lord Zavere and Lady Rill

Let’s take a moment to look at the new characters I was introducing here. There were a total of eighteen guests at the party (not including the PCs), of which five were previously known to the PCs.

Familiar Faces: The familiar faces were quite intentional. First, because it would provide islands of familiarity for the PCs to fall back upon (and around which social interactions with the new NPCs could coalesce). Second, because the PCs had been compartmentalizing the various aspects of their lives and I knew that bringing some of these aspects together (and most likely overlapping with each other) would create dramatic tension.

New Faces: Nonetheless, throwing more than a dozen new NPCs at the players all at once may seem like a lot at first glance. But the party planning structure is designed to break them up into smaller groups, and introduce them in manageable chunks.

More importantly, I’ve found that it can be quite effective to introduce a bunch of new characters in a cluster (whether all at once in a party like this or just rapidly over the course of a few sessions) and then have spans where only established characters are being reintroduced. If I was going to theorize about why this works, I would say it’s partly because some NPCs will “click” with players and some won’t, and when you introduce them in clusters your focus will naturally be drawn towards the NPCs who are resonating. (You’ll notice that this echoes, at a macro-level, something I talk about in Party Planning at a micro-level.)

But it’s also because having all of these new characters interact with and collide with each other is a great way of revealing character; and also a great way of drawing the PCs into their drama.

Stacking Interesting NPCs: The other way I think about this technique is that I’m “stacking” interesting NPCs. It’s like I’m laying in a supply. Each NPC is a tool, but you can often let the PCs figure out how they’ll actually end up getting “used” down the line.

For example, look at how the PCs pursue selling the orrery they found in Ghul’s Labyrinth here, creating a plot thread that will run for several more sessions. You’ll also want to pay attention to how the PCs’ relationship with Aoska develops in the future.

Of course, in some cases I’m planting NPCs in order to very specifically set things up in the future. The great thing is that, if you do your job right, the players won’t be able to figure out which is which. Honestly, if you do it right, then down the line you’ll probably have difficulty looking back and remembering which was which.

BANG, BANG

“Ah, Mistress Tee!” Zavere’s deep baritone called out to her. “Perhaps you could help me talk some sense into Leytha Doraedian.”

With something of a sick feeling in her stomach, Tee turned. It was true. Doraedian was standing there with Lord Zavere. He had a look of absolute surprise on his face.

Which touches on a wider design ethos: Your party has a location, a guest list, a main event sequence, and topics of conversation. If you want to create a truly kick-ass party, your primary design goal is to liberally seed all of these elements with moments of dramatic potential.

Note that I didn’t say dramatic moments. I said moments of dramatic potential. The actual dramatic moments will arise out of that potential during actual play. What you’ll find even more surprising is how these varied moments of dramatic potential will begin interacting with each in ways you never anticipated.

For example, when it came to Tee’s mentor, Leytha Doraedian, I had only a single note:

Surprised to see Tee at Castle Shard.

I didn’t know how (or even when) that surprise would manifest, exactly, but I think the dramatic potential in it is clear.

In my Topics of Conversation, I had listed:

Argument between Doraedian, Zavere, and Moynath about the Commissar’s weak attitude towards the Balacazars.

It was only as the events of the party actually played out that Tee became the character who approached this debate in progress and these two moments joined together to create the very memorable scene you see in the campaign journal. (Nor had I anticipated the way in which Tee’s earlier interactions with the Commissar would increase her own tension and confusion over this topic.)

Many of these dramatic moments can be thought of as bangs around which scenes (or mini-scenes) can be framed during the party. But others are just angles of tension (old relationships, new debates, hidden agendas), and the bang will be discovered during play as these elements interact with each other.

And some of your bangs may not ignite. For example, the Graven One has a bad history with the Inverted Pyramid and I wrote, “His cold indifference with the Inverted Pyramid will manifest itself if he interacts with Jevicca Nor.” But in the organic ebb and flow of the party, that never happened. (Which is, of course, just fine.)

In other cases, of course, the PCs will aggressively pursue agendas and create bangs (either directly or indirectly) that you had no way of anticipating. Make sure you don’t miss those moments! Pursue them aggressively!

A STRONG START

“Master Ranthir!” The Iron Mage cried, crossing the room towards him and resuming his scan of the room. “Mistress Tee! Agnarr, Elestra, and Dominic! Master Tor! To my side! I have an errand for you!”

All of this talk about discovering things during play aside, there’s no reason to be afraid of having some strong, pre-designed moments. The sudden appearance of the Iron Mage is one such Ptolus - The Iron Mageexample of this: It’s a very strong bang that demands a response from the PCs.

In many ways, this is the primary function of the Main Event Sequence: You let things play out organically, but if you feel like the current pool of dramatic tension is being exhausted, trigger the next event, which will usually be some strong, dramatic moment – perhaps accompanied by a specific bang the PCs need to react to – which will cause all the pieces of the party to suddenly move in new directions and begin a fresh set of collisions.

One place where you’ll want to make a point of stocking these ready-to-go moments is at the very beginning of the party: You want a good, strong start to set things in motion. Once you’ve got some momentum built up, the action will generally begin driving itself. But you’ve got to get that momentum going.

You can see this in the Party at Castle Shard with the opening sequence of events, which, in my notes, I actually separated out as a separate event track labeled “Arrival – Events”:

  • Arrival (Kadmus greets them and leads them to Zavere’s private office; they’re eyed by other guests who are being taken directly upstairs)
  • Meeting with Zavere (chance to spot the writing on the map; Zavere tells them Linech’s burrow has been destroyed; he personally escorts them to the ballroom)
  • Rehobath and the Commissar (Kadmus barring their entry; a loud argument; Zavere smooths things over)
  • Guests of Special Honor (Zavere introduces them as “guests deserving of much honor, for their recent service to both myself and to the interests of the City of Ptolus” in order to needle the Commissar)

This sequence introduces them to a handful of characters; gives everyone a chance to start warming up to social interactions; and gives the PCs two BIG bangs. I don’t know what their reaction to those bangs will be, but they’re pretty much guaranteed to color how the rest of the party progresses.

You can also see how I used these first moments to establish, in brief, several key pieces of exposition which would be major hubs for the rest of the party:

  • Conflict between Zavere and the Commissar.
  • Destruction of Linech Cran’s burrow (which could have also been learned before the party if the PCs had been seeking information, but they were stuck underground).
  • The other guests are intrigued by the PCs being included on the guest list.

And, really, that’s all it takes to get the ball rolling.

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 12B: A PARTY AT CASTLE SHARD

December 2nd, 2007
Harvesttime in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

HANDSHAKES – ELVES & OGRES

Agnarr glanced around, looking for the biggest guy in the room. He spotted a stocky man with black hair pulled back into a pony-tail and piercing blue-grey eyes – not tall, but with a muscular build and a weathered face. He headed in his direction.

Tor, with one eye on Agnarr, also noticed the man. Tor recognized him as Sir Kabel Dathim, one of the knights of the Order of the Dawn who had ridden at the Harvest Tournament that afternoon. He noticed that Sir Kabel was headed directly towards where Rehobath and the Commissar were standing.

Agnarr interposed himself in Sir Kabel’s path and vigorously shook his hand. Kabel clearly wasn’t quite sure what to do about the massive barbarian’s enthusiastic greeting, but Tor slid calmly to their side, offered his own introductions, and congratulated Kabel on his performance during the tournament.

Sir Kabel thanked him for his compliments, and apologized for his brevity, but said that he had business to attend to. Making his excuses he brushed by them and continued on his path towards the Commissar and Rehobath. Agnarr made to follow him, but Tor caught him by the arm and shook his head.

Tee, meanwhile, had seen another elf among those assembled – a tall, slim, and exceptionally beautiful elven maid. Both her hair and her eyes were a captivating, shimmering silver. She wore a dress of dark blue silk and silver-embroidery. Around her neck, on a golden chain, she wore a golden cross of Athor upon a field of crimson. (Tor, noticing her from across the room, recognized it as the heraldic emblem of the Knights of the Golden Cross.)

As Tee approached, the elf introduced herself as Kaira Swanwing. “It’s an honor to make you acquaintance, Mistress Tithenmamiwen,” she said. “Master Doraedian has spoken well of you.”

Tee wasn’t quite sure what to make of Leytha Doraedian speaking of her, but she thanked Kaira for the kind words.

“And what brings you to a party at Castle Shard?” Kaira asked.

Tee smiled demurely. “The same thing that brings us all – an invitation from Lord Zavere.”

“Ah,” Kaira said. “But what brings such an invitation?”

“We performed some small service for him.”

“What type of services?”

“Discrete ones.” (more…)

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