When we were 3rd level (so long ago!), we had a Battle Master in the group. He was a noble with the "actually, the world does revolve around me" character flaw and a Wisdom of 8. As our group was travelling in the wilds, we came upon a pair of attractive, buxom, blonde sisters watering their horses at the river. They asked if they could join us when we made camp. Sir Julius, naturally, said yes. That night, when he was supposed to be keeping watch, he tried to seduce them. They were, of course, doppelgangers. Julius was quite literally caught with his pants down and went from full health to unconscious on round one of the combat. Patrick, his player, just sat back and said "Hey, Wisdom of 8!" He knew it was a set-up, but he also knew his character would be wilfully oblivious to the fact. Hilarious!
More recently (12th level), our party defeated a rakshasa, rescuing the children she'd been planning to sacrifice in a ritual. All well and good, but now we had two dozen orphans on our hands. What were we to do with them all? Eventually, we took possession of a beached hulk (we were in a port city) and restored it. We recruited a retired first mate and his wife, who'd always wanted children of their own, and set up the place as an orphanage-cum-school. It took six months of campaign time and a fair amount of our characters' money, but it was worth it. By the time we'd finished, we felt liked we'd made a real difference to those kids' lives. It just goes to show, there's more to role-playing than fighting monsters and looting dungeons, and it was one of the most enjoyable sessions we've ever had.
Hey, this is really great, the campaign that you have described sounds very interesting. These role play themes are very trending these days. I have become a fan of such games, since my friend got a huge collection of games like Destiny 2, World of warcraft 60 tage kaufen and Call of Duty World War 2. The story telling and the role play gets the players more involved in the game.
My group recruited a small army to go with them into the jungle: Azaka, Taban, Shago & an animal handler for their ankylosaurus. They'd also picked up Undril Silvertusk after having completed Azaka's mission and returned to Port Nyanzaru on their way back to travel up the Shoshenstar. So this was a big group that Yokka, at Camp Righteous, had zero chance against. Then one of the players couldn't turn up for a session and I explained his absence by being kidnapped by Yokka. After completing the Man & Crocodile, the rest of the PC's came out and found his PC gone. They tracked him to Yellyark just as dusk was settling. After rescuing their comrade from the bamboo prison and slaughtering the entire warrior population of the village, the (vengeance) paladin who had been kidnapped decided to release the trigger, sending all the non-warrior goblins to their deaths (murder is hilarious... at least it was in this instance). Except for one: a baby goblin that the bard PC had adopted.
Baby & Bard went hunting before everyone else woke up (like, specifically saying she wanted nobody to be aware that she had left while they were asleep) and spent several hours teaching baby to hunt. The other PC's woke up and presumed that the bard had accidentally been thrown away with the goblins and so went in the direction of the camp to find her. Don't ask me why they decided this since she had been with them the night before. On returning to the camp, the bard decided to wait for the other PC's return, but having failed at navigation, they were lost and were currently wandering randomly through the jungle (and also totally randomly landed on Vorn's location, after already having gotten the amulet).
And then a random encounter occurred for the Baby & Bard. The bard was slaughtered by Jaculi who ambushed and crit on a leaping attack. Baby hid. I decided on the spur of the moment that if the player wanted to, she could turn the baby into a goblin PC. Cue training montage of the goblin, to the sound of Rocky's 'Gonna Fly Now', learning to become a Shadow Monk (3rd-level PC's, no death penalty). As everyone knows as an axiom, montages accelerate training and ageing, so a few days later when the group returned to Yellyark, the goblin PC confronted them. In trying to determine what had happened to his tribe, the kenku imitated the sounds of his entire tribe screaming as they were catapulted off into the jungle, and then pointed at the paladin PC. The goblin kicked him in the nuts and now they're friends.
That stuff all sounds amazing! It's always refreshing when players play to their flaws as well as their strength. The player knows its a trap but the character doesn't. The player trusts you that s/he's not going to permanently die (maybe) because they made the 'suboptimal' decision, which as a DM is a nice feeling!
Just a couple of examples from our campaign:
When we were 3rd level (so long ago!), we had a Battle Master in the group. He was a noble with the "actually, the world does revolve around me" character flaw and a Wisdom of 8. As our group was travelling in the wilds, we came upon a pair of attractive, buxom, blonde sisters watering their horses at the river. They asked if they could join us when we made camp. Sir Julius, naturally, said yes. That night, when he was supposed to be keeping watch, he tried to seduce them. They were, of course, doppelgangers. Julius was quite literally caught with his pants down and went from full health to unconscious on round one of the combat. Patrick, his player, just sat back and said "Hey, Wisdom of 8!" He knew it was a set-up, but he also knew his character would be wilfully oblivious to the fact. Hilarious!
More recently (12th level), our party defeated a rakshasa, rescuing the children she'd been planning to sacrifice in a ritual. All well and good, but now we had two dozen orphans on our hands. What were we to do with them all? Eventually, we took possession of a beached hulk (we were in a port city) and restored it. We recruited a retired first mate and his wife, who'd always wanted children of their own, and set up the place as an orphanage-cum-school. It took six months of campaign time and a fair amount of our characters' money, but it was worth it. By the time we'd finished, we felt liked we'd made a real difference to those kids' lives. It just goes to show, there's more to role-playing than fighting monsters and looting dungeons, and it was one of the most enjoyable sessions we've ever had.
Hey, this is really great, the campaign that you have described sounds very interesting. These role play themes are very trending these days. I have become a fan of such games, since my friend got a huge collection of games like Destiny 2, World of warcraft 60 tage kaufen and Call of Duty World War 2. The story telling and the role play gets the players more involved in the game.
Spoilers for ToA:
My group recruited a small army to go with them into the jungle: Azaka, Taban, Shago & an animal handler for their ankylosaurus. They'd also picked up Undril Silvertusk after having completed Azaka's mission and returned to Port Nyanzaru on their way back to travel up the Shoshenstar. So this was a big group that Yokka, at Camp Righteous, had zero chance against. Then one of the players couldn't turn up for a session and I explained his absence by being kidnapped by Yokka. After completing the Man & Crocodile, the rest of the PC's came out and found his PC gone. They tracked him to Yellyark just as dusk was settling. After rescuing their comrade from the bamboo prison and slaughtering the entire warrior population of the village, the (vengeance) paladin who had been kidnapped decided to release the trigger, sending all the non-warrior goblins to their deaths (murder is hilarious... at least it was in this instance). Except for one: a baby goblin that the bard PC had adopted.
Baby & Bard went hunting before everyone else woke up (like, specifically saying she wanted nobody to be aware that she had left while they were asleep) and spent several hours teaching baby to hunt. The other PC's woke up and presumed that the bard had accidentally been thrown away with the goblins and so went in the direction of the camp to find her. Don't ask me why they decided this since she had been with them the night before. On returning to the camp, the bard decided to wait for the other PC's return, but having failed at navigation, they were lost and were currently wandering randomly through the jungle (and also totally randomly landed on Vorn's location, after already having gotten the amulet).
And then a random encounter occurred for the Baby & Bard. The bard was slaughtered by Jaculi who ambushed and crit on a leaping attack. Baby hid. I decided on the spur of the moment that if the player wanted to, she could turn the baby into a goblin PC. Cue training montage of the goblin, to the sound of Rocky's 'Gonna Fly Now', learning to become a Shadow Monk (3rd-level PC's, no death penalty). As everyone knows as an axiom, montages accelerate training and ageing, so a few days later when the group returned to Yellyark, the goblin PC confronted them. In trying to determine what had happened to his tribe, the kenku imitated the sounds of his entire tribe screaming as they were catapulted off into the jungle, and then pointed at the paladin PC. The goblin kicked him in the nuts and now they're friends.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde.
That stuff all sounds amazing! It's always refreshing when players play to their flaws as well as their strength. The player knows its a trap but the character doesn't. The player trusts you that s/he's not going to permanently die (maybe) because they made the 'suboptimal' decision, which as a DM is a nice feeling!
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