So. I´m currently stuck with a stoy part for one of my pcs arcs.
The party is currently on their way to a city, not knowing what awaits them there. I planned a whole festival around this with hints and all. if the follow a specific hint they will find a cloaked person that avoids them, runs away and uses dimension door to escape (its an npc they briefly encountered before but since they are a changeling they obviously wont make that connection yet). the goal is for them to find and fight a vampire that is responsible for the pcs parents death since they had an iten thats important for the main quest. now my problem is, how do i get the party to that vampires castle a little ways away from the city in the middle of the mountains, without making it too obvious? i do not want them to catch the npc since the party asks a lot of questions and has access to zone of truth. i already had to kill off another npc to avoid them finding out too much too early.
I also don´t know if i want the named changeling npc to be their ally or enemy...i´m leaning more towards ally but am not sure why and for what exactly.
I'd suggest that you're thinking about this the wrong way.
It's very easy to fall into the trap of 'the party need to end up in [location] to discover [clue/enemy/quest]'. I do it myself all too frequently. We build a world where we know the geography and sometimes stick to it too rigidly. Fact is there's no requirement for the party to encounter said vampire at the castle. Maybe said vampire is stalking prey in a nearby village instead? Maybe they were out hunting and they got trapped by sunlight in a building in town.
Frankly, the NPC too is entirely unimportant as described. The important part of what you are doing here is giving your PC the chance to exact revenge. There are a few ways to do this:
A man is screaming at their fellow townspeople that a vampire has killed their wife/child/husband etc. The party see this, enquire and find the description of the vampire lines up with that of the one who killed the PC's family. This allows the party to track, find and kill the vampire.
A woman is walking along the street decked with a lot of weapons, garlic and other vampire hunting gear. When/if the party question said NPC about why they are so heavily armed she claims she's out to get revenge on the vampire nearby who killed her family. Have her tale be a Moby Dick like warning of the dangers of pursuing personal vendettas. This allows both the opportunity to exact revenge, or even better the opportunity for the PC to show character growth and understand that taking revenge on said vampire might not be healthy and would very not end the hatred in their heart.
Keep your NPC but don't make it quite so obvious. Have a bloody scene in the town square where the nearby vampire has savaged some villagers. When describing the crowd, or when the players begin to investigate utilise one of their perception rolls to seed the idea that they feel watched. Build that feeling slowly and over time. An obvious cloaked figure running from the party is much more obvious and counter to what you seem to want to achieve. So, make it more subtle.
My point here is that you are, in my opinion, too stuck on things happening in the set order that you want them to happen in. This is kinda bad practice as a DM. Some of the best fun you can have is when the players derail you and you're left improvising your way through the session.
Think as I said earlier about what is really important here. What you're doing is giving the player character a moment to reflect and perhaps finally act upon trauma from the past. You have decided that there is only one way to resolve this. Unfortunately, there's more than one way of dealing with trauma and part of the task of DMing is to give our players the choice of how to deal with a situation. Maybe your player character actually wants the opportunity to resolve their history in a more healthy way...by letting it go and leaving in the past to focus instead on the future and the things they have now.
In a similar way, if the player character does decide they want revenge, great. The setting of that revenge is materially important but in a different way than you might think. Think about how the following two settings might hit differently:
1 - Your party track the vampire to a grand castle, an epic battle ensues during which they kill the vampire. (i.e. the vampire was this big bad thing the PC had built them up to be in their own mind)
2 - Your party track the vampire to a nearby barn where they have been forced to shelter from the sun. The fight takes mere minutes and the vampire is disintegrated into a sorry looking pile of dust in a beat up old barn. (i.e. the vampire wasn't some big bad wolf, just another monster who has met an ignominious end just like any number of giant rats, goblins, or bats...nothing special)
Character growth is possible here so being flexible about what is important in the obstacles that you are setting up for your players will allow you a greater ability to tell a story more nuanced and colourful. In short, don't think about the exact path you want the players to take. Think about what are the essential components and free yourself up to allow the player characters to encounter those essential components in places even you never expected.
If they’re an ally, you have to come up with a reason why they’re avoiding the party - “I think you are being watched” is a good enough reason. This might not come up right now, but eventually, maybe even weeks down the line, it might and the party will want to ask “hey, why did you run? That was suspicious!”
To get the party where you want them to go, lay down some tidbits of information. A bit of cloth fell out of the person’a pocket while running, which someone might identify as a colour associated with the castle’s coat of arm and flags. Some vampire attacks at night, where the vamps seem to come over the walls from the east (or whichever) direction. The vampires attack the party directly and they find some clue in their clothing, or the party sees the vampires first and follows them to their lair. Lots of options available.
Also, my personal preference when doing a bit on a single character’s story is to provide something that ties into the main story as well. Maybe they learn along their journey to kill the vampires that one has some sort of magical item relevant to the main plot - something that provides players a reason to be personally invested in the story, other than “I want to help my friend.”
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So. I´m currently stuck with a stoy part for one of my pcs arcs.
The party is currently on their way to a city, not knowing what awaits them there. I planned a whole festival around this with hints and all. if the follow a specific hint they will find a cloaked person that avoids them, runs away and uses dimension door to escape (its an npc they briefly encountered before but since they are a changeling they obviously wont make that connection yet). the goal is for them to find and fight a vampire that is responsible for the pcs parents death since they had an iten thats important for the main quest. now my problem is, how do i get the party to that vampires castle a little ways away from the city in the middle of the mountains, without making it too obvious? i do not want them to catch the npc since the party asks a lot of questions and has access to zone of truth. i already had to kill off another npc to avoid them finding out too much too early.
I also don´t know if i want the named changeling npc to be their ally or enemy...i´m leaning more towards ally but am not sure why and for what exactly.
I'd suggest that you're thinking about this the wrong way.
It's very easy to fall into the trap of 'the party need to end up in [location] to discover [clue/enemy/quest]'. I do it myself all too frequently. We build a world where we know the geography and sometimes stick to it too rigidly. Fact is there's no requirement for the party to encounter said vampire at the castle. Maybe said vampire is stalking prey in a nearby village instead? Maybe they were out hunting and they got trapped by sunlight in a building in town.
Frankly, the NPC too is entirely unimportant as described. The important part of what you are doing here is giving your PC the chance to exact revenge. There are a few ways to do this:
My point here is that you are, in my opinion, too stuck on things happening in the set order that you want them to happen in. This is kinda bad practice as a DM. Some of the best fun you can have is when the players derail you and you're left improvising your way through the session.
Think as I said earlier about what is really important here. What you're doing is giving the player character a moment to reflect and perhaps finally act upon trauma from the past. You have decided that there is only one way to resolve this. Unfortunately, there's more than one way of dealing with trauma and part of the task of DMing is to give our players the choice of how to deal with a situation. Maybe your player character actually wants the opportunity to resolve their history in a more healthy way...by letting it go and leaving in the past to focus instead on the future and the things they have now.
In a similar way, if the player character does decide they want revenge, great. The setting of that revenge is materially important but in a different way than you might think. Think about how the following two settings might hit differently:
1 - Your party track the vampire to a grand castle, an epic battle ensues during which they kill the vampire. (i.e. the vampire was this big bad thing the PC had built them up to be in their own mind)
2 - Your party track the vampire to a nearby barn where they have been forced to shelter from the sun. The fight takes mere minutes and the vampire is disintegrated into a sorry looking pile of dust in a beat up old barn. (i.e. the vampire wasn't some big bad wolf, just another monster who has met an ignominious end just like any number of giant rats, goblins, or bats...nothing special)
Character growth is possible here so being flexible about what is important in the obstacles that you are setting up for your players will allow you a greater ability to tell a story more nuanced and colourful. In short, don't think about the exact path you want the players to take. Think about what are the essential components and free yourself up to allow the player characters to encounter those essential components in places even you never expected.
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If they’re an ally, you have to come up with a reason why they’re avoiding the party - “I think you are being watched” is a good enough reason. This might not come up right now, but eventually, maybe even weeks down the line, it might and the party will want to ask “hey, why did you run? That was suspicious!”
To get the party where you want them to go, lay down some tidbits of information. A bit of cloth fell out of the person’a pocket while running, which someone might identify as a colour associated with the castle’s coat of arm and flags. Some vampire attacks at night, where the vamps seem to come over the walls from the east (or whichever) direction. The vampires attack the party directly and they find some clue in their clothing, or the party sees the vampires first and follows them to their lair. Lots of options available.
Also, my personal preference when doing a bit on a single character’s story is to provide something that ties into the main story as well. Maybe they learn along their journey to kill the vampires that one has some sort of magical item relevant to the main plot - something that provides players a reason to be personally invested in the story, other than “I want to help my friend.”