The party has to perform an exorcism where 3 players are incapacitated and 3 are fighting off foes. The 3 incapacitated players would be transported to a realm of dreams where they'll have to beat role-play-focused challenges to stay resilient to the demon's approaches.
I need some ideas to get them to act their character. The classes are:
Lawful Good, Tiefling Paladin (player participates a little, but is shy).
True Neutral, Human Bard (player participates a lot but puts little effort in acting like a bard).
True Neutral, Drow Wizard, The Haunted One, and possessed (player doesn't talk at all unless directly addressed).
2 of them asked me to help them talk more and role-play, the bard doesn't have much problems but I'd like to toy with him a little to help the character develop and grow.
I'm thinking of creating a haunted-mansion-like map to which they'll be transported, where they may have to talk to ghosts and convince them to help them get back to reality. Or I don't know what other ideas could work.
Some ideas that may work could be having the paladin encounter the ghost of a paladin who broke their oaths but did so to protect someone or something of great importance. This would be used to have the PC question their moral standing and weather or not the line between good and evil is truly as solid as they thought. He could role play trying to convince the ghost that his mission is good and restore the ghosts faith in himself and the oaths he broke many years ago. The Bard could encounter the ghost of a deceased musician who played in the higher standing of society and refers to the PC as a pheasant without music taste. The PC must then prove their skill as a bard and show that his passion is worthy enough to live on and be released from the house. For the wizard maybe have the entity that possesses them to become physical and make it a battle of wills where the wizard must fight to keep his corporeal body and tame the entity thus giving himself the power to escape. If this would not work (depending on how you use the possessed story) you can have a oppressing spirit who knows of the wizards haunting past and baits/taunts them with this knowledge and the wizard must fight through their own fear/guilt in order to defeat the spirit and break the hold it has. Hopefully this helps with your story and i wish you luck.
I had thought something similar with the paladin, create a need for him to prove his faith and valor towards someone in order to be able to progress. I like the other idea for the bad, a little less forced than what I had thought. I'll be using these along with what I had.
One of the things I did for my group, right away, is set up moral dilemmas for them to participate in. I avoided combat acceptable resolutions, instead focusing more on making them ponder what their characters would say or how they'd make the decisions.
Example: The group was present in what appeared to be a trial. There were spectral bodies all over the place, so beating creatures to a pulp was impossible. Behind them was a gallery of people watching, there was a table in front of them with 5 people sitting, to the left was a table with 2 people and in the center of the room was a dias with a person standing there in manacles.
I had the central NPC on the front table start talking "The woman before you stands accused of treason, it is customary that death be the punishment if treason is indeed her crime. Please, present the case." and he looked to the table on the left of the room. The two people there spoke, one accusing her of treason, the other defending her actions. The players were to be the jury of this and produce a verdict based on the information. (I had presented that she stole food and was caught giving it to her son. Her son had joined a rebel group which was fighting with the current regime)
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I also had another moral dilemma where the group found a bag of gold, something like 350g. On the bag was the mark of a noble house, the NPCs around would easily be able to point in the direction to return said gold. The player could leave the gold, take the gold and run, or try to return the gold, it didn't matter. As the player left the area and got a small distance away, another NPC would show up and bump into the character physically. They would be in hysterics talking about how they weren't able to come up with enough money to pay the taxes for the local orphanage/hospital/whatever. They owed 300g to the same noble house that the bag of gold they found belonged to.
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Something like this will allow you to present a way for the players to try to tap into the mind of their character in a very specific scenario, it may provide the foundation for them to explore more of what their character is about. Make sure you reward them with a conclusion to their decisions, try not to make it a punishment, a positive outcome (for the player) will make continued exploration of character RP more interesting at first.
The party has to perform an exorcism where 3 players are incapacitated and 3 are fighting off foes. The 3 incapacitated players would be transported to a realm of dreams where they'll have to beat role-play-focused challenges to stay resilient to the demon's approaches.
I need some ideas to get them to act their character. The classes are:
2 of them asked me to help them talk more and role-play, the bard doesn't have much problems but I'd like to toy with him a little to help the character develop and grow.
I'm thinking of creating a haunted-mansion-like map to which they'll be transported, where they may have to talk to ghosts and convince them to help them get back to reality. Or I don't know what other ideas could work.
Some ideas that may work could be having the paladin encounter the ghost of a paladin who broke their oaths but did so to protect someone or something of great importance. This would be used to have the PC question their moral standing and weather or not the line between good and evil is truly as solid as they thought. He could role play trying to convince the ghost that his mission is good and restore the ghosts faith in himself and the oaths he broke many years ago. The Bard could encounter the ghost of a deceased musician who played in the higher standing of society and refers to the PC as a pheasant without music taste. The PC must then prove their skill as a bard and show that his passion is worthy enough to live on and be released from the house. For the wizard maybe have the entity that possesses them to become physical and make it a battle of wills where the wizard must fight to keep his corporeal body and tame the entity thus giving himself the power to escape. If this would not work (depending on how you use the possessed story) you can have a oppressing spirit who knows of the wizards haunting past and baits/taunts them with this knowledge and the wizard must fight through their own fear/guilt in order to defeat the spirit and break the hold it has. Hopefully this helps with your story and i wish you luck.
I had thought something similar with the paladin, create a need for him to prove his faith and valor towards someone in order to be able to progress. I like the other idea for the bad, a little less forced than what I had thought. I'll be using these along with what I had.
Thanks a lot!
One of the things I did for my group, right away, is set up moral dilemmas for them to participate in. I avoided combat acceptable resolutions, instead focusing more on making them ponder what their characters would say or how they'd make the decisions.
Example: The group was present in what appeared to be a trial. There were spectral bodies all over the place, so beating creatures to a pulp was impossible. Behind them was a gallery of people watching, there was a table in front of them with 5 people sitting, to the left was a table with 2 people and in the center of the room was a dias with a person standing there in manacles.
I had the central NPC on the front table start talking "The woman before you stands accused of treason, it is customary that death be the punishment if treason is indeed her crime. Please, present the case." and he looked to the table on the left of the room. The two people there spoke, one accusing her of treason, the other defending her actions. The players were to be the jury of this and produce a verdict based on the information. (I had presented that she stole food and was caught giving it to her son. Her son had joined a rebel group which was fighting with the current regime)
---
I also had another moral dilemma where the group found a bag of gold, something like 350g. On the bag was the mark of a noble house, the NPCs around would easily be able to point in the direction to return said gold. The player could leave the gold, take the gold and run, or try to return the gold, it didn't matter. As the player left the area and got a small distance away, another NPC would show up and bump into the character physically. They would be in hysterics talking about how they weren't able to come up with enough money to pay the taxes for the local orphanage/hospital/whatever. They owed 300g to the same noble house that the bag of gold they found belonged to.
---
Something like this will allow you to present a way for the players to try to tap into the mind of their character in a very specific scenario, it may provide the foundation for them to explore more of what their character is about. Make sure you reward them with a conclusion to their decisions, try not to make it a punishment, a positive outcome (for the player) will make continued exploration of character RP more interesting at first.
Interesting ideas. I'm still new to DMing, but I do see implementing more gray situations in the future to make my players make hard decisions.