I am a first time DM and our group is about to enter our 11th session.
I am running a home brew campaign with a mix of veteran and new players. I’ve received solid backstories from just about everyone. For the most part, as expected, the veteran players have a little more in their stories for me to draw inspiration from to help throw lore or character quests into - or even little nods to their respective histories. Except for one - which of course is one of the new players.
She plays a wood eleven ranger. Her character was once a linguistic professor in a major city but felt a calling for something more. So she left her home, friends and profession and entered the wood where she drew upon her ancestral skills and general historic survival knowledge and became a self trained ranger. She’s on a path of discovery but towards what she doesn’t know. She’s left it extremely vague.
When the party reached level 3 each member received a dream/vision from a god or deity. Her vision was her old classroom filled with the faces of pupils she taught over the years and sitting front row was a strange looking, but immensely friendly looking woodsman. That was all her vision was.
fast forward to the next watch she took - a day later - this woodsman deity reveals himself to her and probes why she left such a lovely life and what is it she seeks. Her response again was simply “something”. She didn’t engage in conversation with the deity despite prompts to encourage conversation.
I’m having a hard time finding ways of finding relevant or meaningful situations or throws for her character to help keep her engaged and feel like she is more than a passenger on this journey but it seems I keep getting nothing to help add to her experience. Any advice on how I should handle this?
Perhaps this new player hasn't thought the "something" through. I would suggest talking to the player out of game and assisting the player in developing the "something". Since the player is new, be prepared to do some hand-holding. And you should express openly the "something" will help you as a DM to develop the story.
I agree with Jesse. Talk to them out of game. She may know what the "something" is, and thinks the character would draw it out slowly, or not know yet, and she's trying to play it out. Or maybe she has no idea, and the two of you need to work together to figure out what it is in a way that is exciting and fun for her. So come with some ideas. Just general stuff that she can build on and flavour, because you don't want her to feel like her character has become your character. *maybe she discovered something about her heritage as a professor and wants to resolve it. *maybe she came across a scroll in an unknown language that she was studying that was an omen or something. *maybe a mysterious elvish character turned up and told her a prophecy about herself and her calling. *maybe her calling is to unite the tribes of wood elves.
It could also be that the character just doesn't know what they are searching for ... this is pretty common in real life. Folks become dissatisfied with some aspect of their current life and want to explore/find more/have more meaning .. they go in search of something and they aren't even sure what it might be. Real people do this .. is it so far fetched for a character in an RPG to do this.
This is your homebrew campaign and you can run it any way you like, but I have found that having every character be entangled with plot lines or dieties that you create in the world for them only really fits one campaign style - the one where the PCs are fore-ordained heroes on a huge quest. Perhaps that is the kind of campaign you are running. I find that the mechanism doesn't work nearly as well for a more sandbox type campaign. However, your experience might be different.
I get what you’re saying and I can respect that. For my campaign, yes these characters do have some form of divine interest in the party’s actions - but that is part of a larger plot for the over arching campaign. I’m keeping the deity element loose to allow for sandbox gameplay but have also used it as an in game means for the characters to think about their adventure and the path they are on.
For instance our rogue, played by my 10 year old, was playing very brashly and also very pranky. His level three deity vision was a trickster god greeting him and saying that they’re gonna have fun together and taught the rogue basic spells - this was the in game event that allowed the rogue to become an arcane trickster subclass. But the deity also warned that he knew where the rogue’s destination was and that the rogue should slow down and take his time in order for the pair to continue having fun. And it was great because the next session the player was searching for traps, using his new abilities to distract monsters to help the party etc.
the pc’s are on a path that their respective deity knows, but I don’t know what that is and neither does the player. I’m allowing the events that unfold be their own story/destiny play out and the divine conversations are a means to allow the PCs to retrospect on their own growth as a character and where they want that character to go whilst the player is in that mindset - as opposed to outside conversations that can sometimes feel meta
i guess my major concern is I’m not sure how engaged the player herself is in the game and I want to find ways of making her feel like her character isn’t just around for the trip.
But so far some great ideas above.
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hey all,
I am a first time DM and our group is about to enter our 11th session.
I am running a home brew campaign with a mix of veteran and new players. I’ve received solid backstories from just about everyone. For the most part, as expected, the veteran players have a little more in their stories for me to draw inspiration from to help throw lore or character quests into - or even little nods to their respective histories. Except for one - which of course is one of the new players.
She plays a wood eleven ranger. Her character was once a linguistic professor in a major city but felt a calling for something more. So she left her home, friends and profession and entered the wood where she drew upon her ancestral skills and general historic survival knowledge and became a self trained ranger. She’s on a path of discovery but towards what she doesn’t know. She’s left it extremely vague.
When the party reached level 3 each member received a dream/vision from a god or deity. Her vision was her old classroom filled with the faces of pupils she taught over the years and sitting front row was a strange looking, but immensely friendly looking woodsman. That was all her vision was.
fast forward to the next watch she took - a day later - this woodsman deity reveals himself to her and probes why she left such a lovely life and what is it she seeks. Her response again was simply “something”. She didn’t engage in conversation with the deity despite prompts to encourage conversation.
I’m having a hard time finding ways of finding relevant or meaningful situations or throws for her character to help keep her engaged and feel like she is more than a passenger on this journey but it seems I keep getting nothing to help add to her experience. Any advice on how I should handle this?
Perhaps this new player hasn't thought the "something" through. I would suggest talking to the player out of game and assisting the player in developing the "something". Since the player is new, be prepared to do some hand-holding. And you should express openly the "something" will help you as a DM to develop the story.
That might be a good idea to try out of game as I’ve tried doing it in game. Thanks for the suggestion :)
I agree with Jesse. Talk to them out of game. She may know what the "something" is, and thinks the character would draw it out slowly, or not know yet, and she's trying to play it out. Or maybe she has no idea, and the two of you need to work together to figure out what it is in a way that is exciting and fun for her. So come with some ideas. Just general stuff that she can build on and flavour, because you don't want her to feel like her character has become your character.
*maybe she discovered something about her heritage as a professor and wants to resolve it.
*maybe she came across a scroll in an unknown language that she was studying that was an omen or something.
*maybe a mysterious elvish character turned up and told her a prophecy about herself and her calling.
*maybe her calling is to unite the tribes of wood elves.
It could also be that the character just doesn't know what they are searching for ... this is pretty common in real life. Folks become dissatisfied with some aspect of their current life and want to explore/find more/have more meaning .. they go in search of something and they aren't even sure what it might be. Real people do this .. is it so far fetched for a character in an RPG to do this.
This is your homebrew campaign and you can run it any way you like, but I have found that having every character be entangled with plot lines or dieties that you create in the world for them only really fits one campaign style - the one where the PCs are fore-ordained heroes on a huge quest. Perhaps that is the kind of campaign you are running. I find that the mechanism doesn't work nearly as well for a more sandbox type campaign. However, your experience might be different.
I get what you’re saying and I can respect that. For my campaign, yes these characters do have some form of divine interest in the party’s actions - but that is part of a larger plot for the over arching campaign. I’m keeping the deity element loose to allow for sandbox gameplay but have also used it as an in game means for the characters to think about their adventure and the path they are on.
For instance our rogue, played by my 10 year old, was playing very brashly and also very pranky. His level three deity vision was a trickster god greeting him and saying that they’re gonna have fun together and taught the rogue basic spells - this was the in game event that allowed the rogue to become an arcane trickster subclass. But the deity also warned that he knew where the rogue’s destination was and that the rogue should slow down and take his time in order for the pair to continue having fun. And it was great because the next session the player was searching for traps, using his new abilities to distract monsters to help the party etc.
the pc’s are on a path that their respective deity knows, but I don’t know what that is and neither does the player. I’m allowing the events that unfold be their own story/destiny play out and the divine conversations are a means to allow the PCs to retrospect on their own growth as a character and where they want that character to go whilst the player is in that mindset - as opposed to outside conversations that can sometimes feel meta
i guess my major concern is I’m not sure how engaged the player herself is in the game and I want to find ways of making her feel like her character isn’t just around for the trip.
But so far some great ideas above.