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One of the best threads on this forum for preparing the Jade Regent is Gluttony's 'Things you've changed and things you should have'. I thought it would be a good idea to see what people have changed or what advice they might give about how they are running the many NPC's in Jade Regent. I know that in my first attempt at running the Jade Regent, the NPCs were the albatross around my neck, and they brought the whole thing crashing down. I think this was because I mistakenly thought that there were going to overshadow the PCs (I think that the Player's Guide was where I got this impression, because the modules have the fault of not mentioning the NPC's enough).
I'll start. This time around, I was upfront with my players about the fact that there were a lot of NPCs in this AP. When I started, I only had two PCs, so I told them that they could pick 1 or 2 of the NPCs in the Caravan to go out on adventures with them. I was consciously borrowing from the JRPG tradition of party formation. To go along with this, I added the idea of recruitment to this campaign. I emphasized this element of the game, and so far the PC's have pursued NPC's to recruit (even ones that I didn't expect, like Skitterfoot). My campaign hasn't finished the 1st module yet, and so far they've recruited Chief Scribbleface and the Licktoad tribe, Walt Proudstump, Shalelu (who took quite a bit of roleplaying and convincing), Koya, Sandru, and Skitterfoot. Ameiko didn't take any convincing after seeing the letter from Rokuro Kajitsu, and she even helped out with the recruiting for Sandru. They're currently travelling with Lute Haggersly (I stole the Haggersly storyline that someone else suggested where he's trading in Southern Varisia), but he's planning to leave them at Riddleport. The PC's have really liked this recruiting aspect, and in instances where it took a lot of convincing, I've awarded them XP by the NPC's CR. For example, Shalelu was adament against travelling with the Goblin Tribe. The PC's first coaxed out the family story of her parent's death, and then convinced her that her parents wouldn't have wanted her to hold such blind hatred for the race of their killers. I didn't plan any of this out, and it ended up being one of the highlights of the campaign so far. The mix of NPC's has led to a real dynamic feel to the travelling.
I'd love to hear what others have done with the NPC's in this campaign.
The first time I ran Jade Regent(only got to near the end of second book), I saddly felt I under utilized the NPC. My players in that came didn't rarely engaged the npc, preferring to focus on there current objectives. I running the campaign straight out the book with little to no adjustments, a mistake on my part.
Now I'm getting second attempt and things are already going a lot better from the first adventure!
Make sure to use the campaign traits! Have players build they're back stories around. Also don't be afraid to make adjustments to the traits. One my players at first didn't like any the traits cause just looking at names none them match, but when they actual read the description if match almost perfectly to their character concept (instead of childhood crush, is now overly protective bodyguard). Also play up on those traits! Elf in party has taken younger sibling, now I get to play off Shalelu as overprotective sister who wants to keep their younger brother out danger. So in order to go off adventuring, he got sneak off while she's away.
Second time I made sure to add more npc interaction time. I decided to open up with them all late night at rusty dragon just having a friendly chat with friends and family. I tried to only have two or three NPC interacting at any one time. Too many NPC's in one place make it hard me to keep track of as well my players. I decided to run the very first part of Burnt Offerings which leans into the goblin bounty being placed.
So far only had the first adventure, so I'll see if I can keep up npc interaction in future games.
A little from me: Disallow the Caravan Guard trait. It is the only one which does not tie a PC to one of the four NPC's and will be taken by players who are reticient to follow this basic principle of the AP. For my second group, I've edited it out of the players guide print-outs I gave them to prepare their characters.