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Why is he even on this trip? We started Sea Wyvern's Wake tonight and the players asked why a young boy was even on board...
I replied..."Um, I don't rememember...I'll look it up and we'll get to it next week." (It was pretty much the end of the session.)
Really, though, why is there such a young boy on board? Just saying, "He's the cabin boy," doesn't really feel sufficent.
I'm thinking I may make him an aspiring sailor or something...but why would he end up on this trip?
Why is he even on this trip? We started Sea Wyvern's Wake tonight and the players asked why a young boy was even on board...
I replied..."Um, I don't rememember...I'll look it up and we'll get to it next week." (It was pretty much the end of the session.)
Really, though, why is there such a young boy on board? Just saying, "He's the cabin boy," doesn't really feel sufficent.
I'm thinking I may make him an aspiring sailor or something...but why would he end up on this trip?
Think Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island. Eager to fight pirates, get treasure and in this case see dinosaurs. As per the aspiring sailor bit, yep makes sense. 12 year old midshipmans in the British Navy weren't too uncommon either. I didn't remember his background but if he's dedicated to Amella it could be a bit of feeling that someone needs to be there 'to look after her.'
Another option could be his actual family is in Farshore.
As to the actual roll of cabin boy, well the cabin boy is a sort of servant that waits on the captain and officers aboard the ship. Sometimes a sailor in training.
I heard that Tavey the cabin boy was a dirty little nipper.
The stuffed his...his...uh, I forget the rest of the words, but I gather the skipper was not at all pleased at the turn of events.
Not every NPC needs to have a point or a subplot. :)True...but if he's got a picture, the players assume there's a story.
I've decided that he's an aspiring sailor...apprentice/servant to Amella while on board the Sea Wyvern.
nice for them but well, no banana for close misses and mistaken assumptions. He is just window dressing 8unless the GM wants him - or her - to be somethng else. "He" was a girl in our campaign, which caused some interesting spinn-off socal scenes
Actually I would recommend drawing up names and short descriptions with a single point of identifying flavour for eachand everyone aboard, simply to help combat the sense of "oh the monster ate two namelss" mooks" and make the players identify with the crew (their comrade ) more. really helps with many of teh enocunters in SWW.
Oh, and of course Tavey is a wonderful target for Olangru in HtbM, to get players really angry at the demon with him going for the kid (probably in a gruesome way), hehe.
nice for them but well, no banana for close misses and mistaken assumptions. He is just window dressing 8unless the GM wants him - or her - to be somethng else.Not every NPC needs to have a point or a subplot. :)True...but if he's got a picture, the players assume there's a story.
Okay, but we’re not just talking about the players’ assumptions. First, the DM has to make an assumption, and it seems like a pretty fair one: Why take up space with a picture and a name if the character has no purpose in the AP? I mean, there are, as you point out, lots of other “unnamed” NPCs. Why does this one merit a picture and not all the others? The fact that there is a picture at least infers some larger purpose. Tracer’s question is valid and you actually make this point brilliantly:
Oh, and of course Tavey is a wonderful target for Olangru in HtbM, to get players really angry at the demon with him going for the kid (probably in a gruesome way), hehe.
Now, just to be a little more constructive… Tracer, in addition to Viking’s suggestions above, I’d like to share what I did in my AP. Mind you, my campaign was a little more mature than some.
Just as is mentioned here, I had Tavey turn out to be female (frankly, the picture sure looks like a chick). It’s pretty cliché, the young girl pretending to be a boy on a sailing ship, but it worked well. I played Amella as treating Tavey as her “boy toy,” causing the male PCs to make comments like, “Lucky kid!” But then I’d have Tavey showing uncomfortable interest in the male PCs – uncomfortable, but not inappropriate. I’m sure you can imagine the flow from there, but then came the “reveal.” The PC that Tavey was most interested in just happened to be trying really hard to win over Amella. Then, Tavey turns out to be a girl! The PC thinks “Hey, now I have a choice here.” Amella (and this was the big shocker for the PCs) was completely undeterred. Turns out (as I’d decided it) with Amella’s backstory, she was into the “boy” because she saw him as emotionally safe. Tavey as a girl was even better, to her way of thinking. This led to jealously, which really stifled the PC’s attempts to woo Amella and made for a brilliant dynamic – at least with my group. Let’s face it, these kinds of gender-benders aren’t for everyone.
That being said, if you think about all the other themes in this AP, you’ll see why I felt that the “gender-bending” was inferred. Let’s just say that I think there were a lot of things inferred in this AP, though not expressly stated (e.g. Lavinia and Vanthus’ relationship). To put a finer point on it, I felt that Tavey’s illustration was intentionally feminized, which caused me to “read between the lines.” The above scenario was the natural outgrowth, for me.
Well, what then is actually the reason/story for Skald ? Or Lirith ? Or even Avner ?
As far as I can tell, these NPCs are archetypes, providing flavour, identifiable NPCs to interact with, "ready-to-use". None of them provides any impetus to the story, unless the characters actively involve them. Basically, the named NPCs are setup in SWW, to provide well-known and-liked "dependants" in HtbM. Urol's and Amella's are slightly more complex, but in the end they are simply motivational incentive.
Maybe it's just me, but I find, that actually lavishing the same degree of attention on the rest of the crew will yield more satisfying results through a vastly enriched environment of targets for interaction.
Especially with regard to the fact, that the players will after a time suspect that someone aboard is angling for them with deadly intent, and will - in all experience with meta-gaming - focus on those NPCs with a rich history and even a portrait provided for them, consciously or not.
Just the same way they will associated the archetypes with certain movies, books or adventures. In our case it was "Pitch Black", and that particular notion actually stayed with the group for a long time thereafter and provided an unintentional texture of tension and pessimistic expectation.
Well, what then is actually the reason/story for Skald ? Or Lirith ? Or even Avner ?
Except that their stories are given to us...they're in the adventure as written. I simply thought that I must've overlooked something with Tavey, since he's got a picture. I'm not suggesting to get rid of him, I just thought perhaps he had a story that I missed.
That being said, I've written up a little blurb for each member of the crew so that, like you said, the PCs might actually interact with them and get to know who they are.
My point, Viking, is that if there is a picture – if the creators of this AP bothered to take up the space and expend the ink – then a DM (and by extension, the player) will reasonably ask “Why?” Comparing to other pictured NPCs doesn’t address the question. Comparing to nonpictured NPCs does. What is specially about this character - special enough that he is named and has a picture?
All your other points are excellent, and helpful, but you did specifically say:
nice for them but well, no banana for close misses and mistaken assumptions. He is just window dressing 8unless the GM wants him - or her - to be somethng else.
So, basically, my point is I don’t think it is a “mistaken assumption” if you expect a named, pictured NPC to have some back story – some intention by the authors. In other words, you did answer the bloke’s question, and you did it well, but give him a break – his question is valid. I understood it.
That’s all I’m saying.
So, basically, my point is I don’t think it is a “mistaken assumption” if you expect a named, pictured NPC to have some back story – some intention by the authors. In other words, you did answer the bloke’s question, and you did it well, but give him a break – his question is valid. I understood it.That’s all I’m saying.
ok, I thought we had a difference on the matter of Tavey. But, although my current(ly only ) group is thankfully free of meta-gaming tendencies, I have played with people who really took the conclusion "picture =VIP-NPC" to extremes, simply because they assumed that anyone who had a picture, also had to had important information or functions in the ongoing story. Or vice versa - they even kept asking "any pictures for that guy ?" to verify some mooks relevance for the plot at hand
As GM , it drove me nuts, as a fellow player it just made me groan with disbelief. Nice to throw something like this at that type of player^^As an aside - my brother's group which also played the STAP only started helping Lavinia on the third session, after the GM showed them a picture of her formthe handouts. Suddenly they were all aflutter wooing the formerly shortshrifted damsel in distress, tripping over their own feet to be the most getlemanly guy around......
ok, I thought we had a difference on the matter of Tavey. But, although my current(ly only ) group is thankfully free of meta-gaming tendencies, I have played with people who really took the conclusion "picture =VIP-NPC" to extremes, simply because they assumed that anyone who had a picture, also had to had important information or functions in the ongoing story. Or vice versa - they even kept asking "any pictures for that guy ?" to verify some mooks relevance for the plot at hand
As GM , it drove me nuts, as a fellow player it just made me groan with disbelief. Nice to throw something like this at that type of player^^
Oh, now I get you. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Yes, I agree with you, now that I see where you are coming from. Come to think of it, I had a similar problem, but I had an advantage of having access to great graphics software and was able to create handouts that looked genuinely like they were part of the AP in every detail. At first, it had them taking some things way too seriously – thinking that it was an important part of the AP. Then somebody caught on (“Hey, wait, this letter is addressing my character by name. How did the writers know what name I would choose?”) Then they could take nothing for granted. It might be a part of the game, it might be home brew – and they couldn’t tell the difference. Either way, they couldn’t metagame.
As an aside - my brother's group which also played the STAP only started helping Lavinia on the third session, after the GM showed them a picture of her formthe handouts. Suddenly they were all aflutter wooing the formerly shortshrifted damsel in distress, tripping over their own feet to be the most getlemanly guy around......
Ah, and thus the reason for the handout! If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I tried to determine what the creators had in mind – what they were trying to convey. I think the characters are supposed to fall for Lavinia – that’s why she’s drawn as attractive. I felt that Tavey looked like a girl pretending to be a boy.
Brilliant. Cheers!
I found Tavey totally pointless and had him die with the rest of the crew when the Sea Wyvern crashed on Masher Reef. I never introduced him as an NPC. I've developed Amella and Skald into major NPCs, however. In my group Skald is a seasoned world traveler who is trying to learn more about the various demonic "stirrings" throughout the land, and has given the PCs little tidbits along the way to help them out.
I also had Avner die in that shipwreck on the reef as well. My group includes a NE half-drow who has been itching to kill him since the first time they met, so I just decided to kill off Avner now and have him come back as some crazy Death Knight later.