PC's that don't stick to campaigns.


Advice


I have been my groups DM since we started. First I generated a new world with several cities and such, but the a player mentioned the rise of the rune lords campaign and I was excited to guide them through it. Now we are on book 3 hook mountain and they have died several times and brought new characters in..... Sigh. I still don't know what to do about that. To make things worse right when the flood is suppose to take place, after they liberate the black arrows garrison they decide to split the loot and go to magnimar, now they have spent more then a month there tediously making items and by that time the story was supposed to be well into the 4th book. My question is what do I do once the players go way off the time line like that and what do you do when a new character joins.(not one of the original heroes from sand point is with our group today)


The new char joining should probably be explained in their backstory. It often helps if the players are willing to start playing existing NPCs that are not crucial to the plot but have a motivation to help as PCs.

If they go off to do other things, stuff keeps happening. All things that are not specifically triggered by the PCs presence WILL happen, no matter if the PCs are there or not. I don't know the storyline for RotRl, but if they decide to go do other stuff, the original events should probably just keep happening and maybe they hear about them via a messenger asking for help or something and have to deal with the consequences. It's a living, breathing world.

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I completely understand the predicament you're in. My players do this all the time (or they try to, anyway).

The only thing you can do is have the events occur while they're gone, and adjust the adventure path accordingly. After doing this once, I would discuss with the players that this adventure path is on a strict timeline. This is not a typical Sandbox campaign and if they delay, there are consequences.

If your players were not aware of this up front, you may want to give them a mulligan - just this once, the timeline of events was delayed - but make sure they are aware it will not happen again.

As far as TPKs go, is this occuring due to player tactics, inadequate experience levels, or some other in game situation? If you can provide a reason your party keeps dying off, we can offer some advice to help keep your PCs alive...for a while, anyway...


Time limt/ time table in AP it up to you the GM is the AP over because the bad guy allready killed the fair maiden and became a god? or is they still waiting and they to where making themsselves better as well.

I have the soul surivor rule when I run AP. If I kill all the PC form the orginal party then the party failed the AP. Those is it over. This challens them to play smarterand know when to run. But I give new PC right to keep the AP going if there new PC has invested themselves in to AP role play wise. I feel role play trumps roll play every day.


From what I understand the time table in RotRl can be adjusted. I do have a few questions...

1. Are you providing plot hooks? If so are they ignoring them?

2. Are your player's Characters dieing or are they getting bored with the character and making new ones?

3. When a new character is introduced have you worked with the player to incorperate a reason the character would want to see the campaign through?

Based on those three questions I can tell you if you are to blame, they are to blame, or a mix of both (Im guessing this one).

Provide Plot hooks. More then one is great if you can.
If your players are just getting bored with the character set them down and talk to them. Playing a character you dont like isn't fun, but neither is working in a new character every other game session as a DM. There needs to be a happy middle ground when it comes to these sort of things. Your players might not understand how difficult it is to keep a plot running if they change characters too often. And as I said before. If they really want to introduce a new character work with them to make sure the new character has background reasons for wanting to complete the mission... that does two things...

1. Helps get the player invested in the story.
2. Makes it very hard for the player to explain why his character would just walk away from the party and the mission later on.(In the event the player gets bored again).

Just my 2 coppers.


SephirothFF07 wrote:
To make things worse right when the flood is suppose to take place, after they liberate the black arrows garrison they decide to split the loot and go to magnimar, now they have spent more then a month there tediously making items and by that time the story was supposed to be well into the 4th book.

Do you think the game would be more fun if you didn't give them time to craft magic items? And when you say it's "tedious", do you mean it's tedious for you or for the players?


I agree with the others that you keep the main story going and that there are consequences to their inaction. Time doesn't stand still because they cower in a big city trying to gather their power for a bigger assault, the enemy also gathers power and resources while they are away. You may need to talk to them candidly about this out of game or give them a hefty reminder of the power and danger their characters are allowing to be set free in game, either works in my experience.

Usually it's an unspoken agreement between players and GM's that they try to stay on the path set before them especially when they play an AP. If they don't want to play in a more railroady adventure, then your group may want to consider a more sandbox style of play in an adventure/series of adventures of your making. I usually have a few ideas in addition to the AP's on what I'd like to GM and I'll "pitch" to my group to see what they like the best and go with the majority.


It's quite some time since my RotRL game was at this point but iirc the players should be warned about the flood by NPCs or at least figure it out quite easily.

RotRL spoiler:

When the party makes it's way to turtleback ferry you should have told them (via the people of turtleback ferry) that it rains nearly non-stop for the last weeks, even if the people of the ferry didn't tell them they should have noticed the (somewhat) weird weather and make some knowledge history and/or geography.
Keep in mind that if turtleback ferry is destroyed in the flood then Karzoug might ressurect before the players manage to get to him.


Keep the story moving.

And I'm sure that you can find an adventure to set in Magnimar. Grab a PFS adventure, or switch to Curse of the Crimson Throne or Shattered Star for ideas.


Thanks to everyone, this will help a lot I will sit down with them before we start and get some replies on what they think and go from there. I think I will give them a mulligan just this once and let them know that this world is a living one that doesn't stop for you. :)


Many of the AP's are on a strict timeline and don't give the players ANY downtime to make magic items or whatnot. My thought is to give them the time to make what they want, dangle the plot hook in front of them, and if they don't take it, report the results of the flood killing many people. If they are good aligned, hopefully they will feel bad about their inaction. If not, well there isn't much you can do.

Perhaps if they don't take the bait, another adventuring party stops the flood and hogs all the glory. THAT may get them moving....


Generally, when players go off the rails, either accept it and drop the campaign, or let them, but shower them in hooks that lead back towards the rails. Or be honest and tell them they're leaving the adventure if they do that, but that's the least elegant in my opinion.


...or play Kingmaker. All you do is wander around :)

Seriously tho at the OP: awesome that you're going to talk it out with your players. I've had a lot of homebrew campaigns that went this way. I think with homebrews it's even worse b/cause with an AP you have a book you can follow, and the players have a guide to give them the feel of it. There's a framework in place and an expected end goal.

W/a homebrew only the GM knows where the game's s'posed to go. Everyone else at the table is just hanging out and having fun - they can't read the GM's mind and know "oh right, we were supposed to take that sword to the next town so we could meed the werewolf mayor..."

IME there are certain players who will respond to the "shower of plot hooks" and others who will obsess over one aspect of the game. For me the challenge is always balancing between the players who WANT to go off the rails and the ones who want a hard and fast railroad to the finish. I pray for the players who are in between these extremes.

My advice would be 1. talk w/your players as you'd planned, though I guess I'm kind of a dark GM and wouldn't give them the mulligan, 2. create the next adventure with the endgoal in mind and then 3. drop obvious hints using the 3 clue rule.

3 clue rule: if you want your players to figure out the BBEG is a werewolf, don't have them get to the cabin and hear some obscure howling and let that be the end of it. Instead give them 3 easily discernable clues. Tell them they see human tracks that leave the cabin and then it looks like the human was struggling; a few feet from that they note wolf tracks. Have them find a journal detailing their quarry's obsession with the moon, wolves and the wild. Finally scatter some very obviously wolf's fur near the quarry's wash basin or in their bed in the cabin or something.

In other words, if you want them to go a certain way give them at least 3 (you can have more) reasons to suspect that's the way to go.


I second the 3 clue rule. 1 clue is never enough. The same is true for plot hooks you want them to follow. (Though if you like going with whatever they pick up, throwing random hooks at them and seeing what sticks is perfectly fine.)

I think it's easier with homebrew campaigns, though. There, the GM usually makes up much of the campaign just before each session, and he has a much better idea of his options then when he's working from someone else's book. With a book, you want to follow the book and if the players go elsewhere, you've got nothing. Though a bit of improvisation in between the railroad can be very liberating.

For the players who like going off-track, figure out what caught their attention off the track, and tie that back into the main story. If they go somewhere else to buy crafting supplies, maybe the town got sacked by minions of the BBEG, or something dramatic happens while they're quietly busy with their crafting. Or they find a lead about some really cool loot that leads back to the main story. And you don't have to do that immediately; let them have a completely unrelated adventure. A couple even. But at the conclusion, it turns out that it's still somehow related to the main story. Maybe the BBEG of that adventure is a henchman of the BBEG of the main campaign, for example. Or a rival.


@ the OP: you said a flood is coming right? There's unseasonable weather? And the party is hanging in Magnimar to craft items? How about this:

Start jacking their prices, explaining that materials and food and such are growing scarces due to the hoarding. Make a point of describing the dreary weather around town. Foreshadow the flood by having a sewer back up in the city and the party is sought out to 1. help save the orphans trapped in the flooding city block, 2. once they're out of danger use their powers to go down into the murk to repair the damage. Finally when all this is done, have an NPC say something like "Phew, thank goodness you were here! Where I grew up, back in (Turtleback Ferry is it in the AP?), if there was a break like this the whole TOWN'D go under!"

That's just a few ways to move them down the right path.


Mark Hoover wrote:

@ the OP: you said a flood is coming right? There's unseasonable weather? And the party is hanging in Magnimar to craft items? How about this:

Start jacking their prices, explaining that materials and food and such are growing scarces due to the hoarding.

Ugh. I'd hate that. They've expended scarce resources (feats) to be able to craft items, thus I think they should get some chance to do so. If the module is on a super-short timescale, I'd tell them that and offer to let them swap out the feats for something else.

Beyond that… there certainly can and should be points where the party doesn't have time to sit around making shit. Give them some warning through various means as mentioned, but if they don't respond, bad stuff starts to happen.

But overall, someone taking crafting feats will be wanting to get some use out of them. And I think they should get a fair amount of use out of them, or they should be warned not to take the feats.


Explain to them that they can still craft items while adventuring, or bits at a time. Pathfinder crafting rules are more then generous enough for even the busy adventurer to feel they're getting some use out of it.

If they're trying to make items expensive enough (or in large enough quantities) to require they stick around for months, there are other issues going on.


Mark Hoover wrote:

@ the OP: you said a flood is coming right? There's unseasonable weather? And the party is hanging in Magnimar to craft items? How about this:

Start jacking their prices, explaining that materials and food and such are growing scarces due to the hoarding. Make a point of describing the dreary weather around town. Foreshadow the flood by having a sewer back up in the city and the party is sought out to 1. help save the orphans trapped in the flooding city block, 2. once they're out of danger use their powers to go down into the murk to repair the damage. Finally when all this is done, have an NPC say something like "Phew, thank goodness you were here! Where I grew up, back in (Turtleback Ferry is it in the AP?), if there was a break like this the whole TOWN'D go under!"

That's just a few ways to move them down the right path.

That wouldn't work, turtleback ferry is a few hundreds miles away from Magnimar and the weird weather only happens in that region, also Magnimar is a very big city state and a few weeks of nearly non-stop rain (just before winter) wouldn't really affect the market of magnimar.


Maybe come up with a seemingly non-catastrophic matter (or a crisis, that works too) that requires their attention in the city they are supposed to be in, and then have it all go to hell (back on track) after they are there? Don't know the adventure: maybe a respected seer type they've met notices some really bad looking portents, maybe the ruler is having a ceremony in their honor, someone in charge asks they investigate something related or not, or so on.

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