When it comes to kicking off an adventure, or even a whole campaign, is an NPC hiring the PC's a lame adventure hook? I would argue it is.
I've posted this a couple of times now, buried in other threads, so here's my attempt to see what other people think about this topic, in and of itself. Here's the latest, copied from elsewhere...
Having read Savage Tide, the first few adventures did really turn me off, in that the only good hooks seemed to be some NPC employing the PC's to do a job. As a DM, I pretty much swear to never employ this one, and as a player there's nothing that annoys me more, I find it to be very lazy DM / designer practice (like, you can't take the PC's backgrounds and future goals and work something from all that).This criticism is pretty unfair, considering that the designer/writer has to come up with a hook without knowing anything about the backgrounds of the characters or the interests of the players. Furthermore, they need to come up with one that appeals to as wide a range of characters and players as possible AND provides a tie-in to the central story-line of the AP. Given those restrictions, there are a limited number of hooks available that are suitable for 1st level characters. NPC interaction having a greater role in ST than in AoW, using the patron hook allows the designers to come up with a way to tie the various adventures together while setting up the Savage Tide threat and emphasize the fact that the campaign will be more than "kick in the door and kill the monster."
I dunno, I guess opinions vary - I think remember James dismissing my criticism of this some time ago, too, which was a bit disappointing really. From memory, the response was, "If you don't like that beginning, change it" - stating the obvious, but missing my point. I'm speaking from my personal experience as a player here, but I also DM a lot. I'm not asking designers to know my group, in fact I'm simply asking them to stop trying to dictate our campaigns. Leave things more open, don't try and enforce how things kick off, especially when it comes to motivations. IMO, it's the DM's job (with the players) to help get things started, and to help steer them throughout the course of the adventure. No designer can do that for us, at least not completely, otherwise no-one has free will, it's all pre-planned for us all (yuck).
For example, we played through the first set of Eberron adventures some time ago, where we were always being told what to do by some NPC - hired guns going someone else's dirty work, for lack of better description. I found it deeply unsatisfying, asking myself "why is my character doing this, and with these other PC's" on a number of occasions. The same DM has used this "hook" for other campaign's we've played too. Sure, I can go along with it, but I find it very uninspiring as a player. I'd rather that we, as players, have the chance to create our own backgrounds and ideas, and then the DM weaves these into the backstory of the adventure, thereby customising a beginning. An NPC telling you what to do basically means players don't need to come up with motivations, backgrounds etc, or even work at creating a cohesive group - some NPC is doing that for them. Sure, good players will try and do this anyway, but there's not really any incentive to do so, and you feel railroaded by this NPC.
Age of Worms did a very good job of coming up with a good intro, in my opinion. While I chose to alter the beginning somewhat, because I kicked off with another adventure before Whispering Cairn, the published text was flexible enough to easily accommodate other ideas, and also make me as a DM sit up and think, "yeah, that's a good way to try and start a campaign - tell the players some basics of how the adventure starts and where their PC's are, and let them fill in the details of exactly how this comes about." I found, with Age of Worms, I could easily scale back the NPC interferences that there were (quite a few in the mid-sections), and let the players come up with basically the same motivations without me having to be heavy-handed. Imagine if the beginning of the campaign was Allustan saying, "hey guys, why don't you have a look at this old abandoned cairn over here?" - what a flop.
Check out Greyhawk Ruins - it basically has no pre-planned opening at all, except that the PC's stumble across the aftermath of an attack that leads them into the adventure. Kind of like Mad God's Key, which had an excellent beginning, again throwing the PC's into the action, but letting them decide how they tackle it. Now, Greyhawk Ruins is let down by its continual page or more of background text every chapter, despite their being ample background info in the first chapter or so, but still, at least it doesn't waste valuable pages of the book trying to tell me how to get my group's PC's into the campaign's plots, or enforce some NPC hiring them to do stuff because the PC's have no motivation to do anything themselves (alas, it does that multiple times later on, but hey, I can re-work at least one of those easily enough). Mad God's Key and Greyhawk Ruins both simply presented a situation where the PC's have the option to get involved, thereby learning about other stuff that's happening, and after a while they find there are various things going on they can get involved in, all motivated by their own choices. Every player I've DM'd for has, in pretty short time, decided to pick up these plot threads and run with them, but in their own way based on their character, and it leads to good role-play opportunities as well, with the group working through who they are, what motivates them, and so on - this works especially well with parties that are of a generally good alignment, as helping others in need is a strong bond. An NPC hiring your group tends to kill role-play, as there's still the distinct possibility that you have PC's as individuals, only together because they have been hired to do a job, so genuine role-play that finds a common bond beyond that doesn't often occur, at least not that I've seen.
To make a small edit of my original post above:
Having read Savage Tide, the first few adventures did really turn me off, in that the only good hooks seemed to be some NPC employing the PC's to do a job. As a DM, I pretty much swear to never employ this one, and as a player there's nothing that annoys me more, I find it to be very lazy DM / designer practice (like, as a DM you can't take the PC's backgrounds and future goals and work something from all that?).
So all I'm saying is that published adventures don't need to have the, in my opinion very tired cliche, "NPC hires group of adventurers" hook. Save some space and just provide some minimal background and ideas on how to get the PC's into the action, then let the DM come up with the specifics based on their own group of players and PC's. That's a DM's job - having the NPC get the party together is basically trying to side-step the DM as well as the players, and in my experience creates issues long-term as far as creating a believable campaign where the players genuinely feel their PC's have the major say onw hat they are doing and why (even if in reality, the DM is steering them in the right directions as they go along). I'd much rather have another page or two of adventure text, than a page or two of elaborate background about the NPC, their organisation, why they are hiring the PC's, the NPC's stat block, and so on.
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I'd rather that we, as players, have the chance to create our own backgrounds and ideas, and then the DM weaves these into the backstory of the adventure, thereby customising a beginning.
This is what I usually try to do with my players cause I find it much easier to run a campaign where the PC are personally motivated to achieve some results. But I also agree with Dragonchess Player that it is quite difficult for a designer to create innovative, interesting and exciting plot hooks appealing for a broad range of players. I've run campaigns with players who aren't interested in the "personal background"-approach so you have to find other possibilities to draw them into the adventure.
You're right, NPC giving missions to the PC are kind of lame. But I could imagine that there are people who just don't like the "you live in that city and just wanna go out there/...when suddenly catastrophe strucks") start of a campaign either. See the "Sandpoint is amazing"-thread for some criticism with respect to this approach. And in my opinion it is much easier to change the start of STAP as to change the beginning of RotRL or AoW, where locality and plot are interwoven much more densely.
Apart from that, I think that you CAN work with this approach without making it boring for the players. In my group (only 3 players) I ran them throug Mark A. Harts "The funeral procession" as an introductory adventure. When they had defeated the Grazz't-Cult, they had built quite a reputation in Sasserine; they had already heard about the accident leading to the death of Lavinia's parents so it came quite natural for them when they get invited to Lavinia's mansion (they had been invited by other notable families i.e. the Kellani before). And one of them was so impressed by Lavinia's beauty that he would have probably done everything to stay in her favor. So he did'nt asked what she could do for him. He asked what he could do for her instead.
It's the same thing with RotRL. If the PC have gone through "Burnt Offerings" they are Sandpoint's new heroes. So it is natural for Sheriff Hemlock to come to them at the beginning of the "Skinsaw Murders". If you play it out the right way, they may feel flattered rather than bored.
And what the designer's couldn't possibly know is that one of my player's (the cleric) helped build the new cathedral, that another is one of the Sheriff's deputies and a third one was send to Sandpoint to work for the Kaijitsu family (his parents are business partners of Lonjiku Kaijitsu hoping that their stupid son will stop the study of magic and will do something useful instead).
So it is impossible for them to build an adventure hook based on this knowledge. This is something which has to be done by me, the DM. So no matter what they do, chances are that I'd replace it by something home-brewn.
So this all being said, I prefer other approaches as well. But I can live with the "NPC hires PC"-plot as long as there is a trigger event which makes both parties known to each other. Something on the line of rescuing Ruphus Laro (Shackled City) which leads to the "rescue the children"-mission in a natural way. Or the start of RotRL where the PC have a chance to shine before they become the target of any NPC client.
But while it wasn't integrated in the adventure "There be no honor" itself I remember the DM being expected to work with his players to come up with something cool to give them some reputation in and around Sasserine. I thought this begged for an introductory adventure but I think that this is just one possibility.
I'm going to tackle Hastur's criticism from a slightly different angle then Wormy.
Essentially if you go and look at one of a couple of threads that ask the question "What AP Do You Like More, Savage Tide or Age of Worms?" your going to find that the posters on the thread tend to split down the middle on whether their favourite AP is Age of Worms or Savage Tide.
I think you've pretty much hit on one of the major reasons for this split. Savage Tide is much more of a story driven AP then Age of Worms. Story driven APs would tend to be more tightly plotted and focus a lot more on the NPCs and how the NPCs will interact with the PCs. On the up side you get a strong connections between adventures and powerful sub themes that carry forward between the adventures. On the downside there is less room for the DM to interject their own NPCs into the mix and it tends to be more boxed in and less free form.
So your point that the links between Age of Worms were weak can be a strong point if you want to customize these links for your particular group but its often listed by DMs as one of the weak points in the AP. The constant parade of throw away NPCs giving the PCs yet another Fedex Quest is hardly tight scripting and as it stands and without some serous work on the DMs part its hard on player motivation to constantly be running off to do these Fedex Quests.
Savage Tide is a story about a brother and sister, sure there are demon lords and a plot to destroy the world but the common theme that runs through the entire AP is the interaction between Lavina and Vanthus. Age of Worms does not really provide that kind of ongoing personal plot line.
So what we are really dealing with here is that its not easy to please both styles of play. Some DMs find the existence of such a script in Savage Tide to be stepping on their toes while other DMs are just jazzed that here is a series of adventures with a real in depth NPC that will play a strong role throughout the AP. Both styles of play are perfectly valid furthermore it would seem that both styles have strong adherents that believe their style is the superior version. There really does not seem to be a clear answer on which style all APs should follow from now on under these circumstances. I would expect to see both in future products.
In the end I think James answer of 'Modify this aspect to suite your needs' is the only possible answer one can give since there is no clear answer as to which style is better. DMs that want stronger story links in AoWs and more ongoing NPCs to use for love triangles and what not will have to add them. DMs that dislike the significant role Lavina plays as a patron in Savage Tide can probably remove her and come up with their own links.
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And one more thing: As has been said before all those adventures also have to appeal to those people not able to run them (why should they buy them if they don't like reading them? ). Let's compare "Life's Bazaare","The Whispering Cairn" and "Burnt Offerings". Three totally awesome adventures which I had a blast running for my group. But when I read through "Life's Bazaare" for the first time, I have to admit that I was a bit annoyed by the very large dungeon. There were a lot of rooms which were just there to be explored without apparent connection to the overall story. Awesome to play through but not so awesome to read through (at least, for me, that is).
"Whispering Cairn" catched my attention in the second half after the heroes met Alastor Land. Before that point it was just another (perfectly designed) dungeon crawl. Ok, then came the Diamond Lake Backdrop and I fell in love with this little town.
"Burnt Offerings", apart from being a great adventure, was a fun-read starting page one. It isn't quite often that I cannot stop reading through an adventure but this time I couldn't. The story and all those little details totally got me.
So, as a customer who hasn't the time to run all those adventures Paizo publishes I actually prefer those I enjoy reading. In fact, I think that this may be the main reason for the popularity of Paizo-Style adventures as written by James, Nick, Richard and all those other great authors. Even if I don't run them I have a good time reading them. Which is something special and greatly appreciated by most of the fans.
And to make long story short, the "npc hires pc"-approach may be a bit lame when it comes to run an adventure. But if well presented, it makes a good start of an exciting story.
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When it comes to kicking off an adventure, or even a whole campaign, is an NPC hiring the PC's a lame adventure hook? I would argue it is.
I've posted this a couple of times now, buried in other threads, so here's my attempt to see what other people think about this topic, in and of itself. Here's the latest, copied from elsewhere...
Dragonchess Player wrote:
Hastur wrote:
Having read Savage Tide, the first few adventures did really turn me off, in that the only good hooks seemed to be some NPC employing the PC's to do a job. As a DM, I pretty much swear to never employ this one, and as a player there's nothing that annoys me more, I find it to be very lazy DM / designer practice (like, you can't take the PC's backgrounds and future goals and work something from all that).This criticism is pretty unfair, considering that the designer/writer has to come up with a hook without knowing anything about the backgrounds of the characters or the interests of the players. Furthermore, they need to come up with one that appeals to as wide a range of characters and players as possible AND provides a tie-in to the central story-line of the AP. Given those restrictions, there are a limited number of hooks available that are suitable for 1st level characters. NPC interaction having a greater role in ST than in AoW, using the patron hook allows the designers to come up with a way to tie the various adventures together while setting up the Savage Tide threat and emphasize the fact that the campaign will be more than "kick in the door and kill the monster."
I dunno, I guess opinions vary - I think remember James dismissing my criticism of this some time ago, too, which was a bit disappointing really. From memory, the response was, "If you don't like that beginning, change it" - stating the obvious, but missing my point. I'm speaking from my personal experience as a player here, but I also DM a lot. I'm not asking designers to know my group, in fact I'm simply asking them to stop trying to dictate our campaigns. Leave things more open, don't try and enforce how things kick off, especially when it comes to motivations. IMO, it's the DM's job (with the players) to help get things started, and to help steer them throughout the course of the adventure. No designer can do that for us, at least not completely, otherwise no-one has free will, it's all pre-planned for us all (yuck).
For example, we played through the first set of Eberron adventures some time ago, where we were always being told what to do by some NPC - hired guns going someone else's dirty work, for lack of better description. I found it deeply unsatisfying, asking myself "why is my character doing this, and with these other PC's" on a number of occasions. The same DM has used this "hook" for other campaign's we've played too. Sure, I can go along with it, but I find it very uninspiring as a player. I'd rather that we, as players, have the chance to create our own backgrounds and ideas, and then the DM weaves these into the backstory of the adventure, thereby customising a beginning. An NPC telling you what to do basically means players don't need to come up with motivations, backgrounds etc, or even work at creating a cohesive group - some NPC is doing that for them. Sure, good players will try and do this anyway, but there's not really any incentive to do so, and you feel railroaded by this NPC.
Age of Worms did a very good job of coming up with a good intro, in my opinion. While I chose to alter the beginning somewhat, because I kicked off with another adventure before Whispering Cairn, the published text was flexible enough to easily accommodate other ideas, and also make me as a DM sit up and think, "yeah, that's a good way to try and start a campaign - tell the players some basics of how the adventure starts and where their PC's are, and let them fill in the details of exactly how this comes about." I found, with Age of Worms, I could easily scale back the NPC interferences that there were (quite a few in the mid-sections), and let the players come up with basically the same motivations without me having to be heavy-handed. Imagine if the beginning of the campaign was Allustan saying, "hey guys, why don't you have a look at this old abandoned cairn over here?" - what a flop.
Check out Greyhawk Ruins - it basically has no pre-planned opening at all, except that the PC's stumble across the aftermath of an attack that leads them into the adventure. Kind of like Mad God's Key, which had an excellent beginning, again throwing the PC's into the action, but letting them decide how they tackle it. Now, Greyhawk Ruins is let down by its continual page or more of background text every chapter, despite their being ample background info in the first chapter or so, but still, at least it doesn't waste valuable pages of the book trying to tell me how to get my group's PC's into the campaign's plots, or enforce some NPC hiring them to do stuff because the PC's have no motivation to do anything themselves (alas, it does that multiple times later on, but hey, I can re-work at least one of those easily enough). Mad God's Key and Greyhawk Ruins both simply presented a situation where the PC's have the option to get involved, thereby learning about other stuff that's happening, and after a while they find there are various things going on they can get involved in, all motivated by their own choices. Every player I've DM'd for has, in pretty short time, decided to pick up these plot threads and run with them, but in their own way based on their character, and it leads to good role-play opportunities as well, with the group working through who they are, what motivates them, and so on - this works especially well with parties that are of a generally good alignment, as helping others in need is a strong bond. An NPC hiring your group tends to kill role-play, as there's still the distinct possibility that you have PC's as individuals, only together because they have been hired to do a job, so genuine role-play that finds a common bond beyond that doesn't often occur, at least not that I've seen.
To make a small edit of my original post above:
Having read Savage Tide, the first few adventures did really turn me off, in that the only good hooks seemed to be some NPC employing the PC's to do a job. As a DM, I pretty much swear to never employ this one, and as a player there's nothing that annoys me more, I find it to be very lazy DM / designer practice (like, as a DM you can't take the PC's backgrounds and future goals and work something from all that?).
So all I'm saying is that published adventures don't need to have the, in my opinion very tired cliche, "NPC hires group of adventurers" hook. Save some space and just provide some minimal background and ideas on how to get the PC's into the action, then let the DM come up with the specifics based on their own group of players and PC's. That's a DM's job - having the NPC get the party together is basically trying to side-step the DM as well as the players, and in my experience creates issues long-term as far as creating a believable campaign where the players genuinely feel their PC's have the major say onw hat they are doing and why (even if in reality, the DM is steering them in the right directions as they go along). I'd much rather have another page or two of adventure text, than a page or two of elaborate background about the NPC, their organisation, why they are hiring the PC's, the NPC's stat block, and so on.
I largely disagree with this criticism, though I can sort of sympathise. I think Dragonchess Player has largely hit the nail on the head about why the AP's are structured like that. Coming up with personal hooks for PCs they don't know, hell, settings they don't know, is tricky for the designers as they have to make it fairly generic. Being hired is a reasonable default and, frankly, a reasonably realistic motivation. Most of give away our best time of the day, five days a week, basically for the cash. I don't see why "get-rich-quick" adventurers should balk at that.
I also think your counter examples are a bit false too. The Whispering Cairn has no set-up - it basically says "You are from Diamond Lake, there is a mound nearby, you decide to investigate it". There isn't much more to it than that. The "saving-the-damsel-in-distress" hook (or guy, in this instance) from the Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk is as old as the hills, and potentially dubious (what if the PCs don't decide to help?).
I also get vaguely frustrated by the "what's my motivation" argument from players which I'm seeing a bit these last few days. I personally expect my players to actually suspend a little bit of disbelief and play along with me as DM. Openings to campaigns are always a little problematic and contrived - you get a bunch of people together who may or may not have had anything to do with one another, and they decide to rush off into deadly situations, trusting each other with their lives after minimal acquaintance. Oh, and funnily enough, you almost always get one who is a good fighter, one good with traps, an arcane spellcaster and a healer. Wow, coincidence, huh?
I kicked off my Eberron campaign with a punch-up in a tavern. Then they get hired by the person they have saved. It scores very low for originality. But, frankly, the point is to get the campaign going with the minimum of fuss, and we are having a good time and roleplaying just fine. In fact, the PCs fell out with their estwhile employer, and the party paladin was having all sorts of concerns about the ethics of the situation. Being hired can be just as much an opportunity for good roleplaying as anything else.
Very few DMs give their players much choice. But giving them the illusion of choice is key.
Thanks for the responses folks, all good thoughtful points, none of which I disagree with really.
I guess that for me this conversation is especially pertinent given I'm kicking off two campaigns at the moment. What I've found, and have found in other campaigns as a player as well as DM, is that getting a really good beginning is difficult but also (at least for me) quite important. Looking at all our examples with published adventures, I agree, they are all pretty much lame really, especially without some degree of DM customisation. And that's OK, after all customising a pre-published adventure goes with the territory, you've got to expect to do a bit of that (just not too much).
About the only example of an adventure I've played or DM'd that felt original and un-forced from the beginning would be Mad God's Key. Here, the PC's simply stumble upon a crime in progress, and have the opportunity to interject themselves in whatever way(s) they want. Kind of like the punch-up in the bar, except more open-ended in that you can talk to the robbers, call for the watch, try to arrest them yourselves, attack them, some or all of the above, or just ignore them. No-one's forced to do anything, or even respond (unlike a fist in the face, which tends to elicit a similar response). And like Ruins of Greyhawk, if the PC's don't grab that first hook, then as a DM I'd need to be a little creative in terms of trying to re-hook them again soon. I don't have a problem with this, in Ruins of Greyhawk, I think there are already a couple of other (potentially lame) ways to re-hook the PC's written. For me, I'm always comfortable creating my own hooks to get the PC's back on track, although a couple of quick suggestions from the designers is always welcomed.
Now, while I never used the published intro for Whispering Cairn, at least when I read it I thought, "yeah, that's a good idea, I should use that one day". I can't say I felt the same way about the intro for Savage Tide - I read that one, and the following adventures, and thought, "Oh, here we go again..." Not to say the Savage Tide doesn't have all sorts of cool ideas, and cool looking adventures, and of course you really can never tell until you run the thing how it actually works best. But I just looked at that first adventure, with an NPC hiring the PC's to do her dirty work, not just once but across multiple adventures in fact, and for me it was all just a re-hash of too many other adventure hooks I've played in and seen published before. I had other issues with There is no Honor as well, like the assumption that the PC's would want to wipe out a whole guild of thieves in the second half.
But hey, it's easy to criticise when you've never tried it - as is quite rightly said above somewhere, reading an adventure and actually playing it are two quite different things, and often what reads well doesn't actually play that well, and sometimes visa versa. Certainly my experience with the Age of Worms campaign was exactly that - at first, I thought it looked kind of interesting but not something I wanted to actually run. The beginning looked interesting, but mid and especially high level adventures I looked at and went "huh?" But when I gave it a go, I found that, with a bit of work to iron out the creases (mainly between adventures), I ended up with the most awesome campaign I think I'll ever have run, past or future, from beginning to end.
Which brings me back to my main point, really, which is simply that I'd rather designers of adventures spent the absolute minimum of space in adventures trying to set up the "plot". The DM always does that best, so all we need is some minimal hints to get our brains into the right gear.
Some of this responsibility is the designers, but I also suspect that some or it rests firmly with the publisher and/or editor. So James and Erik, and the WotC guys, if you're listening out there, my only real request for your awesome adventures is to please, go light on the fluff through your published adventures, as a DM I want minimal background and "plot", with maximum space left over for all the stuff that's actually of use while I'm at the gaming table. Stuff that's of use away from the table, that I can't realistically spend an age reading through while the players twiddle their thumbs, is mostly wasted space for me. If you can also steer away from the obvious set-up cliche's, of which "NPC hires you to do a job" is one, all the better. The set-up thing is a personal bugbear of mine, which ultimately I'm happy to live with, but again, if you're going to do this, spend a small paragraph on it, not one or more pages. The best kind of into for an adventure is, in my opinion, along the lines of "Only you, as DM, know best how to motivate the PC's. If you're really stuck, here's a couple of ideas that might get you started..."
Good examples of adventures that offend me in this respect, would be:
Library of Last Resort - the first quarter or so is one big rail-road to the island, which I dumped and re-used only a portion of (the rest of the adventure was a bit lame too, but at least I could basically use that as written). I wrote a longer piece on this in the Age of Worms forum.
Shattered Gates of Slaughterguard - thankfully, there is minimal space spent on setting up the adventures - about one page for the whole campaign, which is pretty reasonable. Unfortunately, every plot hook revolves around an NPC giving the players motivation. So it's a bit lame, but at least it's only one page of lame in a pretty big set of adventures. I've actually just kicked this one off two weeks ago, and changed it so that the PC's were, originally, guards on a caravan. Goblinoids attacked in great numbers, together with an invisible drow rider on a lizard (to get the goods), and I even planted a half-drow amongst the caravan guards to double-cross the PC's half-way through any fight. My intention was for the PC's to actually be the ones who lost the shipment of spices etc, hence be more strongly motivated to rectify the situation. As it was, they rode their luck hard and nearly defeated the set-up entirely (which would have been OK, they would have been able to track the attackers back to source, and still have reason to eradicate any further menace, on behalf of the guild if need be). So I got away with about a third of the shipment, and we then proceeded with the plot as written i.e. the guild charged them with recovering the missing spices etc, and also charged the agro half-orc with completely eradicating whatever was behind this attack. End result - with a bit of work, not too much, I wrote a page of notes that allowed me to create a much more organic, realistic feeling beginning, which I'm expecting will set the campaign up well for the rest of it, which is to be a player-driven kind of plot ("the plot is what the adventurers do" - I like that saying).
Greyhawk Ruins: almost every chapter keeps repeating the core plot and background about Zagyg and Iuz, like I didn't get it already. It's an interesting book to read end to end, if you have the time and patience, but I fear greatly for my ability to actually use it at the table (I'm starting with it next week, by the way), as the key information is spread all over the place, with no helpful DM tools like for example a summary of the suggested time-line (I'm having to make one myself). To make sense of it all, you have to read the whole thing through (more than once), piece together bits that are spread all over the place (like what do the PC's actually experience at each of the three towers if they don't follow the plot exactly?), fill in some missing gaps, and for me at least, photocopy some pieces and cut them up so I have a hope of remembering some things that are, realistically, going to be played out as scattered between chapters (random dungeon encounter tables, the city-based encounters, etc). Seems like a great adventure, especially as a big "one-off" like I'm running it (with two players who have just finished Age of Worms) rather than inside a greater campaign arc. But man, it really does look like it's going to be a pain for me to DM it well. A layout that had all the background at the beginning, collated all the key info about each key location in one (and only one) place, plus a one or two page time-line summary (i.e. on this day, this stuff happens; if the Pc's do this, it changes to that; if they don't do this, that happens) - this would have given what looks to be a good adventure, a shot at being great (without stressing out the DM!)
Various other adventures I've been a player in - I've not read the adventures in question, so can only assume my DM's have generally been lazy in this respect, but nearly every campaign I've played in for the last 2-3 years has started with someone hiring our PC's to do a job. Sometimes over and over. It becomes quite boring. In the latest one, it was quite funny for me because the town mayor was on the lookout for help, the kind that could "look after themselves in a fight", but my PC, a female monk with 6 Strength, didn't fit that bill whatsoever. So most of the PC's were sought out and found in the local bars etc - I helped the DM out and said my PC over-heard them recruiting a Dwarf, and insisted that I join this crew as well, simply because I wanted to help out whatever was ailing the community. The fact that I had no obvious abilities meant that as a player, I felt the need to help provide motivation, otherwise there would be no logical reason for me to join the group. Unfortunately the DM had not foreseen this when he thought up his intro. Now this is unfortunate, because in all cases, the two DM's are actually really quite good at being a DM. They just didn't really think much about how to help form and motivate a group of adventurers, beyond the same old cliche, of some NPC hiring us for a job. It's kind of like, "I've got a cool set of adventures I want you all to play", but no real thought given on how best to weave the PC's into it all.
So hopefully this isn't just one big rant. I've only got a couple of key points really, which are:
1) I'm totally sick of this whole "NPC hires the PC's" thing. As a player and as a DM, I crave a little bit more inspiration, so truly appreciate any attempts in published adventures to step outside the usual bring old set-ups.
2) As a DM, I find the background materials in published adventures to be of minimal help. If they are not kept to the beginning of the text, i.e. they are spread through the adventure, I find they are especially annoying as they are either repetitive, and/or they get in the way of the critical text I need to go a good job of running the adventure on game night.
3) so to conclude, please, publishers, editors and designers, spend your precious page-and-word-counts on all the cool adventure stuff you do so well, and leave the "fluff" for us DM's to come up with.
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I think that the hooks are useful for fairly novice DMs, as examples. I certainly agree that something more personal, a personal stake in the proceedings for the PC, be is money, revenge, love, even curiosity, is better. But that comes from the player rather than the DM anyway. And that can be a bit wearing sometimes when a player is too busy emoting to smack down the bad guy. But on balance, it certainly works better than "here's the cash, do what I say". But it's not easy for the pre-written adventure to incorporate that, as we've discussed.
As an aside, I somewhat disagree with your assessment of the Ruins of Greyhawk where they repeated the plot details. It is partly a facet of the delve structure (where the plot and action are sharply delineated and separated physically in the book, which I hate) but I did feel it was well done compared with the other modules in the Expedition to... series. But hey, I suspect you are a dungeon man, and wanted to get in there without all the chat, which is fair enough. Me, I love a plot, so I liked it.
So hopefully this isn't just one big rant. I've only got a couple of key points really, which are:
1) I'm totally sick of this whole "NPC hires the PC's" thing. As a player and as a DM, I crave a little bit more inspiration, so truly appreciate any attempts in published adventures to step outside the usual bring old set-ups.
2) As a DM, I find the background materials in published adventures to be of minimal help. If they are not kept to the beginning of the text, i.e. they are spread through the adventure, I find they are especially annoying as they are either repetitive, and/or they get in the way of the critical text I need to go a good job of running the adventure on game night.
3) so to conclude, please, publishers, editors and designers, spend your precious page-and-word-counts on all the cool adventure stuff you do so well, and leave the "fluff" for us DM's to come up with.
As Dragonchess Player and Aubury have noted there really are an extremely limited number of hiring themes. The ones I can think of are:
* You interact with an NPC who 'hires' you: This can be a patron like Lavina or the guild leaders you use in your post or the wizard to whom the mage player was apprenticed. They might offer money or some other kind of reward like 'doing good' or the lure of loot in the adventure itself but all of them are essentially NPC hires you when its boiled down to its essentials.
* Your not who you think you are: This invariably involves having one of more of the PCs stumble upon something that calls into question who they think they are or hints at some thing profound in their past or some kind of destiny. The adventure proceeds when the PCs investigate these mysterious clues whether their clues delivered by a seer or a strange packet left at the PCs front door with strange objects clearly linked to their mother and here unusual death. The 'you wake up with amnesia' plot line is the most cliche form of this.
* Your going into business together: The PCs gather together in order to make their fortunes. Once they form their company of adventures they then set out to locate some adventure that will hopefully make them rich.
* Your a witness to the adventure hook: Your minding your own business when some event takes place, when and if you intervene your drawn into the adventure. The most common cliche here is the PCs coming to the aid of the noble attacked in a dark alley but you might have otherwise stumbled upon an unusual cult murder or something similar.
* You've been framed: Your minding your own business when the authorities come to arrest you. usually the adventure proceeds in stages, First you need to find out what crime you supposedly committed. Then you need to kill your name - in D&D that usually involves killing whoever framed you.
* Your randomly attacked: Could be mistaken identity or some such but essentially your minding your own business when out of the blue your under assault. Your drawn in to figure out why you have been attacked and then to ensure that the attacks don't continue.
Thats all of the ones I can think of and even here many quickly lead to a smaller subset. Going into business quickly leads to a need to find out from NPCs where the adventure is unless you start off knowing of some old ruins. Randomly attacked is a variation on 'your not who you think you are - though here some of the time its more along the lines of 'your not who they think you are'.
Because of this the adventure hooks are going to start to feel similar, especially if you have read a lot of adventures over the years.
EDIT: Whew - lucky me. Post monster almost got this but fortunately I copied to the clip board before hitting submit.
Beyond this I don't think we are really all that far apart in our views Hastur, but I feel we are being reasonably serviced in this area.
Generally I don't think that the plot hook parts of the adventures are usually all that overblown all things considered in the products that are available for our consumption.
The amount of space and depth can change a lot in the size of the hook. If the NPC comes with maps of the warehouse the PCs are supposed to do a B&E on and its suspected that the Warehouse if a front for Cuthuloid monsters then there could be a lot of info with the floor plans of the warehouse and the various clues pointing to Cuthuloid Monsters. If, on the other hand, the link is that farmer Joe was walking in the woods and found an ancient entrance to an Evil Temple well thats pretty light for a hook. Farmer Joe tells this to the PCs in return for 5 gp on top of paying his ale tab and the players can then follow up on it or not. In teh first instance this hook could run three or more pages. In the second case we are talking about two paragraphs.
I think most of the adventures I have read recently have been fairly light on the hook really with the exception of Savage Tide. But thats because Lavina is not a random NPC giving out the quest. She is the adventure path. Its all about her and the PCs interactions with her, her past and her family. She needs more detail then the standard story hook because she is far more important to to the adventure then just being its hook.
Beyond this adventures generally need a hook. I modify them a lot myself but I think that these should be designed to be as useful as possible right out of the box. So totally skimping on the hook is not such a great idea. Its a weak point of almost every adventure and players usually just swallow down the hook even if their gagging on it because that leads to the adventure but I don't think that means that the writers should choose not to put any effort into this. The better the hook the easier it is for the players to get past this and on to the adventure. This is just a courtesy to those DMs that have busy lives and are using published adventures because they don't have time to prep their own material. Such DMs surely appreciate the best possible hook for their players even if no hook is perfect because their all stereotypes at this point.
I dunno. Chessplayer has a point, it is kinda difficult to do all this when you don't know who the characters are.
Compromise: NPC still hires them, but turns out to be evil and is really trying to get the PCs killed/divert the from the VSDSP.
Sploooorrrrccccchhhhhh
I dunno. Chessplayer has a point, it is kinda difficult to do all this when you don't know who the characters are.
Compromise: NPC still hires them, but turns out to be evil and is really trying to get the PCs killed/divert the from the VSDSP.
Thats a pretty cliche hook there. I'd, in general, like to see less of this hook because its so overdone. I mean if it leads to an excellent adventure then fine but it better really contribute and not just be an afterthought.
Well, as far as compromises go there is an approach of, say, Purloined Vellum...which starts like Mad God's Key, the PCs witness a mugging, and should they help a poor muggee he (after hopefully being impressed by PCs' skill) hires them to look at the issue he is having trouble with...
A little late, but I only just saw this thread.
No, I don't think that being offered a job by an NPC is a cop out. As long as there's a good reason for the NPC to do so, and a good reason for the PCs to take it. I agree that PCs should have a willingness to go along with things for the sake of getting a game started, but disbelief can only be suspended so long.
This isn't so much a fault with scenarios as it is with adventuring parties themselves however. Why do these people hang around in the first place? If the PCs are created in a vacuum, then it's not lazy GMing to use an outside hook rather than something from a player's background. Sure, you might have a fascinating backstory, but if the ramifications of this are personal, why will anyone else help?
In my mind, it's far more important to work out why the party are together in the first place, and then tailor any scenarios - pregenned or otherwise - to fit this.
For example, the Eberron game I currently play is filled with "NPC offers you a job" hooks. Because we're a mercenary company. The DM announced he was going to be running D&D, and that the party would be composed of an ex-military unit who couldn't get "real jobs" following the end of the Last War. The reasons for this were left up to us, but we had to build characters who would wind up in this situation. It was fun coming up with the stories everyone had about their time in the war, why the couldn't go home, and we got a fun, mixed group afterwards. And it is an endless source of plot hooks, as we have to balance our personal interests in Sharn with the efforts of running a company who could be hired to do anything from investigation to bodyguarding to far-flung rescue missions.
After all, if NPCs don't offer us job, we can't afford to eat next month :)
In defense of the gimmick's use in STAP in particular, Lavinia is a fundamental part of the campaign. I took some free license in declaring that the wizard PC was an old friend and schoolmate of hers (adding to the personal interest), but otherwise had no issue with it.
But let's face it: a patron for the PCs is overdone because it's the single most efficient open-ended hook in existence. Come up with a better gimmick--one that works for almost any adventure you'd care to name, sight unseen even--and you'll be remembered as the next Gary Gygax.