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I am prepping for SS and continually struggle with ways to reveal the cool background threads the AP provides. The GM for the KM game I am playing in complains of the same thing. For SS there is a great story there that, if the PC’s had some knowledge of, would solidify there immersion. However, it is presented in such a way that it seems like flavor for the GM with no good way to share it with the players.
Is this an issue for other GM’s?, Is this an issue with all AP’s?
If so how are others dealing with it, cut scenes, Bond villain moments where npc’s spoon feed plot, ……?
I am not bagging on the AP, it is so solid and well put together that to seems a waste of great work for only the GM to be privy to some cool background.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Depending on what the background info is, you can offer it as history (w/ a check), a journal, a death bed soliloquy, rumors & legends, etc.
It can be a pain, and sometimes (often?) doesn't work too well, but it is possible. In my KM game I try and toss out what info I can to help give background stuff. I mean, the writers did so much great work, I wanna share! :)
In certain cases, background plot can be revealed if a villain has been captured and is interrogated by the PCs.
But, in many cases, the background info will have to be revealed once the campaign is over, and the players can go "Oh, so THAT's why [NPC] did [thing]? Cool!"
Go through the AP like you are preparing for a test, and mark the pages where important information is held, and how it will be obtained. If they run into an NPC, perform some research, etc. and roll some skill checks, then you know where to retrieve the information. It is really up to the DM in regards to how much they want to reveal.
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If you trust your players with having out-of-character knowledge, one of the things I have done is to run cut scenes where the players get to play the role of various NPCs.
In my Rise of the Runelords campaign we had a cut scene where the players got to play various NPC memebers of the Black Arrows hunting down some ogres. It was very rules light and each character received an index card with some of the NPCs background, personality, etc. described on it. Later, when they met the Black Arrows in Hook Mountain Massacre, they instantly had some out-of-character knowledge and feel for who the Black Arrows are. It was fun to watch the player who played Kaven have his character interact with him while keeping the OOC knowledge to himself and not allowing it to influence how his PC reacted.
I'm pretty generous with what my PCs can pick up through Knowledge checks and rumor-gathering around town. Want to spend a week sifting through local gossip about NPC X? A week in a library collecting lore about Ancient Site Y? Spiffy, here's what the AP says about all that (dressed up in appropriate flavor text, of course). Divination spells, Charm/persuasion effects on captive NPCs, and anything else the party can think up will get good results, provided the answers are there for me to give them. There is hardly ever any backstory in an AP that I can't find some way to leak to the players.
It helps, of course, to be able to send all this stuff via email between sessions. That way it doesn't slow down gameplay during the actual session and the PCs have the information handy to refer back to as the campaign progresses.
My players almost always end up finding an NPc to join them (for various reasons. I never push the NPC, I let them find someone they like or need...like a healer) then I make sure that NPC has planty of Knowledge skills and spends time talking to the people the heroes forget to...then the NPC cn give them the info.
In ROTR, the party had a Witch who kept a weekly Journal of the party's adventures. She also posted little snippets she'd learned from whatever she'd been researching that week and re-stated the improtant plot points that the party might have forgotten (or missed while messing around with other stuff or just forgot to write down).
Was a lot of fun and enabled me to keep up the notes.
I also let other people post their character Journals on the web. Each weeks posting was worth an extra set of RP XP (5-50 per character level, depending on the detail and roleplaying. I also awarded other RP XP for assorted postings).
But this allowed us to give extra GM material to the players as needed or to just fill in gaps.
Of course, a lot can come of players who take the time to talk to NPCS too...
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I like to leave journals/letters/etc from one NPC to another.
They feel like "clues" that the PCs have to put together and puzzle out to learn the true story of what's going on behind the scenes.
Alternatively, I "hire" the PCs into the overall plot of the books. Wizards with high Linguistics, Bards with crazy knowledge skills, expert treasure hunters and trap-finders, these are exactly the kind of people most villains would want for their minions, after all.
So, I tend to generate a few cut-out NPCs that can get pieces of the info to the PCs (as well as plot hooks) and then make THEM search out and figure out all the connections.
Of course, in Kingmaker, the overall meta-plot is specifically hidden from their view, and that's fine. The players (& PCs) should really be more interested in their own directed activities, rather than reacting to external forces until the very end.
I'm pretty generous with what my PCs can pick up through Knowledge checks and rumor-gathering around town. Want to spend a week sifting through local gossip about NPC X? A week in a library collecting lore about Ancient Site Y? Spiffy, here's what the AP says about all that (dressed up in appropriate flavor text, of course). Divination spells, Charm/persuasion effects on captive NPCs, and anything else the party can think up will get good results, provided the answers are there for me to give them. There is hardly ever any backstory in an AP that I can't find some way to leak to the players.
This has been my method as well.
Basically, if a given source reasonably could have X piece of information and it doesn't break the plot for it to be revealed now/early, I round in favor of "the players can learn it this way."
I have them interact a lot with the villains. In Kingmaker, I had the Stag Lord crash their Taxfest party to demand that they bow to him as king of the Stolen Lands. They offerred him wine to keep him relatively calm, and Akiros kept reminding him that a king must not kill his subjects in a drunken rage. As a result, they learned a lot about him, including hints about his past.
The Stag Lord is the last scion of the Rogavrian line, traded by his father to the two-headed red dragon Choral. He was forged, in a fiery literal sense, into a weapon for Choral. At the end, he made a bargain with Nyrissa (who is engaged in a long supernatural war with Choral) for his freedom, and broke free of the bargain that caused House Rogavria to disappear.
The party didn't learn all of this, but they know have every piece of his puzzle to figure out who he is. When he killed the party paladin, he was so much more than a shadowy bandit king. The party's hard-earned victory was made all the better by knowing more about him.