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I am about to start up a Jade Regent for my group next week and we are all well and excited and all, but something continues to bother me as I prepare to GM the AP. Maybe this shows how terrible I am at being a GM, but I am having a pretty difficult time thinking up any kind of character goals for Shalelu, Sandru and Koya.
I feel like Ameiko is pretty well fleshed out and I imagine her story going through a king of Tony Stark-like progression of being an irreverent noble who one days takes on the mantle of leadership. (It also sounds much better in my head. XD )
But what about the others? Having read the entire AP (although, admittedly, probably missing something) Sandru is little more than "I drive a wagon", Koya is "I am filling out a bucket list" and Shalelu already had her defining character moments when she slayed a dragon and fixed her relationship with her step-father.
I realize its a bit more complicated than that, but honestly, when will Sandru's "My family is a bunch of criminals" background pop up when you are traveling to the other side of the world? I like Koya as a character, but her only real goals are to travel the world before she kicks it. And like I said, Shalelu seems like her past has been generally sorted out.
Not to mention the other folks they meet, who (beyond that talking helmet whose name and race escape me at the moment) seemed to translate to me into "The caravan needed an X, so here they are". Not commenting on the writing of the AP, which is amazing, but probably more on my lack of being imaginative.
How did you grow your NPCs alongside the party as you played?
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The tag-along gang are there for GMs to do as much, or as little, as they like with. They don't interupt the AP much beyond Ameiko being kidnapped.
Don't forget that Ameiko began as an adenturer and has shared history with Sandru: he is a loyal companion to her and is, more than anything, going along to return to the adventuring life which died with Alder.
Sandru could easily be looking for a proxy Alder, being very protective of the PCs and at the same time resenting anyone who begins a romance with Ameiko.
Sandru's goals = protect Ameiko, protect the party, explore the world, honour his brother's memory...
Koya is an elder figure and innately mothering (she raised Sandru) and I would expect her to take satisfaction in guiding the adventurers and seeing them do well in life. Her 'character goals' are those parental, nurturing ones.
Koya's goals = protect party, build relationships in party, see party members mature, see world..
Shalelu is a naturally protector, she has spent her life moving from place to place protecting communities and now the community which needs her protection is the one travelling on Sandru's caravans.
Shalelu's goals = protect party, see world.
However...
I wouldn't want to plan out a progression for them as that will depend upon what happens: Ameiko could end up embittered and feeling the responsibility as a burden after the fates push her into the role of Empress. I wouldn't be surprised by a campaign where she offloads the throne pretty swiftly. Imagine if all of the party die at different times and she arrives on the throne knowing that half-a-dozen noble folk died for her to reach that day.
Similarly, if Sandru falls in love with a PC but they don't reciprocate... the broken-hearted batchelor is an interesting character development.
Basically, this is an AP... don't plan and expect like you're writing a novel.
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Thanks for the advice so far! :D
So then, should I give them any kind of goal that they seek to achieve? I know that protecting and guiding the party (and Ameiko) are goals in themselves, but those are goals they share with the party. The PCs have goals like "Write and publish a book about our travels" and "Conquer and tame a Mammoth" and "Get that one ability that lets me eat children" (we have a weird player playing a Witch this campaign).
Should I expand on the NPCs and give them personal goals or do you think thats too much unneeded work? Or do you think I shouldn't worry about it now because it is something that naturally happens during the campaign.
In previous campaigns, (none of which were APs) I did add stuff like that to characters and if they showed up or not, I thought it added a bit to the campaign.
Those NPCs don't play as much of a role in the campaign as you'd think from reading the player's guide unless you add content to give them a more active part in events. Most of the time the story tries to separate the them from PCs - even if Ameiko is kidnapped, the players are supposed to rescue her on their own while Shalelu and the others guard the caravan.
Any goals they have are really only relevant as far as they impact upon the players - if the PCs can help them, or if it leads them to actively oppose the PCs in some way.
It's OK to flesh them out more fully but it may be that the players don't take much of an interest in them and instead latch on to some minor NPC they pick up along the way.
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So these are good questions to ask, if the NPCs are going to play any role at all.
Here are the primary motivators I came up with for each one. Not goals exactly, just their decision-making priorities when presented with problems or conflicts. These may change during the course of the AP.
I have also included the actor/actress I will picture in my head when I RP these characters.
Ameiko (Anne Hathaway): 1. Honor her family and legacy. 2. Put the painful past behind her (without losing sight of #1) 3. Protect her friends. 4. Adventure.
Koya (Sigourney Weaver): 1. Nurture her adopted 'children' and guide them towards their destinies. 2. Seek out her own destiny (as a Harrower, she knows that her fate is tied to this group and their quest) 3. Honor Desna's will. 4. Adventure
Sandru (Nathan Fillion): 1. Prove his worth to himself. (This involves making his fortune). 2. Protect Ameiko and his close friends/family. 3. Put the painful past behind him. 4. Adventure
Shalelu (Tilda Swinton): 1. Adventure. 2. Protect her allies. 3. Do the right thing.
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When I get to run this the PCs will be Ameiko, Koya, Shalelu and Sandru.
I'll be pretty flexible on how they build them but that's the plan.
They'll start with these levels but not increase (so Ameiko will stay level 2 until Sandru hits level 3, then she can level up as well: we don't count XP).
Ameiko - level 2 (ideally bard)
Koya - level 2 (some kind of spellcaster, old)
Shalelu - level 3 (preferably ranger)
Sandru - level 1 (totally flexible, which is nice)
Doing this to fit character ideas which seemed embedded and mesh with the Ameiko and Shalelu they've already met.
Running them as PCs would work great. In our Jade Regent campaign, they're along for the ride, and I'll be honest, they haven't added much. Our GM plays them as very passive so they have little impact. We take Shalelu along on a mission every once in a while when too many people couldn't show up to the game session. We don't really even keep up well with our relationship points with them, because they're so cardboard it's hard to really care. Which is fine, they're acting like "normal NPCs," but the expectation set with the Player's Guide is that they're more of a big deal.
So run them as the PCs, or do something ambitious of your own design with them, or cut them entirely/demote them to named mooks on a caravan.
Performing Thread Necromancy to ask a question:
Can you use Speak with the Dead on a thread?
Just kidding.
My actual question is: Do these forums (or the RPG world more broadly) have a standard term(*) for PCs that were originally written as NPCs? Something analogous to DMPC or GMPC for PC-type characters run by the DM/GM. Maybe PC-NPC?
(*)That is, a term standard enough that I have a decent chance of pulling it up in a search engine, such as the one on these boards.
^Bump to get this into the light of day . . .
Try using the term, "Major NPC's". It should result in several search results.
^Tried this (also without the 's'), and it gave a whole bunch of NPC search results, but none of them seemed to be about converting major NPCs to PCs. Also tried PC-NPC, PCNPC, Player NPC, and DPC, but same deal. Oh well, it was worth a shot. I was trying to get a feel for which APs have notable NPCs that can be made into PCs (other than Jade Regent, which actually suggests doing this, although parts of their suggestion don't seem workable unless you modify the AP to start everyone noticeably higher than 1st Level, and not necessarily all at the same initial Level, as in GeraintElberion's post above, but even more extreme).
There are a number of potential tag-along NPCs in Reign of Winter, but they don't all appear at once (they're scattered through-out the AP.
While I don't have it (yet), Wrath of the Righteous apparently has a large number of NPCs at the start, whom the party (ideally) escorts to safety during the first module. If the thought of mythic rules is off-putting, it should be noted that WotR can be run with normal rules instead.
Kingmaker is such a large sandbox, that I'd be surprised if it wasn't possible to pick up one or more NPCs. The shipwreck which starts Serpent's Skull might have some useful NPCs, and the same goes for the ship onto which the party is shanghaied at the start of Skull and Shackles. (Note: I do not currently have any of these three APS, so take this with a few grains of salt.)
^I actually thought about the 3 major NPCs in Wrath of the Righteous. I think Anevia Tirablade is the only one that might be suitable for a PC, though, because Horgus Gwerm has too much wealth, and Aravashniel has too many levels (unless, of course, you start everyone off significantly above Level 1, for which removing Mythic rules would actually be a good thing, especially if you intend to replace them by having the campaign run into Epic levels). (I also do not have this AP -- just been following some PbPs -- so take what I say with a few grains of salt too.)
One way to simulate wealth in a starting party is for a PC (or NPC) to have the Rich Parents trait (Basic/Social). Instead of the normal starting value (whether average, maximum, or rolled randomly), the character starts with 900 gp.
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^I wish traits like Rich Parents (and Heirloom Weapon, etc.) provided some lasting benefit, instead of just becoming dead RP space once the initial money or item(s) are no longer present. The guide Tips and Traits: A guide to Pathfinder Traits rates these Traits as Red for good reason.
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I will check the trait guide out. Good call on how those can be used up.
My thought was to skip the usual "Must have a campaign trait." In favor of "Must have one hundred words of background putting you in place for the adventure or a campaign trait."
The trait guide may help me select when I run, however.