| Valdir the Wanderer |
So my 7th-level human Draconic Druid player has lost his master and is going to try to find another teacher among his order of druids (called the Keepers).
I wasn't very imaginative at the beginning with having my master druid NPC giving him training regimens or cirricula, and half of the reason I killed him off was so I wouldn't have to run a party NPC. I want the party to solve their own problems without a much wiser character constantly telling them when they have stupid ideas. (The other half of the reason was for story elements, of course.)
Now he's on this quest to find another master to help him learn how to control his gifts. In the story, he's prone to bursting into flame when overcome with emotional stress. He also has some kind of draconic heritage in his bloodline. His master was trying to teach him how to protect the world from himself by controlling the fire inside him. Now his master is gone, and he thinks he needs someone else to guide him.
To add another layer to this sweaty onion, he's a high-born noble and has a propensity for entitlement. His father is a duke, he's a lord, and he's starting to throw that around.
One of the plans I have for him is giving him the opportunity to gain (at least part of) the Flame-touched template. He'll have to work for it, and probably the first time he attempts to walk the Path of Fire, he'll fail and realize he has a long way to go. (Basically this involves spending 24 hours in the Plane of Fire.)
Is there some kind of progression I can take his character's story through that, in the frame of a fast-XP game, will provide the opportunity for him to learn what he needs to without burdening me with another NPC to tag along with the party?
| Scott Wilhelm |
The first thing that catches my eye is that you killed off his master so that you would not have to roleplay an NPC, and now he wants to find a new one. This sounds like you have a basic conflict with your player.
If you want to prosecute this conflict, then you should make this PC's story arc about learning how to deal without a master, to master himself. His high-born noble sense of entitlement seems like a nice character flaw to grow the PC out of. Perhaps you should give him some humiliating experiences with masters or would-be masters.
| Valdir the Wanderer |
The first thing that catches my eye is that you killed off his master so that you would not have to roleplay an NPC, and now he wants to find a new one. This sounds like you have a basic conflict with your player.
Well, he's a good friend of mine. He's really smart- probably smarter than me- and he's really good at justifying his actions, no matter how obtuse they might be.
If you want to prosecute this conflict, then you should make this PC's story arc about learning how to deal without a master, to master himself. His high-born noble sense of entitlement seems like a nice character flaw to grow the PC out of. Perhaps you should give him some humiliating experiences with masters or would-be masters.
The problem there is I don't think he as a player recognizes it as a flaw. It's one thing if a player knows his character has a flaw and plays to it for the story with every intention of growing out of it, and quite another when he doesn't think he has a problem. At the moment I'm not sure there's a way to humble his character without humbling him. Not that I can't figure it out, of course. This is just the challenge I'm facing right now.