So I'm running a game which is a 2e conversion. We're starting session 3.
My issue here is that the players are playing very outlawish mercenary types. I've allowed them significant reign to play who they want and adapt the game world to their characters.
The party is:
- A military deserter who is wanted and goes around in a mask. He is trying to uncover a conspiracy where a political figure he admired was assassinated (Arkonas did it). Rolth has info on the conspiracy he wants.
- A crazy old wizard on the run from agents of Charon because he stole an artifact he can't interpret.
- A happy-go lucky monk who will go along with whatever (she's new)
- A drug-dealing circus carnie. Her circus is in town right now and so she has a breadth of NPCs to play with. She is looking for ROlth because he got a good friend of hers (he will show up in the carrion golem)
- A merchant/fence type with Cerulean Society connections.
The last game ended on an ambiguous note and I'm unsure if they're going to deliver the queen's brooch. If they don't do that I'm cool, but I need to find a way to feed them the missions. The group is also not openly motivated to stay together since Gaedren is now dead. I could have a guy in the circus send them to All the World's Meat and Barvasi before they uncover where ROlth's lair is, but life is easier if they end up working for the guard.
Anyways, looking for suggestions, thanks!
(spoilers)
It's important that all your PCs feel enough of a connection to the city of Korvosa to want to save it. The AP relies on that. That in turn means the PCs should be happy to help Kroft. And then search for the Senechal etc. They should be natural allies of 'the good guys' who share the same motivation: save the city.
Either go through the backstories with each PC and find something in there that binds them to the fate of the city. Or come up with an overall reason that could also be the same reason the party is together as a party. I confess I made this my players challenge: I told them as part of character creation they needed to provide a very strong reason why their character cared about the wellbeing of Korvosa.
Without doing this you'll quite likely find your group will just evacuate when the Blood Veil hits. Or if not that, they'll just struggle with motivation to deal with the nightmare that the city becomes. That and you'll be constantly grasping for motivations for your PCs to undertake the many missions in the AP.
Consider this upcoming situation: you have a city in a terrible state with a despotic ruler who also wants to kill the PCs. As long as your PCs natural response is 'well we have to save the city, despite how difficult its going to be', then you're in the clear. It's a big ask of a party. If your PCs motivations are focussed on Roth only then that till blow up in your face since, just when they've killed him, the AP expects the PCs to double down on saving the city by searching for the Senechal.
As for the brooch, I encouraged my PCs by telling them that holding onto it would be considered trading in goods stolen from the Queen and would at best put them in prison for a long time, possibly much worse.
Your other option is to work with each PCs backstory in a different way, creating unique reasons why upcoming plot elements will matter enough for them to stay within the rails. I'm sure it's possible, but it would be a lot of work and probably mean plenty of customisation to the story as written.
My PC’s tried to sell the brooch but they got an honest jeweller who told them the reward the queen would offer is much higher than he can pay for it. That pretty much made their minds up and they went to the queen.