We're partway into the Shackled Hut, and my players spend some part of every session wondering why they're even here. Elvanna's a terrible tyrant, sure, but as far as they can tell so has every other Jadwiga dynasty been -- and Baba Yaga is also clearly awful if she keeps installing awful queens every century. Why should they intervene in the succession of power in this crummy kingdom if all the options are awful?
"Because gaes lol" is not a style of GMing I'm fond of.
The part of the discussion where they say, "To save the rest of the world from winter," always raises the possibility that maybe they can just travel around to all the various baronies, picking off the local Jadwiga and closing off portals one by one rather than escalating to the capital.
"You broke it you bought it," has been what keeps them on track so far: they attacked Nazhena's tower, and Waldsby gave them shelter, so tracking her down is the only way they save the villagers from retribution. But...the villagers' lives will still be terrible under the next queen, so they're still not really motivated to find Baba Yaha per se.
I'm expecting that once they find Nazhena, and with her the hut, curiosity will take over and they'll be off to the races, but keeping them interested in that track has been a trick.
Are there things Nadya or Uncle Ringierr can say to keep motivation up? Help the players feel like this transition of power is something that actually matters to them?
The PCs objective here is to stop Elvanna from afflicting the entire globe with eternal winter, and along the way they get roped into freeing Baba Yaga . Internal Irrisen politics are going to matter a lot less to Taldor or Minata than "we're hungry because we can't grow food" will.
Regarding "what if we just close off the portals one by one" that's probably a bigger job than "stop the person who is opening the portals." Elvana has an entire magical aristocracy to do her bidding, the PCs have like 3-6 individuals.
But I have to say- if you're sick of hanging around in Irrisen, just stay tuned- this AP goes places.
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I understand what you mean, and I had the same fear. I tweaked a couple things to make sure my players feel some empathy for the people of irrisen. First I added some friendlier NPC, They had a few encounters with the local blacksmith and they eventualy asked him to join the group to Whitethrone as a DMPC (which I refused... Nadya is enough for me to manage). It made my players grow empathy for the people or irrisen.
And most of all, I made it very clear that even though life have never been great in the past for Irriseni, Elvanna is one bad b+*&~. You can tell that things are different when they mention that control is more strict since the martial law. I try to give them the idea that even if it will not turn to an eden, getting rid of Elvanna is a really good improvement for irrisenis.
Are you still in the first book, or the second? Because there are multiple instances of decent people in Irrisen. The corruption lies with those in charge. For instance, there are multiple people in Waldsby who are decent, including the owner of the general store, the cleric of Pharasma, Nadya, and the older neighbor who watches Nadya's kids when Nadya is not home. On the trip you also come across the farmer. If you save the guy assumed to be a moss troll, he is pretty decent as is his wife. Nadya's uncle is pretty decent as well and he helps a lot of downtrodden folk in Whitethrone.
Yes, there are people who are a++$&*%s and "loyalists" who support the Witches but the White Witches have been in power for 1,400 years. How are four adventurers going to change that? If the group was 20th level and tried to overthrow the government by force they would be overwhelmed and destroyed, admittedly at great cost in manpower but the Witches would remain more than strong enough to overcome other threats. This is why siding with Baba Yaga is so important - because the Queen of Witches has inside knowledge and can manipulate things so that no one can stand against whoever the PCs wish to make the new ruler of Irrisen. Not even if it's them themselves.
So if your group is feeling like "Irrisen isn't worth saving" then be sure to emphasize other low-level people who are decent but keep their heads down. Perhaps have the group come across people being dragged in chains from their warmer homelands to work for the Witches so they realize that there are ARMIES of frost giants and ice fey invading some areas and bringing in helpless people from other parts of the world. Remind them that not only can they NOT take out the Witches on their own, but that there are far more than just the people of Irrisen in need.
I didn't have this problem, interestingly enough, when I was GMing the game. The first time I ran it, the group found things interesting enough that they didn't need to "like" the people of Irrisen... and I also had one of the PCs end up running Nadya for me, so she was able to bring her to life and she helped craft more motivation. (Alas, that game died due to scheduling issues and the fact that one of the players honestly didn't want to play (at least, looking back I'm realizing this) but didn't want to tell me or his wife that.)
The second time through? I'm not sure. They never seemed to "need" a reason to go after Irrisen. I'll have to ask them next time we're gaming as to their motivation here. Though honestly? I think some of them would say "saving the world is reason enough."
I mean... there's an old AD&D campaign called "Night Below" in which the players learn about slavers who are kidnapping mages and clerics and selling their captives to mindflayers. The group eventually learns even the mindflayers are part of a huge plot by the abolith... and the campaign states outright that if the group tries to go to the high-level wizards of their world (the Elminsters and Blackhands and equivalent types) they'll be told "we've too much on our plate right now, you handle it."
That's basically what's going on here. Why are high-level characters going to get involved in Irrisen trying some idiocy that will probably fail (as far as they know)? And the PCs are here now and know what's going on and are not likely to be able to talk high-level types into taking time away from their own problems to deal with a "local" issue.
If the players aren't willing to work to save the world? Then let them do what they want, let them know that the world is destroyed as a result, and start a new campaign.
Motivating the PCs is a major issue. I learned the hard way that PCs need NPCs to care about, otherwise the world will go turn in flames.
Hmm. Okay, here's one thing I did. I used Thora to motivate the PCs. I had her "survive" long enough after being killed to tell the PCs about her mother and being taken away, and the PCs got mad about it. And when they met Nadya... they became angrier because now they had met the girl's family.
Another thing I did was I used the Black Rider differently. Rather than a wizened old man begging for help, I had him show up, murder Hommelstaub with one shot, and then talk to the group from a position of strength. And rather than cut his own throat for his life's blood, he had one of the PCs push the ice stake out of his chest and bled out that way to activate the Keys.
The last thing I did? I got the party mad.
They convinced half of Waldsby to evacuate. But they didn't bother to escort the prisoners. They went straight to the Tower. The villagers were intercepted by a patrol and massacred. The PCs found out when they returned to Waldsby. (And then my friend, who took over for me after Book 1 was done, had the Witches put out Wanted Posters for the "Butchers of Waldsby" - the PCs. Yes, the Witches blamed the PCs for the massacre.)
I mean, if they *really* need motivating. Because honestly? I don't see why the players wouldn't want to save the world! ^^;; But then, I also had the first group quit playing over halfway into Book 2 so... obviously I didn't have them in the palm of my hand now, did I? ;)
I mean, if they *really* need motivating. Because honestly? I don't see why the players wouldn't want to save the world!The usual reason to save the world is because one keeps all of one's stuff in the world. But low-level PCs don't have much stuff.
Friends. Family. Childhood homes. I mean, my players crafted backstories, partly because I strongly encouraged them to. Maybe it's different if you just have a character as a list of stats and equipment and don't develop a story behind the character... but knowing you've a place you grew up in, people you knew along the way... isn't that incentive enough to want to save everyone?
I mean... why do the players try to stop Karzoug? Why do they want to stop the hobgoblin army? Why stop the demons from destroying Golarion? Are any of these truly different? If it's because "well we're freeing Baba Yaga and she's a Greater Evil" ask the players: why do you consider her the Greater Evil? What did she do that was so horrific?
Baba Yaga took over a small country and every 100 years replaces the queen with a new queen but is completely hands-off after that. Her daughters are the ones who through their actions do harm... and rather than let them build up more and more power, she removes them after 100 years.
In some distant land far far away she made a deal with a warlord and when he reneged she disrupted his empire-building. Oh, and legends claim she is responsible for a Demon Lord in some vague way that only the most skilled of bards (ie, a high Knowledge roll) knows about.
For level 2-3 characters... and even level 6-7 characters, Baba Yaga is just fairy tales. She is the boogeyman whose cry to fame is making one country and a few vague tales you may or may not have heard of. If you want a Big Bad, you go with Tar-Baphon or the like, someone who is a real threat who caused a huge amount of damage. As far as "Greater Evils" go, Baba Yaga is nothing. Her interest in Golarion is minor. She is more akin to a temperamental Time Lord rather than a threat to the world or all creation.
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Friends. Family. Childhood homes. . . .
I mean... why do the players try to stop Karzoug? Why do they want to stop the hobgoblin army? Why stop the demons from destroying Golarion? Are any of these truly different?
I suspect the real question here is "how do I convince players to take the same sense of ownership over Heldren as they have over Sandpoint or Phaendar or Kenabres?" Sandpoint gives that sense of ownership by being a fantastically detailed sandbox, that players have time to explore. The urban campaigns (CotCT, HR, AoE, etc.) benefit in much the same way. Phaendar and Kenabres are destroyed or captured by hostile militaries - the players were robbed of them, and can be motivated by vengeance.
None of this is truly viable in RoW. Heldren is both sparsely detailed and threatened in only the most abstract sense, and PCs are expected to leave it post-haste. PCs are assumed to be foreigners in Irrisen, or if not, exiles or travelers who've found their way back out of happenstance. And anyway, Irrisen is not what's being saved. If Elvanna's plan goes through, Irrisen will remain mostly the same as it is now. It's the rest of the world that will suffer.
Ultimately, I think the way the AP is set up and the way it plays out make "save the world" a poor motivation. What should tempt the players is the promise of unique, off-the-wall adventure concepts. OP has more or less already decided on this as a solution, if I read "I'm expecting that once they find Nazhena, and with her the hut, curiosity will take over and they'll be off to the races, but keeping them interested in that track has been a trick" right.
So, really, the trick is to sow the information that leads to the Hut much earlier. Rather than have the PCs learn about it in Whitethrone, they should learn about it - its properties, and its predicament - in Nazhena's tower. This more technical elite knowledge should be coupled with an exploration of the people of Waldsby's folk knowledge of Baba Yaga, her hut, and her other mythology. Rather than a far-removed temporal power who only intervenes in the succession every hundred years, Baba Yaga or her Riders (and certainly and obviously her descendants) should be thought of as an uncommon but possible encounter for ordinary people. Irrisen is a country where Earth's folk tales about her can come true, and maybe for someone in town's ancestor, they did. Maybe some heirloom that comes into the PCs' hands for whatever reason is sourced to Baba Yaga and her adventures in the cosmos. And so on.
Thanks all for the replies and good suggestions -- this was helpful in figuring out how to offer my players the right messages.
I will note that my title was a little off, and this comment really gets at the heart of my players' reluctance:
More than that - your quest is to save the world from an aggressive war of conquest by a Jadwiga despot, and at the same time explicitly not to save Irrisen, but to restore and safeguard the power structure which keeps it oppressed.
They feel like they're being asked to save the world from Stalin...by reinstating the Tsarist monarchy. (Just to pick a totally random and not related at all real-world analogy.) They're cool with removing the new-bad and saving the world, but they chafe at being asked to do that by re-shackling Irrisen with the old bad.
They've definitely picked up reasons to care about the locals -- which actually has in some cases reinforced "we've got to find some way to fix Elvanna without putting these people back under Baba Yaga's awful system!"
In the end, I was able to pull some of your suggestions into the party's discussions with the Heralds of Summer's Return: the Heralds were able to say, "Look, we've been working against the system for a long time, but Elvanna has just made everything exponentially worse, and there's no return if we let her continue. Oh, and, now that we've got some backchannel relationships with the remnants of the Iron Guard, we think we've got ways to talk reforms once Elvanna is out of the way."
Once it was the local freedom fighters asking for the old-bad back -- and not just that black rider guy who's part of the old-bad -- they were more willing to jump on that option. (I also upped pressure by having the Winter Guard raid the Heralds' safehouse while the PCs were meeting with them: clearly they can't hold out much longer, go!)