The "Every NPC Is Miles O'Brien" Principle

My best recent session in terms of player engagement was one where NPCs (whom the players like) suffered a bunch.

You can inflict all sorts of terrible stuff on NPCs that it's not cool to do to PCs. E.g., the PCs in one game I'm currently running are students at a school, so inflicting annoying bullying on them is cruel and unusual and potentially triggering of real-life trauma, but inflicting bullying on their NPC girlfriends was perfectly kosher (and then the PCs get to be Big Damn Heroes about it and rescue their girlfriends from the bullying).

Killing beloved NPCs is, of course, a drastic, uncreative, and cliche step. This is most notorious as a phenomenon where every PC begins as an orphan, so the DM can't mess with their family, because some DMs absolutely will have the Big Bad murder every PC family at the earliest opportunity.

But imagine your (non-orphan) PC gets word from home that your parents are being extorted, threatened, or have been kidnapped -- at least as effective a motivator of PC action and investment as having the family killed, plus they get the satisfaction of saving their family at the end of the adventure.

It all boils down to a principle I've come to call "Every NPC Is Miles O'Brien", where any time engagement is flagging you throw an "O'Brien Must Suffer" session at the party. (Named after the writers' habit from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine of writing an "O'Brien Must Suffer" episode at least once a season, because Miles O'Brien was the most likeable everyman in a cast full of alien lizard spies and cops made of goo and goofy capitalist aliens and whatnot.) In short: put an NPC the players like in a pickle, then let the PCs rescue the NPC.

What To Ask About Your Game's PCs

So there are about a million lists like this floating around, some long, some short, of questions for your players to answer about their characters to generate a backstory or deepen their character or give you hooks to plot upon or whatever. Here's my contribution.

I recently asked my players to, for a new campaign I'm running, give me the answers to any three of these questions:

• a goal, something your character wants or something you want for your character
• something your character hates or fears
• an NPC your character knows positively (a childhood friend, a romantic interest, etc)
• an NPC your character knows negatively (an enemy, a rival, etc)
• a secret your character knows, or one about your character that they do not know
• something your character regrets
• your character's zodiac sign (for my campaign, that's "what Wanderer was in prominence in what Constellation when your character was born?" -- you can use your own setting's zodiac-equivalent if you've made one, or one or more real-world ones, or whatever)
• a virtue or vice your character prizes, partakes of, or strongly disapproves of
• what motivation your character has for joining the campaign
• some connection/bond your character has with another character in the party

I only asked the party to do any three, but then I did all of them for a major NPC by way of demonstration. Example:

• Tess Corm's main goal is to make the colony into a powerful nation. A stretch goal involves conquering and subjugating Shell.
• Tess has grown to hate the whole corrupt oligarchic establishment of Shell, a place she has not been since she was 10.
• Tess's closest advisor is a human named Tristram Groxer, who has been a good friend and retainer of her father's.
• Tess's nemesis is Bob Varakas, Serene Doge of Shell, who ruined her father.
• Tess has taken out many debts, mostly monetary, in the service of financing this expedition. One dark secret, known by few but suspected by more, involves the exact natures of some of her creditors.
• Tess's first true love went awry when her drive and ambition got in the way. She regrets this, but not enough to actually tone it down with the drive and ambition or anything.
• When Tess was born, red Othag (which represents change) was in the Fist (which represents taking what you want by force).
• Tess approves of industry, diligence, envy, and pride. She disapproves of sloth.
• Tess set up this expedition as her ambition is to rule a great nation.
• Employment is the connection Tess has with the rest of the party. She hired them. (This one wound up being a bit of a cop-out.)

Vampires, Holy Symbols, & Execution

So, as I was watching Interview with the Vampire on Netflix and marvelling at how almost every trope of modern vampire fiction was done first by Anne Rice, something occurred to me when Louis mentioned not being afraid of holy symbols.

Imagine an Earth-like setting (obviously not D&D) where vampires don't care about holy symbols. Star of David, Star and Crescent, Flying Spaghetti Monster, they don't care. Religion has no power over them.

Except the primary Christian holy symbol. Why? Obviously not because Christianity is right about anything. The ichthys has no effect on vampires. No, vampires are bothered by crucifixes because they represent an instrument of execution and torture. The cross reminds the vampire of the death he doles out to everyone else, but can no longer hope for himself. Or something. (It's mythology, it doesn't have to make sense. At least, it doesn't have to make any more sense than the shaky justifications for arithmomania, inability to cross running water, lack of reflection, or distaste for garlic.)

Vampires have exactly the same reaction to nooses, guillotines, electric chairs, and so on. It's not symbols of religion that they care about, it's symbols of execution.

But part of that idea might just be how much I enjoy pointing out how morbid the use of the crucifix as a symbol is. Introducing a religion whose holy symbol is a noose would probably work just as well. In related news, I just had a brilliant idea about a new religion...

On Grudges

Normally, my advice is geared more towards DMs than towards players. But today, I'm going to give players some advice, and DMs some corollary advice. I wish these things had occurred to me sooner, sitting on both sides of the table. The advice is this:

Players: Ask your DM, before the game starts, "Who should my character have a grudge against?"

--- Corollary:

DMs: Before the game starts, gently suggest to your players (but do not for a second consider forcing them) that they might consider including, in their backstory, some reason for a grudge against a certain group or organization.

Grudges are a truly excellent PC motivator.

I had a player whose PC had a grudge against Vecna, which was really handy when I had to include a cult for the PCs to massacre and determined that the cult would be a cult of Vecna.

I have a player whose PC has a grudge against slavers. So, suddenly, Nalf's Slave Market existed in Endeesy.

If your characters, before the game starts, have a grudge against whatever the primary foe of the campaign is, you don't need to put any effort at all into convincing them to do anything. They'll be the locomotive power in following your rails.

(Convincing the players to do things is a constant problem. Bribing them with cash gets old, and they never want to do heroics for the sake of heroics. One of many reasons why Chaotic Neutral is the most terrible alignment in the history of ever.)

---

On the other side of the table: I've noticed that, nine times out of ten, players will include a grudge against _somebody_ in their backstory. The aforementioned examples of Vecna and slavers. I've only done it a handful of times myself, but one of the anecdotes is telling by virtue of its abject failure.

Vand Alykko was the son of two adventurers. When he was young, a band of Githyanki massacred his family and grabbed a Githyanki Silver Sword that had been taken from them years previously. From that moment on, Vand had three overriding goals: exterminate all the Gith (-yanki and -zerai, because screw all of them by association); see to it that a Githyanki Silver Sword is standard gear assigned to every beginning adventuring party; kill the Lich-Queen and use her skull as a soup bowl.

Adequate motivation for an evil character, yes? At least more subtle than the usual "greed", yes?

Vand never encountered a single Githyanki. The DM threw some kind of telepathic demon dude at the party and whenever a PC showed the slightest sign of deviating from the rails, the PC took damage. The foes were mostly priests.

Setting aside all but one of the many problems with that campaign: it would have worked much better had the foes of the campaign lined up at all with the foes of the characters, if the DM had bent the plot to the characters' backgrounds, or if the players had been able to bend their backgrounds to the plot.

So, if you're a player, ask your DM who your character should have a grudge against.

If you're a DM, suggest to your players that they might consider giving their characters a grudge against whatever group turns out to be the main foe of the campaign. Or, if you want to introduce a touch of hilarity, suggest to them that they have a grudge against whoever turns out to be a major ally. Or against fellow PCs -- I was in a party once where half the characters were racist against at least one other party member.