A Beginner's Guide to Bastardy
The stage is set. The players and the director are implacably opposed, each trying to second-guess the other. But what good is that if you don't actually know what to do? The best way to address that problem is to look at the things you can do with all the various types of hazards. The trick lies in making the characters' lives a misery without making it look like absolutely everything from the humblest banana skin to the mightiest demon aren't all part of a grand conspiracy. Even if they are. Obviously.
Non-Player Characters
Non-Player Characters. NPCs. If they were any good, they'd be player characters, surely? Because of this minor detail, players often treat these bit-part characters and extras as grist for the slaughter-mill or vendors of treasure in carefully arranged and graded amounts. Frankly, though, can you blame them? The world is obviously stacked against them and it's only a matter of time before someone decides that killing every single living being in the world is actually a pretty good way to cut down on life's difficulties. Still, with a state of undeclared war existing between the PCs and absofuckinglutely everyone else here are a few tips to ensure that the players actually think before laying waste to your campaign and leaving you in a puddle of your own tears and urine. Again.
- Every action has a consequence.
- There is a certain thrill that comes with getting revenge. As the player characters sow, so should they reap.
- Give your NPCs long memories.
- Ierth is a comparitively primitive world. There isn't much for your average stiff to do except work, eat, drink and fight. Literacy is the exception rather than the rule, and there isn't much in the way of a theatre. This gives people plenty of time to talk, think and brood, cultivating a series of grudges like a fine vineyard. Take note of every slight a character makes against them: every insult, every theft (they'll notice eventually!), every threat.
- Few NPCs live in a vacuum.
- People talk to each other. They have friends, acquaintances, co-workers. If someone acts like a twat, then chances are that news will spread. Did the PCs threaten the weaponsmith to get a discount? Then chances are any blacksmith in the town will find out and their horses will start losing shoes left,right and centre. Is the weaponsmith friendly with the local ostler? Then the PCs will be lucky to find a tavern that'll serve them.
- Everyone knows a trick or two.
- The PCs are not the only people to make the NPCs' lives difficult. Foremen, co-workers, customers; everyone has unreasonable demands, and everyone knows useful little ways of getting their own back. Just because a character doesn't have a longsword at hand doesn't mean he can't cause harm or inconvenience in his own special little way.