Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 171 - Good NPCs - Quest Givers

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

In this episode I talk about giving life to your campaigns by making your quest givers more dynamic and how you can use quest givers to steer the campaign the directions you'd like.   #dnd #Pathfinder #opendnd #orc #DMTips

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. The low-level characters have been speaking to Bentley Pimblebrook, who works at the Copper Tambourine. Bentley pays well and asks the characters to retrieve this lost item, kill this evil priest, or bring back proof that the Displacer Beast then has been cleared out. Little do the PCs know it, but they've been unknowingly helping the drow of Bregan D'Arthy. helping the drow of Bregan D'Arthy. Thank you so much for downloading and listening to the Taking20 Podcast, episode 171, all about designing good quest-giving NPCs.

I want to thank this week's sponsor, Cereal. I only eat cereals that are polite. I mean, every time I have to leave the room, my favorite cereal always says, Cheerios. The flaring of your nostrils tells me that this was not a good pun. But what can I say? I'm just a corny flake. Hey, we have a coffee. ko-fi.com slash taking20podcast. I'm in the process of designing some additional coffee-only content, like maybe

bringing on some people for a Let's Play and recording it to see if I can prove to you that I can walk the walk as well as I've been talking the talk. Your donation would help that happen, so if you enjoy the podcast and would like to see a Let's Play, please consider a donation. Also, I want to point you to a new web series on YouTube called The Party. They're not a sponsor, and I don't get anything for recommending them, but I'm really enjoying the first few episodes, and I think you would too. It's only a few weeks old and releases once a week on Tuesdays.

So far, it's about joining a new gaming group when you don't know much about Dungeons and Dragons. It's funny, it's heartwarming, and it does a great job of capturing those early nervous days of playing D&D for the first time. Go check them out at youtube.com slash at party web series. This is not an episode about quest design.

Oh, God, that audio setting isn't right. Let me turn down the Monty Python God talking setting. Yeah, that's better. Okay, so I talked about quests in episodes 57 and 108. Give those episodes a listen if you want to know about designing fetch quests, location quests where you go somewhere, information quests, and quests where party is asked to kill something or someone.

It's very easy for DMs to treat quest givers like so many computer RPGs do. Static, unchanging things with no motivation. Boring, false beings for the player character to interact with, for PCs to come back to with their jar of farts or whatever. The quest giver pays them the agreed upon price and then disappears into the background never to be heard from again. DMs, you could run your quest giving NPCs this way, but why do that when, with just a little more effort ahead of time, your NPC quest givers can be so much more.

Dynamic, seemingly alive with their own goals and motivations. Quests, by the way, are the lifeblood of RPG games. They're methods by which PCs can earn experience points and advance in level and possibly advance the story and plot. But those quests must come from quest givers somehow. The PCs have to find out about the quest to go on whatever adventure happens to be. But those quests must come from quest givers somehow. The PCs have to find out about the quest to go on whatever adventure happens to be. The exact method will vary from campaign to campaign, and even from session to session within a campaign.

I think a good campaign will bring adventures to the PCs from more than one source. If old gray eyes at the mercantile guild is the only source of quests for the party, it's going to get repetitive, stale, and boring. So that's my first tip. Vary up your quest givers to provide fresh ways to give tasks to the characters. Besides keeping it from getting boring, there are multiple benefits to having multiple quest givers ready to pay the characters for their services. 1. Multiple quest givers allow you as the DM to show off parts of your world that maybe the characters wouldn't otherwise see. They've been working for Johnny

Three Toes in the Puddles District when suddenly they receive a missive from Lady Crilla Agalor, the Duchess of Tegrazia, who wants to speak with them urgently about a matter of discretion and importance. Suddenly, this-born party are thrust into the world of high society and must learn to swim the surprisingly dangerous political

and social waters of noble society. 2. Having multiple quest givers allows you to easily introduce factions into your game world. Each person or place the characters go to for a quest could serve the interests of one or more factions of the city. The low-level characters have been speaking to Bentley Pimblebrook, who works at the Copper Tambourine. It's a quaint little establishment on the outskirts of town. Bentley pays well and asks the characters to retrieve this lost item, kill this evil priest, or bring back proof that the Displacer Beast then has been cleared out. Little do the PCs know it, but they've been unknowingly helping the drow of Bragen D'Arthi on Faerun or followers of the Whispering Way on Galarian by retrieving items for the organization,

killing those who would oppose it, and clearing out creatures that are causing problems for it. Without even knowing it, other organizations are starting to view the party as potential enemies and may seek to capture the PCs for information or even kill them thinking they're undercover agents. 3. Multiple quest givers can pull your PCs into new areas of your world. If the player characters just haven't gotten the hint that the adventure is pulling them into the Valinwood, you can always use a quest giver to get the PCs to that area. I need six lime cap mushrooms to finish my PhD thesis on fungi. The only ones I know of are in the Valinwood, close to the Fallen Oak Cemetery. Would you mind bringing me some? I'll pay you gold if you do this for me. Bam!

The characters are in the Valenwood, and you can introduce them to the ghost of Isis Burlington, who knows something that can help the PCs against the big bad, if the characters can take care of the specters that are haunting her afterlife. 4. Multiple quest givers provide variety to your game. If you use the same quest giver over and over again, then the game becomes repetitive, very much in danger of becoming even boring. Go do the thing, come back to Queen Westerchmuck. Go do the other thing, come back to the Queen. Go kill this monster, come back to the Queen.

There's no zip, there's no fire, There's no feel that the world's alive and complicated with multiple NPCs. It almost seems like the world is the queen, the PCs, and a whole bunch of cardboard cutouts of other people around the world. Now, I'll say this. Multiple quest givers is a good start, but it isn't enough. It serves a very limited benefit if your three quest givers are all copy-paste versions of the same person. Okay, Queen What's-Her-Schmuck dismisses you, but luckily you receive a message from Queen Who's-Your-Mommy,

and she has something that she wants you to do. And when that's done, you receive an emissary from King Louis the Ugly, who wants you to come find him some skin cream. So you need to vary the sources of your quest to keep the spark alive with your game. I think the quest givers come in four very broad categories. Job boards, overheard conversations, discovered information, and being directly hired. So let's start with job boards. There could be a job board where people post activities that need to be done,

and the amount of money they're willing to pay to have it completed for them. Need rats killed in my basement. Need someone to deliver a wagon of goods to Barney over at the village mercantile. Have a treasure map for sale. Guaranteed return on investment. See Axius at the Thirsty Turtle for details. That kind of thing. Job boards, by the way, are fantastic,

and I tend to use them most in low-level campaigns. After all, most first and second level characters haven't made much of a name for themselves yet, so it's not like the rich and powerful and needy would seek them out to solve problems. Once characters start climbing in level 4th, 5th, 6th, etc., that makes them very capable PCs in small towns, and pretty capable PCs even in a large metropolis. By that time, their names are starting to get around, and other quest sources can be used. If you are going to use a job board as a possible source of quests,

then I would obviously make at least some of the possible jobs level appropriate. If your PCs are third level and the only quest is Kill the White Dragon Frostfang, then either the PCs won't get a quest there at all, or they're going to die a frosty frozen death. That being said, having higher level quests available would make the job board very interesting. So have quests available for various levels on the job board. Another thing about the job boards is that if your world is alive, then it stands to reason that there would be multiple adventuring groups who know about this board. That doesn't mean the characters have to see these other groups or interact with them at all,

but these other groups may likely accept jobs from this same job board. That means jobs will appear and disappear on the job board over time, and a later job could be even rescuing another group who took on a job that they weren't quite ready for. Consider job boards for your brand new, fresh-faced adventurers who aren't widely known yet. Even if the party is starting to rise in level, consider having one or two lucrative opportunities available if they happen to check the job board. Make them interesting by making them not just a court board in the town square, but they're available in a tavern or a guild hall, a longhouse, or other area commonly frequented by the community. Another possible source of jobs that I talked about are overheard conversations. Anywhere NPCs gather.

Just by being in the right place at the right time, the party could hear that Lady Kate is looking for a reliable group to deliver a message to the mayor of Slagtown. City streets, taverns, shops, restaurants, anywhere else NPCs gather and linger are opportunities for the characters to hear some juicy bit of rumor about the next paying gig. Have a few of those behind your screen and drop them in whenever you need another quest for the party. your screen and drop them in whenever you need another quest for the party. 3. The PCs could get quests by discovering information somehow. Suppose the PCs have been asked to sneak into a town magistrate's office after hours and steal the city's financial books to bring to a group called the Civic Underground, who will use it to prove the magistrate is skimming

off the top. While there, the party also discovers, let's just say, a list of people's names and references on a page with a reference to a known human trafficker. Now they can retrieve what they came for, and if they want, start to investigate a possible slavery ring. Dangle that quest bait out there and see if the party bites. And one of the benefits of giving out quest information this way is that the PCs believe that they found it because of their cleverness or good die rolls

and good role playing. Even if you were planning on giving them the information another way, do not, do not let them know that. Let them feel like they're smart, they're brilliant heroes who discovered something maybe they weren't supposed to know yet. Trust me, your players will be much happier for it. And fourth source of quests, of course, most likely someone or something that asks the PCs to do this for some reward and purpose. They're hired to perform a task, take care of a problem, or kill someone or something that's problematic. This is a traditional way of handing out quests. Empress Matrexia reaches out to the party to do X. The armorer offers a discount if they do Y.

The innkeeper wants someone to watch the laundry lines all day to see who's stealing from her. A local religious sect wants to reduce the worshippers of a rival deity. I talked about this in quests episodes, and it bears repeating that quest givers must have a motivation for giving the PCs the quest. The quest needs to do something that benefits either the quest giver, a business that they have a stake in, or someone they care for. Maybe it gets rid of a personal rival who's been trying to win the hand of someone they love.

Or clearing the bandits off the old mill road will make it cheaper for this deli owner to get raw materials for his world-famous croque monsieur, which is to die for. The bandits have made it so hard to get fresh ham from the farmer and Gruyere, forget about it. There's only one supplier worth my time and she can't get her cheeses into town without losing half of it to those ruffians. So if you'll be a dear and get it for me, I'll give you... 25 gold pieces and a free sandwich. Or, maybe, Tronk need papers for Penny to come to town.

Guards always check papers. Do this and Tronk help you kill Big Lizard. Tronk doesn't know how to sneak someone into town or how to forge migration papers for Penny. That creates a built-in reason why the quest giver doesn't take care of it themselves. Which, by the way, be ready to answer that question. How come the quest giver just doesn't handle this problem themselves? There was a meme going around social media last year about people like merchants, shop owners, and other town NPCs actually being level 20 retired adventurers. Everyone kept asking, why would they hire the PCs? I mean, aren't they better equipped to solve the problem themselves? Well, yeah, that's true, but maybe Rory just wants to run a freaking

bed and breakfast these days, or Moira has a successful winery and cafe. Philip just got married and has a spouse and new family at home, and they don't want to go traipsing off to the Arcadian Isles and get what they want. Perhaps they're older, have a different measurement of risk than they had in their youth. They now have more money than time, and it's money they're willing to pay that makes it worth the time they don't have to spend accomplishing the task. That's a ready-made set of reasons.

It also could be that they're not capable. You think random commoner number 35 is ready to enter the old Mahoney estate and clear out the ghosts of those who were murdered there? So why don't they take care of it themselves? Maybe they can't or simply don't want to. Any sub-reason you can think of falls into one of those two categories that would always work. Something many DMs, including myself, struggle with sometimes, quest givers do not wait in stasis for PCs to return.

If it makes sense at all, have the PCs encountered the quest giver in different places when they get the quest versus when they return it? If we're trying to add any realism at all, quest givers would have lives, needs, tasks they have to perform day to day, people they must see and things they must do. Sometimes they just go somewhere and chew the fat with other NPCs, telling stories, catching up with their friends, enjoying dinner with a like-minded group. Put them in motion. Sure, they saw Ingrid at her weapons shop when she asked them for help, but maybe when they return, she's evaluating an ore shipment,

or selling an item she made, or having dinner with her family. Put them on the move, even if it's just that they've left the shop to go get groceries. That just makes it easier to throw in a complication, like they're threatened or kidnapped or killed, or maybe they've been persuaded to send the PCs off on a much deadlier quest. Do what you can to make quest givers interesting and memorable. The quest giver should be someone that the players would want to interact with and remember. Now, I can hear what you're thinking.

Yeah, sure, Jeremy, making fun, engaging, memorable NPCs is easy. Then again, so is flying. All I have to do is throw myself to the ground and miss. I hear you. You want some tips to make your quest giver memorable? Say no more, my friend. Here are some tips to make your quest givers easier to remember and people that your party would love.

One, I've already talked about giving them a life with a routine so the party doesn't find them leaning against the same fence post every time they're in town, staring off in the distance like the avatar for a disconnected player. Two, give them something unique and distinct about them. A mannerism, a tick, a common phrase they like to use, an accent. Now in my head I can hear you saying, I don't know what a mannerism is, Jeremy. A mannerism is a way of speaking or behaving that may be unconscious or idiosyncratic. Something peculiar, unique, or in this case, identifying of this NPC. They always chew their

fingernails while they're talking. They tap their foot when they sit down. They chew on a piece of wheat. They talk with their hands a lot. They're always munching on food of some sort. They talk in a breathy whisper. They're jumpy. They call you champ because they never bother to learn anybody's name. They're a dreaded close talker. They overuse puns as a substitute for a real sense of humor. Honey, we gotta talk about the way you write my episodes. That was just hurtful. 3. You could give the quest giver a backstory that makes them stand out from the other NPCs in the world. They want something. They need something. They have plans to do something with their lives.

Having that built into the NPC and letting that information drop will help them pop out from just the unnamed rabble in the NPC crowd. By doing this, your players will remember the NPC not as, oh, that one wizard from the incense shop who asked us to go get that thing. It's that well-dressed wizard with a raunchy sense of humor. Conrad, yeah, that's right. He asked us to steal that statue. If at all possible, make quests relevant to the player's interests. The quest should be something that the players would be interested in doing. You know your players and what they enjoy. Try to tailor some of your quests to make sure they would enjoy the activities that the characters are doing. Maybe it's something that they've been wanting to do

for a long time or something they're really good at. Maybe it ties to a character backstory, or plays on a character's traits or flaws. By making the quest something a character would be naturally interested in given their personality, the quest giver becomes more interesting as well. Generally, the quest giver should at least know where the pcs could start on the quest if frabbing the druid asks the pcs to go get her some seeds for a blooming flame wart he probably should at least be able to tell the pcs where he's seen some bloom or heard where they possibly could be found or maybe where they could even be bought nothing kills player interest in an npc quest giver more than having a PC's ask,

Okay, yeah, we'll do that for you. Where should we start? And the quest giver just responds with, Really? You haven't done any research. You just sit out here taking a dump in your garden all day while staring at the sky and wishing someone to come by and give you flame wart? What are you, ignorant? Even if they aren't sure, give them a next possible stop on their quest. I don't know where to find them, but there's an old woman who lives at the edge of the town who I'm sure isn't a hag, wink.

You know, I wasn't all that suspicious until you said the word wink out loud. Last tip. Have the quest givers in town or an area know about each other. That will provide built-in connections that can give the PCs multiple quest givers in an area. If the PCs approach Prowl the Armorer instead of Frabin the Druid, the PCs can still get to the next major quest giver who can advance the main story along. This should even be true when the quest giver is just a job posting board. Everyone should know where the job board is, and the job board could probably

have one or more quests that point to other quest givers as well. In many ways, quests are building blocks of a campaign. Quest givers, whether they are job boards, overheard conversations, or critical NPCs, are more likely to make additional appearances, or maybe, in the case of NPCs, become a favored recurring encounter in your game. While it's not feasible for most DMs to come up with memorable likely to make additional appearances, or maybe, in the case of NPCs, become a favorite recurring encounter in your game. While it's not feasible for most DMs to come up with memorable, distinctive personalities for every NPC the characters could ever encounter, if you do have an NPC or a job board that will make a regular occurrence, take a little extra time when you design them. Give them unique features, connect them together through rumor or knowledge, and I bet you and your players would have fun doing it. If you haven't done so yet,

please take a few seconds to like, rate, and review the podcast wherever you found it. YouTube, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iTunes, wherever. It costs you nothing and it really does give this podcast a chance to grow. Tune in next week when I'm going to talk about how to do PvP or character versus character correctly at the table. Since I'm not as versed in the subject, I'm going to interview someone who is. David Carter, DM of the competitive high-stakes D&D 5e game show called The Crucible of Fate that streams on YouTube. Tune in for an interesting and entertaining interview. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Cereal. Sometimes instead of Frosted Flakes, my wife buys the wrong cereal.

What can I say? That's life. Sometimes. Also, I told her never to pay cash when she buys cereal at the store. Now, she pays with checks. Yeah, baby. A four-pack of dad jokes this week. This was a Cereal-iously good week. This has been episode 171, all about designing good quest givers. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.