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Pathfinder Shenanigans: Ten Things to Ask Your Quest NPC
11 years ago
General
In last night's session of Pathfinder, the group made a colossal blunder in revealing a warren of wererats to the city guard. We are now trying to recover from that mistake, and looking for a decent way to hide 30 or so wererats in the city before the city guard can do a genocide. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. We could have avoided this mistake if we had just taken a little more time to question the NPC that gave us the quest. So here are 10 things that you should ALWAYS ask your quest NPC to hopefully avoid future blunders:
1. What EXACTLY do you want?
This may be self-evident depending on the circumstances, but try to get them down to a single sentence, like it's quest objective. A single objective like this is something your party can focus on with ease, such that you all know what you're ultimately trying to do. You can break it down into main objectives and side objectives if that helps, but make sure you know your goal.
2. What does [target NPC or item] look like? What's their name? Where are they? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
These ultimately boil down to just getting a complete description of your target. On more than one occasion, my party and I have gone to confront a boss, only to realize that we don't actually know what the guy looks like. As stressed below, don't just ask this question either, WRITE DOWN THE ANSWER! Otherwise I can guarantee your party will forget some important detail, and it will come back to bite you later. This is also effectively an extra knowledge check by your NPC to find out the target's type or special abilities, as they would be in a very good position to know about the target.
3. Why are you coming to us with this and not the local authorities?
This is partially for plot reasons and may not have much mechanical effect, but it should also be something to compare to your alignment. Would your good character be okay with being a hitman? Would your chaotic character be willing to work with the city guard? Are they working outside the law? Would your lawful character agree to this approach or try to do things by the book? It will also probably tell you what the NPC thinks about the authorities and whether or not you should be careful about keeping your actions quiet.
4. How discrete should we be, and how quickly does this have to be done?
Some of your players may have contacts that might be useful in this scenario. They might be all ready to rush over and get them involved, but the NPC may want their activities kept confidential. This helps to let your teammates know how loud or flashy they can be too, because sometimes they'll think of a plan that has a lot of collateral damage that the NPC doesn't want on their hands. Also, many parties can be guilty of the "15-minute workday" issue, where they go to a single fight, blow all of their 1/day powers, then go rest and come back tomorrow. Except in very rare instances, they shouldn't be afforded this luxury, and plans should go awry when they leave a job half-finished to go rest at an inn. Similarly, an NPC's plans should be inconvenienced because the PCs decided to take too long. On the other hand, this can also encourage the party to do more planning if you give them a very generous time limit - if they have a week to kill a guy, they might actually do some prep work instead of just charging in the front door and killing everyone.
5. Should we be on the lookout for anyone or anything in particular there? Does s/he have any treasure of particular note?
This is to alert the party to sub-bosses, captive monsters, trap rooms, or other dangers for which they should be on the lookout. This includes the boss's preferred tactics or special powers (like using teamwork feats, a breath weapon, filling the room with smoke and using Blind-Fight, etc.). It may also be useful for alerting them to hidden doors or secret treasure rooms. Plus, if the target has a really cool item, but it's not found on his body, it'll give the party a chance to go look for it instead of just taking a loss to the party loot.
6. What will be our reward for completing this task?
It's easy for an NPC or the DM to change your reward based on mood, or to just screw you over entirely if that's the NPC's character. Make sure you have an understanding of your payment before you do any work.
7. What would be the best, and worst-case scenarios, besides our deaths? OR Is there anything else you'd like us to do, or avoid doing, while we're there?
Usually the NPC has some larger goal in mind. They want to kill X NPC or obtain Y item to further their plans for Z. In the course of your mission, you may have opportunities to either further their goal, or screw it up royally, like we did with the wererats and the city guard. Also, from a metagaming perspective, most NPCs have a standard reward, and then either a bonus or a penalty based on how the party handles these opportunities or whether they assisted the NPC's larger plans. Asking this question can help you know what to look for, or how to more easily avoid the lesser reward.
8. How can we trust you?
This may not be necessary depending on the circumstances - in many cases the NPC is showing a great deal of trust in your party by coming to you instead of the authorities. But every once in a while, you may need to be sure that the NPC can be expected to come up with your reward or not to use you as a scapegoat.
9. What will you do after we complete this task?
This is primarily for RP purposes, but can again help you obtain the bonus reward by taking opportunities to advance the NPC's larger goal. Additionally, it encourages the party to use this NPC as a contact later on, which may be extremely helpful depending on the circumstances.
10. Do you have any advice for us? Can you offer us any aid?
If the NPC is hiring adventurers to do a job, then they've certainly given a lot of thought to the job already. They've probably thought up some plans, but realized they wouldn't work. They may have spotted a weakness in the target's defenses, but couldn't exploit it on their own. They might know that the guards all have Damage Reduction except against a certain material, and the NPC has some samples of that material if they party asks for them. The DM will usually have all of these at the ready, but can't use any of them unless the party asks. So ASK!
It's not enough to just ask these questions, you should also write down the answers. It's embarrassing when your party face doesn't remember the name of the NPC, the item, the village, or similar, and it's all too easy for people to forget, especially when a quest takes more than one session to complete. Designate a party scribe if you must, but try to take the initiative and do it yourself. And if you do have a party scribe, show them some appreciation - they're doing your job for you.
Ten Things to Ask Your Quest NPC1. What EXACTLY do you want?
This may be self-evident depending on the circumstances, but try to get them down to a single sentence, like it's quest objective. A single objective like this is something your party can focus on with ease, such that you all know what you're ultimately trying to do. You can break it down into main objectives and side objectives if that helps, but make sure you know your goal.
2. What does [target NPC or item] look like? What's their name? Where are they? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
These ultimately boil down to just getting a complete description of your target. On more than one occasion, my party and I have gone to confront a boss, only to realize that we don't actually know what the guy looks like. As stressed below, don't just ask this question either, WRITE DOWN THE ANSWER! Otherwise I can guarantee your party will forget some important detail, and it will come back to bite you later. This is also effectively an extra knowledge check by your NPC to find out the target's type or special abilities, as they would be in a very good position to know about the target.
3. Why are you coming to us with this and not the local authorities?
This is partially for plot reasons and may not have much mechanical effect, but it should also be something to compare to your alignment. Would your good character be okay with being a hitman? Would your chaotic character be willing to work with the city guard? Are they working outside the law? Would your lawful character agree to this approach or try to do things by the book? It will also probably tell you what the NPC thinks about the authorities and whether or not you should be careful about keeping your actions quiet.
4. How discrete should we be, and how quickly does this have to be done?
Some of your players may have contacts that might be useful in this scenario. They might be all ready to rush over and get them involved, but the NPC may want their activities kept confidential. This helps to let your teammates know how loud or flashy they can be too, because sometimes they'll think of a plan that has a lot of collateral damage that the NPC doesn't want on their hands. Also, many parties can be guilty of the "15-minute workday" issue, where they go to a single fight, blow all of their 1/day powers, then go rest and come back tomorrow. Except in very rare instances, they shouldn't be afforded this luxury, and plans should go awry when they leave a job half-finished to go rest at an inn. Similarly, an NPC's plans should be inconvenienced because the PCs decided to take too long. On the other hand, this can also encourage the party to do more planning if you give them a very generous time limit - if they have a week to kill a guy, they might actually do some prep work instead of just charging in the front door and killing everyone.
5. Should we be on the lookout for anyone or anything in particular there? Does s/he have any treasure of particular note?
This is to alert the party to sub-bosses, captive monsters, trap rooms, or other dangers for which they should be on the lookout. This includes the boss's preferred tactics or special powers (like using teamwork feats, a breath weapon, filling the room with smoke and using Blind-Fight, etc.). It may also be useful for alerting them to hidden doors or secret treasure rooms. Plus, if the target has a really cool item, but it's not found on his body, it'll give the party a chance to go look for it instead of just taking a loss to the party loot.
6. What will be our reward for completing this task?
It's easy for an NPC or the DM to change your reward based on mood, or to just screw you over entirely if that's the NPC's character. Make sure you have an understanding of your payment before you do any work.
7. What would be the best, and worst-case scenarios, besides our deaths? OR Is there anything else you'd like us to do, or avoid doing, while we're there?
Usually the NPC has some larger goal in mind. They want to kill X NPC or obtain Y item to further their plans for Z. In the course of your mission, you may have opportunities to either further their goal, or screw it up royally, like we did with the wererats and the city guard. Also, from a metagaming perspective, most NPCs have a standard reward, and then either a bonus or a penalty based on how the party handles these opportunities or whether they assisted the NPC's larger plans. Asking this question can help you know what to look for, or how to more easily avoid the lesser reward.
8. How can we trust you?
This may not be necessary depending on the circumstances - in many cases the NPC is showing a great deal of trust in your party by coming to you instead of the authorities. But every once in a while, you may need to be sure that the NPC can be expected to come up with your reward or not to use you as a scapegoat.
9. What will you do after we complete this task?
This is primarily for RP purposes, but can again help you obtain the bonus reward by taking opportunities to advance the NPC's larger goal. Additionally, it encourages the party to use this NPC as a contact later on, which may be extremely helpful depending on the circumstances.
10. Do you have any advice for us? Can you offer us any aid?
If the NPC is hiring adventurers to do a job, then they've certainly given a lot of thought to the job already. They've probably thought up some plans, but realized they wouldn't work. They may have spotted a weakness in the target's defenses, but couldn't exploit it on their own. They might know that the guards all have Damage Reduction except against a certain material, and the NPC has some samples of that material if they party asks for them. The DM will usually have all of these at the ready, but can't use any of them unless the party asks. So ASK!
It's not enough to just ask these questions, you should also write down the answers. It's embarrassing when your party face doesn't remember the name of the NPC, the item, the village, or similar, and it's all too easy for people to forget, especially when a quest takes more than one session to complete. Designate a party scribe if you must, but try to take the initiative and do it yourself. And if you do have a party scribe, show them some appreciation - they're doing your job for you.
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