SoSpring
August 10th, 2020, 13:10
Hello everyone.
I am a relatively new DM, running IRL campaign for my friends (now switching to online).
I have a situation and I am not sure what would be the best way to deal with it, I am hoping to get advice from more experienced DMs and also players who wish to give their perspective.
The situation is like this. The party is 5 players: two mages, ranger, bard (muliticlassing to rouge in near future) and a fighter.
The bard has been given "an offer he cannot refuse" by a local mafia boss, to infiltrate a masquerade party at a noble estate, break into the vault of the owner and steal everything not nailed down.
There was a list of specific items that had to be retrieved.
The party has an informant NPC who will be going with them and provide a way out of the vault.
The vault itself I had planned as a sort of dungeon crawl through a museum, the owner is a collector and he has been organizing his collection to be displayed to guests.
The party has already done a lot of research and preparation for this, so the next session will start with them going to this masquerade party.
One of the mages has been preparing to help the party with infiltration and provide distraction if needed, but she said specifically that she will not be going into the vault.
This makes perfect sense for her character to not get involved with any sort of criminal activity, even though she is prepared to help the party any other way she can.
Now, I have a problem with that, because I think it would be lame for her to sit doing nothing for most of the session, while her friends have all the fun in the vault.
I have been thinking what can I do to have her have fun as well.
Here are my options so far:
1) talk with the player out of the game and explain my expectations, e.g. tell her to be prepared to sit idle for most of the game if she does not which to go into the vault.
2) send her a vision in the game. Her character has a lot of visions and prophetic dreams, she regularly casts augury, that was the whole deal for her character.
So in principle, I can sent a sort of message to her character in the game, saying that her friends need her help. So far she has been following up on all such visions, but I don't want to abuse this mechanic.
3) Deal with the fact that the party will be separated, and switch in-between the "main" party going through the vault and the mage doing social stuff at the party.
I have several NPCs with important information and some fun encounters she can have at the masquerade by herself.
Ideally, I would like to let the whole party know that the vault will be a big thing with enemies, traps, etc, and not just one room with stuff, to hopefully motivate all characters to join.
I think I have done it some extend, but you can never be sure how your players see things.
I do not have a balance problem with enemies, I have already prepared for a party of 3,4 or 5 (the fighter may or may not be there because of the player situation IRL).
My main concern is that everybody are having fun.
It is especially important for me this time, as we have not played for a while because of life and corona, this will be our first session online, and the mage player had not played with us since she had a baby, I want to give her a good game.
Any advice and thoughts are very appreciated,
Thank you all in advance.
I am a relatively new DM, running IRL campaign for my friends (now switching to online).
I have a situation and I am not sure what would be the best way to deal with it, I am hoping to get advice from more experienced DMs and also players who wish to give their perspective.
The situation is like this. The party is 5 players: two mages, ranger, bard (muliticlassing to rouge in near future) and a fighter.
The bard has been given "an offer he cannot refuse" by a local mafia boss, to infiltrate a masquerade party at a noble estate, break into the vault of the owner and steal everything not nailed down.
There was a list of specific items that had to be retrieved.
The party has an informant NPC who will be going with them and provide a way out of the vault.
The vault itself I had planned as a sort of dungeon crawl through a museum, the owner is a collector and he has been organizing his collection to be displayed to guests.
The party has already done a lot of research and preparation for this, so the next session will start with them going to this masquerade party.
One of the mages has been preparing to help the party with infiltration and provide distraction if needed, but she said specifically that she will not be going into the vault.
This makes perfect sense for her character to not get involved with any sort of criminal activity, even though she is prepared to help the party any other way she can.
Now, I have a problem with that, because I think it would be lame for her to sit doing nothing for most of the session, while her friends have all the fun in the vault.
I have been thinking what can I do to have her have fun as well.
Here are my options so far:
1) talk with the player out of the game and explain my expectations, e.g. tell her to be prepared to sit idle for most of the game if she does not which to go into the vault.
2) send her a vision in the game. Her character has a lot of visions and prophetic dreams, she regularly casts augury, that was the whole deal for her character.
So in principle, I can sent a sort of message to her character in the game, saying that her friends need her help. So far she has been following up on all such visions, but I don't want to abuse this mechanic.
3) Deal with the fact that the party will be separated, and switch in-between the "main" party going through the vault and the mage doing social stuff at the party.
I have several NPCs with important information and some fun encounters she can have at the masquerade by herself.
Ideally, I would like to let the whole party know that the vault will be a big thing with enemies, traps, etc, and not just one room with stuff, to hopefully motivate all characters to join.
I think I have done it some extend, but you can never be sure how your players see things.
I do not have a balance problem with enemies, I have already prepared for a party of 3,4 or 5 (the fighter may or may not be there because of the player situation IRL).
My main concern is that everybody are having fun.
It is especially important for me this time, as we have not played for a while because of life and corona, this will be our first session online, and the mage player had not played with us since she had a baby, I want to give her a good game.
Any advice and thoughts are very appreciated,
Thank you all in advance.