During yourDungeons & Dragonscampaign, your Rogue Player Character has finally found his nemesis; his evil father who left him to die. They fight, the Rogue wins with the help of his new found-family, and he gets his revenge.
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Everybody cheers, and the player just had the game of his life. But during the following sessions, he’s been quiet; His plot is now resolved, making him just aimlessly roam with the group. What do we do with our players when their plot is solved? Or worse, what do we do when we don’t find a way to fit their plot into the overall story?
7Connect Backstories Or Objectives
You can tie these things together if two or more players' backstories or objectives are similar. Does the Cleric want to cleanse the world from evil fiends - though they don’t mention any fiend in particular in their backstory - while theWarlock wants to free themselffrom their evil patron? As vague as the Cleric’s goal is, they’ll now attach themself to the Warlock’s, and they’ll be a powerhouse together.
Tying everybody’s backstories and goals might make things feel too convenient. Still, if you do that to pairs of players and even use these connections to make them meet in the first place, you can create a very organic story, and they’ll be more inclined to help and participate in each other’s goals without feeling intrusive.
6Give Them A New Goal
The show must go on. During the following sessions, see what drags the player’s attention and make that more relevant to the main story.
Are they enjoyinga certain NPC?Make the character more important. Life doesn’t stop just because we accomplished what we wanted; it’s time to set our sights on something new.
And it’s okay to tweak your endgame plans to accommodate the players; that’s even encouraged.
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You won’t have to worry too much, because there’s a good chance this player will dedicate themself to helping the rest of the group with their goals. That said, make one of these goals connect to this player, too, connecting stuff similar to what was said in the previous entry, and they’ll be even more invested in helping out.
If the Rogue is constantly helping the Fighter with their baddie, this baddie will want to kill the Rogue as well, right?
5Take Detours
Speaking of new goals, not everything needs to be related to the big master plot you’ve come up with. If the player - and the party - are interested in your cities, minor NPCs, or smaller events, let them take a breather and check these things out.
In other words:Side-quests.The brilliance of letting them do so is that they’ll search and naturally go toward something they’re interested in.
And though big plots are interesting, if they’re saving the world every session, the pressure can be a lot. Have them enjoy moments of simple roleplay, like drinking at the inn, and you’re able to still take the resolution of whatever side-quest you’re improvising and still make it part of the main story, revitalizing your player’s interest in it.
4Create Problems They’re Well Designed To Solve
In other words, let the spotlight hit the player a bit, even after their main objective is done. Sure, you need to give the spotlight to other players, too.
Still, perhaps for the Fighter to face their baddie, the Rogue needs to infiltrate an area to obtain information, highlighting his skills while he helps another character reach their big moment.
Not every scenario needs to be problematic for everyone. You can intentionally create situations that a particular player or players excel at and let them have their moment of triumph, because the goal is for them to have fun, after all.
3Create Consequences For Their Resolution
Okay, so the Rogue killed his evil father in the example we used. What are the consequences of this guy’s death? Maybe he had friends who want payback.
Maybe he had another child, one he was actually proud of and raised himself, and now the Rogue’s brother is seeking him for revenge, while the Rogue didn’t even know he had more family. And the plot thickens.
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Just because they’ve accomplished their mission doesn’t mean it won’t have further repercussions on their lives. Now they have to deal with a whole new situation they caused, which can be done over and over as they complete their goals.
2Mirror Backstories Through NPCs
Take what they’ve learned from their journey and have them teach it to others. Suppose the Rogue regrets killing his evil father despite everything, but that’s already done.
Then, they find an NPC who seeks revenge on their mother for similar reasons, and the NPC is obsessed with revenge. It could be something else if you don’t want the connection to be too on the nose, but the focus is NPC obsessed with a vengeance.
Bonus points if it’s an NPC they already know and like.
Now the Rogue can kickstart a journey of not letting someone else repeat his mistakes. They can use their lack of closure to help the NPC out, which can also give the PC some closure.
Essentially, having an NPC mirroring a similar path to the player, where the NPC is about to make the worst possible choices, and the player can help them out.
1Talk To Your Player
You don’t need to do a bunch of guesswork on what will or will not get your player’s interest. If they feel demotivated with their character, you can talk about it.
They can suggest what they’d like to see happening for their character or even suggest something more radical, like swapping characters entirely.
Player feedback is of the utmost importance, and it’s more than okay to address the situation with your friend so you can come up with solutions together. And they’ll likely appreciate having their suggestions and opinions impact the game.
