Comments on: Building Player Anticipation http://rpgdigest.com/2009/07/27/building-player-anticipation/ Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:30:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Chris Williams http://rpgdigest.com/2009/07/27/building-player-anticipation/comment-page-1/#comment-1578 Chris Williams Fri, 02 Sep 2011 23:18:55 +0000 http://rpgdigest.com/?p=259#comment-1578 One of the methods I have used is a recurring antagonist NPC that the players just love to hate, both in and out of character. In my current game, the PCs were dealing with an evil wizard who was 2 levels above the group average. They'd had four encounters with this chap (an even mix of combat and role-playing), and at the end of every one, he managed to get one over on them. In every case though, they did score a related victory which served to temper the frustration a little (in one case, they managed to whack his familiar). The result was a group of players who all jeered at the outcome of the encounter, but spent the next hour (and several Facebook posts between sessions) planning for the next encounter with him. People don't invest that much energy in something they're not enjoying. When they finally killed the wizard (last week), they were high-fiving and whooping it up. I was only too glad to sacrifice my wizard on the altar of player happiness. One of the methods I have used is a recurring antagonist NPC that the players just love to hate, both in and out of character. In my current game, the PCs were dealing with an evil wizard who was 2 levels above the group average. They’d had four encounters with this chap (an even mix of combat and role-playing), and at the end of every one, he managed to get one over on them. In every case though, they did score a related victory which served to temper the frustration a little (in one case, they managed to whack his familiar). The result was a group of players who all jeered at the outcome of the encounter, but spent the next hour (and several Facebook posts between sessions) planning for the next encounter with him. People don’t invest that much energy in something they’re not enjoying.

When they finally killed the wizard (last week), they were high-fiving and whooping it up. I was only too glad to sacrifice my wizard on the altar of player happiness.

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