Photo credit to @luseals for the banner art to make the post look pretty.
Welcome back to my weekly section where I take some time to think critically about the most recent episode of Critical Role. My goal is to find skills and best practices that I can apply to my own games.
[Spoilers ahead for episode 29 of Critical Role]
This week, I’m thinking about how Matt uses recurring characters. First, I want to look at how Shakäste’s return adds richness to the world. Second, I want to speculate on what Matt was aiming for when he said Lorenzo was supposed to escape.
Watching along with Critical Role, I tend to become a bit myopic, focused on the Mighty Nein and whatever challenge they’re facing this week. But Shakäste’s appearance in the fight with the Iron Shepherds immediately reminded me that there’s a bigger world out there.
Things happening in the background
First, the simple fact that Shakäste is here – and 3 levels higher than the last time we saw him – tells us that he’s been following his own threads of adventure. Adventures that we haven’t received the slightest clue about. For a freedom-seeking organization that we’ve never heard of.
It creates the illusion of other free agents in the world advancing their own schemes. Suddenly the Mighty Nein isn’t in campaign mode, fighting their way through the main plot. Now it’s multiplayer.
More intense motivations
One thing I struggle with as a DM is authentically motivating my players at the beginning of a quest. I do my best to provide plot hooks that appeal to the character’s interests – someone for the paladin to rescue, a collection of rare books for the wizard to find.
These quests appeal to the interests stated in the character’s backstories. But I find that unless the goal somehow leads to a tangible increase via the mechanics of D&D (I.e. a +1 magic artifact) the players are never truly motivated. They’re mostly going along because it feels in character and they know this is the adventure their supposed to do. They’re invested because they enjoy playing D&D, not because they’re desperate to save the carpenter’s son they just learned existed.
By building up Shakäste, Matt and Khary have created a character that the Mighty Nein are invested in. Now, if Matt ever wants to create an adventure that feels really emotionally charged, he can drop hints that someone who matches Shakäste’s description was captured by the villain or trapped in a nearby tomb.
Think of how Matt didn’t have to dangle any sort of loot in front of the Mighty Nein to have them going after Jester, Fjord, and Yasha. By investing in a recurring character, Matt can access a similar level of emotion without taking 3 players out of the game in the future.
Rewarding with role play instead of loot
When my party finishes a big arc, the first thing we do is look for loot. In theory, we just defeated a big bad guy and saved the day. Yet we also feel like we need a “reward” on top. But we just got our reward! We saved everyone, we’re heroes now!
The problem with this is that we all sort of know in the back of our heads that the people we just saved only exist in the DM’s head. They’re going to be gone when we walk out of the town. Try as we might to keep our heads in the fiction, it’s still hard for this not to dampen our heroic victory a bit. Hence the magic items at the end.
That’s why I think Shakäste’s speech at the end of episode 29 is so impactful for everyone’s role play going forward. This person didn’t disappear. They’ve seen the Mighty Nein be heroes twice now, and they praise them for it. It’s more gratifying because it was earned over time and it doesn’t feel like it goes away when the next arc begins.
This gives everyone more reason to invest in doing good things just for the sake of doing them.
When Caleb killed Lorenzo, Matt mentioned that he had intended for him to escape. I won’t pretend that I know exactly what Matt was planning to use this for, but I can think of a few positive effects it would have had on the game.
Make the players the main characters
One thing I find interesting about stories in D&D, especially at lower levels, is that we’re basically a bunch of side characters. More often than not, it’s other characters who have plots and goals and nemeses. We’re just the muscle brought in to get the job done. The camera only happens to follow us around instead of what we would normally think of as the “main characters”.
But imagine if Lorenzo had escaped and vowed revenge against the Mighty Nein. Now the party isn’t just walking into town and solving others’ problems. Things can go wrong because they have enemies. They can’t just run because Lorenzo is here to get them.
Not to mention, they have reason to hate him too after he killed Molly. Suddenly, Matt can make whole adventures driven by goals and decisions made entirely by the party. The only “plot hooks” Matt needs to provide are Lorenzo’s reactions.
Deeper villain interractions
Even after just two encounters, Lorenzo had way more personality than a typical D&D boss. Imagine if that growth had continued across several arcs. Having your villains reappear in different settings, with different strategies, gives them a chance to be fleshed out in much the same way as PCs.
What’s more, this gives players a chance to learn their abilities, personality, and weaknesses. This can create more nuanced, tactical fights. Or even create situations where good role play in the heat of combat can turn the tide.
Even though the first fight was so brief, you could already see the players thinking more than usual in the second fight against the Iron Shepherds. They knew there were specific targets to attack first. They all kept their distance to avoid Lorenzo’s cone of cold.
I think there are a few lessons we can take away on how to use recurring characters as DMs. For good NPCs:
For bad NPCs:
That’s all for now! See you all next week.
