Sunday 17 April 2016

"DARKNESS! NO PARENTS!"

This article about solving the murder of Batman’s parents got me thinking about this plot hook.

(It also features an excerpt from an audio adaptation and the opening theme is The 1980s, but that’s beside the point.)

It’s a classic move to orphan PCs so they can go off adventuring with no strong ties to a particular place and have a motivation to take on one of the Big Bads of the setting. It also comes up with players who have had one too many GM kidnap their characters’ loved ones for motivation or kill them for The Drama. (I once subverted this in The Watch House when I resurrected a PC’s killed-for-motivation relative. He got amusingly super-protective of her.)

Meanwhile I’m currently working my way through Arrow which is totally not like Batman at all, and one major difference is that Oliver does have a family to protect and keep his secret from, and they provide all kinds of soap opera trouble. The GM is clearly getting some good mileage out of those Dependent NPC points.

And this is fine as long as the player is cool with it.

So back to that original point, what does a PC do when their motivation is resolved?

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