Craft RPG Characters Your Players Will Love (part 5 of 5) - Patrons

 


No adventuring party operates in a vacuum. Developing influential patron characters fills your setting with powerful factions vying for the party's allegiance. Competing patrons offer players rich roleplaying opportunities:

Mysterious Benefactors

Leave a patron's true motives or hidden agendas veiled at first. Intrigue grows as players uncover secrets financing jobs their patron proposes.



Competing Power Groups

Rival guilds, nobility houses, or magical cabals enlist the party, conflicts inevitable. Whom the players ultimately tie their fortunes to impacts your world.



Desperate Underdogs

More altruistic patrons seek aid against seemingly insurmountable threats. Moral dilemmas arise if these patrons' methods become questionable.



Eccentric Visionaries

Patrons ahead of their time drive new discoveries through adventures. Playing "research assistants" exploring their unusual hypotheses fuels whimsy.



Shady Criminal Kingpins

Dangerous jobs for unsavory patrons offer wealth but test characters' ethics. Will they compromise morals for riches or power?



Conflicted Royalty

Rulers juggle politics and subjects' needs, so may ask morally gray tasks. Serving the "greater good" retains players' allegiance.


Personally Invested Allies

Having befriended influential individuals gives players invested patrons on a personal level, not just financial.


No patron exerts total control. Players decide each situation's merits through roleplaying difficult decisions. Developing patron characters' full agendas, not just surface motivations, provides rich context for your world's inner workings and npc factions vying for dominance. Guiding players through complex patrons narratives fuels engaging long-term campaigns.


Introducing patrons

Here are some ideas for how to introduce patrons into an RPG campaign:

- Have a prominent guild or organization in the starting city that hires new adventurers for basic jobs to prove themselves.

- An influential NPC the players befriend early on rises to a position of power and seeks their aid with special projects.

- Include quests where the players are hired by competing groups vying for influence, unintentionally allying with future long-term patrons.

- Rumors in taverns lead players to investigate a reclusive wealthy benefactor seeking discretionary help with sensitive matters.

- The players stumble upon a disputed relic/secret and powerful factions bid against each other to sponsor their investigation.

- Completing high-profile quests brings the players to the attention of nobility/wizards in need of brave/skilled operatives.

- Players rescue or impress an important NPC who remains in their debt and champion going forward.

- Needing specialist equipment/training leads players to patron organizations that offer resources for a price.

- Players discover themselves in the middle of an escalating shadow war and must choose sides for survival.

- Early villains turn out to be agents/envoys of factions the players can later parley with as respected adversaries.

The key is seeding opportunities for patron connections early that can organically evolve as the campaign develops.

  


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