Dungeons & Dragons and related games are cooperative games and ones in which the game master is meant to be an impartial referee. Often in trying to present a challenging adventure, GMs forget that they are not playing against the players but with them. Ensure your players can trust you.

In early D&D games, Arneson and Gygax had the heroes return to town at the end of every session. This ensured that whomever showed up for the next session could play without having to shoehorn them into the middle of the dungeon. As a result, Gygax wrote about how the town should be a place of safety, something the players didn’t have to worry about.

In modern fantasy RPGs, there may be more city adventures than dungeon adventures, so the city offers no guarantee of safety. Worse, the heroes could be betrayed at every turn, because they don’t know what NPCs are trustworthy and which are scheming against them.

While such things can be fun as discreet adventures, the players will likely get very weary of constantly watching their backs and getting cheated. It can make them not only not trust any NPCs but actively avoid them.

The Solution

So be sure you keep a safe space for the heroes and give them NPCs they can trust with their lives and their loot. Tell them explicitly that this is safe. They’re not going to return to the city to find Bolgo the Moneylender has been murdered and his–and their–fortunes have been plundered by the mysterious Black Masquers. Tell the players that Bolgo is well-known to be trustworthy and that his vaults are secure.

That’s not to say that nothing bad should ever happen to NPCs the players like, or that no well-liked NPC can ever betray the heroes. Once the heroes have claimed their money from Bolgo, anything could happen to him. And the heroes may like Mendra the Slink… but they’d never trust her with their gold, would they?

I’ve written before about how the heroes should have a heroic duty and how to work factions into your game and, indeed, how your adventures should run the gamut of emotional highs and lows. But you need to ensure the players trust that the various machinations and scheming are largely confined among your NPCs and rarely impact the heroes directly.

Fearing the GM will use such things against them, some players may try to avoid having family ties, trusting NPCs, and anything else that could be a liability. This can turn them into to murder-hoboes, wandering from town to town, killing anyone who gets in their way.

The way to combat this is to give the heroes certain advantages if they have family or contacts in a place. Make it clear that this yields advantages–because it does in real life. Family should be able to get them out of certain kinds of trouble they get themselves into or otherwise intermediate with officials. You might want to say that one of the first things that happens is that one of the heroes’ parents helps them get started or gets them out of some trouble or some obligation they “should” have (like military service).

The quickest way for any NPC to get into a player’s heart is to do something for them or give them something the PC wants. It works particularly well if the heroes save an NPC who then helps them out of a jam and assures them he’ll always be willing help them. If you manufacture a few such situations, you’ll have some great relationships to work with in the future….

You know… when the dragon comes.