What's the biggest sacrifice you or your players have made for an NPC that wasn't mechanically rewarded?
Let me guess, a few gold from your massive fortune for a round of drinks, right?
He killed himself to power a ritual to purge the Damiyo's daughter of spiritual possession, saving an entire town.
They found two potions of longevity from a treasure hoard, and used one to bribe a king to give them a patch of land.
Then the thief gave up the other to her father (who works at the court) for free because she felt the whole deal had been dishonest for some reason.
>>46409813
I had a character who let himself be captured so they wouldn't find the nicest goblin in the world.
He underwent extensive and brutal torture as they tried to extract information and generally be dicks. The result was him being crippled from the chest down, missing an arm, three fingers from the other one, his right foot, both of his knee-caps, a few teeth, most of his face, an eye and his genitals.
He didn't tell them shit. Real icing on the cake is when the party finally sprung him he managed to tear the throat out of his torturer with the teeth he had left.
So I guess I sacrificed PC-ship to save an NPC, then we went and saved him, who was now an NPC.
>>46409813
I sold a 160k gold staff at a tiny fraction of value to pay for true Resurrection of this child who we failed to save from a cult.
>>46409813
I nearly died several time because of that.
Does that count?
I've had characters die and nearly die for NPCs tons of times, but ultimately if they live it would usually lead to the mechanical reward of experience points if nothing else. I don't really see that as bad though
I once risked death in order to give up the power of a God, purely because I believed it was morally wrong for me to possess it.
>>46409813
My warforged tore both of his arms and gave them to the NPC warforged as replacement parts because we needed him more than we needed me.
One player in my group tends to have his characters heroically sacrifice themselves if he wants to play a new character. It leads to ridiculous situations sometimes
>>46410291
"Ok team, we need to find the lost orphan in this house. Let's split up so we can cover more ground. Now the orphan is small so we shou-"
>I WILL SACRIFICE MYSELF TO THE DEVILS AND DAMN MY SOUL SO WE GAIN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ORPHAN'S LOCATION AND SO THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO!!
>>46409813
Can I say that this is exceptionally pointless?
Because the whole point of a sacrifice is that you feel the pain. PCs, by their very nature, can't feel the bite of stuff. Lose your hand? "Bah, I still have one, I can punch him in the face with the other!" Lose years of your life? "It's cool, I still have twenty."
The only way you can make your players feel the bite is to torture NPCs they care about. Or NTR them.
>>46409813
My first character used his reward from a contest he won to build a temple to his diety in the city, which did not have one already. The rest of the party got cool magical items, or lump sums of gold.
>>46409813
in a game of black crusade, I didn't sacrifice someone to divinate the warlords base, and instead did some good ol fashion scouting to understand the enemy fortification.
as far as black crusade goes, that's pretty damn kind.
>>46410317
Yeah kind of like that. One time we escaped an invaded castle through a secret tunnel, and he wanted to keep the enemy off.
>But we can also close the secret door, and they won't even know where we are
>Then I will stay outside and fight them alone regardless, to buy you more time!
>But we don't need more time
>Just let me do this!!!
It was literally the last session/quest before my PC was going to retire from adventuring, and he ended up holding the line by himself, getting captured, then nerve-flayed, and then fatally eviscerated by demons in order to save his friends.
RIP Anselm, the Tiefling Life Cleric. You may or may not be in a better place.
>>46410415
>It was literally the last session/quest before my PC was going to retire from adventuring
>I was one session from retirement
>>46410351
Depends entirely on how invested your players are in the game. My ST can make me feel like shit just by having an NPC give depressing foretellings of the future.
But I do agree that the easy way is to torture NPCs they care about. I was fucking heartbroken when my ghoul lost his arm and couldn't regenerate it.
>>46410411
Hilarious. But does he lose XP from this, or does the DM let him keep it between characters?
>>46410481
>I was fucking heartbroken when my ghoul lost his arm and couldn't regenerate it.
Arm transplants are currently a thing.
>>46410526
Not in the World of Darkness, presumably.
>>46409813
He suicidally lured apocalypse-tier final boss of the campaign into a portal that'd delete it from existence.
It was the end of the campaign and I was doing outro, since I had very convenient means of making guy's soul survive without an asspull, I did that. But I never said before this'd be the final session and did say his plan would likely erase his character.
>>46410492
We don't do XP, we lvl up from milestones, decided by the DM. His new character is up there with our characters.
It's not a really big deal, nor is he a bad or obnoxious player, just has this one little nasty quirk. We just have fun with it. At least he tends to play righteous characters, so it's not some kind of dirtbag thief who suddenly sacrifices himself.
One time though, the DM decided his character had survived the bombblast he had set off, but lost an arm and leg. This gave him quite a scare, but it was in good fun. Next session he still got to introduce a new character and the old one became an NPC.
>Despite a massive and justified personal grudge against an enemy leader, worked out a terse but functional peace which stopped an unwinnable war, at the end of which would have led to the entire planet being wiped of sapient life. Also earlier on against his better judgement he stayed in a besieged town for three days in order to help and train them, then ended up going out alone to lead off the enemy forces
>Insisted on paying for an oracle's divining services despite having just saved him and having the right to ask for a freebie
>Gave up a sword that instantly and permanently killed any foe, in order to secure a better relationship between humans and the race it had been stolen from by someone else
>Gave away all the weapons he'd looted from enemies to the more able-bodied prisoners of said enemies to help protect themselves against anyone he might have missed while fighting his way in
>Cyberpunk
Used herself as a human shield to protect individuals three times.
Granted she's an Officer of the law so selflessness is kinda in the job description, this is a Fascist Police-state where there are literal books written on how to save your own skin first.
She, however, is an idealist through and through.
Not only did she get no reward for this past a mere thank you but she ended up getting nearly killed for her efforts and has had lingering issues from it.
>Pathfinder
Rescued a lot of slaves at great risk to ourselves.
We were hunting a group of piratical raiders out on the sea who we believed were carrying a lot of gold and several Merfolk artefacts on board.
Plan was we were going to sinking the ship, kill the survivors and fish the treasure from sea floor. Nice and simple.
Boarding and fighting the pirates would be hard and we are not nice Mermaids.
We had already started our plan when we suddenly decided that crashing the boat into the main pirate port, ablaze, would make for a good laugh and so decided take the far more difficult option.
One overly extended combat and a fair-few injuries later we had claimed the ship and even managed to capture a few pirates for some interrogationRead: tortureand fun.
When we discovered the cargo wasn't gold from raids but slaves, we were quite put-out and ready to just drown them all in spite.
However the artefacts we originally started hunting the pirates for was on board so in the end cooler heads prevailed and we ended up taking them home first, not even demanding a ransom.
Then we took great joy in sending the ship, filled to the brim with explosives and burning like a lighthouse, crashing into the pirate port.
This did end up giving us a reward later on as the freed slaves and their coastal town now see us as friends and heroes but was not intended at the time and our DM did fully expect our evil trio to just kill them to add to our skull collection.
>>46410424
> he was a day from retirement
> what happened?
> he took an early retirement
>>46409813
My character has repeatedly taken bullets for the same NPC. Literally diving in the way and taking the damage. And he's a selfish prick, so you know she's gotta be hot.
>>46409813
I died, but as I was ressurected I'm not sure it counts.
Soon after, I had a massive festival done for a city of thousands done in just 12 hours once, to lift the spirits after a dragon attack, and repair public damage. A horde of butchers made it so everyone could have a bit of roasted dragon from the five we killed. Ashbel became the city where even hobos could boast that they knew what dragons tasted like.
I had only 80.000 and non-essential magical items to spend on it, otherwise I would have spent more.Once my character entered the political scene, it was quite a boostThe the city was destroyed in a later otherwordly invasion, but as we managed to evacuate it, the tale spread even further
>>46412060
That's not dragon fur your character is wearing. It's bear.
Now I know what you're thinking. "Why would a dragonslayer wear bear fur?" But I assure you, that's how it is.
>>46412152
Oh, apologies for the confusion.
The bear motif was a thing from the character and his homeland before the whole dragon thing.
Plus, he didn't keep anything from the dragons besides a head, which was later used to pay a goblin spy, for his collection. He's still trying to shrink it.
>>46409813
How about holding the line so some militia guards could evacuate a bunch of civilians and getting both of my goddamn arms chopped off? Yes, I bought lightning arms as a replacement after, but it was still a rather drastic sacrifice. Lightning arms don't come cheap, you know. And you can't hug your loved ones with lightning arms.
On two different occasions, I jumped off a ship to save a person drowning in the same session.
I created four NPCs the party could select from to guide them across a treacherous mountain range.
-human ranger archetype
-half-orc
-thief of obvious betrayal
-unnamed ex-town guard
They picked the town guard for some reason, named him Hamhouse, and away they went. I rolled a perception check any time a party member was too loud (happened a lot) and sure enough a troll heard them. Hamhouse stayed behind to let them escape. A player ran back to Hamhouse, who was severely wounded, and dragged him towards the city. Everyone else bailed, so the PC and Hamhouse were squished into jelly.I gave the character extra creation points when they rerolled.
>>46409813
The entire party got shot refusing to give the location of the teenage girl we betrayed the Mr.Johnson to save. Three dead or retired, other two continuing with bullet scars in the head or chest after a minor miracle (burning edge) saved us.
>>46411594
>Mermaids with knee jointsAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
>>46409813
>Let me guess, a few gold from your massive fortune for a round of drinks, right?
and later the thief stole all the money from the poor barmaid. After the bard seduced her and made her cheat on her husband (and left town without saying anything)
>>46414097
And later the party returned and accepted payment for searching for the father of her child?
>>46409813
I thought I was going to say "yeah, my players are a bunch of selfish bastards" but I remembered something thanks to
>>46410045
My players always try to resurrect (if it's possible in the setting) any hostages they fail to save, even using their own money to do it.
>>46414112
I wish I had thought of that, it would've been funny.
>>46409813
My character's life.
Aragon is silly
