[RPG] How to let a wild and reckless character shine

gm-techniques

We're playing a rather serious story of political intrigue with a bit of magic thrown in. Most of the players are fairly sensible, trying to figure out who poisoned the duke, or how to safely dispose of the cursed stone.

Then there's Alice. She's having fun in the game, and she does want to learn who poisoned the duke, but first…

Alice wants to drink that random potion, light the laboratory on fire, and push that big red button. She just wants to try stuff and see what happens, no matter the consequences.

How do I let Alice's reckless style shine, while still respecting the rest of the group's interest in serious story?

Everyone's having fun and getting along, so I'm not looking for some way to "teach Alice a lesson". This kind of wild recklessness is what she likes in a game, so I'd like to respect that. And the rest of the group equally enjoys the story with deep intrigue and seriousness.

(System is not important.)

Best Answer

I had a character like this called Mandred. At one point the party was hidden in the forest waiting for an elven army they were avoiding to march past and he decided to cast glitterdust on them and try to convince them he was the rightful heir to the throne (I should mention he was a Chaotic Evil Human Sorcerer). He failed his buff check (somehow :P ) and was captured by the army and sent back to be imprisoned. The next session was the party trying to help him escape while he was trying to survive in a prison with no magic. The party managed to break him out using subterfuge and even got him a ring of ram which he proceeded to use to smash a wall in a tavern, causing the party to flee.

Basically, as long as the unruly player is not disrupting the other player's fun, let them at it. Generate plots out of their antics. Often they're trying to see how deep your world is and are happy just to see that if they set a laboratory on fire, servants come to put it out and guards come to try and arrest them.

The important thing in any game is not to take away or undermine player agency. This can be a tricky thing to achieve, but for me it's important to remember two things:

  • There is more than 1 player in a party (99% of games anyway)
  • A player choosing to do nothing is still maintaining player agency and still feels involved in the game.

The first one, most DMs are pretty aware of, but the second point is largely overlooked. When you have a wildcard like Mandred or Alice, quite often the party is enjoying their antics and you should let them continue. If a player isn't, however, you should let the option be there for them to stop the wildcard interrupting the flow. Usually I'd accomplish this in game.

For instance when Mandred wanted to cast glitterdust on the elven army, he had to move towards them to get in range. So I said to the group "Mandred starts breaking cover and heading towards the army, what do you do?". If they wanted to just let the army move past, they could have restrained him with ease and I would have been fine with saying the sound of an army on the march covered up any noises the grappling might have made. If the party were to constantly stop Mandred doing this, then it's time to have an out of game conversation with the players and ask them what they want from the session.

Using Alice as an example; when she wanted to burn down the lab, a simple question to the group; "Okay, Alice is trying to start a fire, what do you do?" gives them a chance to make a decision on how the game progresses. If they don't mind playing through the lab going up in flames, they'll run away or watch, or help. If they do mind that happening, they'll stop her from lighting a fire and try to convince her why she shouldn't do it.

A final example from my own group was when the party were sneaking through a dragon's den past a sleeping dragon. Mandred (of course) wanted to throw a tanglefoot bag at the dragon so it would wake up all covered in stickiness. When I asked what the party wanted to do, the dwarf said he wanted to stop him and the two had a conversation and Mandred was convinced that the risk of waking the dragon made it not worth it and the elf wizard offered to use a sleep spell when they got to the tavern to make use of the tanglefoot bag on anyone who fell asleep.

My players aren't big into roleplay, but I find they tended to do it with Mandred because he gave them an organic reason to.

Insofar as intefering with the plot, I tend to build the plot around the players' actions rather than having one set in stone, so it has never really been spoiled per se. Though I wasn't expecting the PCs to visit the elf city so quickly as they did because of Mandred!