Looking for some suggestions of good segues to introduce new NPCs. My Delinquent player has a vague backstory(Not even sure about his origin) and he implied that he came to Halcyon to escape his past. His powers are Illusions and Power Negation if that helps. Also, his parents are dead as far as he knows. We already had a talk about him being vague and he wants to address it in-game, so I’m more looking for situations where it feels natural to ask some probing questions about his past to make new NPCs than anything else. Thanks in advance.
EDIT: Oh I forgot, For relationships he put down A temate for the stunt, and The Silver Savoir for Thinking better of him.
I’m not sure how power negation actually works, but I have this funny scene in my mind of him discovering his powers when he accidentally negates his parents. [They were like some kind of illusion parenting hologram/things.] He has no idea where they really are or if they even know that their son is now ‘orphaned.’
I’ve been GMing a game where we had a player who just wasn’t really ready to have ideas. It’s been going on for a long time and at first I tried to coax it out of her, but eventually I realized she just was unsure how she fit in. So my first suggestion would be to make sure he’s not just holding back because of shyness or something similar. With my player, I didn’t want to discourage her further so I just let it go so she could find her own character.
The other pitfall is a player who is stuck in D&D mode and thinks that their character backstory should be secret. So I’d make sure it’s not that either.
If it’s just cause he doesn’t know what he wants, then I’d try to build on what little you have. Focus on the relationship with the stunt and ask them to come up with the story together. “Why did you steal that thing?” or “what did the other person do to make you think they’d enjoy this stunt?” And it’s okay if it doesn’t get figured out immediately. Maybe when you introduce the next NPC ask him if this is someone from his past that he did something illegal with.
I’ll second Adam’s comments.
I find a good tactic is to make pointed questions. For instance, if his parents are dead, ask him if he feels responsible for that. If not, who was, and how does he feel about that person?
The trick (and it’s not an easy one) is to coax these plot threads from the players so you can make them part of the game.
Thanks for the advice everyone, I think I have a solid way to approach this now.
One trick one of our GMs did was to introduce a reporter that came from the future and wanted to publish about us when we were starting. So he did all the playbook questions in an more personal way for each of us, as part of our interview, and that felt awesome.