I’m starting a new series of short blog posts of gamemaster advice. This is “Gamemaster’s Duct Tape:” quick and simple fixes for the little problems that can get in the way of the fun of a tabletop RPG.
Problem: The player characters have a powerful patron who gave them their mission or quest. Unfortunately, the players expect ongoing access to their patron, and come back in the middle of the adventure asking for help or more resources. In other words, they abuse their patron to solve their problems for them. The extreme case (reductio ad absurdum) is a D&D cleric asking for divine intervention to solve a routine problem.
The Duct Tape Fix: Explain out of character that powerful patrons want adventurers who solve problems for them, not ones who bring problems back to them. When roleplaying the NPC patron, go ahead and make this perfectly clear. Appeal to the characters’ pride: “I hired you because you’re the kind of adventurers who can handle whatever complications and obstacles come up.”
Giving the player characters a powerful patron is a great plot device. You can use the patron to quickly set the characters up for success, bypassing a lot of dull preparations and even preliminary information gathering. Giving the players a patron can backfire if the players try to use the patron as a substitute for solving problems as a team. Fortunately, that problem is easy to fix with a little duct tape.