For the love of Alan.

How my campaign came to have 46 Alans.

In one of my campaigns that I was running, I had created a massive world. I had 15 MAJOR cities with easily over 50 fleshed-out and complete NPCs and 30+ little towns with similarly completed NPCs. I spent countless hours preparing these areas to give my players a sense of cohesion and depth that would hopefully lead to a fairly immersed game experience.

After spending so much time… You would think I would have been prepared for anything. I thought I was prepared for anything.

Then it happened.

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My group of adventurers approached a new city. As they approached I described the city.

Me: “It’s a huge city, the buildings stretch far into the sky, and surrounding the city is an intimidating grey stone wall. You draw closer to the heavy iron-studded wooden door and see a small group of soldiers standing guard. One of them, who looks a little more official than the others, approaches, then shouts “Halt! Identify yourself!”,”.

My adventurers: “What’s your name?”

Me: ….

My Adventurers: …

Me: (wracking my brain for anything that would resemble a name in any way shape or form while trying to not forget the dialog that this guard had for them, my eyes wide and my head moving from side to side hoping it would increase bloodflow) “Aaaaah… Aaaaalan. Alan. My name is Alan.”

My Adventurers: “This is not an important NPC is it?”

Me: “No he is not”

My adventurers erupted in laughter and it became an inside joke that NPCs that they met with the name Alan were only in the story long enough to give them direction and had no further plan or backstory.

We ended up with 46 Alans.

My bard attempted to maintain relationships with all of them.

In short, you can prepare a lot. But always be prepared to improvise!

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-Game Master Braden