Patron – RPGaDAY2025 Day 1

RPGaDAY 2025 kicks off with the prompt “patron”.

It’s a curious starter. Collins gives five relevant definitions:

1. A person who sponsors or aids artists, charities, etc; protector or benefactor
2. A customer of a shop, hotel, etc, esp a regular one
3. See patron saint
4. (in Ancient Rome) the protector of a dependant or client, often the former master of a freedman still retaining certain rights over him
5. (Christianity) a person or body having the right to present a clergyman to a benefice

So how should I interpret it in the context of role-playing games?

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A patron as the party’s protector or benefactor

I suppose the most common context is someone in the world who in some way looks after the party, gives them quests, is on their side.

This can be a useful tool for the GM to introduce plot lines, provide lore dumps and information (in the form of someone the party can question), and in some cases even provide rescue.

Why does the patron care for the party? This is something the GM needs to understand, at least for themselves, in order for the patron to make sese (they should leave the players to work it out for themselves from clues in the story).

• It might be out of the generousness of their heart…
• It might be that they often have jobs needing done, and it’s useful to have adventurers on tap
• Maybe they have an official role, but there are times when things need to happen unofficially, and the adventurers give them plausible deniability
• Maybe they are an official employer, or an official in an organisation the players are part of
• Maybe they have some nefarious plan for the PCs (be careful of this one or you will teach the players not to trust anyone)
• Maybe it’s an investment in the future, or paying forward the debt they owe to their own former patron

A patron will be a recurring figure in a campaign, with whom the PCs will hopefully develop some sort of relationship. Understanding what the patron is getting from the relationship will help make the whole setup feel more real.

Omar, the party’s patron

My party has acquired a patron, almost by accident. They had tracked down a dodgy character/group to a certain location (a set of shops/warehouses), and went on a raid. They came face to face with the owner, and I decided almost on the spur of the moment that they had been mistaken or misled, and that he wasn’t the baddie they were searching for.

I portrayed Omar as a sort of Lord Vetinari character – an almost omniscient character who never gets flustered and knows what buttons to press. He apologised for the confusion, and tasked them with finding the Book of the Spheres for him as recompense for the damage they had done (they killed Fluffy, his pet Death Dog).

They then got tasked with finding the same book by the church, and heard about a missing noble (Alexandrian Three Clue Rule, leading to Reach for the Stars from Keys from the Golden Vault), and ended up in a chase against a rival gang. Having retrieved it, they then had to decide what to do with it, got a (slightly adulterated) copy made and gave him that, planning to try to overwhelm him.

By the time the copy was ready, Jinnie had got herself locked up, and he sprung her from jail. He knew it was a copy (he wouldn’t be much of an omniscient spymaster if he didn’t), but said their debts would instead be cleared if they retrieved a painting he had purchased but which had been stolen in transit (Masterpiece Imbroglio from Keys from the Golden Vault).

So they have a somewhat ambiguous relationship with Omar. They suspect he may be up to no good, but he is clearly against the group they are also trying to uncover, and he has an extensive information network. They have speculated that he might be Dispater in disguise (I can neither confirm nor deny this…particularly since my players read my blog…), but on the other hand, he has come good for them several times, and given them quests.

Patron as supporter

I have far too large a library of D&D-related tomes, many of them from Kickstarters. I know I won’t use half of them, although I do tell myself I will mine them for ideas.

But part of the reason I have invested in so many Kickstarters, particularly since Covid, and why I subscribe to some of the Patreons, is to support the D&D industry, particularly the wider industry outside the central three or four (Wizards of the Coast, Kobold Press, Paizo, Level Up!).

Patreon is designed as a way to allow people to support others for the work they are doing, and I have about a dozen people I support.

I also have my own Patreon as Melestrua, and I am very grateful to those who support me through this. I specialise in posts referring to different systems through the years, and comparing and contrasting, and this requires a significant amount of investment in both time and money in order to have the books to refer to and to do the research – and this is from my spare time, since I have a full-time job completely unrelated to roleplaying games.

So if you appreciate my thoughts, please consider becoming a patron and helping offset my costs. I have tiers starting at $1/month, and I only charge if I have managed to put out two or more blog posts in the previous month. I don’t have much else I can offer (I tried giving early access to posts, but that just made it even harder to meet my two posts a month quota), but every support is appreciated.

I also give patrons a little bit of extra insight to my workings and to what I am working on, and most of this is also given to patrons on the free tier.

If you like my work, my Patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/c/Melestrua .

Or if you don’t feel up to a monthly commitment, buy me a Ko-Fi.

Thank you!