Two husbands, a wife, and a talking battleaxe spouse that doesn't seem interested in answering questions about gender.

VLDL - Viva La Dirt League did a couple videos like this... https://youtu.be/kssBps_jA0E https://youtu.be/kssBps_jA0E

I prefer the "big bad just set up the new walmart in your town that's destroying local businesses and has paid off the guards" approach.

That can be a great option for meeting players where they're at, if they're more about running a cosy commerce sim in your genre fiction TTRPG. Either way though you ignore a 'refusal of the call' moment at your own peril. It needs to be addressed, but how is the interesting bit!

Imagine being like "well now that I'm an axe, people will have to stop asking about my gender" and then they just keep asking!

"Heroes! I'm sorry, the next ale delivery is gonna have to wait. Our supply routes have been under attack by those same villains the blacksmith mentioned. This seems to be the work of the Dark Mother-In-Law."

You really don't get it. Evil Lords "want" to be defeated. Just think about it. How long can he keep the things going? The villages dried out with crazy taxes. The abuse in mines, with countless deaths to getting as much ores as possible. The fully corrupted government full of incompetent creeps so dumb to actually buy your evil-messiah agendas. The psyco army guard out for blood who you can barely keep in check by letting them go wild in the poor's slums. Everything is falling a part. So, when a party of promising idealistic good guys start a quest to get your head, you very well let them do their thing. Hell, you even toss a lead here and there to get them on the good track. And when they finally reach you everything goes out with a big BANG!! And evil lord is no more. Then. Some times later, somewhere far-away. A mysterious carriage fully guarded and fully loaded with gold and jewels, quietly leave the kingdom. Undisturbed and unchecked.

Oh have the other group of heroes succeed. Showing the world doesn't revolve around the PCs makes it feel more alive, and it lets them focus on running a tavern or whatever else they wanted to do. Or maybe the other group of heroes meets at the tavern the players opened, and their skill in running a tavern somehow ends up being vital for that group of heroes' success. Or maybe the baddies take over a country, which has some effects on the players' clientele and the drinks they serve.

You posted the same link twice.

I like the angle where someone else gets the job done, but it ends up being a power play that causes new problems, changes the dynamic.

Reminds me a bit of a previous campaign (not DnD). We (the party) spent so much time and attention murdering and threatening our way into a coup against the sickly King that we stopped paying attention to anyone else in the story. Then in our campaign finale, we flub every single roll to execute the coup, and our whole plan gets hijacked by a more competent NPC to seize power for herself. Queue TPK* while we all get hunted down as traitors. \* Except for the party poisoner. He was happy to spend his life in prison so long as the new government let him brew poisons for use against enemies of the state.

Even TTRPGs aren’t safe from the Greater Portland Polycule

Thanks! Edited

The first game I ran was going to be a devious cloak and dagger antagonist with ominous hints and... And that always just ends up going full 'burn after reading'.