WORST Stardew NPCs

[Cuddlebug]

Pelican Town is not a cozy village. It is a group therapy session with farming mechanics.

That's true, sometimes it somehow feels this way... And then there comes the new kid in town, already traumatised from working at Joja, and is supposed to fix that all...

 

[Cuddlebug]

And the Pam tab thing drives me insane because why am I, the farmer who just moved here, being forced to confront Pam about paying her bill? Why is that my job? Gus is the adult. Gus owns the place. Gus knows Pam. But apparently he can’t bring himself to say, “Hey, you need to pay me back,” so now the farmer has to walk into the trailer park debt collection arc.

That's a cut scene I don't like, too... Makes no real sense. But maybe Gus already talked to her a lot about paying her debts before that scene and she just didn't... on the other side I have no idea how Pam could afford drinking anyway, if you see Gus' prices... I mean 300 g for a cup of coffee, 400 g for a beer...

 

[Lothengriol]

Now let’s talk about Grandpa.

Grandpa gets treated like this wise, legendary, salt-of-the-earth farmer who left you this beautiful inheritance. But then you arrive and the farm looks like nature filed a legal claim over the property.

No barn. No coop. No shed. Greenhouse destroyed. Rocks everywhere. Weeds everywhere. Logs everywhere. The whole place looks like a raccoon cult had been squatting there for twenty years.

What exactly was Grandpa doing?

And Lewis deserves partial blame too. This man was supposedly Grandpa’s friend. He knew the farmer was coming. He’s the mayor. You’re telling me he couldn’t organize one afternoon where Robin, Marnie, and maybe a few bored townspeople clear out some weeds? Fix a fence? Repair literally anything?

Grandpa didn’t leave us a farm. He left us an unpaid restoration project with ghosts attached.

I agree on your other points, but I think Grandpa is largely blameless here. We only see him on a bed, which we can assume isn't in his farmhouse due to how he talks about Stardew Valley with the farmer. Regardless of whether or not that's his sickbed, deathbed, or nothing more than a great spot for a nap, a generous yet canonically-compliant timeline could be something like this:
1. Grandpa works the land in Stardew Valley until his 50s or 60s, raising his kids there and staying even after they move out.
2. Grandpa, finally too old to keep up with the farm work, leaves Stardew Valley. None of his kids want the Farm, but he keeps paying taxes on it in the hopes that perhaps one of his grandkids will.
3. Grandpa moves out of Stardew Valley to either live with his kids (the Farmer's parents) or just in Zuzu City, where medical care and senior friendly infrastructure are more available. He stays in touch with his family well enough to personally know his grandchild, the Farmer.
4. Some day, the Prologue Cutscene with Grandpa occurs, and Grandpa hands over the letter to the Farmer, the grandkid he thinks will most appreciate living on the Farm. This scene itself could easily be 15-30 years after Grandpa was last on the Farm, especially considering none of the Pelican Town villagers ever met the Farmer, even as a baby. Grandpa himself knows he's not going to be around forever, even if he is in good health. The Farmer is old enough to remember that day well, so let's assume that they're at least 10-15 years old, and at most, well that doesn't matter as much actually. I typically imagine the farmer in this scene to be at most around 20-25 years old for the whole "come here, kiddo" stuff Grandpa is pulling.
5. The Farmer, tired of their Joja life, opens the letter and moves to the Farm in Stardew Valley. This could be a long stretch of time if the farmer were younger and took longer to realize the emptiness of the Joja employment trap, but probably isn't less than 5 years. So let's say, the Farmer could have moved to Stardew Valley 5-20 years after the bedside cutscene.

These numbers add up to roughly 20-50 years of farm abandonment. That is a LOT of time. Even with 20 years, the Farmer is lucky that Farmhouse still has a working roof, never mind intact windows and zero woodland creatures living inside of it. A destroyed Greenhouse makes perfect sense from what we've seen storms do in-game (Lightning striking the farm 10+ times in a single day, the windstorm knocking down a Forest Giant that the Raccoons then live in). Grandpa could even have sold the raw building materials from his empty barns, coops, sheds (because he sold the farm animals back to Marnie) to Robin in exchange for her keeping the Farmhouse in working order. That Robin stuff is just speculation, though.
The giant rocks and logs aren't outside the realm of possibility for an in-game universe in which weeds, sticks, and rocks appear like manna every 1st of the season. In fact, you could probably do some sort of reverse-engineering on the Farm debris by clearing out the whole Farm and then sleeping every season away until the Farm is as messy as it was on Spring of Year 1. I bet it would give you a pretty young age for how long ago Grandpa left the Farm for the last time.

Anyway long story short, I think Grandpa arranged what he could but knew the Farm would grow out of control, and he probably wasn't swimming in cash and put the majority of his leftover savings into paying off those taxes for the decades between him leaving and the Farmer arriving. He knew clearing up the Farm would be hard work, but he knew we'd appreciate it because we'd love Stardew Valley, and because hard work builds character!

 

[Junimo :3]

i agree with this. litterally everyone but Jodi and Caroline did not go the adulting 101 class. they are all CHILDREN. middle aged CHILDREN. and grandpa is fine. t'was but an old man.

 

[Gamer1234556]

I agree on your other points, but I think Grandpa is largely blameless here. We only see him on a bed, which we can assume isn't in his farmhouse due to how he talks about Stardew Valley with the farmer. Regardless of whether or not that's his sickbed, deathbed, or nothing more than a great spot for a nap, a generous yet canonically-compliant timeline could be something like this:
1. Grandpa works the land in Stardew Valley until his 50s or 60s, raising his kids there and staying even after they move out.
2. Grandpa, finally too old to keep up with the farm work, leaves Stardew Valley. None of his kids want the Farm, but he keeps paying taxes on it in the hopes that perhaps one of his grandkids will.
2. Grandpa moves out of Stardew Valley to either live with his kids (the Farmer's parents) or just in Zuzu City, where medical care and senior friendly infrastructure are more available. He stays in touch with his family well enough to personally know his grandchild, the Farmer.
3. Some day, the Prologue Cutscene with Grandpa occurs, and Grandpa hands over the letter to the Farmer, the grandkid he thinks will most appreciate living on the Farm. This scene itself could easily be 15-30 years after Grandpa was last on the Farm, especially considering none of the Pelican Town villagers ever met the Farmer, even as a baby. Grandpa himself knows he's not going to be around forever, even if he is in good health. The Farmer is old enough to remember that day well, so let's assume that they're at least 10-15 years old, and at most, well that doesn't matter as much actually. I typically imagine the farmer in this scene to be at most around 20-25 years old for the whole "come here, kiddo" stuff Grandpa is pulling.
4. The Farmer, tired of their Joja life, opens the letter and moves to the Farm in Stardew Valley. This could be a long stretch of time if the farmer were younger and took longer to realize the emptiness of the Joja employment trap, but probably isn't less than 5 years. So let's say, the Farmer could have moved to Stardew Valley 5-20 years after the bedside cutscene.

These numbers add up to roughly 20-50 years of farm abandonment. That is a LOT of time. Even with 20 years, the Farmer is lucky that Farmhouse still has a working roof, never mind intact windows and zero woodland creatures living inside of it. A destroyed Greenhouse makes perfect sense from what we've seen storms do in-game (Lightning striking the farm 10+ times in a single day, the windstorm knocking down a Forest Giant that the Raccoons then live in). Grandpa could even have sold the raw building materials from his empty barns, coops, sheds (because he sold the farm animals back to Marnie) to Robin in exchange for her keeping the Farmhouse in working order. That Robin stuff is just speculation, though.
The giant rocks and logs aren't outside the realm of possibility for an in-game universe in which weeds, sticks, and rocks appear like manna every 1st of the season. In fact, you could probably do some sort of reverse-engineering on the Farm debris by clearing out the whole Farm and then sleeping every season away until the Farm is as messy as it was on Spring of Year 1. I bet it would give you a pretty young age for how long ago Grandpa left the Farm for the last time.

Anyway long story short, I think Grandpa arranged what he could but knew the Farm would grow out of control, and he probably wasn't swimming in cash and put the majority of his leftover savings into paying off those taxes for the decades between him leaving and the Farmer arriving. He knew clearing up the Farm would be hard work, but he knew we'd appreciate it because we'd love Stardew Valley, and because hard work builds character!

Yeah, this is a fair defense of Grandpa, honestly. I probably was being too harsh on him specifically.

If the farm had been abandoned for decades, then I can buy the rocks, weeds, broken greenhouse, and missing buildings. Nature taking over an old farm after 20+ years is not really Grandpa being negligent; that is just what happens when nobody is actively maintaining the land.

But I think that raises a different question for me: why was the handoff handled so badly?

Because Lewis clearly knew I was coming. Robin was there too. The farmhouse was at least livable. So some kind of communication happened. Grandpa must have trusted Lewis enough to act as the local contact, or at least Lewis knew enough about Grandpa’s wishes to greet the farmer and explain the inheritance.

And that is where it still feels weird.

I do not expect Grandpa to have kept the whole farm perfect from a deathbed or from Zuzu City. But if Lewis knew Grandpa, knew the farm had been abandoned, knew the farmer was arriving, and knew this was supposed to be some meaningful life-changing inheritance, why did nobody prepare the farmer better?

Not even fully restore the place. Just basic care.

Clear a path. Inspect the farmhouse. Explain how long the farm had been abandoned. Warn the farmer that the greenhouse was destroyed. Maybe have Robin check the place more seriously. Maybe say, “Your grandfather loved this place, but it has been neglected for a long time, and it will take work to bring it back.”

Also, the farm layout itself raises questions. Grandpa somehow had a greenhouse, but no leftover barn, no coop, no shed, no stable, nothing. I know this is mostly gameplay logic, because the player needs to build everything themselves, but in-universe it is strange. What kind of established “great farmer” has a greenhouse on the property but leaves behind zero other farm infrastructure?

Did he sell every barn and coop for parts? Did Robin dismantle them? Did the animals get sold back to Marnie? Was Grandpa mainly a crop farmer? Was the greenhouse the only major structure he cared about? I can invent explanations, but the game itself does not really explain it.

That is why the handoff feels so odd. Lewis treats the farm like a charming old property that needs a little elbow grease, when it is actually a semi-collapsed restoration project with weeds, boulders, logs, broken infrastructure, no farm buildings, and possibly ghosts.

So maybe Grandpa is not the villain here. Maybe the real issue is that Grandpa had poor judgment in trusting Lewis to handle the practical side of this.

Because the more generous I am to Grandpa, the worse Lewis looks. If Grandpa left decades ago and could not maintain the farm himself, then Lewis was probably the only person in Pelican Town who could have helped make the transition less brutal. And he just… didn’t.

That is what bothers me. Grandpa may have left the farmer a dream, but Lewis delivered it like an unpaid municipal cleanup project.

 

[KarinL]

If the house has been even 15 or 20 years since he was there last, it's still amazing the roof holds up and the windows are whole (for most houses, anyway- I think at least one farm has boarded-up windows...)
I would expect a wood structure like the farmhouse to look more like Hatmouse's residence after 20 years. If I look at those US house-flipping shows, some houses look pretty grim after even 5 years of standing empty.

So I'm assuming Lewis had Robin do some clean-up before the farmer arrived. After all, there's a bed there, a working tv, a working fireplace, a decent roof and even some other furniture and decorations. Pretty decent for an abandoned house that hasn't been occupied for maybe two or three decades. There are no cobwebs, no weeds growing inside, no moldy patches, a decent wall covering and a nice floor. There's a stack of firewood outside as well. Somebody has clearly been trying hard to make the farmer feel welcome.

So I actually think nobody expected the heir to arrive, since they had what was assumed to be a nice, cushy office job in the city. Why would a city slicker move to the country? And when somebody did indicate they were moving in, Lewis and Robin scrambled to make the abandoned house liveable. Probably mostly Robin, with Lewis holding the nails...

Likewise I think the remnants of the wood buildings were removed. If there were ever any barns or sheds or coops, they would be destroyed by the elements by now. SV has pretty brutal weather - storms, thick layers of snow in winter, tons of rain...
I would rather think they're doing the farmer a favor by removing the old, moldy remnants of useless buildings. The greenhouse is different, as it seems to be more of a metal structure with a concrete foundation. They probably left it because it was too expensive to remove it.