Big City encounters...ideas?

[JackRackham]

OK, so my PCS (lvl 9: a cleric/oracle, swash/dervish, bard/virtuoso, barbarian/bear warrior and a rogue/paladin/) have come to the single biggest city in my world (somewhere in the 30k to 60k range). I've mapped the entire city and made a key for all the shops, taverns, etc. I've got some side quests set up, one of which is now in progress.

What I want more of, however, is smaller interactions. I had a couple in mind before last session, but I threw four or five out there and my players kept missing the bait.They'll be in this city for quite a while longer. I want it to be memorable as more than just a series of purchases and side quests and I've only got five or so ideas left. Any ideas you guys wanna share would be awesome.

Background: The city is a port city in a world where the humans, dwarves and elves live together, rather than having separate kingdoms. The dwarves are typically the nobility/royalty, the elves are generally bureaucrats and humans are more trade-oriented.

Also, the only party member who can sneak worth a d**n is a paladin and he's gone for a couple weeks (his character is going off on an individual quest to account for his absence).

[JackRackham]

OH, and the 'face' is a guy who's played 3 sessions, one session as a bard (late party addition, was using a temporary character before). He definitely does not understand how best to use his abilities yet. We have another PC (the 'face' before the bard joined the party) who can handle social interaction, but she was absent from last session.

[Zonugal]

Do you have Cityscape or Sharn: City of Towers, because both provide a lot of ideas regarding city-based campaigns.

I would honestly look towards a lot of popular culture for ideas to draw from for inspiration. Intrigue and intrigue play well to a city's strengths. Could have the group accused of a crime, have to out-run the city guard while clearing their own name by going into the dark underbelly of the city. That kind of stuff?

[JackRackham]

Do you have Cityscape or Sharn: City of Towers, because both provide a lot of ideas regarding city-based campaigns.

I would honestly look towards a lot of popular culture for ideas to draw from for inspiration. Intrigue and intrigue play well to a city's strengths. Could have the group accused of a crime, have to out-run the city guard while clearing their own name by going into the dark underbelly of the city. That kind of stuff?

Definitely, and I'm doing that stuff. But those are more like side-quests. I'm looking for things along the lines of people you see in the street or in a tavern.

As an example, I had a guy running a shell-game. I intended for them to catch him cheating them when the stakes got high, but instead they quit the first time they lost at all (while the game was still fair) and walked away. I had another random-thing where a guy in a bar was boasting he could take anyone in unarmed combat (our 1/2 Orc disagreed). I'm looking for more quick, random interactions like this.

[JackRackham]

What I want is, instead of just "here's another quest...", I want there to be things that they see that might or might not give them ideas for things to do. I've railroaded them a little bit in the early game sessions and they're (mostly) new players. I want this city to be about "What do you want to do?"

So, for instance, if they see someone crying randomly, they might keep walking or they might investigate. Or, if they see someone walk out of a really nice house with a bunch of luggage, or something (and now I'm generating my own ideas just trying to explain the kind of ideas I'm looking for). :)

[Pokonic]

How big is the city? What is the main alingment?

Perhapes a half orc half troll attempts to rally the lower class/servents to demand more fair treatment by the local goverment/ city gard, and the city is put under lockdown after a anarchic group not related to the movement assasinates a powerfull city leader opposing there existance puplicly while under a illusion that makes them look like orcs/ogres, giving the city leaders a excuse to wipe out a mostly non evil underclass of traditionly less savery races ex kobolds, goblins, orcs, ogres, tiflings.

The PCs would have to navigate a city in which the three main races are attempting to wipe out a innocent underclass while trying to find and wipe out the anarchic culprets within the city, and hopfully prove the half ogres movment had nothing to do with the assination

[Squiggles]

What I want is, instead of just "here's another quest...", I want there to be things that they see that might or might not give them ideas for things to do. I've railroaded them a little bit in the early game sessions and they're (mostly) new players. I want this city to be about "What do you want to do?"

So, for instance, if they see someone crying randomly, they might keep walking or they might investigate. Or, if they see someone walk out of a really nice house with a bunch of luggage, or something (and now I'm generating my own ideas just trying to explain the kind of ideas I'm looking for). :)

If you're just looking for random plot hook NPC's that you can spin on the fly look into the AEG Ultimate Toolbox and you can just roll random NPC's from charts and cobble them together.