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View Full Version : Brainstorming: My players, keep out.



shadow_archmagi
2011-08-10, 06:33 PM
I understand that we all make mistakes, so stop and read my username for a second and make sure you're not my players. Okay? Good? Great.


So, in last year's campaign, the game revolved around a city with four ruling houses, which my players renamed Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow after their fashion sense.

The Reds were wealthy nobles who ran the assassin's guild and had control of the alchemy industry. They also did most of the funding for magical research.

The Blues controlled the church, and also maintained the adventurer's guild.

The King was a Green, and his group was primarily concerned with the common man, particularly unskilled labor.

The Yellows were the official military arm of the city, serving as policemen and soldiers as needed.

At the end of last year's campaign, the players died to defend the city from an orc invasion. I plan to set this year's game (2? 10? 40?) years in the future, after they've been invaded by the Black Legion, a hobgoblin empire from the eastern continent. The game will begin with the player's resurrection by one of the rebel factions, and revolve around trying to overthrow their oppressors. My goal is to have each faction still in play, but significantly different, and the players can meander between them as needed, and ultimately they'll need to complete at least two questlines in order for a successful revolution. Each faction should also have a weakness that can result in them being a bigger threat than an ally.



New Blues: The Church has been forced underground, and become a cult. The New Blues have rejected their gods for a focus on pure spirituality, and specialize in psionics. PITFALL: Cult has been infiltrated by mind flayers. If PCs are not careful, they could end up fighting an army of psychic mind-slaves

New Greens: The old king was killed during the invasion, and now a small band of rebels is supporting the rightful heir's return. They've already got the heir, but he is irritating and not particularly regal. They intend to rectify this by finding the Elixir of Competence (working title) so as to create a leader capable of leading them to freedom. PITFALL: ???

New Reds: With major organizations outlawed, the elite have banded together as a secret society. This secret society is focused around transhumanism; they experiment with vamprisim, lycanthopy, and symbiotes. PITFALL: They're dealing with dangerous forces; if PCs are not careful, they could end up fighting an army of inhuman creatures with more templates than fingers.

New Yellows: ???? This is where I need help.

MISC INFORMATION:

The elves were savages who ended up siding with the orcs, viewing them as more natural. Post-Legion, they've been completely (almost?) eradicated, with their major forests burned.

The dwarves are pretty stereotypical, and lost most of their warriors in the initial invasion. The survivors have retreated deep underground, and the slow war against them is occupying most of the Legion's attention.

The Black Legion consists primarily of hobgoblins, with a mind flayer cult acting as the power behind the throne, with voidminds (http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/voidmind.shtml) occupying most important positions. They're fantastically well armed, with most foot soldiers carrying Wands of Scorching Ray and +2 armor. They came to the continent via giant battle airships. They've built a giant tower in the center of the city for the purpose of maintaining and refueling these airships (There is also a smaller one near the halfway point in the ocean, which was built via treaty with the Sauhagin).


So, help filling in the blanks? Quest ideas? NPC ideas?

DarkestKnight
2011-08-10, 11:12 PM
okay here's a couple of suggestions
Pitfall for the new greens: 1)The heir is the target of a coup, organized by an unfriendly faction from the pc's past. 2) the heir is being pressured to support another faction or just surrender up the survivors for personal safety. The pc's have to help him remain fair without annoying any other faction. 3) a botched elixir makes the Heir awesome, but he aggravates everyone even more. all factions pitfall.

New yellows:1) having been thoroughly stomped on, this faction needs to re-establish communication between it's various safe houses, so it can return to it's previous mediocrity. 2) The Yellows need Item X to complete revolutionary Y weapon for it's soldiers. Pitfall: 1) The yellows start turning rogue, selling out the survivors. 2) accidentally used Item Z, resulting in Boom.

this sounds pretty fun. hope it goes well.

shadow_archmagi
2011-08-10, 11:36 PM
Also, my players have often used gestalt, and expressed a liking for it, and so I think in this game, I'll offer gestalt levels as quest rewards (IE: help a ninja, become //ninja 1). I've talked to them about this system, and they think it sounds delicious.

Karoht
2011-08-11, 03:45 PM
Yellow: They are so fragmented, they begin serious infighting. Rather than treat them as their own faction per se, have the party guide them to forming up with one of the other 3?
The party has to sort of pick up the pieces of Yellow. The party becomes yellow even. Then joins up with another faction.
Get the idea?

Sounds like a neat idea, best of luck pulling it off.

shadow_archmagi
2011-08-11, 04:56 PM
Yellow: They are so fragmented, they begin serious infighting. Rather than treat them as their own faction per se, have the party guide them to forming up with one of the other 3?
The party has to sort of pick up the pieces of Yellow. The party becomes yellow even. Then joins up with another faction.
Get the idea?

Sounds like a neat idea, best of luck pulling it off.

That could work. I was also considering that maybe their stick would be rallying outside help; trying to find the Last of the Elves and make contact with the remaining Dreugar.

Also, last time around, I gave each House a name that was an obscure word for color; Xanthous and Verdant and whatnot. This time they won't actually have team colors (Since they'll be, you know, spies) and they've changed quite a bit, so I feel like they need new names. I considered using foreign color-words, since none of my players are bilingual as far as I know, but it turns out that color names tend to be almost identical cross-culture: Blue in german is just Blau.

TwylyghT
2011-08-12, 12:49 AM
House Yellow may have been completely routed having been the military front, survivors long since absorbed into the other houses. Any military/police functions they may have served may now have been replaced by members of an occupied hobgoblin force, patrolling for and engaging pockets of resistance.

In fact, "house yellow" may have become with time a term used by the remaining houses to discuss the hobgoblins discreetly.

By use of leadership, and role play, the party could opt to rebuild a new military house to champion the city in regaining its freedom. Moving in stages from under ground resistance guerrillas, to ragtag militia, to organised army as they gain power and members.

shadow_archmagi
2011-08-12, 08:09 AM
House Yellow may have been completely routed having been the military front, survivors long since absorbed into the other houses. Any military/police functions they may have served may now have been replaced by members of an occupied hobgoblin force, patrolling for and engaging pockets of resistance.

In fact, "house yellow" may have become with time a term used by the remaining houses to discuss the hobgoblins discreetly.

By use of leadership, and role play, the party could opt to rebuild a new military house to champion the city in regaining its freedom. Moving in stages from under ground resistance guerrillas, to ragtag militia, to organised army as they gain power and members.

The brick wall I keep hitting though, is that although "Yellow house got the crap kicked out of them" is the logical outcome here, it isn't much fun. I mean, all three of the other houses are already guerrilla rebels fighting for freedom, and they each have a thing in addition to being guerrilla rebels.

TwylyghT
2011-08-12, 11:00 AM
One option, and I dont know how it fits in to your setup, is that House Yellow instead of being decimated, had it's leadership sell out to Empire, standing aside and choosing servitude over destruction. This betrayal is what made the take over successful in the first place, and has remain ever since, a major obstacle to all efforts to free the town.

And now even while House Yellow has become the fodder militia for the hobgoblins, some members either now regretting their own actions, or later descendants wishing to right the actions of their forefathers, look for leverage to switch allegiance of the house back to the town. If the players can make it happen, the town gains a military advantage, while the Empire is weakened.

The hitch? Powerful members of the house are in fact outright loyal, or specific leaders may have been magically dominated into full loyalty. Either way they oppose the efforts of the PCs seemingly at every step.

Fenryr
2011-08-12, 02:39 PM
I think that you first need determine the time. Why?

-In two years there will be a lot of insurgents but through time the insurgents will be a minority, in ten years, maybe only 15 or 20 insurgents are kickin' around. A revolution here is harder.
-This may also affect the Green with one or two successful/unsuccessful successors and the consequences.
-In the Blue, maybe no original Blue is still around. Only mindflyers.

-Also, enviroment. Ruins, destroyed buildings, shortage of food and the like.

A good idea, by the way. Good luck with it.

Metahuman1
2011-08-12, 03:09 PM
I'd say 2 years for the time gap.

I'd also say for the pitfall for the greens, try this.

"If the PC's are not careful, they could create a tyrant/dictator even worse then the one's there trying to overthrow." (Think, "I got *Insert name of least favorite US president here* out of office, but I accidentally made Adolf Hitler Dictator for life in the process!")

BlueInc
2011-08-12, 03:20 PM
I think you should switch the Yellows and the Greens. I don't know the story of your campaign, but I feel like the city guard and the army would be more interested in restoring the king than the unskilled laborers.

Then, you've got a "common man" army that can do more interesting things. How about the commoners are planning serious acts of terroism freedom-fighting, like blowing up the refueling tower, poisoning the enemy food supply, etc., setting things up for a commoner uprising and classless society.

Pitfalls could include doing the uprising too early (the enemy is still strong, commoners are brutally crushed a la Tiananmen Square (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square)), terrorist acts harm them as well if not correctly implemented (poisoned food gets distributed to the commoners), etc.