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View Full Version : Plot hooks and getting the party together.



Lucid
2011-10-28, 01:45 PM
My players please stay out. BooNL this means you.


Tomorrow is my first session and I'm still having troubles figuring out some hooks, mainly for one of my players. The idea is to have them uncover a drug smuggling operation, organised by the thieves guild. The session will take place mostly in the very large port city (100k-200k citizens) of Daerlon during the yearly grand market. The docks are overrun with watchmen checking every incoming ship, asking too many questions and generally being a nuisance, trying to figure out where and how the drugs are entering the city. The thieves guild has been laying low, focusing mostly on the smuggling and distribution of the drug, forgoing other illicit activities to avoid drawing attention.

The characters(all 3rd level):
Marcus Nightspark - CE Male Human Cleric of Nerull. He comes from a barbarian tribe and acts as a liaison for goblin traders. He will be travelling to Daerlon for the market with a goblin trader and a small retinue of barbarian guards and kobold slaves.
He will probably be the easiest to get interested. I will have the goblins ask him to bring back some magical plants(the drug) that they've heard about. This will of course take some investigation that will lead him eventually to the thieves guild. He is a greedy coward and will most likely jump at the opportunity to make some extra cash and will probably be interested in the properties of the drug as well.

Lora Abbey - N Female Changeling Binder(mostly Paimon). She is a gypsy dancer, her travelling carnival was attacked by the Heironean inquisition on suspicion of criminal activity and witchcraft. She has taken a new identity and travels to Daerlon hoping to find other survivors of her troupe.
I'm thinking about having her meet another of her troupe who tells her that her best friend since childhood has also survived and has taken refuge with the thieves guild, though he doesn't know where she could find them. When she finds her friend he will be drugged out in a opium den run by the thieves guild.

Tia Cerebro - N Female Warforged Fighter. She was created to serve at a ship as a guard and figurehead. Her ship was recently attacked and sunk by pirates. After waiting for two days at the bottom of the sea for orders from her now dead captain, she decided to abandon orders and started walking back in the general direction of Daerlon.
This is the one I'm having problems with. The player created her as a bit of a blank slate, and he will probably jump at any hook I throw him. I'm just having trouble figuring out what to do. My first idea was to have her walk onto the docks straight from the sea, and then be questioned/arrested by an overenthusiastic guard, on suspicion of hiding something. While funny and likely to be enjoyed by the players, the character doesn't seem to be of an investigative nature and likely to follow up on this herself. The most direct route could be to have her be 'hired' by the smugglers to transport some goods, but this would be, well, too direct.

I'm also a bit at a loss on how to bring them together, at least before they're all going after the thieves guild. And I'm not quite sure what rumors/answers to give them to get them to the caves outside of the city where the smuggling takes place.
So I come here for advice, if you have any ideas how to get them together and looking for a mysterious drug, I'm very grateful.
Sorry if I've been a bit wordy, thanks in advance.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-10-28, 01:53 PM
Tomorrow is my first session and I'm still having troubles figuring out some hooks, mainly for one of my players. The idea is to have them uncover a drug smuggling operation, organised by the thieves guild. The session will take place mostly in the very large port city (100k-200k citizens) of Daerlon during the yearly grand market. The docks are overrun with watchmen checking every incoming ship, asking too many questions and generally being a nuisance, trying to figure out where and how the drugs are entering the city. The thieves guild has been laying low, focusing mostly on the smuggling and distribution of the drug, forgoing other illicit activities to avoid drawing attention.

. . . .

I'm also a bit at a loss on how to bring them together, at least before they're all going after the thieves guild. And I'm not quite sure what rumors/answers to give them to get them to the caves outside of the city where the smuggling takes place.

So I come here for advice, if you have any ideas how to get them together and looking for a mysterious drug, I'm very grateful.
#1 -- how about you just say they are all working together? It's kludgy, but particularly with an Evil party member it might be safest.

#2 -- Have the Warforged be hired by the troupe as the Dancer's bodyguard after she announced she's going to look for her friend. That should be enough motivation for the Warforged and it gives you a party of 2 vs. 1 if the Evil character ever decides to split off. If you need to get the Evil guy involved, just set him up as a choice informant regarding the Guild and he'll tag along for the money. Just make sure he doesn't see more money somewhere else.

Whybird
2011-10-28, 02:04 PM
Make it the players' responsibility. Say to them "You are a group of adventurers who have been working together for some time. Describe for me how you met and why you are working together, and come up with some things that you've done together in the past."

Lucid
2011-10-28, 02:11 PM
#1 -- how about you just say they are all working together? It's kludgy, but particularly with an Evil party member it might be safest.

#2 -- Have the Warforged be hired by the troupe as the Dancer's bodyguard after she announced she's going to look for her friend. That should be enough motivation for the Warforged and it gives you a party of 2 vs. 1 if the Evil character ever decides to split off. If you need to get the Evil guy involved, just set him up as a choice informant regarding the Guild and he'll tag along for the money. Just make sure he doesn't see more money somewhere else.#1 Like you say, it's kludgy to start of this way, especially wihtout a direct common goal in sight.(They don't know about the drug yet)

#2 Well, I was thinking of having the warforged approach the travelling caravan of the cleric before they reach the city.(It's quite possibly she missed the exact direction of the city by a few miles. Finding your way walking on the seabed isn't easy I imagine, it'd be a surprise to end up near the city anyway).
However, the dancer is alone, her troupe was scattered and she meets another member in the city, who has joined a new troupe that's performing at teh market.
I could have the jobless warforged be escorted back to the Machine Ghetto(a slum of the city, where those damn job-stealing warforged are sent to live. Of course, having few needs and nothing to do for 24hrs a day means they started improving, and it's becoming one of the city's most beautiful parks)/background rambling
And then the member of her troupe suggests hiring a warforged guard for her search.

Thank you, that could work out quite well. Now to figure out how to get the entire group together. I'll probably have them both be sent to a dockside inn where they can find more information on the thieves guild, and just see where we go from there.

edit:

Make it the players' responsibility. Say to them "You are a group of adventurers who have been working together for some time. Describe for me how you met and why you are working together, and come up with some things that you've done together in the past."
Thanks, but I must say I'm not a big fan of those starts, I've always enjoyed the awkwardness that comes from throwing a bunch of disparate personalities together and seeing how that works out in-game.

AugustusGloop
2011-10-31, 09:06 AM
I'm getting ready to start a DFRPG game for my local group, and have fallen in love with how the FATE system handles group creation.

Try asking each of your players to describe the circumstances (in three or four sentences, on an index card) that got them into adventuring. In essence, a few sentences that describe their very first adventure. Then take each of those index cards and hand them to a different player, with the instruction to add a sentence or two about how they figured into the adventure. They can't change the outcome, but they can add events in which they met the main character and participated.

In this way, each character had two other members of the group interact, and you can trace a connection to everyone in the group. That makes it much more natural for them to pull together during the crisis or opportunity you're presenting them.

Whybird
2011-10-31, 10:32 AM
Thanks, but I must say I'm not a big fan of those starts, I've always enjoyed the awkwardness that comes from throwing a bunch of disparate personalities together and seeing how that works out in-game.

Oh, absolutely -- conflict is what makes stories fun, and having PCs with different aims and goals is a great source of conflict. But just because your players have come up with a reason to stick together doesn't mean that they won't ever have any conflict.

For example, in the game I'm currently running I told my players "You're going to be a cell of rebels fighting to overthrow a corrupt and evil Empire". But they all have different directions in which they want to pull the revolution: the dwarf is fighting to get freedom for his people; the rogue is a member of a mob family and is trying to make sure that whatever happens with the rebellion, her people end up profiting; the artificer is a rebel sympathiser from one of the Imperial houses, and is trying to make sure that the rebellion makes a clean break from the past and doesn't end up committing atrocities in the name of freedom. If anything, the fact that they all have the rebellion in common is making the conflict harsher.

Lord Il Palazzo
2011-10-31, 11:08 AM
My current (and first) campaign as a DM began with the premade adventure "A Dark and Stormy Knight" which begins with the PCs all seeking shelter in a cave from a sudden and violent storm.

When I ran it, I added the back-story that the PCs had each been individually hired by a merchants guild that was looking for adventurers to send on a job to a distant town. The guild have each a ring by which to recognize the others when they got there and the PCs just happened to meet up in the cave on the way to the job.

If I DM again, I'd definitely like to give the PCs different goals/reasons for being where they are when they meet up to add drama and tension.

Tyndmyr
2011-10-31, 11:42 AM
My group, to avoid the usual showdowns, paranoia, and craziness, has adopted the convention of acting like someone is an outsider until the magic words "You look like a trustworthy person" are said by someone in the party. Then, the person they were addressing is now in the party, and entirely trusted.

The more out of context the statement is, the more hilarious it gets.

Conners
2011-11-02, 09:38 AM
Need to discuss this with my group, also. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12145037#post12145037) Going for a very, "unlikely allies" style of game.


Well... first, you either need to make it that one of them discovers the plot and the others join in, or they group up before they know what's going on. Perhaps the Cleric goes a member of the guild and tries to make a deal, so he can meet with their boss. The changeling could see this, because she was stalking the thief at the time, then confronts the evil cleric and ends up making a deal for their "common" goal (or just stalks him and joins in the fight later).
You'll need to consider their motivations, of course.


A possibility for the warforged, is that, coming out of the water in the middle of the night, or whichever, she(?) sees something no one could be expected to see--such as the thieves method of smuggling. She(?) is then spotted by the thieves, who try to capture/kill her(?). After her(?) escape, the thieves are looking for the warforged who has seen too much--who unfortunately isn't under the protection of the authorities who don't believe or like a warforged (just an idea, depending on your setting).
---------------
From stalking the thieves and/or being diplomatic, the Changling and/or Cleric discover that they are looking for a warforged.... and they're under the impression this warforged knows too much.

hangedman1984
2011-11-02, 01:30 PM
I'm getting ready to start a DFRPG game for my local group, and have fallen in love with how the FATE system handles group creation.

Try asking each of your players to describe the circumstances (in three or four sentences, on an index card) that got them into adventuring. In essence, a few sentences that describe their very first adventure. Then take each of those index cards and hand them to a different player, with the instruction to add a sentence or two about how they figured into the adventure. They can't change the outcome, but they can add events in which they met the main character and participated.

In this way, each character had two other members of the group interact, and you can trace a connection to everyone in the group. That makes it much more natural for them to pull together during the crisis or opportunity you're presenting them.

you know, i really like that method

Hyudra
2011-11-02, 03:15 PM
I like to start campaigns with a bit of a bang.

If you've established things that draw each of the given characters towards the scene, then consider some big event that brings them all into the same alleyway, or inside the same building.

Consider:

Marcus Nightspark has been asked by the goblins to retrieve some of the drug, as well as some of the source, the plant that grows the drug, the recipe - it's a new thing on the market, so the nature of the source isn't quite known. At the same time, Lora Abbey is looking for her friend from the caravan. Last she heard, her friend was strung out and looking for more of the stuff, but the dealers weren't providing any. Word on the street is that there's a new shipment coming in. Both Lora and Marcus follow some tips to head to the place they think their respective goals can be found.

As they investigate, an explosion and a blast of flame in the top floor of a nearby building gets their attention. They rush to the destination, only to see a group of thieves and a singed warforged - Tia. Tia was a mercenary hired to guard the crates, but things turned sour when the leader of this particular group of thieves accused her of prying into their affairs. Or perhaps he just wanted to be sure he cleaned up behind him. Or maybe Lora's childhood friend stumbled onto the scene, started begging the warforged for some supply. Either way, the boss ordered his ex-wizard's-apprentice crony to fireball the Warforged.

As Nora and Marcus stumble onto the scene, the thieves attack all three witnesses.

After that, the group is together. All three have some sort of grudge against the thieves, and so long as your players aren't intentionally dodging plot hooks, they should be able to agree to adventure together.

mint
2011-11-04, 08:02 AM
If you want some awkwardness, connect the players vaguely by some degree of separation.

Examples:
Say the cleric once saw the changeling perform in one of her personas and crushed on her.

The barbarians might be on good terms with the witch covens and travelling troupes in general. If the changeling was really part of a coven, you may have a connection between the cleric and her there somewhere.

The captain who commissioned the warforged is the uncle of the changelings childhood friend. She meets the warforged when she is trying to track down the dead captain get a lead on her friend.

That type of thing.
It isn't on the players or the dm to come up with why the PCs get together. Its up to the group as a whole. And you should really talk about it before you start.

The Reverend
2011-11-04, 08:33 AM
They all wake up being beaten.

I had one particularly mismatched group so I had the game start off with them being beaten and interrogated and bound in a thieves guild safe-house.....under a tavern. Anytime a tavern is used as the starting point of a campaign the PCs are never inside and never drinking and never comfortable.

Hyudra
2011-11-04, 08:39 AM
They all wake up being beaten.

I had one particularly mismatched group so I had the game start off with them being beaten and interrogated and bound in a thieves guild safe-house.....under a tavern. Anytime a tavern is used as the starting point of a campaign the PCs are never inside and never drinking and never comfortable.

I have played with more than one player that really, really hate games that start this way. To the point of walking away from the table.

For the most part, these same players were okay with things if the game wound up in that sort of scene, just so long as they had the ability to try and prevent things from getting to that point in the first place.

The Reverend
2011-11-04, 09:20 AM
I provided several ways out and they chose one I didn't see coming. The eladrin was blind folded and couldn't see so the wizard made his blind fold transparent, I ruled that transparent is in fact a color, Eladrin teleported out of his bindings and proceeded to free everyone else, there being a roomful of thieves guild members. They even scored a couple healing potions and med supplies from the torture rooms med chest. Its amazing how bad torture can be and how long it can be sustained if they can magically heal you while its happening. I dont see how its any different from starting a campaign in almost another problem oriented way.

they all got ganked by thugs when they were alone or given knock out drops of some kind and that's how they ended there. Oddly enough not a single assassin or rogue amongst the entire party.

Hyudra
2011-11-04, 10:29 AM
I provided several ways out and they chose one I didn't see coming. The eladrin was blind folded and couldn't see so the wizard made his blind fold transparent, I ruled that transparent is in fact a color, Eladrin teleported out of his bindings and proceeded to free everyone else, there being a roomful of thieves guild members. They even scored a couple healing potions and med supplies from the torture rooms med chest. Its amazing how bad torture can be and how long it can be sustained if they can magically heal you while its happening. I dont see how its any different from starting a campaign in almost another problem oriented way.

they all got ganked by thugs when they were alone or given knock out drops of some kind and that's how they ended there. Oddly enough not a single assassin or rogue amongst the entire party.

I can't say 100% why it bugged them so much, but I'm just saying I've seen it really, really bother some players. Just getting into possible reasons why:

I think it's partially to do with the tone things set, when you're not just a 'problem oriented' start to the campaign, but a 'you're completely at my mercy' sort of position. The PCs start in a bad situation because the DM decides such, and they escape because the DM left them avenues to escape.

Sure, that's a metaphor for D&D as a whole, but it's so transparent, it can put a crack in the fourth wall before the game gets underway.

I've heard one such player liken it to having an unskippable cutscene in a video game, where the person you're playing screws up or gets caught during a cinematic sequence, and you feel/think/know you could have avoided it if you'd had control of the character. Even if you couldn't, not having that power or choice is an in-your-face reminder of the fact that they're playing a game.

Beyond that, I think, being beaten or tortured and having no say or power over how the scenario came about may strike a bad chord, as far as your players' personal, real-life backgrounds. I knew one player who had really bad experiences with her ex, to the point I knew to avoid scenarios she would have found distinctly unpleasant - but I'm pretty positive she didn't disclose all the details to other DMs we played with.

In addition, if there's torture and beatings involved, it starts everything off on a sour note as far as the character goes. Like, you're roleplaying, but the first thing you do is figure out how you deal with being tortured? It mandates some sort of angst or trauma or repressed feelings. If you just walk away all smiles and giggles, you're brushing off a major event that destroys people's lives IRL. So you're either starting their characters off at a negative point, killing verisimilitude or just asking your players/characters to be insensitive.

In any event, chances are the entire story would derail almost right away, as the players and characters turn their focus to revenge. Getting things back on track after that would be a real problem.

As a general rule, I wouldn't start a game with the imprisonment scenario, especially not imprisonment with torture. It takes autonomy away from the players at a point in the game you should really be ramping up excitement and momentum, it can frustrate the player, it can strike all sorts of wrong notes with the IRL players, and it can screw with the characters' development and the story right from the get go. I would hesitate to get into subjects like torture unless you knew your group very, very, very, very well, and I'd question the ethics or judgement of involving such a serious subject in the first place.