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View Full Version : Catching the interest of the Neutral party



veven
2012-02-17, 05:33 PM
The next stop in my campaign's main quest is more than a month's travel away.
I'm not one for time wasting random encounters but I don't want to just say, "You travel for 40 days, welcome to the next goal" so I'd like to have some side quests available in the various places the party passes through.
My players are great and I know they'll likely take any sort of hook just to help me out (even if they are presented poorly) but since my players are so great I feel like I owe them interesting, engaging adventures.
The issue is that although having a couple good characters the party skews fairly neutral, mostly because without the unifying force of the main quest the characters would likely not have anything to do with each other.

I come to the playground seeking aid/advice. Do you fine folks have any ideas for low level (3-4) adventures that don't necessarily rely on the assumption that the characters care about the mayors daughter or want to find X Mcguffin before we let you pass through town.

The campaign has an unknown lands sort of theme. The lands they are traveling through are completely alien to them so freaky/weird/different stuff is more than welcome.

I LOVE YOU ALL!

Malacode
2012-02-17, 05:43 PM
Shove something that'll provoke the reaction "Huh... That's odd. I wanna know more about -that-". I don't know your players or their motivations, so I can't say what will pique their interest, but generic ideas I can do!
Give them a town where some strange and ridiculous custom is enforced by law. They break this law because it's a stupid law, don't get punished for it, but get told "don't do that again". Some natural punishment comes their way, and is possibly why the law exists. They ignore the hook, okay, fine. They take it, let them start looking into reasons for it, until eventually some arcane and mysterious origin is found and presumably solved. Have the law be something they can't help but break and is really, really inconvenient, like not eating between midday and midnight. Hell, make it no eating after midnight and if you break it you become a gremlin or something. I dunno, you come up with a reasonable "Why"

Belril Duskwalk
2012-02-17, 06:22 PM
Shove something that'll provoke the reaction "Huh... That's odd. I wanna know more about -that-". I don't know your players or their motivations, so I can't say what will pique their interest, but generic ideas I can do!

I'd say this a very good option. Maybe have them pass by some oddly constructed building that is clearly not normal. A 500 foot tower that seems to be made of a single solid crystal. Turns out its home to some insane wizard with a tendency for mind-bendingly complex puzzles. Create a big classic haunted house just off the road and (if they want) allow them to pass it by without incident, but the next day they pass the same house, identical right down to the creepy spider-webbed wrought iron fences. Have the house repeat a third day, a fourth, eventually their curiosity will overcome their rational fears. Fill it with whatever monsters seem like the proper blend of reasonably challenging and thematically appropriate; zombies, skeletons, ghouls, a necromancer, take your pick.

If they're a less curious but more greedy type, have them bump into a caravan of merchants who just happen to be going in the same direction as they are, but they feel their current guards are not adequate for the roads ahead. So the merchants offer to feed and pay the PCs for their protection on the road. The first few days go uneventful but then the caravan is attacked by bandits, next day it gets attacked by orcs, next day there's another attack. The whole while the head merchant gets more and more nervous, it becomes apparent he is not what he seems. Maybe he's carrying an ancient artifact of evil somewhere (to use it? to destroy it?). Maybe he's carrying a cache of gold to some grand king or army off somewhere. All kinds of options out there, have some fun with it.

Silma
2012-02-18, 10:00 AM
Make then involved in something they can't get out of. This way you know that they won't go along just to help you out, but because it's something their characters would have to do.

The first idea that comes to mind is this.

You have a town. During the day it's peaceful, with merchants selling stuff, etc. You know, classic stuff. But during the night the entire town is lit by braziers, torches, and pretty much any light source the villagers could get their hands on. Later the PCs find out that some sort of ghost-creatures that are extremely frightened by light are attacking the town because of some kind of curse. Those spirits are most likely souls of the dead, twisted by something/someone. The spirits can kill a man in a single hit, by sucking the life-force out of them. So the players must find a way to destroy/banish them without actually fighting. Of course they could leave, but they'll never know if they're gonna be safe at night, even in the surrounding areas. You can even have them attacked by those spirits before they even reach the town, but make sure you give them the chance to defend themselves.

DrBurr
2012-02-18, 11:42 PM
When in doubt you can always play the family member card, most PC back stories if they exist will give you at least 1 family member you can exploit for a plot point unless they've designed their back stories to be orphans.

A good example in my current campaign my group's cleric comes from a family of sorcerers, so when I was making the big bad for a group of sessions I made it his sister, this went over terrifically to the point where my group wants to stop her next plan.

So examine your party and come up with a cool character who one or more of them may be related too and have this family member request aid from the party. Depending on how you construct this character it could allow your party to face a new kind of threat, like ghosts if all they've been fighting is goblins.