Adventurer
2012-11-09, 07:56 AM
I'm a DM who's just started a D&D 3.5 campaign with 5 players who've never played roleplaying games before, and for purposes of showing them every facet of D&D as well as the overall story, I am planning on having them become suspects for the murder of a town guard they were seen arguing against. I am pretty stumped for ideas to make it memorable, though, and would like to hear if any kind soul in the forum has any good ideas to help flesh a compelling short story out with a lot of roleplay.
The facts are as follows : The party was looking for someone in a large city, and while searching they questioned the guard of the city's front gate if he had seen him. He replied that he hadn't, but upon hearing so, the party dwarf proceeded to intimidate and threaten him (he was fortunate not to have this incident escalate). The guard insisted he hadn't seen him, but it was clear he was hiding something. The party left the city on a quest for a high-authority figure of the city, and upon returning 4 days later, they reported the guard's behaviour to this figure. He sent an order to summon the guard for questioning and the party left content that they'd done what they could... little did they know that the guard was hiding a secret which they hadn't even imagined, and whoever this secret concerned became scared when they heard this guard was about to be questioned regarding that night, so they proceed to kill him before that happened and suspicion falls on the party (which may either be on purpose - for example by the killer stealing the dwarf's weapon and placing it on the guard's body - or the police are just suspicious of the dwarf because of the aforementioned squabble between them).
I have already thought up of several reasons as to why the police can't use divine magic to ascertain who the true culprits are, so the only way the PCs can get out of this is by finding him/her/them themselves, in which time they are not allowed to leave the city, eventhough they have to leave for a new quest in the next 1-2 days or Something Bad will happen.
The party is level 2 and consists of two Fighters, a Rogue, a Cleric and a Wizard. Any help will be appreciated:smallsmile:
The facts are as follows : The party was looking for someone in a large city, and while searching they questioned the guard of the city's front gate if he had seen him. He replied that he hadn't, but upon hearing so, the party dwarf proceeded to intimidate and threaten him (he was fortunate not to have this incident escalate). The guard insisted he hadn't seen him, but it was clear he was hiding something. The party left the city on a quest for a high-authority figure of the city, and upon returning 4 days later, they reported the guard's behaviour to this figure. He sent an order to summon the guard for questioning and the party left content that they'd done what they could... little did they know that the guard was hiding a secret which they hadn't even imagined, and whoever this secret concerned became scared when they heard this guard was about to be questioned regarding that night, so they proceed to kill him before that happened and suspicion falls on the party (which may either be on purpose - for example by the killer stealing the dwarf's weapon and placing it on the guard's body - or the police are just suspicious of the dwarf because of the aforementioned squabble between them).
I have already thought up of several reasons as to why the police can't use divine magic to ascertain who the true culprits are, so the only way the PCs can get out of this is by finding him/her/them themselves, in which time they are not allowed to leave the city, eventhough they have to leave for a new quest in the next 1-2 days or Something Bad will happen.
The party is level 2 and consists of two Fighters, a Rogue, a Cleric and a Wizard. Any help will be appreciated:smallsmile: