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View Full Version : Turning A "Gotcha" Into A Rewarding Adventure



Weirdlet
2013-08-27, 12:10 PM
Hypothetical adventure seed- an adventuring party is sent out by the royal family to discreetly clean up a loose end. That loose end turns out to be a misbegotten royal heir, being raised among enemies of the royal family who are both a distinctly different race despised in the kingdom, and powerful in their own right. Whether or not the party fulfills their mission objectives, there will be assassins sent after them by the royal family, since they know too much about the prince's indiscretions/embarrassment.

How do I make sure there's options in place to make this a rewarding adventure rather than just a 'gotcha' moment?

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-08-27, 12:51 PM
Going through the elements piece-by-piece (because that often reveals flaws that looking at the whole picture doesn't)...

1: the royals give the adventurers a job, very vaguely-worded, of undisclosed nature (unless it's intended for "loose end" to be a very obvious euphemism for a hit, which I could see)
2: the job turns out to be cold-blooded murder of a figure who's not actually bad, and is (surprise!) an heir
3: the royals intend to rub out their enforcers and send assassins

Problems I see.

The lack of up-frontness. Are the characters willing to work for an employer who obviously is leaving out large details?
The murderous nature of the job. If the PCs puzzle this out, will they follow through?
Lack of better options. Deciding not to off the heir means that they don't get paid. (Sure, they wouldn't get paid anyhow, but when they make their decision, they don't know that.)
Lol assassins. It sucks being attacked by a force that's powerful enough to wipe you out that you don't see coming.

Recommendations I have.

Let the royals frame the job. Make it sound like something the PCs would want to take on. Maybe they tell the PCs that they need a dangerous criminal taken out, but the criminal is beyond their reach. Whatever the reason, make it sound plausible.
Give them an option when they find the truth. The heir should have means and an idea on how to turn the tables against the royals. Now that would be fun.
Make sure they have a chance against the assassins. This is more "avoiding a pitfall" than anything. It's a sort of last straw, too, before they go on the offensive.

Weirdlet
2013-08-27, 01:05 PM
That covers most of the points of breakdown I was seeing, and my intended solutions for them. Thank you.

Segev
2013-08-27, 01:11 PM
What is the "despised but powerful" race in question? Are they evil, or at least viewed as such by the party at the time that it comes up?

To help me frame it, I will be pretending that the royals are elves and the "despised by powerful race" are drow.

If so, have the royals out-and-out tell them that the drow have a pretender to the throne that they claim is an actual heir, and that they need him taken out quietly before the drow can use this to stir up civil war.

The fact that the royals are, themselves, evil, and the "pretender" really is a bastard scion of the crown prince is something they can discover on the mission. Maybe the bastard scion is neutral to good, but the drow need him and - possibly - actually see something of their plight in how the royals are treating him, so are friends and don't plan to betray him, even though their own methods will be evil (behind his back if necessary).

The bastard prince's sympathetic nature could give the PCs pause. The drow may have used disposable minions to hold them off until now, with only one or two drow falling beneath the PCs' blades (and easily enough resurrected by the clergy of Lolth).

If the princeling can sway the PCs, the drow will be willing to work with them (and use them) to turn the assassination plot on the royals.

Regardless, even if the PCs succeed, the princeling is definitely on the "do resurrect" list for the priestesses of the spider queen. Perhaps the royals know this and gave appropriate instructions for disposal of the body, or perhaps the royals gave the option to kidnap/take prisoner the pretender, with plans for their own assassins to handle finishing the job such that no resurrection will occur.

They'll also kill the PCs in the mean time. If the PCs do it, the plan is to kill them anyway, as stated.



To make it not a "gotcha," you make the prince (and maybe the despised race) sympathetic, and at the LEAST make them valuable (if possibly short-term) allies who will prove slightly more honorable (if only because the bastard prince demands it) than the evil royals.

If you're actually doing elves and drow, you could even have the prince be a bard or cleric who is a chosen of Corellon, with a plan to try to either sway the drow from their evil ways or even (at higher levels) to try to open the door to redeeming Lolth herself.

endoperez
2013-08-27, 01:59 PM
They players have to be able to get safe. Will they be safe in a location, outside of the kingdom, can they get under some important person's protection... whatever it is, it might be a good idea to put in some hints well in advance.

Once they're safe, they will most probably start planning to have revenge on the royals. They already have information that the royals don't want to spread... so they're going to do SOMETHING with that information.

1) Make the heir into the new king. The heir might object.

2) Just divulge the information and hope that's enough. How will they prove it? Perhaps the king gave them some reliable test to identify the heir. A magical item that requires royal blood to activate, perhaps, and stays active afterwards?

3) Blackmail, and/or monetary reward from someone who opposes the current king. Perhaps a powerful noble drops some hints about their mission, or flat out tells them what's going on.

Nero24200
2013-08-27, 03:29 PM
One issues I see with this is the group being sent to kill the party. Why doesn't the noble just send them to kill the heir?

Eldan
2013-08-27, 03:29 PM
I don't have a problem with the basic situation, but:

Make sure the gotcha comes from an NPC and not from you. That's the first thing. Your players sould be angry at an NPC, not at you.

Maybe include a way for them to gather more information first? Divination, royal archives, old servants who remember the night the child vanished? Gossip, really. Just something to tip them off that the job might be unsavoury.

Third, include a chance to take revenge. This goes hand in hand with the first one. The revenge does not have to be murderous. Perhaps give the air a royal trinket or other proof that the PCs can use to blackmail the royals. Perhaps give them a way to turn hte tables and overthrow the royals and install the heirs. Perhaps just a small way to embarass them or get more money. Even a small satisfaction at the end can go a long way.


Edit: good point on the assassins from Nero, there. Perhaps make them something other than assassins. How about this.

The PCs return from their errant and are greeted by an old, but powerful noble warrior who just heard that the PCs assassinated the prince (or some other convenient unrelated frame. The PCs probably have something unsavoury in a past adventure or their backstories that a royal could find out about). He will challenge them to a judicial duel. There's ways around that and it's not quite as one-sided as assassins in the night.

Segev
2013-08-27, 03:36 PM
Sending the PCs to kidnap/arrest/whatever the heir and sending assassins to get the party plus the heir when he's out of the protections of the despised race makes more sense, to me, for the very reason of "why not just send the assassins after the heir?"

In this scenario, the reason is one of clean hands. They've got two catspaws separating the royal family from the assassination.


A bonus twist could come if the despised race has a figure who feels he SHOULD be more influential, but the plans surrounding the heir diminish his place in the race's society. He's arranged with the royals for the party to kidnap the heir, and then he will personally lead the "rescue mission" to punish the party. He'll make sure the heir dies in the "rescue" attempt, and blame the party.

To outsiders, the despised race led an attack on some random adventurers, as happens all the time. To the despised race, the unknown-traitor led a failed rescue mission but took out the royals' pawns in revenge, at least. The royals might send an assassin after the traitor if he becomes prominent, but really, their secret is safe with him because HE is in on it and would share the ignominy.

Weirdlet
2013-08-27, 04:22 PM
A small kingdom borders the Deep, Dark woods that lead up into the mountains where the majority of orcs live. The prince of said small kingdom is a bit of a philanderer and an embarrassment to the royal family- but he wears the amulet that confirms his family line with ease, so, he's what they've got.

After a bit of a scandal and-or other impetus to get the prince to shape up, he's sent to a small border fort, out in the middle of nowhere and far away from anything fun. The soldiers here are either newbies, idiots, or on punishment detail. Keep him out of the limelight, perhaps let that foreign nation over there forget the ruffled feathers on their diplomats.

Only there's been trouble in the Deep Dark woods around the mountains. Up to the North, dwarves have been coming up from underground and establishing a surface kingdom in 'unclaimed' territory, where no one of any consequence will object. The problem is, the deep dark woods are where the orcs have settled, and they are bring displaced. While there's plenty of action going on up North (for PCs to find out later) there's also a migration going on, trying to find safe places to shelter outside of their usual turf.

Some things you should know- orcs were originally the created soldiers of the Ancient Sorcerous Empire. They reincarnate because heaven won't have them and hell can't hold them, which means they have a lot of bad memories and righteous paranoia. They mostly spend their time hiding away trying to avoid being enslaved again to fight other people's wars for them. Male warbands tend to patrol the outskirts, sloppy and bandit-like groups. The female warbands are elite, vicious, and organized, because they have children to protect.

Just such a band scouts out and then takes over the fort. They kill the soldiers, torment the prince a while, them let him go. It's far enough away from everything that no one really knows what happens until the prince comes back home, and even then it's kept quiet because it's embarrassing (and there are other wolves at the door that the kingdom needs to not look weak in front of).

Some months later, cue the hiring of the PCs. Discretion and plausible deniability's the name if the game, eh? The king is busy dealing with rival kingdoms on his borders, sniping at his diplomats and undercutting the deals he wants to make with the new dwarven trading league up in the North. The prince has been much better behaved these days- one might even say subdued- and has been prominently wearing his amulet as a sign that he's ready to take his duties seriously.

"We need you to take care of a problem. Our main armies are busy on the other fronts, and orcish bandits have taken advantage in their absence. If you cannot retake the fort? Then cut the head off the snake- kill the captain and anyone you may find with her. Return any royal jewelry you may find resembling this-" a display of the royal amulet. "The rest is yours. Do this, and you'll have a king's ransom."

Should they accept, they would then have to either sneak or blast their way in to the reinforced, orc-patrolled fort. Therein, they will find extremely pissed off warriors holding them off while the young are gotten to safety (if alarms are rung), or (if sneaky) a war-chief in her chamber with a half-breed infant in her arms and a pretty bit of jewelry (the real royal amulet) for him/her to play with, saying "Wake this child, and I will remove your head and use it for a chamber pot. What do you want?"

Thus- drama all around.

Mordar
2013-08-27, 04:31 PM
Re: Assassins

Why send them after the party instead of into the secure stronghold of the "bad" guys? Because adventuring parties are better at that sort of thing...particularly when it is a stronghold of those HATEDBUGGERS, because adventurers do that kind of thing all the time. That way, if things go wrong, there is plausible deniability.

Now, offing one or two people at a time in the open (or in a city after the fact)? That's the kind of thing you hire an assassin to handle.

Re: Timing

If the PCs kill the royal, I recommend they receive "marked" payment, such as a gem or a piece of useful equipment, so they can be tracked (magically or otherwise) and attacked sometime later. This way the original sponsor still looks to have held up their side of the bargain (and the players themselves don't revolt for getting stiffed), and the sponsor still expects to either get their money back or use it as payment for the assassin-assassins.

Then, one or two of the PCs should be attacked when separate from the whole party, yet survive. This puts them on notice that something is up...but it could be representatives of the despised race, it could be people after their loot, it could be Santa Claus...or it could be the original contractor.

Now, IMO, it has gone from a straight-forward mission with a gotcha to a straight-forward mission with payoff that spawns a follow-up story (now or later) that may spawn a third story (exposing the royals) as you and the party see fit.

- M

Jay R
2013-08-27, 04:34 PM
One issues I see with this is the group being sent to kill the party. Why doesn't the noble just send them to kill the heir?

For the DM, the real answer is that he wishes to provide an adventure for the party.

There are several possible in-game answers.

1. The heir's guards recognize that assassin group.

2. The assassins are evil, and the heir's guards have a Detect Evil spell.

3. The royal family want to preserve their assassins, and need to get rid of anybody who can prove that they were behind the murder.

4. If the royal family's servants murder the heir, then the royal family are in a dangerous political situation. By contrast, if the royal family's servants kill the murderers, then the royal family are heroes.

This is just a tactical question, and it's easy to come up with some tactical answer.

Weirdlet
2013-08-27, 04:47 PM
Thank you all for helping/commenting- I'm typing on a phone and missing many posts while I reply, so please bear with me.

My hope is to be able to ensure that this *is* a good adventure, if a somewhat twisty one, and make sure that the 'gotcha' is more about examining what the PCs believe and what they want to do about the mess they're in, rather than catching them out with no good choices. 'Take a third option' is a totally valid response, I just wanna make sure this is fertile ground for same.

Adrastos42
2013-08-27, 08:14 PM
Considering these are evil, plotting royals we are talking about, I have to endorse Jay R's 4th suggestion for why assassins are sent against the PCs but not used for the job in the first place. It simply gives more plausible deniability to use a group of outsiders, known to be untrustworthy murder-hobos, but the actual regicide (or whatever the equivalent for a prince is) any claimed connection with them can be denied far easier than a connection with assassins under their own employ. Sending those assassins to avenge the blood debt accrued by those murderous adventurers, however, is simply good press, while also conveniently removing the witnesses most likely to talk. The exact details of the prince's death can then be glossed over for PR purposes - of course the poor boy was kidnapped, and fully human, why on earth would you suggest that he was a half-orc?

EDIT: Another thought, if the evil royals just don't want to mention there was a prince at all, have them either never mention the amulet or simply attack before the PCs have a chance to hand it in, and claim that it was stolen by them.

kyoryu
2013-08-27, 08:55 PM
One issues I see with this is the group being sent to kill the party. Why doesn't the noble just send them to kill the heir?

Because the assassins are valuable, and by killing the heir (whom we'll call Franz), they might learn his identity.

By having the PCs kill Franz, their knowledge of who he is becomes less relevant, as the assassins can kill off the PC (theoretically) without discovering the knowledge the PCs have. This beats having to kill off valuable, trained assassins because they discovered something you don't want known.

Of course, the enemies seem to already know the identity of Franz, so how much that level of secrecy is really interesting is a good question.

I think this is a good *start* to a campaign. The real conflict isn't the assassins, that's just how the characters get hooked into it. The real conflict is the upcoming struggle between the elves and the drow.

Immediately turning the "elves" into bad guys may not be the best maneuver, though, as it just immediately sets up good guy/bad guy, and removes a lot of interesting dramatic questions.

I'd also think about if there's any interesting ways to get other parties involved in this conflict - a third nation that's trying to destabilize things (or just willing to capitalize on it), or some other group (religious? wealthy merchants?) that is attempting to use this to gain some other kind of advantage - getting people to turn to their religion, or trying to supercede secular authority, for instance, or just wanting to get rich by selling arms and hiring out mercenaries. Factions within these countries would also work well.

Direct one-on-one conflicts can get kinda dull quickly, if you're not careful.

Weirdlet
2013-08-29, 01:48 PM
So, to clarify-

-The PCs (foreign adventurers passing through a small kingdom) get given a job, framed as "Clear this border fort that got taken over by orcs." The prince giving this assignment emphasizes "Kill the captain, and anyone around her."

Should the PCs accept, as they make their way to (and through) the fort there will be opportunity along the way to find out, through divination, sense motive, wilderness lore, gather information, and squeezing info out of any captured orcs-
-The prince is hiding murderous rage and humiliation when he asks them to do the job.
-Orcs are not mindless monsters.
-Orcs are no saints, either.
-the group that has taken over the fort is women and children.
-the women are hard-core warriors.
-they were displaced from their usual turf by dwarf incursions into their land.
-the captain has recently had a child.
-that child is half-human, a product of the prince's time in captivity.
-The captain has what looks an awful lot like the royal amulet, which she cannot wear but which the child likes to play with.

From here, the PCs may conclude that they were sent to clean up this loose end. They may decide any number of things, including but not limited to-
-They're orcs, it's a job, kill'em all and let the gods sort it out.
-leave them alone, declare it a bad job and walk away.
-negotiate for the amulet, leave the fort occupied.
-negotiate for the amulet, convince the orcs to move elsewhere. (this may lead to discovery of just *how* the dwarves are rousting them, such as poisoning certain rivers, which leads to further adventure.)
-take the child and the amulet back to the royals.
-declare the whole thing a bad job, but insist on payment from the royals for their time, trouble, and potential blackmail.
-the prince is a jackass, but he's in the right, and a halforc with claim to the throne is unacceptable.
-the prince is a jackass, and he needs killing.
-the prince and the royal family could stand some humbling, forget blackmail, this has to be spread far and wide.
-if the kid grows up and has a claim, things could get messy.
-if the kid grows up but has no interest in human affairs, things could be less messy, especially if the amulet is returned.
-if the dwarf incursions into orc land are stopped and the land un-poisoned, the orcs might go back to their forests and not be heard from again this generation.
-if the orcs get slaughtered here, especially a group with children, that might catalyze an all-out war of conquest as things progress.

On the way back to the castle (if that is where the PCs go), they will encounter assassins, not necessarily of the sneaky stabby type. In a world where mages are regarded with suspicion and are supposed to be kept mostly in schools where they can be licensed and observed, suspicion of being a rogue mage is grounds for arrest, and in case of over-enthusiastic church peace-keepers, occasional summary execution. The royal family are staunch supporters of said church, and have the option of calling in said catspaws to ensure no word of the situation escapes.

Said assassins will be a level-appropriate encounter, but not a cake-walk. Should the PCs mow through them, they may still wish to return to the palace, brazen it out and demand silence and ransom from the royals. If they tough it out that far, they may just get it- the prince is somewhat cowardly. Alternately, they may run from the kingdom, back to the main city where the campaign is meant to focus on for most of the game (or at least bounce back and forth from). One more wanted poster, one more reward on their heads. It's an adventurer's life, wot? And if they kill the prince, well- they'll destabilize a kingdom, have A LOT OF UNHAPPY PEOPLE after their heads, and possibly have to run even further afield to get away from their reputations.

Obviously, a lot of this depends on what kind of PCs go through the adventure. There's no wrong or right answer, but there's lots of choices for them to make, some of which are a bit ethically thorny (the answer I'm obviously hoping for is "the man sent us to slaughter an infant, he can get bent", but I won't punish anything but stupidity ("let's attack them all when they're at high alert!"). There's not a lot of opportunity for looting that I've put in, aside from the 'slaughter' options, and even then, the orcs aren't going to have a lot of actual coin. Dwarves might have more, if the PCs get pointed in that direction. Should I finesse that to ensure that PCs get more shinies out of it, or just leave it as an RP adventure with more coin elsewhere?

endoperez
2013-08-29, 02:19 PM
This seems like an awesome and well-thought-out adventure. I like pretty much everything about it. It would be nice if you could make some sort of a journal or after-action report about it once you've run it.

Segev
2013-08-29, 03:17 PM
Indeed, sounds like you've got it planned.

Even if they slaughter the orc warrioresses (including the captain), don't be surprised if they balk at slaying children - particularly babies.

What they do from there could be complicated.


EDIT: Also, of interest, the implication seems to be that the prince was taken, shall we say, against his will. This is an inversion of the usual expected situation, and explains his humiliation, but it also will raise interesting questions if they stop and think about how they would have felt if it had been an evil jerk of a princess who was having them murder the male orc captain who forced her to bear his child. If the escape happened post-birth, it would even still be possible for the orc captain to have the kid in the keep.


The inversion of expected sex of the aggressor and victim creates a different expectation of sympathies, on the surface; if the dichotomy of expectations can somehow be drawn attention to, it could create interesting reactions from the players.

Weirdlet
2013-08-29, 05:00 PM
Indeed. I started with just 'let's do something different' and it went to "let's throw charted territory to the wind!" I'm fairly certain the group I would theoretically run this whole shebang for is mature enough to ask the questions, deal with the consequences, and still enjoy the adventure- and that's the important part.

FallenGeek
2013-08-29, 05:22 PM
Maybe the assassins aren't assassins per the PrC, but rather true believers in the peace of the kingdom and are honor-bound in protecting the royal family. So, of course, the royals can't use their black-ops team to kill the errant heir. The assassins would most certainly be out for blood against the killers of the heir. This could allow for interesting rp situation where the PCs could play the assassins against the royals, but the assassins couldn't directly combat the royals.

Lorsa
2013-08-30, 06:04 AM
I haven't read everything written here, but it seems like a perfectly good adventure to me! There's definite possibilities for the players to make choices and in effect make an impact on the events of the world around them.

To expand upon kyoryu's idea of not setting up someone as evil right from the start, is it possible that it isn't really the royal family that hired the PC's in the first place but rather one of their advisers or another noble that could be next-in-line? This sets you up for having three parties with possibly different agenda; the royal family (that may have jealous siblings or distrustful parents even if not actively murderous towards the heir), the advisor/other noble that is really the one trying to "tie up loose ends" and will go through any means to get rid of the heir and the PC's, the 'other race' that currently is in possession of the heir that probably wants the royal family out of the way so they can instantiate the kidnapped heir on the throne (that has been influenced by them due to his/hers upbringing). Add in that the royal family really isn't such great rulers these days and the advisor/other noble might actually be looking to make the land better and you get 3 factions with shades of grey.