Gladiator Tournament fight scenario ideas

[EzraCallaghan]

I am running a gladiator game where 90% of the players are enslaved to fight masters in a city with 5 wards. The other 10% are mercenaries that come to the city to fight in tournaments.

Each tournament is 5 rounds with the top 3 from each tournament moving on to the main tournament.

each ward is controlled by a fight master and each ward holds a feeder tournament to the main tournament held in the center of town.

I have run a few tournaments already and these are some of the scenarios I have put the players through:

Jousting

1-on-1 forest encounter

Ranged battle w/repeating crossbow(s) (group scenario)

Timed game (round count) to search through 2 buildings to find weapons and items, use weapons + items together to complete game (was crafting burning arrows to hit targets at various range increments)

Guard the castle(capture the flag) - Defend a building from invading warriors that come in waves of various #s, races and difficulty. In this game there were also booby-traps buried across the battleground that had to be aware (or unaware) of.

If you have other scenario ideas or assistance with building a fun and challenging tournament please share.

Thank you.

[Vhaidara]

Well, you can always do a proper gladiator fight (X v X with set gear). Complete Warrior has rules for influencing the crowd with showy tactics (trips, disarms, sunders, grapples, etc).

[PurpleSocks]

Ideas,

Have them fight a big scary monster which has DR/regeneration with mundane weapons and no effective way to bypass it, make the PC's come up with a novel way to kill it using the arena and terrain to their advantage.

A local lordling wants to kill some slaves in his shiny new armor to prove to his girlfried/father/whoever how powerful he is. Him being the son of someone very important the fight will be rigged to his advantage, eg, he will be accompanied by an honor guard, and the PC's will be provided with faulty weapons, maybe they will even be beaten/drugged before hand. The PC's should also be made aware (ideally through their own investigation, as nobody expects them to win) that if they kill the lordling their lives are forfeit and if they make the fight look staged they will be severely punished.