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View Full Version : DM Help Adventures revolving around an Inn/Tavern



RealMarkP
2014-03-10, 01:37 PM
My players own a tavern in the rough part of town and they're really enjoying it so far. I want to make that tavern meaningful in the overall campaign. I'm looking for ideas for possible adventures (or even plot hooks) that could be played out in and around the tavern. Political intrigue or other type of adventure suggestions are welcome. We are playing in a small city and the players are 2nd level.

Googling around turned up a published adventure called 'The 11th Hour'. I'm probably going to pick that up

Any thoughts?

Dawgmoah
2014-03-10, 02:38 PM
A tavern, or inne, is the center of entertainment in most places. This is a world before tv, the web, radio, or even printed material as the common folk may not know how to read or have the money to buy the expensive books. So what to do for fun? Stay home and stoke the fire or go on down to the local tavern to meet your friends, talk about what happened during the day, and see if there are any interesting and unusual people floating through. Maybe a bard or troupe of entertainers will be in town and performing something new!

If it is newsworthy it will probably be heard here first.

Seeing this is a smaller town news from other towns and perhaps the capital will be heard here first. Official decrees from the ruler, judgements handed down from the courts, outlaws wanted by the crown, all of this will come by courier and handed out (depending on the number of copies on hand) or proclaimed in the town square. Where will most people hear about it though? The taverns.

Same with local happenings and news. The butcher's wife ran off with a soldier of fotune last night. An adventuring group was mauled by trolls in the nearby forest. Look, there's one of them now. Is that a half-orc or full blooded orc sitting over there drinking that wine? What is he doing here, why did he come here? Is it a full moon?

Excuse me, are you looking for adventure?

As every adventurer knows, you want to find an adventure or fellow adventurers, you head down to the place everyone gathers. And during the day, if they're not out working a job, there's a good chance they're looking for something to do. And that old abandoned mine on the border of the royal hunting lands has been of interest lately.

Bounties will be posted on the walls or talked about, adventurers looking to hire various people to go who knows where and do what inhabit the common room late into the night. If people are not recruiting for a new adventure they may be sitting about talking about past exploits and companions that did not survive. If we only had a cleric that time....

There is a damsel in distress needing rescue, or a member of a party has returned with news the rest of his adventuring group is imprisoned. Wouldn't it be nice to get them out as they are all from wealthy families?

The walls have ears, and sticking fingers.

Anywhere people congregate you will also find the criminals. People who want to overhear the latest gossip and take advantage of it. Folks who are not interested in going on an adventure but will be looking at those adventurers as treasure rich targets, with their gear and fancy weapons. People feeding information to their comrades outside of town to plan ambushes and raids on merchants and people travelling from place to place.

Has anyone tried to extort protection money from the tavern? Are the tavern owners themselves entangled into the crime world?

They may not have buffalo wings, but the beer is cheap!

If there is any type of sports arena, open field used for competitions, or just being in the town that hosts a major religious ceremony or gathering of sports or entertainment people. Be it on the jousting circuit or an annual celebration of whoever is the analogue of William Shakespeare in your world. People will be flocking in to drink and talk about the days activities.

And make wagers on the winners, and people will try to fix the competition to win the most, etc.



Politics and the power lunch.

The local nobility, merchants, or clergy may meet here for business over a meal or to meet travellers staying for a few days. They may insist on meeting behind closed doors but are still seen entering and leaving (for the most part). Will the price of Oats rise due to the spring floods? There may not be a buyer for that information here in this town, but the folks down in the city or the neighboring kingdom may pay a princely sum for it.

Who is planning to buy up that group of dingy farms down in the bottoms and do what with it? Did that shepherd boy really find a gold flake in the stream? Is there a connection?

The king may be interested in knowing his younger brother has been building a professional level group of heavy cavalry from members of his "hunting club."

Is that the King himself sitting over there without his usual crown and royal garb? Does he really like the ale here that much or is he meeting someone?

Innes and Taverns are central to everyday life in a fantasy setting. Running and owning one puts you right in the front row to see what is happening.

Slipperychicken
2014-03-10, 03:07 PM
We are playing in a small city and the players are 2nd level.

Clearing out the rats in the cellar could have been a fun first quest :smallbiggrin:

RealMarkP
2014-03-10, 03:16 PM
Clearing out the rats in the cellar could have been a fun first quest :smallbiggrin:

That was basically their first quest. The tavern belonged to a crime lord of sorts that they stumbled upon. When he was out of the picture, they bought the deed. So, given the fact that the place was left to them intact, I'm thinking that someone might stumble upon a shelf or hidden compartment that stores some plot hook.

Dawgmoah has some decent ideas of gossip. It could be a possible avenue for political intrigue.

Felhammer
2014-03-10, 03:17 PM
Have the quests begin in the tavern, be they started by a person in the tavern or someone posting a notice on the bulletin board.

Have interesting things happen in the tavern, like a mystical portal to a far off place/plane open up in the cellar or, better yet, in a room upstairs.

Have the Tavern be the central focus for a revolt or riot.

Crossblade
2014-03-10, 03:18 PM
A problem for a tavern?

The Rum is Gone. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JImcvtJzIK8)

Coidzor
2014-03-10, 03:20 PM
That was basically their first quest. The tavern belonged to a crime lord of sorts that they stumbled upon. When he was out of the picture, they bought the deed. So, given the fact that the place was left to them intact, I'm thinking that someone might stumble upon a shelf or hidden compartment that stores some plot hook.

Well, his former allies, superior(s), or rivals wanting to move in on his old territory now that he's dead would provide some opportunities, I imagine.


A problem for a tavern?

The Rum is Gone. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JImcvtJzIK8)

Making sure their logistical support stays in place and intact is a good way to get them to leave town or visit another part of the city, aye.

BWR
2014-03-10, 03:34 PM
Run it as a cross between Faulty Towers and Cheers.

Slipperychicken
2014-03-10, 03:54 PM
Making sure their logistical support stays in place and intact is a good way to get them to leave town or visit another part of the city, aye.


The tavern's main supplier is cranking up prices, and they aren't negotiating. The PCs are tasked to perform a "hostile takeover": rough up the shareholders (but don't kill them!) until they agree to sell their firm to the tavern. After the sale, the PCs are advised to cast healing magic on the shareholders so their injuries aren't obvious.

A startup is trying to penetrate the market with impossibly low prices and new innovative practices (such as a message-board service to help connect adventurers with clients). The PCs are tasked with demolishing the inn, and making it look like an accident.

Some punks stole a shipment of high-quality drink. The PCs are asked to make an example of said thugs, and will also be rewarded for retrieving the alcohol.

Unexpectedly high demand of expensive product means a stockout is imminent. The next shipment needs to move through zombie-infested wilderness to arrive on time, and the PCs are asked to make sure it gets through safely.

Knaight
2014-03-10, 03:55 PM
That was basically their first quest. The tavern belonged to a crime lord of sorts that they stumbled upon. When he was out of the picture, they bought the deed. So, given the fact that the place was left to them intact, I'm thinking that someone might stumble upon a shelf or hidden compartment that stores some plot hook.

Does it still have criminal connections? If it does, that makes it really, really easy to throw the players into the middle of a bordeline shadow war between criminal elements and the established powers, smugglers and merchants, with a side of intrigue in that the established powers themselves are far from a unified front, and there could easily be aristocrats trying to take over, merchants trying to take over, aristocrats trying to suppress the merchants for cheap smuggled goods, etc.

Segev
2014-03-10, 04:01 PM
Are they running it, personally, or do they have employees?

If the latter, flesh out those NPCs, and make them rather lovable. Then give them real-world problems. Some of which might be solvable with application of adventurers, some of which might be only solvable with application of less forceful assistance. Others which seem insoluble except through time.

And yes, do have the criminal association of that crime lord haunt them for a while, unless they've THOROUGHLY trounced it from top to bottom. There's bound to be sub-bosses who want to make a play for the whole organization, and gang wars ready to break out. The tavern undoubtedly has some evidence, blackmail, or other holds the crime lord had over his minions. And maybe over well-placed "legitimate" individuals, such as a slightly crooked guard captain or a noble who was blackmailed with relatively innocuous but embarrassing information into looking the other way or performing less and less savory deeds to help out the crime lord.

Perhaps those individuals are grateful he's gone...or perhaps they fear the party will find the evidence and it will all start again. Or worse, the party will simply expose it!

Give them regulars at the tavern. Have other adventuring parties stop in, looking for adventure hooks. Play up potential competition and rivalry. If the PCs always beat other parties to the best adventures, have their tavern become less popular for those sorts of gatherings, as the adventuring parties will seek less competitive environs. If they have to parcel out some adventures because they're busy with keeping their inn and doing in-town adventuring, they might make friends or rivals as some adventures come to them, and they just face choices as to which mutually exclusive ones to take.

NichG
2014-03-10, 08:43 PM
An interesting twist on the usual 'the quest begins in a tavern' trope would be if the tavern in particular tended to act as a hub for all sorts of business - above-board, shady, etc. Imagine a place like Shemeska's tavern in Sigil, where all sorts of power-players hang out to unwind or do business off the books. You could in fact have entire quests center around things happening in the tavern itself, without needing to go outside of it.

The head of a criminal organization is going to be holding a secret meeting in one of the upstairs rooms. Someone wants to assassinate him. Someone else wants to spy on him. The bad news? You're tavern security, and you've gotta protect him from all this and maintain your employer's reputation for running a place where that kind of business can be done. Of course at the same time, you get to overhear some of the meeting and you find out a few things that you may or may not want to let stand unchallenged... Can you get what you want out of him and still manage to leave the tavern's reputation intact?

Rainman3769
2014-03-10, 09:00 PM
The party OWNS the tavern instead of just getting quests there! Awesome! ALways good to have a base camp. My first D & D Campaign began in much the same way.

What our DM did was offer Side Quests of sorts for new brewing recipes, better equipment for Stills, hell we even bought materials to expand it! Our PCs loved that place, tons of our early adventures revolved around it.

The best part was our DM gave us a really good incentive to try and make the place better. He made the tavern a means of daily income for us, the more improvements we made, the more money we made. Nothing was quite as sweet as being gone for a few weeks in-game to be met with a pile of money the place had earned us. So if you want to make your tavern a centerpiece, do everything you can to make your party LOVE the place

RealMarkP
2014-03-10, 10:09 PM
The party OWNS the tavern instead of just getting quests there! Awesome! ALways good to have a base camp. My first D & D Campaign began in much the same way.

What our DM did was offer Side Quests of sorts for new brewing recipes, better equipment for Stills, hell we even bought materials to expand it! Our PCs loved that place, tons of our early adventures revolved around it.

The best part was our DM gave us a really good incentive to try and make the place better. He made the tavern a means of daily income for us, the more improvements we made, the more money we made. Nothing was quite as sweet as being gone for a few weeks in-game to be met with a pile of money the place had earned us. So if you want to make your tavern a centerpiece, do everything you can to make your party LOVE the place

Did your DM have any quests that revolved around the Tavern itself (ie. the patrons, the location, the politics, etc)? I'd love to know more.

Right now, I roll 6d6 to determine the amount of cash income they get per day (minus wench and cook pay). They get plenty of low-brow patronage since it's situated by a major road and in the shady part of town.

delenn
2014-03-10, 11:30 PM
They own the tavern, but still have NPC employees and suppliers, yeah? Work them into the quests - maybe one of the barkeeps owes money to a loan shark for a bad bet on a pit fight, or your fishmonger's son has been kidnapped by pirates, or the cook is being bribed to keep secrets for a politician he used to work for (but he wants out).

LokiRagnarok
2014-03-11, 05:30 AM
The head of a criminal organization is going to be holding a secret meeting in one of the upstairs rooms. Someone wants to assassinate him. Someone else wants to spy on him. The bad news? You're tavern security, and you've gotta protect him from all this and maintain your employer's reputation for running a place where that kind of business can be done. Of course at the same time, you get to overhear some of the meeting and you find out a few things that you may or may not want to let stand unchallenged... Can you get what you want out of him and still manage to leave the tavern's reputation intact?

A twist on this: you were approached by a rival gang/the local authorities. They make you an offer they think you cannot refuse: You will cooperate in the assassination/arrest of said crime boss and will be richly rewarded (so they say). If you do not cooperate... well... let's just note your tavern consists of easy-burning wood/will suddenly develop a health hazard and will have to be shut down.

But the crime organization will certainly not take you aiding in taking down their boss kindly, and if you choose to warn him, you have ascertained yourself the gratitude of one of the most powerful men of the city.

What will you do?

Killer Angel
2014-03-11, 07:16 AM
Have interesting things happen in the tavern, like a mystical portal to a far off place/plane open up in the cellar

At that point, you discover that your tavern is connected to the World Serpent's Inn. :smallcool:

ElenionAncalima
2014-03-11, 07:37 AM
-A competing tavern owner is attempting to sabotage them.
-Something or someone is attacking shipments, cutting off their supply lines.
-The bartender/barmaid/cook goes missing (or their loved one goes missing).
-The bartender/barmaid/cook needs the party's help getting out of trouble with a local crime lord.
-A criminal organization/contraband seller has started using their tavern as a meeting point, bringing dangerous patrons.
-The tavern turns out to have a secret entrance to a crypt/dungeon with a treasure/MacGuffin that people are looking to steal.

RealMarkP
2014-03-11, 03:42 PM
Cool ideas so far, guys. I'll definitely start by giving the bartender/wench/baker some backstory and perhaps enough material to do some 'filler' quests in between the main points of the campaign story arc.

On the topic of published adventures, could you recommend any that might be used in a small city? I might steal some parts of 'Murder on Oakbridge', from the Eberron campaign setting.

veti
2014-03-11, 06:20 PM
Well, his former allies, superior(s), or rivals wanting to move in on his old territory now that he's dead would provide some opportunities, I imagine.

This. Crime lords don't just "get out of the picture" - there's always someone, usually several candidates, waiting in the wings to take over, if they leave a vacancy. What do they think of the place being sold?

One of them might try to buy it back - at a loss to the PCs, obviously. Another might try to sabotage their business to soften them up - the tavern rapidly becomes seedy, vermin-ridden, frequented by the lowest scum of the city and with beer that mysteriously spoils overnight, thanks to some low-level spells. A third may offer them a spot in his organisation, in exchange for which he'll protect them from the other two - at least until you need a 'gang war' plot hook.

Deremir
2014-03-11, 10:40 PM
one way to make the tavern extreamly important to them: tell them there money has weight now, then start paying extra attention to carrying capacitys. ill bet a pretty penny they will start using the tavern as a vualt. then every now and again have a theif of a certain level come in and try to steal there fabled loot. that way as thay get more and more loot higher and higher level theives make an attempt on it and they have to keep finding ways to upgrade there vualt.

then watch them swell with pride one day when you tell them that when they go to put money in the vualt gold spills out because thave filled the room:smallwink: