Creating a rival adventuring group.

[CGNefarious]

So for my first campaign I've been running Rise of the Runelords and we've just finished the first book (for those of you familiar with the Adventure Path). I told my guys they'd have a short break to do whatever they wanted, expecting them to try to make things or open a business or something, but instead they wanted to go treasure hunting. Works for me. I had one of them overhear a guy talking about a treasure map in a bar (creative, I know) and bought it from him, and I created a small dungeon with some puzzles for them. That will be the next session.

On a completely separate note, in another campaign where I'm a player I had until very recently been worried about my character's very probable death. So I created three back-up characters for when the inevitable happens. I really liked the characters I've created and want a chance to play them, and I also wanted to add something to the campaign I'm running, so the idea hit me to make the characters I've created an opposing adventuring group to get in the way/bother/show up my players. My idea is to have them not seem like bad guys at all, but somehow have my players grow to absolutely hate this group. The question is how?

Currently the plan is to have the upcoming dungeon be very easy, but at the end of it have the final boss be really freaking difficult. Like near impossible difficult. I'm using special limb loss rules where if you would normally die you can instead lose a limb or major body part and instantly stabilize at 1 hp from death. I'm going to have this monster completely annihilate the party to where they're all dead or butchered, and then at the last minute this second group comes in, makes short work of the monster, then offers to heal/raise the party (for a price of course). The goal to this being making the PCs kind of resent being saved by this group of supposedly better adventurers and be indebted to them on top of it. And of course the other group will take all the treasure from the boss they just killed, which I'm sure will sting a little.



Basically I'm curious what you guys think. Is this a good idea? Do you have any ideas on how to make my players (not just their characters, but the players themselves) hate this group?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

This is not a good idea at all. The players will end up resenting you instead of this other adventuring party if you do it like that.

Instead, make the PCs find few traps and only very strong wandering monsters all the way through, but also corpses of multiples of those same monsters which have already been looted. They should get the idea that a single wandering opponent is a challenge for them, but someone has recently come through and killed multiples of those same opponents at once. Maybe find a necromancer who's just animated a few as zombies that delays them a bit. At the end they find this rival adventuring party has already finished off the boss, preferably something that they easily recognize as beyond their capabilities, and the other party has already healed up and is on their way out with all the loot. They can remark that the PCs are riding on their coattails or similar, and that it's fine that they collect the scraps left behind. Make them good natured but also condescending.

As the game moves on they can be upstaged by this other party when necessary, they can see nobles giving lucrative contracts they hoped to be hired for go to these other guys instead, and eventually they'll really hate this other party. Make this other party level up slower, so the PCs eventually start to catch up. Finally, there should be an extremely high paying contract to collect an artifact that's needed to sack a warlord's keep (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?302120-Optimizing-a-Mundane-Garrison&p=15977746&viewfull=1#post15977746), a contract that goes to this other party. The PCs may try to find this artifact first and steal it out from under their rivals, or they may learn that their rivals have mysteriously vanished and the noble that hired them asks the PCs to investigate. In any case, it's sure to be interesting.

[Kazudo]

Ok. It SOUNDS like a good idea in your head, and it would TOTALLY work in ANY other work of fiction if handled correctly.

Unfortunately, at the D&D table you'll get a lot of "WHAT. That wasn't anywhere NEAR the correct CR for our le-oh. Great. The NPCs saved the day. Wooo." (this is not a conclusive quote, many more adjectives or expletives may be used.)

It's a trick that should only really be done with a high level party. It can also prove to distract heavily from whatever main adventure you might be working with. The problem is thus:

The players get their butts handed to them by Horrible Monster #3. Well, crud.
The other party mops the floor with Horrible Monster #3. Uh. DM? A moment.
The players think that the other party is just WAY more powerful than them and either
A. Do not engage them
B. Resent YOU for daring to do this to them
C. Avenge the death/dismemberment of their current party.

The problem with C. is that they are either dead or dismembered.

NOW THEN. I put it to you that RATHER THAN doing what you're gonna do, you should still make the dungeon redonkulously easy, but make it impossible for the group to fight the end boss and get the treasure. Something simple that would be impossible to pass like maybe a contingencied spell from when that was actually a great wizard's hideout that throws up an impassable barrier. They then WATCH the enemy party struggle valiantly with the boss and kill it, mopping up the treasure and leaving out through a completely different entrance.

Then it becomes "Well, if we want that hoard we'd better go find those guys." instead of "Well, crud...uh...new characters?"

EDIT: Bonus points for the contingencied spell actually being activated knowingly by the other party ahead of time. Maybe even the "drunken spelunkers" who gave them the information to begin with, in hopes that they would trigger the traps, kill the monsters, generally make it easier. This group could even just be optimized and equipped to deal with the specialized boss, and the players are just making it to where they don't have to optimize for a dungeon, just one encounter.

[CGNefarious]

That's one of the main reasons I asked the question. My group is relatively mature and I don't see them having too much of a hissy fit for losing, but anyone could get upset at losing to something they couldn't beat.

What if instead of wiping the floor with them, that final boss battle seems to be really close with the creature coming out ahead just barely in the end? Then at the last minute before it becomes a TPK a second group comes out seemingly as just the DM's way of saving the party from said TPK (they already think I go far too easy on them) and finishes off the monster an nurses the parties wounds. The second party would then even seem like they're almost on the same side as the PCs and do the healing for free. No one dies, all wounds are healed/regenerated, and the two groups split the loot.

Does that sound more reasonable?


I am also going to play with the one-step-ahead archetype very liberally as the campaign runs on. I want this group to be more or less a reoccurring encounter. The goal I'm trying to set is for the PCs to start out liking this second group, but gradually grow to truly hate them. It should also help that one of the members of this new group just happens to have the same name and be of the same race as the BBEG they just defeated last session. No relation though.

The PCs are Level 5 Gestalts with 33 point buy and are well above wealth by level. To make the other party more fair I did them as level 6 non-gestalts with rolled stats and wealth by level, since they would be just too powerful if I gestalted them.


EDIT: I actually had planned on giving the second group an advantage on having prepared for the encounter so they could win that way, but if I'm going to make it a much closer battle that might not be necessary.

[Talar]

Good idea, bad implementation of it. For an example in the game I am currently involved in, the DM has done something similar. We were hired to retrieve a potion from a crypt pretty standard (interesting dungeon design though), found the potion and found out it is part of potion of prismatic dragon control, so we did not hand it over to our employer instead we lied about it. So then in the tavern 2 guys approach us asking about the dungeon and such. Well one of our party members was not with us and was across the tavern, and he cast detect magic saw that there was two invisible people near us, so he decided to web the area and so the rest of the party starts throwing spells. Utter chaos ensues. Later on we find out that the potion was stolen from the temple we left it at (My character was against leaving it there), so we chase after them and battle ensues. The leader and his girlfriend got away, but not before we captured 2 of his crew and killed 2 others. At this point this 'Linear' guild to our order of the stick has done nothing against us. All they've done was being hired to steal an object and talked to us...yet the whole party hates them. My character wants to strike a deal with them though.

So they are antagonistic to the party without really directly conflicting with us. And they are not the NPC's riding in to save the day. I like the idea of having a rival group to the party, but it is very hard to implement well without making the party feel completely victimized as well as incompetent/it being unfair.

[Chaosvii7]

My idea is to have them not seem like bad guys at all, but somehow have my players grow to absolutely hate this group. The question is how?

Make them overbearingly nice and altruistic, but remarkably more successful than the main group in their endeavors, which just often happen to intersect with the interests of the group.

Make them the nice guys that don't finish last; Even Paladins hate those guys.

[Kazudo]

Overbearingly nice and altruistic. They give the treasure away to villagers in need, they tithe excessive amounts to their churches, they use their magical abilities in every town for free to the furtherance of the local populace (within the law of course)

And are still stinking rich and always have jobs and get the good quests and questgivers while the group gets fined for even THINKING "Create Food and Water".

[Bluydee]

Make them go in the dungeon, only to be sidetracked by another plot in the dungeon (perhaps two factions of kobolds and goblins that aren't evil,, simply fighting for the dungeon?) and when finally fighting the final boss, they find the other party, taunting them before teleporting away.

[Zweisteine]

Biffoniacus_Furiou's idea was really good, actually.


Yours, not so much.
Having a group of NPCs step in to save the PCs is not fun, and if the battle was too hard to win alone, it will feel like heavy railroading.

Now, if the level-appropriate monster is weakened (i.e. when it normally would die), and runs deeper into its lair (closing a big door behind it), that could be something. The PCs spend a few rounds opening the door, then follow. They find the monster's treasure room, and arrive just in time to see the other party finish the monster off. The room is already empty, and door on the other end is open. The other party runs away. The PCs follow, and learn that the dungeon was two-ended, and the other team went the shorter way, and stole the treasure and the kill (still give out xp, though). This will make the players resent the other party more than you, especially if there was some loot earlier on.

Nobody wants a DM to set a combat up to lose, just to bring in characters to save them. It's not very nice, and gives the impression that these other characters are more important than the PCs, in a way. Just don't do it (please).

[Anlashok]

Overbearingly nice and altruistic. They give the treasure away to villagers in need, they tithe excessive amounts to their churches, they use their magical abilities in every town for free to the furtherance of the local populace (within the law of course)

And are still stinking rich and always have jobs and get the good quests and questgivers while the group gets fined for even THINKING "Create Food and Water".

This is a great way to make yourself "That DM".

[Kazudo]

This is a great way to make yourself "That DM".

Well, I thought that was the point of the thread.

On a less sarcastic note, Biffonacious_Furiou's idea's pretty neat now that I read it again.