Help with my next session

[Feint's End]

Hey people. I've got the next session of a campaign me and three friends are playing set up for tomorrow but I've run into some problems I hoped you could help me with. First off I wanted to warn my players to not read any further unless you want some serious spoilers coming your way. You've been warned.

Now lets get the business. We are currently playing in an heavily asian influenced setting (mainly chinese with a more japanese part and and island with korean flavour). There has been peace for a few hundred years after the Oni-Wars ended, which almost destroyed the heavenly empire. However in the wake of the new found prosperity and safety of society a new threat arose. One not many people are aware of. Malevolent Spirits now haunt the country and those my players are basically spirit hunters.

The original idea behind the campaign was for them to travel around with their master (Wang ... not very creative I know but I needed some sort of higher plot device for the start) and other colourful characters. Some of which would only aid them for one session, others of which are their permanent companions. Those include (Besides Wang who always has other problems when they are fighting), Sask (a Dromit Marksman), Yanhai (a female undine Vitalist), Po (the old cook).

In the beginning the whole thing worked really well and they went from village to village fighting spirits of different kinds. After some time I brought them to the infamous Strix Market following a clue on who might have used a special dart to poison a spirit they found before (basically planting the seeds for chaos in the empire). The principle idea is for an old cult with a lot of power trying to bring back some mix of oni and spirit from the old wars.


Now the thing is I just realized I might have brought in this whole bigger story concept a bit too early for my liking as I wanted to let them play around a bit at first. Develop characters. Make friends. etc. After that they will have some confrontation concluding the first act of the campaign. I plan to let them make their own group of spirit hunters after than and basically "free" them from the plot device Master Wang is.
However they expect something bigger to happen now in the city and I wanted to ask for some suggestions.
On the Strix Market: Many things which are illegal are legal on the market. While the Strix where extremely poor recieved before the Oni Wars, they sacrificed a lot of lives to save all of the empire and in return were granted special rights for their controlled zones. Also the whole city is built on giant trees with a lake thrown in there for good measure.

I thought about letting them fight it out with some smaller boss and only later find out that it all was part of a bigger plan. This way I could go back to the more easy going theme without throwing out the overall idea I had.

Also I want to find a way for them to only go with 3 people (their characters) because otherwise they will go with their allies again (usually Yanhai and Sask but they have 2 other allies in the city which are a Mystic and a Zealot).



TL;DR .... Need suggestion on turning the plot down a little and going back to a simpler concept before building back up. Need suggestions on how to avoid my players going with 2-4 allies again, without it feeling cheap.

[Extra Anchovies]

I'm not really sure what you're asking here. You want to slow down the rate at which the campaign is progressing? Throw some stuff the party's way and have some larger-scale events keep the NPCs busy. Maybe the city comes under siege and everyone is assigned to different roles in its defense, with the PCs split off from their current allies. Gives you a chance to introduce a few new NPCs fairly organically (the grizzled, cynical captain of the guard, the nutty, absent-minded inventor who thinks he has a weapon that will break the siege... basically anything plot hook is plausible during wartime, really) and let the PCs figure out which ones they want to work with. After the siege ends, some of the new allies go back to their normal lives, and some of the old allies are no longer available (Yanhai died, Sask lost his family and home and is moving elsewhere to start over, Po needs time away from adventure to rebuild his destroyed restaurant, etc), allowing you to prevent NPC bloat.

Of course, "have a siege!" is always my answer whenever a DM needs ideas and the party's in a city, but that's because sieges are fun (fantasy sieges are, at least).

[Feint's End]

I'm not really sure what you're asking here. You want to slow down the rate at which the campaign is progressing? Throw some stuff the party's way and have some larger-scale events keep the NPCs busy. Maybe the city comes under siege and everyone is assigned to different roles in its defense, with the PCs split off from their current allies. Gives you a chance to introduce a few new NPCs fairly organically (the grizzled, cynical captain of the guard, the nutty, absent-minded inventor who thinks he has a weapon that will break the siege... basically anything plot hook is plausible during wartime, really) and let the PCs figure out which ones they want to work with. After the siege ends, some of the new allies go back to their normal lives, and some of the old allies are no longer available (Yanhai died, Sask lost his family and home and is moving elsewhere to start over, Po needs time away from adventure to rebuild his destroyed restaurant, etc), allowing you to prevent NPC bloat.

Of course, "have a siege!" is always my answer whenever a DM needs ideas and the party's in a city, but that's because sieges are fun (fantasy sieges are, at least).

Sorry if I was a bit confusing. Maybe not really slowing the campaign down but the original idea was to keep it a bit light hearted at the start. Treat every session as an episode of a TV show if you will. They finding a new village, fighting different spirits, having a good time with their friends and comrades, meeting new people and villains, etc. Only after some time I wanted to introduce some deeper issues and intrigue resulting in them eventually "graduating" and becoming their own spirit hunters without master wang guiding them. From there on the theme would get increasingly dark.

Siege is great but not really an idea (although ... if I think big enough ... hmmm) because there is peace in the empire and the Strix Market doesn't really have any enemies who'd dare attack it. So while I agree with sieges (and actually further down the line have planned something like this) it's not really an option here. The whole thing should stay rather low profile because the Strix accept many things but disturbance isn't one of them.

Probably also should have mentioned that the whole campaign is heavily travel based, with them all coming from different backgrounds and basically living on the road.

edit: I also don't want to kill off characters without them having any say in the matter as they have come to love them and I also really like them but I don't want Sask and Yanhai to always team up with them (they are about the same level range and also students of Master Wang, while Po is more an interactive NPC .... there is also Mrs Wu, who is very powerful but she rarely interacts with the players)

[Dexam]

One solution is to have two of the allies (Sask and Yanhai) kidnapped "off-screen" by the cultists, or a splinter group of the cultists. There are two clues leading to the location of the kidnappers; Master Wang and Po the cook say they will investigate one clue, the PC's will investigate the other.

The PC's go off to investigate, meet new NPCs, and have an adventure against the minor cultists. When they meet up again with Master Wang, he can feed them plot-relevant information, and they can go rescue the kidnapped allies.

After rescuing their allies, they discover this is just a small part of a larger scheme by the cult. One or both of the rescued allies decide they no longer want to adventure, or they head off with Master Wang who informs them they are now clearly capable of handling problems on their own and he is needed elsewhere (think Gandalf in The Hobbit). That wraps up the first act, complete with hooks leading into the second act.

[Feint's End]

One solution is to have two of the allies (Sask and Yanhai) kidnapped "off-screen" by the cultists, or a splinter group of the cultists. There are two clues leading to the location of the kidnappers; Master Wang and Po the cook say they will investigate one clue, the PC's will investigate the other.

The PC's go off to investigate, meet new NPCs, and have an adventure against the minor cultists. When they meet up again with Master Wang, he can feed them plot-relevant information, and they can go rescue the kidnapped allies.

After rescuing their allies, they discover this is just a small part of a larger scheme by the cult. One or both of the rescued allies decide they no longer want to adventure, or they head off with Master Wang who informs them they are now clearly capable of handling problems on their own and he is needed elsewhere (think Gandalf in The Hobbit). That wraps up the first act, complete with hooks leading into the second act.

Love the kidnap idea. Haven't even thought of that yet. The idea about Master Wang and Po (Po usually doesn't adventure at all though ... he is more of a pure social character) going for one of the clues is a great idea too since I can just say time is urgend so they have to split. Just have to find a believeable way to get them there.

The thing is I maybe don't want them to find out now, that this is all part of a bigger scheme. Maybe just feed them some basic information on the cult but let the trail run dry.

I already have somethin planned for what you suggested. After some more lighthearted adventure there will be a shift in tone (probably around level 6-7 ... they are currently 4). Master Wang will get beaten and heavily injured (he is lvl 12 btw) by a powerful cultist (using guile isntead of brute force) and they will be forced to retreat to some sort of refugee. There they will face a siege by corrupted spirits and cultists. After this event Master Wang will realize they no longer need him and leave them to be their own spirit hunters. They then will have the chance to pick allies out of the characters they have met thus far and start travelling with them together. This will conclude the first act of the campaign. From there on it will get increasingly deep and less light hearted (with the occasional comical release) as they fight increasingly powerful enemies and will uncover a threat big enough to destroy the empire ... yada yada yada.

I don't want it to happen yet though as they are still a bit green and haven't really established their characters. I also need some more time to get a feeling for them. The first act is basically intended for us all to find a way this works really well. That's why I asked for advice to get back to the more light hearted feel since I feel I went the serious road a bit too early (the plot heavy part) resulting in me having too many things to worry about at once.#

The kidnapping idea is gold though.

[Larrx]

Let them find the poisoner, and have a mini-boss fight.

They find some ambiguous intel in his base/on his person. It's unclear whether he was a bad guy, or just an ill-informed but well-intentioned amateur spirit hunter. He has a to-do list of . . . lets say three . . . spirits that need poisoning. These are threats to villages that the party didn't know about that have be dealt with quickly. The NPCs disagree about which threat is the most urgent, and dig their heels in. Let the party decide who to travel with as everyone heads off in different directions for little mini adventures. They'll regroup afterwards, and start heading for the end of act one in earnest.

Problems to anticipate:

They don't kill the poisoner. My players do this to me all the time, if this NPC has too much information to be befriended or interrogated, then you need some kind of good reason why he doesn't spill his guts if he lives through the fight.

Each PC decides to accompany a different NPC to a different village. Not necessarily a problem, but some groups have trouble running this sort of "split screen" session. I find them fun, your mileage may vary.

[Sian]

Have someone mistakenly pick up and leave with the item they're searching for, the person doing it being immune to being bullied in any way (say a noble thats the local small name, big ego) into giving them the item, in part due to misconceptions about either what the item is or what they want to use it for (believing them to be in league with either a rival of his, or corrupted spirits). forcing them to either convince him of letting them get it (protentially leading them off a sidetrack completing a chain of trades), or sneaking the item from where he stores it.

Kicker in the end would be that the item aren't actually what they're looking for but doing their hijinks they stumble on a clue about where it can actually be gotten.