Bounty board? Eh...

[spwack]

In short, I need some way to start reasonably episodic adventures in a way that makes sense. I'm running a game for a reasonably neutral group of "adventurers". Mercenary, grave-robbing, vermin-murdering "adventurers". So far I've used:
- Sheriff has a list of names and descriptions. 50 gold a head. Go get 'em
- The Wizarding guild can use old shiny things as spell focuses, and a few plebeians just found another grave of their founding fathers. Steal everything
- The Crown Warders are gearing up for the 17th crusade into the Blight. Kill everything, don't die. Simple enough

Anyone got good ideas I could use? Interesting plot ideas that don't start with the word 'tavern'?

[coredump]

I was just contemplating a campaign based on the TV show Killjoys.

Sci Fi series where the Killjoys are a politically neutral organization devoted to completing warrants. Depending on your rank in the organization (RAC for short) determines what types of warrants you can fill.
This gives you the option of letting some 'jobs' give a glimpse into a larger plot (if you want), and creates a reason for them doing certain kinds of missions.

[Slipperychicken]

You could have merchant guilds or companies looking for hired help. They could have things they need dead or removed (i.e. bandits, robber-barons, crazed knights, animals, monsters, undead), a shipment or caravan which needs protection from said things, stolen goods retrieved, caves cleared of monsters, rioting laborers who need to be subdued (killed is fine too), and so on.

There are also nobles' inviting the PCs to do some task or other. This makes more sense once they have a reputation.

You can try having a shifty old dude serving as an agent, much like a "Mr Johnson" from Shadowrun; people and organizations give him jobs, and he finds people (often nasty brutish folk like the PCs) to get them done. The jobs he gives them are tailored to the way the PCs actually complete missions. Obviously, he won't trust the PCs with anything requiring finesse, subtlety, or discretion at first, and never will if the PCs don't consistently display those skills. Of course, if the PCs are obnoxious psychotic brutes (let's face it: they probably are), then they'll find plenty of heads to smash.

[spwack]

I find the whole issue with murderhobos only have occurs with groups that have members from both camps. If a group has Chaotic Neutral rogues stabbing everything in sight, and someone that just wants fun exploration and RP, it's nearly impossible to cater to both. But if everyone wants to go on a killing spree... well. That's a whole other story.

[KorvinStarmast]

The trick to having an agent who "under the table" alerts these PC's to various missions, and who isn't running a tavern, is to set up in your social setting who an information broker is. Examples ...


Local who runs a warehouse.
Local who runs a bazaar
Local who runs the wagon wheel repair shop
Local smith who repairs farming implements
The guy who hires and fires lumberjacks for the local timber concession


Having set that source of information up, or more than one, the people of substance who cannot get their hands dirty and need some murderhoboes know who to talk to. These information/job brokers keep an eye out for murderhoboes, or know someone who does. (They also take a cut of the purse, or course).

This set up allows you to provide "plausible deniability" for the people of power. You can also create mission descriptions that are Incomplete. Sometimes, the murder hobo team kidnaps, steals, or kills ... and the victim or the victim's family gets an urge to pay back.

This set up also makes the need to negotiate with the fence/contact, and to access lore, aracna, knowledge, and skill checks to avoid blunding into most situations.

Good fun.

[pibby]

There's a series on Youtube called the West Marches (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGxPvdeKQuo&list=PL-oTJHKXHicSxKhs57c2hYuoPcayPoBJc) where the "quests" come from the new players to the show or rumors from town.

You could also create hooks for quests by placing mysterious items around the world that may spark the players' curiosity. Like in LMoP, there is a mysterious map found along with some treasure the PCs find.

And although this next example has to do with MMOs, Extra Credits made a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur6GQp5mCYs) on how to create a more compelling quest that isn't just kill quests, fetch quests, FedEx quests, collect quests, or escort quests. It takes a lot more effort to do so and you don't have to go as far as making the players bust out RL books (in my opinion you really shouldn't since DM experience has told me that most people aren't as academically capable as you wish they were).

[Thesamonman]

1) Found you Spwack....
2) If you dare give the fcking Lazer dwarf any more chance to go on a murder spree, I will execute him. I am fine with being given jobs that don't require finesses, but we both know what would happen if the fact that Dwarf is winning goes to his head.

[Aetol]

Bringing exterior conflict to the forum is against the forum rules.

[manny2510]

I'm a bad person that wants to see where this goes. Anyway I suggest introducing smart enemies. If you introduce out of combat lethality you can really screw with players to the point where murderhobo is no longer useful.

[ruy343]

Sometimes, it's helpful to not think of things as "quests" to get adventurers going. Sometimes, it's best to bring the action to them. Maybe a wizard gets drunk in the tavern and instead of spying on them as ordered, he attacks them, leading them to track down who hired him. Maybe a dragon set up shop nearby, and decides to make a flyby to the town to intimidate them and/or ask for treasure for its horde. Maybe something that they've picked up in the past has a history, and NPCs begin treating them differently or mistaking them for someone else, leading to an assassination attempt to steal the item (the one ring was just a useful trinket until the Lord of the Rings was written; sometimes magic item properties escape identify spells).

I never have a hard time getting my adventurers to go on adventures when I bring the adventure to them :)

[Slipperychicken]

Bringing exterior conflict to the forum is against the forum rules.

Also, we have private messages for a reason.

There's no need to drag personal baggage into threads when you can haul it about in the relative privacy of your outbox.

[Steampunkette]

I agree with bringing the adventure.

Skip the bounty board and have a group of soldiers storm into town. Make the players fight to defend themselves instead of fighting for coin, once in a while.

Have an evil wizard send exterminators after the party to keep them from getting hired to stop his wicked plans.

Kidnap a party member's relative for sacrifice to Yog Sothoth and make the adventure revwnge motivated.

Players tend to respond aggressively to direct threats to themselves.

[Knaight]

I actually recently ran an episodic campaign, and while there were some genre differences (it was more space opera), there's overlap, if the sort that is going to involve a lot of mercantile companies. Examples:
1) A mercantile company wants a competitive advantage stolen from a rival. It turns out that the stolen goods were a ploy by the company being stolen from to discredit their competitor.
2) A rich noble wants someone to track down their estranged child and talk them into coming back. The child wants nothing to do with it.
3) A mining guild lost a caravan full of an exotic and volatile mineral, and wants it retrieved. Unfortunately a bandit coalition built around it, and is trying to extract the mineral for themselves without blowing themselves up.
4) A pirate that the PCs humiliated is out for revenge, and trying to kill them all.
5) A small cabal of secretive wizards has been uncovered doing transmutation research. They're trying to make a new plague, but on the other hand they pay better than anyone else around.

[kaoskonfety]

I've used design for early levels a few times over the years. Expend the idea from bounties to "jobs for local NPC's" and it expands a fair bit...

The Fallen Goddess - THE restaurant to be at in the setting - has open contracts for;
- Live (and undamaged) giant ants (the flesh MUST be fresh and the acid glands that are used to tenderize some meats stop beeing effective within a day or so)
- Rare herbs (come up with a fanciful name, it only grows in dragon dung, the Underdark, NeoOutuge piles, cast off from black oozes...etc.) for bonus points the plant must be returned alive, and cannot be... exposed to sunlight or temperatures over 4 Celsius... or whatever seems interesting and tricky, but do-able
- rare beast parts (Mantacore spines was a favourite, no one ever took the contract for unicorn milk or couatil venom...)
The beasts are generally not treasure hoarding types so the pay out on the contract was the "bulk" of the reward

The blacksmith needs... (as a quest chain/side questing for "upgrades")
- a (dwarven elven gnomish) forge or tools from an orc/slime/mephit/balrog infested keep
- the treasure of (some dwarven place) - its charcoal of the highest quality, if you are not a smith you don't get the big deal, if you are a blacksmith you note he's kinda ripping you off
- ingots of the crazy metal the Drow/Derro/Storm Giants use in their (whatever) I must have some!!!
- elemental fire and elemental water

and so on....

[Thisguy_]

Give 'em an artifact from days gone by to set them up on the trail to (thing). A few history checks and they'll be drooling at a quest hook. I'm a fan of items as hooks.

My DM put us all on a boat and used a deactivated Warforged as a hook, which was really cool. Perhaps they discover an art piece from a historic site way away from where it's supposed to be in mid-dungeon crawl. If they don't think it's weird, have whoever they sell it to comment on it. If they don't take the bait, they don't take the bait.

What was that about a laser dwarf?

[ad_hoc]

They could be in a frontier town and the quests could be about helping to establish the town.

It can be about clearing out nearby monsters, acquiring rare supplies, etc. The quests can be broad like having a list of things the town needs to have to be sustainable and leave it up to the PCs to figure out how to do that. For example, the town needs a wall. How do? Set up a few ways the PCs can get the necessary supplies so there are different levels of success.

This also makes it easy to discover lost ruins and such when out exploring.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Make the world a living place. If in episode 3 the princess has been kidnapped and her father hires the group after which they find her and bring her back, in episode 5 the princess could visit them. Covered in a dark mantle of anonymity she hires the group to kill a few of the guys that held her but got away. One of them might try to avoid getting skewered by shouting something about a hidden treasure. If the players bite, that could be episode 6. If they don't bite they might meet the guys brother in episode 8 who tells a similar story. And when the princess disappears again in episode 9 the tower she was in has a giant hole in the side. She had several countermeasures installed, who- or whatever did this either walked straight through a locked fence or got to the top of the tower from the outside, got shot with a ballista bolt, lost enough blood to fill a large puddle, was attacked by at least one dog who apparently didn't realize how far down the ground was and still got away.

The downside is that the world might start to feel small, all the problems are about a handful of characters, the upside is that all the small adventures really feel like a single campaign. So yeah, maybe start them out as simple bounty hunters going after the Sheriff's most wanted list, but make sure those first one or two hits earn them enough fame or infamy to start getting the interesting assignments, or let the interesting assignments be a direct result of those jobs. Maybe Weird Lou had a map in his pocket, Crazy Joe has some known associates who need hunting down of maybe Lady Murderella's grave is suddenly empty 3 nights after her burial. The players can always choose not to follow up on leads, sure, but some plot hooks are just too good to resist. And a final advantage is that you can try to let them decide what they'll do next session. If they don't think that map looks interesting you don't need to prepare to run that cave, at least not for the next session.

[Tanarii]

Set them up as pawns between two or more competing factions. Better yet ... have them working for a third secret faction that's trying to start trouble between the two factions. That'll spice things up.

Here's one off the top of my head : Have some members of a local gang that runs gambling and protection rackets hire them to go raid a competitors (well protected) business. No killing required of course, it's just business, but accidents happen. But they're to make it clear they represent a consortium thatd appreciate it if these upstarts moved out of town.

When in reality it's a few concerned citizens hoping to start a gang war that'll knock out op oth groups. Of course, things rapidly spin out of control and spill into the streets ... and now the characters have to clear things up somehow before the gangs before the law catches them. Or worse the gangs do.

Edit: damn thread necromancy :/


Of course, if the PCs are obnoxious psychotic brutes (let's face it: they probably are), then they'll find plenty of heads to smash.IMX most PCs are borderline obnoxious psychotic brutes regardless of alignment. God love 'em. :)

[gullveig]

Here... Grab your d20, roll a bunch of times, your adventure is done.
http://www.hyperborea.tv/uploads/4/4/6/6/44662451/asshrandom-adv-gen.pdf

Don't be afraid to railroad the hooks. If the players are aware that the game are meant to be episodic adventures, they generally don't bother as long as there is a good adventure ahead.

[Hudsonian]

I'm thinking of starting a Sword Art Online meets Saw for a low RP high smash and grab, total randomness monster killing extravaganza so that I can have a lunch group that runs a long time and levels up rather quickly just to give me and my players a little bit of combat expertise. (All of us are new to D&D) And one of my PC's (a wizard type player) really likes to find alternative methods of killing. He was my best worst nightmare when I was considering becoming a DM.

Probably only 1 or two encounters per session. very video game style with "Save Points" so I can have plenty of TPK's to figure out where to draw the line in real game play for a true quest line.

20 floors of monster smashing goodness. Find some sort of hellish Demon at the end that triggers apocalypse and the characters die no matter what. Natural 20 on a check gives a 5% chance of being deified Greek style.