DMs: What would you do with this adventure seed / Players: What would you like it be?

[Jon_Dahl]

My players have recently received a vague mission. The mission details are as follows.
- A human has been kidnapped.
- The kidnapping has happened fairly close to the capital of the capital of a large kingdom (that is very busy with four wars).
- There are some eyewitness reports but that's the best they have. It's not much anyway.
- The mission is said to be a rescue mission: rescue the human.
- Someone will pay the PCs 800 gp if the human is rescued.
- The campaign world is Greyhawk and it's very much like the world presented in the Core books.

The players and the PCs will know more on the next session. But what will I tell them? What should happen? What would you like to happen? You can be vague or specific. Any feedback will be appreciated.

APL is 8. Therefore whatever happens, it should be challenging enough for four 8th-level PCs. I wouldn't want to tell you the details on the PCs, because I don't want to tailor the adventure to the party. That's one of the reasons why I'm here. I tailor things too much for them anyway. No tailoring this time.

[Fidilarfiin]

Very vague, if you are building a mystery I would make sure that the eyewitnesses at least drop hints that lead to connections. Will they meet the family of the missing person? Visit the missings home, talk to that persons employer? I love the mystery game, layers of intrigue can be piled on to build motive and associations between unlinked people who have had a hand in the abduction.

As a PC i would be grilling anyone and everyone especially the person offering the reward.

As a DM I would thread out all the leads to see where they are going and if they are connected or just dead ends, and there should be dead ends that lead to other things no related. Do you know where are you going with this? Is this an intro to a bigger plot?

Also when ever my players get close to figuring something out I adjust music, lights, effects and basically mess with them....the investigator who is hot on the trail might be standing too close the fire. You will always want something that lets them know they are on the right track. If you are too loose with your direction they are going to ignore the quest.

[John Longarrow]

Items that stand out:
1) Compensation: 800 gp is about right for a 3rd or 4th level party. At 8th it just isn't that much. It does how ever say that the person taken is of some importance. Are they connected with the government?
2) Backgroud: Are there a lot of kidnappings going on or is this isolated? Could it be related to one of the wars going on?
3) Party: Are they known for investigative work? If not, why would someone contact them? Or is this a general request they are responding to?

Giving some framework will allow us to put together a plot that fits your world even if it isn't tailored to your party.

I'd suggest changing the compensation though. Either have it be a 'Heroic action' or have another reason the party would want to get involved. At their level 200gp each shouldn't be much of an incentive.

For who was taken, I'd suggest it be the head architect for the city water/sewage system. Guy like that would know a LOT about how to hurt the city or smuggle stuff in. The city itself wouldn't be trying to find him as his position doesn't directly support the war effort. His family may be turning to other sources for help though.

basic adventure I'd set up is hunting him down and rescuing him from the local thieves guild. They would want his knowledge to aid them during these times of trouble. Lots of gather info to find out who took him, lots of ambushes while they figure out who has him where. Once they find where he is, then its a crawl through a trap infested thieves guild headquarters.

[nedz]

I would likely link it into the politics of the setting - which I don't know, but it sounds like some robust diplomacy might be involved.

Or I would use it to set up a new plot line - which may, or may not, loop back into one of the wars or into someone's left field.

Going with the left field idea - because it's more fun.

The Human has been kidnapped by some changelings who want him for because he is a child they planted some years ago.

I'll park this here as a starter for someone else to pick up.

[The Grue]

As a DM I would thread out all the leads to see where they are going and if they are connected or just dead ends, and there should be dead ends that lead to other things no related.

Can I just jump in here and say, please do not do this. Every clue you drop should lead to the conclusion. You do not need to build dead ends and red herrings into your story, your players will create plenty of their own.

[nedz]

Can I just jump in here and say, please do not do this. Every clue you drop should lead to the conclusion. You do not need to build dead ends and red herrings into your story, your players will create plenty of their own.

It depends on your players. I just ran a scenario where I did this, and the players took the bee line - zip. I usually have NPCs who are either unreliable or try to use the PCs for their own interests - which adds more depth.

[ATHATH]

My suggestion:
First, determine what each NPC thinks about major topics (the war, the current leadership, etc.) and their relationships with other NPCs. Then, design how the whole thing plays out (where everyone is and what they're doing at the scene of the crime), and figure out what each of the NPCs knows and any distortions of the story, if there are any. You should then have enough information to be ready for what the PCs ask for.

Alternatively, if you're really good at improv, just come up with the relationships and opinions of the NPCs. Whatever the PCs think happened is what happened, and any plot holes are the result of "misinformation by the NPCs" (you'd have to come up with a motive on the spot, though).

[nedz]

Alternatively, if you're really good at improv, just come up with the relationships and opinions of the NPCs. Whatever the PCs think happened is what happened, and any plot holes are the result of "misinformation by the NPCs" (you'd have to come up with a motive on the spot, though).

I like doing this sort of thing occasionally — not so often that the players notice though — but the OP is trying not to tailor the encounter to the PCs, which this very much is.

[OldTrees1]

Something was going on and the perpetrators were trying to keep it secret. But fool proof plans underestimate the ingenuity of fools. Some fool was in the wrong place at the wrong time and needed to disappear despite the red flags a disappearance would cause. Still they thought they had the pockets needed to quiet the story. The fool's family was told a convincing story and paid to believe it. Eyewitnesses were paid for their silence. But such measures always miss something. A friend of the fool is worried (unreasonably perhaps, but accurately worried) and has been making every effort to find out why the fool left town. They are almost at the end of their rope (only have 800gp to pay the PCs) but have gathered some "off the record"/"I can't say yadda yadda" testimony from some of the eyewitnesses (and some slick con artists). Believing the worst (a kidnapping) they turn to anyone group that would listen. The PCs are her next hope.

1) The PCs have a primary NPC to talk with and who knew the victim.
2) They have testimonies and can try to get more but they have to sift between truth, cowardly lies, and greedy lies.
3) The kidnappers have left evidence through the initial event and through their cover up efforts.
4) Uncovering and going after the kidnappers hints into the next adventure
5) The fool is probably a goner. However speak with dead acts as another hint.

[GreyBlack]

My players have recently received a vague mission. The mission details are as follows.
- A human has been kidnapped.
- The kidnapping has happened fairly close to the capital of the capital of a large kingdom (that is very busy with four wars).
- There are some eyewitness reports but that's the best they have. It's not much anyway.
- The mission is said to be a rescue mission: rescue the human.
- Someone will pay the PCs 800 gp if the human is rescued.
- The campaign world is Greyhawk and it's very much like the world presented in the Core books.

The players and the PCs will know more on the next session. But what will I tell them? What should happen? What would you like to happen? You can be vague or specific. Any feedback will be appreciated.

APL is 8. Therefore whatever happens, it should be challenging enough for four 8th-level PCs. I wouldn't want to tell you the details on the PCs, because I don't want to tailor the adventure to the party. That's one of the reasons why I'm here. I tailor things too much for them anyway. No tailoring this time.

To be honest? At 8th level, I'd ignore it as a player. Unless I had some personal investment al in the kidnapped character (e.g. a good friend or an NPC we had previously met who had been kind to us), I would say there would be better uses of my PC talents than chasing after some random kidnappers.

The model I use to gauge appropriate challenges for PCs is scale. Levels 1-6, you're helping out a town, maybe two, with local problems. A local villager has been kidnapped, to me, falls in that category.

7-13, you're generally helping out a kingdom. You're known to the rulers, but you're not going to be trusted with any sensitive information. Maybe a diplomat went missing en route to a nearby ally, and the ruler suspects foul play, so your band is hired to investigate.

13-17, you are champions of the kingdom. You've proven you can be trusted with sensitive information and can hold against the neighboring armies. A Manchurian candidate plot has been discovered, and your band must locate the ruler of the kingdom to restore order to the kingdom.

18+, you're gods. Anything short of saving the Material Plane is beneath you. The messenger of your deity is trapped in the Hells, and your god cannot spare anyone from his angelic army to save him, and so you mortals are conscripted to his services.

In my mind, a random human (even with a significant reward attached) is still just an ordinary human. Now, make him the regional diplomat? Boom. An undercover secret service agent? Even better, because that plants future plot threads. Moral of the story is that the ante needs to get upped significantly for the PCs to take notice.

[Jon_Dahl]

This is not a complaint:
I'm surprised that you guys want (or at least consider) this to be cloak 'n dagger adventure. I was originally thinking that a band of brigands led by an ogre mage in a human form kidnapped the guy for the sole purpose of earning ransom. But please carry on.
That was not a complaint.

[Jon_Dahl]

Items that stand out:
1) Compensation: 800 gp is about right for a 3rd or 4th level party. At 8th it just isn't that much. It does how ever say that the person taken is of some importance. Are they connected with the government?
2) Backgroud: Are there a lot of kidnappings going on or is this isolated? Could it be related to one of the wars going on?
3) Party: Are they known for investigative work? If not, why would someone contact them? Or is this a general request they are responding to?

Giving some framework will allow us to put together a plot that fits your world even if it isn't tailored to your party.

1. There's no information. I can decide that according to the feedback I get from this thread. It's still open. Totally open.
2. No information. What do you think? Should there be or should there not be lots of kidnappings going on?
3. I think the players themselves are not very good at investigative work. This is a general request, open to anyone. In this case, they took the responsibility of rescuing the guy.

[Ettina]

2. No information. What do you think? Should there be or should there not be lots of kidnappings going on?

It depends.

In one campaign I'm working on, there's been a lot of kidnappings. One of the plot hooks could be searching for a teenager's kidnapped parents, and an important NPC will get kidnapped shortly after the players meet him. In this case, the kidnapping are motivated by a dictator a) wanting to remove opposition and b) wanting to farm Liquid Pain. Both of those motivations lend themselves to multiple kidnappings rather than just one. With multiple kidnappings, you look for what all victims had in common, and who would have reason to go after all of them. In this campaign, the players can find out fairly easily that several victims expressed negative opinions about the dictator.

Alternatively, if it's only one kidnapping, then it's about something unique to the victim of the kidnapping. What is that? Is he working an important job that they want to interfere with? Does he know something important? Is it merely the fact of his birth that makes him important? Also, a single kidnapping makes it much more likely that the kidnapper is someone close to the victim, as opposed to a relative stranger like my dictator character. For example, the most common kidnappers of children are noncustodial parents - while these kids may not have unique importance to the world at large, they're enormously important to the kidnapping parent. For an adult, a romantic ex, a friend, or a business partner would be a likely kidnapper. (Or a parent, still.)

[GreyBlack]

1. There's no information. I can decide that according to the feedback I get from this thread. It's still open. Totally open.
2. No information. What do you think? Should there be or should there not be lots of kidnappings going on?
3. I think the players themselves are not very good at investigative work. This is a general request, open to anyone. In this case, they took the responsibility of rescuing the guy.

For 200 gold? That's not a lot to go on, and if this isn't an appropriately scaled encounter, you may not see interest in the contract. Again, you'll need to fill in why this person is important. So, going with your idea of "Band of bandits led by an ogre-mage"? Let's see if we can't figure out a way to hook the players...

On accepting the contract, you tell them that a local governor has gone missing en route to the capital. Due to the increasing instability in the area (you did say that there were many wars going on), the regional government is concerned that the governor was kidnapped by a neighboring country, and potentially being held for ransom. The players are being hired to retrieve the governor (preferably unharmed) from whoever took him. Base pay is 800 gp plus hazard pay based on what they face (probably kick the pay up to around 600 per person overall).

As the party tracks their way, following the trail of the governor, you come across a site where there was obviously a battle. The players find the governors seal, and tracks leading into the forest. This band of bandits was hired by a powerful crime lord, who wants to escalate tensions between the other nations to prop up his business selling weapons to all sides. The players fight, and eventually recover the governor from the bandits. The governor, it so happens, was carrying vital information for the national government, and will pay handsomely for the information to be delivered, or at least for an escort to the capital.

[Jon_Dahl]

Did I manage to kill off my own thread?

[Fidilarfiin]

Can I just jump in here and say, please do not do this. Every clue you drop should lead to the conclusion. You do not need to build dead ends and red herrings into your story, your players will create plenty of their own.

What i was trying to say is to be ready for some of the conclusions they are going to come up with, the characters are going to come up with all sorts of garbage that could be happening, and its not your job to tell them that the conclusions they are coming up with are right or wrong, that is half the fun of being a DM. I like to watch them riddle **** out and argue about it, so be prepared for this ahead of time, i wasn't suggesting building in dead ends but more knowing when to cut them off when they are walking the wrong way because you have already thought through that possibility.

You can never tell what a PC will come up with, you can only throw obstacles in their way to steer them in the right direction and knowing how to lead them back once they veer off your path, with out them knowing it, is better than winging it. Improvisation is great but if you didn't think through at least the major possibilities they could come up then your going to be stumbling for answers when they go down that road. The best is when they come up with something that you didn't even think of and it fits better into the story then what you came up with, and you just let them think they figured it out and you wrap that into your original thread and run with it.

I give PC's allot of liberty to explore and create their own brand of chaos if they wish, because no matter what they are doing i have a way to get them where i want them. the guy who taught me D&D would always talk about the Illusion of choice and it really is what keeps people playing..or perhaps its our sessions are 10 hours and 10 beers long with 8 guys and no rush....and they all get to wander around like drunken adventures living the dream.

[Troacctid]

Mysteries are boring. I'd hand the players a lead to follow and have it result in encounters with bad guys. For an 8th level party, I think I'd go with Mind Flayers kidnapping people to experiment on them. The players would be led to believe that a nearby kobold warren was responsible for the kidnapping, but when they investigate, they learn that kobolds are being kidnapped too. Turns out the Mind Flayers are infiltrating the city using a front organization of some kind, and taking victims of all races. The players have to infiltrate the organization and defeat the Illithid menace and their Voidmind servants. Or, if they choose to ignore the hook for some reason, the Mind Flayers will eventually stage a silent coup and take over the city.

[Jon_Dahl]

Here's my current idea:
A long time ago, a phasm ascended from the Underdark. It took a human form, spoke with some village elders and enjoyed listening to their stories, especially about dragons. It became so inspired by the stories that it ventured to meet one, and eventually it met a silver dragon. The dragon didn't like this is annoying creature of anarchy that was clearly posing as a human and politely asked it to leave. This was awfully boring for the phasm and it felt insulted. It wanted to do something that would be against the dragon's ethics and decided to gather a band of brigands. It had no plan, it just wanted to do something that the dragon wouldn't like, even though it was extremely unlikely that the dragon would ever hear about the band, since it had travelled about 120 miles from the dragon's lair before forming the band (It had wanted to walk a bit to clear its head).

In order to control the band of brigands, the human-form phasm takes the form of a young adult silver dragon (also part of the philosophical revenge) when needed, and the brigands do all the hard work and it just enjoys its life in the bandit hideout. It has grown a taste for wine. The brigands hate it, but they hate each other too, so it's nothing new. Now the band has a hostage that the PCs must rescue. The hostage is an intelligent man and the phasm enjoys having long conversations with it, even though the subjects change very frequently.

In the first encounter, the PCs will either get ambushed by the brigands or discover the ambush. They must interrogate a brigand (very easy) or track where they have come from.
2nd encounter: The brigands defend their hideout and their loot, they don't give a damn about the "dragonman". They call it to help them, but it doesn't care: the battle seems too intensive anyway.
3rd encounter: The phasm is cornered and it's willing to negotiate a deal. It has lots of gold and some magical items, and it can help the PCs out if they need help with something. The hostage can go, of course. It can reveal the dragon's hideout ("Do you know anything interesting about monsters or gold?"). It gets bored quickly, turns into a silver dragon and attacks. Interrogating the phasm will quickly reveal the dragon's hideout.
4th encounter: The silver dragon has been slain and an old blink dog lives in the cave. It says that it saw a red dragon fly into the cave two months ago and it was too scared to help, since it's old and without a pack. The dragon had ripped it's friend, the silver dragon, apart and took its hoard with it (using some sort of magic perhaps). Now the silver dragon's remain are buried and the dog guards its friends memory.

Until much later the PCs will encounter the red dragon, when they are powerful enough.

Sounds ok?