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Altair_the_Vexed
2007-08-29, 03:39 PM
I have an old D&D module that I've converted to 3.5 rules. It's a reasonably well thought out game, with lots of nice flavour and background, a good plot and nice action available, and it feeds my "big story" plot really well... but it falls down a bit as the "mystery / investigation" adventure it's meant to be.

In essence, here's the plot (Mark, Helen, John - don't click here!):

A priest of a neighbouring nation is laying the path for invasion by weakening the monarch and through magically controlling him, driving the nation to war.
The foreign priest is in cahoots with the captain of the royal guard, to whom he has promised governorship of the nation.
The king has been afflicted with a beyond-normal-spell-lists magical insanity curse.
The king is issuing plainly mad decrees - this serves as the main plot hook as the scenario is written. "Gosh, the king seems to be mad: let's investigate!"


How on earth do I get the players' character involved - given that they're a mercenary bunch of pirate types who'll most likely just be sailing through, picking up supplies and not getting involved?
The original game also had an implausible Lawful Good High Priest who gave blatant instructions in the form of "clues" to the party, but refused to get directly involved.
The morals of the nations involved are generally neutral - so there's not much good vs evil to use as a motivator.

Help!

SadisticFishing
2007-08-29, 03:42 PM
I didn't read the thing cuz I don't have much time, but kill one of them! Or an NPC friend, or their families. Yippy!

Recursive
2007-08-29, 04:08 PM
Let them have some prior dealings with the king before he went mad. If they're mercenaries, then they contracted to do a job for him, and are now in need of payment...or better yet, the job has reached a crucial, highly complicated point where, without the king playing his planned role in the scheme, the players will be in very deep trouble...and the blighter's gone mad on them.

Of course, this doesn't work if you want to run the module right away, as the next thing that happens in your campiagn. If you want to run it sometime down the line, though, you've got plenty of time to arrange things so that the king's madness is a serious problem for the players.

AKA_Bait
2007-08-29, 04:14 PM
Let them have some prior dealings with the king before he went mad. If they're mercenaries, then they contracted to do a job for him, and are now in need of payment...or better yet, the job has reached a crucial, highly complicated point where, without the king playing his planned role in the scheme, the players will be in very deep trouble...and the blighter's gone mad on them.

Of course, this doesn't work if you want to run the module right away, as the next thing that happens in your campiagn. If you want to run it sometime down the line, though, you've got plenty of time to arrange things so that the king's madness is a serious problem for the players.

You could get away with something similar now though. Simply have them recieve a job offer, incredibly lucrative, regarding the king wanting to task them, outsiders, to perform a service he can't trust any of his vassals to handle as he suspects there may be tratiors among them. When they arrive, he's already chestnuts roasting on an open fire. If they want the money, they will try to figure out why he's nuts in the hope that that will get them paid.

Oeryn
2007-08-29, 05:02 PM
If this is a relatively friendly port, as it is, there's a decent chance that it'll be less so, after the invasion. That might be a factor.

Lemur
2007-08-29, 05:07 PM
If the PCs don't take the bait early on, have one of the king's mad decrees affect the party somehow. For example, there could be some kind of catch-22 law which makes the party pay a tax for practically everything they try to do, and makes it difficult to properly rest, resupply, and leave normally.

"In order to leave the kingdom, you must defeat the top of the moon, by decree of the king."

"How does that even make sense?"

"According to clause 39-A, asking questions about decrees made by the king incur a fine of 57 and exactly a third gold pieces."

"This is stupid."

"Clause 39-C: critcism of decrees made by the king incur a fine of 146 and five sevenths silver pieces."

After a bit of this, have someone try to hire the PCs to solve the problem, since by this point they should be wondering what the hell is going on.

CASTLEMIKE
2007-08-29, 11:53 PM
Let the crazy king have them arrested when they hit port for wearing the wrong color clothes and give them a geased mission. Consider having him make them knights or make them privateers with a letter of marque a nice thing for pirates to have a royal patron and a safe home port.

Darrin
2007-08-30, 07:52 AM
How on earth do I get the players' character involved - given that they're a mercenary bunch of pirate types who'll most likely just be sailing through, picking up supplies and not getting involved?


Some good suggestions so far, although I'd avoid the King hires/kills/imprisons/geases the PCs directly... a bit too heavy-handed.

Actually, I do like the "hire" option, but I'd use a mysterious third-party... masked, wearing a cloak, or working through intermediaries. Most players are motivated by gold, and if you give them some money up front and promise a hefty reward for finishing the job, that seems a lot more plausible than an insane monarch promising to pay them later. A third-party can provide extra incentives, feed them clues, pay for partial successes, etc. Money is a nice motivator, it primes the pump and gets things started.

You then have two options: 1) The "mysterious stranger" is playing them straight, wants to fix the situation with the King, but is in a high profile/precarious position and needs to rely on outsiders to do the dirty work. Or 2), the "mysterious stranger" is working for the bad guys and is planning to frame the PCs for the King's downfall/murder/etc.

If your players aren't always motivated by greed, here's another idea that may hook them in even faster: power.

The PCs are unwinding in a tavern after a long day... just as things start to quiet down, a ruckus is heard outside, and then armed soldiers in full royal livery burst in and surround one of the PCs. Just as things look to go a bit ugly, all of the soldiers drop to their knees and present their arms to the startled PC, and a nervous royal herald announces that the King's long-lost nephew has finally been found, and presents a royal proclamation declaring the PC is the Crown Prince and heir to the throne.

illyrus
2007-08-30, 08:07 AM
I'm with Darrin on this one.

As an alternative hire scenerio, have them hired by a seemingly normal guy. Perhaps a noble who has always respected and been loyal to his king was displaced from his title(but not his fortune) and is offering the PCs a healthy sum to help.

Or a wealthy merchant is offering the PCs a nice sum to help the situation. The merchant could have even been involved in the plot thinking of lucrative trade agreements, but the process is taking too long and he'd rather things go back to normal than continue losing money in the short term. If they figure out the merchant's plot, they could blackmail him to gain more money, turn him over to the authorities, or kill him and take his supplies (maybe he's a silk merchant, and they could slowly sell silk to later ports etc), etc.

Quietus
2007-08-30, 08:10 AM
If the PCs don't take the bait early on, have one of the king's mad decrees affect the party somehow. For example, there could be some kind of catch-22 law which makes the party pay a tax for practically everything they try to do, and makes it difficult to properly rest, resupply, and leave normally.

"In order to leave the kingdom, you must defeat the top of the moon, by decree of the king."

"How does that even make sense?"

"According to clause 39-A, asking questions about decrees made by the king incur a fine of 57 and exactly a third gold pieces."

"This is stupid."

"Clause 39-C: critcism of decrees made by the king incur a fine of 146 and five sevenths silver pieces."

After a bit of this, have someone try to hire the PCs to solve the problem, since by this point they should be wondering what the hell is going on.


"39-A and 39-C? What's clause 39-B?"

"Clause 39-B : All those asking what clause 39-B is incur a fine of six gold spitoons. And a chicken. With fur."

Prometheus
2007-08-30, 04:39 PM
If the quest if offered before the King goes (really) mad, it can serve the story in a greater way too. Perhaps it is with it that:
A) they discover the King's suspicions about its neighboring kingdom (espionage?)
B) are first introduced the extremist priest (perhaps are a royal escort?)
C) are really being ordered out of the way (a tedious/costly but pointless mission or in conjuntion with option B) by the captain of the royal guard (or another in cohoots) because something about them threatens the agenda (one is the legitimate heir or would have been standing guard at the magic/alchemical/herbal shop where the insanity poison ingredients are taken (of course that the ingredients are taken for this purpose would be another piece of the mystery the players would unravel)).

Falrin
2007-08-30, 06:11 PM
1) Confiscate their ship to 'go to war'. Depending on the enemy this can be a litlle mad.

2) Good Advisor/Daughter/Counceler knows evil plotting & scheming is going on. Asks outsiders to investigate.

3) Evil Advisor/Daughter/Counceler knows evil plotting & scheming is going on. Presure from surrounding = Asks 'incompetent' outsiders.

Fax Celestis
2007-08-30, 06:18 PM
Bureaucracy is always the answer. The king, who--due to $Issue_Or_Suspicion--is demanding that all vessels of transport that enter the city may not leave until $Arbitrarily_Far_Off_Date. The same may or may not hold true for travelers on foot (for consistency's sake, "yes").

In order to leave early, the king himself must provide the okay. One cannot acquire an audience with the king for $Equally_Arbitrarily_Far_Off_Date...unless one is to do a favor for someone with the ear of the king.

Your plot is the favor.

slexlollar89
2007-08-30, 07:42 PM
You could combine a few of these ideas, or have the BBEGs messenger "hire" the PCs to meet the king and try to make him sane, ths enabling the BBEGs country to continue trade. In actuality, the BBEG just wants the seas open for his invasion, nd is trying to get rid of piates and mercenaries. Make him try to kill the PCs when they try to meet the king, and make it look like the monarch is behind it.

This not only establishes a reson for the PCs to hate the BBEG, but also prompts the PCs to figure out why the king "hired the assassins". Upon lerning the King is crazy, and the BBEG hired the killers, the PCs will be itching for a fight.

Also impound their boat until the king lets them leave (via private meeting). And have the BBEG use other pirates (or hired privateer pirates) to hunt the PCs afterwards.

Grug
2007-08-30, 09:32 PM
I have a similar scenario in one of my Modules (The Speaker in Dreams). Here's how it goes down, tweaked for your specifics.

the players enter, and there's an initial calamity (attack by monsters). Ones they're dealt with, and NPC approaches and asks for help because more and more weird sh*t's goin down. The players get led to location A, B or C, following clues about similar stuff (each harder to learn about). A and B have monsters and have clues to area C. (like orders to cause a disturbance in a certain time and place, to allow the BBEG to get into the castle, place D, unnoticed.) Area C is a front that worship the crazy evil god that the BBEG does. The players travel and kill the LBEG. There's a party in their honor.

When they leave the party, they are ambushed by a large group that wants them dead. then when they sleep, another agent haunts their dreams and tells them to bow to the dark lord before they are killed. In the morning there's a big announcement that the local offiicial (king) orders something blatantly evil, like a forced draft of all the militia in the city, to be replaced by demon constables. Knowing that something is wrong with the king's behavoiur, the players infiltrate the keep and find out the BBEG is controlling everyone. Kill BBEG, kingdom saved. Aleternatively, BBEG escapes and more stuff happens.

Thinker
2007-08-30, 09:57 PM
Perhaps the king regains some of his sanity during a certain time of day, which happens to be when the PCs are at port. In his sane state he has some retention of what has been happening, but not enough to piece together all the clues. He hires the PCs under the guise of some other noble because when he tries to accuse one of his plotters everyone assumes its another crazy rant, especially since he cannot remember the same clues at the same time.

Human Paragon 3
2007-08-30, 10:33 PM
If the PCs are good and motivated by altruism (fat chance of that, but still) you could have them hired by the opposition to "investigate" the king's madness. Here you have two options: 1) The evil employer hired the PCs because he had to hire somebody to make the pretense and he thinks the PCs are so stupid they'll never figure it out or 2) Same as 1, except he explicitly states that it is a pretense and forbids them from actually investigating. The more they learn the more eager they are to actually solve the mystery.

purple gelatinous cube o' Doom
2007-08-30, 10:42 PM
I would think that if they're just sailing through, what you could do is to have the king place a quarantine on all traffic from ocean going vessels, or stop allowing trade by sea so they're stuck there. Meanwhile, they go into the closest tavern, and learn the news about the mad king, and either get paid to find out what the deal is or decide to do it themselves.

Altair_the_Vexed
2007-08-31, 02:03 AM
Thanks everyone - not only are there ideas that I'm going to use here, but there are enough of them that if one of my players stumbles upon this thread, they'll not know which I'm using.

:smallbiggrin: