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Pinjata
2018-12-10, 05:49 PM
Sometimes very irrelevant, yet somehow emotionally powerful events draw my PCs and really flesh out the world for them. In this thread we shortly describe events that DMs may throw at their players but are not "find X of Special turnips" or "protect the farm from Unimaginative wolves. Small, low key things.

1.) A woman has murdered a young man. It has turned out it is her lover who was also in love to another woman. She denies all involvement, even if Gray shroom that killed a man was found in a broth she cooked for him. She claims she is innocent. (but she really did it. Some stern interrogation will make her crack)

Shinizak
2018-12-10, 07:52 PM
A local village witch is being hunted for murder. If found and pressed she will reluctantly confess. Turns out she's covering for a young teen who accidentally killed a man in a freak accident.

Erloas
2018-12-10, 08:55 PM
I think a starting quest that is actually a red herring is a good way to go too. Start with your generic lead in, save village, collect special item, and throw in some seemingly inconsequential background things as they do that. Once the first task is complete that is it, but then have the minor thing from before start to become more important.

What got me thinking that is the mcguffin, aka money stolen, at the start of Psycho, that turns out to be completely unimportant once the movie actually gets going. It is a blatant misdirection.

Kardwill
2018-12-11, 07:21 AM
For some time, the community has been plagued by some threat, and everyone is worried when 3 "magically active" teenagers/young adults disapear (apprentices of the local wizard/member of a "supernatural club" at the local college?), some of their belongings found in the local park/forest.

Turns out the Big Bad is innocent, this time. The 3 youngsters tried a ritual to protect their loved ones, and ended up calling a playful Fey who turned them into trees to "protect" them. When found (or invoked again using the same ritual), the fey is willing to free them, if gifted properly (said gifts are unexpensive and not really dangerous, but getting them is a pain).
Or if a PC is willing to get owe them a favor. Feys LOVE debts and favors.

Kardwill
2018-12-11, 07:25 AM
I think a starting quest that is actually a red herring is a good way to go too. Start with your generic lead in, save village, collect special item, and throw in some seemingly inconsequential background things as they do that. Once the first task is complete that is it, but then have the minor thing from before start to become more important.

What got me thinking that is the mcguffin, aka money stolen, at the start of Psycho, that turns out to be completely unimportant once the movie actually gets going. It is a blatant misdirection.


Yeah, this kind of misdirection can be cool; Get the PCs all fired up about their invitation to the annual King's Ball, but the real adventure starts when the go to pick up one of their friends and something unexpected happens that they have to solve before getting to the "big" event, for example.

JAL_1138
2018-12-11, 08:07 AM
1) There’s been a death at a high-society party. A beloved community figure was killed in a tragic incident when a blind man threw a sprig of mistletoe at him. However, the blind man claims someone else guided his aim and assured him no harm would come from it. The blind man can’t give a description of the person, but others describe it as the sort of thing a well-known trickster might do—it’s “very Loki.”

2) A dojo of monks is having trouble. They seem to be unable to draw upon sufficient reserves of the esoteric energy that fuels their mystical martial-arts powers. They’d like someone to investigate why they’ve all found themselves very low-qi.

3) The palace guards require someone to run a critical errand to a local blacksmith. The previous batch of keys to the palace locks were made poorly, out of metal that was too soft, and most of them have been so worn down or damaged by use that they no longer function. The guards need the players to take one of the few remaining functional ones to the blacksmith to have two dozen copies made, without letting anyone else know they’re running very low on keys.

...I’ll see myself out.

Aneurin
2018-12-11, 08:52 AM
1.) The PCs wake up badly hung over in an alley. They need to piece together what happened last night, and where all their things went.

2.) The PCs wake up badly hung over in an alley. They have no idea where they are, and need to find their way home... or to whatever they're meant to be doing.

3.) Guard duty. The PCs are hired (or assigned) to prevent a thief from stealing something moderately valuable.

4.) The characters are hired to find a missing daughter. Turns out, she isn't missing - she just ran away with her boyfriend and is quite happy where she is, thank you.



I quite like 1 as a campaign opener. It lets people walk through their characters a little and develop them, and introduce new players fairly gradually to mechanics if necessary, and it's quite fun. Ditto with 2, really. They're not hugely emotive, but they're hard to screw up and give plenty of character development opportunities - especially if you have the players describe what happened whenever they fill in a blank in their memories of the previous night.

3 again offers a chance to practice working together initially, and low-stakes failure chance. If they screw up the job they get fired, but the world doesn't end and they don't die - and they can always go after the thief if they've been suitably humiliated...

4 can be emotive or not depending on how you want to run it. My inclination would be to handle it with pushy, over-bearing parents and, subsequently, plenty of low-stakes moral ambiguity. Do the PCs really have the right to interfere? Do they want to?

solidork
2018-12-11, 10:13 AM
In one game, one of the PCs broke into someone's house because they were suspicious of them and we ended up having to do community service to appease the guards. We helped this old woman harvest her crops, and it turned out to be a fun little character moment where we used our powerful spells and magic items to do something really mundane.

1of3
2018-12-11, 10:57 AM
Numbering is hard.

2.) A member of a monstrous species is rampaging through the village. They will ignore calls to calm down and solve things peacefully. The monster is in fact committing suicide by PCs out of grief. (Done with another Werwolf in a Forsaken campaign.)

Pinjata
2018-12-13, 05:26 PM
1) There’s been a death at a high-society party. A beloved community figure was killed in a tragic incident when a blind man threw a sprig of mistletoe at him. However, the blind man claims someone else guided his aim and assured him no harm would come from it. The blind man can’t give a description of the person, but others describe it as the sort of thing a well-known trickster might do—it’s “very Loki.”

2) A dojo of monks is having trouble. They seem to be unable to draw upon sufficient reserves of the esoteric energy that fuels their mystical martial-arts powers. They’d like someone to investigate why they’ve all found themselves very low-qi.

3) The palace guards require someone to run a critical errand to a local blacksmith. The previous batch of keys to the palace locks were made poorly, out of metal that was too soft, and most of them have been so worn down or damaged by use that they no longer function. The guards need the players to take one of the few remaining functional ones to the blacksmith to have two dozen copies made, without letting anyone else know they’re running very low on keys.

...I’ll see myself out.

I have to admit - it made me laugh :D

Saintheart
2018-12-14, 02:48 AM
1) There’s been a death at a high-society party. A beloved community figure was killed in a tragic incident when a blind man threw a sprig of mistletoe at him. However, the blind man claims someone else guided his aim and assured him no harm would come from it. The blind man can’t give a description of the person, but others describe it as the sort of thing a well-known trickster might do—it’s “very Loki.”

2) A dojo of monks is having trouble. They seem to be unable to draw upon sufficient reserves of the esoteric energy that fuels their mystical martial-arts powers. They’d like someone to investigate why they’ve all found themselves very low-qi.

3) The palace guards require someone to run a critical errand to a local blacksmith. The previous batch of keys to the palace locks were made poorly, out of metal that was too soft, and most of them have been so worn down or damaged by use that they no longer function. The guards need the players to take one of the few remaining functional ones to the blacksmith to have two dozen copies made, without letting anyone else know they’re running very low on keys.

...I’ll see myself out.

You could send the party off to acquire the Tesseract. That's a Loki quest.

RedMage125
2018-12-14, 11:42 AM
2) A dojo of monks is having trouble. They seem to be unable to draw upon sufficient reserves of the esoteric energy that fuels their mystical martial-arts powers. They’d like someone to investigate why they’ve all found themselves very low-qi.



Very funny, but a minor note, here. You should have used the Japanese Romanji for that pronunciation of the word as "ki". By spelling it like this, you are indicating the Chinese pronunciation of "chi". The letter Q when used in Chinese has a "ch" sound. So "qi" is pronounced "chi". Lots of letters do that when converting Chinese to English characters. "Zh", for example sounds a lot like a "j". So "Zhou" sounds more like "Joe" than "Zowe".

/language lesson.

Hand_of_Vecna
2018-12-14, 02:37 PM
Since everyone is having trouble with numbering.

x+1. Entering a magic shop the party finds that all of the animals have gotten loose, but are still in the building. There are numerous creatures each with several default solutions. Some hiding animals can be found with search, or lured out with calls, or treats which could be purchased or cooked, a larger ill tempered animal could be subdued with combat or animal handling, something fast moving requires a trap or planning to corner it.

x+2. In a 0-level game the PC's decided they wanted to join the thieves guild. The first challenge was to actually make a contact and convince guild to consider the PC's. After several nights of what amounts to play pickpocketing including tactics for creating distractions when working in groups and running a parkour maze the PC's faced their test. Each was stripped of all possessions and given a peasant's outfit and told to come back with money. The how was left entirely to them. The least criminally inclined party member went and borrowed money from his uncle, but got into the guild no questions asked.

x+3. A Wyrmling Copper Dragon Sorceror 1 with ranks in Hide/Move Silently or Prestidigitation from a feat has decided to have some fun in your tavern. He has discovered that pigs are the funniest animal thus all of his fun will be pig themed. He begins with repeated uses of flavor to make everything from roast beef to beer and water taste like ham, color to make the towels pink, and makes pig noises in far corners to cover his own laughter. As the evening progresses he will have to make will saves against laughing out loud the more animated the PC's reactions the higher the DC. He may also try his hand at pocketing small items and replacing them with small, crude, and fragile pig figurines created with prestidigition. When cornered he will put up a fight if the PC's act violently this encounter could be sized up to a very young copper dragon and up to Sorceror 4 to add Invisibility and Grease to his repertoire while keeping the light pig mage feel.

Gluteus_Maximus
2018-12-14, 07:04 PM
1) There’s been a death at a high-society party. A beloved community figure was killed in a tragic incident when a blind man threw a sprig of mistletoe at him. However, the blind man claims someone else guided his aim and assured him no harm would come from it. The blind man can’t give a description of the person, but others describe it as the sort of thing a well-known trickster might do—it’s “very Loki.”

2) A dojo of monks is having trouble. They seem to be unable to draw upon sufficient reserves of the esoteric energy that fuels their mystical martial-arts powers. They’d like someone to investigate why they’ve all found themselves very low-qi.

3) The palace guards require someone to run a critical errand to a local blacksmith. The previous batch of keys to the palace locks were made poorly, out of metal that was too soft, and most of them have been so worn down or damaged by use that they no longer function. The guards need the players to take one of the few remaining functional ones to the blacksmith to have two dozen copies made, without letting anyone else know they’re running very low on keys.

...I’ll see myself out.

d'awww, you could have gone one step deeper: Putting "Low Key" before one or two or all of those. "They were low key low qi" "low key very low on keys" "low key very look". Don't show yourself out!

Man_Over_Game
2018-12-14, 07:11 PM
There seems to be an infestation of aggressive rats in the city, some of which are attacking and killing isolated people in the night. Some may guess that these are linked killings using rats, but further investigation shows that killings are completely random. Turns out that a couple in the lower parts of the city were turned into wererats and are hiding to avoid being found, and their presence is causing the local rat population to swarm and increase in aggression.

JAL_1138
2018-12-14, 08:51 PM
Very funny, but a minor note, here. You should have used the Japanese Romanji for that pronunciation of the word as "ki". By spelling it like this, you are indicating the Chinese pronunciation of "chi". The letter Q when used in Chinese has a "ch" sound. So "qi" is pronounced "chi". Lots of letters do that when converting Chinese to English characters. "Zh", for example sounds a lot like a "j". So "Zhou" sounds more like "Joe" than "Zowe".

/language lesson.

Useful to know, thanks!

Jay R
2018-12-14, 09:42 PM
I once started a group of first levels in an isolated village. Their first task was to escort a couple of wagons of farm goods to the next village a couple of days away. When they got there, the village was abandoned and burned out. Going on to the next one, they met a small group of goblins.

Then they arrived at a small town that was being sacked by goblins.

When they arrived at a walled town, it was under siege, and they had to break the siege.

They are currently fourth level, having continued to find bigger and bigger pieces of a growing war.

Kami2awa
2018-12-15, 04:03 AM
Very funny, but a minor note, here. You should have used the Japanese Romanji for that pronunciation of the word as "ki". By spelling it like this, you are indicating the Chinese pronunciation of "chi". The letter Q when used in Chinese has a "ch" sound. So "qi" is pronounced "chi". Lots of letters do that when converting Chinese to English characters. "Zh", for example sounds a lot like a "j". So "Zhou" sounds more like "Joe" than "Zowe".

/language lesson.

What is this "Chinese" of which you speak?

JAL_1138
2018-12-15, 09:24 AM
A real suggestion instead of bad puns this time:

A very old and very wealthy wizard is dying. The wizard offers to write the PCs into the will for an exorbitant sum of money if the PCs will do one thing. Find the wizard’s long-estranged son, who has been almost completely protected somehow from scrying and sending spells, but whom the wizard believes to be alive, and deliver a letter to him. The letter has an arcane device with it that, despite the son’s protection from scrying, be able to identify him (or his remains) if activated within a short distance of him, and will and transmit that a good-faith attempt at delivery of the letter has been made to the executor of the wizard’s estate (a well-respected cleric of a lawful good or lawful neutral deity). The son is believed to have traveled far across the country to a major port city, and may or may not have left the continent from there, but beyond that the wizard knows nothing; the players may be able to find out more from old associates (and/or enemies) of the son. (Edit: The amount of money and how far away the son might have gone can of course vary depending on where you want to send the players and how long you want the quest to take; instead of having gone to a far-off city, he might have remained in the region but still shielded himself from scrying and gone incognito, or something like that.) If the players break the wax seal on the letter and read it, they find that it only says something to the effect of “I don’t ask for your forgiveness, because I know I don’t deserve it. But I cannot leave this world with this left unsaid: I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything, and I love you.”

denthor
2018-12-15, 11:47 AM
Simple quest counting.

Do not engage the enemy. We need to know if all those fires have orcs at them. There about 100 camp fires. You find out the front 20 only have a total 5 orcs.

If they go past the front rank this is more spot and move silent checks. They find more orcs about 10.

The orcs think that having the village/out post waste arrows in the dark shooting at empty fires depletes arrows with few orcs hit. They are right.

You DM then figure out how many orcs there are total.

Do not worry your players will find a way to screw it up and engage.

Laserlight
2018-12-15, 01:52 PM
Similar to one mentioned above, I ran an encounter which was ""This teenage boy has been kidnapped by an aquatic cult, and his parents want you to locate and rescue him", except that he didn't want to be rescued. I was expecting the players to just grapple and carry him off, or possibly smack him unconscious first, but they never really figured out what to do and the boy ended up getting away.

The wealthy but reclusive retired adventurer lives a short distance from town. We haven't seen him for a week; please go check on him on behalf of the sheriff.

You wake up in the early morning with a hangover, in a bed in an unfamiliar room. You don't know where your clothes or gear are. There is a person in bed with you, not someone you recognize but of your preferred gender; you would normally consider your bedmate quite attractive, except for the "being dead" part.

Doc was an alchemist for the town guard until he unwisely drank a new potion without testing it on a lab assistant first. The potion made him very tough and brawny (for a gnome), but also INT 4 and extremely curious. His vocabulary is mostly "Boom", "Boom?" and "BOOM!" He still mixes potions, and has been known to combine ale, stale bread, and paint scrapings, and come up with a potion of fireball. Or one to turn your hair blue. You never know what Doc intended. There's a ceremony honoring the town guard, the organizers insist that Doc be there, and it's your job to Make Sure Nothing Happens.

The heiress with strict (and powerful) parents wants to sneak out to a bar, find someone entirely unsuitable, and have a one night stand. Help her do so and get back safely.

Dawgmoah
2018-12-16, 12:46 AM
Had a beginning group wake up amongst the remains of a large feast. They did not know who they were, or where they were. The door opens and several servants come in to clean up. It appears they had been feted by someone who had paid for the feast and all of their bills as a reward for a job well done.

(Two games later they didn't care anymore and never found out who they really were or what they had done; too many dungeons calling their names.)

An isolated outpost sends a group out to meet a relief column of wagons which are running late. A standard find the caravan and guide it to safety with the twist of an oncoming blizzard.

Luccan
2018-12-16, 12:59 AM
Kobolds have been stealing from merchants and escaping into the sewers. However, these kobolds aren't violent; they belong to the clan that digs and maintains the city's plumbing infrastructure. They're kobold adolescents ill-content with their people's lot in life at the bottom of the social ladder. The PC's need to get the stolen items returned from a fairly insular people, while keeping peace between upper and lower levels of the city. Most of the kobold elders and leaders want to be left well-enough alone and the city needs someone to manage the sewers, so even though complete failure might result in some unsanitary conditions and significant rise in peasant smell, it probably won't result in all-out class war. If they do especially well, perhaps they can improve the kobolds lot in life and integrate the two peoples.

Ideal for a low-level party with an interest in character interaction and clever skill use over fighting, I think.

Altair_the_Vexed
2018-12-16, 03:41 AM
Pick a PC - have some refugee kids (part of a caravan leaving a war-torn province, or the region where the party's main antagonist is ruining everyone's lives, whatever fits) mistake this PC for their Mum or Dad.
The eldest of the kids realises the mistake, and apologises, taking the others away - "Sorry mister, it's just Dad was in the guards / the wizards' guild / whatever fits. C'mon sis, leave him alone. Let's go play with your dolly."
Play it right, and you've got your party doing an escort mission. Or at least, they're engaging in the tragedy, and the stakes of their main mission against the antagonist just got a little more real.

Jay R
2018-12-16, 06:13 PM
Kobolds have been stealing from merchants and escaping into the sewers. However, these kobolds aren't violent; they belong to the clan that digs and maintains the city's plumbing infrastructure. They're kobold adolescents ill-content with their people's lot in life at the bottom of the social ladder.

I suspect that they are really ill-content with their people's lot in life at the bottom of the physical ladder.

JAL_1138
2018-12-16, 07:50 PM
A local first-level wizard asks for bodyguards. The wizard has to visit relatives who have several housecats, and the wizard fears for their life from the clawed, fanged, mage-slaughtering feline monstrosities.

(Note—makes more sense in AD&D 1e and 2e than in WotC editions)

Luccan
2018-12-16, 08:47 PM
I suspect that they are really ill-content with their people's lot in life at the bottom of the physical ladder.

Can't it be both?

Malphegor
2018-12-17, 06:30 AM
The Dead Child


A slaymate has been divined/prophetic dream of to roam the forest to the North, a small, crying child created by a particularly nasty act and ritual to be a unliving beacon of negative energy. It is an innocent child, albeit undead, but whomsoever posesses this creature in their arsenal will be more potent with necromantic spells. The chase is on to capture this child before someone with nefarious intent does.



(thinking you hit the player who has necromancy spells with this, see if they nibble at the chance for INFINITE COSMIC POWAAA but also end up adopting a gloomy zombie child on the way)

JAL_1138
2018-12-17, 07:37 AM
A local alchemist has need of rare and difficult-to-obtain ingredients. But fret not, the PCs are there...not to go out and obtain them, but rather to try and persuade the alchemist’s usual supplier to quit holding out for better contract terms. Simply stealing a few of the items for the alchemist won’t cut it; they need a steady supply at a reasonable price, on an ongoing basis, or they’ll go out of business. The supplier has realized this and is using the necessity of the ingredients to the alchemist’s ongoing business to try and leverage an absurd price, but doesn’t quite realize that the alchemist can only charge so much for the end products and still sell any, and without the alchemist’s business, nobody else has any use for such weird items, so the supplier will end up out of business too. The supplier might have their own issues to deal with (some other quest that needs doing, which they believe they need the money for, but that the PCs might be able to solve for them instead), or might just be greedy-but-dense. The PCs might be rewarded with some rare potions as a one-time payment, or an ongoing discount on more-common potions instead.

Knaight
2018-12-17, 12:11 PM
It's a likely locust year, and that's a problem - there's got to be a nest of them somewhere, and all the nearby farmers would really appreciate if the PCs found it and exterminated it.

Felhammer
2018-12-17, 12:48 PM
Good news! Baroness Ella has accepted the marriage proposal of Count Baldo. The two are passionately in love and wish to begin their new lives together as soon as possible... One problem, every person Baroness Ella selects to be one of her bridesmaids goes missing! Baroness Ella is a bit of a bride-zilla and demands that her wedding be absolutely perfect. If there are not nine bridesmaids wearing specifically tailored dresses at her wedding, she will not go through with the ceremony. The Adventurers have been contracted by Count Baldo to investigate the disappearances and find both the culprit and the missing bridesmaids!

The main suspects are: 1) a very ambitious rival Viscount who seeks the Baroness Ella's hand in marriage; 2) an orc chief whose territory would be encircled by the Count's and Baroness' united territory; 3) the Count's brother, who has been negotiating a potential marriage with a powerful foreign noblewoman; 4) one of the Count's former mistresses who wants to ensure her lover remains unmarried (so he will "come to his senses" and marry her).

JAL_1138
2018-12-17, 05:52 PM
The adventurers are hired to exterminate rats that have taken up residence in the cellar of the general store. After the players finish groaning at the cliché, upon investigation of the cellar, the cranium rat hivemind residing there explains that they’ve only been late one rent payment, and only because the store owner hasn’t fixed the cracked basement wall that’s been letting water seep through, despite bringing it to his attention months ago. They’re very upset that their landlord (with whom they have a signed lease they’ll be happy to show) has hired hit-men to kill them, but will only fight in self-defense.