Competing against rival adventurers

[Talakeal]

I am brainstorming adventure ideas right now, and I would like to run a scenario where the PCs are competing against a rival band of adventurers, both trying to get a Macguffin out of a dungeon before the other one.

Has anyone ever run and adventure like this? Do you have any advice?

I am not really sure how to structure it, and my biggest fear is the level of interaction between the two parties; I am afraid that if there is too little it will just be a timed dungeon and the other party will be irrelevant, if there is too much I am afraid the groups will just attack one another and turn it into just another big brawl rather than an actual three way competition.

Thanks!

[Mastikator]

Yeah the incentive to just straight up murder the rivals would be really strong and it would take some serious anti-murderhoboing to stop that. Instead of relying on the good nature of the players (lol) offer them an even stronger incentive to occupationally collaborate, for example both parties could be members of the same guild and killing the other party would strip the victors of their payment. Another one is that the loser may still get some payment as long as the mcguffin is acquired.

You could try to set up the challenges in such a way that if the party fails then the other party will have a chance to bail them out, and doing so will give them an advantage in the next challenge. So each side will have an incentive for the other side to continue through the dungeon and fail at their challenges. It would require some clever (and contrived) dungeon design.

[Talakeal]

My best guess in that area is too make it clear to them that if they try and fight one another directly, the winner will be too beat up to actually defeat the monsters in the dungeon. But that has the risk of backfiring catastrophically.

[Mastikator]

You could always pull the ultimate DM card and just say no. It's contrived and bad for all the obvious reasons, and it's also a valid and justified DM tool.

[Glorthindel]

I use the rival party quite regularly. I will be honest, it probably isn't the best suggestion for your group of players, because I can see this very quickly annoying them - because that's kind of the point, the rival party is there to annoy them by stealing their thunder and beating them to the rewards they want - finding the magic sword before them, getting the girl they wanted, etc.

When I do it, I find you are walking a very thin line between enriching the world, and making it seem more alive, and just straight up screwing with your players, and if you have a group that cant take you screwing with them in good humour, its not going to work.

The trick is to make the party like the rivals on an individual level, while dislike them collectively. Even better if you can have some characters like particular rivals that other characters hate. For example, have the rival Wizard seek out the player Wizard to compare research and spell ideas, but treat the player Fighter like some dumb brute to only address in small words. Have the rival Fighter be massively competative with the party, but be a devout follower of the party Cleric's god, and frequently come to them for instruction. When the rivals come out of the dungeon the party are about to enter, have the Rogue make snide comments that "lucky he got here first, since (party rogue) would have struggled with those traps", then turn around and another member of the party a magic amulet he found in the dungeon saying "none of us was sure what to do with this, but I remember you mentioning a problem that this might help you with". My personal favourite was the look of dumbfounded shock on my high-charisma characters face when the rival Bard seduced him, them immediately dumped him to hit on the party Fighter next :P

You want the party to want to hate the rivals, but at the same time, want the players want to not kill them, because they actually kind of like them. So that, several levels later, when you callously murder the rivals to show how a tough a threat is, they are still a little sad, despite the fact the competition is now out of the way.

[Xervous]

In using a rival party it is best to have multiple smaller points of contention. This allows each to be a smaller scene that is less likely to escalate, it lets you show the players that their rivals are making progress off screen, and it gives the players a measurable way to beat their rivals without short circuiting to “remove the competition”.

For a dungeon it would be important to spread the sites of interest around, allow for multiple paths between points of interest, and make the certain path to success be a function of visiting various points of interest. Ingenious players may reduce the need for some points of interest or bypass delays entirely.

As an example let’s say the dungeon contains portions of a map or riddle to the McGuffin. 7 pieces but you only need 4 to locate it.

Rather than having lots of face to face meetings, show the players what the other party had done. Jammed the blade traps, got shot up with poison darts, smashed the stained glass window to dust when they were finished with it.

[Quertus]

Same guild -> enforced friendly rivalry, "win some, lose some" rather than "one big goal", don't use this tool with your group - most of what I'd say has already been covered. And I love the love/hate relationship @Glorthindel described.

What I can add is a deviation from what said
You want the party to want to hate the rivals, but at the same time, want the players want to not kill them, because they actually kind of like them. So that, several levels later, when you callously murder the rivals to show how a tough a threat is

In this case - and, perhaps, in another as well, I would let the *players* run the rival group.

So, the scenario I thought of: there's the one rival quest, with lots of "points" bring accumulated by both teams. *If* the rival party wins, they get a cushy mission as a reward (working for a minor noble), while the party gets to trek through a swamp or something.

After the party completes their mission, switch to the rival party, in media, after their mission has gone ploin-shaped. Let the players play the other party. Open with the noble in a bloody heap at their feet, desperately fending off assassins / some weird monsters. If they can get anyone out, that person can find the party and tell them what they know. If not… maybe that amulet the rival Rogue have the party was psychically linked to an item the last man standing took, and so that PC / the party sees this vision… shortly before hearing that the rival party murdered the noble.

The game's afoot!

Of course, if the party wins the competition, they'll have to deal with the Assassin monsters (after some "boring" diplomatic stuff)…

[Anonymouswizard]

When the party decides to let the other party brave the dungeon and just camps outside the exit firing off Divination spells every hour to check that their rivals have the shiny and are definitely coming towards this exit (what, you mean not everybody immediately jumped to that plan?) have their rivals do the exact same thing.

In all honesty, you can't control his your players will react. Influence potentially, but not control. So no matter what you do there is a very really chance that they'll just murder their rivals on sight anyway (or more rarely try to persuade them to team up and split the reward).

[Calthropstu]

Party A comes from side A, party 2 comes from side B.

Place 5 secret puzzles on side A that bypasses traps and makes things much quicker. If they solve 1 or less, the other party flat out beats them. 2 they meet the party coming out of the vault leading to a chase scene. 3 they meet the other party in the boss room. 4 they see the other party as the party leaves the vault leading to either a fight or a the reverse of the previous chase. 5 they get out scott free.

[Slipjig]

Have one of the members of the rival party be a relative of one of the PCs. That should take casual murder off the table for most groups. Or if any of your PCs are religious, have one of them worship at the same temple.

If they still want to Murderhobo, well, let 'me Murderhobo. But also don't be afraid to have them suffer consequences for their actions, especially if anybody gets away.

[False God]

Well, just because the player-party wants to fight, doesn't mean the rival party wants to.

So the rival party lays traps, collapses passageways, etc..., nothing terribly serious but just enough to annoy the player-party if the player party attempts to hunt down the rival party before recovering the McGuffin.

If the Player Party engages the Rival Party despite all of this, the Rival Party fights defensively, utilizes pets, barriers, summons and other delaying tactics to generally run down the Player Party while giving themselves more time to move towards the McGuffin.

You can't control your players, so don't bother. Control their Rivals.

[Glorthindel]

One thing I use the rivals for that might be more relevant to your particular group is to show up more passive or cowardly parties. If the party repeatedly pass on a mission, have the rivals complete it (for example, the Dragon-Slayer sword you mentioned in a different thread - if the party repeatedly pass on that mission, the rivals take it instead, and now if they want it, they need to trade or steal it from the rivals). Even worse, if a party gives up on a mission halfway through (another thing you have commented your players do), have the rivals go in and finish the dungeon off, and be bragging in the pub later (within the parties earshot) about how they walked into an almost completely empty dungeon, and wrestled the loot off of one pathetic encounter - easiest haul the party have ever claimed!

Granted, this will ratchet up the annoyance level pretty fast, so likely wont have a positive effect.

[Batcathat]

You could always pull the ultimate DM card and just say no. It's contrived and bad for all the obvious reasons, and it's also a valid and justified DM tool.

While it is indeed a valid and sometimes justified tool, I would be very wary of using it in a situation like this one. I think it should be saved for actions that would break the game, whether IC or OOC, not used for actions that merely messes with the GMs preferred plot. Even with an average group of players (and Talakeal's group seems anything but) I would expect protests at railroading that blatant.

[Mastikator]

While it is indeed a valid and sometimes justified tool, I would be very wary of using it in a situation like this one. I think it should be saved for actions that would break the game, whether IC or OOC, not used for actions that merely messes with the GMs preferred plot. Even with an average group of players (and Talakeal's group seems anything but) I would expect protests at railroading that blatant.

Yeah but killing the rivals does break the game. The competing with rivals are the premise of the campaign. If I were running this I'd open with "the premise of this campaign is that you have rivals you are competing with, they're not allowed to kill you and you're not allowed to kill them". Not accepting that premise is the same as not wanting to play the game.

[Batcathat]

Yeah but killing the rivals does break the game. The competing with rivals are the premise of the campaign. If I were running this I'd open with "the premise of this campaign is that you have rivals you are competing with, they're not allowed to kill you and you're not allowed to kill them". Not accepting that premise is the same as not wanting to play the game.

I suppose it depends on how we define breaking the game, I generally don't consider derailing the plot to be gamebreaking. If I were the GM in this situation, I would probably be like "Hey, are you sure you want to do this? There's gonna be all sorts of consequences" but if the party insisted, I wouldn't stop them.

I'm certainly not above gently or sometimes not-so-gently pushing the players in the desired direction but outright saying "No, you can't even try to do this for no in-universe reason" is something I would only use in the most dire circumstances and something I would absolutely hate being told as a player.

[Mastikator]

I suppose it depends on how we define breaking the game, I generally don't consider derailing the plot to be gamebreaking. If I were the GM in this situation, I would probably be like "Hey, are you sure you want to do this? There's gonna be all sorts of consequences" but if the party insisted, I wouldn't stop them.

I'm certainly not above gently or sometimes not-so-gently pushing the players in the desired direction but outright saying "No, you can't even try to do this for no in-universe reason" is something I would only use in the most dire circumstances and something I would absolutely hate being told as a player.

I guess we're very different GM types then. I don't mind laying down ground rules that aren't even negotiable. For example in my group that I GM I have the rules that players must only make characters that are team players, and if they try to go to an area that I haven't finished making I'll just straight up tell them "no you can't go there I haven't finished making this area". I may gently nudge them away at first but if they insist I'll insist harder. If I were to make a campaign with a specific plot element as a defining feature I'd only run it on the premise that they won't undermine the campaign. The GM sets the rules for what is and isn't allowed, both IC and OOC. Honestly if a player finds it unacceptable they're perfectly allowed to GM themselves with their own rules. GMing is a lot harder than being a player, it's not even close. It's only fair that the GM is a tyrannical dictator at the table. :smallwink:

[Batcathat]

I guess we're very different GM types then. I don't mind laying down ground rules that aren't even negotiable. For example in my group that I GM I have the rules that players must only make characters that are team players, and if they try to go to an area that I haven't finished making I'll just straight up tell them "no you can't go there I haven't finished making this area". I may gently nudge them away at first but if they insist I'll insist harder. If I were to make a campaign with a specific plot element as a defining feature I'd only run it on the premise that they won't undermine the campaign. The GM sets the rules for what is and isn't allowed, both IC and OOC. Honestly if a player finds it unacceptable they're perfectly allowed to GM themselves with their own rules. GMing is a lot harder than being a player, it's not even close. It's only fair that the GM is a tyrannical dictator at the table. :smallwink:

Yes, I suppose there are quite different styles. I do agree with part of what you're saying though. I have no problem setting rules for creating characters (whether general like "must be team player" or specific like "must belong to this organization"). It's controlling their in-game actions that rubs me the wrong way, since I feel it goes against the biggest advantage of an RPG compared to something like a book or a computer game. To each their own, I suppose, I can certainly see the advantages of your approach.

[MR_Anderson]

I am brainstorming adventure ideas right now, and I would like to run a scenario where the PCs are competing against a rival band of adventurers, both trying to get a Macguffin out of a dungeon before the other one.

Has anyone ever run and adventure like this? Do you have any advice?

I am not really sure how to structure it, and my biggest fear is the level of interaction between the two parties; I am afraid that if there is too little it will just be a timed dungeon and the other party will be irrelevant, if there is too much I am afraid the groups will just attack one another and turn it into just another big brawl rather than an actual three way competition.

Thanks!

It really depends on your player’s characters.

I have a group of all neutral (CN, N, and LN) players. I originally only planned a set of Evil characters that would be a long running counter group to their adventures, but I quickly realized that while I had a challenging force to oppose the players and something they could try and overcome, they had no drive to really care what this group of evil ones was doing unless they were directly affected by them.

After they had an adventure where they traveled away for a short time, they returned to their city to find a Party of Adventures who had taken to the town. These were a bunch of good characters that wanted to be a real help to the city.

The players promptly named them the Milkmen and they felt more free to travel much more often knowing a good party was watching over the city and their bars. They actually set out and left the continent completely.

The few times I ran either the Evil or Good parties against the players, I always included another group of people or creature(s) that was aligned one way or another to cause the balance to control the situation.

For instance:

I used hired thieves to obtain and deliver desired items for the evil party. It was planned that the thieves would be killed by the evil party if certain conditions were allowed to happen, and the evil party would depart once certain conditions were met, obtaining the stolen items. One of two thieves was killed, and the evil party met their objective of acquiring items, while the players met their objective of catching the thieves. There was an actual battle between the three groups, and the evil party used summon/created creatures to delay any pursuit achieving their objective while not engaging directly with the players.

I used the good group to challenge the players in town, as they didn’t look to battle each other, but achieve fame and admiration from those in the city, which was good for business, and opportunities that the players passed on were gladly taken by the do-gooders. They would have been the rescue party should the players have screwed up completely, and I would have had a rescue of the good party at some point too.

Using these approaches, I didn’t need to worry much about direct killing of either party. Just remember to make sure objectives of an encounter can be achieved without the need to kill the other party, this is best achieved by not having CE and CG as the main power of an opposing group.

For instance, if it is a rescue mission, the other party might get there first, but the objective of rescuing is being achieved. If it is rescuing of multiple people, maybe the players tell those being saved that you don’t want to go with those cannibals. Maybe have the players become overwhelmed in a conflict, and the other party hears the battle and enters it allowing a victory for both sides. If the two parties come upon one another and start a conflict, use that to draw the attention of a big baddie that forces them to instead join forces or flee.

Use multiple factions/entities to leverage what you want to happen for the betterment of the story. Think of it like the scene in the Lord of the rings where they have entered Moria and the orcs are going to slay the party, only to be rescued by the coming of the balrog.

It is these types of leverages that can prevent dumb party wipes, the big bad guy from being defeated before his time, and the players from getting more than they ever should of treasure.

[KorvinStarmast]

Has anyone ever run and adventure like this? Do you have any advice? You are playing your homebrew. Regardless of game system, you need to allow for the chance that the players and the other party run into each other, and then a choice has to be made: parley/threaten/fight/flee/cooperate. Let the interaction grow organically from your players' reactions to the adventure. Don't put this one on rails.
if there is too much I am afraid the groups will just attack one another and turn it into just another big brawl rather than an actual three way competition.
It isn't about what you want. You aren't writing a book.

Beyond that, adventurers and treasure hunters are greedy buggers. I watched a movie called The Vault recently.
See also Indiana Jones and his escapades versus Belloq.

Finally: make it possible for the party to fail or succeed.

[Talakeal]

You are playing your homebrew. Regardless of game system...

So why bring it up?


...you need to allow for the chance that the players and the other party run into each other, and then a choice has to be made: parley/threaten/fight/flee/cooperate. Let the interaction grow organically from your players' reactions to the adventure. Don't put this one on rails.
It isn't about what you want. You aren't writing a book.

This seems kind of a strange sentiment to me, as it implies that either the players act completely irrationally or the GM is completely incapable of reading their motivations. Although knowing my group this might not be too odd an assumption...

The idea that the GM is expected to set the scene and RP all of the NPCs, but should have no idea about how their decisions affect the likely outcome seems both naive and prone to disaster.


On the larger topic of railroading, I intend to post a larger thread on it when I get some time, but in my experience its better to err on the side of too much structure. In my experience "baby bird" players who need the plot fed to them lest they get bored / frustrated are much more common than players who want to go off the rails; and even in the ladder case more planning tends to help rather than hinder their enjoyment.


Finally: make it possible for the party to fail or succeed.

I agree with you there, although I might be the only one.

[KorvinStarmast]

So why bring it up? Most of my experience is from D&D games. The PvP support for that varies by edition. There are other game systems that do PvP really well. How your homebrew does PvP style fights (PCs versus PCs) I am not going to try and guess.

This seems kind of a strange sentiment to me, as it implies that either the players act completely irrationally or the GM is completely incapable of reading their motivations. Or that you and I have different DM styles, perhaps.
Although knowing my group this might not be too odd an assumption...

The idea that the GM is expected to set the scene and RP all of the NPCs, but should have no idea about how their decisions affect the likely outcome seems both naive and prone to disaster. Given that this isn't what I suggested, no.

I agree with you there, although I might be the only one. And it's probably the most important part of a scenario like the one you envision. They can fail, or they can succeed, but failure doesn't mean death/disaster as much as it means "someone else got it" which is a different kind of metric.

[Talakeal]

Most of my experience is from D&D games. The PvP support for that varies by edition. There are other game systems that do PvP really well. How your homebrew does PvP style fights (PCs versus PCs) I am not going to try and guess.

Ok, gotcha.

But the idea really isn't just a PvP fight, that is pretty straightforward.


Given that this isn't what I suggested, no.

Apologies. I am just not sure how else to read "It isn't about what you want. You aren't writing a book." other than you saying I shouldn't take the likely outcome of the scenarios I design into account or that I am doing something wrong by trying to design a scenario around competition rather than combat.


Although, you know I am not sure if I philosophically agree that the GM's wants shouldn't factor into. They are a player at the table just like anyone else, and their having fun and desires should have equal weight to it.

[Taffimai]

I think that you can keep most reasonable players from killing their rival parties by setting it up in-game as a natural thing for them to be there as something other than enemies. Examples: the king holds his yearly adventuring competition / the macguffin is urgently needed to cure a disease so we're sending as many parties as we can / this underground lair has many entrances, so to avoid the cultists escaping with the macguffin each party starts at a different one and you all work towards each other.

The second module of the Scales of War adventure path uses rival parties, though not in the same dungeon as the players, and I have good memories of how those were introduced. The PC's arrive in the city a day before they will be told what to do and have several small, unconnected encounters. Then when they attend the regent's meeting they don't get introduced to "the party led by [NPC whose name they won't remember]" but rather they recognise "the party that was patrolling the road into the city", "the party with the priest you warned about being pickpocketed", and "the druid you helped to capture the hippogriffs, who's apparently in a relationship with that bard you tried to flirt with in the tavern last night".