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HawkeNorrington
2008-09-24, 09:54 AM
I'm planning a 4E campaign for later this fall, and I've decided I want to really emphasize travel as one of the primary themes of the campaign, and consequently try to develop a very extensive world for the players to explore. Consequently, I'm trying to work out an overlying plot that encourages them to travel, but not necessarily to any particular place at any particular time. The best thing I've come up with is that the players are hired by a church or other significant authority to investigate claims of a cult operating in a small town. Once the cult is defeated in the first little adventure of the campaign the players will find clues leading them to other groups of the cult spread out around the continent.

Now, I think this would work pretty well as a primary plot device as it allows for lots of player-initiated side-quests as they travel around to the places indicated in the clues and it means the players have to collect and properly interpret the clues, but I'm concerned after the first cult is wiped out the players may just decide that now that they've been payed they're done with the cult. Anyone have any sure-fire ways to keep the players on this trail? I was considering some way to make the interest in destroying the cult personal, but I'm not sure how to work that in.

potatocubed
2008-09-24, 10:12 AM
Honestly, if you want a travelogue campaign I'd be inclined to give the characters a quest like 'collect the seven gems of power' for whatever reason.

Of course, to prevent things from getting samey, once they've got three or four they can discover that somebody else has collected the rest (neatly putting them all in one place) and switch to a 'battle the nemesis' type campaign.

AKA_Bait
2008-09-24, 10:12 AM
Anyone have any sure-fire ways to keep the players on this trail? I was considering some way to make the interest in destroying the cult personal, but I'm not sure how to work that in.

Well, there are no sure fire ways. PCs can be annoying like that. However, a few time tested ways are:

1. Have the church hire them again to wipe out the other cults.
2. Create an NPC the players really like. Have them kidnapped by the cult and been shipped off to someplace else for some evil ritual before the PCs level the place.
3. Create an NPC the players really like a gruesomly murder them with their corpse in plain sight when the PCs take down the cult. Leave evidence that the person (BBEG or MBEG) that did it to them left for another cell of the cult before they got there.
4. Create an NPC the players really like and have them totally backstab the party to help the cult and then run away to one of the other cells. Possibly stealing something of importance to the PCs in the process.

AstralFire
2008-09-24, 10:14 AM
AKA, is that why you are known as 'Bait'? From your DM hooks?

AKA_Bait
2008-09-24, 10:18 AM
AKA, is that why you are known as 'Bait'? From your DM hooks?

:smallbiggrin:

Nope, but I suppose it could be. I tend not to have hooks in my own games so much as other parts of the sandbox and NPCs with motives that the PCs get in the way of and plot happens. My games as they progress are usually more about the players trying like heck to survive than accompish some particular noble goal.

I actually got the name for the first 3.x character I played. Rogue/Sorc who always went first into places to check for traps and be, well, bait for anything else inside.

valadil
2008-09-24, 10:19 AM
If you want them to travel you could also chase them around with some other enemy. It would keep up the travel theme, but give them something else to do besides hunt cultists.

For making the cult personal... hmm. Betrayal always works. Maybe a PC's friend ditched them to join the cult. They might be okay with that though. Maybe the friend also helped track down the PCs so the cult could kill them? That's pretty damn personal.

What if you have the cult brainwash a PC? You could even do that with a session where one of the players can't make it. He runs off to join them and the other players have to rescue him. That would player would hate that cult forever after that.

AstralFire
2008-09-24, 10:22 AM
:smallbiggrin:

Nope, but I suppose it could be. I tend not to have hooks in my own games so much as other parts of the sandbox and NPCs with motives that the PCs get in the way of and plot happens. My games as they progress are usually more about the players trying like heck to survive than accompish some particular noble goal.

I actually got the name for the first 3.x character I played. Rogue/Sorc who always went first into places to check for traps and be, well, bait for anything else inside.

Ah, I've been curious. That explains it pretty well.

Sorry, I was just amused that 3 of your 4 examples were "make an NPC that the party likes and use them as bait."

AKA_Bait
2008-09-24, 10:27 AM
Ah, I've been curious. That explains it pretty well.

Sorry, I was just amused that 3 of your 4 examples were "make an NPC that the party likes and use them as bait."

Fair nuff. Reasonable guess. As a DM I do tend to prefer fishing to railroading when I want the PCs to go and do something, too. Also, the using an NPC they like and having something bad happen with them tends to get the players more emotionally involved, ime, than some more abstract world saving quest. Of course, you can do both at the same time.

AstralFire
2008-09-24, 10:32 AM
Well, fishing essentially IS a plothook.

The only good railroad is the one where there are no conceivable other options (such as campaign starter "you're all thrown in a dungeon") and it makes sense that the PCs don't have the resources to work around it.

The main part of my biggest campaign started with a cross between the two. The party was set to investigate a cultist statue after defeating the previous DM's BBEG, and the door wouldn't open unless they willingly touched its flame.

Well, that also cursed them to have their souls eaten by the cult's demigods and put the cult's mark on them. The curse can't be removed except by death of the demigods since they accepted willingly. Sooo...

Totally Guy
2008-09-24, 12:04 PM
I was going to suggest letters and postmen but 4th edition had the Leomunds Secret chest ritual.

You could leave a ritual box with a note in it which vanishes soon after the note is removed. The box can reappear with another note in it. One scalding the cult for not leaving a letter in it at the designated time and wasting their postage fee. Plus a clue of their location and the "owner of the box' identity.

Could be a good plot device. A chest that can communicate correspondence between the party and the BBEG.

AKA_Bait
2008-09-24, 12:06 PM
I was going to suggest letters and postmen but 4th edition had the Leomunds Secret chest ritual.

You could leave a ritual box with a note in it which vanishes soon after the note is removed. The box can reappear with another note in it. One scalding the cult for not leaving a letter in it at the designated time and wasting their postage fee. Plus a clue of their location and the "owner of the box' identity.

Could be a good plot device. A chest that can communicate correspondence between the party and the BBEG.

Along those lines there is an item in the Adventurer's Vault that is basically two linked bags of holding. i.e. one of the two owners can put something in and the other can take it out. Thw two bags can't be accessed at the same time. Can't remember the exact name though.

Prometheus
2008-09-24, 01:13 PM
I had pulled an NPC from one of the PCs backstory and than gave the PC visions and reports periodically of known family members and associates (his brother, his uncle, and his father (twice, but he managed to slip away both times)) being systematically slaughtered by this guy (who happened to be a Bloodhound). I don't know if your PCs would react the same, but this kept my PCs moving or hidden for most of the game (they would especially try to stay away from the guy's last reported location).

I would definitely look at banning/changing travel magic however. Once that group learned Cloudwalk, they never walked anywhere because they could fly across the map in a sort span of time. (Earlier they used Phantom Steeds to accomplish a similar task, but it wasn't as fast and really only occurred when the Sorcerer was willing to give up all 3rd level spells for the day).

Ironically, I made a complex portal system that would let the PCs jump across the map in another game but they never used it. (I did caveat that there would be a small encounter in between portal jumps, but half the time it was a good encounter).

DM Raven
2008-09-24, 01:17 PM
There are tons of good plot-hooks you could use to encourage travel...though for some reason when I was reading this it made me think of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego." Just have your BBEG leave on a plane flying a green, yellow, and blue flag.

But seriously, you could have them chasing someone to different locals. Someone mentioned a collection quest...this would be good, maybe have them assemble something that has parts in 10 different dungeons scattered around the world. The destruction of some far away place that they traveled to while doing the cult thing...make a cool scene to see someplace they've been totally destroyed. You could have them lead by visions from one of the dead prisoners of the cult who knew some profecy and died before he was able to play his part...

Or they could talk to the informant who heard the suspect was heading to a country who's primary imports were oranges...

TheThan
2008-09-24, 02:07 PM
Honestly, if you want a travelogue campaign I'd be inclined to give the characters a quest like 'collect the seven gems of power' for whatever reason.

Of course, to prevent things from getting samey, once they've got three or four they can discover that somebody else has collected the rest (neatly putting them all in one place) and switch to a 'battle the nemesis' type campaign.

the tri-force of wisdom?

mangosta71
2008-09-24, 02:21 PM
If your players are good at RP, look to their backstories to find things that you can use. Maybe the cleric's baby sister ran away from home to join the cult, or some such. The cult is rumored to have some source of wealth and the rogue wants to get his hands on it. The cult serves a dark god that's trying to usurp the paladin's deity.

Calinero
2008-09-24, 05:03 PM
Well, it's surprisingly easy to attract a PC's interest to stuff as a DM. Just describe something with slightly more detail than the stuff around it, and they should become interested.

Perhaps, in the cult's headquarters, you could describe in great detail a map of the country/world. It could have several pins on it, each labeled with something like a number or letter. These are the locations (approximate) of the other centers for the cult. Have them also find some annoyingly vague plans that references something important happening soon at one of the locations. If you want to be less linear, you could mention several of the locations.

afroakuma
2008-09-24, 05:06 PM
I had one of the characters' father be a famous retired adventurer, who left retirement once his son was out of earshot. Nothing prompts him along now like worrying that Dad's gonna get there first.

Megafly
2008-09-24, 05:20 PM
In my current campaign the DM kept us moving by having us find "Reliquaries" hidden all over the continent containing items of ancient power.

We were in competition with evil cultists. Racing them to each location, ambushing and counter-ambushing. It makes it a lot harder to justify taking another day to heal up completely or research a spell when the necromancers who want to turn off the sun are racing you to the same dungeon.

Since it's 3.5 the DM put legacy weapons in the reliquaries so we don't get "too" powerful and couldn't sell them unless we want them lost forever or in the worst possible hands.

magellan
2008-09-24, 05:35 PM
Along those lines there is an item in the Adventurer's Vault that is basically two linked bags of holding. i.e. one of the two owners can put something in and the other can take it out. Thw two bags can't be accessed at the same time. Can't remember the exact name though.

OT: Ages ago I gave something like this to my players as a gimmyck. They sent (not too unsmart) a character ahead scouting and used the bags as communication. The scouts player was in another room and I went back and forht between the 2. The main party got attacked and the wizard used his turn (this was 2nd ed) to scribble "help!" on a piece of paper and put it into the bag. I take the slip of paper from the player, look at it, grin, say "gotta adjust this" and put a few squiggly lines on another piece of paper. go out to the scouts player, give it to him. He looks at the paper puzzled, looks at me, I leave. he starts laughing.

It was a well established fact that his character couldnt read...

BardicDuelist
2008-09-24, 05:38 PM
Personally, I like travel campaigns to be episodic, but with an overreaching arc. It allows for you to establish a pattern (fight cult, leave, fight more cult, leave) and then break it (not really cult here, but trap by powerful lord to gain your services free of charge). Think Supernatural.

As for a hook: Burn player's hometown/kill mutual friend, etc. Vengeance is a good motivator.
Have the cult be so evil or threatening that the players can't help but interact. If they won't hunt it, it hunts them so it's in their best interest to take it out on their own terms.
Players are chased by something that they cannot stop, so they must run and try and find a way to defeat it.
MacGuffin. MacGuffins are always a good way to get people to run around pointlessly.

Calinero
2008-09-24, 07:58 PM
It was a well established fact that his character couldnt read...

That is quite awesome right there. Never had anything like that happen to me before...we don't often split our players into separate rooms in rl. Then again, our party doesn't split up that often. We believe in safety in numbers.

Raz_Fox
2008-09-24, 08:28 PM
It was a well established fact that his character couldnt read...

:smallamused: Out of curiousity, what was this wizard's WIS? 8-9?

HawkeNorrington
2008-09-25, 06:25 PM
Wow, that is a lot of really good advice, thanks! I think I'm going to go with a combination of the "collect 'em all" idea and putting in an NPC to get brutally murdered. The NPC's death should both make it personal and reaffirm that the campaign is a little bit gritty and that it could easily have been a PC that died, so the cult isn't some minor threat.

As for collecting, I'm not sure what it'll be, but preferably something other than magic items needed to defeat the BBEG (that was the theme of the last campaign I played, so I'd like to give it a break), so I'm thinking something like pieces of a torn up manuscript, maybe like a rosetta stone-esque translation guide to an ancient language needed to interpret the plans of the cult? I like the idea of collecting puzzle pieces of writing as I could hand the team actual torn up pieces of paper they'd have to try to assemble and there's the chance they could circumvent some quests to get them if they can guess correctly the missing bits. Any better ideas on what's written on them though?

AstralFire
2008-09-25, 06:40 PM
we'd need a better idea of the cult, first.

Calinero
2008-09-25, 07:27 PM
I once heard of a campaign where the PC's spent several days in a coastal town and somehow totally missed the plot point that they needed to find a man who worked in the docks. The DM was totally stumped as to how to guide them in the right direction, so one day while the PC's were walking near the water he had a fishing boat come by. A particularly bad cast of the rod resulted in a fishing hook digging into the dwarf cleric's beard, dragging him along the side of the river. The players couldn't get it untangled, and were forced to run alongside the boat, which led them straight to the docks. Where they found their NPC. Heh....'plot hooks' indeed...

Raum
2008-09-25, 07:44 PM
As for collecting, I'm not sure what it'll be, but preferably something other than magic items needed to defeat the BBEG (that was the theme of the last campaign I played, so I'd like to give it a break), so I'm thinking something like pieces of a torn up manuscript, maybe like a rosetta stone-esque translation guide to an ancient language needed to interpret the plans of the cult? I like the idea of collecting puzzle pieces of writing as I could hand the team actual torn up pieces of paper they'd have to try to assemble and there's the chance they could circumvent some quests to get them if they can guess correctly the missing bits. Any better ideas on what's written on them though?Another possibility would be collecting information on the cult (or the demon worshiped by the cult) by talking to scattered former members who are running from the cult's 'justice'.

Prometheus
2008-09-25, 07:49 PM
You could always have an important person/magic item in one of the cults that narrowly makes it's escape to another cult whenever the PCs barge in. It would make a great reoccurring villain/plot and create the sense of urgency.

If you do make a collect 'em all puzzle, I suggest running it by the boards or another person to make sure that it is rather difficult to figure out, in fact, without all the pieces. For example, a simply cryptogram could be figured out even without the key, or with the key and very little text. But if each syllable was keyed to a different symbol, than they would probably need much more of the key and text in order to gather the meaningful information.

Pronounceable
2008-09-25, 08:48 PM
I once heard of a campaign where the PC's spent several days in a coastal town and somehow totally missed the plot point that they needed to find a man who worked in the docks. The DM was totally stumped as to how to guide them in the right direction, so one day while the PC's were walking near the water he had a fishing boat come by. A particularly bad cast of the rod resulted in a fishing hook digging into the dwarf cleric's beard, dragging him along the side of the river. The players couldn't get it untangled, and were forced to run alongside the boat, which led them straight to the docks. Where they found their NPC. Heh....'plot hooks' indeed...
That is 17 different kinds of awesome.
...

Carmen Sandiego has been mentioned. Rivalry is very good for a travel campaign: a third party opposing the cult as well as the PCs. If party doesn't hurry up, they'll find that Carmen (let's name this hypothetical NPC that) has already sneaked in and took off with the macguffin. Remember to have an established boss for every "episode". Bossfights are always nice, and if (when) PCs are late they'll see that episode boss has been offed by Carmen (incidentally proving she's not just a sneaky wuss). Getting robbed of not only the macguffin, but also the bossfight will infuriate your average PC to no end...

And you can set up the ending however you like: campaign finale with Carmen after cult's been stopped, finding and defeating Carmen before taking on the BBEG of the cult, a dual bossfight vs Carmen vs BBEG or even a team up with Carmen to take on the last of the cult.