Previously in Phil’s game:
Our Heroes fought some undead captives charged with protecting the Font of Sorrows. Later, Spurt the Silvered Bulette found them and they managed to subdued it. Exploring the water temple chaos further, they discovered a passage to the High Priest’s crypt where they fought a giant undead tree and a pair of acid elemental sharks.
I don’t know about you but once in a blue moon, the stars align themselves and we get THE perfect RPG session. Last Friday’s game was, bar none, the best D&D 4e session I DMed since it was published a year ago. It showed me that it was entirely possible, even easy, to weave combat encounters with strong story elements and roleplaying.
Dramatis Persona
Party Level: 8
Jaiel (Yan): Female Deva Avenger. Tightly bound to the City and its mission
Dworkin (Franky): Dwarven Shaman. Present to help the City fight the Dingeon
Usul (Mike): Elven Invoker of Kord. Present to support the Divine forces protecting the City Within
Corwin: (Math): Halfling Sorcerer. Arrived by accident, stayed because it’s fun.
Rocco la Muerte: Halfling Rogue. Surface champion come to help the city fight the Dungeon.
Fangs: Longtooth Shifter Warden. Suffers from Amnesia, joined Jaiel’s adventuring group while working out who he is.
Info Dump warning!
As I mentioned in earlier posts on the blog, I had prepped for a more cerebral session, setting the adventure in the City around the concept of an election. When I told my friends,over email, about my plans, they shared their worries that they might be too tired to spend an evening doing a roleplay heavy session.
That worried me a bit, and I changed a few things in the adventure to weave plenty of action in the story.
Turns out that the players weren’t too tired after all and that all the ingredients for a good game were there.
The game started with me giving the players some setting info. I wanted to set the stage for the adventure and that needed a short info dump. I explained how a Nexus of divine energy, not-unlike a sun, was found at the center of the city, anchoring the city’s existance within the Dungeon and protecting it against the Dungeon. I also explained that this Nexus was what kept the Primordial imprisoned in the middle of the Primal Dungeon, which spark an interesting discussion about the Nexus ‘wasting’ energy protecting the City, which I rapidly noted down.
After that, I informed all players that they had been granted houses (for free) in the City’s newest burg: Lower Delve #57.
Franky: Lower Delve #57? This feels like a city in a post -apocalyptic game.
He’s not far from the truth.
Security!
The PCs were invited to meet with one Jarl Boten, a hobgoblin Warlord of some renown in the City. Jarl runs the Crimson Claws, a mercenary outfit of excellent repute that operates in the nearby Underdark. While a neutral organization, the Claws have recently been taking more contracts from the city.
Jarl explained to the PCs that his outfit had been awarded the contract of handling all security issues of the upcoming election for the council representative of Lower Delve #57. That elected representative would be in charge of shaping the function of that new burg and oversee its development over the next 10 years.
In the evening’s second info dump, he explained how elections worked in the City Within:
- 200 voters are randomly chosen by the central government. Voting in the City is like jury duty in our democracies, you have to go if chosen.
- The campaign and the election is a one day process (once again, thanks to reader BradG for the idea).
- All voters and candidate participate in a convention where each candidates gets to present their plans for the burg and voting occurs after the last debate of the evening.
The PCs job was dead simple, they had to make sure none of the candidates died.
Party: But why do you need us?
Jarl: Let’s just say that I’ve got access to some info that indicates that the threat level to the candidates and voters is going to be above and beyond what my current resources can deal with.
Jarl offered payment of 13 000 gp if all 4 candidates made it alive.
D&D 4e reward decision: I had initially combined 2 monetary treasure parcel and a high level magic Item as final payment. But I realized that I could just give the value of the item in gold and create a much larger gold piece reward. I changed this on the fly and it made the goal of protecting the candidate seem that much important, 13 000 gp being, by far, the largest amount of gold the PCs have had to deal with since the start of the campaign.
I knew that I had my players hooked when they started discussing security measures to take for the coming election. When I sensed that they were veering toward fine detail planning, I intervened with a bit of improv:
Jarl Boten: You guys don’t have to sweat the small stuff like checking food and frisking voters, I’ll have personnel there to do that. I want you around to mingle with the candidates and be ready to react when the really nasty stuff will happen.
Party: How will we know when the nasty stuff will happen (they were getting curious about Jarl’s apparent knowledge of future events)
Jarl: I honestly don’t know (confirmed by PC insight roll), I have scryers helping me plan my (airquotes) buisness strategy (/airquotes). I can promise you that you’ll know when it happens.
Franky: Hey guys, did you hear that plopping sound? I think someone threw a rock in the nearby puddle, we should investigate!
Chatty DM: Har har har!
The PCs accepted the job. Yay!
DM Aside: I’ve said time and again that my players are docile in terms of catching the plot hooks I throw. Since we discuss the upcoming adventures in advance, we’ve been able to avoid the dreaded “But my PC doesn’t want to do this!” that many gaming groups are plagued with. Thanks guys!
We concluded the scene with Jarl presenting each candidates and the faction the City faction they represented:
- Jevika Sarn-Mors: Very charismatic thiefling middle-aged woman of a Noble House of traders and bankers. Think Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada/101 Dalmatians… with hooves and horns. She wants to create a new commercial district and tas haven for new trading and manufacturing companies.
- Garn Petraliak: Retired Goliath Gladiator of the entertainment mogul Oscaliath family, think The Rock meets Jesse Ventura. Wants to build a sports/entertainment district with new martial schools, stadiums, theaters, barracks and a revolutionary Dungeon-Crawling gladiator arena.
- Kelian Dawnchaser: Running for a Oscaliath competitor faction: The Alrenko family. Wants to develop low-cost housing and extend the city’s agricultural industry. Kelian featured in the last adventure.
- Radik Whiteblade: Elven Druid of the newly politically active Preservers faction. Wants to revert the burg to a mostly wild state (parks, low impact housing, protected areas, etc) and stop the frenzied building of the city.
Thus, we were ready for to the ‘Election Day’
Image Credit: Claudio Pozas (Pozas Art Pack vol. 2: Hobgoblins”, from Expeditious Retreat Press)
This sounds like a great set-up, I’m anxious to see how it goes! The gold is a fairly high reward there, that’s a sure motivator, but I think your players are hooked enough even if they were to be rewarded with two buttons and a half-eaten piece of bacon.
By the way, I am curious; don’t you get the feeling that you’re kind of ‘spoiling’ the plot if you discuss it with each other in advance? I never tried it, so I wouldn’t know, but that’s the first think that came to mind. Of course, it all depends on the manner in which you discuss it and what information gets revealed, but still. Sidestepping from that, I let players give suggestions at what they think would be cool, but I leave it in the middle whether or not to act on them; but then again; I like the occasional “my character doesn’t want to do that”, provided it is well-motivated.
And props to Mike for giving love to house Atreides and the Fremen 😉
I’m looking forward to writing it.
Just so you know, I don’t spell out the plot to my players, I give them a heads up like “Hey guys, this week we’ll have elections in the City Within and you’ll be involved, expect lots of intrigue and roleplaying, spiced with combat as usual”
I’ll share your props to Mike.
I wonder… how does your “heads up” affect your player’s mental preparation for the game?
I have an inkling that it helps bunches…
I’ll try and weave that in concept in my session designs : an elevator speech for the session to help put my player’s mindsets and expectations on the “right”* track.
* The word right is used loosely and without prior or explicit consent from its legal owners. Parental supervision is advised.
Eric Maziades last blog post..Meet Eldak "Grissom" Serpenthelm
It does set the expectation and help with the focus during the game.
We are a fairly large group (6 players) and keeping focus and a decent pace is a not always easy. 😉
@Yan
You can say that again!
We’re a same sized group (6 players) and I don’t think 2 players are looking for the same thing in the game.
Hopefully, this little “preview” will help focus things a bit.
Eric Maziades last blog post..The Court of the Final Might
@Eric: As Yan said, talking about it in advance allows me to share with players the tone and theme of the upcoming adventure. I’ve long abandoned working with a campaign plan based on ‘reveals’ and secrets. While I will throw curveballs during a game session, players start with some basic knowledge of what to expect.
Its a bit invenitable as my players read the blog and at least one follows me on Twitter.