Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 spellweaver Dec 28, 2005 0:59:19	Here's a challenge for you: I could use a bit of help, if anyone here has some useful suggestions. Later today I am going to host a one-player/DM game session for a 10th level neutral human rogue character as part of an ongoing campaign. The following is set: The game will center on Darokin City where the PC is going to seek out training in diplomacy and trade, but without joining the Merchant Guild or DDC. In game time the session will take one year (before the PC meets the rest of the PCs and we start playing as a group again). I am looking for some relatively short adventure ideas to take place in Darokin (City) that revolves around the Great Houses / DDC / Thieves Guild. I have read through all Darokin material at the Vault and found some inspiration in the "Conspiracy within Corun House" text, but I am having trouble adapting it to something playable in a single game session. If you have any ideas on how to challenge a 10th level rogue, please post them. Thanks! :-) Jesper
#2 johnbiles Dec 28, 2005 2:21:40	Here's a challenge for you: The game will center on Darokin City where the PC is going to seek out training in diplomacy and trade, but without joining the Merchant Guild or DDC. In game time the session will take one year (before the PC meets the rest of the PCs and we start playing as a group again). I am looking for some relatively short adventure ideas to take place in Darokin (City) that revolves around the Great Houses / DDC / Thieves Guild. I have read through all Darokin material at the Vault and found some inspiration in the "Conspiracy within Corun House" text, but I am having trouble adapting it to something playable in a single game session. If you have any ideas on how to challenge a 10th level rogue, please post them. Thanks! :-) Jesper What actual skills is said Rogue good at?
#3 spellweaver Dec 28, 2005 2:48:17	What actual skills is said Rogue good at? He started out as a horse thief, then evolved as a burglar and from there to a sort of swashbuckling adventuring fighter-thief (he has a bard level and fighter level as well as 8 rogue levels). He is going to Darokin City to improve his trading and diplomacy skills, make more money (either from trade or burglary) and set up a network of useful connections for a later date. :-) Jesper
#4 ltlconf Dec 29, 2005 10:56:31	Hello Folks, This is not a uncommon quandry, and the solution depends much on the stlye of game, your style as DM and the style of roleplaying your player utilizes. My group is primarily "character" driven: we can go hours not rolling a single die. For me controlling my players and their characters is relatively easy no matter their level. To quote Hannibal Lector "What does he covet." The characters all have long term goals, dirty little secrets, prized possessions, blind spots, enemies left along the way (some down right smart and viscious), personality quirks (my bard thinks he's the world's Cassanova and he plays it to the hilt. He's actually read up on the real guy to), families to care about, and personal connections. Sometimes I can just sit back and let them raise hell and cause a whole adventure on their own. How do you challenge your player no matter the style? Start from your strengths. First off, you as the DM will always know more than the player (or at least the character) use that advantage carefully (so as to be fair and fun) but ruthlessly. After all the guy's a criminal, he's in a high risk occupation and knows the price than can come due. Second you determine all outcomes. I don't know how by the book you are, but I will roll only when absolutely needed. I don't roll most NPC emotional reactions as such things are not really random. You created the NPC and thus have SOME idea of his reactions (or at least know what will drive the plot along), this being one example. My players suspect I fudge rolls now and then to drive the plot, but never know when, and they consider a taste of divine intervention (someone up there listens to character prayers every night). I only roll for things that are indeed challenging, random or just to rattle them now and then. Try it and make him sweat. Lastly you determine the competence of the NPCs, never feel strait jacketed by published material. A Captain of the Guard is captain for a reason: his leadership and brains, not his muscles (anyone can break heads in a fight, WINNING a BATTLE uses heads, take it from the former Marine). He will be experienced and smart. While he may not be as physically capable as the character or as cunning, he's likely persistant, has huge resources to draw on (his own tame thief, magic, informants ect.) and depending on the nature of the city, quite ruthless (civil rights is a very new concept). He takes a dislike to your thief, he'll just throw him in jail for public order, no matter his alignment. The captain wouldn't be breaking any laws and his alignment would only influence the jailed's treatment. What can you throw at him. Well read a large city newspaper and then times that by ten. No medieval city of any size was near as orderly as even the most violent US city. London in the 15th century had a murder rate 3 times higher than Washington DC in a bad month, and was considered AVERAGE! "Organized crime" was a joke: every noble and merchant of means operated like the mafia. A medieval trading nation was more like today's Russia than Japan or the US today. The Thieves Guild simply does what others won't do to keep up their public image, for a price of course. Nobles and Merchant Princes also had touchy senses of honor and acted on it as well, for good reason: if you didn't everyone else scented blood in the water, with similar response. Your little swashbuckler, if he gets tangled up in city politics is stepping into a enviroment the Godfather would revel in (and know well)! And this a GOOD aligned city, get it further down the aligment scale and things simply become more open and more brutal (at least Don Corrilone only killed you if you broke the rules or hurt his, and left your family out of it). Another point. As you can sense, law enforcement, even in a tightly controled medieval enviroment, is never perfect and in many cases is down right spotty. After all, they are after enemies of the state not the normal criminal. Plus patroling the warren that is a medieval city, at night (and it was DARK at night in the world before electric light. Pitch dark in a alley), on foot meant the Guard didn't prevent crime, but rather arrested criminals private citizens caught, or those caught in the act by luck. Therefore, anyone of means sees to their own security (vigilantism back then was a fuzzy concept and only illegal if you couldn't convince anyone the dead guy was really robbing you). Now anyone of means has been robbed before, alot, and by some good thieves at least a few times. Only a idiot doesn't learn from failure. This means your burgeling thief is going to meet some NASTY defenses in any manse he decides to hit. The victim, left to his own devices in getting his property back, will likely hire a "problem solver" (the PI/bounty hunter/hit man concept is OLD and often runs together) to get it back. Anyone doing this job is a experienced adventurer in his own right (to live very long) and likely has friends of near equal ability to boot. I won't go into jealous husbands of means. You can figure out the usual response to that. However, a husband that has decided to avoid scandle and NOT publicly go for you player, may decide on vengeance of other means (Godfather anyone?)... My last bit of advance is watch some gangster and urban action films (Godfather, Pulp Fiction ect.) to get ideas and NPC concepts and go to town. Also get a nice short book on Rennaisance or urban Medieval lifestyles (the two are often ran together in fantasy anyway) to get a feel for the enviroment and how law worked. It will surprise your player!
#5 Hugin Dec 29, 2005 16:26:59	Good comments there, Ltlconf. Although it didn't seem new to me as I read it, it somehow triggered my imagination in a new way! Cool stuff!