Post by StoryTeller on Apr 10, 2006 21:54:58 GMT
In my experience, PCs will guard a hundred caravans before it occurs to them that trading on their own account could be more fun and lucrative. Part of this is I guess a lack of interest in the "tie-downs" that trading could imply and in the boring detail of buying and selling. There are however some good advantages. It encourages a sense of group identity - all partners of Fast and Risky Quality Merchant Co. - and can have some great "plot lines". It also changes the world outlook when strangers are first thought of as "Hey CUSTOMERS!" rather then "Arm up, enemy approaching". If you ever need to lure your players in a particular direction then a rumour of profit should be easy to manage.
PCs can be tempted into the business a bit at a time. For example: At conclusion of other business a friendly tribesman notes "Your people make good iron. If you are back this way, bring us one of your fine steel blades and I'll trade two snow leopard skins for it". $$$$ in characters eyes! The trick is to avoid the boring bits.
1) Give them good NPC warehouse men etc that they really can trust except perhaps once, later rather than sooner, for a plot. If they feel they can safely leave a load in trusted hands for a fling then so much the better.
2) Have NPC's offer to retail so they are doing the wholesale transit stuff and dont get lost in selling detail. "Hey, I'll take all of this stuff you can get here at xxxx - leave you free to get another load moving eh?". Failing that declare, "after 2 hours you are sold out for xxxx reward". Forget detailing trading except for casual encounters with
a train.
3) Forget the unwieldy caravan bit - encourage them into the small mule train style. They'll have more fun. "Yup, de mules certainly de way. You see dat caravan train - takes 2 month to move dat round de Gap. Sheez dat costs! I ken move dis stuff over Hawk Pass on mules in meebe tree weeks on a good run."
4) Emphasize the exploratory opening up of new country rather then the big-haul routes. If they start into going back and forth on the same lucrative route too often, send in a big merchant with a massive caravan to drop the prices. They'll thank you for it in terms of game interest.
Some typical sorts of plots.
- Guarding the goods train. They'll really do it in earnest.
- Spying on the side under their legit cover.
- Involvement in local politics
- Exploration
- Building of fortified outposts and defense thereof
- Very dangerous goods! (i.e. magic)
- Recovery of stolen goods
- Dealing with a protection racket
- High risk winter route to relieve a starving outpost.
One potential problem is the possibilty of too much coin. Relax. Early in their career get them used to the idea that high profits come from real high risks and sometimes its better alive poor then rich and dead. ("You are surrounded by 20 young mounted warrior louts looking for trouble. They request 'presents' with broad grins. All are bow armed (and they've been training since 3 years old)". Remember that elaborate trading has high overheads in paying NPCs etc. If there is somehow got a money excess then introduce credit offered by bankers - on risky routes
they will sooner or later lose a train bought on borrowed money and the overheads will put them on the back foot!
A powerful wizard and his apprentice (also powerful) are after an artifact which is carefully guarded (by various traps, magics, etc) in a labyrinth. Put in there years ago by various leaders and since forgotten. They cannot think of a brute force way to get it, but they are clever enough to have figured out some loopholes which will allow a
low-level bunch of adventurers with various characteristics (tailor to your players, one obstacle per player or combination of players) to get in safely and escape with the artifact.
The wizard cooks up a long term plan (perhaps he is an elf) to obtain such a party of adventurers. This plan is subtle and tricky as that is the style of this wizard (he likes to manipulate and deceive people, like a game). He has his apprentice disguise himself as an old storyteller/bard who takes a liking to a young pc or npc and tells stories of the PC/NPC's grandfather who stopped a great evil by sacrificing himself, sealing the evil and himself into a labyrinth (yes
THE labyrinth). The grandfather was lost with his family sword and more importly an amulet which signified the family's power and destiny as heroes of the realm. Various stories of the grandfather, sword, and amulet should convince the PC/NPC to go after this stuff. The storyteller also tells of the PC/NPC's family talent for dowsing, and helps him cut a dowsing rod and casts various covert magics to make the character believe he has such power. Eventually he replaces the dowsing rod with an identical duplicate which is set up to find the other characters who are needed to get the artifact back (yes, the party). The character recruits or finds the party and they go and get the amulet back.
The wizard and apprentice appear at the exit from the labyrinth and reveal the hoax (part of the fun), demanding the amulet. The apprentice is either given or takes the amulet for the wizard, then gets a greedy look in his eyes and makes to put it on. The wizard vaporizes the apprentice and takes the amulet.
You might want to put some sort of treasure in this labyrinth so the party won't be too pissed that they have been deceived.
The wizard invites the characters to join in his "games" (see below). If they decline, he does various things to convince them to comply. If that fails, he cooks up another complicated deception to get them to join in. He will not force them to join, unless he feels that he has sufficiently deceived them.
The party is asked to go on a quest by an older man, a merchant, to save his daughter's life. She has the dreaded Indigo Flu, usually fatal. The only known cure is to make a medicine out of the Caiman stone, an odd fruit that grows out of a mineral/plant hybrid only in the most obscure places. The party is referred to the sage who told the merchant of this cure, for more info. The sage is of course an agent of the Wizard of the previous segment.
He cooks up a quest designed to bring the party eventually to a spot at which the wizard has planted a "Caiman Bush". The Caiman stone and the Indigo flu are complete fiction. The party will not find anybody else who knows about these even if they ask around. The Caiman Bush is an elaborate magic item, which will teleport the party into the Wizard's lair. The wizard will then inform them that the only exit from his lair is to win the game.
The game is versus another party which has been in suspended animation waiting for opponents. (Losers of the game are suspended and continue to play until they win, whereupon they are released). Make the game whatever you wish.
You should maybe allow the party to acquire some limited magic items from the game, so they won't be quite so pissed to have been manipulated.
Riddle-maps (idea based on "song-maps" that the old time Maori people used to describe journeys).
Basically sage-type person translates a song-map that someone earlier had written down in its original form. Lots of scope for errors. It's a translation so no need for poetry. Sage identifies one point in song as being nearby and wants the map followed. Fit into your world. The characters can only "see" what you describe so very careful descriptive work is necessary but red herrings can be fun.
An example of full riddle map.
"here the VALATAS people live above the halls the congress of tide and land, thence two noon suns cross your face and take you to the silver path. Up the path you onward go past three cold threads in summer still, then into the shadows of RAMATIS realm till the path is crossed at the weeping rock. Shortly the path splits at last, so turn your face and walk two sunsets till RAMATIS greets with open arms again. The laughing braid just in the shades, leads high to towers of earth, and there above the last falling tears, find the gates of night. No moon to light the halls of night but ochre stars will mark a path to those who walk in here. Pity you who have no meat to sacrifice to the Old Ones hidden within. Once met and your offering received dash for life to the halls of teeth. Beyond there lies the ribbon of red, rushing fast to meet the sun again, then bounding down past flaxen steps, to greet the ghost in its bed of gold."
Translation:
Capitalized bits are phonetic translation of unknown words. The sage has identified VALATAS so begin here.
The party walks towards the noon sun for 2 days and finds...
GM: "Towards end of second day you climb to top of ridge and look down on large river valley with the river glistening in the sun."
Following it upriver past three side-creeks that would wet you even in summer you get to woods. RAMATIS is the old people's God of forests but the PC's or sage wouldn't know this. They should easily guess though when you announce forest in the way. The river hits a gorge and a crossing is forced where a waterfall comes down a cliff face. After that the river divides at two big tributaries and you take the west one for two days. Should encounter woods again...however, the puzzle can be sharpened by woods that are no longer present (keep talking about NEW building in the area - ruins of a saw mill etc).
A quick flowing tributary is traced up into the mountains and above the top waterfall is a cave mouth. A path through the cave is marked by ochre crosses on the floor but it is also the lair of monster worms that fall on any meat. The travellers of old would carry a sheep up and run like hell for the cave of stalagmites (which block the worm) while it is devoured. Hope the PC have something ready...torch light will shortly show an underground river flowing the other way (no more ochre) which will lead to high mountain basin. Geologically an inlier of gold-bearing basement capped by limestone. Problem - it exits over a sheer bluff and the rope ladder has long since rotted away. The creek joins a larger creek with the disconcerting habit of disappearing an hour or two after rain (the "ghost") leaving a dry bed. And yes, this is based on real place in NZ. The creeks are gold-bearing if PC ready to dig for it the hard way. Remnants of digging all over the show.
You get the general idea. Quite a bit of work and you can lead characters by the nose through it if so inclined. Mis-translations can also help.
Every ten years, the Mages' Guild holds a contest. The prize of the contest should be left fairly vague, unless one of your PC's is a high-ranking member of the Guild...I usually use some statement about "material considerations...well, it's politics mostly..." However, since Guild mages tend to be not particularly active types, the contest is structured as follows: each mage hires a group of adventurers (here's where the PC's come in), who then compete for the prize in a maze set up and run by the Guild. The party should be hired by a mage, who tells them basically the information above, plus the number of other groups competing (I usually use four groups total, since in my maze they tend to meet up at the end for a final battle, and dealing with more NPC's than that would get hellish). The mage gives each PC a magical "token"; basically just a little one-use magic item. The tokens can have effects
like Levitate (for a duration), Light (ditto), Invisibility (as the spell); just go through the PH and pick out spells to use. Make up a maze to put the party though, and don't forget that several other groups are doing this at the same time! The way I run it is that I have a map of a maze, with four relatively distinct paths to a final room. They do cross over, but not very often. Each has several large empty rooms on the map, and some marked spots in the corridors. Then I have a list of rooms to use, and corridor tricks, and I just insert whichever ones I feel like when they come to a room or a corridor spot. The four groups race through the maze, and the objective is to find a large flashing gem. I usually set it up so that when the party reaches the last room (where the gem is), most of the other groups arrive at the same time. If the party tries to hang back and let them fight it out, I have some of the NPC's start going for the gem. Remember that this was set up by a Mages' Guild, so you can put in almost anything you want...some examples of
rooms I use are:
1) The room has a chasm cutting it in two. There is another door on the far side, and a bridge across the chasm. (The chasm is actually an illusion, but falling in will take the PC out of the contest) On the bridge, there are two "knights". These are merely animated suits of armor, and they have orders to prevent anyone from crossing the chasm. They will react predictably to actions by the PC's, and so can be lured into traps; for example, a thief tries to climb across, one of the knights moves to block him, the party tosses oil onto the bridge where the knight would stand, then the thief goes back. The knight walks back and slips in the oil. Make the bridge very narrow and no handrails.
2) Another room with a chasm, but this one has a maze of invisible paths crossing it. The party would have to move very slowly, feeling their way along and probably mapping the maze as well. Therefore, you put a monster (I usually use a nonafel, or cat-o'-nine-tails, from the Fiend Folio, or else something called an amorph hopper which I made up) on the bridges to mess them up. Let the monster leap infallibly from one spot to another (it knows the maze perfectly), or else let it fly.
3) A circular room with a pillar in the center. As soon as one person enters the room, tell them that they see the door slam behind them and the room begins to spin. They are plastered against the outer wall by the centrifugal force, and are slowly being crushed. Then send them out of the room, and tell the other players that they see the guy enter the room, and then throw himself against the outer wall. It's an illusion, of course, and the other players can do whatever they want, but whatever they do, the trapped character will interpret it as something that would be happening, or else just something weird happens and he can't figure out why. For example: they tried slapping the "trapped" character across the face. He felt the blow, but had no idea where it came from. However, there's a catch: the crushing is real. After a little while, ribs begin cracking...the idea is to try to get the "trapped" character
to disbelieve his surroundings.
PCs can be tempted into the business a bit at a time. For example: At conclusion of other business a friendly tribesman notes "Your people make good iron. If you are back this way, bring us one of your fine steel blades and I'll trade two snow leopard skins for it". $$$$ in characters eyes! The trick is to avoid the boring bits.
1) Give them good NPC warehouse men etc that they really can trust except perhaps once, later rather than sooner, for a plot. If they feel they can safely leave a load in trusted hands for a fling then so much the better.
2) Have NPC's offer to retail so they are doing the wholesale transit stuff and dont get lost in selling detail. "Hey, I'll take all of this stuff you can get here at xxxx - leave you free to get another load moving eh?". Failing that declare, "after 2 hours you are sold out for xxxx reward". Forget detailing trading except for casual encounters with
a train.
3) Forget the unwieldy caravan bit - encourage them into the small mule train style. They'll have more fun. "Yup, de mules certainly de way. You see dat caravan train - takes 2 month to move dat round de Gap. Sheez dat costs! I ken move dis stuff over Hawk Pass on mules in meebe tree weeks on a good run."
4) Emphasize the exploratory opening up of new country rather then the big-haul routes. If they start into going back and forth on the same lucrative route too often, send in a big merchant with a massive caravan to drop the prices. They'll thank you for it in terms of game interest.
Some typical sorts of plots.
- Guarding the goods train. They'll really do it in earnest.
- Spying on the side under their legit cover.
- Involvement in local politics
- Exploration
- Building of fortified outposts and defense thereof
- Very dangerous goods! (i.e. magic)
- Recovery of stolen goods
- Dealing with a protection racket
- High risk winter route to relieve a starving outpost.
One potential problem is the possibilty of too much coin. Relax. Early in their career get them used to the idea that high profits come from real high risks and sometimes its better alive poor then rich and dead. ("You are surrounded by 20 young mounted warrior louts looking for trouble. They request 'presents' with broad grins. All are bow armed (and they've been training since 3 years old)". Remember that elaborate trading has high overheads in paying NPCs etc. If there is somehow got a money excess then introduce credit offered by bankers - on risky routes
they will sooner or later lose a train bought on borrowed money and the overheads will put them on the back foot!
A powerful wizard and his apprentice (also powerful) are after an artifact which is carefully guarded (by various traps, magics, etc) in a labyrinth. Put in there years ago by various leaders and since forgotten. They cannot think of a brute force way to get it, but they are clever enough to have figured out some loopholes which will allow a
low-level bunch of adventurers with various characteristics (tailor to your players, one obstacle per player or combination of players) to get in safely and escape with the artifact.
The wizard cooks up a long term plan (perhaps he is an elf) to obtain such a party of adventurers. This plan is subtle and tricky as that is the style of this wizard (he likes to manipulate and deceive people, like a game). He has his apprentice disguise himself as an old storyteller/bard who takes a liking to a young pc or npc and tells stories of the PC/NPC's grandfather who stopped a great evil by sacrificing himself, sealing the evil and himself into a labyrinth (yes
THE labyrinth). The grandfather was lost with his family sword and more importly an amulet which signified the family's power and destiny as heroes of the realm. Various stories of the grandfather, sword, and amulet should convince the PC/NPC to go after this stuff. The storyteller also tells of the PC/NPC's family talent for dowsing, and helps him cut a dowsing rod and casts various covert magics to make the character believe he has such power. Eventually he replaces the dowsing rod with an identical duplicate which is set up to find the other characters who are needed to get the artifact back (yes, the party). The character recruits or finds the party and they go and get the amulet back.
The wizard and apprentice appear at the exit from the labyrinth and reveal the hoax (part of the fun), demanding the amulet. The apprentice is either given or takes the amulet for the wizard, then gets a greedy look in his eyes and makes to put it on. The wizard vaporizes the apprentice and takes the amulet.
You might want to put some sort of treasure in this labyrinth so the party won't be too pissed that they have been deceived.
The wizard invites the characters to join in his "games" (see below). If they decline, he does various things to convince them to comply. If that fails, he cooks up another complicated deception to get them to join in. He will not force them to join, unless he feels that he has sufficiently deceived them.
The party is asked to go on a quest by an older man, a merchant, to save his daughter's life. She has the dreaded Indigo Flu, usually fatal. The only known cure is to make a medicine out of the Caiman stone, an odd fruit that grows out of a mineral/plant hybrid only in the most obscure places. The party is referred to the sage who told the merchant of this cure, for more info. The sage is of course an agent of the Wizard of the previous segment.
He cooks up a quest designed to bring the party eventually to a spot at which the wizard has planted a "Caiman Bush". The Caiman stone and the Indigo flu are complete fiction. The party will not find anybody else who knows about these even if they ask around. The Caiman Bush is an elaborate magic item, which will teleport the party into the Wizard's lair. The wizard will then inform them that the only exit from his lair is to win the game.
The game is versus another party which has been in suspended animation waiting for opponents. (Losers of the game are suspended and continue to play until they win, whereupon they are released). Make the game whatever you wish.
You should maybe allow the party to acquire some limited magic items from the game, so they won't be quite so pissed to have been manipulated.
Riddle-maps (idea based on "song-maps" that the old time Maori people used to describe journeys).
Basically sage-type person translates a song-map that someone earlier had written down in its original form. Lots of scope for errors. It's a translation so no need for poetry. Sage identifies one point in song as being nearby and wants the map followed. Fit into your world. The characters can only "see" what you describe so very careful descriptive work is necessary but red herrings can be fun.
An example of full riddle map.
"here the VALATAS people live above the halls the congress of tide and land, thence two noon suns cross your face and take you to the silver path. Up the path you onward go past three cold threads in summer still, then into the shadows of RAMATIS realm till the path is crossed at the weeping rock. Shortly the path splits at last, so turn your face and walk two sunsets till RAMATIS greets with open arms again. The laughing braid just in the shades, leads high to towers of earth, and there above the last falling tears, find the gates of night. No moon to light the halls of night but ochre stars will mark a path to those who walk in here. Pity you who have no meat to sacrifice to the Old Ones hidden within. Once met and your offering received dash for life to the halls of teeth. Beyond there lies the ribbon of red, rushing fast to meet the sun again, then bounding down past flaxen steps, to greet the ghost in its bed of gold."
Translation:
Capitalized bits are phonetic translation of unknown words. The sage has identified VALATAS so begin here.
The party walks towards the noon sun for 2 days and finds...
GM: "Towards end of second day you climb to top of ridge and look down on large river valley with the river glistening in the sun."
Following it upriver past three side-creeks that would wet you even in summer you get to woods. RAMATIS is the old people's God of forests but the PC's or sage wouldn't know this. They should easily guess though when you announce forest in the way. The river hits a gorge and a crossing is forced where a waterfall comes down a cliff face. After that the river divides at two big tributaries and you take the west one for two days. Should encounter woods again...however, the puzzle can be sharpened by woods that are no longer present (keep talking about NEW building in the area - ruins of a saw mill etc).
A quick flowing tributary is traced up into the mountains and above the top waterfall is a cave mouth. A path through the cave is marked by ochre crosses on the floor but it is also the lair of monster worms that fall on any meat. The travellers of old would carry a sheep up and run like hell for the cave of stalagmites (which block the worm) while it is devoured. Hope the PC have something ready...torch light will shortly show an underground river flowing the other way (no more ochre) which will lead to high mountain basin. Geologically an inlier of gold-bearing basement capped by limestone. Problem - it exits over a sheer bluff and the rope ladder has long since rotted away. The creek joins a larger creek with the disconcerting habit of disappearing an hour or two after rain (the "ghost") leaving a dry bed. And yes, this is based on real place in NZ. The creeks are gold-bearing if PC ready to dig for it the hard way. Remnants of digging all over the show.
You get the general idea. Quite a bit of work and you can lead characters by the nose through it if so inclined. Mis-translations can also help.
Every ten years, the Mages' Guild holds a contest. The prize of the contest should be left fairly vague, unless one of your PC's is a high-ranking member of the Guild...I usually use some statement about "material considerations...well, it's politics mostly..." However, since Guild mages tend to be not particularly active types, the contest is structured as follows: each mage hires a group of adventurers (here's where the PC's come in), who then compete for the prize in a maze set up and run by the Guild. The party should be hired by a mage, who tells them basically the information above, plus the number of other groups competing (I usually use four groups total, since in my maze they tend to meet up at the end for a final battle, and dealing with more NPC's than that would get hellish). The mage gives each PC a magical "token"; basically just a little one-use magic item. The tokens can have effects
like Levitate (for a duration), Light (ditto), Invisibility (as the spell); just go through the PH and pick out spells to use. Make up a maze to put the party though, and don't forget that several other groups are doing this at the same time! The way I run it is that I have a map of a maze, with four relatively distinct paths to a final room. They do cross over, but not very often. Each has several large empty rooms on the map, and some marked spots in the corridors. Then I have a list of rooms to use, and corridor tricks, and I just insert whichever ones I feel like when they come to a room or a corridor spot. The four groups race through the maze, and the objective is to find a large flashing gem. I usually set it up so that when the party reaches the last room (where the gem is), most of the other groups arrive at the same time. If the party tries to hang back and let them fight it out, I have some of the NPC's start going for the gem. Remember that this was set up by a Mages' Guild, so you can put in almost anything you want...some examples of
rooms I use are:
1) The room has a chasm cutting it in two. There is another door on the far side, and a bridge across the chasm. (The chasm is actually an illusion, but falling in will take the PC out of the contest) On the bridge, there are two "knights". These are merely animated suits of armor, and they have orders to prevent anyone from crossing the chasm. They will react predictably to actions by the PC's, and so can be lured into traps; for example, a thief tries to climb across, one of the knights moves to block him, the party tosses oil onto the bridge where the knight would stand, then the thief goes back. The knight walks back and slips in the oil. Make the bridge very narrow and no handrails.
2) Another room with a chasm, but this one has a maze of invisible paths crossing it. The party would have to move very slowly, feeling their way along and probably mapping the maze as well. Therefore, you put a monster (I usually use a nonafel, or cat-o'-nine-tails, from the Fiend Folio, or else something called an amorph hopper which I made up) on the bridges to mess them up. Let the monster leap infallibly from one spot to another (it knows the maze perfectly), or else let it fly.
3) A circular room with a pillar in the center. As soon as one person enters the room, tell them that they see the door slam behind them and the room begins to spin. They are plastered against the outer wall by the centrifugal force, and are slowly being crushed. Then send them out of the room, and tell the other players that they see the guy enter the room, and then throw himself against the outer wall. It's an illusion, of course, and the other players can do whatever they want, but whatever they do, the trapped character will interpret it as something that would be happening, or else just something weird happens and he can't figure out why. For example: they tried slapping the "trapped" character across the face. He felt the blow, but had no idea where it came from. However, there's a catch: the crushing is real. After a little while, ribs begin cracking...the idea is to try to get the "trapped" character
to disbelieve his surroundings.