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xedrick
Seeker
82 Posts |
 Posted - 10 Apr 2012 : 01:19:27
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Greetings all,
This is my first post here, though I've been lurking from time to time for a while now. I've decided to skip the introduction thread, as it is probably in the best interest of my game to remain anonymous; My players may already be around here someplace.
*pulls hood tighter*
So my players (group of 4, lvl 5, 3.5e) have been in Calimport (using the AD&D supplement to detail the city..not sure how accurate it actually is to 3e, but it is what it is) for a few weeks and are ready to leave. They're heading north, first stop Memnon, and will be travelling with the a caravan belonging to the Golden Sands brewery, pay dependent on how many barrels safely arrive in Memnon.
I don't want to spend a lot of time focusing on the trip, but I don't want to completely glaze over it either.
So I've been thinking about ways to make the trip entertaining without doing exactly what my players expect (oh look, monsters!), and I think I want to have the GS caravan cross another caravan in the open desert. This caravan carries kegs headed to Cafe Cormyrean, back in Calimport (probably among other things).
The head of the GS caravan is going to offer the characters money for every keg that they can ruin on the CC wagons. I expect my players (whose characters are all good-aligned) to jump at the opportunity to make some coin.
I'd imagine there would be 12 kegs on a wagon, 3-4 wagons in either caravan. At 10g per keg, they'd have around 500g to split between them if they got them all.
So, to all you other DMs out there, how would you handle such an encounter?
-Would the Cormyreans return the attack, retreat, or both?
-What would the GS caravan leader do if they turned down his offer?
-Would you consider participation in this encounter as chaotic, evil, or both?
-Any other input not directly related to my questions?
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Kilvan
Senior Scribe
Canada
894 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2012 : 01:55:09
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Ok, let's look into it. First, I don't think any of this is evil, unless they hurt people to ruin the stock. Paladins or followers of deity like Tyr would be against it, but because it is a chaotic action (and against the actual law).
The caravan would probably attack on sight if the PCs were caught. If the PCs used lethal force against the guard, it would then be murder (and definitely evil). The self-defense card wouldn't work, they attacked them (by stealing) and the guards would be only doing their job by responding by force.
Here's a twist
I would have the PCs find an item they were not suppose to find, a genie lantern (an evil genie to be exact). The coffee could be a font for the real delivery, the genie to a rich and powerful Pasha in Calimport. You could spin-off an interesting quest where the genie could trick them, or the Pasha could employ wizards to use divination against those who stole his precious item. Agents and sent, people die, building are set on fire, a real Calimshan adventure!
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4686 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2012 : 02:24:47
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Oh, time for a sigh.
There is no GOOD reason for a party to attack either caravan.
Trade caravans travel past each other in peace most of the time, it would not meet standard of good to wreck trade goods of another, it indeed would be EVIL.
If you want to make it interesting, killing the person offering the bribe is the only way to keep a good alignment. Of course likely the first to feel the penalty would be the Cleric, no spells any more.
You propose an Evil act just to make things interesting? If so I hope your GOOD players will not take the bribe, which would not be paid anyway.
Oh each wagon likely can carry a ton of goods. A barrel weighs in the range of 150 to 300 pounds, you can have more then three or four each wagon for your Evil party to wreak. |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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xedrick
Seeker
82 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2012 : 07:30:23
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@Kentinal: An opportunity for a character to commit an evil act to make things interesting, yes. I'm using a table and roll system to chart alignment, outlined here: http://www.easydamus.com/alignmenttracking.html . I've found it works well for my group, and allows a player to indulge (to a limited extent) with his fellow party members on occasion. It also helps to correct any 'false alignment' that a player might arbitrarily write down on a character sheet. Situations like this lead to great roleplaying around my table, too, because a Dwarven follower of the Truesilver isn't going to want to participate in something like this, and will likely try to talk the rogue (who loosely worships tymora) out of it. I agree with you that the act would be both chaotic and evil, on the scale that I showed I would place it as 2-3 Chaotic and a variable between 0 and 5 evil, depending on how they go about doing it. If none of the guards notice, and no one gets hurt, I can see why it is still an evil act (it is selfish), but not evil enough to place on the 1-5 scale.
@Kilvan, you've got a fantastic idea there. A minor evil act on the road away from Calimport (they were so glad to leave that wretched, crowded place!) leads to a storyline that ends with a huge moral dilemma, and possibly a geas or two. Maybe I'll save this for in the event that they get out of control and slaughter the whole caravan. It is a side-quest kind of thing, anyway. I'm going to look into the genie thing and I might get back with you on this...
Also, the two companies mentioned deal in alcohol. Golden Sands is based in Calimport and basically run that area of the world's brewing. They have almost a whole ward in Calimport dedicated only to their breweries and warehouses, and they're thugs, like most in Calimport. Cafe Cormyrean is in the Grand Ward in Calimport, and the Pasha's enjoyment of the foreign drink is the only thing that keeps them open. I love how much 'fluff' info the 2nd ed books had.
As a side note, one of the characters is already wearing a Ring of Protection +1 that's got a Hag's Eye in it. That's what you get for accepting gifts from strangers. Add an evil lamp to the mix and these guys are just loaded with plot twist possibilities!
They're also planning on purchasing some real estate someplace and building a keep to attract followers... You may have just showed me the way to their first real arch-nemesis...
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Edited by - xedrick on 10 Apr 2012 07:31:05 |
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Sill Alias
Senior Scribe
Kazakhstan
588 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2012 : 09:35:43
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| It would be fun to give alternatives. They may decide to refuse, but go and secretly warn another caravan, since the GS caravan leader may do it on his own or use his men for that, possibly not caring about details like lives wasted in process. It may be a twist if the opposing leader is also not on good side of law himself, probably having offer of his own. Offer choices, good anonymous sir. |
You can hear many tales from many mouths. The most difficult is to know which of them are not lies. - Sill Alias
"May your harp be unstrung, your dreams die and all your songs be unsung." - curse of the harper, The Code of the Harpers 2 ed.
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Kilvan
Senior Scribe
Canada
894 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2012 : 12:41:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Kentinal
Oh, time for a sigh.
There is no GOOD reason for a party to attack either caravan.
Trade caravans travel past each other in peace most of the time, it would not meet standard of good to wreck trade goods of another, it indeed would be EVIL.
<snip>
You propose an Evil act just to make things interesting? If so I hope your GOOD players will not take the bribe, which would not be paid anyway.
Allow me to disagree. Not to start up an alignment debate again (these tend to never really end), but I think we are in a gray area here. The party could be made of CG rogues who see nothing wrong with making a quick buck, over a rich merchant, without hurting anybody. A follower of Torm/Tyr/whatever would find this dishonest, dishonorable, and against the law. In other word, chaotic.
Again, if a single guard is killed, this is a totally different situation. If the party is crystal clear about doing this clean, at the risk of making less gold, I think you would be within their alignment.
quote:
Originally posted by Kentinal
If you want to make it interesting, killing the person offering the bribe is the only way to keep a good alignment. Of course likely the first to feel the penalty would be the Cleric, no spells any more.
Whoa, we are really having a different definition of GOOD. What you propose is very-lawful-kinda-good to the extreme, lawful-stupid. If a paladin struck down someone who proposed (not actually did it) something like this, I would remove his paladin abilities forever. And if he caught someone stealing and killed him right away, same result. This is personal justice, jails and tribunals exists for a reason, to uphold Law. |
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xedrick
Seeker
82 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2012 : 18:41:07
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quote:
Originally posted by Sill Alias
It would be fun to give alternatives. They may decide to refuse, but go and secretly warn another caravan, since the GS caravan leader may do it on his own or use his men for that, possibly not caring about details like lives wasted in process. It may be a twist if the opposing leader is also not on good side of law himself, probably having offer of his own. Offer choices, good anonymous sir.
See, they've hinted that they intend to go to Cormyr at some point anyway, that's why I chose the groups that I did to encounter one another on the road. I'm pretty much running a game right now where I started out in complete control of the story line (until they landed in calimport at about lvl 4), and now they've finally got a little control over where they're going to go and what they want to do, until I find a good time to seize control again.
I play with an extremely intelligent bunch of folks, so I'm preparing myself for the chances that they'll refuse the offer, and also that they'll see this as a chance to make some contacts (or at least a preceeding reputation) back in Cormyr.
Thank you for your input!
@Kilvan again: I agreee about the whole "kill the one who makes the offer" thing. The way I see it, a LG character has the chance to unwittingly become LE if he takes his ideals too far (terrorists anyone?). Examples being what you've already mentioned. Killing the caravaneer over simply suggesting the idea is ludicrous and just as evil as killing off the guards of the other caravan.
I've got a pretty good grasp on the alignment system, or at least the alignment system that works at MY table, I didn't mean to start an alignment debate...like you said, they go on forever.
I think that the alignment chart system that I'm using gives me lots of interesting opportunities to test characters' alignment, and even shift them on occasion. For most of my group, alignment is not a prison, so who cares if it changes? I've also decided to make RELIC items from the Magic Item Compendium be dependant on alignment perfection rather than a specific diety (since none of them exist in faerun and its easier than converting them all; it also gives players a chance to actually USE the damn things without basing the entire character around an item).
For example, when they first arrived in Calimport, there was a man at the moneychanget at the Sufontis Market who was late on his loan payment. They easily overheard the exchange, saw the guards haul him away screaming and begging, and did nothing. They passed up a chance to have a free city guide and a place to stay for the time that they were there, and my dwarven cleric missed a chance to push his good alignment closer to 100. But I'm not going to penalize him for not spending their hard-earned gp (albeit not very many)resolving a situation that they knew nothing about. It happened as if they were never in the city at all.
Again, thank you all for your responses, I'd like to keep this conversation going.
I'm still thinking about how a crooked caravan leader would react when his 'mercenaries' refuse to carry out his orders?
I would imagine that he would call them little girls, attempt to taunt them into doing what he wants, and then eventually give up. There will be other caravan guards around, but I'd imagine that he (as a commoner or expert class) wouln't want to test his luck.
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Kilvan
Senior Scribe
Canada
894 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2012 : 19:31:47
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quote:
Originally posted by xedrick
I'm still thinking about how a crooked caravan leader would react when his 'mercenaries' refuse to carry out his orders?
I would imagine that he would call them little girls, attempt to taunt them into doing what he wants, and then eventually give up. There will be other caravan guards around, but I'd imagine that he (as a commoner or expert class) wouln't want to test his luck.
Well, if the merchant thought he could take on the mercenaries he employed, he might have not employed them in the first place. Now how he might react depends on both his character and his own alignment. I think the merchant's reaction would be to quickly change the subject is the PCs flat-out refuse, or to try to "sell" the idea if they hesitate. |
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xedrick
Seeker
82 Posts |
Posted - 10 Apr 2012 : 20:33:08
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good call.
it's too easy for me to fall into the "okay, they attack you" trap, and my players sometimes suffer from the same problem, only in reverse. I think it's a symptom of video game poisoning...
EDIT: Though I had initially wished to remain anonymous, I've given away some pretty specific details here. I give my players enough credit to imagine that they would either A) have turned away by now in interest of the game, or B) keep this private and use the Privilieged Out Of Character Information (POOCI) gained here to help me better the game rather than destroy it. Hopefully I'm right about that. lol |
Edited by - xedrick on 10 Apr 2012 20:36:24 |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4686 Posts |
Posted - 11 Apr 2012 : 00:11:32
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Not all the mood for this right now, however offers a reply.
Raiding a peaceful trade caravan is both EVIL and Chaotic, the killing of the employer was an over reach though. Odds are good such has occurred before with not witnesses is what prompted that reply. The PCs certainly have the option to arrest, such a pain, as opposed to holding trial on site. I still believe that NPC should die and quickly, before getting more to swoop down on his competition. |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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creating an unusual encounter
