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So, my blending-in but definitely CE Chelish social-rogue noticed the dynamic at Fatman's Feedbag and has deduced that Jubrayl was the guy in charge and through some info gathering has learned that he probably runs the local Sczarni gang. Anyway, he sent me this in response to a question about what to do with a couple of days off:
"Wyndham will spend those days trying to set up a private meeting with Jubrayl (of the Sczarni).
If he can get a private meeting, W wants to find out what he would need to do to get involved with them. He also wants to know what it would take to have a non-Varisian given a bruising (but nothing disabling or lethal). Preferably by some folks from out of town, and on a night where W can be seen far from the action."
I expect that the target of the bruising is none other than the doomed Banny Harker (My PCs are just about to cross the bridge into Thistletop, so Banny won't be murdered for a couple weeks yet).
What would you other DMs do with such a request?
Think asking the sopranos to go ruff up someone for ya... the Scarni are the Gypsi Mafia. In this case they are a small town local group...
but they would still have conections... So for a price we could send Sully Vancaskorkin and Sacha Vorchenko to go out and make sure he gets a workover... Maybe Madam Mvashti could consult with Desna or we could get a Harrower :)
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Oooh, this has happened in my group too.
Two of the PCs leanred about this group, and decided to do a bit of sleuthing around the Fatman feedbag. Alone, as they did not trust the Varisian in their own group on this.
The witcher one entered the bar alone and asked for drinks and entertainment, but otherwise kept on his own, just observing in a corner table. Since he was a tough guy type, they left him on his own observing him too.
Then the changeling rogue entered, looking like a varisian courtesy of change self. And he started making contact signs, so he got invited to one of the regulars' tables. They were a bit curious as they did not know him, so they got into small talk. The players failed his bluff checks and also managed to insult the others by his actual talking.
An all-out brawl immediately followed. The witcher player did not move from his table on round one, and the rogue was pretty badly beaten after one round of attacks from broken bottles and footstools. He fled using Dim Door from one of his items, and this display of sorcery sobered everyone in the room.
The witcher player got a free tab just so he'd forget the whole incident, nobody called the watch, and it was all reported as the Sandpoint Devil work.
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Ive been reading through your thread, and enjoy it alot. Its given me several ideas for my own game which is gonna start in just a few weeks.
Anyway, I think you ought to let his character do it. Banny gets beaten up by the Sczarni. Later on, Banny is murdered, but Jubrayl knows it wasnt by his guys, so maybe he'd be willing to offer up your pc to the sheriff as the possible murderer, to help keep the sheriffs eye off of Jubrayl for a bit.
Or maybe blackmail. Maybe both.
Hope that helps!
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I'm reminded of the scene in the Godfather when the undertaker came and asked that he get retribution for an attack on his daughter (after having had no luck with the police). From the point of the view of the Sczarni, it would seem as out of place (him being non-Varisian) and out of the blue. I could even see them being suspicious that they were being set up somehow because he (my PC Wyndham) hangs around with heroes.
I am of two minds on this. One idea is to have the Sczarni ignore him, plead ignorance and leave it at that. If he presses the issue, he'll start finding dead fish around or something like that - some kind of keep to your own affairs message.
Another option is for the gangsters to play it straight and actually ask Wyndham to do something for them in return for roughing up Banny Harker. I just had an idea where W could be sent to rough up/kill/whatever the two con men who are due to get killed in the prologue of Skinsaw, on the excuse that they conned some Varisian locals and the authorities were unable to arrest them due to a paucity of evidence. That would give me a chance to plant the idea that they were con men and greedy ones at that. Naturally, when contact is made, the con men are already dead - recently murdered by the Skinsaw Man. Another alternative is for the Sczarni to set him up as a patsy some time in the future.
I suppose I could run either main option depending on how the contact goes. In my timeline, Aldern *just* succumbed to ghoul fever and the first obsession item is due to be pilfered right away so we're pretty good in that respect.
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Well, the contact didn't go well for my PC.
He successfully asked for a meeting and was granted one. There were some cloak and dagger passphrases and he was told to return to Fatman's in an hour and "ask the barkeep about the tides". He did so and was pointed to a room that would "have a tide chart in it".
The room was at the end of a short hall with linked doors (both ends of the hall couldn't be open at the same time) and had 4 guards wearing rapiers and carrying loaded heavy x-bows plus Jubrayl sitting by a table at the far end. The Guards asked for my PC's swordbelt (and didn't frisk for hidden weapons) and he complied but then my PC demanded that the guards leave. He blew his diplomacy roll with a rolled 2 so Jubrayl said "you asked for this meeting, if you don't like the setting you are free to leave, Schavash."
Now, "Shavash" is a made-up word that I meant to be the Varisian term for something like "outsider" or whatever the opposite of "paisan" - meaning countryman - in mafia-speak is. The guards snickered a little and my PC, being an outsider who doesn't speak Varisian, assumed the worst and stormed out, making some lippy comments on the way, to which Jubrayl answered "Don't waste my time again".
Then, my PC decides to do some information gathering (at another bar of course) mostly about the Sczarni, their membership in town and heirarchy and managed to get a 25 on his roll for the big, meaty question about numbers etc. He ends up with a bunch of good intel and after doing some perimeter scouting, returns to Fatman's late at night and orders a beer, with the plan of sitting there and watching Jubrayl for some reason that I am not privy to.
I had already decided that his slight was enough to get blackballed but not enough to earn an enemy so the waitress says, "For you, a beer is 50gp." My PC refuses and says he'll wait for his friends so the waitress points to a sign that says "Patrons Only". My PC shrugs and sits still so the waitress leaves and the four thugs from earlier come over and arrange themselves around him and ask him to leave.
He refuses and they move to grab him. He decides to fight, wins initiative and tries to sneak-attack kick one in the groin (to make an escape avenue and to break the flank), rolls another poor roll and barely misses. (I am using the CR1 Street Thug from the NPC gallery from the GMG for the guards with some equipment modifications.)
The "bouncers" pull out saps and beat him down to 4 HP equivalent in nonlethal damage. He decides to try to run for the Kitchen Door (of all choices, coincidentally towards where Jubrayl is sitting), invokes AoO's to do it and gets clubbed down to 0 HP, so is staggered. He finishes his single move and then gets knocked out, right by the kitchen door.
I decided that they Sczarni would be loathe to involve the local constabulary even though they were in the right as far as witnesses are concerned. They took his walking around money as a "tip" as well as his sword belt (rapier and one dagger) and then dumped him on the nearby muddy shore below the pier between Hannah's and the Shipyard (as it is currently low but flooding tide, a detail that I know from what the other group has been up to).
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He picked himself up and went to the guards. They returned in the morning and chatted with the Fatman and his "bouncers". The Fatman had the swordbelt and weapons (and returned them) but knew nothing about the money. The bouncers denied robbing my PC and the guardsman decided that without a witness, there was no crime. The guard also decided that the beating was a reasonable response to being attacked in a bar and running towards the kitchen so no crime there. My PC had made diplomacy checks with the guard so he offered to canvas for witnesses.
My PC then did some info gathering and talked to two people from the bar and thwy didn't see anyone take any gold. He then info gathered about the bouncers (looking for where they live) and motly failed, just learning that it is probably in one of the adjoining buildings. He is currently staking out the front door to follow the bouncers home.
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In my mind, there is no way that your Player can honestly believe that he was in the right. Though I can see him holding a big time grudge... Ooh, you got yourself a bit of a bees' nest there.
Sometimes that leads to the best stories!
Yeah, he's stirred up a couple of these things so far, the first of which got him dragged to the jail for questioning. He is playing a sociopathic CE rogue who is hiding within the mantle of an otherwise heroic good party. (He was part of Nualia's band right up until the Swallowtail Festival and decided to play the role of hero so he's known a bit more about the story than the other players and has guided them to understand the villains' backgrounds while keeping his hidden source of his knowledge secret.)
This is all with my blessing. My ground rules for him are that he doesn't hog spotlight time during in-game sessions by going away from the rest of the group and he, being a DM as well, has respected that well so far.
He keeps his nighttime activities seperate from the rest of the group (being run by PBP) and doesn't steal from the group or do much more than a little deception.
I suspect he means to murder the bouncers if he can.
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I assume with him doing all this stuff on the side that the rest of your party isnt, that your doing the "and its time for everyone to level up" type of exp?
Also, does he know anything about the AP past Burnt Offerings? I could really see him getting set up as a red herring for Sheriff hemlock in book 2 if he isnt careful, lol.
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The party is sharing XP even when the players aren't in attendance (thode missing out get a half share) so what they do in PBP or off-screen is lumped into that. He's down some cash though so I wouldn't mind getting him caught up if he does maanage to wack the bouncers.
And no, he doesn't know about the next chapter but he's going to be in trouble there too. In fact, his run-in with the law involved Banny Harker because he found out about the elder Vinder girl's relationship (he got away with er... doing the younger girl and is helping keep the heat off of Shayliss). I think his original purpose for contacting the Sczarni was to get Harker beaten up for taking their earlier affair to the town guard.
Messing with the underworld is always a gamble, and the first rule of gambling is not to chase your loses. Unfortunately some people don't know when to quit.
It looks to me like he's going to get himself killed at this rate, and it also occurs to me that that would be an awesome PC death. I mean, imagine how it would look to the rest of the PCs: all they'd know is that he messed with the local crime syndicate and ended up dead. They wouldn't know that he instigated the whole thing over a botched attempt at petty vengeance; in fact, they'd probably assume that Jubrayl had something to do with the goblin attacks (or whatever they're facing at that point) and that Wyndham found out about or tried to stop them, assuming in good faith that their fallen member held the same heroic goals they do. Jubrayl might even come into focus as a primary antagonist for a while, especially if he starts to perceive the rest of the heroes as a real threat to his position.
Meanwhile you can take your time deciding how to stage the big reveal: that their dear departed friend was just a troublemaking sociopath (and an associate of their REAL enemies), and that they've started a bloody feud with the local crime boss over nothing.
The biggest obstacle here is that player's expectations. In practice, he's sort of playing the sociopathic buffoon, the guy who thinks he's some hotshot supervillain and goes on thinking that until his ego gets him killed. And that in its own way is an awesome and memorable character. But is that how the player sees it? Or does that player really want to play some kind of suave underworld badass, only to grow more frustrated every time his vengeful machinations fail? If the latter case is true then you may have a problem, whether or not you want to kill his character.
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In the end he waited until he saw two of the bouncers came out carrying loaded heavy crossbows. Unfortunately for him, he spooked when the bouncers came out and he hid below the docks. That meant that he didn't see that one of them went around the west corner of the block and one did not, staying behind in the shadows. They were spreading out to provide security for Jubrayl.
Having missed the bit of information that would have made the rest of this encounter a breeze, he climbed back up and waited, not seeing either bouncer any more. Shortly thereafter, Jubrayl came out with a young hottie on his arm and walked around the corner, following his security detail, while the Fatman, headed the other way. My PC decided to tail Jubrayl and almost walked into the exact square where one of the security detail was hiding against the wall. They both made their stealth checks so like two ships in the night, he passed the thug and waited for Jubrayl to go around the corner, which was lit by lamplight. He then followed and when he himself stood under the lamp (i.e in full view and no stealth allowed), it alerted the thug in the darkness behind him, who whistled.
My PC wheeled in the darkness, lost initiative and was missed barely by a surprise crossbow bolt and then tagged by a thrown dagger and missed from another bolt from one of the security detail that was coming up from behind. Another of the security detail approached him from the front while Jubrayl and the woman came back.
He wisely decided to split and ran past Jubrayl into the darkness. Jubrayl taunted him as he fled saying, "Don't swim around here again little fishy or you'll be feeding the crabs instead of playing with them."
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(snip) The biggest obstacle here is that player's expectations. (snip)
I've been making sure that things are fine with my player and I plan on checking up with him again when we play face to face tomorrow. He has been unlucky in all this but that's the dice when you're 3rd level and I'm pretty sure he gets that. Looking back at the logs, it may well seem that I have been shifting the goalposts on him but if it comes to it, I'll tell him that I made my static NPC plans before he ever enters the scene and don't change those plans except tactically. I'm sure he'll be fine - we've been playing for >20 years now.
It wouldn't surprise me if he concocts some story to get the rest of the party to help him get vengeance against the Sczarni now. Alternatively, he should have such a hate on for them that he'll wait and come back in a few levels and try to kill them all, perhaps to take their place - Solozzo style from the Godfather. I'm going to help this hate along by having the Sczarni leave a dead fish in front of his room door for him to find, in reference to what Jubrayl said. Fortunately for him, he's going to be out of town for a few days in Thistletop (i expect) which will probably cool Jubrayl's jets a bit and give him time to level up.
I think his early failures will ultimately make the final confrontation all the more satisfying for him if he has the patience to wait it out.
That all sounds awesome. :) That last one in particular sounds like a well-executed, cinematic, and generally memorable encounter.
On second thought I see that most GMs probably wouldn't be as willing to kill the PC, as I can be a bit of a rat-bastard and drama monkey like that. You're totally right, though; if he does have the patience to wait it out, then all this will just make him feel all the more awesome once he finally is in a position to dish out some payback.
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What are you doing about the Stag Lord and the bandits from kingmaker?
Erik,
I posted my KM spoilerific reply here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/adventurePa th/runelords/goBsRunelordsKingmakerMashupCampaignSpoilersForBothAPs&pag e=1#25
~Kris