Hi all. I'm finally starting the SCAP tonight, after wanting to do so for nearly a year! Tonight we'll be going over characters, introducing the setting, and other introductory stuff like that. I want to have a couple of minor role-playing encounters to help give the players a feel for the city, but I don't have any good ideas yet. Would anyone care to share some ideas for minor introductory role-playing encounters?
What kind of "feel" of the city are you trying to evoke?
My first thought is to have the party arriving at the gates of Cauldron. The location of Cauldron (in the caldera of a volcano in the middle of the jungle) deviates from the norm enough that I'd rather introduce it to my players as new arrivals at a strange place rather than just saying "you've lived here your whole life, you're used to it"
Plus this gives them a chance to interract with the town guard back when they're relatively uncorrupted by You-Know-Who's machinations. That way they'll be more likely to notice when things start going south.
If you really want to stretch it out, you could even introduce them to the Lucky Monkey, but that depends on how much time you want to spend introducing them to the setting.
Thanks for your ideas guys. They were a little late, but then, I didn't give much advance notice :)
We started the path last night with a group of 4 characters.
Wizard - played by a long-time veteran of the game
Ranger - played by a long-time veteran of the game
Rogue - played by someone out of the game for about 4 years
Cleric of Wee Jas - played by a complete newbie
That cleric of Wee Jas looks like I can have some fun with him.
We spend the first part of the night finishing characters and coming up with backgrounds, so I didn't have any background information to work with. Instead, I had the two characters who were from outside Cauldron enter the gates at the same time and be given directions to the same inn, so they were walking together. The rogue was following the wizard home from Bluecrater Academy, looking for an opportunity to pick his pocket or to offer him black market goods. I had the two groups pass the opposite ends of the alley from event #1 at roughly the same time, thus throwing everyone into the same encounter. Rufus invited them all back to the Temple of St. Cuthbert, and we went from there.
I think there's a lot of potential for me to have some fun with this group. The wizard took the Nobility trait, so he has family ties throughout the region and can be embroiled in the noble politiking. The ranger took the wyrm-blooded trait and his background has him seeking out his roots (he's half-orc), so I can tie that in later. The rogue's background has him local to Cauldron, so I can bring in contacts like the informant from later in the path and maybe someone in the Alleybashers. And the cleric - who also took the Long-Shadowed trait - well, let's just say that my Evil-DM Gears (tm) are spinning right now.