Skull and Shackle side quests DMing help

[Absolutemarc]

So I consider my self a pretty decent DM, not great but I manage on my own. I'm currently running a Skull and Shackles quest, five member party.
We just started part 2 of the second book. Now, I consider my self pretty good when it comes to improv, I like to let my party do whatever they want and I'll react just fine to the situation.

That being said- I really want to start incorporating the rumors in the back of each adventure book. my one real down fall as a DM is that I'm not so great when the book just gives me some minor info on the little mini-quest and expects me to fill in all the blanks.

Can anyone here help provide me with some ideas in order to run those little quests at the back? I'd be real appreciative and would be more than willing to trade some of the made up stuff I put together that my group has done so far.

[Gideon Black]

Well the great thing about the pirate them plot hooks to lead to those side quests are easy to come up with. Roll perception they find a message in a bottle about a side quest item, from a dying sailor talking about what island its on. Storm throws them of course need repairs search the island they land at. A map with vague hints in a captured ships captains quarters. Rumours in a bar. Rescue a stranded sailor he rewards you with a general description of the island that a side quest item is on. That clockwork toucan have it somewhere they land on the coast to get fresh water. Have it follow them cawking at them till they devise a good plan to varies it.
Just some ideas, hope that's what your looking for.

[Absolutemarc]

see that is a good start but what would really help is more background on the people and items involved with the stuff for instance, my group wants to go to skinny whale island and just eradicate a tribe of goblins (just because) I could easily have on of those items be there, but my team is very much intersted in the "what does it do, what can I do with it" and lets say i make it so the fancy hourglass is there, they are gonna want more info on it besides what the little blurb gives me.

[ferrinwulf]

I had the same problem with the Toucan, luckliy ultimate equipment has the Queens Magpie minor artifact so I just used that and changed it to a clockwork Parrot to make it fit my idea.

Unfortunatly there is nothing stated up so its work you need to do if you want to use them.

Shame as they add an extra level to the sandbox game in book 2 and later in the AP to help keep this up.

[Absolutemarc]

They really are nice and with my party who play moer like "lets go on adventures" pirates rather than "lets go rape and pillage" pirates
it would just be nice to say oh yeah that things worth xx gp or yy extra disrepute if you show it off. I dunno i just wish they gave a little more then what they did. any one have any quests they used that they want to share?

[Ben Ehrets]

I'll bet you can come up with ideas if you just grant yourself a little freedom. So much of the adventure path is scripted and roughly linear. How nice to have some spots to personalize.

I used the toucan side quest just tonight I had a new player joining, so I needed to work him in, and I also just felt like there should be a little bit more before we come to the attack on the Man's Promise.

I had Captain Harrigan - unseen for the first three sessions of play to get a little build up on his first appearance - call in two of the characters who seemed to show anything resembling leadership. He told them the legend of The Lost Messenger, and noted they were near the island where the bird had last been seen. He put the two characters in charge of a retrieval team and equipped them with a special 1 use, 1 day lasting little charm that could detect clockwork creatures like a long range Locate spell. He also granted them 30gp each to spend in the ship store to equip themselves and my players had an unexpected amount of fun making best use of their store credit.

Shortly after coming ashore, they found a group of huts; most run down, but one still being lived in. Enter my new player. I'd briefed him ahead of time about being the sole survivor of a group marooned on the island by another group of pirates, back story back story, yadda yadda, jokes about a volley ball with a face marked on it. New character is now in the group, coming complete with some helpful familiarity about the island.

The next encounter was with a group of apes. The ape snatched away the party druid while two others menaced the group. The ranger had a huge roll with his Wild Empathy to keep things cool. Meanwhile, the druid's player says somewhat jokingly "Can I convince it to become my animal companion?" I had him make some rolls, but I'd actually overheard the player in a previous session mention ape on his short list of hoped-for companions, so that was actually the reason for the whole encounter. The players, usually very savvy, didn't quite catch that - which was good, because it made the whole thing seem to work out organically.

After that, they dealt with some plant creatures, giving everyone, including the new guy, a chance to show their stuff. They then glimpsed the metal toucan and we called it a night with the characters still in pursuit.

I'm going to take them up a mountain. They may or may not go in an old iron mine (the bird might fly in there). Might be some skeleton miners still at work and a bit territorial about intruders; a cave-in; possibly a spider or centipede swarm; some skill rolls to find their way out. Then some more tracking and we'll see how they're doing and what ideas they have, but it will probably come to a climactic moment of either "talking down" the toucan or otherwise trapping it.

The captain would like the bird, but he's just as interested in seeing what these new members of his crew can do. If they return successful, he'll pass out some rewards.