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My first post here, nice to be in yout community guys.
I have a serious problem with my Eberron campaign's plot.
The facts are that my players, when were on their quest, found additional treasure than the one they were send for.
The item - let's call it X - was really important to the players' patron and they knew it.
They were disappointed with the reward for their primary goal - although they had come to an agreement in the first place - and they decided to keep X. One of them, member of a noble wealthy house - NOT dragonmarked house - decided to give it to his father to watch it.
They send their patron a message letting him know that they have information about X but they want a huge reward - knowing that he was searching X his whole life.
Now the problem is that I really needed this item to be stolen from their patron - if he had it. Now that a member of a noble house has it, it can't be traced there. I would love some ideas how i can make it happen.
What CAN'T happen:
- Use Locate Object (none has ever touched the item)
- The player's father become a traitor
- Other members of the house know about it (the player was ensured that they were alone)
Players are lvl 4 and they currently are away for some personal seeking that will last at least one week.
So, what can happen in one and have this item stolen?
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If the noble house has enemies, have a rival house hire some mercany adventurers to commit a raid on the house where X is stored. Most of them are killed, but some escape with loot, including X. Once the merc discovers what he has, he may try to sell it to the patron directly, giving the players a three way race between them, agents of the enemy house, and the patron to find the thieves first.
Was the way in which this message was sent totally secure? That is, did anybody other than the patron have even a theoretical chance of seeing it? Because if so, given that you already were planning on the patron's security being weak, maybe a copy of the message could have made its way to the thief you were planning on stealing it anyway.
Depends on how evil and powerful their patron is.
Seriously, a random theft would work. Perhaps the father put the item on the lightning rail to send it to the Mror Holds for safekeeping, and the lightning rail coach disappeared somewhere between two stops. Ir the skyship carrying it was attacked by....orc airship pirates and the trinket was taken to the Shadow Marches. Or...a manifest zone to Thelanis opened and subsumed the manorhouse of the father into the plane of twilight.
You say the item needs to be stolen, but why? To keep it out of the hands of the Patron? OK. Where do you want your campaign to go? Do you want your PC's to try and find the item again, and track down where it went? Or do you just want the Patron not to get it?
It really annoys me when I don't do things right.
But, I hope you shall forgive me, it was my first post so I did not know what information should I give.
I am trying not to refer to specific names and locations, to have a more out-of-the-ordinary advice.
That's the story in titles:
- The players' patron is a helpful young man that cares about the players.
- He, however is double agent, concerning his affiliations not related to the players.
- He wants X for one of his affiliations, without the other knowing about it.
- Players felt that they were tricked because they met an enemy expedition looking for the quest relic (not X) and they translated their payment as trivial, considering what they got through.
- One of the players (the silver-tongue of the party) convinces his group to keep the X secret, and "secures" it to his father's house.
- The message was sent via the Rogue of the group, face to face with the patron, asking a huge amount of gold, for the information about X.
X is part of the Draconic Prophecy. It's not the One Ring, it's not a simple +1 dagger. It's powerful and dangerous and the patron's affiliation is the only one who has an idea about what it can do. The other groups are after it, but do not know 100% what X can do.
OK, so take a step back, and figure out what you want to happen in your game. Do you want the PC's to chase after the item? Or do you just want the item out of the picture? I'm not sure of WHY you need the item to be stolen, other than , to keep it from the patron.
- The players' patron is a helpful young man that cares about the players.
Until the players try and extort an exhorbitant amount of money from him. I'm sorry, that right there would be enough to send anyones attitude from Helpful to at the very least Indifferent if not Unfriendly.
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I've heard it said, when you don't know what to write next, have a man with a gun come after the main character. Who is this guy? Why is he trying to kill the main character?
You can have a bunch of idiotic addicts/thieves/anarchists grab the item purely by mistake and get into real trouble - now the party has to save the idiots and the news is out. They were just breaking into the father's house looking for distilled spirits and gold, but found the artifact and ran off with it.
You can have an 'interested party' come after the adventurers - to torture them for information about the object - if the recovery of the object is a secret, is it a secret that the adventurers were looking for it? Is it another party hired by the same patron, but a less savory group?
you can have some sort of cataclysm or disaster occur, that can only be cured by the use of the the artifact- this is a great moral choice for the players- yes, you can hold out for more money, but then all the orphans will die and turn into half-pint juju zombies! MWAHAHAHAHA!
GMing is fun. Unleash your inner evil genius.
I'm not sure of WHY you need the item to be stolen, other than , to keep it from the patron.
The patron is a double agent and one of his masters want it badly. The master feel that this belongs to him since he is the only one that really knows how to use it, and all others are expoiling his research.
The master IS the one that has the item stolen by the players' patron - according to the initial scenario.
Now he is the one that must steal it by the player's father somehow.
The Prophecy musy go on, it is not selfishness by my part :)
I personally don't like the idea of a random theft. It seems contrived to me.
"Yeah, so, the day after you secure X at your father's, an opposing noble family happens to raids your family's estate and steals it."
And in the end, you have the underlying issue still sitting there: they don't feel like the reward originally offered is enough for their troubles.
I would work off the patron's side.
Maybe whoever was supposed to steal it breaks into the patron's place and doesn't find X, but he does find a journal or notes or whatever that details that the party won't turn it over without a higher reward. This thief may then try to track down the party, or he may meet with them and offer a higher reward, or he may take the patron captive and ransom him to the party for X.
Also consider the alignment of your player's characters. It doesn't sound like they are Lawful, as they broke the terms of an agreement. They may or may not be Good, either, if the patron is a good person, and they're willing to go back on their promise to him. If the party is mostly Chaotic, Neutral, and/or Evil, then maybe the patron is willing to be as understanding as he may otherwise have been.
Send in a doppelganger spy that learns about the item by reading thoughts of the party members. Or maybe changeling sorcerer with the right selection of spells...
Oh wait... Eberron! What would you say for rakshasa spy. Possibly working for another faction that spy on the party's patron and would like to twist or undo Prophecy... Or something.
Vendis I also do not like the idea of railroading event and make players feel cheated.
I'm not as experienced a DM as I would say every other one in here. I have run tons of single-session scenarios, even some 3-4 session ones.
But running a long term campaign proved to be much more difficult than I thought. I'm trying to let PCs decide how the plot evolve, but I need to get the control here, cause I gave - wrongly - the X to PCs in order to witness its "come-back" to the world.
Players are all good/neutral acyually (no evil characters) but yes none is actually lawful.
However they did not break term, since they gave back the relic they were sent for, but they did not mention that they also found X. They just said they have information about it, and that, with a great reward, they will also do the favor and go get it themselves.
The bargain was legitimate, the patron, who indeed likes them, feels their anger but cant do much. He payed them 1/3 more from his own pocket, to make them feel less frustrated and the players again never mentioned they actually HAVE the X.
- The players' patron is a helpful young man that cares about the players.
- He, however is double agent, concerning his affiliations not related to the players.
- He wants X for one of his affiliations, without the other knowing about it.
- Players felt that they were tricked because they met an enemy expedition looking for the quest relic (not X) and they translated their payment as trivial, considering what they got through.
- One of the players (the silver-tongue of the party) convinces his group to keep the X secret, and "secures" it to his father's house.
- The message was sent via the Rogue of the group, face to face with the patron, asking a huge amount of gold, for the information about X.X is part of the Draconic Prophecy. It's not the One Ring, it's not a simple +1 dagger. It's powerful and dangerous and the patron's affiliation is the only one who has an idea about what it can do. The other groups are after it, but do not know 100% what X can do.
I think the bolded text above is the key. Their patron may be a nice young man, but he may know some NOT so nice people. If any of them suspect that he is "playing" them, the patron may be under surveillance himself.
So when he reports to his primary affiliation about this roadblock, the other finds out as well. And if neither can figure out on their own where the party has hidden X (via Commune or Contact Other Plane or Divination or what have you), you could have one gang of hired bravos come after a PC, intending to extract the location of X from the PC back at a safe house, only to be thwarted (possibly after the PC has been captured) by another gang of thugs trying to stop the first and get the PC for themselves. You have the makings of a good spy movie here. Think Bond or Bourne.
Vendis I also do not like the idea of railroading event and make players feel cheated.
I'm not as experienced a DM as I would say every other one in here. I have run tons of single-session scenarios, even some 3-4 session ones.
But running a long term campaign proved to be much more difficult than I thought. I'm trying to let PCs decide how the plot evolve, but I need to get the control here, cause I gave - wrongly - the X to PCs in order to witness its "come-back" to the world.
Players are all good/neutral acyually (no evil characters) but yes none is actually lawful.
However they did not break term, since they gave back the relic they were sent for, but they did not mention that they also found X. They just said they have information about it, and that, with a great reward, they will also do the favor and go get it themselves.
The bargain was legitimate, the patron, who indeed likes them, feels their anger but cant do much. He payed them 1/3 more from his own pocket, to make them feel less frustrated and the players again never mentioned they actually HAVE the X.
Yeah, I'm the same type of GM. I prefer to run sandbox campaigns with a loosely structured plot, but when it comes to the few times I really need something specific to happen, I can almost always count on my players to screw with my plans.
You could pay them with a fake payment. Copper that's been made to look like gold, gold that disappears after an hour, magic items that lose their magical properties after a day, etc. etc. It'll change a bit of the direction for the campaign, but maybe the patron and his associates set into plan whatever X is used for, so the party doesn't have much choice.
There is always bringing in an third party that knows what X is but is opposed to the patron's group.
Maybe the patron is upfront with the group and explain what X is and why he needs it, hoping to be able to rely on their good hearts.
Um..
Maybe X turns out to be an intelligent item and tries to take over a party member and leaves the estate?
I'm running out of ideas. Any of these sound plausible for your campaign?
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There are a limited number of characters and they have a limited number places and people they can hide things. Their patron starts hiring people to check into various leads. Maybe a break in occurs at another PCs home or family home. Maybe his parents are roughed up. They go to investigate and then another PC's family ( or affiliated group) gets hit. Eventually they check out the people the noble PC knows and find out from a servant that the PCs were there shortly after their return.
So now the patron hires some mercenary to break in and steal X because he assumes it is there.
The question is how would the patron proceed on this? Which PCs have resources to hide the stone. Does he have to send out people to investigate first? Maybe he also sends a group to follow the PCs.
Part of letting the PCs deciding how the plot evolves includes letting live with the consequences of their decisions. They have given both their contact and his patron very good cause to be offended and/or angry at them by trying to extort them in exchange for the maguffin.
I would make the next phase of the campaign be about the party dealing with suddenly turing their biggest ally into an enemy, possibly resolving with the maguffin ending up in the hands of whoever needs to have it for your plot to advance to the next phase.
Eberron is a setting where a wealthy and connected enemy is far more interesting and dangerous than one who is simply powerful, so have fun with it.
As a side note, I am currently playing in a game where we are about to end up in a similar position by not returning the maguffin we were sent after to our patron (a member of House Cannith) because we decided it was too dangerous to hand over. Welcome to life on the lam...
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Can the item they found be a replica of the X?
Say they next find the 'real' one. They don't know which is which, only the patron does - whereupon he gets both.
Etc etc. Maybe there are more copies. Who made them? What's the point? Are they cursed? Needed to be used together? Part of an older subterfuge? Maybe an old plotter hears that they have resurfaced. Maybe he's a lich now.
Etc etc :-)
If you need it to "not be the one" then it just looks like it. After that it's just filling in the blanks, and having fun. Don't doubt yourself, work with what you have and what you need. Say as luttle about the why as possible to the players - they'll have their own theories. You may even like one of them better, and they'll feel very clever for "being right all along" :-)
Then you just smile and nod and roll some dice, look concerned, leaf through your notes, then smile again.
Yeah, it seems as if "the patron steals it" is the best way to go here. My best advice would be to have the PC's father involved in some way, but that's apparently a no go. Perhaps he can request that they come to some arrangement, but other than that you seem loath to make him do something by himself.
Since they haven't broken any laws or violated any agreements, they seem to have legitimate right to the item. This can restrict some juicy extra-planar options involving Inevitables and whatntot.
What price WOULD satisfy them? Do they know how valuable the object is? Do any of them have any real ranks in Appraise? If they feel that they were tricked, the Patron could try to explain himself. How high are those Sense Motive checks? If they learned something like "He seems aghast at your difficulties and honestly doesn't seem to have expected them." then it's not really his fault, right? It could be as simple as just giving the players a bit more money for the item. If they have no idea what it is then it's indistinguishable from any other kind of random treasure that they'd get in a hoard.
If they aren't accepting your patron's asking price and he desperately wants it and feels entitled to it... well, it seems that he's out of options except to get it another way. He could hire somebody to steal it, Dominate the PC's father to just have him give it up, etc.
For our information, what to the PCs intend to DO with the item besides just give it to the father?
I really appreciate you advice and help people, thank you all for the help you provide.
I read through everything and I realised that I could not give the facts as they are, so I drove the path away.
I will make a sum up of the clues - and add some new ones - in one post:
- The PCs do not belong to this timeline.
We started the story in custom world with another DM. After the 1st session, I picked it up to continue the scenario. I found a way to play in Eberron. The story started with the PCs exploring an old ruined village - located in the version of Eberron that Sharn was not the city of Tower (the previous custom world) were a lonely artificer was having experiments for time travel, in order to go back and save his wife. After some flash backs - the PCs were seeing the village as it was 20 years before and vice versa - the "travel machine" was destroyed, locking them in an alternate timeline, where the machine never existed. That's the Eberron as it is now.
- The first person the PCs met is their current patron.
The PCs made their way to Sharn as it was the nearest city they could see - that was their birthcity in their real timeline - and they got in trouble. That's when they started to do a digging and, trying to find a way to go back to their timeline, met their patron. He is a kind young man, and is trustworthy and I want him to like the PCs.
- The player's father is NOT he real father
The Object X is now safe in the hands of a player's alternate father from this timeline, who happened to have lost his son (the player) and his wife during the birth. So, after the explanations, the father met the son he never had, so it's kinda cheesy to use the father as traitor. At the moment at least.
- The Object X is important and dangerous, and 3 organizations are after it
Only the Master of the kind patron is aware of what X can do. The other organizations, only have a tiny idea, but still they want it for them. The PCs found X by luck, when they were after another relic for their patron. They knew of a long lost item (the X), as they knew that their patron was after it.
They kept it secret to make more money because they met the other organizations during the "quest" for the relic (not the X) and they thought that the reward for something that so many people are interested is trivial.
- The Patron was not aware of the difficulty the PCs had to find the relic
The money that he gave to the PCs was the "budget" that his Master provided as reward for the relic. He also paid some extra (his own money) in order to keep the PCs happy, but still the PCs do not trust him now.
- X is really important for the plot
The Object X must somehow be back to world, so that the plot reveals. Think it like in Lord of the Ring, if Boromir had taken the Ring from the hobbits and didn't die there. The Ring should be again somehow back to the world, in order to continue the plot.
- X cannot be tracked by Divination
At least without a serious reason. Whoever tried to use Divination to track the location of the X all these years, he failed because the crypt was protected. Now It maybe can be tracked, but there must be a reason. The only one who is aware that the PCs know information of the location of the X (that's what they told him, they did not say that they have it) is their patron. Probably his Master will know it in a couple of days since the PCs asked their patron to let his Master know that they want a huge amount of gold for the information.
Also some of the PCs even think to keep it 100% secret, until they know the purpose of the other organizations (what they will do with X) so that the PCs chose who to give it to.
The idea of giving it to none was even an option.
Knowing now, I hope you see why I am in a dead end, and why I feel that the players are in control of my story. They also know that the information they have is invaluable to 3 factions, which make them feel immune to death, since the secret will be lost.
Now you know everying I do.
I thank everyone that already helped and in advance anyone that will help!
Cheers to all :)
In case it hasn't been mentioned yet.
Finding ways to use divination magic to get around really heavy protection spells and wards is like trying to hack into a really tightly secured computer network.
It can be done if you have the resources, manpower, money, and time. But it is so much easier to make a few bluff checks to get someone to just tell you the information you need.
By far the greatest weakness in every network security is the users who don't understand how important it is to do exactly what they were told by the people who created the defense system! It is incredibly easy to trick someone into giving you access, making all the technical security measures useless.
So the employer knows that the PCs have hidden the item somewhere, and his spellcasters can't find it with their divination magic? Since this is Eberron, the first thing to suspect is that they have given it to someone who has a place where it can not be found. And one such person happens to be the father of one of the PCs?!
Well, this noble household would be the first adress to do some sniffing around. If anyone of the servants was aware that the PC gave something to his father for safekeeping in the magically protected vault, that will be all the information the employer needs to be reasonably sure that the item is in just that vault. Some creative bluff checks might do that, but there is always some good old fashioned mind control spells.
After that, getting that item out of the vault will be a cakewalk. You simply need to hire a rogue or wizard of sufficiently high level. If there just isn't any way to force the vault open, you could always sneak in while the PCs are away and mind control the master of the house, or take the family hostage to force him to hand the item over.
Just because the father isnt a traitor does not mean someone in his organization cannot be bought.
In fact I would make it a red herring for a bit that maybe the father isnt on the up and up, have the PC's investigate how "X" was stolen right out from under his nose and through investigation uncover that the PC's father has a rat in his organization.
You can then have a whole adventure about hunting down this betrayer for clues as to where the item in question ended up and who paid him to take it etc...
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Ok, I see what you mean about the father and not wanting him to betray the PCs. It makes sense that you wouldn't want to do that right now, if at all.
First, I will say that it's not a *bad* thing that the PCs are in control of your story. It's their story too, after all! I'll re-iterate that I'd try to ask them what they plan on doing with the thing. This lets them move the game forward, which is a good thing. If players care about what happens then you're doing your job as a DM.
One thing I like to keep in mind for a sandbox game is that you don't have "plots", you have a setting. You can't predict what the PCs will do, so it's hard to write a typical "they have to do X so Y will happen" plot. Instead, you're reacting to what they do. "So the PCs did X. Given that information, how does Faction Z and NPC Y react? What's their next move?". If you have a good handle on your setting's major NPCs, then you can react to what PCs do in a reasonable fashion. It's a lot easier to react to PCs than it is to predict PCs :)
-- So right now, they have no idea how valuable the object is, and they're level 4, so a "huge amount of gold" could still work within WBL guidelines (so about 1000 gp per encounter for level 4 PCs). Again,you could have them make an Appraise check to determine what the value of the object is, opposed by the Patron's Diplomacy check as he tries to haggle them down. They get, say, 1200-1500 gp for it, your story goes on. They could ask for more, but you could just laugh it off and suggest that it's kind of unreasonable-- it'd be like me trying to sell my used car for $1 million. Sure, I'd LIKE to, but.... In this way the object seems like you intended solely for them to sell it for a nice chunk of change. Giving them a little windfall won't disrupt your game, and you can go about your business plot-wise.
-- If the PCs feel immune to danger because they're invaluable to 3 factions, you could disabuse them of that notion veeeeeery quickly. Faction A might want to play nice with them... but Faction B might decide that if they can't have the information, nobody can. Faction C might be hiring adventurers to find out alternate information-- if successful, then the PCs info might drop in value very quickly. The PCs think they hold all of the cards for now, but that can change really quickly.
-- Steal it back. It seems like what your NPCs would try to do in the first place. It might seem contrived to the PCs right now, and that's a problem you can deal with. What I would suggest is simply forgetting about the object for now. Ask the PCs what they intend to do with it, then just take note. Run another 4-5 sessions where the PCs do something totally unrelated. You can begin another long-term plot thread, if you want. The point is to distract the PCs from the object. Then, when you steal it, they aren't rolling their eyes and saying "Oh, you just did that so you can get your plot back on track". Instead, they're saying "Oh, that thing we found last month? I forgot about that". Depending on your players, this could work quite well-- it certainly would in any group I've ever played with.
Amending my thoughts from before, I would still have the patron's master find out that the PCs are holding something (even if he only thinks it is information) back and order the patron to apply pressure to the PCs. This will put the patron in a difficult position between his loyalty to the PCs (which you have already expressed) and his duty to his master. If you have done a good job building a relationship between the PCs and their patron the tension caused by this pressure will be noticeable to the PCs (possbily tipping them off to the fact that he is a double agent of some sort).
You can really have a lot of fun letting them keep it for a while and dealing with the increasing pressure from Master as he figures out who they are and tries to squeeze them. Eventually things will escalate to the point that the PCs will lose control of the Maguffin and it's purpose in the story can be revealed, you just may have to delay if a few sessions or levels--which may not be a bad thing in the long haul.