My Group only travels at night...Help


Advice

1 to 50 of 66 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Long time reader, first time poster.
I'm DM'ing for a group of (mostly) new players. Unfortunately, that means a lot of rules don't come up until someone breaks one (and then the game stops as I or the only other experienced player explains why the four of PC's shouldn't attack and kill the entire town for not picking up their bar tab...(they're all chaotic neutral or true N). After a bandits random encounter on the road, one of them came up with the great idea of traveling at night because "bandits have to sleep too".
Now I'm stuck, the group only travels at night now. They take forever to get anywhere and I'd like to get them acting a bit more like a normal party. (When the group shows up in a town, they immediately go to sleep...It's hard to get them to meet an adventure hook without reworking a tavern's bar hours or making the npc into a night owl.
Help? Ideas?


17 people marked this as a favorite.

Terrible creatures lurk in the dark. Maybe they should meet some.


Master of the Dark Triad wrote:
Terrible creatures lurk in the dark. Maybe they should meet some.

This. They ought to be far more afraid of what comes out at night than the bandits during the day.

For adventure hooks, you can have the innkeeper notice that a walking armory just came in his front door, and pass on some tips he's heard about for jobs that need doing locally, to point them towards people they can meet during the day.


There's so much worse than bandits on the road. Sic a pack of werewolves/vampires/drow/anything with darkvision on them next time they go out at night. They won't sleep without a light cantrip after that.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Or just have vampire/drow etc be the quest giver. Doesn't seem like you have any paladins.


Matt Thomason wrote:
For adventure hooks, you can have the innkeeper notice that a walking armory just came in his front door, and pass on some tips he's heard about for jobs that need doing locally, to point them towards people they can meet during the day.

Or he can notify interested locals of the wealthy walking armories that just showed up in his inn. Why those locals are interested might depend on the sort of tavern they just walked into.


Yes, this is a perfect opportunity to make them FEAR THE DARKNESS! MUHAHAHAHAHA.

Ahem. Sorry, lost myself there for a second. Now I'm wondering, how are they taking care of their needs if they are only up at night? In small towns, no stores are open. It is exponenetially more difficult to hunt. Then there's the whole vision problem; even darkvision doesnt allow you to see much more than 60 feet (most of the time, of course).

You might have to change the tone of your campaign a bit, but you can work around it. Maybe the NPCs start thinking they are vampires, and try to stake them? Maybe monsters in the night see them as tasty? There are plenty of good options.

But your players seem pretty mercenary, it might be easier to simply "lure" them with rumors of loot.


ummm there's a much easier way

what happens during the day that happens less at night ?

NOISE

if they try sleeping during the day I'd say they keep getting woken up by town noise, result Fatigued until they get a good nights sleep.

if they get cute with earplugs eyemask, have them roll perception at -40 while asleep if they fail they wake up to find they were robbed during the day.

if they leave someone on watch during the day, perfect a PC you can interact with.


I personaly have al lot of dificulty to sleep during the day, they might expirience that to. Also, the bandids are still awake during the day. Asleep they are a more vunarable target.
On the attacking a whole town part, that's suicide for most levels of characters and not chaotic neutral but evil in my opionion.Chaotic neutral might try to sneak away, if it's worth the trouble or looks like fun. If you like it you could keep some decent level good NPC's around.


I would not rework a inn's hours. If they show up in at 4AM they just have to wait until something opens up to make transactions. Well an inn might be open, but normal stores and taverns would not.


I'm not sure why you can't have NPC hooks that approach them on the hours they are awake. Stuff is going on at all hours in a fantasy world, there could be night owl or nocturnal creatures that need help.
If you want to treat the world organically that's fine but it could get boring. When I GM less isn't more, more is more, I just keep adding stuff, plotlines, characters, places, etc. wherever my players go I give them something to interact with and that gives them the feeling that they are driving the story.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Why do all your bandits sleep at night?

Haven't you ever noticed crimes seem to happen a lot more at night than they do during the day. Have bandits both during the day and the night. As well as possible wandering monsters.

Also, you could indulge them. Let them travel at night, they never encounter anything. They sleep during the day in town. No one talks to them. No one tells them anything. Give them absolutely nothing to do if they wont come out during the day. See how long they choose to play a game where nothing happens. Eventually they'll do something different.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Superman427 wrote:

Long time reader, first time poster.

I'm DM'ing for a group of (mostly) new players. Unfortunately, that means a lot of rules don't come up until someone breaks one (and then the game stops as I or the only other experienced player explains why the four of PC's shouldn't attack and kill the entire town for not picking up their bar tab...(they're all chaotic neutral or true N). After a bandits random encounter on the road, one of them came up with the great idea of traveling at night because "bandits have to sleep too".
Now I'm stuck, the group only travels at night now. They take forever to get anywhere and I'd like to get them acting a bit more like a normal party. (When the group shows up in a town, they immediately go to sleep...It's hard to get them to meet an adventure hook without reworking a tavern's bar hours or making the npc into a night owl.
Help? Ideas?

Some games are really brutal for those that would travel at night.

So now they avoid bandits but encounter things like vampires, werewolves, dark and insane fey and horrible insects gnawing upon them in the dark.

Have them come across an old tower, enclosed top, formerly of the border watch. The sturdy door and single entrance is barred. Inside is actually a couple of bandits which explain to the party "fark that, we be not openann the door, it is dangerous out there, ja get ye head torn off by tha beasties!"

Then pause and have it dawn upon them that travelling outside at night was an extremely bad idea. Then something swoops down upon them from the outside top of the tower and someone takes a lot of damage.


I don't see this as an issue at all. It's not like everybody goes to sleep the moment sundown hits. There's plenty of people who are up into the evenings, if not all hours of the night, savory and otherwise to drop plot hooks.

And, as stated above, bandits operate at night ... especially ones with low-light or darkvision. Throw some elf or dwarf bandits at them on a moonlit night.


Some thoughts:

1) Many nocturnal predators are scarier than daytime critters.

2) If the plot hooks are only active by day, fine. They can be bored, wandering around every night trying to find something to do.

3) Have fun sleeping during the hours when everyone else is active, especially the birds (outdoors) or people.

4) Enforce the rules for lighting and see how much they enjoy it when they can't figure out where their foes are until they get attacked by the creatures that have scent and lowlight vision. Not to mention slowing down their overland movement to a crawl.


Master of the Dark Triad wrote:
Terrible creatures lurk in the dark. Maybe they should meet some.

You'd rather be asleep when they come out?


Also, unless they all have low light or darkvision, they need light to travel at night. And light is obvious from along ways away. They should probably attract many more wandering monsters than if they traveled during the day.


MrSin wrote:
Master of the Dark Triad wrote:
Terrible creatures lurk in the dark. Maybe they should meet some.
You'd rather be asleep when they come out?

Works for most animals and other day time creatures.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Don't they get lost travelling at night?


walled towns


Superman427 wrote:

After a bandits random encounter on the road, one of them came up with the great idea of traveling at night because "bandits have to sleep too".

If your daytime random encounter has "bandit" on it, what does your night time random encounter have on it?

If for some reason, the group is in a monster-free area (perhaps heavily-civilized), then you as the GM need to ask yourself why no one travels at night. If it is safer, then more people would be doing it.

My favorite way of dealing with something like this is terrible sounds. Have the PCs meet a commoner or a merchant's wagon that also travels at night. Have that NPC go ahead of the PCs, and then the PCs hear a terrible sound (fear, desperation, crunching, etc.)

If the PCs continue their only-travel-at-night policy, let them run into whatever killed off the NPCs.

Lastly, have to second other's suggestions of night-going bandits. If the bandits have learned that some people are beginning to travel at night to avoid them, they're going to come up with a way to deal with that. One thought that comes to mind is setting a trap in a main roadway. If the PCs are traveling at night, less likely they will see the trap. PCs fall into a pit or are movement-hampered in some other way.

Now, the bandits either can already see in the dark, and as such starting firing at the PCs (flat-footed PCs, possible sneak attack dice from bandits), or, the bandits have placed pitch in the pit, and now toss torches. PCs begin to burn, and are now lit up, so arrows rain down.


Unless some major element of your plot hinges on daytime activity, just go with it. Have plot happen at night, have encounters happen at night as they would by day, and allow them to learn if they enjoy darkness or not. Don't make nighttime a deathtrap, or punish them until they change their mind. Just let it be, unless you need it to change. If you run it like daytime, but with less light, there won't be much reason for it to continue unless they like it.


Maybe have the general contractor and his labor show up at the inn during the daylight hours and begin the inn keeper's long planned expansion. With all the sawing, hammering, cursing, etc. that would prevent a party from getting the necessary 8 hours of sleep, they might find it useful to return to a normal operating schedule.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Thanks everyone. This is all great.
It's not so much that I care when they travel, but all I get is complaints when I make them wait for the armory to open (or have to deal with them attempting to break in to "liberate" whatever they need")
I am going to have to make a night-time encounter sheet.
You guys rock!


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Ultimately, they need to understand that every decision comes with "consequences" :) I work overnight, so I know how hard it is to get regular things done sometimes...like visit the armorer :)

Contributor

I'm not going to get into what is "Normal" for a party, because "Normal" changes from group to group. What's more important is for you to figure out how you want your party to act, then put sticks and carrots into place to make them willingly choose to act the way you want.

For example:

GM's Wants: I want my players to do all of their travelling during the day and sleep at night.

Player Behaviors: Players insist on travelling at nighttime.

GM Strategy: Differentiated Encounter Tables as follows: Daytime Travel, Daytime Rest, Nighttime Travel, and Nighttime Rest.

Carrots: Make beneficial results on your tables more likely for Daytime Travel and Nighttime Rest.

Sticks: Make negative results on your tables more likely for Daytime Rest and Nighttime Travel.

Watch in wonderment as your PC's behavior changes! Keep this up for several overland sessions, long enough for your players to realize when the good stuff happens and when the bad stuff happens, then go to planning encounters as you would.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Master of the Dark Triad wrote:
Terrible creatures lurk in the dark. Maybe they should meet some.

They are likely to be eaten by a Grue


I don't see why the players need to be punished for traveling at night.

It seems like plot hooks can come from many more places than "I picked it up in a tavern". Use something else.

Now, play out the natural consequences of traveling at night (starting with the obvious "it's dark", moving on to "Yeah none of the shops are open at midnight bro" and then to "You know what's mean, nasty, and hates sunlight? Yeah one of 'ems coming to suck your blood."), but I don't see the plothook thing as the player's problem. Adapt a little bit here, find a new way to hook your plots.

Sczarni

Superman427 wrote:

Thanks everyone. This is all great.

It's not so much that I care when they travel, but all I get is complaints when I make them wait for the armory to open (or have to deal with them attempting to break in to "liberate" whatever they need")
I am going to have to make a night-time encounter sheet.
You guys rock!

Many stores with magic will have nighttime guards. In larger cities I could see some armories open at night, but marking up their prices by 20-25%

If you have the gamemastery guide or something similar, I'd re-read the running a horror campaign. Their actions are leading the campaign in this direction. I'd also suggest watching Brothers Grimm, most of the action happens at night.... and might lend itself to this type of campaign.

I'm not sure what plans you had for the direction of the campaign.. If you have an hour, there was a Paizocon 2011 panel Improvization as a game master that talks about many similar things


What kind of reason is avoiding bandits for adventurers? Are your PCs Commoner2/Expert1? Why do they care about a ragtag band of Warrior3s with a two Warrior4s and a Warrior5 leading them? (for example)

Do they have darkvision? How are they getting around? Have they gone on from unguarded villages to genuine towns or cities? If they are afraid of a ragtag bunch of low-level NPCs, why aren't they terrified of the big pack of wolves that all have low-light vision and trip anything they hit?

Summary: if your PCs don't act in a manner that seems "right," ask yourself why their behavior wouldn't have flown in medieval or renaissance Europe. Keep in mind that some things won't work no matter your PCs' level; shops and local (commissionable!) Wizards sleeping at night should be enough to keep them working bank-hours.


I give them plot hooks at all times. The annoyance comes from their constance side-tracks into stupidity.
example: their mission was to find the mayor of a neighboring town and ask for a key he had. it was supposed to be a 5 minute conversation that lead to a typical save the kidnapped local children in exchange.
After they traveled all night to the town, instead of waiting for the morning, they tried to break in to the mayor's house and steal the key.
After being beaten to a pulp by the town guards who caught them and thrown in jail, they were given a choice: death (they had almost killed a few guards) or rescue the kids.
After rescuing the kids, they made them travel at night (the children were human- no night vision) and the resulting trips, bruises, and walking into trees that I described just had them laughing...Even when the town tarred and feathered them and ran them out of town (after giving them the key because it was what had gotten the children kidnapped in the first place).


Okay, with more information gotten, it sounds like you and your players have different views of what is and isn't appropriate behavior for protagonists in your game.

Time to talk to them out of game, out of character, and hash things out. You obviously don't want a party full of sociopaths, and apparently either they do, or they just aren't taking the game remotely seriously (as seriously as one should take a game, at least). Time to sit, talk, and hash things out.

Contributor

Superman427 wrote:

I give them plot hooks at all times. The annoyance comes from their constance side-tracks into stupidity.

example: their mission was to find the mayor of a neighboring town and ask for a key he had. it was supposed to be a 5 minute conversation that lead to a typical save the kidnapped local children in exchange.
After they traveled all night to the town, instead of waiting for the morning, they tried to break in to the mayor's house and steal the key.
After being beaten to a pulp by the town guards who caught them and thrown in jail, they were given a choice: death (they had almost killed a few guards) or rescue the kids.
After rescuing the kids, they made them travel at night (the children were human- no night vision) and the resulting trips, bruises, and walking into trees that I described just had them laughing...Even when the town tarred and feathered them and ran them out of town (after giving them the key because it was what had gotten the children kidnapped in the first place).

Hm. No amount of conditioning is going to change a group like that. If I were in your shoes, I would honestly just beat'em to death.

If it were me, I would go for another adventure with your adventure designed for heroes like you've been doing. But make sure there is a way for them to do something (anything) undeniably Evil. So undeniably evil that between everything else that's happened and this new event, you could justify having them change their alignments to Evil. Even warn them that it *could* happen before doing this adventure. (Senseless suffering on anyone is pretty heinous; young children makes it deplorable.)

When their alignment finally does change, throw a Linear Guild of paladins at them. (All of the paladins at the same level and wealth as your PCs.) I'd personally take no prisoners, but being beaten to near-death by a paladin (maybe even taken hostage to be put on trial) might be something you need to do. If a TPK happens, flat-out tell them what kind of game you want to run next time.

This is very heavy-handed, of course, and it might be a better idea to just start running the Chaotic Evil campaign that your players clearly want; I've heard good things about the Way of the Wicked AP.


Way of the Wicked is Lawful Evil, not Chaotic Evil.

But it is very good, yes.


Without spoiling things, WotW is very much not for Chaotic PCs :-)


henkslaaf wrote:
Without spoiling things, WotW is very much not for Chaotic PCs :-)

Skull and Shackles might work for em though.

Freedom of the open sea, crew of scallywags to do their bidding, villages to raid, merchant ships to plunder, a port to call their own


If they want to behave this way so be it. Maybe you should let them have some nocturnal encounters with evil creatures...creatures that treat them as allies, friendly enough. Why? They've heard of the PCs by reputation. A visit from an appropriate demon or two could be fun when the demon, hidden in the darkness, never tries to attack them but baits them about their behavior.

"Yes. I've heard of you. Those children you saved...that was priceless. Marching the poor things home in the dark without caring in the slightest for them. Oh, I think I'll see great things come from you...great things indeed. One day, you'll be joining my side, I think...."

A succubus or glabrezu, taunting them telepathically, could have a field day with this. If one of them dies, down the road have them meet the demon he's become :)

All this assumes that it's the characters, not the players, who are the problem of course.


Lathiira wrote:

If they want to behave this way so be it. Maybe you should let them have some nocturnal encounters with evil creatures...creatures that treat them as allies, friendly enough. Why? They've heard of the PCs by reputation. A visit from an appropriate demon or two could be fun when the demon, hidden in the darkness, never tries to attack them but baits them about their behavior.

"Yes. I've heard of you. Those children you saved...that was priceless. Marching the poor things home in the dark without caring in the slightest for them. Oh, I think I'll see great things come from you...great things indeed. One day, you'll be joining my side, I think...."

A succubus or glabrezu, taunting them telepathically, could have a field day with this. If one of them dies, down the road have them meet the demon he's become :)

All this assumes that it's the characters, not the players, who are the problem of course.

I can't think of this ending in any way other than the players/characters thinking that they've 'made it' to be noticed by a devil.


Lathiira wrote:

If they want to behave this way so be it. Maybe you should let them have some nocturnal encounters with evil creatures...creatures that treat them as allies, friendly enough. Why? They've heard of the PCs by reputation. A visit from an appropriate demon or two could be fun when the demon, hidden in the darkness, never tries to attack them but baits them about their behavior.

"Yes. I've heard of you. Those children you saved...that was priceless. Marching the poor things home in the dark without caring in the slightest for them. Oh, I think I'll see great things come from you...great things indeed. One day, you'll be joining my side, I think...."

A succubus or glabrezu, taunting them telepathically, could have a field day with this. If one of them dies, down the road have them meet the demon he's become :)

All this assumes that it's the characters, not the players, who are the problem of course.

A giant bat swoops and grabs one of the kids. Priceless.


It sounds like the players want to play chaotic-stupid characters. Unless you want to run a very silly campaign, there should be consequences for their misdeeds. For example, if townsfolk are wronged, they are good at recruiting powerful do-gooders to come to their aid and bring the miscreant player characters to justice.


Okay, the party is what alignments? CN and N??

Yeah, this is not 'the guys' who go off rescuing children...

Your adventure ideas might simply not match the party characters, so... their characters simply don't care. AND that is them actually playing their characters.

Reassess what a group of CN/N people would do, especially ones who are well trained, equipped, and powerful like PC characters. What goals do these kinds of characters have?

Do they dream about rescuing a bunch of kidnapped people and being rewarded by nothing but a sincere thanks? Nope. This is the guy who might even be doing the kidnapping! f he thought he'd get something out of it...

Your storyline and plot hook need to appeal to the characters you present them to, otherwise... it isn't even going to register to them.

Figure out, or ask, what your player's characters motivation is. Use those motivations to move along plotlines.

Also, there is scary stuff out at night. Why do you think the bandits aren't out at night? Haha.


demontroll wrote:
It sounds like the players want to play chaotic-stupid characters. Unless you want to run a very silly campaign, there should be consequences for their misdeeds. For example, if townsfolk are wronged, they are good at recruiting powerful do-gooders to come to their aid and bring the miscreant player characters to justice.

Especially ones that are diurnal. =)

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Honestly, the really talented bandits come out at night. The weak ones are out during the day because they're scared of the dudes who run the night.


You have a menagerie of creatures to throw at the party at night, so I do not understand why this is a problem for you. Run with a moon tracker, and keep track. If you are somewhere with a large concentration of lycanthropes, such as Darkmoon Vale, then every full moon there should be a night event as the PCs find themselves accosted by werewolf bandits who want to kill them all.

This could segway into pretty much anything. A pack of goodly natural norn Ashava worshiping werewolves comes to the party's aid as they are being attacked by afflicted werewolves.

Also, as I might point out, the majority of monsters can be active at day or night. Undead do not sleep. Many unscrupulous people are active at night--an oracle, a witch, an evil cleric, and their necromancer ally with their army of undead following them around finding "future corpses" to animate is an option--but there are benign options as well. The party finds a bard with the same idea, or a goodly paladin with his train seeking to rid the night of villainy.

Typically 1/4 of your possible encounters should be beneficial to the party in some way if they are not somewhere remote (E.G. walking around Andoran VS walking around in the Darklands) so keep that in mind.

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.

"What a terrible night to have a curse."


Also, as others have stated:
The plot hook has to appeal to the players and/or their PCs.

You can have the biggest, baddest, and most awesome plot ever, but if the PCs don't see the point or their initial gain in their future then no one is going to go on it. Maybe the guy who is purposefully pushing forward the plot, but still, that only lasts for as long as the party is willing to follow him.

No one cares if you railroad if the destination and journey are both awesome. Some very nice examples include:
sinkholes opening under the PCs in the night when they are sleeping leaving them trapped in a cavern to escape,
a cart chase where the PCs are out in the open with someone when that fast moving threat that has been alluded to the entire time they have been in the area spots them and starts chasing them--Cue the cart chase battle where the enemies are chasing, firing at, and attempting to kill the PCs in melee by boarding the cart,--
the PCs walking through a natural portal to the First World, the Ethereal Plane, the Plane of Dreams, the positive/negative energy planes, the plane of shadows, or even just to the astral plane or any of the outer planes and must now find their way back, and
the PCs being tricked by a pack of people who want to test them by convincing them to go through a door that just so happened to be a portal that is now gone behind them.

The list of railroady plot devices goes on. My favorite is just having someone be a jerk to the PCs just because they are in the way of his current goals. The more character driven your plot line the less overall story work you have to do. You can just make modules and such and the rest will fall into place.

If the PCs want to kill the slimy fat bald dwarf who murdered their friend because he is a vicious murderer who is two-faced about everything then they want to do that. If you can make them truly hate someone then don't let them die, but instead have them escape to lead them to the next plot.

Remember, your engagement curves should build up to a campaign climax, and they usually do, but YOU are the one who must ensure that there is enough there for your players to latch onto to want to proceed through the story.


I think you have bigger problems than just a group of players who want to travel at night.

Superman427 wrote:

I give them plot hooks at all times. The annoyance comes from their constant side-tracks into stupidity.

example: ...

I'm not sure you are playing the same game as your players. It sounds like you want a more serious game where actions have consequences, while your players just want to do chaotic-stupid stuff. You might want to talk with your group and find out what kind of game they want.


You could also do what I do with these groups:
Build Modules and scenarios for each level in the short term future.
Whenever your PCs decide to do something--a surprise I know!--you can just reflavor the names of the monsters to fit the setting.

So you build a dungeon for level 4, the PCs go directly away from the dungeon, go to the other side of the continent, and go into a cave to rest and OH NOESESES a locking portcullis fell behind them or the entrance caved in. For SHAME they must now find their way out!
Oh, hey, its the dungeon you built.

If your Players are idiots then you have to play the idiots' games. If they want whimsical and fun then give them whimsical and fun, but know that you can finagle the game to get done what you want to get done.

There is also this fun little bit that can sometimes work:
Nightmare spells, or a modified version thereof.
The PCs fall asleep, and are drawn into a collective nightmare. For added fun they can all cast silent image as a free action, minor image as a move, major image as a standard, and Shades as a Full round action but only spells they know (which may be limited to the above 3 if they don't know spells or have spell like abilities.)

You can say that the PCs are able to pass a day in the dream world per hour of sleep, and say that all damage they take in the dream world is counted as non-lethal (hence if they "die" in dream-land then they wake up at full hp - con, but stabilized if they are in negatives).

You could do a lot of things to help this party along, and most of it revolves around appealing to their creativity. If they are all idiots then don't worry too much about it, just join their idiocy since there isn't any point in being the smartest monkey in the congress if they are the ones ultimately calling the shots.


I for one am very curious how this will resolve! I hope you are able to sit down with the players and come to an amicable solution... Please let the boards know how it goes!


My group doesn't meet again until after the new year (lots of traveling), but I will let you all know. Thank you for all the amazing recommendations/advice. I think I was just not fully thinking through all the trouble night traveling could be...ie night monsters, bandits stumbling upon sleeping camp in daytime, completely closed up small towns at night, city gates closed at dawn...Lots of great ideas.

1 to 50 of 66 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / My Group only travels at night...Help All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.