I am accustomed to my players derailing modules, but this time they sabotaged the plot hooks in the module. How can I keep the campaign going?
We have begun Palace of Fallen Stars and the PCs decided to enter the town by blending in. And they are so good at blending that they stopped adventuring. They are never going to earn any Notoriety points; fortunately, I don't rely on them.
They had blended in successful in Scrapwall during Lords of Rust, entering that former bandit camp under false names while pretending to be archeologists hiding from the Technic League. In Starfall, they went more extreme: they split the party. The gunslinger/rogue Boffin and bloodrager Val Baine had started B&B Alchemical Smelting in Torch during downtime after The Choking Tower, and they entered Starfall as businesswomen seeking customers. The fighter/investigator Kheld and his wizard cohort Juran invested in a caravan and entered Starfall to buy a storehouse in Starfall. The strix skald Kirii and her lyrakien skald/rogue cohort Tay were the hardest to disguise: a Hat of Disguise let her become a roving winged aasimir cleric of Desna accompanied by a lyrakien of Desna. The brooding magus Elric entered alone as a brooding adventurer who never talked about his background. They meet for dinner in the Laughing Whitefish Inn to share notes.
I started with an adventure that motivated them: the alien boss from the previous module had escaped and set up in a farmstead outside Starfall by sending an intellect devourer to possess the farmer. The party reverted to their false Scrapwall identities for that. I thought that I could lure them to the Night Market to sell the technological gadgets from the aliens at the farm. Instead, Juran teleported to Hajoth Hakados and sold the spare technological items there.
Fortunately, my wife's character Boffin was willing to bite the now-baitless plot hook. She went to the Night Market out of curiosity and the rest followed in their separate identities, except Val switched to her false identity. But that meant that when the fight between Baron Drund and The Shade erupted, only Val was willing to step up in full force. The others were trying to stay inconspicuous. Boffin, pretending to be a 2nd-level rogue/expert, did risk a low-level tactic: she hit The Shade with a tanglefoot bag. That gave Drund an opportunity to run, and The Shade chased after him instead of taking revenge on the meddling townsperson.
One conversation and one tanglefoot bag in a 3-page scenario barely counts as roleplaying. Val is a GMPC, so she does not count.
Elric had encountered Mockery when two palace guards abused a sausage vendor on the main street. Elric had helped the vendor slip away while Mockery distracted the corrupt guards by mocking them. I hope this contact will lead to the Red Reaver scenario. But Mockery does not know that Elric is part of a larger party. I rewrote it so that Mockery asked about a skilled alchemist, so Elric introduced him to Boffin.
They have no grudge against the Black Sovereign in the Palace of Fallen Stars. They believe that the Technic League is vile and evil, but have no desire to attack them.
I laid the foundation for another potential plot hook: the Technic League had captured some of their friends in Scrapwall as slaves. And slaves in Starfall are mysteriously disappearing (Ozmyn is sending them to Silver Mount) instead of being sold to Chesed as usual. My wife is biting her tongue waiting for either Kirii's or Juran's player to realize, "Hey, I could cast Sending and ask them where they are!" Maybe I will leave a trail of mundane clues for them to follow.
Ordinarily, dilly-dallying would make me roll on the random encounter table. However, the table in Palace of Fallen Stars makes little sense. 01-04 1d20 barbarian gargoyles CR 12, 05-09 1d4 bogeymen CR 12, 10-15 1d4 contract killers CR 12, 16-22 elite Technic League patrol CR12, etc. How do ordinary citizens survive in this city with a CR 12 or worse hazard appearing every 3 hours? I presume that a Technic League patrol would walk right past ordinary people, but that means they will walk past disguised party members, too. If five barbarian gargoyles do swoop down and attack random townsfolk, I suspect that the one or two party members in the vicinity would help the people evacuate rather than break their disguise by fighting.
Do I just keep laying out breadcrumb trails? Does anyone have suggestions for getting their butts in gear?
Elric had encountered Mockery when two palace guards abused a sausage vendor on the main street.
...
This is your in.
Have the Technic League or the Palace Guards harass the PC's businesses.
- A Technic League officer commandeers the warehouse - but sees no reason to pay rent.
- Palace Guards accost the two females for - less the honorable - favors.
- then ... the tight lipped Adventurer is press-ganged into entering Silvermount (complete with implanted tracker chip), for a Technic Captain.
- And, a Priestess of Desna is a troublemaker that the League would want to encourage to move on.
Hit them will all that and your heroes may find some motivation.
... Have the Technic League or the Palace Guards harass the PC's businesses.
- A Technic League officer commandeers the warehouse - but sees no reason to pay rent.
And technically I already warned Kheld. The shop was up for sale because after the shopkeeper spend his savings have bluespit illness cured, a palace guard looted his inventory. That same guard might return and be upset that the shop has been replaced with a storehouse. This one works!
Palace Guards accost the two females for - less the honorable - favors.
Boffin is a dwarf, so is not pretty by human standards, but the human Val has Cha 18. Val is the GMPC, so this one does not involve the players enough, but it is amusing to imagine. 8th-level barbarian palace guard meet angry 13th-level bloodrager. Except that if Val makes her Wisdom check to keep her wits, she will remember that she is pretending to be a 1st-level wizard. Mudball to blind the guard, Expeditious Excavation to drop him into a 5-foot hole, and Disguise Self (I allow her a few sorcerer spells) to fade into the crowd. Wow, 1st-level wizards are powerful! ;-)
then ... the tight lipped Adventurer is press-ganged into entering Silvermount (complete with implanted tracker chip), for a Technic Captain.
Not while his blackblade rapier from his bladebound magus archetype is screaming, "Kill the tyrant. I want to feel the blood from his guts!" The blade was forged in Galt.
And, a Priestess of Desna is a troublemaker that the League would want to encourage to move on.
She hangs around Killbox, helping the poor. To quote the Starfall article, "... the Technic League patrols rarely reach too far into Killbox unless unless the need is particularly dire." Maybe I can have the 1d4 bogeymen from the random encounter table take a dislike to a cleric of Desna instead.
Boffin is a dwarf, so is not pretty by human standards, but the human Val has Cha 18. Val is the GMPC, so this one does not involve the players enough, but it is amusing to imagine. 8th-level barbarian palace guard meet angry 13th-level bloodrager. Except that if Val makes her Wisdom check to keep her wits, she will remember that she is pretending to be a 1st-level wizard. Mudball to blind the guard, Expeditious Excavation to drop him into a 5-foot hole, and Disguise Self (I allow her a few sorcerer spells) to fade into the crowd. Wow, 1st-level wizards are powerful! ;-)Palace Guards accost the two females for - less the honorable - favors.
Okay. That one doesn't work quite as well. :(
Not while his blackblade rapier from his bladebound magus archetype is screaming, "Kill the tyrant. I want to feel the blood from his guts!" The blade was forged in Galt.then ... the tight lipped Adventurer is press-ganged into entering Silvermount (complete with implanted tracker chip), for a Technic Captain.
When the Technic League "recruiter" hears that, the player will have a lot more problems.
She hangs around Killbox, helping the poor. To quote the Starfall article, "... the Technic League patrols rarely reach too far into Killbox unless unless the need is particularly dire." Maybe I can have the 1d4 bogeymen from the random encounter table take a dislike to a cleric of Desna instead.And, a Priestess of Desna is a troublemaker that the League would want to encourage to move on.[/list]
Possible, but that doesn't route her back the the main plot.
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First off, enjoy it and let them see the sights. For mine, when the party was looking for lodgings I rolled Ash giant on the random table. Since as you said it makes no sense for random ash giant encounter that can murder commoners, I had an ash giant taking up a room (or 3) in an inn, refusing to pay and making a huge mess of the place. The innkeeper paid the party to...remove him. This attracted a bit of attention, gaining them notoriety by local onlookers. Eventually this spiraled out into them going full-force against the league.
Turn the random encounter tables into fetch quests and watch their reputation grow...
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First off, enjoy it and let them see the sights.
I have been doing that. They visited so many taverns that I made a list.
Laughing Whitefish Inn - well-heeled traveler's inn and tavern in Sovereign's Watch
The Iron Box - poor man's tavern and inn in Killbox
Cayden's Cup - drinking house and temple of Cayden Cailean in Sovereign's Watch
Hearth and Fire - working man's lunch counter and inn in Gritforge
Hammered Nail - dwarven taphouse in Dwarven district between Gritforge and Sovereign's Watch
Gilded Lily - fancy pub in Inner Sector
They have seen how the townsfolk have adapted to restrictive rules; for example, the dwarves have secret underground mushroom farms based on their ancient traditions from the Darklands. Kirii visted temples of many minor gods that are glad to direct a (false) cleric of Desna toward the needy. They visited the heavily guarded farms outside Starfall.
However, my ability to invent new sights is reaching its limits.
For mine, when the party was looking for lodgings I rolled Ash giant on the random table. Since as you said it makes no sense for random ash giant encounter that can murder commoners, I had an ash giant taking up a room (or 3) in an inn, refusing to pay and making a huge mess of the place. The innkeeper paid the party to...remove him. This attracted a bit of attention, gaining them notoriety by local onlookers. Eventually this spiraled out into them going full-force against the league.
Turn the random encounter tables into fetch quests and watch their reputation grow...
Alas, the party is careful to not be identified as an adventurer party, so no-one knows to hire them. The magus Elric is known as a wandering lone adventurer, so people could hire him, but few realize how powerful he is, since 13th-level characters are extremely rare. An ash giant is a CR 11 challenge, so the townsfolk think taking one down requires a small army or a Technic League captain.
I have considered having them encounter a drunk ash giant on a smashing spree, perhaps aided by an overwhelmed local city patrol. Making friends with the constabulary is an excellent step in playing factions against each other. But as a spontaneous encounter, the fight would involve only one or two party members.
In the February 4 game session, the party did temporarily re-unite. Kirii, in her disguise as a cleric of Desna, tended a sick boy who was not sick with a disease. Instead, he was tormented by bogeymen after entering their abandoned house on a dare. Kirii gathered the party together in their adventurer identities and attacked the three bogeymen in daylight. Local squatters fled, but they caught glimpses of the fight. The news is spreading.
This week my wife and I have devised a hidden story that we will unleash on the party in tomorrow's session. A Technic League lieutenant, Burkard, conscripts Val and Boffin because he needs some high-temperature smiths for a project, and Savril Trent squealed that two smiths from Torch were in Starfall. (Trent thinks that Val is an apprentice wizard and Boffin is a journeyman expert.) The rest of the party will be in the dark at first. Elric has befriended some informants already and they will pass on that the Technic League abducted two young smiths from Torch. My backup plan if the party does nothing is for Val and Boffin to be tagged with tracking chips and released in the evening with instructions to return in the morning. Afterward, Boffin will locate the chips with her chipfinder, surgically remove the chips, and hide them in their clothing rather than remain tagged.
Feel free to offer suggestions about the abduction scenerio. When I invent villains such as Burkard, they act more practical than evil.
So I take it they managed to not take Casandlee with them so she can't encourage them to make sure Technic League won't harass them at Silver Mount?
The party left Casandalee, Boffin's robot cohort, their spaceship, two annihilator-robot nuclear reactors, and 100 rescued ratfolk former slaves in the underground rooms in B&B Alchemical Smelting's warehouse. The party left a lot of resources behind in their effort to remain incognito.
Furthermore, Casandalee was lost for almost 500 years. The Technic League was founded only 208 years ago. Casandalee knows nothing about the Technic League.
The logjam of unmotivated plot might be breaking up.
In the February 11 game session, Elric talked with Mockery about the difficulty of the plan to detox the Black Sovereign. Mockery admitted that he did not know what the Sovereign would do once his head cleared, but Mockery has old evidence of Technic League atrocities against the Kellid tribes of Numeria that might turn the Black Sovereign against the Technic League before they drug him again. He lacks fresh evidence, since the current leader Ozmyn has been more circumspect. Mockery's organization has no wizards, sorcerers, or magi to infiltrate the Technic League. Furthermore, any such agent would have to participate in atrocities and Mockery could not ask that of his men.
The next morning in Starfall, when I asked the players what their characters would be doing, Kheld would be shopping for more spells for his wizard cohort, Elric would be gathering information, and Boffin, well, my wife said that she didn't have anything to say yet. Kirii's player was out sick. Elric's informants had information about the Technic League abducting two smiths from Torch. He immediately jumped to the correct conclusion that Val and Boffin were the two smiths. Elric planned to meet up with Kheld and infiltrate the Technic League to rescue them.
Except Kheld was wandering around the city shopping, so I asked Elric to roll a Gather Information check to find him. (One more reason to never split the party.) He rolled a natural 3 and his Diplomacy skill was low. Elric finally caught up to Kheld at dinner, just as Val and Boffin rushed in to explain that they had been taken by the Technic League, but were tagged with tracker chips, released, and ordered to return the next morning. Lieutenant Burkard worried that if he locked up his two new smiths like slaves, then they would disappear into Ozmyn's project like all other slaves.
Elric decided to go forward with his plan to infiltrate the Technic League, to be in reach of Val and Boffin if they needed aid. He accompanied Boffin to the Technic League gate the following morning and applied for membership. He accepted a position under Captain Akradenn, a Shoanti wizard specializing in technological melee weaponry and armor. Akradenn was tired of wizard trainees who could not swing a sword, so he was happy to recruit a magus with excellent swordsmanship.
The next day, Elric was assigned to an Elite Technic League Patrol. The patrol was sent out to take down a rampaging ash giant ("He proved himself unreliable. He is worthless as a hauler, so we don't have to take him alive.") and let the new recruit do most of the fighting.
I need suggestions for more dirty jobs for a Technic League recruit. Elric needs to earn a promotion to junior lieutenant.
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My party left Starfall in the February 25th session, so I no longer need advice about Starfall. But in case anyone is curious, here is what happened.
In the February 18th session started with Elric in a not-so-elite Technic League patrol to escort prisoners who had not paid their fines to the Technic League slave pens. Just another dirty job for the low-ranked recruit. The next morning had a light rain, so the Technic League sent him to cast Fly on some city guards who would fly around in the rain searching for illegal rain collectors.
That afternoon Kirii, in her guise as a 3rd-level cleric, noticed a mob gathering in the Killbox neighborhood. The city guard was arresting a married couple for illegal rain collecting. They had a rooftop garden--ground-level gardens like in Sovereign's Watch were legal, but rooftop gardens counted as rain collectors--which slowed down the guards are they carted it off. Kirii sent her lyrakien skald/rogue cohort Tay into the dimly-lit rowhouse to warn the two prisoners, then sneaked in invisibly and Dimensioned Doored the prisoners out. She deposited them at a friendly temple of Thamir Gixx, halfling god of greed and opportunity. By the time she returned to the scene of the crime, the guards searching for their prisoners in all nearby dwellings had sparked a riot.
The riot spread to the Street of Lights, only two blocks away from Kheld's new storehouse. Juran cast a Wall of Stone blocking that avenue to keep the riot away.
The Technic League was called in to quell the riot. Captain Akradenn issued stun batons, because live prisoners either paid fines or were sold as slaves. Elric cast Web to trap some rioters, then went invisible to observe whether he had some way of helping the oppressed poor instead of capturing them. He did not find a way.
Afterward, Juran's player was surprised to learn that Wall of Stone was permanent. Shame that he did not read it in detail. Therefore, the biggest damage from the riot was caused by the party. Fortunately, the Technic League was blamed instead, because they often cast inconsiderate spells. Problems with stone are the responsibility of the dwarves of Starfall, so Boffin was pulled away from her involuntary servitude to the Technic League lieutenant Burkard to help other dwarves remove the wall. Val went along as an honorary dwarf.
Thus, I found an event that involved all the players, though from different sides.
Next, one of Captain Akradenn's lieutenants teleported back from Hajoth Hakados with the date and location of the next gathering of the Tarnished Halls black market. Akradenn decided to raid it for parts; unlike Ghartone who raids it to shut it down. The teleporter could carry only three passengers, so she first teleported Elric and two others a day early. Elric was chosen for the early team since he looked like an adventurer rather than Technic League. One of the others spotted a prospector with techlogicial loot also a day early for the black market. They mugged and killed the prospector to steal his stuff. On the day of the Tarnished Halls before the other Technic League showed up, they sold the prospector's loot at a Tarnished Halls booth, pocketed the money, and planned to raid that booth to reclaim it.
Meanwhile in Starfall, the leader of the Technic League decided to send the current slaves to Silver Mount early, since they would soon have a fresh batch of slaves from the riot. He was busy, so he sent Technic League captain Sila Desaulis in his place. Boffin and Tay carefully followed the band of slaves up Silver Mount, despite the Technic League wizards cloaking them under illusions, to find the secret entrance into the Divinity. They had a tougher time sneaking back down the mountain without the illusions, for Sial Desaulis either spent the night in Silver Mount or teleported out.
In the February 25th session, the rest of the Technic League raiding team showed up at the Tarnished Halls and issued laser rifles for the raid. Elric flew aboved the Tarnished Halls and shot a Blood Gar guard trying to evacuate with a chest. The guard dropped the chest and ran at 6 hit points. The chest contained a 26,000 gp Deep Diving Suit, so Elric earned a 2,600 gp finders fee. Working for the Technic League can be lucrative. Due to the passenger limit on teleporting, Elric could not return to Starfall that day.
Meanwhile in Starfall, Boffin had an idea how to sabotage the drugged Numerian Fluids at the Red Reaver. She gathered all remaining party funds and made an appointment with Doc Hellbroth to have him implant dermal plating on her. Kheld was her bodyguard and they smuggled Tay and several tiny glass vials in. While Doc Hellbroth was busy in surgery with only his clockwork golem on guard, Tay drank a portion of invisibility, picked the lock on the alchemical cabinet, and took samples of everything. The golem had line of sight on the cabinet, so opening the cabinet door slowly enough that the golem did not notice was a difficult Stealth check.
Val had bluffed to Burkard that Boffin was home sick, but he sent her back with instructions to drag Boffin to the temple of Abadar and pay for a Remove Disease spell herself. Val fetched Boffin after surgery after disguising the Con damge from surgery as Con damage from disease.
After work Boffin succeeded in alchemically analyzing the samples and determining the drug component, but failed to find a substitute for the drug that would fool Doc Hellbroth. Fortunately, Kheld had alchemical skill from his 4 levels of investigator, and he found a substitute. They delivered the substitute to Mockery in a vial identical to the real drug's vial, telling him that if he made the swap, then Kevoth-Kul the Black Sovereign would no longer be drugged.
That evening, Elric returned from the raid on the Technic League. As they shared stories in a private room at the Laughing Whitefish Inn, Technic League lieutenant Miriam Grimm barged in. Doc Hellbroth had purchased a license for dermal plating for Boffin but mentioned that Boffin had unlicensed wirejack tendons, too. Lieutenant Grimm was there to investigate that. Ordinary a bribe would be enough, but she recognized Boffin as Burkard's smith, so she decided to take Boffin in for surgical questioning by captain Gryne Rasik. Elric accompanied Grimm and Boffin as a fellow Technic League member and Tay trailed them secretly. So Tay saw when Elric grabbed Boffin a mile later and teleported away. Tay rushed back to the inn and the team moved elsewhere so that Kirii could cast Sending to contact Elric.
Elric and Boffin were back in their spaceship hidden near Torch and readying it to pick up the rest of the party. The rest of the party left Starfall for the pickup and that ended the adventure in Starfall.
However, once the spaceship neared Silver Mount, Unity noticed and took control of it. Boffin disabled the controls for a very noticable emergency landing on a road near Starfall, picked up the rest of the party, and then re-engaged the controls to let Unity fly them to Silver Mount. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, because Boffin's player loves a challenge.
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Hey, it worked! Kudos to you for that intricate work of GMing!
They haven't stopped the Technic League's oppression yet, so I expect to return to Palace of Fallen Stars someday. Elric has a long-term plan for dealing with the Technic League. He learned that captain Zernebeth was elected leader of the Technic League because she returned alive from Silver Mount, and captain Ozmyn Zaidow succeeded her as leader because he returned from Silver Mount alive with loot. Elric figures that he will return alive from Silver Mount with complete control of it and use that achievement to lead and reform the Technic League.
Hey, it worked! Kudos to you for that intricate work of GMing!They haven't stopped the Technic League's oppression yet, so I expect to return to Palace of Fallen Stars someday. Elric has a long-term plan for dealing with the Technic League. He learned that captain Zernebeth was elected leader of the Technic League because she returned alive from Silver Mount, and captain Ozmyn Zaidow succeeded her as leader because he returned from Silver Mount alive with loot. Elric figures that he will return alive from Silver Mount with complete control of it and use that achievement to lead and reform the Technic League.
It won't work. There is just too much treachery baked in to the League.
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It won't work. There is just too much treachery baked in to the League.
I know that, you know that, but the players don't know that. They might find sympathizers among the Technic League members who love technology more than treachery, but then civil war will erupt.
Maybe my party will prevent that.