help me

[marcum uth mather]

so im DMing a group of 1st levels on thurs. they are a kinasi sorcerer. a rujurik druid. a anurian theif a half elf ranger. and 2 anuran fighters. how in the hell would you guys get them in the same story. the group is all full of dominate personalites ands i half to make them mesh. o and we are starting in the imperial city. any ideas please

[irdeggman]

The biggest problem is how to integrate the half-elf. In the Imperial City puts him smack dab in the middle of the "we hate elves and their spawn" area. It would have been easier in Brechtur or the Rjurik highlands, but still not an easy thing.

The question is what are the PCs background stories/histories? This is something I made my players develop. It gave them a heads up on role-playing by forcing them to think about things and gave me ideas for how to work them together.

What is each character interested in? What is their motivation? Try to lay things out like a movie using scenes and cut scenes for things between the important/critical info.

It also depends on whether or not they are regents. It is alwyas hard to find motivation for regents to work together. The old there is a damsel in distress and the barkeep offfers you a reward to solve a crime/mystery just sort of loses its appeal when the PCs have major influence and income.

Assuming they are not regents for the moment - it is much easier to handle that way.

The 1/2 elf could be getting run out of a tavern or even the city itself and the druid could come across him. They have inherent common interests so a bond of sorts could develop there. You could also have the ranger owe the druid something and has accompanied him on his journey to repay him his kindness/help.

The sorcerer could have come from the Royal College of Sorcerery and have a mission to undertake by his teachers. He could have to find something rare that was lost. Leading him to the thief (actually rogue I believe) to race down information. The fighters, well they could be 'protection' arranged by the RCS or the chamberlain, since he may know about the 'mission'.

The item being sought could be in the realm that one of the fighters comes from so they ahve a vested interest in seeing things through.

Just some random thoughts.

[Lee]

In a message dated 3/3/04 11:47:06 AM Eastern Standard Time,

brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET writes:



<< marcum uth mather wrote:

so im DMing a group of 1st levels on thurs. they are a kinasi sorcerer. a

rujurik druid. a anurian theif a half elf ranger. and anuran fighters. how in

the hell would you guys get them in the same story. the group is all full of

dominate personalites ands i half to make them mesh. o and we are starting in

the imperial city. any ideas please

>>



What`s the adventure plan? You could kidnap them all, or have them

caught at the wrong place at the wrong time-- stuck in a burning inn, accused of

crimes, etc.



Lee.

[geeman]

marcum uth mather writes:



> so im DMing a group of 1st levels on thurs. they are a kinasi sorcerer.

> a rujurik druid. a anurian theif a half elf ranger. and anuran fighters.

> how in the hell would you guys get them in the same story. the group is

> all full of dominate personalites ands i half to make them mesh. o and

> we are starting in the imperial city. any ideas please



You could give them all different reasons for being in the same location and

then try to associate them after the fact. One of my favorite campaigns

started with all the PCs travelling to the same place from different

starting points. Each had a different reason for going to the same place,

and each got a 1:1 session with me in which we played out their travels.

Once they arrived they found they had similar agendas and reasons for

cooperating and the campaign went on from there.



Without knowing anything about what you are planning for you campaign, there

are a couple of standard, BR options:



1. During their travels (or soon after they arrive at their mutual location)

they engage in some activity that gets them the attention of a local regent

or his subordinates. They are then used as "freelance" operatives by that

official, and are thrown together for several missions until eventually they

become a "party" simply by associating so often.



2.

[bulletmagnet]

Throw divesity back on them.Have them hired by a distant regeant to come to his land and fight a ancient evil i.e The 13th Warrior. This will make them bond to each other and let them develope their signature.After the adventure they will now all have a nice story to tell about that time. Make sure you role play out the distance and problems involved in the travel i.e weather,politics. maybe the half elf dosnt start with them but jumps in and helps rescue the party from bandits early on.Just some ideas but i can think of a million.

[Osprey]

Building on Gary&#39;s idea #1, Calidhe Dossier makes an excellent patron for aspiring heroes - as he is concerned with the welfare not only of the Imperial City, but all of Anuire. The Imperial City by itself should provide an almost endless source of adventures for characters of all levels, it being the most prosperous and populated province in Anuire packed into a single city&#33;

What if Avan, Boeruine, or Hierl Diem are causing trouble with some of their law agents? Abusing privelages, pressing local guilds for collections (those unnamed local guilds in the Imp. City are prime targets for law collections IMO, since they may not have blooded regents running them)? Or maybe they&#39;re agitating for one of these regents and Dossiere wants them quietly stopped so that none of the law regents gains too much support? These are a few ideas for merging the domain and adventure level game, if that&#39;s of interest to you. Good luck&#33;

-Osprey

[kgauck]

There are two issues here, 1) what brings them all to the Imperial City and

2) why do they work together. For #1, draw on their backround stories. For

#2, draw on your adventure plans.



Irdeggman has given you a good example of one approach. Here is an

alternative.



The Basarji sorcerer is almost certainly in the Imperial City because of the

Imperial College of Sorcery. So, is he an applicant, a student, or there to

use resources (like the library) from a friendly organization. Its also

possible he is there with a trade or diplomatic mission (led by an uncle,

say).



You have two or more Anuirean fighters. What kind of fighters are they?

Are they soldier or city guard fighters, or are they knightly noble

fighters? They could also be muscle for guilds, if your campaign plan is

guild focused.



The Anuirean theif is tricker if he is a theif, as opposed to a rogue. As a

rogue he could easily be with any of the other characters, and he could be

in the capital for any of a dozen reasons mostly revolving around the idea

that this is where the action is. If the player has an established concept,

that`s what you have to work with, otherwise I would look at the fighters

and figure out what makes the most sense with them. If they are

aristocratic knightly types, he could also be a younger son who just didn`t

take up war as a profession, but still has all the courtly intrigue skills.

If the fighters are more like soldiers or city guard types, the rogue could

be a scouting type (as could the ranger).



This leaves the half-elf ranger and the Rjurik druid, which are hardest to

place in the Imperial city. The half-elf ranger could represent elven kind

as a member of a diplomatic delegation to the humans or he could be an agent

of the High Mage keeping an eye on things (presumably with others led by a

mid-level control) .



The problem with the Rjurik druid is both his druidicism in the City and his

Rjurik origins in same. Its hard enough to imagine just a Rjurik or just a

druid there, but a Rjurik druid is a double wammy. Who is he representing

if not the Oaken Grove or Emerald Spire? And what business does he have in

the Imperial Senate? The easiest explanation for this fellow is that he is

on his way from point a to point b and is in transit.



For example, lets imagine a campaign in which there is an early start of

magical goings on. So then we can build stories around the High Mage

Aelies, the Imperial College, and Rogr Aglondier, and Medoere. We can place

the ranger with the High Mage, the druid is on his way to the Erebannien,

the sorcerer is connected to the Imperial College and the others are

connected either to the college or the High Mage as muscle. That means

joining two groups, not six or seven individuals. Finding a community of

interest for two is easier than six.



Let`s imagine the campaign starts off trade centered. Now the characters

could be connected to El-Hadid (rogue, sorcerer, fighters easily) who has

guild interests nearby and wants to keep a presence in the Imperial City as

well. This just leaves the druid and ranger to become conneted to this

story, which might happen because of a community of interest or because of

cicumstances.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[geeman]

Sorry about that. Postus Interruptus. Where was I?



2. Consider portraying random events and domain actions at the adventure

level. Most often random events and domain actions are seen as

regent-level activities alone, but in reality they are broad activities

that influence everyone in the province. Some of these are

obvious. Brigandage and Monster random events, for instance, have a pretty

clear affect on individual characters--they are ambushed and they must

fight--but consider the possibilities of a contest action being performed

in the province. Depending on the nature and scope of the action the PCs

may get involved in either side of the action. Portray events like typical

adventures with each representing a set of 3-6 encounters in which the PCs

must deal with things ranging from street thugs to overzealous gate keepers

given orders not to allow certain people access to various

locations--bribes, diplomacy or bluffing is in order. The PCs can choose

sides and their level of success might again bring them to the attention of

one regent or the other (negatively or positively) making it possible for

them to be given future missions. Almost any of the domain actions could

be portrayed thus.



3. When in doubt, put the characters on a ship. Party cohesion tends to

rise when characters are literally in the same boat together. (Lots of

intersteller sci-fi RPGS use this as the _entire basis_ of "party unity.")



4. For Want of a Nail. Domain actions and random events often boil down to

the necessity to accomplish a single task or the need for just one

particular item. Richard 3 might cry out for "a horse, a horse, my kingdom

for a horse..." and that`s where the PCs come in. It may be a special

manuscript that the regent needs, he may have given a piece of jewelry to a

lover that was a present from a spouse, a message needs to be delivered to

prevent a war, etc. Any of the domain level actions can be distilled to an

adventure level action that has a traditional, D&D adventure hook.



5. The Big Picture. Consider having an over-arching campaign theme with

adventures (and motivations) based on that theme. If, for example, you`re

campaign is going to culminate in battling Rhoubhe Manslayer (and you have

a half-elf in the party so there might be a connection there) have a few

exiled elves from that awnshegh`s realm appear early in the campaign to

foreshadow events. Consider adding a few lesser awnshegh (or just lesser

known awnshegh) to the mix in order to build to the climax with Rhoubhe.



Hope that helps,

Gary

[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Gary" <geeman@SOFTHOME.NET>

Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 6:32 PM



> 5. The Big Picture. Consider having an over-arching campaign theme with

> adventures (and motivations) based on that theme.



For any long term play (more than a few sessions) I concur. I start a

campaign with about 5 seeds for long term campaign ideas. One of these

involves a malevalent enemy who will be a problem for the region no matter

what the PC`s do. For example, the Spider may be a problem for the South

Coast no matter what. For the others, present rivalries or themes that the

players get to follow or ignore. Typically I find that if I present four

optional long term goal ideas, players will take in interest in one or two.

I sit back for a while with my DM goal (say, the Spider) and the PC goal

(say establishing a member of the party as a guild regent within an existing

organization, maybe Guilder Kalien picks the PC as a lieutenant) and watch

to see if the players set any goals for themselves that I can build on, or

what situations spark ideas that I can build on by having one off NPC`s

become recuring rivals or having one off locations become important

locations, and so forth. After a time I get a third long term goal

established. Then I can vary between long term goals and throw in some

episodic adventures (nothing changes except the accumulation of xp and gp).



Long term goals should be party goals. Individuals may have their own long

term goals, but I will attempt to work those into adventures based on group

goals, rather than make adventures that are based on one character`s goals.



Currently the long term goals, recuring adventures, involve the White Witch,

the search for the Torc of Huthmund, and the orphan Wulfrik. Once a goal is

met, I start looking for some new long term goal to replace it. Adventures

involving long term goals involve some number over half of all adventures.

Since I have three, no one goal takes up much more than one in six

adventures.



Kenneth Gauck

kgauck@mchsi.com

[bulletmagnet]

All of this talk of long term goals is great,however it has been my lengthy experience that unless a majority of characters "bond" by the third adventure there could be serious problems developing characters.You need meat to go with the potatoes, if you know what i mean.Another disturbing trend i notice is how Dms always try and make long term campaigns ALWAYS involve the bad boys i.e Manslayer,Gorgon.Sometimes it gets old playing on that epic scale and things could use a more human feel.Hope that helps.