Post/Author/DateTime	Post
CarpyDM 06-17-06, 10:05 AM	Hello! I am a new DM who will be running Forgotten Forge for my fellow gamers shortly. We have decided that they are all students at Morgrave and are randomly assigned as roommates (this is how they will know each other). I'm looking for a good excuse to have them together wandering the city after dark so they can stumble upon Bonal Geldem. My party is a bunch of misfits (they like to play them), so I thought it would be cool to have them in some kind of contest with other students where they need to find things on campus. If they stumble upon Bonal Geldem and forget the rest of the "challenge", no problem, there's just a group of "rich kids" who win and don't let them forget it. If they remember, bonus XP. Any ideas? I was thinking of a scavenger hunt or riddle, but not sure what to have them looking for or what the "prize" would be so that they'd be motivated to do this. They will meta-game if need be and just go along with me, but I'd rather make this interesting for them. Thanks in advance! CarpyDM
Edymnion 06-18-06, 09:38 PM	Could be as simple as they all just took a major test and are hitting the local pub to unwind, and they trip over the poor sob on the way.
Epicweaver 06-22-06, 02:13 PM	I'm about to start my own Eberron module campaign... I was faced with a similiar dilemma, as my player characters of such a variety, they're all staying in the Neutral range. Tiefling Binder Aasimar Favored Soul Human Lurk Human Monk Human Spellthief I've basically just decided to wrap them up together to do a mini-adventure before the they stumble across the corpse. The idea is this... <Notable NPC> hires each PC (catering to their backstories in one way or another) in turn to recover merchandise stolen from him by <insert criminal organization> in a lower city slum area. <NPC> needs to use the party over the official authority for recovery because s/he needs to keep certain rivals in the dark about his/her activities. Each part of the 3 room quickie will test a different party members skills and give them a chance to work together... They will finish in short order with their departure and return to the previously "designated" meeting place near Tavick's Landing.. On the way they will stumble across the corpse and trigger the beginning of Forgotten Forge. The NPC will won't be at the meeting point later, and will give the party something to think about (whether the NPC hunt them down to recover the stuff or not, etc). For me the NPC will become a convienent tool to be re-introduced later for more flavor or to help propel the modules if necessary. I'm tempted to actually make the "merchandise" illicit goods of one kind or another to put further heat on the party when approached by the guards. But this could be a very bad idea. Any thoughts regarding party handling, scaling encounters, or written sore spots to watch out for? The plan is to run it straight through Voyage (which should be out by the time we get to it... lol)
Quarion Silverfrond 06-22-06, 04:48 PM	Ah, The Forgoten Forge. The biggest pain in the butt for that adventure is getting started. In the group I run, the whole group was a bunch of inacent bystanderds going to the same place at the same time on sheer coincedence. I added in a small NPC cutperce to lead them to the broken anvil inn and from there it was history. I dont know if this will help you, but it worked for me.
ArcTan 06-22-06, 06:48 PM	Let's remember that the guy already had his own hook and was asking for suggestions on how to flesh it out, not other, more common hooks with which he could replace it. I like the scavenger hunt challenge idea. It's quirky, it's cute, it's plausible and yet fairly unusual as a way to kick off a first-level adventure. It humanizes and de-standardizes the university as a setting. I'm not terribly familiar with Morgrave as a setting. But Sharn: City of Towers is full of ideas for "scavenger hunt" type stuff -- in fact, a lot of the landmarks in there I would be hard-pressed to put into an adventure except with such a conceit in mind. I would picture this as a kind of city pride exercise -- getting what is largely worthless kitsch that proves nothing except how well you know the ins and outs of both the campus and Sharn at large. I once participated in such a hunt taking place in Philadelphia near where I go to school, a lot of which was focused around getting ticket stubs from various museums and food from various favorite hole-in-the-wall eateries. Such a scavenger hunt would be one-half serious challenge and one-half excuse to go on a romp through the city, probably as part of the student body's end-of-term festivities. The prize would probably be mainly a joke, nothing substantial -- perhaps a large quantity of fine liquor (always a prized possession on college campuses) or intricate (paste) regalia crafted by enterprising students a while ago that declare their bearers "King of Sharn", the sort of joke you could only get away with in Breland. It'd be cute to make them in conscious imitation of the BoVD and BoED's evil and good regalia. You could include such items as a vial of mush from the Cauldron of Boldrei, a sausage from Erek the sausage vendor on the University Commons, an autograph from Luca Syara the playwright, even racy things like a G-string from a dancing girl at Dailan's in Torchfire. Nothing that requires the PCs to go into too dangerous areas or put themselves at risk, though, which would be out of character for such a challenge. But having the challenge in place during the adventure would give them something to do in their off-time and a way to have fun, roleplay and even gain bonus XP without risking their necks.