"Collect 'em All!" Adventures [Archive] - Wizards Community

"Collect 'em All!" Adventures [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Zephania
06-17-07, 09:33 PM I'm certian a common theme in camapigns is to collect things. What it is, whether it be pieces of an artifact, the head of every dragon in the world, or tomes of magic, many campaigns have been focus on collecting something

My question is, how do you run an adventure like that without it becoming boring and repetitive? Something different from "go here, kill these, collect, rinse, repeat"?
Salla
06-17-07, 09:36 PM Vary the resting places. Make one part of a King's crown or other family heirloom ... a smiple smite'n'run isn't recommended there. Different types of guardians, opponents chasing after the same stuff ... plenty of room to mix it up.
Malcaor
06-17-07, 09:44 PM Each challenge needs to b compeltely different than the others, it can be quite interesting that way.
Tichrimo
06-17-07, 10:13 PM Another common theme that can be used for variety is to have competing forces all looking for the same pieces/items/widgets... Running into another party of adventurers who are already trying to convince the High King of Somewhereia to hand over the crown jewels adds another element to the picture.
Rosisha
06-17-07, 10:18 PM How many story lines are there really though? How many are useful as D&D adventures?

My advice is keep things interesting through the story, if not the actual plot line. And if one type of thing gets boring, switch to something else.

Definitly avoid the WoW version of gathering quests.

Rosisha!
High Octane
06-17-07, 10:24 PM Definitly avoid the WoW version of gathering quests.

Rosisha!

"Bring me 10 boar livers!"

"Okay!"

*days later, 10 dead boars are on the ground*

"Why did only 3 of these have livers? How were they surviving?"
Talisman
06-17-07, 10:59 PM Remove the "kill these" from the equation. Instead of having Section #12 of the Artifact of Doom be guarded by a pyrohydra, have it be...part of the Elf King's crown. Or contain the soul of an angel. Or be the sacred relic of a small-but-pious church of Pelor. Basically deny the "kill the monsters and take their stuff" approach; force the party to use diplomacy and negotiation.
Comus
06-17-07, 10:59 PM My players are on one now... and I guess technically have been since game one, as one of the players started with a mysterious rune-covered rock... or as I like to call it, Plot Device (part 1/3). Wasn't my idea, mind you, but I ran with it. And now they're quickly approaching the last part of the puzzle.

Or, rather, they already have it, but need to get the other two parts back from Space Pirates. Let me see if I can summarize this particular quest so far...

1) Andromeda starts with rock in inventory. Says she stole it from a pirate king.
2) Pirates attack the town they're in, steal rock back.
3) PCs track down and attack pirates, steal rock back.
4) PCs find a second part of the rock on Cyan's home world.
5) PCs leave those parts there, with a group of monks, to get the last part.
6) PCs borrow a Findamancer from the Monks to track the last bit.
7) PCs kill the corrupt owner of a Coliseum and find the last part, which he was intending to use as a prize in the Games.
8) PCs return to the first world they were on to get some traveling money before going back to Cyan's home world.
9) They're delayed for two months, forget about the Monk.
10) Remember the monk, go to look for him.
11) He was captured by pirates over a month ago, and they left planet already.
12) They hurry to Cyan's world. Monks are all dead, first two parts of the rock are gone.
13) They learn the Space Pirates current location, charter a ship.

... And that's where they are right now. It's worked well, so far.
Salla
06-17-07, 11:07 PM One of the first things I learned about one of these is: watch your players' reactions and realize when the plot is starting to drag, especially if you're finding ways to take the McGuffins away later, or they keep changing hands for some other reasons. If the plot is dragging, find a way to wrap it up.

I also recommend mixing it up a little bit with unrelated plotlines, just so everything doesn't hang on it every game ... it seems to help against Collector Burnout. :)
Vaelan
06-18-07, 01:44 AM I'm going to go with the obvious answer: reduced quantity. MacGuffin #256? Boring. MacGuffin #3? Substantially less likely to be boring.
Salla
06-18-07, 01:48 AM I'm going to go with the obvious answer: reduced quantity. MacGuffin #256? Boring. MacGuffin #3? Substantially less likely to be boring.

Yup. This is why it's called the TriForce, not the Kiloforce. :)
Archangel62
06-18-07, 01:55 AM Very simply, make sure that some Macguffins are for the players and some are for the DM. To put it another way, the DM Macguffins are the ones that the ones that the players are getting for the NPCs, relics, artworks, and other items that are only there to drive the quest or story. Player MacGuffins might be things like pieces of an item set from MIC. The thing is that the players might get bored with constantly going after trinkets for a duke or earl but PCs generally like having stuff. So, maybe the warlock finds the Pheonix cloak on one of the quests, when it's identified the sage tells him that it's part of a powerful item set and gives stories of its power. The warlock now wants to find the rest of this stuff and the party is now motivated to go wandering towards his stuff and maybe find a few MacGuffins of their own.

But for variability, some should be combat, some should stress diplomacy, and some should stress intelligence and problem solving. This way everyone gets to use some of their skills and also during their quest for various Macguffins it might be "Yes, I'll give you DM MacGuffin #7, in exchange I want you to wipe out the troll tribe that's been raiding my livestock."
pres_man
06-18-07, 01:59 AM Also have another group, though not necessarily directly hostile to the party, also seeking out the items.
DMInfernoGR
06-18-07, 04:50 AM I'm certian a common theme in camapigns is to collect things. What it is, whether it be pieces of an artifact, the head of every dragon in the world, or tomes of magic, many campaigns have been focus on collecting something

My question is, how do you run an adventure like that without it becoming boring and repetitive? Something different from "go here, kill these, collect, rinse, repeat"?

I am currently playing a game like this. I created the fight of the three dynasties or how its called. I made three castles with united races inside.
Castle 1: Humans, Dwarfs, Blood elfs
Castle 2: Elfs, gnomes, halflings, high elves, wood elves, aquatic elves
Castle 3: Dark elfs, horde of the undead

All three of em have a piece of an artifact. Continual battles, massive destruction and heroic RP is what i used here. Hope i helped...
Potato Weasel
06-18-07, 08:36 AM Let the next piece of an inanimate set be alive.

Either it's the piece that binds everything else together, or its the energy the other pieces feed off of.

Keeping things alive is harder then making them very very dead.
CryoSilver
06-18-07, 09:00 AM In Iliga, there is an artifact called the Idol of the Last God. It has 37 pieces, scattered across the world. But unlike some adventures, where each artifact piece is in a temple identical to the last, except with illogically scaled-up monsters, the various pieces are in the possession of many and varied creatures/people.

So, acquiring one pice might be a dungeon crawl, while the next piece requires an urban adventure, tracking down the thief who has it. The piece after that might be at the bottom of the ocean. Etc.
Dan Hemmens
06-18-07, 01:20 PM I'm running a Weapons of the Gods game which has gone a bit "Collect 'em All" recently.

In general, I think the important thing to do is not just to vary the locations of the fragments of hoodad, but to vary the, for what of a better term, thematic nature of them.

It's a cheap device, but having your widget broken into four pieces which correspond to the four elements, the nine alignments, the seven samurai, or whatever helps make things feel a bit more structured. You need to make sure that every little bit of the puzzle has its own identity.

That and, as other people have said, make the complications surrounding each fragment different. Make the first one logistically hard to access (on top of a high mountain) the second one well guarded, the third one morally difficult, and so on.

Also: whatever you do, don't include too many of them. Four is a good number, there's nothing less interesting than saying "hey, we've got twelve forty-eighths of the artefact now!"

Finally: Don't do too many of those plotlines end to end. The reason I gave up on Neverwinter Nights after Act III was that having collected the Four Waterdhavian Creature Parts and the Four Bits of Evidence To Find The Cult, I really couldn't be arsed to look for the six Words of Power.
darkdrgon2136
06-18-07, 02:13 PM my campaighn is basically the hunt for the horn, from the wheel of time books. so i guess its not really a "collect x amount of y" as a mystery but you can go that route. my players have been adventuring for it for almost a year now, and there still having fun. they keep telling me not to end it, so every week i need to find more clues.
KidJake
06-18-07, 09:09 PM I'm actually right in the middle of a 'Gotta Get'em All' campaign, and the way I negated the 'Dammit not another one.' feeling was to make each of the five artifacts insanely powerful and intensely desirable so each PC wants to get their hands on one, even if they're unable to use it on a whim. For example the main Antagonist rose from a humble imp to 9th archdevil through the use the artifact tied to stone, and likewise the group's barbarian used the artifact tied to fire to completely erase half an army with a single action. However to keep things balanced the artifacts take their toll on those who use their full powers, so although ultimate destruction is a thought away so are the consequences. The imp became physically rooted in place, and the barbarian simply stopped existing on any known plane of existence, which brought a resounding 'The hell?!' from everyone who witnessed the flash both in and out of character.
Mock26
06-18-07, 09:22 PM Vary the locations. An adventure in a "dungeon" that is a series of wooden walkways and houses high in the trees of a jungle is a lot different than a traditional dungeon beneath a castle and is a lot different than an adventure deep in the bowels of the earth. It matters not if they are all hack and slash adventures, a lot of times it is the location that gives the variety. Adiditionally, you can have add variety by having them try to find the location of the next item. My campaign right now revolves around recovering 10 rings, a spell book, and a gem stone. One of the clues that the group had was a single piece of tracing paper with some squiggly lines and a star on it, as well as a symbol in one corner. The next adventure I they found a map that had that same symbol on it. It took a little while but someone in the group figured out that the tracing paper was to be used as an overlay on the map. Well, the map was huge (it was one of the maps from the 2nd edition Forgotten Realms boxed set) and the group spent five hours going over the map and trying to find out where exactly on the map the overlay went. What they didn't know is that in the very next room, of which the group was heading for, was a riddle that would have given them a big clue and narrowed down their search to one small section of the map. I tried to urge the group to continue with the adventure, but they wouldn't have anything to do with it. So, I got out some graph paper and worked on an upcoming adventure and enjoyed their antics. By and by they found out where the overlay went and we immediately had a call a halt to the session due to the late hour. I was more than a bit shocked to recieve e-mails from all the players over the next couple of days telling me it was one of the best sessions they've ever had! So, it just goes to show that you can never tell what piques the interest of the players.

You'll know if the same type of adventures get dull and boring for them. If they aren't, don't fret over it.

Take care and have a great day....

ciao,
john.
keyunp
06-18-07, 09:25 PM I'm doing one that has little crystal bits of an overdiety scatter all over. For the most part the players are going on "normal" adventures, but the God Shards can be found anywhere.
Mock26
06-18-07, 09:43 PM I'm doing one that has little crystal bits of an overdiety scatter all over. For the most part the players are going on "normal" adventures, but the God Shards can be found anywhere.

I would like to rewrite that last bit and say, "The ______________ can be found anywhere." One of the great thing about this type of a campaign is that the pieces can be found, literally, anywhere! It can be a hack-and-slash adventure, a murder mystery, or whatever.

The current adventure in my campaign doesn't have any combat in it, at all! The group learned that one of the rings they are seeking is owned by a dwarf. The dwarf has gone missing for 100+ days. He is currently holed up in a secret wine cellar in an inn that has been taken over by the patrons as a protest because the previous owner was blackmailed into selling the inn so that the new owners could fire and attempt to discredit one of the barmaids and prevent her from marrying their son. The new owners are nobles and have purchased the inn secretly and the barmaid is a low commoner. The barmaid was a beloved employee by all patrons. The group has to figure out who was behind the blackmailing, locate the barmaid, locate her fiance who is in hiding, return the bar to it's original owner, and then the dwarf will give up the ring freely. The group has been having a blast on this adventure!
Kuronue
06-18-07, 11:28 PM I'm about to run a campaign involving bringing back some old PCs, levelled up quite a bit, to experiment with high-level games (I almost always start at level 1, never above level 5 or so, so this is new for me), and I'm going to be running a collect 'em quest. They're a bunch of pirates, so it'll be an interesting game, and the captain (NPC) is going to find a shiny ring - I'm giving it the addictive property of the One Ring, but instead it's got a variety of abilities. It'll turn out to be one of a set of probably 9, and each one has a different theme, with a 1/day, a 3/day, and 2 at-will abilities (and I ran a contest among my players to design rings with those properties, I think the top 2 will be in the campaign). The thing I like about that is, who says the highly chaotic pirates won't be able to use the cursed rings on the way to destroying them? It'll be up to them if they want the boost to power (they're very nice rings) at the risk of not being able to destroy them later
Salla
06-18-07, 11:44 PM Heh. The last 'gotta get 'em all' style adventure I did, the group actually discovered, through good RP, excellent skill checks, and the DM not quite thinking the plot all the way through, that the main reason our patron wanted all five or six of these things was so that they could never be used again, because he'd safeguard them (like that EVER works). After we found out that the only use for the combined gizmo was destruction, we destroyed one of the pieces without warning he DM beforehand that we had hatched the plan (via hushed voices while he was taking a smoke break).

You could hear the sound of squealing brakes in his brain when we told him what we were doing. :)
Roivas
06-19-07, 12:17 AM Another method is to have the party start with all the 'objects' and have one or two stolen along the course of the game or all of them at once. Then the players have something invested in getting these items back, this works particularly well with magic weapons. Players will jump across small galaxies to get their stuff back.
Zousha_Omenohu
06-19-07, 12:26 AM Make the items seem completely different from what is expected, like the Nine Pieces of Eight in Pirates of the Carribean. Looking for a series of holy totems required for a powerful ritual gets much more interesting if each of the totems appear to be little more than baubles and pieces of junk at first glance, especially if the BBEG knows what they really are, while the PCs have no idea of the power they carry.

Make the item what is expected, but not at all awe inspiring. If you're looking for a god-killing sword, have a plain, rusty weapon that doesn't look like it could slice bread. Then wow them when this weapon carves a 10 inch thick gash into the torso of the big bad evil god!:evillaugh

Remember, as the Nine Pieces of Eight, the One Ring and Rabbitslayer proved to us, an unassuming and unintimidating form can hide great power!
blackjackg
06-19-07, 01:37 AM Make sure that one of the collectibles got eaten by a whale, so they have to go in after it. It's a classic for a reason!
Zousha_Omenohu
06-19-07, 01:50 AM Why a whale? I reserve those for dropping out of the sky onto misbehaving players. How 'bout a kraken? A lot more intimidating that.:D

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Zephania 06-17-07, 09:33 PM	I'm certian a common theme in camapigns is to collect things. What it is, whether it be pieces of an artifact, the head of every dragon in the world, or tomes of magic, many campaigns have been focus on collecting something My question is, how do you run an adventure like that without it becoming boring and repetitive? Something different from "go here, kill these, collect, rinse, repeat"?
Salla 06-17-07, 09:36 PM	Vary the resting places. Make one part of a King's crown or other family heirloom ... a smiple smite'n'run isn't recommended there. Different types of guardians, opponents chasing after the same stuff ... plenty of room to mix it up.
Malcaor 06-17-07, 09:44 PM	Each challenge needs to b compeltely different than the others, it can be quite interesting that way.
Tichrimo 06-17-07, 10:13 PM	Another common theme that can be used for variety is to have competing forces all looking for the same pieces/items/widgets... Running into another party of adventurers who are already trying to convince the High King of Somewhereia to hand over the crown jewels adds another element to the picture.
Rosisha 06-17-07, 10:18 PM	How many story lines are there really though? How many are useful as D&D adventures? My advice is keep things interesting through the story, if not the actual plot line. And if one type of thing gets boring, switch to something else. Definitly avoid the WoW version of gathering quests. Rosisha!
High Octane 06-17-07, 10:24 PM	Definitly avoid the WoW version of gathering quests. Rosisha! "Bring me 10 boar livers!" "Okay!" days later, 10 dead boars are on the ground "Why did only 3 of these have livers? How were they surviving?"
Talisman 06-17-07, 10:59 PM	Remove the "kill these" from the equation. Instead of having Section #12 of the Artifact of Doom be guarded by a pyrohydra, have it be...part of the Elf King's crown. Or contain the soul of an angel. Or be the sacred relic of a small-but-pious church of Pelor. Basically deny the "kill the monsters and take their stuff" approach; force the party to use diplomacy and negotiation.
Comus 06-17-07, 10:59 PM	My players are on one now... and I guess technically have been since game one, as one of the players started with a mysterious rune-covered rock... or as I like to call it, Plot Device (part 1/3). Wasn't my idea, mind you, but I ran with it. And now they're quickly approaching the last part of the puzzle. Or, rather, they already have it, but need to get the other two parts back from Space Pirates. Let me see if I can summarize this particular quest so far... 1) Andromeda starts with rock in inventory. Says she stole it from a pirate king. 2) Pirates attack the town they're in, steal rock back. 3) PCs track down and attack pirates, steal rock back. 4) PCs find a second part of the rock on Cyan's home world. 5) PCs leave those parts there, with a group of monks, to get the last part. 6) PCs borrow a Findamancer from the Monks to track the last bit. 7) PCs kill the corrupt owner of a Coliseum and find the last part, which he was intending to use as a prize in the Games. 8) PCs return to the first world they were on to get some traveling money before going back to Cyan's home world. 9) They're delayed for two months, forget about the Monk. 10) Remember the monk, go to look for him. 11) He was captured by pirates over a month ago, and they left planet already. 12) They hurry to Cyan's world. Monks are all dead, first two parts of the rock are gone. 13) They learn the Space Pirates current location, charter a ship. ... And that's where they are right now. It's worked well, so far.
Salla 06-17-07, 11:07 PM	One of the first things I learned about one of these is: watch your players' reactions and realize when the plot is starting to drag, especially if you're finding ways to take the McGuffins away later, or they keep changing hands for some other reasons. If the plot is dragging, find a way to wrap it up. I also recommend mixing it up a little bit with unrelated plotlines, just so everything doesn't hang on it every game ... it seems to help against Collector Burnout. :)
Vaelan 06-18-07, 01:44 AM	I'm going to go with the obvious answer: reduced quantity. MacGuffin #256? Boring. MacGuffin #3? Substantially less likely to be boring.
Salla 06-18-07, 01:48 AM	I'm going to go with the obvious answer: reduced quantity. MacGuffin #256? Boring. MacGuffin #3? Substantially less likely to be boring. Yup. This is why it's called the TriForce, not the Kiloforce. :)
Archangel62 06-18-07, 01:55 AM	Very simply, make sure that some Macguffins are for the players and some are for the DM. To put it another way, the DM Macguffins are the ones that the ones that the players are getting for the NPCs, relics, artworks, and other items that are only there to drive the quest or story. Player MacGuffins might be things like pieces of an item set from MIC. The thing is that the players might get bored with constantly going after trinkets for a duke or earl but PCs generally like having stuff. So, maybe the warlock finds the Pheonix cloak on one of the quests, when it's identified the sage tells him that it's part of a powerful item set and gives stories of its power. The warlock now wants to find the rest of this stuff and the party is now motivated to go wandering towards his stuff and maybe find a few MacGuffins of their own. But for variability, some should be combat, some should stress diplomacy, and some should stress intelligence and problem solving. This way everyone gets to use some of their skills and also during their quest for various Macguffins it might be "Yes, I'll give you DM MacGuffin #7, in exchange I want you to wipe out the troll tribe that's been raiding my livestock."
pres_man 06-18-07, 01:59 AM	Also have another group, though not necessarily directly hostile to the party, also seeking out the items.
DMInfernoGR 06-18-07, 04:50 AM	I'm certian a common theme in camapigns is to collect things. What it is, whether it be pieces of an artifact, the head of every dragon in the world, or tomes of magic, many campaigns have been focus on collecting something My question is, how do you run an adventure like that without it becoming boring and repetitive? Something different from "go here, kill these, collect, rinse, repeat"? I am currently playing a game like this. I created the fight of the three dynasties or how its called. I made three castles with united races inside. Castle 1: Humans, Dwarfs, Blood elfs Castle 2: Elfs, gnomes, halflings, high elves, wood elves, aquatic elves Castle 3: Dark elfs, horde of the undead All three of em have a piece of an artifact. Continual battles, massive destruction and heroic RP is what i used here. Hope i helped...
Potato Weasel 06-18-07, 08:36 AM	Let the next piece of an inanimate set be alive. Either it's the piece that binds everything else together, or its the energy the other pieces feed off of. Keeping things alive is harder then making them very very dead.
CryoSilver 06-18-07, 09:00 AM	In Iliga, there is an artifact called the Idol of the Last God. It has 37 pieces, scattered across the world. But unlike some adventures, where each artifact piece is in a temple identical to the last, except with illogically scaled-up monsters, the various pieces are in the possession of many and varied creatures/people. So, acquiring one pice might be a dungeon crawl, while the next piece requires an urban adventure, tracking down the thief who has it. The piece after that might be at the bottom of the ocean. Etc.
Dan Hemmens 06-18-07, 01:20 PM	I'm running a Weapons of the Gods game which has gone a bit "Collect 'em All" recently. In general, I think the important thing to do is not just to vary the locations of the fragments of hoodad, but to vary the, for what of a better term, thematic nature of them. It's a cheap device, but having your widget broken into four pieces which correspond to the four elements, the nine alignments, the seven samurai, or whatever helps make things feel a bit more structured. You need to make sure that every little bit of the puzzle has its own identity. That and, as other people have said, make the complications surrounding each fragment different. Make the first one logistically hard to access (on top of a high mountain) the second one well guarded, the third one morally difficult, and so on. Also: whatever you do, don't include too many of them. Four is a good number, there's nothing less interesting than saying "hey, we've got twelve forty-eighths of the artefact now!" Finally: Don't do too many of those plotlines end to end. The reason I gave up on Neverwinter Nights after Act III was that having collected the Four Waterdhavian Creature Parts and the Four Bits of Evidence To Find The Cult, I really couldn't be arsed to look for the six Words of Power.
darkdrgon2136 06-18-07, 02:13 PM	my campaighn is basically the hunt for the horn, from the wheel of time books. so i guess its not really a "collect x amount of y" as a mystery but you can go that route. my players have been adventuring for it for almost a year now, and there still having fun. they keep telling me not to end it, so every week i need to find more clues.
KidJake 06-18-07, 09:09 PM	I'm actually right in the middle of a 'Gotta Get'em All' campaign, and the way I negated the 'Dammit not another one.' feeling was to make each of the five artifacts insanely powerful and intensely desirable so each PC wants to get their hands on one, even if they're unable to use it on a whim. For example the main Antagonist rose from a humble imp to 9th archdevil through the use the artifact tied to stone, and likewise the group's barbarian used the artifact tied to fire to completely erase half an army with a single action. However to keep things balanced the artifacts take their toll on those who use their full powers, so although ultimate destruction is a thought away so are the consequences. The imp became physically rooted in place, and the barbarian simply stopped existing on any known plane of existence, which brought a resounding 'The hell?!' from everyone who witnessed the flash both in and out of character.
Mock26 06-18-07, 09:22 PM	Vary the locations. An adventure in a "dungeon" that is a series of wooden walkways and houses high in the trees of a jungle is a lot different than a traditional dungeon beneath a castle and is a lot different than an adventure deep in the bowels of the earth. It matters not if they are all hack and slash adventures, a lot of times it is the location that gives the variety. Adiditionally, you can have add variety by having them try to find the location of the next item. My campaign right now revolves around recovering 10 rings, a spell book, and a gem stone. One of the clues that the group had was a single piece of tracing paper with some squiggly lines and a star on it, as well as a symbol in one corner. The next adventure I they found a map that had that same symbol on it. It took a little while but someone in the group figured out that the tracing paper was to be used as an overlay on the map. Well, the map was huge (it was one of the maps from the 2nd edition Forgotten Realms boxed set) and the group spent five hours going over the map and trying to find out where exactly on the map the overlay went. What they didn't know is that in the very next room, of which the group was heading for, was a riddle that would have given them a big clue and narrowed down their search to one small section of the map. I tried to urge the group to continue with the adventure, but they wouldn't have anything to do with it. So, I got out some graph paper and worked on an upcoming adventure and enjoyed their antics. By and by they found out where the overlay went and we immediately had a call a halt to the session due to the late hour. I was more than a bit shocked to recieve e-mails from all the players over the next couple of days telling me it was one of the best sessions they've ever had! So, it just goes to show that you can never tell what piques the interest of the players. You'll know if the same type of adventures get dull and boring for them. If they aren't, don't fret over it. Take care and have a great day.... ciao, john.
keyunp 06-18-07, 09:25 PM	I'm doing one that has little crystal bits of an overdiety scatter all over. For the most part the players are going on "normal" adventures, but the God Shards can be found anywhere.
Mock26 06-18-07, 09:43 PM	I'm doing one that has little crystal bits of an overdiety scatter all over. For the most part the players are going on "normal" adventures, but the God Shards can be found anywhere. I would like to rewrite that last bit and say, "The ______________ can be found anywhere." One of the great thing about this type of a campaign is that the pieces can be found, literally, anywhere! It can be a hack-and-slash adventure, a murder mystery, or whatever. The current adventure in my campaign doesn't have any combat in it, at all! The group learned that one of the rings they are seeking is owned by a dwarf. The dwarf has gone missing for 100+ days. He is currently holed up in a secret wine cellar in an inn that has been taken over by the patrons as a protest because the previous owner was blackmailed into selling the inn so that the new owners could fire and attempt to discredit one of the barmaids and prevent her from marrying their son. The new owners are nobles and have purchased the inn secretly and the barmaid is a low commoner. The barmaid was a beloved employee by all patrons. The group has to figure out who was behind the blackmailing, locate the barmaid, locate her fiance who is in hiding, return the bar to it's original owner, and then the dwarf will give up the ring freely. The group has been having a blast on this adventure!
Kuronue 06-18-07, 11:28 PM	I'm about to run a campaign involving bringing back some old PCs, levelled up quite a bit, to experiment with high-level games (I almost always start at level 1, never above level 5 or so, so this is new for me), and I'm going to be running a collect 'em quest. They're a bunch of pirates, so it'll be an interesting game, and the captain (NPC) is going to find a shiny ring - I'm giving it the addictive property of the One Ring, but instead it's got a variety of abilities. It'll turn out to be one of a set of probably 9, and each one has a different theme, with a 1/day, a 3/day, and 2 at-will abilities (and I ran a contest among my players to design rings with those properties, I think the top 2 will be in the campaign). The thing I like about that is, who says the highly chaotic pirates won't be able to use the cursed rings on the way to destroying them? It'll be up to them if they want the boost to power (they're very nice rings) at the risk of not being able to destroy them later
Salla 06-18-07, 11:44 PM	Heh. The last 'gotta get 'em all' style adventure I did, the group actually discovered, through good RP, excellent skill checks, and the DM not quite thinking the plot all the way through, that the main reason our patron wanted all five or six of these things was so that they could never be used again, because he'd safeguard them (like that EVER works). After we found out that the only use for the combined gizmo was destruction, we destroyed one of the pieces without warning he DM beforehand that we had hatched the plan (via hushed voices while he was taking a smoke break). You could hear the sound of squealing brakes in his brain when we told him what we were doing. :)
Roivas 06-19-07, 12:17 AM	Another method is to have the party start with all the 'objects' and have one or two stolen along the course of the game or all of them at once. Then the players have something invested in getting these items back, this works particularly well with magic weapons. Players will jump across small galaxies to get their stuff back.
Zousha_Omenohu 06-19-07, 12:26 AM	Make the items seem completely different from what is expected, like the Nine Pieces of Eight in Pirates of the Carribean. Looking for a series of holy totems required for a powerful ritual gets much more interesting if each of the totems appear to be little more than baubles and pieces of junk at first glance, especially if the BBEG knows what they really are, while the PCs have no idea of the power they carry. Make the item what is expected, but not at all awe inspiring. If you're looking for a god-killing sword, have a plain, rusty weapon that doesn't look like it could slice bread. Then wow them when this weapon carves a 10 inch thick gash into the torso of the big bad evil god!:evillaugh Remember, as the Nine Pieces of Eight, the One Ring and Rabbitslayer proved to us, an unassuming and unintimidating form can hide great power!
blackjackg 06-19-07, 01:37 AM	Make sure that one of the collectibles got eaten by a whale, so they have to go in after it. It's a classic for a reason!
Zousha_Omenohu 06-19-07, 01:50 AM	Why a whale? I reserve those for dropping out of the sky onto misbehaving players. How 'bout a kraken? A lot more intimidating that.:D