Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 thatguy25 May 09, 2012 23:48:19	So, I'm a pretty new DM trying to make a campaign for new players.  Here's a rough overview of what I have so far: The players are called to a wealthy port city to investigate tax collectors going missing in a bad part of town.  Many other adventurers have been sent, but they, too, have not returned.  The magistrate suspects a known crime boss for the disappearances.  After fighting a group of the boss's thugs, the players are led to the sewers by an ally they met earlier.  This ally turns on them, however, trapping them in a barred room and tossing in a vial of poison gas.  The crime boss appears and gives them a monologue, telling them that the poison will kill them in 3 days (might change this) unless they get the antidote from him.  He'll trade the antidote for the city magistrate's head, as he is planning a coup and the magistrate trusts the party.  Now the players have a choice of planning an attack on the crime boss to get the antidote, find a way to get cured themselves, actually DO the deed and hope the crime boss fulfills his end of the bargain, etc. Right now in the campaign the players have recieved the job from the magistrate and are about to head into the crime boss's territory, but what I had planned doesn't present much choice and is a little plot-railroad-ish, so I thought I could mix it up with the poison sub-plot. Any ideas what could happen?  Criticism?  Alternatives?  "My God, how cliche"s?
#2 Chimpadin May 10, 2012 17:13:33	The players might suspect the ally or manage to avoid the gas, so I think you need to have a think about what could happen here. It's a hard one because if one event in your story doesn't happen, it falls down. This is a common problem in writing adventures with a lot of story. I like the idea of the ethical choice. You could just have the crime boss ask the players to work for him openly, with a very generous reward. Perhaps if the crime boss asked one of this cronies to pass the message on, then the players have the choice of continuing down the sewers to kill the boss, or fighting the magistrate. In this case you need 2 adventure routes, though, so it's more work for you as DM.
#3 thatguy25 May 12, 2012 12:11:01	-Snip- Thanks for the response.  Yeah, I decided to ditch the whole poison hook.  My players are almost complete noobs, so we have pretty much ignored alignment.  No need to force good players into doing something bad, so I changed it to be a little more ambiguous.  The crime boss is now saying he's looking out for the poor and all that, letting the players decide if he's telling the truth or not.  And, of course, there's much more going on in the city than the obvious, but that's a surprise they'll have to deal with later, no matter how they choose to act... Yeah, I've come up with material, maps, etc, for a few different paths; staying the course and killing the boss, turning and killing the magistrate, and killing both and taking over the city themselves.  I'm only making enough to last 1 or 2 sessions at a time, so I can roll with how the story is progressing.  I'm hoping for some creativity from my players, maybe get some insight on what kind of game they'd like to play rather than railroading them to my story.