What should come next in Buttmonkey's Home Game?

[Buttmonkey]

During our last play session, the party went on a killing spree in town. The city is a free city (meaning humanoids are welcome). The city has recently been overwhelmed by orc refugees fleeing a threat from the north. The refugees have been taking work dirt cheap, so the citizens resent the loss of their jobs. There are also tensions caused by the orcs settling outside the traditional humanoid neighborhoods. The party decided to help things along by starting a bar fight with a bunch of orcs. The fight spread to the streets and 100+ citizens and orcs died. Some of the orcs escaped and can identify the PCs as the instigators. A squad from the city guard showed up after the fight and attempted to arrest the party. The PCs resisted arrest and ended up killing all 9 guardsmen. As the party ran from the scene, they noticed people watching them from nearby buildings, so there are definitely witnesses.

So, how should the campaign world react to the party's actions?

[serleran]

Three parades:

One champions the ruthless destruction of the vile orc scum. Another laments the loss of the popo army. The other is pro-orc. They all have pitchforks and hay bales.

It ends in a triangle of destruction...

[Relaxo]

I'd say the last one is too real, too soon to be fun.
but that's just me.

That said: I dig the realism to this! fallout! nice! killing towns guards?! crazy bad move! Not sure of your magic level in town, but how about a powerful wizard is hired to harry the PCs... perhaps for years to come...

[Daniel]

I love that you are trying to make the party actions have real consequence one way or another.

[Buttmonkey]

I love that you are trying to make the party actions have real consequence one way or another.

I would be bored out of my mind as a DM if I didn't do that. I generally have a few ideas prepped to throw at the party and then "improvise" off what the party decides to do. Just having a bunch of modules and static encounter areas for the PCs to explore wouldn't be fun at all. I put "improvise" in quotes because I don't just make it all up at the table. At the start of a typical session, I will have a good idea what I'm going to throw at the party. However, I try to base the material on what the party has been doing or is interested in. Recently, the party has been building up to a confrontation with an NPC they agreed to work for, but are instead going to double-cross and eliminate. Knowing that that is what they planned to do, I had several weeks to prep the BBEG's tower and defenses. I have several plot hooks for when that mission is done, plus the fallout from the orc fight to work with. It's all really flexible, but not true improvisation as of game time. If the party goes completely off the rails (e.g., books passage for an ocean voyage to get the heck out of the campaign area we have been playing in), I'll need to make something up on the fly, but it won't be that hard to come up with enough stuff to fill the rest of the session. I can always throw random monsters at them. For example, if the party takes the sea voyage option, I would probably have some sort of sea serpent attack or maybe something aerial. I could also have the ship wreck on an island with a land-based monster for them to deal with. That will buy me time to brainstorm new hooks to work with the following session. Overall, I prep from session to session without an overarching story that would be imposed on the players. I have ideas for long-terms campaign plots, but I only trigger them if they fit into what is going on in-game that week. I try not to map things out firmly more than one or two sessions in advance. That keeps the game fresh and cuts way back on prep (that the players would probably resent anyway). I'm much more engaged this way.

[Tadhg]

Interesting.

The city of Greyhawk and Dyvers had "some" humanoids in their population.

Yggsburgh did not have humanoids.

I should think a city that allows evil creatures is ripe for pretty much all you mention!

Oh, have to have a look at Ascalon and some of the cities in Aihrde. Curious as to what the Trolls did with those cities.

I will vote soon!

[Buttmonkey]

Interesting.

The city of Greyhawk and Dyvers had "some" humanoids in their population.

Yggsburgh did not have humanoids.

I should think a city that allows evil creatures is ripe for pretty much all you mention!

Well, the city is named Rotter, so it's pretty much what you would expect.

[Lurker]

Well, the city is named Rotter, so it's pretty much what you would expect.

With that, I figure lots of bad things will be going on at once. So, I voted for all but #3,4 & 9


I take it the party is not 'good'. With starting a brawl, running, then killing the guards ... not a lot of good there. So, I'd add that the same groups trying to kill them etc may also try to hire them to keep the racial tensions and unrest at just the right boiling point ... The use both sides of the fight against each other (and the party being the trigger/fuel for the continuing fire) and profit from the chaos and power vacuum caused by the problem.

Have fun with it!

[Buttmonkey]

Well, the city is named Rotter, so it's pretty much what you would expect.

With that, I figure lots of bad things will be going on at once. So, I voted for all but #3,4 & 9


I take it the party is not 'good'. With starting a brawl, running, then killing the guards ... not a lot of good there. So, I'd add that the same groups trying to kill them etc may also try to hire them to keep the racial tensions and unrest at just the right boiling point ... The use both sides of the fight against each other (and the party being the trigger/fuel for the continuing fire) and profit from the chaos and power vacuum caused by the problem.

Have fun with it!

I don't use alignment. That has had some unexpected consequences in play. The party as a whole certainly is not evil. Very early on, I asked the players to pass me a note giving me a rough sense of how they envisioned their PCs' alignments. It was goodish across the board. Fast-forward 1.5-2 years and I think most of the PCs would still fall under that category. The wizard PC is shaping up to be very much not good, though. The barbarian ordinarily falls on the good side, but he's the one who started the bar fight. I guess he didn't like orcs. He's also the one who resisted arrest, leading to the slaying of the guards. I don't think the player anticipated things getting so out of hand in either encounter. The barbarian was actually trying to avoid killing the guards up until the end. It was the other PC and the NPCs who decided the rest of the guards had to die after the first one bit the dust. The Rotter justice system is a scary thing. None of them wanted to go down over this.

[maximus]

Sounds like its time for the PC's to take a powder... a mob of angry orcs is headed their way!

[ssfsx17]

One option that I didn't see in the poll - the party is recognized as a bunch of extremely dangerous and powerful individuals and considered a military-grade threat by the authorities.

[Captain_K]

I assume the party has no orcs or half orcs in it? If this assumption is right have them rescued by "The Black Guard" a small group of powerful LG (Assassin-like) Paladins who work Rotter's under-under ground saving the good guys from the bad guys - Robin Hood - sewer style. But they are so good, so lawful it hurts just to be around them.

If you party has Orcs or half orcs then just the opposite, have them be saved by some evil underground group of say Orcs working for the king pin crime boss who happens to be and eye tyrant or high level group of Vampires.

Either way the group finds themselves outlaws, hiding, and in worse shape or worse company than ever before.. no good deed like that should go "unpunished"

"In for a penny, in for a pound." or as they say in the cooking shows, "kick it up a notch" get to the next level of power in Rotter.

Sounds like in their first encounters they got to be the "big tough guys handing out justice as they saw fit" with their only real fear being when the whole town turns on them. See how your PC act around much higher level much more powerful forces where they must recognize its time to bow to their wants and requests (or at least until they can flee).

PCs do not like being "not in charge" or past the point where "if we don't screw up we should win".. life is not like that, sometime the PCs got to learn, "Crap, we're in over our head, way over, we need to be careful just to live... we might have to go along with things... for a while."

Can be fun, but be careful with this less is more, a whole campaign of this usually is not fun.

[Buttmonkey]

Things took a surprising turn during last night's session. The party managed to complete a long-term mission, killing a BBEG as well as an unanticipated demonic creature. They recovered the Lesser Hammer of Dwur along the way. They then stumbled into a group of city guardsmen who confiscated the hammer and turned it over to the local conclave of dwarves. The party's dwarf PCs and NPCs were summoned to a secret meeting of the conclave. As the finders of the hammer, the party was allowed to make a recommendation about what to do with the hammer. The party suggested the hammer should be put to its original use. The conclave interpreted that to mean it should be used to wipe out all of the orcs in Rotter (the hammer is +1/+3 versus humanoids). The assembly of dwarves was highly enthusiastic about a possible orcish genocide and returned the hammer to the party. The leaders of the conclave pulled the PCs aside afterward and told them to stay home and out of trouble until the leadership could sort out this fiasco. So, now we've got a dwarvish underground faction rallying around the PCs to slaughter all of the orcs, the dwarvish leadership pissed at them for starting a race war, and the PCs are wondering what the heck they just uncorked. They're also waiting for fallout from the city guard discovering the party slaughtered its way through the entire staff of the Rotter Grounds Department as well as the head of the department (a giant evil sunflower). And the city's orc population is already looking at them funny with retribution for the race riot sure to follow soon.

I've got a lot of planning to do before the next session. Perhaps a new poll is in order...

[Captain_K]

Dude, How do your players keep all this straight? Its worse than a soap opera... but sounds totally great. Keep it going!

[Tadhg]

At this point, send in the assassins to hunt down the party!!!

[Buttmonkey]

Dude, How do your players keep all this straight? Its worse than a soap opera...

Tell me about it! The whole city guard and dwarven conclave thing was completely improvised. I never anticipated the party marching right up to the city guard in the middle of a crime scene investigation (of the massacre the PCs inflicted on the grounds department workers on their way to finding the secret entrance to the basement). I thought the players would try to find a way to sneak out of the building without alerting the guards. Not so much. They walked right into it. That led to some heavy-duty scrambling on my part. Who knew there was a secret dwarven conclave in Rotter? Not me before last night.

[Lurker]

.... Who knew there was a secret dwarven conclave in Rotter? Not me before last night.

[Buttmonkey]

.... Who knew there was a secret dwarven conclave in Rotter? Not me before last night.

It's a bit wild and crazy, but I can't imagine myself ever running a game based strictly on modules and published campaign settings where everything is mapped out. The thought of running an adventure path makes my skin crawl. Running original material where I'm 1-2 steps ahead of the players (at best) is incredibly rewarding from a creativity perspective and lots of fun.

[serleran]

And people wonder about the merits of letting the players write their own adventures...

Good job.