Social Adventure Plot Idea

Saagael · Aug 12, 2009

NOTE: New member of the forum to please forgive my newb-ish-ness.

I've been DMing a 4th edition group for about a year now and so far all of the adventures have been your bread-and-butter dungeon delve style dungeons. There is a little intrigue, but by no means is it part of the plot device.

The players will be venturing into a metropolitan city for a change, and I'd like to throw in a bit more intrigue as well as play on some of their backstories. One plot hook in particular has me stumped and I'd appreciate some input on what I could do.

Backstory:
Player (sorcerer) was taught magic by a wizard. This wizard had two daughters: one who was also learning magic, and another who had no magical talent. The second child eventually left and soon after the wizard's house caught fire and burned to the ground. The player never saw his teacher or his fellow student again. The fire was assumed to be arson, but no culprit was ever found.

That's the backstory I have to build off of, but I've hit DM's block and can't think of much substantial adventure material. So I've come up with:

-Someone was burning down the houses of arcane practitioners.
-I don't want the second child to be responsible. That's too expected. Maybe some distint connection, but not directly responsible.
-The teacher and his first daughter are presumed dead, but are actually living under false names. The daughter is teaching at the city's university, whle the teacher is in hiding. Even the daughter doesn't know where he is; they communicate very rarely.

I'm pretty sure that's everything. If I remember or develop more I can add more here. The big thing to remember is that this is a sub-quest and is meant to flesh out the game, not drive some over-arching campaign (I've got different stuff for that). If anyone could offer ideas, advice or links to useful material I'd really apprecaite it!

kitsune9 · Aug 13, 2009

Saagael said:
NOTE: New member of the forum to please forgive my newb-ish-ness.

I've been DMing a 4th edition group for about a year now and so far all of the adventures have been your bread-and-butter dungeon delve style dungeons. There is a little intrigue, but by no means is it part of the plot device.

The players will be venturing into a metropolitan city for a change, and I'd like to throw in a bit more intrigue as well as play on some of their backstories. One plot hook in particular has me stumped and I'd appreciate some input on what I could do.

Backstory:
Player (sorcerer) was taught magic by a wizard. This wizard had two daughters: one who was also learning magic, and another who had no magical talent. The second child eventually left and soon after the wizard's house caught fire and burned to the ground. The player never saw his teacher or his fellow student again. The fire was assumed to be arson, but no culprit was ever found.

That's the backstory I have to build off of, but I've hit DM's block and can't think of much substantial adventure material. So I've come up with:

-Someone was burning down the houses of arcane practitioners.
-I don't want the second child to be responsible. That's too expected. Maybe some distint connection, but not directly responsible.
-The teacher and his first daughter are presumed dead, but are actually living under false names. The daughter is teaching at the city's university, whle the teacher is in hiding. Even the daughter doesn't know where he is; they communicate very rarely.

I'm pretty sure that's everything. If I remember or develop more I can add more here. The big thing to remember is that this is a sub-quest and is meant to flesh out the game, not drive some over-arching campaign (I've got different stuff for that). If anyone could offer ideas, advice or links to useful material I'd really apprecaite it!

How about the typical loner who is in love with the daughter and is doing these acts to make her like him? Obviously, he'll have no magical talent, but maybe some kind of psionic talent or maybe makes a pact with a demon/devil to do the deeds. Actually, I like the pact thing because the demon/devil will do what the loner asks but in return for something such as stealing a trinket, but then the next task becomes killing some merchant, and then the next task becomes killing someone a little more innocent. Each time, the act of arson is done, because the wizard's daughter is venting her frustration and the loner is asking the demon/devil to do the deed. The ultimate goal for the demon will be to cause chaos while the devil may actually need a body to possess so be able to roam and needs these sacrifices in order to gain power in hell.

Meanwhile, the PC's are having to deal with the destruction. At first, they may suspect the daughter, but clues lead to a devil/demon that ultimately leads to the loner.

How's that?

fba827 · Aug 13, 2009

Hi, welcome to the boards.

Have have 2 things to define and the rest will sort of naturally flow from it ...

Culprit:
* You want this to be a sideplot rather than the main plot arc, so the culprit should be a single person or a defined small group/organization.
* You have 3 established characters for this, and knocked the nonmagical daughter out, so it could be the wizard himself, the magical daughter, or

a not-as-of-yet-introduced person.

Motive:
* Why is the culprit doing it?
* If it's the wizard himself, maybe he has debts to pay (or he's made enemies!) and wants to fake his death.
* If it's the wizard himself, maybe he's just gone crazy from some experiment and has a dual personality/mind that works while he's asleep or

under some particular circumstance
* If it's the magical daughter, maybe she just hates her father despite the happy appearance
* Maybe the wizard angered someone (either the government or an underground organization) for refusing to help them with some experiment
* Maybe the wizard created or summoned some intelligent yet uncontrollable creature that now hunts him for the sheer sociopathic thrill of it
* Maybe the nonmagical daughter has gotten trouble with the 'mafia' and attacks on her family are the way for them to get her to do something/pay

something/etc
* Maybe it's a religious cult bent on the elimination of non-divine magic
* Maybe it's the wizard's wife/former lover/mother of the daughters and she's simply a little 'off' but the daughters don't know about her, just that wizard said she had died even thoug she's alive (perhaps was in prison all this time) and now the daughter just thinks they're running from some unknown assassins

That leads to the trail ...
This will be a lot of on the fly thinking on your part, so the more you have the basics above cemented in your head, the easier it will be to extrapolate impromptu answers.

Ahead of time, think up skills that the PCs could use (it would probably be the charisma-based social type skills, as well as the intelligence

based knowledge skills). And then the usual perception (if they're searching the house) or intuition (if they're interrogating people). and try and

think up what sort of things might be revealed.

Play to the possibility of the obvious (that it is the other daughter) - never saying it is her but never ruling out the possibility until the end either.

Get the trail to lead to the magical daughter, she is more visible. So asking around town describing her someone might say that there is a teacher fitting that description at the university, etc.

Asking certain questions around town might attract the attention of the culprit (depending on who it is and their motives) so they might be watched in hopes that the PCs will lead the culprit to the wizard and daughter - doing the work for him/her/them!

Infiniti2000 · Aug 13, 2009

Another idea is that the "daughters" are actually wards, secretly hidden, and very high in nobility (depends on your campaign there, but I would go all the way up to king/emperor). At first it looks like the one who left (the younger) tried to do away with her sister in order to claim the throne/birthright. Everyone believes this, even the actual heiress/wizard (who's really the former Wizard of the Realm) who miraculously escaped. However, the truth is that the younger daughter was kidnapped by so-and-so, the arson planned without her, and now she's being kept under lock and key until her majority with the kidnappers plan finally comes into fruition. I'm not sure how he (or she or they) could usurp the birthright, though, maybe magical tampering? Extortion?

Gilladian · Aug 13, 2009

Building off what Infiniti said,
How about if, through their deceased mother, they are heirs to some important position...

The elder daughter is happy with, and loyal to, her father. The younger daughter, though, was unhappy (being magicless, she felt ignored). As part of her teenage rebellion phase, she hooked up with some people who told her stories about how she was gonna become Queen (or whatever). But she realized that her sister was ahead of her.

The bad guy group (or individual) believed he'd convinced her to help him kill the father and sister, but instead, at the last minute, she helped them escape. The elder sister refused to believe she was innocent, and has never had any further contact with her younger sister, taking the job at the University under a false name.

The father and the younger daughter are together, trying to find the responsible bad guy. And running from him when he gets too close. The bad guy doesn't know the older daughter is still alive, and believes if he can just get hold of the younger one, he can convince her again to be on his side. (He may be wrong, or he may intend to use magical coercion).

But the bad guy is aware of the PC - knows he was a fellow student of the father - and may be hoping he leads the bad guy to the younger daughter. Instead, imagine his glee when he stumbles into the secret of the elder daughter's survival. And now the PCs have to protect her and stop the killer!

weem · Aug 13, 2009

....The second child eventually left and soon after the wizard's house caught fire and burned to the ground. The player never saw his teacher or his fellow student again. The fire was assumed to be arson, but no culprit was ever found.

I think the "second daughter" burned it down (as well as the others)

Or maybe she burned it down, but not the others - though people assume it was her when they find out she burned down her fathers place at around the same time as the other rash of arson's.

Maybe, as she was not good with magic, she was possessed by something her father had summoned and could not control, etc.

S'all I have right now as I swing through

Saagael · Aug 14, 2009

Thanks for the help! I especially like Gilladian and Infiniti's ideas (though I really appreciate fba827's dissection of intrigue quests).

Now the only thing to figure out is what the bad-guy wants. What is his motive? There isn't a current king or emperor so the bad-guy can't usurp a throne, but I like the idea of having the bad-guy coerce the younger daughter into attempting to kill her family; sort of a Stockholm syndrome.

So what does the daughter have that the bad-guy could want? Trade secrets? Maybe he wanted the daughter to steal something for him ("he" as in the bad-guy) from the father. But she backed out and he burned down their house as punishment.

Any ideas on how to flesh out this story, or does it seem realistic enough? I suppose I feel like it's missing that big "ah-ha!" moment or a good plot twist. What connection would the father (a previous adventurer) and the bad-guy have. Any ideas?

LostSoul · Aug 14, 2009

Backstory:
-The wizard is contacted by some group who ask him to research something.
-The wizard starts research, realizes the importance/power of this.
-The wizard tells his children about this. One leaves. The other has to stay; he's an old man, can hardly take care of himself. He'd forget to eat if it wasn't for her. (ie. co-dependant relationship)
-The group checks in with the wizard to see how things are going. This freaks him out, he wants this power for himself.
-The wizard burns down his own place and lies low with his daughter, who can't leave him.
-The group keeps an eye out for him but have failed so far.

Initial Situation:
-The PC shows up and the group keeps an eye on him.
-The daughter, concealed by illusions and abjurations, spots the PC.

What the NPCs Want:
-The wizard wants to finish his project, gain the power. He's about to move into the testing phase, which requires sacrifice. He'd also love to have the PC, his old student, join him - though this time he's not going to make the same mistake he did with his child. He's not going to give the PC a choice.
-The daughter wants to take care of her father at the same time she wants to break away from him. Seeing the PC brings this dilemma to a crisis point. She knows he's a way out. She also knows that her father needs her.
-The group simply wants its artifact. It's willing to do whatever it takes.

That's a small relationship map, but gameable - maybe enough for a session or two. Lengthen it by adding another NPC or two. You'd probably want to flesh out "the group" and give it some bang. Making them "good guys" is a possibility.

Gilladian · Aug 14, 2009

Maybe the "powerless" younger daughter is not powerless at all. She's simply refused ever to acknowledge her power and use it. She's afraid of it, because of something that happened very early in her life (maybe the reason her mother is dead/gone?). So the bad guy really is after HER. He wants to either drain her power for himself, or make her into a tool who will work exclusively for him.

Infiniti2000 · Aug 14, 2009

I like the idea of the wizard having something the bad guy wants, but then you'll have to rework some of the other points. For instance, the wizard would never have been in any danger.

So, here's another idea. The wizard (who's also a master alchemist) was in serious debt with the "mafia" (choose your BBE organization (BBEO) here). To get out of this he agreed to a one time deal that he would research some very addictive poison -- it would only kill you if you stopped taking it. However, once he got the concoction right of this otherwise unassuming and flavorful tea he had second thoughts and refuse to pay up and destroys his work. The BBEO in return kidnaps his daughter and threatens to kill her. He delays, and they "kill" her, sending him her hand. Upon threatening his second daughter, he tries to recover his work and the second daughter, getting wind of what's happening, contacts the PCs for help. The wizard, however, refuses to talk to them for fear of his daughters and orders them to stay out of it (all the while the daughter pleading for their help behind his back).

The questions now, are is the first daughter really dead? Was that her hand? Is she behind it all? Is she under the dominating spell of a vampire or other beastie, maybe a beholder?