Sea Gate: Was it just me?

I'm over a year into my Zeitgeist campaign, nearing the end of Act 1 and my group has had some rather asinine and hilarious endeavors so far. I was sitting here talking with one of my players and we relived the first of these ridiculous attempts.

After a couple failures in stealthing through Axis Island, the level 2 Oracle of Lore decided that stealth was not going to work. Rather than sneaking to the sea gate, my Oracle decided to own the fact that they had failed some stealth checks, and with some absurd rolling bluffed his way all the way to the Sea Gate, under the pretense of being hired by the Duchess to ensure the sea gate was properly functioning; bluffed his way through "showing that it was broken" by opening the sea gate for the gate.

Has anyone else bluffed/talked their way out of major encounters?

my players used their budget early to buy potions of invisibility and entered the tower knocking the wizard and his pet out and then tricking an other guard inside. all actions went fast, smooth and with no noise by rolling ridiculously high stealth checks and one hitting the guards with lucky critical attacks. Then they used the wall of stone ability of one of the amulets in the mine to wall themselves in at the gate control room and were rescued by the invasion forces. They outwitted that part.

But in the second adventure they went to the bravuras at the pier and told them that they came instead of the gnome couple as proxy of Gale and went on to accompany the bravuras to the meeting with the ship that delivered the wands. Their ruse was only discovered when they got back to the surprised Cippiano, who gave them a warm welcoming smile and invited them to coffee and a friendly talk about common goals.

Later they talked Macbannin out of a fight and won him with really good roleplaying and additional diplomacy checks.

In my playtest of adventure 4, when the Ob show up in the rail depot at the end, one PC walked in and asked to join the conspiracy.

He was persuasive enough that I took him aside to roleplay the induction interview. I cribbed some of my own plans for adventure 7, and when it came out under magical compulsion that he was trying to spy on them to betray them, he got burned into the wall by a shadowlisk.

RangerWickett said:

In my playtest of adventure 4, when the Ob show up in the rail depot at the end, one PC walked in and asked to join the conspiracy.

He was persuasive enough that I took him aside to roleplay the induction interview. I cribbed some of my own plans for adventure 7, and when it came out under magical compulsion that he was trying to spy on them to betray them, he got burned into the wall by a shadowlisk.

Click to expand...

Damn, RangerWickett goes hard!

Forgive me if there is an encounter in Act II or III (haven't had time to read everything yet), but does anyone have an built encounter from start to finish (or maybe a detailed character path) for a character who wants to join the Ob, passes the induction, and then goes double, or triple agent? Ideally it would need to be some sort of hidden character theme much like the vekeshi Mystics where you get incorporated into a cell at the entry level with your own ring, and you get fed compartmentalized extra info that corresponds with the character's prestige with the Ob... My biggest concern is not spoiling the conspiracy too early, so there would need to be a breakdown of what a character at each level of each cell would know, and what level in a cell corresponds with Ob prestige. Maybe there is a max Cell level for each chapter of the campaign?

The Ob basically cares about secrecy first, and its goals second. It's been around long enough that it's in no rush to finish, so it should be straight-up impossible to get the whole story before adventure 7 when the convocation happens.

So, how might a PC join their side?

In adventure 1, seeing all the weird stuff on the Island might prompt curiosity, but there's no connection to anyone actually in the Ob.

In adventure 2, Cillian Creed might manage to recruit a PC, or someone might talk to Macbannin in private, or maybe even witness Nicodemus possessing Macbannin in his cell after he's caught. Getting an RHC constable working for them would be useful, but that would just be Tier 6 at first. "All we want is information. Your mission is to copy all your mission reports and leave that copy in a dead-drop in location X. We'll send a small payment to you in thanks. If you do good work, in time we might give you a chance to do more for us."

In adventure 3, Caius might be convinced to trust one PC a smidge, if that PC could arrange to free some of Macbannin's workers who were arrested previously, and get them passage out of the country to Drakr. They wouldn't actually know anything useful, but it's more of a test of willingness to collude. He'd probably get killed by Sijhen before he could really cultivate the PC, but someone on his payroll might - while the PC is away - drop off a letter at the PCs' home. It's encoded, with a note, "The cipher is OBG," which is a reference to Old Bergeron Gold, the inscription on Caius's ring. If the PC figures out the cipher and decodes the letter, it's a message explaining that Saxby was working with Macbannin and covering up his activities. It invites the PC to meet a contact at a specific shop in Parity Lake if he is willing to help ensure Saxby dies before her conscience gets the better of her and she spills any of this information. If the PC goes along with this, he meets one of the Obscurati shadow mages who is going to lead the Kell guild guys into RHC HQ in the third act. Give the PC some task, like removing a small ward in the basement that's intended to prevent extradimensional portals there. (I mean, it *is* a jail. They'd want to keep people from teleporting out.)

In truth, the Ob know that Saxby doesn't really have any useful information, since her only real link in the hierarchy was upward to Macbannin. If the PC takes this info and uses it to capture Saxby, there's no real loss to the Ob, and it shows the PC isn't really on their side. If the PC does help kill Saxby, word of that gets filtered up various channels, and eventually reaches Lya Jierre.

In adventure 4, the train mission gives the PC the most opportunities to make friendly contact with Ob operatives. Brianne and Ottavia wouldn't know who the PC is, but there are several situations where a PC might help those Ob agents avoid being spied on.

Maybe if a PC gets close to one of the meetings along the railroad, you could pull the player aside and run a brief scene where Ottavia figures out they might be turned into an asset. She just asks the PC to be on the lookout for a signal (like, Bree makes a point to eat some Brie cheese), which means she needs the rest of the party distracted for a few minutes. Ottavia could then use this when she tries to lure the PCs to the cursed island of Odiem, in order to keep them from realizing Luc is still on the train. She then leads them to a trap, but has arranged a boat to rescue her and the PC in the morning.

If the PC agrees, she offers to arrange a meeting with her contact. Then in Vendricce there'd be a chance to do some spycraft -- meet here, go there, take this tunnel that splits in order to shake pursuit -- and eventually meet Lya Jierre just before she heads to the rail depot to meet Luc. Lya would try to judge the PC's actions so far, and would pose the question, "What needs to change in this world?"

If the response is suitably academic, or if the PC has been really helpful, Lya would tell the PC to come along, but to be ready to 'turn against' her if the other constables show up. Her mission for the PC is to be a double agent. Since obviously the ring code has been breached, she won't give the PC a ring, but would hand over a gold coin which is treated with a glow-in-the-dark chemical that reads, cheekily, "Overt Betrayal? Avoid!"

Then she'd concoct a scenario where the PC could reasonably rejoin the rest of the party (perhaps after getting a hand sliced off).

In adventure 5, you'd want to come up with some Ob contact person between the PC and Lya - how about an orc immigrant hair stylist? I dunno, something fun. That contact person says that the Ob are done using Lorcan Kell and guarantee the scoundrel will be brought to justice, but they want for that to wait until after the visit by Sovereign Han Jierre. So the job is to delay.

You, of course, don't want to make the PCs fail, but give the turncoat a chance to betray them. Or stay undercover, stymying them, until adventure 7.

More when I'm back from lunch.

This is gold. Loving it so far.

So far, none of my PCs' have attempted to get into the Ob just yet, though I think one has some intentions to try to infiltrate. The PC's stood around too long at the end of Adventure 4, not taking any action to approach the Ob so the bleak gate just sort of disappeared. By this point, though, the Ob knows who the PCs are and any attempt to infiltrate would be welcomed, but a Geas would be placed on that PC making their task far more difficult.