Design example: Trap method

[Ry]

Yupz, I choose you.

Threat: Yagka's brother, Yupz, is a necromancer gnoll who killed Rorgen Unsbrad, owner of the sword. Yupz used the sword to keep track of where his brother was, and retrieves his brother's bones as soon as possible. Yupz, after reanimating his brother's corpse as a gnollish ghoul (advance a ghoul slightly) he swears a blood oath of vengeance against the PCs. Yupz is accompanied at all times by two undead dire wolves, a few ghouls of various original races, and Yagka revived as a ghoul (up a ghoul's armor and raise all stats by 4). When he ambushes the PCs he uses scrolls and especially darkness effects liberally; these scrolls take the form of chiseled wood panels embedded in his undead brother's flesh.

Here I'm going to try PTRRs that expand on that combat, to give it more detail:

Problem: As the PCs make camp the evening before Yupz attacks, note that it is starting to rain. The PCs will then make their arrangements for watch and so forth. Yupz waits until the rain is heavy before he attacks - at this point both he and his minions are very hard to detect through the rain as they get into position around the PCs' tents (or miserable, soaked sleeping bags). Soaked PCs should be treated as fatigued.

Threat: Yupz is smart - he knows he is going in for a tough fight, and prepares an escape plan. Besides taking advantage of the heavy brush, Yupz has armed Yagka with a halberd, and carries a potion of invisibility. Yupz focuses on buffing his minions, then drinks the potion the round after the PCs engage with his ghoulish dire wolves. Yupz stays near Yagka casting buff effects on him until the players approach Yagka. Then Yupz slowly withdraws as quietly as possible, hoping to pick off any surviving PCs that Yagka can't handle.

Resource: There are many patches of wet, heavy brush in the area when Yupz attacks; it provides partial cover, and total cover to prone opponents. It also slows movement to 1/4 speed when characters try to move through it unless they jump over it. Yupz makes sure to keep some of that between him and the party, but has to put his undead dire wolves to clearer paths.

Reward: There is a 500 gp bounty on Yupz' head, posted by the Mandras merchant company. Player-characters can make a DC 15 Intelligence check to recognize it.

 

[Ry]

I'm up to 32 now.

Would someone be so kind as to select 2 elements that have been posted so far that they would like to see related in some way?

 

[jjsheets]

Javeed the aristocrat and Zaivan Mandras the merchant's son.

 

[Ry]

Javeed the aristocrat and Zaivan Mandras the merchant's younger brother.

Problem: Zaivan Mandras typically eats at O Lucky Man, the nobles restaurant in Bidmarket. This is also where Javeed and his new girl, Olarah, dine as well. Zaivan will try to intervene if an assassin goes after Javeed.

Threat: Zaivan is dating Olarah's "sister" - but neither Olarah nor her sister Jeniba are what they appear. Both are cannibal dopplegangers seeking information for their aboleth masters. Zaivan and Javeed are in no immediate danger, since Olarah and Jeniba are trying to establish strong cover identities, but their associates and friends are. PCs are in special danger from Olarah, who will frequently look bored or desperate to leave whenever Javeed is not looking, and will jump at the chance to be "swept off" with a male PC - with the PC thinking it was all their idea (note to DMs: This kind of thing actually works). If Olarah is discovered, as soon as Jeniba learns of it she immediately tries to get Zaivan to a secluded spot to eat him (process takes one hour), then flees in his new identity.

Resource: Zaivan is always happy to set up free travel for his friends; after all, one or another of his brother's many ships is usually in the harbour. Of course, if the PCs take him up on that, on this occasion he might have already set up travel for his friend Javeed (and forgot to mention this to the PCs), which could make the trip rather unpleasant.

Reward: If the PCs save Zaivan from death (which can come from various sources), Guthran Mandras sends them a merchant's writ for 2000 gold, and offers them work. In the letter, Guthran asks that they be discreet about their affiliation with him, and that they continue to appear as more of Zaivan's ne'er-do-well friends. Guthran is deeply concerned about infiltrators into his organization, and although he is a cutthroat merchant baron, he is also a very intelligent man and a relentless foe of dopplegangers of any stripe.

(Cannibal Dopplegangers originally appeared in the free web preview of Hungry Little Monsters).

 

[Ry]

1 more please?

 

[Ry]

A design note: This whole "what do you guys want to see next" thing is about the players; when you're making your own game, you make your PTRRs for the next session around the elements your players have expressed interest in. That said, I wouldn't want to start a game without at least 20 (hence 2 layers), but I also wouldn't stop developing such things until I ran out of time or ideas.

Also, you don't need to work in groups of 4; as you get ideas for PTRRs related to the existing ones, just put in those ideas. Working Tars exhaustively is just one method for when you are at a loss for what to create.

 

[Gold Roger]

Just chiming in to say that I really like your system. I'm notoriously bad at structuring non-dungeon adventures, so this should be a great help for me when not running dungeons or adventure modules.

 

[Ry]

Just chiming in to say that I really like your system. I'm notoriously bad at structuring non-dungeon adventures, so this should be a great help for me when not running dungeons or adventure modules.

Try it out on adventure modules - take a situation like a dungeon room that's a fight, and look for a PTRR. For example, the slope of the room could be the resource, the enemy's loot is the reward, the monster's the threat, the proximity to the killer ant hive is the problem. When you see a gap, consider filling it.

Edit: I had a fight at the docks in my campaign; it was going to be a gang attacking the tariff office just before an enemy ship was going to dock and unload the vanguard of a city coup. I cracked open Tars theory and added

problems:
- Fire at the tarriff office could spread to other buildings
- a local magistrate trying to tell everybody things were normal and to go back into their homes

threats:
- the magistrate brought his own guards, swords in hand, to deal with dockworkers or residents who resisted the coup

resources:
- dock workers,
- lots of crates and rope on the docks,
- a crane,
- a friendly merchant ship with a big cannon

rewards:
- the Prince of the city will award them medals if they succeed, and it greatly raises their prestige around the docks. Every dockworker will know their names.

 

[Ry]

This is all to say that Tars method works for anything that's supposed to get in front of the players - whether it's a room, an NPC, a monster, a town, and so on.

 

[jjsheets]

Resource: Topp has a lovely daughter, Ipna, who is very knowledgeable about any social goings-on in Iova's Tryst. She knows, for example, that Javeed, the son of Sir Othen, is seeing a young noblewoman from the East who is staying with her aunt in Bidmarket. (Ipna adds "Poor girl.")

Tar Ipna, the Farrier's daughter... that sounds rather horrible...