3 players, all mature and able to do social interactions. we we're looking at a more urban setting and riffing off a reference to the old harlot table. So one player (female) mentioned playing a harlot-wouldbe-courtesan and the other two piped in with "I could be your Pimp" and "we can roll the johns".
I sat there wondering how I could spin that into some adventures and even a campaign...
Ah well, then you've got buy in and a potentially original plot and campaign. I'd try to avoid just re-skinning a regular plot.
Do you have a campaign setting? I'd probably look at something like intrigue and politics. You could start as a street level prostitute and her cohorts/friends/pimp/muscle. From there you can get involved in street level things. Are the characters wanting to be good? Think of the super-hero idea where the regular people try to do good.
Then, as they get more power, more contacts, more reputation, they get drawn into the affairs of the wealthy, and then maybe even into the governing of the city or realm.
IMO, you've going to want to layout various organizations and power brokers at multiple levels of the society. Give them a little personality and goals, some adversaries and alliances.
Have the players give you some character background and how they know each other. Then, play upon their motivations and figure out a rough outline of the first few conflicts. To help with this, you can also ask the players to give you a paragraph on two other NPC's that the characters know or know of.
Some plot ideas:
- hired to infiltrate a foreign diplomat or merchant's house and steal something (secrets or magic item)
- something is hurting the locals, seems like their could be a serial murderer...
- hired to entertain at a gala event, and become aware of some evil deeds about to be done
- a patreon needs help, they believe that their wife/brother/friend is involved in something bad, party reveals that person is being blackmailed, etc
