Is THIS a cool way for the PCs to meet?

[stevelabny]

I think so.
I still have months to flesh it out also. As the new campaign probably wont start until February or March, but tell me what you think?
Its long, and plotted, so it seems railroady, but I don't think it really is. I'm looking for warning signs of places where I'm assuming too much from the PCs or other potential pifalls. And any interesting additions to fill in blank spots. The characters are all first level if that matters.
This is an Eberron campaign, but I will explain the Eberron specifics for those who might not know.

The first part of the plan is to do a solo session with each PC before the first session. This will be done with the pretense of getting a feel for their character and getting a feel for the tone of Eberron and the action points and what not.

But I've got more sinister plans.

All of these solo sessions will be fleshed out more to include a combat and a challenge to disguise that the point is what I'm setting up. The PCs will know what the other PCs are playing by character class but not have physical descriptions or anything like that. This is important to note as it would otherwise affect their actions.

First up:
Wizard (specialist evoker, but interested in the nature of warforged, why theyre alive, and just what happened the day the land of Cyre blew up)

The wizard goes to the wizard school in Aundair, and soon after graduation he gets an invitation to Morgrave University in Sharn (the NYC of Eberron). The invitation will babble about some his interests just enough to get him to go. Included in the invitation are a Lightning Rail ticket (the train) and a ticket to the opera on the day of his arrival.

He arrives at the opera house early (he was told by someone to do this to ensure his seat) but he does witness a warforged kill a man. When the master inquisitive is called, he is in a hurry to wrap this up before the show begins. Apparently this murder follows the m.o. of an "international" serial killer whos recently come to Sharn, and the wizard is the first eyewitness.

I'm ASSUMING the wizard will truthfully relay what he saw, and the master inquisitve can tell if he's lying anyway (due to zone of truth/ discern lies/ high sense motive). If the wizard DOESN'T tell the truth of what he saw, no matter how hard he's pressed, I can always invent a second witness that does. The wizard is asked to sit down for a bit while the investigation continues.


Next Up:
Gatekeeper Druid (the gatekeepers are an ancient sect that protects Eberrons from the aberrations from other planes.)

I plan to use the gatekeeper druid as a "field agent" whos mission it is to seek out and uncover sinister plots of evil aberrations. Before he goes out on his own he will be asked to visit Sharn to assist an elder druid with a problem. Along his journey, he will receive an animal messenger from the druid he is supposed to meet with a note that reads "I think I am being followed, meet me at the opera house"

The druid gets to the Opera House just after the murder takes place. He sees and overhears the inquisitive's conversation with the wizard, and when this is done he manages to get close enough to see the body and finds it is the druid he was sent to meet.

I'm ASSUMING he will demand justice and that the warforged be turned over to him, or dealt with swiftly. ( I havent read the Sharn book yet, so I dont know the laws of the land exactly. I will have it shortly. )

Next up:
House Tharask "Indiana Jones-type" who likes to hunt for Dragonshards,
House Tharask is one of the "dragonmarked" wealthy merchant families with spell-like ability tatoos. Dragonshards are used to power magic items and other more important things.

This guy actually lives in Droaam, the kingdom full of monsters. Specifically in the city of Graywall, which is governed by a mind flayer. Word has gotten out that he wants to start his life od adventuring, so the mind flayer comes to pay a visit. He asks "Indiana" to stop in Sharn first (geographically, not very far out of his way no matter where he's going) and deliver a package to someone. I'm ASSUMING the player accepts. It is important for his family to stay friendly with the mind flayer. The person will be at the opera house a few nights later.

"Indiana" will show up shortly after the others and quickly finds out that the intended recipient was just the victim of a serial killer. If he volunteers his information, he will become a suspect, as the package contains a posioned something. In this case, I assume he'll want to make sure the warforged takes the fall instead. If he chooses to not reveal the information, I assume he'll just want to investigate this later.

Last up:
House Cannith deaf bard and his cohort/bodyguard/friend a blind warforged "samurai"
(House Cannith is another dragonmarked house. And I've already posted about the deaf blind bit, so lets not go back over that)

These two freaks are part of a traveling entertainment troupe, and it just pulled up in Sharn. While theyre here, the troupe's leader would like to scout out the local talent. He asks the bard and samurai to go check out some specific sites. Obviously the bard will go where theres entertainment to SEE, while the warforged goes to HEAR the singing at the opera house. By the time the bard gets back to the opera house (whether because its where they planned to meet, or news has already spread of the latest murder) he finds his friend the warforged being led away in chains...

So this sets up a group that looks like this:

a bard, distraught that his best friend has been imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, who will do anything possible to free him.
a wizard, who has pointed the finger at an innocent warforged. I assume he'll feel guilty and also want to find the truth.
a druid, wanting to know who the real killer is and why, possibly also feeling guilt if he demanded swift justice on the warforged
Indiana Jones, who was either being used as plan B, or a seperate attempt at the same guys life. Depending on how much information he has shared, theres a few ways he can go. Including more possible guilt.

What happens next? Well, before the party gets to rescue their friend legally or illegally, he's shipped off to the Dreadhold (alcatraz). They can get him back when he's cohort eligible.
Since first level characters can't break him out of there, there best course of action is to stick in Sharn and find the real killer and just whats going on.

What did I skip?
Why was the warforged so close to the victim that the wizard thought the warforged was the murderer?
And why didnt the warforged defend himself to the inquisitive?

I'm still working these out. My original thought was a permenant silence but I'm not sure I love that idea. It would also depend on how much checking for magic the Sharn police do.

A regular silence would mean I only have one minute per caster level to handle the "questionings" before they cart him away. Extended might work.

I suppose its possible that being blind, he would just use that as his defense (but he can't prove it, can he?) and keep saying he didn't see anything.
But that means I'll definitely have to supply the details of what the warforged heard and what he was doing which will be clues to the mystery and I think I'd rather have them start off with almost nothing.

Another thought is the warforged taking the fall for the crime, possibly thinking he's doing it to protect his bard friend.


So back to where I started. Questions? Comments?

 

[Steverooo]

Well, WHAT YOU HAVE DONE sounds interesting, and fun, but... I wouldn't go with telling the Wizzer that he sees the Warforged kill the High-Level Druid, if he didn't... That would set up a "He wouldn't do that!" "Oh yes he did!" situation between the Bard and the Evoker, and that could hurt party unity. Better to just have the Wiz see the Warforged holding the dead man, and be caught - literally - red-handed, with the H-L Druid's blood on his hands, claiming that he tried to help the man when he heard him fall...

I'd also worry about giving the PCs only the one clue, when they're new in town, and have no friends, allies, resources, etc.! THIS IS A BAD DEAL! I have had a PC in this situation, before, and it is maddening!

The ONE clue that the PCs have is the note brought to the Low-Level Druid by the Animal Messenger. Since he probably received this before the Bard & Warforged entered Sharn, this could be used as evidence to keep the Warforged out of prison, if you want. Other than that, though, it seems to me that the "police", and not the PCs, will be solving this crime (which may be as it should be). The PCs really have nothing to go on!

I think you're going to have to give them some clues. YMMV.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

It sounds like it could be great - but I predict a couple of problems:

Your Indiana - why is he interested in volunteering any information... and why would the police question him at all if he only turned up after the events? He's got a very simple "Hey I just found everything like this and stopped to gawk" excuse which is entirely true (not the whole truth, but not a lie either). He can quickly disappear into the crowd and avoid the whole thing. Why is he going to investigate a crime when the guilty party (a warforged that some wizard saw doing it) is already in the Dreadhold?

As Steveroo pointed out definitely need to find a reason for the wizard to not think the warforged did it if you want him to join up with the "murderer's" friend (the bard). I see someone kill someone else and then his buddy turns up and says "no he's innocent be my mate" there's no way I'm considering that option. Also you said that he's joining because of guilt at pointing the finger at the wrong warforged - how does he know it's the wrong warforged when he saw it happen. Then if he didn't see it happen he'd probably admit that to the police. Overall I think that one needs some work.

The druid is easy - his contact has turned up dead, vengence should be his, but if all fingers are pointing at the warforged (the only exception some stranger who's proclaiming his friend an innocent victim) what reason does he have to think the warforged isn't the guilty party.

Overall I love the idea of throwing the party into a situation like this - it sure beats the "you meet in a tavern..." start up. However I think there are some plot line holes that need to be plugged before it will work. You may find it helps if you actually start with whoever really does kill the druid, how he does it, how he gets away, etc.

 

[stevelabny]

steveroo an goblyn, thanks for the responses, I was afraid this thread would slip by without any replies.

I'll try to respond to your points, but goblyn might have the right of it , in that I really DO need to work out the specifics of the crime before I continue. Before I do that, I'll need the PCs full backstories, but like I said, I have plenty of time before this campaign starts.

Steveroo, you're right, the wording to the wizard shouldn't be "you see the warforged kill someone" but I do want to convey that it sure looks that way. I would LIKE the wizard to start off pretty sure that the warforged is the killer but still leave it open for investigation, but I do see BOTH of your points that the more sure the wizard is, the less likely he would be to take the bard's word of the warforged innocence.

The interesting thing here is that I'm assuming that once the party is all together for Session #1, and realize who the other PCs are, that they will metagame that fact into becoming allies. This is probably because as a player, I am always willing to work with DMs to make the party join up and/or work together and tend to want to smack the players who are difficult about it just to be difficult. Even in this situation, I think to get the game going, once I found out the bard was a fellow PC, I would instantly "trust" her more, but maybe that's just bad role-playing on my part. Hmm.

As for their being only one clue, and possibly wanting to save the warforged. The reason I want the murder to happen at a place that will soon be busy is to quickly get him taken away. Once the Sharn police have him, the players won't be able to "break him out" and I want him shipped off to the Dreadhold before they could solve anything. The forged is going to be the bards cohort at later levels, and this is the way to get him out of the picture until then.

As for there being very few clues, that's why I specified that it was a serial killer. The party will actually have the victim's note, and Indiana's package as clues (assuming he EVER shares the info, again I'm assuming PC to PC trust on some level, but if he DOESN'T confide in the PCs, an attempt or two on his life might change that)

Basically, I wasn't expecting the PCs to be able to solve THIS murder, but to solve the whole "case of the serial killer" It'll keep them in Sharn for a bit, but hey, thats where the first sourcebook is .

Goblyn, as for why Indiana would volunteer info, he might or he might not. He doesnt know what he's carrying, and he might just let it slip that he was delivering it to the victim. The police WON'T question him unless he comes forward.
But if he sees/hears that the other PCs (particularly the druid) are connected to the victim, he should want to to talk to him.
Also, I'm assuming as the bard continues to insist that the warforged wouldnt do such a thing, it'll convince some of the others to at least hear him out.
Again, if Indy is just content to walk away from the whole scene without any comments to anyone, an attempt on his life should scare him "straight"

Again, perhaps I'm relying to much on the PCs talking to each other once the full session begions, BUT thats a kind of meta-gaming that I usually think is acceptable from PCs. I will think on this.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

There's nothing inherently wrong with relying on the players metagaming enough to say "yes I'll join the party", the only problem with it is that depending on how much they are into their characters they may feel that it runs counter to what they think the character would do. Any decent gamer should fall into the party to allow the story to progress, but it may grate on some of them if they feel they're going against their character. Obviously this is going to be a matter for you to decide (you know your players), just thought you'd like the objective point of view. Ultimately if you can bring them together in a way that is more in line with their characters then the game will flow better for all, making a better game. I think you have the makings of a really memorable start to a campaign if you can get it to work.

Thought - it might be even better start if you build in a cross party conflict to start with. Pair up the PCs (I'm thinking druid and evoker, bard and Indy, but will depend on the details) into two groups - one (druid and evoker) that think the warforged did it, the other that thinks he's innocent. Then run a pair of 2 player games where they either find out they were right or wrong. At the end of that you get all four together and they have a history of a mini-adventure in which they all participated separately. The 2 PC adventures could involve the two that thought the warforged did it finding out more about the serial killer which then leads them to realise they were wrong, and try to find the other 2 to share the information. Give each group a part of the puzzle, and when they get together they have lock and key.

Obviously this can get very complex - you have to make sure the 2 groups don't meet each other until all players are around, but if you can pull it off works wonders for player involvement in the campaign. Plus in order for it to work there does need to be some rail-road involved, but if you can craft this to the players you may be able to make the train track invisible.

But then I don't know what your game schedule is like and whether you want to run 6 entire games before everyone is involved. You could run the 2 PC adventures in one session if you can jump back and forth between the 2, but you'll get intermittent bored players and are likely to find the metagaming level increases.

I can't think of anything else at the moment that will help you blend the four stories together more smoothly, but if something comes to me I'll let you know.

 

[Henry]

You really won't know how tightly the stories blend together until they actually happen - one PC could do something immensely stupid, one PC could do something that destroys the plot for another PC, etc. The best solution is to use this as a loose guideline, but be ready for ANYTHING when you actually run them. A blended story like this, when it works, is beautiful, but when it doesn't, it could send a DM scrambling to make it come back together.

It's probably better to not make the Wizard the sole witness, and especially not the one who gives the most damning evidence - rather have it be a 3rd party "innocent" witht the wizard being a spectator. You describe what he saw, and let him say what he wants to the constables.

One thing about Sharn: the guards are bribeable, with the exception of one or two districts. The guards in Smoky Towers or Torchfire (the two "operatic" and theatrical districts) are definitely corruptable, and might be willing to either "railroad" someone or keep some facts quiet for a fee, so that may take the heat off of the eyewitness PC's. Maybe the serial killer is paying the guards in the district off, making it a safe district for him?