Alternatives to the letter at the end of the adventure?

[Stoat]

A common cliché in adventures is the "clue letter" at the end. You've seen it. It's the letter addressed to whatever sucker it was the PC's just killed that reads:

Minion!
Continue your good work terrorizing the people of littletown. Send slaves and treasure to me at nextweeksadventure dungeon!
Signed,
Next week's BBEG.

The intent is for the players to realize that this week's BBEG was just a cog in a greater scheme. Presumably, they'll track down the writer of the clue letter, and do battle with him.

IMO, this is a fairly clumsy way to put an adventure hook in front of the party. And it often doesn't make sense. Do orc chieftans send formal letters to their goblin underbosses?

I'm looking for alternatives. What other means are available to suggest connections between groups of enemies?

 

[OakwoodDM]

There's always the just as cliched but maybe not quite so forced bad guy monologue. You know the one, the good guys have just defeated this guy and he's lying there in a pool of his own blood but manages to choke out a few lines along the lines of "Ha, you think you've won? Well, you don't know the half of it! My operation was a small part of the whole. Just you wait until NextWeeksBigBad finds you. Then you'll be in trouble" before kicking the proverbial water receptacle.

Alternatively, you could lay the groundwork beforehand, so the party know that they've got to go to NextWeeksDungeon to stop TheNextBigBad, but this week's bad guy was causing more immediate concerns/has a key to the dungeon/is holding someone you like hostage/has lots of stuff so you wanted to kill him and take it...

 

[malraux]

Well, assuming that the PCs take the magic items from the BBEG, you could have one of them start speaking to the PCs. Either its a magical cell phone, or it could be an intelligent magic item that's been broken into pieces and each individual piece is with a different bad guy working on some evil plot.

 

[Bumbles]

Have an ally there. Have something they'd get from the other party, such as weapons, armor, or money. Have a hostage there, to say "Hey, these guys aren't the real bad news, they're just patsies for..."

 

[Lord Xtheth]

Maybe just let the PCs know in advance that their facing somthing bigger.

"To get to the mountains where you have to destroy the macguffin, first you must face 12 guardians with magic rings, then an army, then an evil wizard, then... then..."

Or just have more stuff happen that the PCs can peice together themselves, you don't have to spell EVERYTHING out for them do you?

 

[cmrscorpio]

No less cliche, but slightly more subtle, is when the PCs loot the bodies they discover a tattoo or a mark on the armor so that an appropriate knowledge check reveals that the particular enemy was subservient to a greater power. Such as the white hand Sauruman put on the helmets of his orcs, but maybe the symbol isn't as well known.

Or, looting the bodies yields a hodgepodge of foreign coinage, which might indicate that they had been doing business down in the trader's warf. Now the PCs can find who they've been associating with.

Or the supposed BBEG could be wielding a weapon or armor or some other item that has a unique feature that ties it to a particular person or site. For instance, in Eberron, the item might indicate that the item came from a nearby bunker that was abandoned decades ago.

Or, the letter that the PCs discover is, in fact, a picture or a string of pictograms. The PCs can try to figure out the meaning of the pictograms, only to discover through research that it is, in fact, a magical password in a foreign language that grants access to some long-lost tomb. In 4e, the entire ordeal becomes a skill challenge or a couple skill challenges.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm a fan of the spiderweb.

PC's have several different, seemingly unrelated adventures, but similarities appear in them (say, each one features a dragon). Is this just coincidence? Of course not. Maybe after one such adventure, the person behind all of this gets angry and sends an assassin squad. The PC's must be pro-active, hunting down this well-hidden threat, eliminating not just this week's BBEG, but a host of minor tragedies that plague the world.

This is kind of FFZ's villain design scheme, and it makes for a pretty good narrative structure. Part 1 is to have the PC's go on adventures that have at least one conspicuously similar element. Part 2 is for them to connect that element to some other menace. Part 3 is to go up against that menace in a big fight that has been a long time coming.

In other words, there's a lot of threads, touching a lot of surfaces, but at the center, there is one spider that wove them all.

 

[Skallgrim]

Well, first, depending on what game world you play in, there might be a God of fate, chance, coincidence, or necessity (like Avandra). Given the existence of such a being, it isn't implausible that random chance leads the characters from one adventure to another.

The "item" they discover leads them to an innocuous errand (we return this to the owner, or we sell this to a collector, or we pawn this to a fence). Going on this errand, which has sod-all to do with either adventure, leads them to encounter more enemies, who are connected to the first group.

If someone happens to comment on the implausibility of it (particularly if you have a priest of Avandra in the group), you might just comment, "Yes, that does seem to be highly coincidental. Almost as if it were fated, hmmm?"


Other suggestions would include "real world" types of connections.

For example, if group A captures slaves for group B, you might actually have invoices, or records of payment, or even coins in the slaver's pockets, minted from another realm, and not the local coinage.

You might have someone who was trying to follow the organization happen upon the party inside their lair (with the possibility for a confused identity fight). Afterwards, the party realizes that this guy has already tracked the group from somewhere else to here, so he has information about members of the group in other areas.

If the group uses a distinctive m.o., or has a distinctive tattoo, brand, or symbol, the party might simply hear about it at a later date (Town Cryer: "Another foul murder! Twin Blades drawn in the blood of the innocent! Town guards mystified!"). This works really nicely if the party thinks they have solved the problem, especially if you give them some other adventure in the meantime.

Perhaps the group members use a particular form of communication. You might find homing pigeons in the lair, and release them to follow them to another circle of the group (or a portal, or a single sending stone, etc.). The other members of the group might even try to contact the slain group, not realizing what has happened ("The stone suddenly makes noises in Giant! The dwarf recognizes the speaker as a duergar.").

Perhaps the leader of the local group has some sort of ritual cast upon him, either to contact others in the organization upon his death, or even to put a mystical mark on his slayer. The party has NO way of tracing the group, but they don't need to, as the group will seek them out, either for revenge, or to eliminate a threat...

 

[kitsune9]

A common cliché in adventures is the "clue letter" at the end. You've seen it. It's the letter addressed to whatever sucker it was the PC's just killed that reads:

Minion!
Continue your good work terrorizing the people of littletown. Send slaves and treasure to me at nextweeksadventure dungeon!
Signed,
Next week's BBEG.

The intent is for the players to realize that this week's BBEG was just a cog in a greater scheme. Presumably, they'll track down the writer of the clue letter, and do battle with him.

IMO, this is a fairly clumsy way to put an adventure hook in front of the party. And it often doesn't make sense. Do orc chieftans send formal letters to their goblin underbosses?

I'm looking for alternatives. What other means are available to suggest connections between groups of enemies?

1. Yes, you can replace the letter with a special token or object that the PC's get their Knowledge checks to determine that this means Cult of BBEG, or the Next Week's Horror Show is 200 miles away. In other words, the villain that the PC's just defeated posseses something that gives a prominent relationship of stewardship to the BBEG. This works really well if the BBEG is well known and the PC's immediately know where to go. If the BBEG is to be a total mystery, then work in that the PC's need to go research token/object/whatever and then get the details from the DM.

2. Another aspect is that the PC's witness a ritual, you can describe this ritual as box text, but better yet, provide it as a handout, because handouts always means IMPORTANT, PAY ATTENTION . This will clue PC's that there's something else going on here, particularly when the ritual they're witnessing is not in the nature of their villain (like a group of goblins performing some ritual dedicated to a human evil god that is very very obscure and that the last major temple was 200 miles away from here and existed 500 years ago).

3. The physical presence of a "political officer" who works for the BBEG and keeping tabs on the lower minions. If the PC's capture the officer, they can interrogate him and get the info. If they kill the officer, then they can divine the info or do research checks based on how the guy is dressed etc and get an idea of that obscure religion for the major temple 200 miles away yadda, yadda, yadda.

4. Equipment that is unique. I used this method not too long ago to link a noble house that provided armor and weapons to a bunch of goblinoids who attacked a caravan of a rival noble house. This typically works better in more modern campaigns but my player's did the fantasy connection quite well.

That's four that I can think of. Happy Gaming!

 

[Dausuul]

Instead of a letter, have a magical device like the palantirs that the BBEG uses to communicate with his minions. Make sure the PCs know it's magical, but they don't know what it does; then set up a trail of clues for them to follow toward the next BBEG.