Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nytmare" data-source="post: 5285041" data-attributes="member: 55178">My brain immediately went towards trying to tie it to prop-a-riffic kind of mini game.  Make a bunch of tiles with paired images of festival masks and holy symbols on them.  Spread them haphazardly around the game table, explaining that these represent the crowded city streets, choked with noisy, drunken, and masked revelers.  You could even marry it loosely to a map of the city to give you some improv fodder while you play.Each round, explain the situation as their characters see it, and ask them what they're doing.  Have them roll the skill normally against a DC range of 5/10/15.  They automatically get to flip over one tile, but for each of the DC benchmarks they hit, they get to turn over an additional tile.  (If they get at least a 5, they flip over 2 tiles.  If they beat a 15, they flip over 4.)  If they get a pair, they get to keep the tiles (adding to their "score" as it were), and they either spot him, find some trace of him, or have a confrontation with him.  I'd suggest running the encounter in three rounds, and give the guy an action of some kind between each round to mess with the board or scores in some way.  (Be forewarned that the numbers involved are just guesses, and depend entirely on how many tiles you'd end up making.)  Before you start, roll a stealth check.  Pick up one tile for each player, plus one tile for every 5 points you get on the check, and place them in a line in front of you, keeping them separate from the rest of the tiles on the game board (we'll call them "hide tiles").  This represents him getting lost in the crowd, gives us a handful of dead tiles in the main part of the game, something akin to hitpoints for the encounter, and it gives us another layer that we can have the mechanics interact with.  If they ever collect all of his hide tiles, they've captured/cornered him, and win the challenge hands down.  If they don't flip all of them over, they have a level of success based off of the number of pairs they've managed to collect. Round one is about the characters trying to figure out where he is amidst the crowd.  Straight up perception checks get a +2 bonus.  Every time one of the players makes a match, they can permanently turn over one of your "hide tiles" which act as a common pool that any of the players can match with the tiles they turn over as part of their turn.  At the end of the round, roll a bluff check.  For every 5 points you get on the check, pick up that many tiles (not including hide tiles), and put them back on the board anywhere you want.  This represents him actively trying to hide and throw the players off his trail.   During the second round, the players chase him through a twisting maze of back alleys, narrow bridges, and the occasional surprised shop keeper's store.  Straight up streetwise checks get a +2 bonus.  As with the first round, every time a player makes a match, they can turn over one of your hide tiles, with the added bonus that if they make a match that includes one of your hide tiles, they can flip over an additional pair of tiles, trying to make a new match / cut him off at the pass.    At the end of the second round, arcane aid comes from some (possibly) unknown source.  Flip all of your hide tiles face down and mix them up ala a three card monte.  Don't shuffle them outright, you want to give the players at least the appearance of a chance to keep track of which cards are which.  If you have fewer than three hide cards at this point, add two from the pool of normal tiles.During the third round, the party is beset by subtle illusions meant to lead them astray.  Straight up arcana checks grant  a +2 bonus with the added effect that, if they beat a 10 on their arcana check, they can peak at any one face down hide tiles, making sure not to show it to the other players, and return it face down.</blockquote>

Verification