Confrontation with a robber baron

[Grogg of the North]

I'm running a campaign that is set near a darkwood forest. The town is run by the nearby lumber company. The lumber company is already disinterested with the welfare of its workers. (Profits over people) A few of my players have expressed an interest in dealing with the town leadership. I'm looking for a way to help showcase how rotten the lumber company leadership is. Things I'm considering are:

• Having the workers get paid in company script, wooden coins that can only be paid at company owned stores.
• Having the workers live in company owned housing. Injured workers are expelled from their homes. Rent is automatically deducted from wages.
• The party will find that the company's bookkeeper is doctoring payroll logs to cheat workers out of wages.
• The cleric has extended family that live within the forest. I'm thinking there will be a confrontation between the family and lumber company.

Any other thoughts?

 

[aco175]

History channel had a series on the Men Who Made America and one was on Rockefeller which showed a lot of tactics and underhandedness you will find useful. Then, later in life he and Carnegie gave most all of it away.

I can picture a giant mill complex with water-powered saws that rolled down chutes. Would make a cool fight place with rolling logs as obstacles and random saw blades. Maybe a construct with saw hands undermining the workers. You also could make the boss not the really bad guy, but his 'Sheriff of Nottingham".

 

[Eltab]

One way to undermine the Company monopoly is "micro-lending". Adventurers can collect oodles of cash in dungeons. They pass by the company town and hear that Alfredo's daughter is sick but he owes so much to the Company Store that there is not enough for medicine. The PCs might pay off what he owes. Now the Company has one less hook in one fewer people. If the PCs make a habit of this, eventually the Corporate Accountant will notice and come out asking questions, probably with Security Goons in tow.