Favorite City Encounters

[Ravilah]

I was writing up a simple lvl 3 city adventure for my players today, when I realized that I don't tend to include that many city encounters in my games. Not enough anyway.

What are some of the best city-based encounters/adventures you've ever run?
Are you a fan of the obligatory anachronistic sewer? Any interesting twists on Thieves Guilds? Inspirations pulled out of an old Baldur's Gate game?

R

 

[ExploderWizard]

The city is a great place to run encounters featuring combat as least favorable solution. Are you looking for throwaway encounters or opportunities for intrigue?

 

[the Jester]

My best ever city encounter- well, a whole adventure really- was the urban stalker.

This was homebrewed beastie. Basically a humanoid with a type of psychic invisibility that was far better than "regular" invisibility. If he wasn't attacking you that round, your mind would refuse to perceive him at all- you couldn't see, hear or taste him. The urban stalker lived by killing and devouring victims that wouldn't be missed.

Anyhow, so the urban stalker falls afoul of our heroes, and for a couple of sessions there is a cat-and-mouse thing where it will attack one of them when they're on their own and slip away after a round or two. It was frustratingly elusive.

Finally, the pcs tracked it down to an abandoned house and stormed the place. Amongst the debris and rags inside were a cloaker masquerading as an old piece of cloth, a mimic in the form of a chair, and maybe another "hidden in plain view" monster like that (can't quite recall). It was an amazing, desperate fight; the pcs won, but it was very very tricky.

 

[Ravilah]

My favorite city adventure was a Holmes-style mystery. It started as the investigation of a stolen artifact from the Wizard's Club and the disappearance of two local actors. The two events turn out to be related, and the adventure culminates in a showdown with a the head Fence of the Thieves Guild in the basement of the Bardic University. The players were able to question witnesses, break into houses to find clues, shake down back-ally stool pigeons, and have the wizard "test alchemical substances" found at the crime scene. It was medieval CSI. Fun times.

 

[Ravilah]

Oh, and for my group, I'm trying to make a nice balance of intrigue and action. And probably not more than a one-session adventure. I have too many Instigators and Slayers in the party to go without any combats for a whole night.

 

[arthurhoneyhill]

Dead body found in an alley
the PC's get robbed in the inn
rooftop battles
thief in the market place and a chase ensues
city guard falsely accuse a PC of some crime
city guard rightly accuses a PC of some crime
shopping trip goes awry
badly disguised goblins wander in the city
a rogue kobold is stealing cats
noblemen's sons start dueling in the streets
some one gets possessed
animal escapes from a cage
PC's simply get mugged

 

[Evilhalfling]

I flooded a city with imaginary water.
The PCs could see it, and the occasiona school of fish. None of the NPCs noticed. PCs could swim, (slowed) in any direction. They could run along the bottom, but the first square of movement was difficult terrain. They had a blast swiming around in the air, and gathering crowds of confused townies.

They had quite an argument about the barncal covered sea chest in the middle of the road, that just seemed to be random treasure, too good to be true (it wasn't )

Then they saw a pair of sharks eating people. All the bystanders could see was people being ripped apart by invisible attackers.

 

[Storminator]

In a 3e campaign, I had an NPC wizard and a couple of henchmen hiding out from 3 roguish PCs (Walter - rogue, Luthur - rogue/sorcerer, Davin - rogue/barbarian). Having obtained illegal magical disguises, the rogues booked rooms in the same inn, then kicked in the wizard's door at night.

The wizard got out his window, then cast Jump and started leaping roof to roof. Walter started climbing walls and jumping too, only not as well, which resulted in a lot of gutter grabbing and scrambling up. Luthur's familiar went with Walter, so Luthur could run thru streets and follow his familiar. Davin held off the henchmen in the inn room, then went out the common room and had a running battle with the henchmen as he tried to keep up with Luthur.

So magic vs skill over the rooftops, Luthur maintaining line of sight for the group while taking pot shots into both battles, and Davin in a more conventional street fight. And in the end everyone got arrested.

PS

 

[Hand of Evil]

See the DM Advice thread in my sig for some useful threads.

As posted in the Plots forum -- my players own an Inn/Bank/Adventure Guild Lodge:

• Dealing with the local mob - is it a fair mob, payments weekly and use of the tavern or demand a take as they see fit. -- In my players case, this was a "bad" mob that kept making demands on the players. Started out as a protection racket, then moved into fence hangout, the the party had enough.
• Dealing with corrupt tax men - you just can't kill him...well you could but...-- The party did.
• Finding a cook and a brew master - create a few NPCs with personality issues for the staff and let the players pick from them - its fun to see who gets hired.
• Helping an employee - you got a good employee and now they need help with something like old employer or something darker. -- Party had to free family members from the control of the old employer (a PIMP), yep, the party was running that kind of place.
• Getting a seat on the City Council - once you start the tavern and adventures are good it is a way to be a mover and shaker. -- Single party member who was quiting the game (deployment to Iraq), had him run and get elected, this way I could keep him in the game and pass info to him on laws and such for his interaction.
• What to do with the body in your bathroom - is is going to happen, what will happen to the tavern if a body is found, does the city close you down for a couple of days, do you care, do you dump the body somewhere else? -- My game, they dumped the body to frame a "evil" NPC.

 

[Armadillo]

A few examples of play:

- One of my all time favorite city adventures was the after effects of the Thieves Guild adventure where the party stole the royal jewels during a fancy ball. The entire city was in an uproar with guards everywhere. The PCs were all lying low trying to figure out how to fence the jewels when we weren't simply trying to stay alive. At one point two of the characters went out. After dodging some of the guards on the major boulevard, they thought that they were being followed and ducked into a shop. This immediately prompted a discussion of what kind of shop we'd gone into. Theives Guild featured this elaborate and detailed city map where each building was identified by a number. Consulting the list of numbers in the guide book revealed a name, which most of the players thought to be that of a bar. One of the players then helpfully pointed out that it must be a bar as it was across the street from a guard station. We all laughed so hard that I can't remember how we got out of there.

- In an AD&D campaign, we were attempting to infiltrate the Mages Guild. We were hopelessly too low level to attempt this, which the GM demonstrated when we all failed our saves against the first glyph of warding that we came across outside the building. My character critically failed his save and went beyond fear into insanity. The GM and I then played out a flight across the city in which he survived several random encounters only through incredibly lucky die rolling.

- In another campaign, the PCs went into a tavern to question an NPC. This turned into a fight. At first, the other patrons were staying out of the fight. Only, one of the players decided to attack one of the noncombatants. This turned a minor encounter into an epic brawl in which one PC was killed, arrest warrants were issued for the entire party, and the relatives of one of the noncombatants that we killed swore out a blood feud against the party.