Alfredo sounds cool (from the DM side of the screen at least), I like the Druid/shark/murder plot too, sounds like a great adventure. How much was scripted vs improvised in the end?
The Druid-shark murder was a PC action, as was the use of the Ring of the Ram. I deliberately left a lot of options open for them to resolve this situation. Whenever I introduce any villain, he/she is always disposable. In other words, I don't care how or when, or if he dies, because its a villain. Their purpose in life is to be defeated at the hands of the players. But the players could also have explored a peaceful way to solve the duel. I had written out a lot of the situations that I wanted to occur:
-Rummy getting himself challenged to a duel and accepting. This was scripted and was going to happen no matter what.
-The wealthy merchant not liking Rummy. I had not anticipated that the players would try to sway his opinion on Rummy, and so this was mostly improvised.
-The daughter of the Marquis (and love interest of one of the PC's) suggesting to the players that they may need to teach Rummy to fence and telling them about the sword master. I did not know if they would follow up on this suggestion, but this was basically a plot hook.
-The assasination of the local ruler (the Marquis), thus creating a power vacuum. This had to happen to take away some of the safety that the players had enjoyed up to this point.
-A diplomatic meeting between noblemen, where the players would get to influence them, and put forward a candidate. The candidate could have been the daughter of the Marquis, if they decided to convince the other nobles. But I had deliberatly inserted a bishop in this meeting who disliked pirates and women, to make this option a bit more difficult. I improvised most of how this meeting went, based on the player's conversations with the nobles, and what I knew about the interests and desires of those present.
(I'll explain more about this below)
-The requirement to appoint a wizard to judge that the duel would take place fairly. I didn't care which npc or PC they appointed for this task.
-That Alfredo would appoint the swordmaster as his second, if the player's chose to appoint someone to fight in Rummy's place.
Everything else was improvised though. I had no idea how the duel would play out, other than where it would take place. I did not know if they would cheat, or if they would flee, or fight fairly. I did not know if they would let Rummy fight himself, or if a player would take his place. I did not know if they would win. I had made sure to give the swordmaster stats and abilities that would pose quite a challenge to any of the players and could possibly defeat them. I wasn't sure whether the swordmaster would kill for Alfredo, until I actually played him, and figured out his code of honor.
So did Alfredo feature in many future adventures?
Well, he died... so, no.
So, a little bit more information about the meeting between the nobles. I designed this as basically a diplomatic battle. For each npc present, I wrote down their character, their interests, their dislikes, and their currently chosen candidate. For example, I had a nobleman who was mostly concerned with his own trade, and less so with war. I had another young nobleman, who was really easily swayed by anyone, but ultimately listened to the opinion of his much older and smarter wife. And lastly there was of course the bishop, who would oversee the meeting, and report back to the crown when a successor had been appointed. The bishop really disliked pirates and women, and I created him to again get a bit under the player's skin, and make the Marquis' daughter a less obvious choice. The players did not know all of these things going into the meeting, but would find out about them simply through dialogue. I had no idea how it would play out, but by knowing so much about the npc's present, it was easy for me to play out how they would react to the players. Occasionally I would ask for diplomacy checks for certain things, in order to sway an npc, or people listening.