Hoping for some good ideas to flesh out a different style series of adventures

[joethelawyer]

[FONT=&quot]I'm thinking of doing something a bit different, and was hoping for some ideas. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Here's the deal--our regular group is taking a break from gaming for the holidays. It leaves my brother and I with a desire to play, but no group. What we decided was that I was going to DM a higher level series of adventures. Here's where it gets interesting. The setting is Greyhawk, Nyrond area. Six years after the Greyhawk Wars. His character is a high teens level Samurai, whose family honor has been recently lost. He is a Honorless Ronin type, essentially going through an existential crisis.
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[FONT=&quot]He left his homeland because he didn't fit in, but he still held onto the belief in the family honor, among other things like arrogance and ego. Just recently, a series of events in Japan which he had nothing to do with, resulted in his family being disgraced, and him losing his honor. He should have committed suicide, but something nags at him that his belief system is wrong, and that he shouldn't. He is completely conflicted, and is hitting the Sake a bit too much.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]By way of character background, many years ago his father took part in the original Temple of Elemental Evil adventures. The father died there, and family Katana was brought back to "Japan" when the son was a boy by a fellow adventurer of his father's, Melf Brightblade. Unbeknownst to the son, his father left Japan because of a similar existential crisis. Basically, he didn't feel like he belonged in a country where it was a Samurai's right and duty to kill any peasant who doesn't bow low enough to him. Twenty or so years later, the son does the same thing. The son takes part in the destruction of the second temple (i.e. he did Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil). After, Melf gives the son the father's journals, describing the father's similar struggles between his morality, and his culture and beliefs. The journals came just at the time he was about to commit ritual suicide.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The journal sparked the current adventures of the son. They are those of a wandring man in search of himself. The adventures I have in mind are going to be a bit odd. I see them as a combination of the original Kung Fu TV show with Kane, and some of the old school books and stories that inspired AD&D in the first place. Elric, with a touch of Fafhrd thrown in. For the most part they will be solo adventures, with him playing the rogue Samurai, and me as DM. It won't be as much combat focused, as it will be character focused. Lessons learned, through readings of the journal, and his own experiences while wandering. The lessons will be more Zen Buddhist in nature.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]CR of encounters and monsters are irrelevant. Our group doesn't base XP and leveling on that anyway. I am looking for a series of adventures and encounters where he "finds himself", changes his beliefs and comes to peace with himself. Weird is ok. Minor is ok. Monsters don't have to conform to any monster manual standards. He will be solo, but I might throw in an NPC companion here and there, ala Elric. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Along the way, he will do things through his questing which will change the situation in Nyrond and the Great Kingdom, but he will not know it at the time. Basically he will do small things which will have a ripple effect, which he will hear about and understand the impact of later.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The culmination of all of this is that after a few levels, he will come to peace with himself. He will also meet with his father, who unbeknownst to all except Melf, is alive, having been Resurrected after the original Temple adventure. His father went on a similar "walkabout" as the son, ended up finding a monastery, and becoming a monk. He had been tracking his son's progress, and seeing a similar soul, had Melf give him his journals.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Any ideas?[/FONT]

 

[Wik]

No, but you've got a good start on things already. Hopefully, you guys can pull it off - sometimes when the GM gets ideas, the player doesn't buy into them, and all is lost.

Mostly, I'd just throw in some morality problems with no easy answer. For example, the PC has to get to a town to help a noble fight off some assassins ("Niiiiinnnnnnnjaaaaa!"), and in so doing will be able to enlist the noble's help in aiding the locals of a starved town. Along the way, he encounters some peasants who need the PC to help them find their kidnapped children or something like that. Does he help the peasants, and leave the noble to his death (and consign a village to a slow death of it's own) or does he leave the villagers in his dust?

 

[Jack7]

Mostly, I'd just throw in some morality problems with no easy answer. For example, the PC has to get to a town to help a noble fight off some assassins ("Niiiiinnnnnnnjaaaaa!"), and in so doing will be able to enlist the noble's help in aiding the locals of a starved town. Along the way, he encounters some peasants who need the PC to help them find their kidnapped children or something like that. Does he help the peasants, and leave the noble to his death (and consign a village to a slow death of it's own) or does he leave the villagers in his dust?

Wik's right. I use conflicting morality issues all of the time. It works out great.

Another feature I use is Vadding. Vadding capabilities are like real life vadding, only they are a set of skill overlays in-game that the character develops through practice. In some respects they are very much like old thieving skills, except turned towards exploration, discovery, and infiltration, rather than directly towards engaging in criminal activities. Vadding skills are especially useful in an urban environment and for lone players/agents.


Roof and tunnel hacking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

opacity.us - Abandoned Photography and Urban Exploration


If your adventures are going to be like Kung Fu then you'd often have the character getting involved in whatever issues are plaguing the people he met. Kane was often injecting himself into, or getting dragged into, local events.

You might also think of something like a modified version of the Labors of Herakles. I did a religiously themed set of adventures called the 12 Spiritual Labors. You might try something like that.

CR of encounters and monsters are irrelevant. Our group doesn't base XP and leveling on that anyway. I am looking for a series of adventures and encounters where he "finds himself", changes his beliefs and comes to peace with himself. Weird is ok. Minor is ok. Monsters don't have to conform to any monster manual standards. He will be solo, but I might throw in an NPC companion here and there, ala Elric.

I like your approach in these respects. We also eschew a lot of the same types of things as you in-game.

When one of my players plays a single character/agent we call such mission Sharper Adventures. Sharpers are characters who may be of one class or profession but over time learn certain skills and professional abilities of other classes. For instance a Clerical Sharper (Clerical Sharpers make great spies and Intel sources for the Church) might learn to sneak about like a Vadder, track or manhunt like a Ranger, forage like a Barbarian, and so forth. They don't multi-class, but they become "Sharp" or "Aces" at skills normally outside their normal professional range of capabilities. They study and practice whatever survival skills, abilities, and techniques will serve them best when operating independently regardless of artificial game and class restrictions.

Anyways, although this would not directly apply to you and your milieu situation, below I have listed one of the Sharper adventures played by one of my players. It went very well, confused him for a long time, and was an involved espionage/surveillance/vadding mission that became very dangerous for him. I'm giving it so you can see how lone adventures can work without a lot of monster fighting, and still be very, very dangerous. The danger turns into less, direct confrontation/open fight, to the kind of maneuver/who do you trust/mind-game/investigative/shadowy/backstabbing/lurking in the dark kind of danger. You might try to adapt adventures like this one to your setting and set of circumstances. Good luck.

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Below is an adventure/scenario written for one of the Byzantine Sharpers.

This scenario was written with one particular Sharper character in mind, but could probably be played with any of the Byzantine Sharpers.

It is primarily a covert Espionage Mission but also has a few elements of a different sort. The first Sharper to undertake the mission was killed in action and so I had to rewrite the scenario to be a bit less lethal. It became one of the more popular Sharper Scenarios I have created and several players have tried their hands at it using different Sharper characters.
In the future I will post more Sharper Scenarios as I am writing more at the request of my players.

I even am creating Sharper Cooperative missions and Sharper versus Sharper Scenarios, though of course no Sharper will know these facts until they are deep into the game.


Module (Adventure) Storylines: THE BYZANTINE SHARPERS


The Industrial Act - Tomas, the Constable of Regions VII and VIII in the city of Constantinople approaches one of the Sharpers and asks him/her to undertake an undercover mission for him. Tomas, who has a wide net of agents and spies throughout the city has heard rumor of a potential mutiny among the Garrison who patrol and guard the Byzantine Industrion (the chief Industrial District of Constantinople near the Harbor of Theodosius and the Shipyards of Caesarius). Tomas has been unable to find out anything detailed enough which would allow him to take any type of action, but while conducting his initial investigation some of his informants in both the Thematic War College and the Industrial District inform that a conspiracy may be afloat between a certain General Hubus Costus and Iraenus, the Constable of Region XII, where the Industrial District is located. Unable to discover exactly what may be afoot, how large the potential conspiracy may be, or who else may be involved, and fearing that the plot may actually intend a coup against the Emperor, Tomas hires a sharper to infiltrate the Industrial District and the Guild of the Purple. Tomas suspects that a particular guild member and merchant by the name of Arcates with ties to shipping caravans and with ties to Seleucians at the Thematic War College may somehow be involved and hires the sharper to track, shadow and surveil the man's movements. Not long after infiltrating the guild as a dyer and taking up surveillance of Arcates the sharper notices a monk from the monastery of Myrelaion coming to visit his suspect regularly. Following Arcates at night he discovers that the man meets an Imperial Librarian from the Library of Deoklarion on a dock at the port of Caesarius. On his way back home the sharper is covertly approached by the same monk he had noticed earlier who tells the sharper that there is a very good chance that both the Imperial Court and the Thematic War College may have been infiltrated by one or more Dragoons. The monk will not tell the sharper what the Dragoons may be up to or hoping to accomplish or who they may be but does arrange and agree to pass more information to the sharper once he can. They agree to pass written information using a clay dying pot as a drop. The Sharper returns home to sleep, goes to work the next day and upon arriving home for the evening, planning to surveil Arcates again, he is met by Imperial Police who arrest him for the murder of the monk whose name he does not even yet know. The Sharper is taken to the Region XII holding prison, is briefly interrogated and then transferred to the prison of the Garrison of the Imperial Legions where he is tortured for three days about what he may possibly know. After that it is all downhill for the Sharper until he/she can discover what is really happening, who is really involved and how he might possibly act to save himself and complete his mission.