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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 7813471" data-attributes="member: 6704184">My latest session was a caper set in the midst of a Grand Tourney in Sharn. A Karrnathi Warlord’s son and Seeker Knight who was involved in organizing the Tourney was the mark. He had a macguffin, my recurring NPC Brenn ir Gadden (who they first met in the doomed tower in the starter adventurer from the 4e Eberron campaign guide, and I made into a noble spy, wand slinger, and dilettante) wants it. The object is a nonagon (a non Euclidean 9-sided polyhedral object made of planar energy infused Syberis dragonshard) that could potentially be used to create an elemental control wheel that needs no dragonmark to use. So...very big deal. To get the object, get out, and leave no faction knowing who took it, they need access to the place it’s being kept, to Garret (the Karrnathi Noble kid), and to the buyer’s inner circle. They also need to control the crowds, and the news surrounding the Tourney. Oh, and they need inside the Victor’s Celebry, a big party for the winners of the various events of the Grand Tourney. Now, this is a caper story, so I ran things differently. Brenn laid out the goals and obstacles, and then we move directly into the first day of the Tourney, and setting up their parts in the plan. Each PC chose an event to participate in, and a way to contribute to the heist. The Karrnathi Paladin chose the joust, the Kobold Wizard took the Mage’s Duel, the Bugbear Barbarian set up a food stand selling hot meat in soft dumpling style bread and also took on the Melee, the firbolg Blade Bard took on the knife throwing contest, the monk took on the fisticuffs tournament, and the firbolg glamour bard ran support and made contact with a prominent reporter on the local beat of an adventurous focused paper. The first “round” was each qualifying for their event, meeting 1-2 NPCs, and learning the mechanics I was using for the session. Round two was day 2+, with 3 rolls per PC. 2 for their tourney stuff, 1 for whatever they were doing outside that. Every time something went sideways, a player could spend an Inspiration to establish a backup plan, or establish how the setback was actually part of the plan. This meant that the game ran like a Leverage episode, a caper movie. It was totally non linear, withbroad room to fudge and soft retcon, and just make it work. At one point the wizard rolled a 3 on his check to manipulate the magical security of the private vault that the blade bard had gotten them access to under the guise of employing their services, so someone spent an Inspiration to establish that tripping the alarm was the plan. The wizard had created an item in the lockbox they’d already put in the vault that would activate when the security system was taken offline and “rebooted”, altering the “code” of the enchantment to allow the swapped boxes to read the way we needed and for movement within the vault to not set off the alarm. All part of the plan. The glamour bard used her connections and control of the crowds to stop the buyer’s agents and distract them while their payment case was swapped by a pickpocket they’d hired. I honestly don’t recall all the details, but yeah it ran super well and felt just like a caper should in a dnd game, and everyone got their cool spotlight moments both in the Tourney and in the caper itself, including some character development moments. So, it went very very well!</blockquote>

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