Looking for adventure/plot ideas for a single player assassin.

[King Nate]

I’ll be GMing a game starting next week for only one player. We’ve decided that we like the Zeitgeist campaign world and will be running a game based in that setting. He is going to be running a guild assassin in Flint. What I’m asking for are ideas for “adventures/plot ideas" to give to a single assassin player. I figured I’d start with some kind of easy initiation missions to join the guild and later give him targets to assassinate, but what other things could you do as an assassin? Thanks in advance.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

James Bond and Jason Bourne are assassins. Steal liberally from them, especially in terms of complications.

 

[King Nate]

Nice, I'm definitively going for Bond. I'll have to research about Bourne. Thanks, two sources I didn't even think of.

 

[Nytmare]

I think that, in general, the standard assassin story lines are variations on "assassin gets sacrificed as a pawn in some greater Machiavellian scheme and turns against eir employers", "assassin gets targeted by a fellow assassin and must outmaneuver them and the group that hired them", and "assassin is given a target that they then decide to save and protect from eir employers."

What kind of theme play style do you think you're aiming for? Episodic spy stories? Sneak and stealth missions? Interaction and conversations? What kind of assassin are they and what's their primary skill?

 

[King Nate]

Thanks for the ideas Nytmare, actually variations of all three of those are already on my list. We haven't made a character for the game yet, so we're not sure the type of assassin he'll be or the type of stories we'll have. It's kind of the reason I posted this on here, so I can get a feel for the type of adventures assassins do. I think the idea is interesting, but I was wondering how much longevity I could pull out of this campaign.

 

[Nytmare]

For a solo campaign, I would hinge a lot of DM-ly choices off of what your friend makes for his character. You can really use it as a litmus test for what kind of game he's probably hoping for. If he maxes out athletics and stealth, he's probably hoping for lots and lots of sneaking around and climbing up on rooves. Bluff and diplomacy, and he's probably hoping for lots of encounters that he has to lie his way out of. A game about a longbow sniper who can plant an arrow in a moving target from 250 feet away should probably have a different set of obstacles in it than a game about a guy armed with a half a dozen knives and his charm.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Not so much a plot as adventure methodology: if I played in a game like this I would be looking for an experience similar to the Tenchu or Hitman video games. Ideally in these games you sneak by everyone but the target, and no one ever knows you're there. (Except, possibly, for the target)

 

[King Nate]

Yeah, the player did mention Hitman and another game that started with a D, but the name escapes me right now. I never played either game so I plan on watching some youtube videos on the game for a reference of what he was talking about. So he's probably looking for a Hitman type game.

 

[Jhaelen]

and another game that started with a D, but the name escapes me right now.

Dishonored?

 

[King Nate]

Oh yeah, thanks. That's the one, Dishonored.