Need some advice on homebrew campaign

[Ramm83]

Ok i have a campaign running with pathfinder.
The party consists at the moment of a:
Lvl 4 human Inquisitor ( CG vagabond )
Lvl 4 human Barbarian ( heir to a kingdom )
Lvl 4 human Sorcerer ( twin sister to the Barbarian )
Lvl 4 half-elf Sorcerer ( bastard son of a rich Baron ) (New Player)
Lvl 4 Elf Witch
Lvl 4 Elf Rogue (sniper)
Lvl 4 Dwarf Monk
Lvl 4 Human Oracle

Ok so the campaign consists of a large kingdom (empire) , invading a smaller kingdom in the south. The Barbarian is the last surviving heir to the throne of the large Kingdom. They quested to retrieve a missing page from the book of the royal lineage of this kingdom, in which they succeeded. So they decide to go back to the town of the smaller kingdom which now is under siege by now. When they arrive in the port, they notice that most nobles and people with wealth have fled, as there are almost no ships left in the capital (Metropole sized). Now the queen of this smaller kingdom decided for a cease-fire to negotiate a surrender of the city to the large kingdom. All fine. The Half-elf sorcerer has a big villa in this city and the party decides to go and rest there, as leaving by ship to the southern continents isnt a possibility right now. The city is surrendered in the meantime and the soldiers and officers are entering the city. The party at the villa hears people knocking and when they open it is a captain of the invading army with a bunch of soldiers. He is surprised to see a half-elf together with 2 elves and decides to take them to his superior ( elves are quite rare in human lands nowadays ), the half-elf accepts ( as he sees this an opportunity to get trading-rights to the southern continents, where they should go anyways to meet their allies ) but at this moment the inquisitor who is hiding upstairs decides to shoot the soldiers entering the villa. Eventually this erupts in a massacre on part of the invading army, captain killed along with 12 soldiers. One soldier who went away for backup is arriving with 20 new soldiers. The party decides to flee the villa quickly. This is where last session ended, in the backyard of the villa.

Now, first of all i didnt expect the party to get into a fight with the captain ( and the elves and half-elf arent happy about it either, as it was a great opportunity for them to get to the south ). Now i ask advice on how to continue, cause i am a bit clueless on running a city adventure with an army ( 15000 people ) just entering the city and claiming housing and stuff for their own. Any advice is welcome so i can start writing for next adventure in the city.

 

[gamerprinter]

It depends on what you want. You are suggesting wanting to pursue a city adventure. However, isn't it really too dangerous to adventure in a city with 15,000 troops who may want you captured, imprisoned and executed for slaying members of their army? If that hadn't happened, I'd say you'd have plenty of opportunity for urban adventuring, but with a large invading force opposed to you, my recommendation is that the party leave town and head south on their own.

As an aside (a couple things), you mention on another thread that you lack "best GM skills". With that in mind, an adventure party of 8 players is way too many people. I am a very experienced GM, having done so since the 1980's, and I would do my best to avoid running a party of 8 players. Not only is that not fun for the GM to try to effectively manage 8 people, but those 8 people won't get proper attention individually in the busy hands of such a GM. Ideally a party of 4 and a GM is what want you. You have 8 players. To me that's 4 too many, or enough to start a second game with a different GM.

The other thing, you mention one of your characters being the heir to a large imperial kingdom with ports, ships, and nobility, and that character is a barbarian? To me for a barbarian race to exist, other societies would need to be more civilized. Barbarians tend to live in small villages and hunt a wide ranging area around their communities. While barbarian kingdoms, even empires can exist, without a more civilized nation of non-barbarians around to compare to, there's nothing really barbaric about it. It sounds like your large imperial kingdom is too civilized to be considered barbarian - so I don't see the connection why you'd have a barbarian as an heir to that throne. It sounds like a cavalier or other civilized class (such as a caster) would be more appropriate.

 

[Ramm83]

Well the thing with the barbarian is a long history of the world they llive in:
The kingdom, the large one is called Sadrynia, and it was ruled for a long long time by a royal family. 23 years ago an ambitious duke of the kingdom and his family plotted a grand assasination ( with the help of some dark evil force, still in the background ) and murderered the whole royal family, nieces, uncles, u get the point. But one of the nieces to the king was giving birth to twins ( the PCs ) and the royal wizard, sage ( merlin type ) was at birth with them and took them with him. He gave the babies seperated away to loyal persons who have served the former king and went into hiding. The sorcerer girl grew up in the smaller kingdom with a lumberjack family and had to flee when the forces of Sadrynia invaded the smaller kingdom. She fled into elven territory and got the help from the two elves ( she had an amulet and needed to go the merlin type wizard somewhere hiding in the pirate isles "previous adventures" ). The barbarian on the other hand was taken care off by a merchant, and the barbarian tribes live way up north on a different continent, tundra like stuff. This merchant captain got killed by the barbarians and the child ( the PC ) was taken by the barbarians, seeing him a strong baby, and taken care off. Now he also had this same amulet since birth with him.

This is why a barbarian is the heir to this big kingdom.

Also to answer to your question about 8 PCs, the first few times it was really hard to manage the group, as they started talking about other stuff when they didnt get the attention they needed. And at first i thought this was a mistake, but i implemented 2 rules which works wonders:
1. every gaming session the players roll for their spot, so we wont get everyone sitting at the same place all the time
2. people need to be there at 19:30, every minute later is - 10 XP ( my clock ), and at 20:00 when we start everything said is in character. People starting talking about other stuff not related to the game will get - xp.
This keeps the group focused and manageable for me.

Ok, i didnt really want to do urban adventuring, and the thing is, i just need advice on what the city is up to when it just got surrendered. Is it easy to get out of a city or not? How is the guards doing their work on the first day. Stuff like that.

 

[Celebrim]

It doesn't matter what you do, the most important thing about your campaign is you have 8 players. That will determine your style of play far more than anything else.

0) It sounds like you've already figured out that you need to run a tight ship. If you are DMing 1-2 guys, they are basically your peers and it hardly matters. If you are DMing 8 people, you are the boss. Period. Otherwise, no one has fun.
1) You'll practically need a rule that you can't split the party without permission. If all 8 players go in different directions, congratulations, you've just inherited 8 different campaigns.
2) You won't be able to focus on any one player's individual story. Forget about low melodrama and character exploration and all that high concept nar stuff. That really only works if you have 2-3 players. Even 4 is stretching it a bit. Your group doesn't have time to bounce spot light between players and work out who everyone is in any sort of formal way.
3) I'll be really surprised if the group doesn't develop internal conflicts. About half the parties I've seen of this side end up with two sides plotting against each other.
4) You have definitely not picked the easiest sort of plot to deal with large groups. Get them in the wilderness! Get them in a dungeon!! It's bad enough always having 8 PC's on the board and 4-8 monsters during combat. If things start multiplying with henchmen and allies and stuff, you'll have to drop 3e and switch to a mass combat system or accept you're only getting one combat done per session. Think about the problems that come to Robert Jordan and GRR Martin with multiplying characters.

So, the party has just cheesed off the occupying power, and will soon be wanted criminals. Worse, they've probably cheesed of the city that just surrendered, because by the laws normally used in land warfare, if they don't cooperate in finding you and bringing you to justice the whole surrender thing is null and void and occupying power can pretty much raze the city and put its inhabitants to the sword. The party needs transportation and the occupying power will certainly be watching the usual roads and ports. So, what you need here is decide whether being rebels fighting a guerrilla war is what your party wants to do and if so give it to them, or if not to introduce a deus ex machine in the form of a sympathetic NPC to put them back on the path the party as a whole will be happier with. Once they fight off a enough mooks that they get a breather (and are convinced this is not what they wanted), introduce a Robin Hood or Scarlett Pimpernell type resistance figure who feels the city shouldn't have surrendered without fight. He's impressed with the party and hopes they'll join his band of 'merry men' and battle tyranny. If they decline, then he offers to help get them out of the area (aboard a smuggler's ship who is a friend - think Han Solo, etc.) in exchange for a favor to be repaid later (hook to be left if you need it).

 

[gamerprinter]

Aside from Celebrim's excellent suggestions, I would say getting out of a "just invaded" city will be problematic. Perhaps the main gate would be open to allow invader traffic (as the other gates would be certainly closed and guarded), supplies and soldiers to come in an out, however, non-invaders would not be allowed to leave, unless they were known and friendly to the invading force. Just as the many adventures, books and movies of trying to get into a controlled city, getting out means using less normal means. Undoubtably the city has at least one secret exit out - escape tunnel for the nobility, or for a major church facility. Otherwise, getting out means getting into the catacombs and sewers beneath the city and getting out under the walls to a hopefully unwatched exit.

 

[Celebrim]

I would say getting out of a "just invaded" city will be problematic. Perhaps the main gate would be open to allow invader traffic (as the other gates would be certainly closed and guarded), supplies and soldiers to come in an out, however, non-invaders would not be allowed to leave, unless they were known and friendly to the invading force. Just as the many adventures, books and movies of trying to get into a controlled city, getting out means using less normal means.

Which is why I recommend having an NPC show up with a plan and knowledge the PC's couldn't possibly have - particularly if neither the DM nor the party is interested in playing out 'resistance fighter' for a couple of sessions. Which isn't to say that I don't think getting out can't be tense and fun, but this is probably not a time to leave it up to the players to develop a plan unless everyone seems really excited and has good ideas for engaging that story.

Undoubtably the city has at least one secret exit out - escape tunnel for the nobility, or for a major church facility. Otherwise, getting out means getting into the catacombs and sewers beneath the city and getting out under the walls to a hopefully unwatched exit.

There are all sorts of ways to go here: out through a water gate, sneaking into a dark section of the city wall between patrols of sentries and lowering PC's down, forging identities and passing out through a check point, hiding the PC's in cargo and having a smuggler take them out, flying them out on the backs of friendly flying creatures. Point is, if they want out, it's reasonable to facilitate it, and there are ways to make that exciting - from semi-scripted chase scenes, to sneaky skullduggery. And if the party lacks the resources to implement a plan themselves, use the opportunity to build the parties relationship with one or more important NPCs - a rebel noble, head of the thieves guild, merchant prince, former officer and disgruntled patriot, etc. That way, if they ever revisit this area, you have immediately available strong hooks.

 

[Boris2112]

Well from what you posted it seems that first you need to clear up a few things in your own mind. 1. How have the troops of the invading army in the city been received by the general populous?(The citizenry, town guard, merchants) 2. How have the invading troops been treating the populous so far?(Violently or Passively) 3. How do the customs and laws of the invaders differ from the occupied cities?(and will the differences cause friction) 4. What is the leader of the invaders who now controls the city like? (Is he/she brutal, benevolent, shrewd) As for the next adventure I would say that you can go one of two ways. 1. If you don't want to run a city campaign then the players have already given you an out. Instead of 20 new soldiers coming make it 40 and have a child who the players did not see but witnessed the altercation between the players and the soldiers come running to warn the players that they have stirred up a hornets nest, and a large group of soldiers is in route . Then the players will have to find a way to slip out of the city. 2. The players are forced to go underground hiding and perhaps fighting to make the city to nasty for the invaders to stay. This will cause a number of things to happen which will cause the players to either stop as the brutality of the invaders will rise as they seek to subjugate the civil populous. You really have many paths to take. I could go on all day but maybe this has gotten your juices flowing. I can't really help more than generally as I do not know the inner workings of your campaign world and I also have no knowledge of the pathfinder game system. Good luck. If you want help let me know and give me more specific info in the form of answers to the questions above. I hope this helped. Have fun.