Need some help tying together an adventure

[Lord Zar]

Hi,

I'm creating a campaign with a with where the first part will revolve around pirates. I'm having a little bit of trouble creating the final adventure for this path though. Here is an overall overview

1 - PCs are captured by slavers and destined for a remote and secretly located to general population slaver stronghold / city to be sold. Call it "Hub" for now.
2 - PCs escape from capture before arriving at "Hub" and through an adventure get a boat that carries them to a remote fishing village.
3 - Village is an, unknown to general public, port of exit and entry for slavers and pirates in the region
4 - PCs find & destroy the small pirate operation in the village and find a map to the "Hub" of pirate activity.
5 - PCs agree to end the slavers once and for all

This is where I need some help: I'm having a hard time figuring out how to run this main hub.
a- run it as a dungeon crawl where everyone is out to get them - culminating with fighting the lord of the slavers (and bringing the operation down for good)
b - run it as a pirate controlled city where they have to blend in to get close the the main villain and figure out how to get close enough to eliminate him without being detected by the general population.
c - something else

option A just seems a little too far fetched but is fairly easy to run, Option B sounds more reasonable but I think it would be super complex to GM appropriately

thoughts and / or suggestions on how to run this?

thanks in advance

 

[Gilladian]

Ummm, my pcs would never get that far. They'd find some totally other plot at around point 1.5 or maybe 2 and the game would veer off into uncharted territory. Never plan that anything WILL happen...

 

[Imaculata]

Seems like B is definitely the better option. The first part of this could revolve around finding allies to help overthrow the pirate leader. Which means lots of roleplaying, talking to npc's, and deception.

The pirate leader probably has a few henchmen that keep a look out for suspicious activity. I would make it very clear to the players that these are the few key figures they should be wary of. Most of the other pirates probably don't care much about the players, since the place most likely is already a hive of scum and villainy, and they wouldn't necessarily be on the look out for intruders. But those most closest to the pirate leader would be.

I would probably throw in a complication regarding the pirate leader. If the players are able to find allies that are in favor of overthrowing the captain, then there probably is a good reason why they haven't done so already. There could be some sort of supernatural reason why getting rid of the pirate captain is not that simple. This could lead to a minor dungeon crawl, where the players seek out the source of power of the captain, and take it out, before confronting the captain directly.

You should also think about what the consequences would be if the players were to be discovered. The pirates would probably attempt to capture the players, and execute any suspected conspirators that are seen with the players. The execution of innocent npc's are often a great motivation for the players to attempt some sort of heroic rescue, which would lead to more action and spectacle.

 

[Celebrim]

I would not expect this railroad to survive the first switching station.

What you haven't yet learned as a GM is that you can't plan like that. You have to plan for all the forks that might happen.

a) The PC's might not get captured. It's hard to capture someone that is intent on resisting. You might want to just start with them on the boat captured.
b) The PC's might not decide to escape. They might decide to make the best of it and win their freedom through some other means.
c) Upon getting a boat, they might not decide to go to this little fishing village. Upon getting there, they might immediately leave.
d) They might decide to cooperate with the pirates rather than fight against them. They might decide being pirates is more fun than fighting pirates.
e) The PC's might not decide after defeating the pirates in the village to follow up with destroying the pirates in the 'Hub'.
f) Conceptually, you are trying to run a linear plot in an environment that maximizes the PC's ability to set their own agenda and go where they want. Since you seem to be an inexperienced DM, this is a recipe for disaster.

Your whole plot is based around the PC's making the decisions you think they should make or that you'd want them to make. You've not actually given them hooks or motivations. You've not really established the reasons 'Why' this is happening. You're going to quickly run into the problem that the PC's agenda may not match your agenda. An ocean campaign is a Sandbox.

Now, all of this is repairable, but it involves allowing the players to have at least the appearance of being proactive and probably working with the players to give them hooks - "My sister has been captured by pirates!" or "My father was murdered by pirates!" or what have you. You are trying to treat it as an Linear adventure, and that probably won't work. You need to build a sandbox filled with side quests, lairs, numerous NPCs, and multiple plots. The main reoccurring villains might be these pirate/slavers, but allow the game to evolve to that organically, with the PC's deciding what they should do about it.

 

[briand97]

Perhaps in my attempt for brevity I neglected to include the hooks, of which there are many. And to clarify, this is not an ocean adventure. It just happens to start around an ocean I'm not really a sandbox gm I prefer having a linear path with compelling reasons for PCs to follow it. If they don't follow the path I can throw in more hooks or improvise if needed. To be clear, this arc provides some key information about the main antagonist (whose not pirate related). They can get this info in other ways but this is the most direct

A) they will start as captured - start with a bang
B) they really don't have a choice to not escape as the boat they are on sinks (the pirate captain drowns) stranding them on an island (I guess they could choose to stay and die of the elements though). Eventually they find a way off the island, a small not very sea worthy ship with no supplies
C) agreed they might not go to the specific village but any place they land I can pretty much plop in the pirate operation. Plus they will have a map showing the intended destination as pretty much the only port that they have supplies and a worthy craft to reach. They might leave immediately but they have almost no supplies and again I can pop the pirate operation in any town.
D) I've played with this group for years and highly doubt they would become pirates, helping out a small fishing village is right up their alley
E) true, this is a hook that might take some finesse. I will need to put some thought into this one. Currently there is a unrelated side quest between D and E. I was going to have them find a journal at end of D which gets translated in after side quest and points them to hub where they discover the pirate leader is none other than the captain they saw drown
F) most of the campaign is inland. I just thought it would be fun to add a few recurring villains ie the captain of the initial pirate ship

To immaculate - I'm leaning towards your response even though I think it promises to double the amount of prep... and to answer your question about a complication, I think the fact that they saw him die might give them significant intrigue (is he undead, immortal or something far more sinister.

I'm still unsure on how best prep, would you recommend just fleshing out the hub and letting the PCs figure out the best way to kill said captain and kind of wing it ie know who usually guards the leader, if they want to enlist help role play,if they want to jump in guns blazing then have an outline of what they would encounter, etc...

Thanks for the help

 

[Bawylie]

Perhaps in my attempt for brevity I neglected to include the hooks, of which there are many. And to clarify, this is not an ocean adventure. It just happens to start around an ocean I'm not really a sandbox gm I prefer having a linear path with compelling reasons for PCs to follow it. If they don't follow the path I can throw in more hooks or improvise if needed. To be clear, this arc provides some key information about the main antagonist (whose not pirate related). They can get this info in other ways but this is the most direct

A) they will start as captured - start with a bang
B) they really don't have a choice to not escape as the boat they are on sinks (the pirate captain drowns) stranding them on an island (I guess they could choose to stay and die of the elements though). Eventually they find a way off the island, a small not very sea worthy ship with no supplies
C) agreed they might not go to the specific village but any place they land I can pretty much plop in the pirate operation. Plus they will have a map showing the intended destination as pretty much the only port that they have supplies and a worthy craft to reach. They might leave immediately but they have almost no supplies and again I can pop the pirate operation in any town.
D) I've played with this group for years and highly doubt they would become pirates, helping out a small fishing village is right up their alley
E) true, this is a hook that might take some finesse. I will need to put some thought into this one. Currently there is a unrelated side quest between D and E. I was going to have them find a journal at end of D which gets translated in after side quest and points them to hub where they discover the pirate leader is none other than the captain they saw drown
F) most of the campaign is inland. I just thought it would be fun to add a few recurring villains ie the captain of the initial pirate ship

To immaculate - I'm leaning towards your response even though I think it promises to double the amount of prep... and to answer your question about a complication, I think the fact that they saw him die might give them significant intrigue (is he undead, immortal or something far more sinister.

I'm still unsure on how best prep, would you recommend just fleshing out the hub and letting the PCs figure out the best way to kill said captain and kind of wing it ie know who usually guards the leader, if they want to enlist help role play,if they want to jump in guns blazing then have an outline of what they would encounter, etc...

Thanks for the help

I'd flesh it out two ways. One by zones, another by tasks.

Generally I'd say you have 3 types of zones (battle arenas, social hubs, and ball pits) and maybe 3-9 of each of these, depending on the length of your campaign. 3 of each for sure, more as/if needed.

Battle arenas are just nicely designed encounter spaces for fights. Multiple levels/heights, room for cover, kill boxes, stuff like that.

Social hubs are just places where the adventurers can schmooze. Markets, pubs, dark alley informant areas, that sort of deal.

And ball pits are neat areas that are just for exploring. Maybe some combat but that's incidental. Stuff like a shipwreck, the governor's manse, smuggler's cove. You get the idea.

Then you have your tasks. I'd say each task is a thing they need to get to the final encounter with the captain. So maybe they need to neutralize his top two lieutenants, deplete his monies, turn an ally, and sink his flagship. Just some cool piratey adventure stuff.

Then, to complete each task, you simply mix in the zones and sketch out a brief outline. So when they want to sink the flagship, they have to gather some intel in a social hub, delve the hidden base, have a battle across the wreckage of two crashed ships, and then they're free to sink the flagship. (Just conceptual, you have your own tasks in mind).

But the payoff here is that you use and reuse the zones so your players are criss-crossing these familiar places chasing different objectives. You'll reuse map assets and NPCs and whatnot but the entire playspace doesn't need to be any more complicated than a 9 square grid #. The tasks themselves sort of hint at which squares the players need to accomplish stuff in, and once the tasks are completed, they can have the showdown.


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