Opinions on adventure concept?

[Pielorinho]

Just don't be upset if the players start singing, "Go ahead and hate your nei-ighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend...."

(Seriously, it's a cool idea)
Daniel

 

[carpedavid]

Or you can have the object of the quest, unbeknown to the players, be something abstract. So an ancient king could have been buried with "all the treasures of his kingdom"; the PCs go looking for gold and silver, but the treasure turns out to be the representations of the king's law, the church, his people - in other words a metaphor for his rule.

You could also do something akin to Qin's terra-cotta soldiers: clay reproductions of the kingdom's treasure. These would obviously have important historic and artistic value, but would be essentially worthless from a materials standpoint.

 

[Angcuru]

I actually like this idea. One would think that considering how historically, so many tombs have been sought out and looted due to tales of gold and such, that a society would begin to bury their dead (leaders) with representations of their vast wealth, as in death, a body is a representation of the spirit.

Genius. But I also think that the people may get a bit upset if you dig up their leader. Don't you think the British would get upset if we burst into their Cathedrals and ran off with the bones of all the dead kings, etc.? I sure would. Think of the mess it would make!

 

[Lu Wei Fong]

Provided it's used in moderation, this is an excellent way to spice up any campaign and add a bit of uncertainty to it , keeps the players on their feet and alert. However, if you overdo it, they'll come to expect it and it'll lose the quality of surprise that made it so interesting in the first place. So be careful with it.
As a side note, another way you could twist the ol' quest experience would be to have the players inadvertantly helping the enemy. Say they're tracking down the shattered shards of some archaic artifact that, according to the lore they've gathered on it will "Finally subdue all of Devil-kind, once and for all." What the players don't know is that this will happen because the artifact once re-assembled drains the alternate planes of all their power, energy, and influence. So yes, it subdues all of devil-kind, but along with all the benevolent planes as well. Perhaps this was the plan of some malicious Wyrm or Arch-Mage the whole time and the players simply did the work for them. "oops."

 

[maddman75]

Here's what I did one time to twist up the worn out quest plot.

Characters were pretty much the only adventurers in town, and had fought off bandits, becoming local celebrities.

Old man approaches in tavern, sells them a map of a nearby dungeon holding great treasures. So they get through the dungeon and get the magic whosits.

Only they've been set up. The old man was a spy, and there's a contingent of bad guys right outside the dungeon, hoping to catch the heros as they come out, still weak from the adventure. To make matters even worse, the local bandit lord was in on it and conquered the town while they were off mucking around in the dungeon.

Last time I did this they were screaming for the bandit lord's blood. Come to think of it, that was a whole other group. Might need to recycle that plot sometime...