RSKennan
Explorer
I'm running an extremely loose short term sandbox game for my group while we wait for one of our players to get situated in his new job so we can return to our normal GURPS campaign, run by another member of the group. It's not meant to be too serious or hardcore. We play online, using Fantasy Grounds.
When I run a sandbox, I don't cater encounters to the party's level, but I try to make sure that the hooks I give them are worthy of their power (or too challenging). The lower-level stuff is below their radar for the most part.
The party rose to 4th level, and acquired a Deck of Many Things. Again, this is a short term sandbox game, so anything that increases randomness and chaos is a benefit to me...in general. They got wind of one of the campaign setting's macguffin artifacts within a day's travel, and went to see if they could recover it for the cleric's church. They got the drop on a party of demons (nobles in the setting), but the fight went badly. They were very seriously outmatched and a couple of them almost died. At this point, the Cleric decided to leave things up to his god, and started drawing from the Deck of Many Things. One of the cards he drew was the Skull: He had to fight Death. Meanwhile, the main bad guy among the demons had read the cleric's mind, and realized that he had knowledge of the locations of some of the other campaign macguffins, and so wanted to capture him alive. The Bad guy attacked Death, causing another Death to spawn to attack him. One of the other demons, acting on earlier commands to take the characters alive, also went to attack the Death that was attacking the cleric, but before that could happen more cards were drawn; including both of the ones that granted XP, and the Moon (1d3 wishes, with 2 wishes rolled).
The player with the wishes wished that time would turn back to just before the fight, but that all the beneficial effects of drawing from the deck would remain in place. I ruled that since the Deck was acting against itself, it could accomplish this. The combat never happened, and the PCs were still hidden as they were in the beginning. However, the player had acquired enough XP to jump from 4th level to 10th level, along with some treasure. The bad cards went back into the deck.
For his second and final wish, he's told me, he will wish that the other players receive the benefits of having drawn the same beneficial cards he did. I'm going to allow it. My precedent was that the Deck can act against the Deck. I'd certainly be more restrictive if this campaign was going to last more than a few more weeks (I'd never include the Deck in the first place), but for this campaign, it's fine.
Anyway, I have a fight that the players will now likely be able to handle, which is great, but after that, all of the previous hooks have been rendered worthless. The players may pursue them, but they won't get much out of them. What I need now are some good 10th level and higher hooks and random encounter ideas.
As a bit of background, the world is ruled by demons and devils, and there is a monotheistic church of good that the peasants and other disenfranchised members of society are followers of. The demons and devils allow this to keep rebellions to a minimum.
Thanks in advance.
When I run a sandbox, I don't cater encounters to the party's level, but I try to make sure that the hooks I give them are worthy of their power (or too challenging). The lower-level stuff is below their radar for the most part.
The party rose to 4th level, and acquired a Deck of Many Things. Again, this is a short term sandbox game, so anything that increases randomness and chaos is a benefit to me...in general. They got wind of one of the campaign setting's macguffin artifacts within a day's travel, and went to see if they could recover it for the cleric's church. They got the drop on a party of demons (nobles in the setting), but the fight went badly. They were very seriously outmatched and a couple of them almost died. At this point, the Cleric decided to leave things up to his god, and started drawing from the Deck of Many Things. One of the cards he drew was the Skull: He had to fight Death. Meanwhile, the main bad guy among the demons had read the cleric's mind, and realized that he had knowledge of the locations of some of the other campaign macguffins, and so wanted to capture him alive. The Bad guy attacked Death, causing another Death to spawn to attack him. One of the other demons, acting on earlier commands to take the characters alive, also went to attack the Death that was attacking the cleric, but before that could happen more cards were drawn; including both of the ones that granted XP, and the Moon (1d3 wishes, with 2 wishes rolled).
The player with the wishes wished that time would turn back to just before the fight, but that all the beneficial effects of drawing from the deck would remain in place. I ruled that since the Deck was acting against itself, it could accomplish this. The combat never happened, and the PCs were still hidden as they were in the beginning. However, the player had acquired enough XP to jump from 4th level to 10th level, along with some treasure. The bad cards went back into the deck.
For his second and final wish, he's told me, he will wish that the other players receive the benefits of having drawn the same beneficial cards he did. I'm going to allow it. My precedent was that the Deck can act against the Deck. I'd certainly be more restrictive if this campaign was going to last more than a few more weeks (I'd never include the Deck in the first place), but for this campaign, it's fine.
Anyway, I have a fight that the players will now likely be able to handle, which is great, but after that, all of the previous hooks have been rendered worthless. The players may pursue them, but they won't get much out of them. What I need now are some good 10th level and higher hooks and random encounter ideas.
As a bit of background, the world is ruled by demons and devils, and there is a monotheistic church of good that the peasants and other disenfranchised members of society are followers of. The demons and devils allow this to keep rebellions to a minimum.
Thanks in advance.
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