Running an Urban Adventure

[Jacob the Impaler]

I'm going to try something new, an urban adventure. I'm planning a few adventures set in a small, overcrowded port city called Anvil City that's experienced four days of unusually heavy rain. All of the background is figured out, but I honestly don't know how to run an adventure outside of a dungeon. I'll break it down in a few questions:

1) How do I pace it? I want a continuous flow of action, but not necessarily fighting inch for inch up a street.
2) How do I guide them to different places while allowing flexibility?
3) What could they run into in a city? Muggers are boring.
4) How do encounters work? I don't want to have to worry about large amounts of bystanders, guards, etc.
5) Tips on intrigue, plot twists? My group is not a big role-playing group, and I want to get them to be more involved, guessing what's next.

---

Some (a lot of) background:

The crude sewers and gutters have overflowed, mixing with the rainwater that flows down the streets like a digusting river. The port has been closed three days, and tensions are flaring, especially on the Waterfront. Desperate gangs of half-orc dockworkers denied pay or food are clashing with authority and each other. The illicit Fishbone District is swarming with stranded, claustrophobic and drunken sailors. Prices in the bazaar have skyrocketed due to the lax regulations against price gougers who take advantage of the situation. Mercenaries from the Mercantile Guild try desperately to keep order alongside weary, poorly-equipped city watchmen. The count is calling for elite adventurers to stop the storm before the city is washed away or burned down. Who will rise to the challenge and be the hero of an entire nation?

Unfortunately, not my players. They're all level 2, not ready to face a mad wizard experimenting with electricity and forbidden magic.

But there's plenty of trouble inside the city itself. In addition to the unrest, tribes of kobolds have been forced from their homes in the sewer. Until ten years ago, kobolds owned the sewers, claiming that they were part of ancestral caverns that had been settled centuries before Anvil City was built. In return for keeping the sewers clean and free of monsters, they were allowed to live undisturbed. The previous count was not keen on kobolds, however, and offered the leaders of the tribes gold and chartered businesses in exchange for the sewers. Many accepted, and the sewers were turned over to city authority. Kobolds who resisted were killed, and the rest were forced to pay tribute to the city and abide by surface rules. After a series of brief, unsucessful insurrections, they submitted.

Now that they've been forced from their homes, they seek revenge against their former leaders who sold them out for comfortable surface lives. Already, two bodies of kobolds have been found. Luko, an unscrupulous pawn shop owner, was found hanging and mutilated in his ransacked store. More missed was the generous fish seller Kaalik, who was drowned in a flooded alley in plain sight by a gang of shrieking kobolds.

It just so happens that the players are hunkered in an inn owned by Azik-takt, a former chief who is worried he'll be next. In return for a good sum of gold, he wants the party to keep him safe and track down the killers.

---

So far I have a bar fight where hired half-orc thugs come in and try to kill Azik-takt. After that, nothing. I need some ideas, because I don't want to waste all this background on nothing. I'll keep you guys updated on everything as time goes on. Peace!

 

[SteelDraco]

1) How do I pace it? I want a continuous flow of action, but not necessarily fighting inch for inch up a street.

Expect that they're going to move from place to place. Unlike in a dungeon, there are significant areas between encounters that aren't significant, and will tend to be glossed over. You don't have to map everywhere they go; just have a good idea of the layout of the city. They say they want to go somewhere, they usually can, just provide some interesting details along the way to showcase your city. It's a hard balance to find, between 'generic city' and too much detail. That's something that depends on your group and how they expect things to play. Maybe toss a few descriptions in that they can choose to get involved in or not, just to see how they react to things. The majority of encounters in a city shouldn't be combat. Expect to roleplay more.

2) How do I guide them to different places while allowing flexibility?

Multiple avenues of investigation. Never depend on a single clue; have at least a couple, that point to different ways of finding the same information, or different avenues that end at the right place. When I'm designing urban adventures, I usually have a couple of tracks in my head about how they could find out different things. As long as you have a solid picture in your mind about what's going on, you should be all right. PCs will surprise you; as long as you can think on your feet, you'll do all right.

3) What could they run into in a city? Muggers are boring.

In the setting you've described so well? All kinds of things. Rampaging kobolds, looters, doomsday cultists, elemental byproducts of the magical storm, angry mobs of half-orcs or other residents... you have a lot of material to play with. Think about the different forces playing around, and how they'd interact. Do the half-orcs who just want to get paid team up with the kobolds to rob and kill? Who else is being displaced by the floods? Natural forces can be encounters (a flash flood ripping through the streets, or PCs having the opportunity to save a noble or guard patrol, earning a valuable ally).

4) How do encounters work? I don't want to have to worry about large amounts of bystanders, guards, etc.

I generally assume random people just run away from combat after the first round or two. It prevents massive AOE spells for a little bit, and I'll usually start the board with a scattering of random pedestrians when a fight breaks out in the street. But guess what? Most of those people just run away when swords get drawn and balls of fire start shooting across the street. How would you expect modern people to react to a sudden gunfight? They're not going to stick around.

5) Tips on intrigue, plot twists? My group is not a big role-playing group, and I want to get them to be more involved, guessing what's next.

They have to pick sides at some point. If they're skilled adventurers, people are going to try to get them to help, and that will usually mean going up against someone else. As long as you know the agenda and capabilities of all the different groups, you can figure out what they're going to do pretty quickly.

So far I have a bar fight where hired half-orc thugs come in and try to kill Azik-takt. After that, nothing. I need some ideas, because I don't want to waste all this background on nothing. I'll keep you guys updated on everything as time goes on. Peace!

Probably they'll want to find out about the half-orcs. Who hired them? How can they find that out? Are they carrying something that would lead them to a certain person? Ancient coins that are only going to be found down in the kobold tunnels? Were they paid in famous wine vintages found only in a rich noble's wine cellar? Working for a particular half-orc boss, who could be pounded on for additional information?

One thing I've noticed about your plot - the PCs aren't involved in the real quest, which is figuring out why it's raining so much. I wouldn't generally include an element like that in a game without involving the PCs in the real deal. They're the stars of the show, after all. If they feel like they're just running damage control while the real heroes fix the problem, that might not jive with them too well.

 

[Firedancer]

Kudos for a cool idea. I'm assuming the intent here is to build up from 2nd level to high enough to confront the wizard and stop the storm. The interim is getting levels and involved with the city to want to stop this mage?

1) any group working in a city will have a number of locations seen as safe. If the PC's stop a gang, then survivors will flee to the base; they can track (chasing, tracking, watching from roof, rumours) them back to here (especially if the gang wears colours).

PCs will wander off track, going to areas you'd not thought of. I'd suggest getting a few interesting hooks lined up that are good for a couple of sessions. SteelDraco has made some suggestions; others: a wiley merchant starts buying up/robbing stores of a normally commonplace food, stockpiling to sell at massive profit - PC's hired on 1 side of this or the other.

a) Overcrowding of prisons; prison break.
b) Illict goods go bad in this magical storm, causing unheard of sideeffect; track it back and destroy the goods.
c) Priestess of the goddess of disease spreading disease.

2) different clues leading to the same place. The kobold traditionalist will do just that - follow tradition. Somewhere you should have some recorded history (or retired diplomat who negotiated with the kobolds); sites of temple, graveyard of chiefs, cultural item on display. They will want to recover these, so some activities will be centred on this, leading to overlaid maps of streets v kobold caverns, mummy-esque animation.

Tying in the above 3 a) the kobolds know inside this prison is a traitor, so they set up various citizens (a PC?) just to get the prison to crack, and during the chaos, they can deal with the traitor. b) from a yet as unflooded cavern the bring part of this drug. c) priestess needs carriers to spread this further....

3) see above! Plus: rival ships crews slugging it out, at first good natured rivalry (mud-dipping, which is emulated by others), esculating this further. A stranded pirate crew sitting on latest haul. food riots, warehouse breaking. Monster manual 3 - drowned. Living spells as random fall out of the storm: lesser like shocking grasp or create water (a virtual waterfall drowning you, even indoors!) to lightning bolt.

4) actions inside buildings are a godsend! out of site, out of mind. But there will be the law if they leave masses of butchered bodies. Steeldraco suggests making people run away; good idea. But as things get worse the citizens may get a little bloodthirsty and cheer them on! Be open to ret-conning spell choice. If the player is not used to a city adventure then he might make decisions more inline with standard adventure, only to find its unusable.

5) I write up major npcs; goals aspirations and what jobs they might offer and how they interact with other groups. Gives me something to go from when the PC's interfere. Plottwist - the leader wanted the sewers for his own reasons. The floods wash this out. Some of the civilised cheifs deserve to be removed!

 

[Piratecat]

This is a great idea; I love the "after four days of heavy rain" idea.

 

[Robert Ranting]

I'm currently running an Urban Campaign, and I've found the thing that works best is to have several plots going at once, with the PCs choosing the order in which to do them. Clearly, you've already figured this out for yourself, since we have 1) A magical storm that could lead into higher-level adventures. 2)Kobolds coming up from the sewers, and 3) Half-Orc dockworkers getting bored and violent. I also think that Firedancer's idea of a Merchant deliberately buying up stock in a common commodity (alcohol or flour seem like good ideas), and involving a pirate ship that's been stuck in port would be great ideas to incorporate.

I'd introduce the PCs to the town by describing it during rainfall, with water deep enough to have a noticeable current. As they make their way into the city, they see an attractive young woman trying to carry a couple heavy bundles across the street, sopping wet and obviously encumbered, as the PCs approach, one of the sacks breaks and drops her supplies into the moving water. Theoretically, if your PCs are decent people, they will help the poor woman gather up her supplies, and take her to where she's going. Turns out, this damsel in ordinary distress is a chatty, sassy barmaid who is more than willing to volunteer information without the PCs asking for it. She works at the inn run by your Kobold NPC, she was picking up some of the monopolized trade good for the inn's kitchen, and one of the other guests is a mysterious stranger who pays in foreign currency and carries some obviously mystic bauble with him at all times, although he tries to keep it hidden poorly. If the PCs help her back to the inn with the goods, have her buy the party a round of (cheap) drinks on her for their help, and proceed to chat them up about local news. (You're out of towners, right?) Once you've dangled enough plot hooks, send in the Half-Orc Thugs!

Violence has a way of galvanizing PC plans. Once the thugs are dispatched, they'll likely immediately go sniffing down that plot trail, but you will have established several other points that they can go back to when they hit a dead end. The best thing you can do with an Urban Game is to set up a situation where when one thing isn't making progress, the answer to "Well, what do we do now?" is "Well, there's always investigating (insert alternate plot hook)". Since a city is usually very easy to get around in, and covers a defined,small area, it's easy for PCs to pursue multiple adventures more or less simultaneously, shifting gears as new information presents itself. Out of Character, you may want to make sure the PCs have a notebook or something so the "organized guy" in the group could jot things down to remember later, and when it seems appropriate, call for a PC to make an intelligence check to remember an event that the Player might have forgotten, but his 16 Intelligence Wizard should probably remember as a new piece of information makes it significant. Also, don't be afraid to make some encounters particularly challenging. If there's a willing temple in town, healing and restoration should be at hand, available within 10-15 minutes after an encounter. Also, allow the PCs chances for escape or at least leave the option open to retreat and come back later with better plans and equipment (perhaps even an NPC ally, if the party decides that they want help).

Generally, if the rain is continuously heavy, you probably don't have to worry about non-essential street encounters with anyone but town guards. If someone is outside in this weather, they have a reason to be outside, and those reasons are often plot-points worth investigating. Referring back to the stranger at the inn, he would be a good person to have the PCs see lurking about, especially if you decide to have the supernatural storm throw up some random encounters. My thought is that this stranger is a servant of the evil wizard who is shaping up to be a BBEG, sent to observe the storm's effect on the city. The magic bauble he carries allows him to record what he sees and send it to his employer remotely. If your PCs are level 2 when they first enter town, I'd make this guy level 5 or so, with a mix of roguish and magical capabilities (Bard or a Rogue/Arcane multiclass if you stick to core books) focused on making a quick escape. Whenever the weather is worst, this guy's there, and so the PCs will likely confront him. Have him flee the first time, (his mission is just to observe, after all) and if the PCs remember he was staying at the Inn, have him abruptly move to another locale within the city. Let the PCs deal with some other plothook, and then, see him at a distance again, letting them know he's still around. Once they're curious enough, the PCs will investigate. Gather Information checks can lead the PCs to where he might be, or they could use divination or simply tail him if they can keep up with him. Eventually, have the PCs catch and subdue him in a dramatic location (a flooded dock-house with a primitive crane, lofts full of random goods, and maybe even a tethered boat provides a wide variety of tactical movement options and obstructions.) If they subdue and interrogate him, or if they simply rifle through his pockets, they should find clues leading them to the identity of the mad wizard conjuring this storm. Even if the PCs aren't ready to take that guy on, this knowledge could be invaluable to the Count, who will likely reward them for the information (if they also provide proof, such as the servant himself, or letters found in his possession).

The same sort of setup might also be used to weave the kobolds in and out of the adventure. Make your PCs get used to the idea of making spot and listen checks often, and use the terrain to spice things up. (A kobold can slip through a sewer grate too small for a human, a Half-Orc might drop a full crate of goods from an upper floor to crush a PC investigating a warehouse, a spellcaster can use the roof of a building for elevation and cover while harrying the PCs, etc.)

As far as pacing goes, let your PCs determine that. Figure out ahead of time what NPCs know, what their agendas are, and what information they will gladly volunteer, and what they will keep secret. If you think that they need to slow down, have them hit a dead end in an investigation (sometimes, even the best investigators have to wait for the criminal to act again) or give them an encounter with lasting consequences that will force them to rest (poison and energy drain are heinous at low levels, and both monstrous vermin and undead might make their way into a city of a decent size, especially with the sewers flooded and a pirate ship from an unknown port in town). Sure, the PCs can press on despite these setbacks, but the logical thing for do is for their characters to step back, and follow another plot hook. If you have enough hooks in the water, and enough compelling reasons for the PCs to care about saving this city and being heroes, then they will go about doing so on their own time, at their own pace, and so long as they have some control over which adventure path they're following, they won't feel any more railroaded than your average MMORPG player.

If you really want inspiration of how to pace these things, my advice is to watch crime dramas. Law & Order, NYPD Blue, CSI, The Shield, and any show that involves a private investigator will give you an idea of how to pace mystery and intrigue based adventures in an urban environment. The only difference in terms of storytelling is that transportation is on foot, and your PCs use spells, swords, and arrows instead of guns. While it might seem anachronistic, your PCs might recognize and appreciate elements that they find familiar from similar source material, and might even run with it ( PCs calling the villain a "perp" and using terms like "shakedown", "stakeout", and "racial profiling"). Shows like The Dresden Files, Charmed, and The X-files also can provide inspiration for hiding the fantastic or horrific in an urban setting without necessarily alerting everyone in the city of it's existance.

Hopefully, my advice will be of some use to you. Best of luck.

Robert "Ptolus, City Works, Cityscape, and Various Other Sources Could Also Help" Ranting

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

You can set up the "Experimenting Weather Wizard" as a possible foe for down the road - that mystery doesn't necessarily need to be solved entirely, but it would be nice to have it partly solved - ideally with some input from the PC's, even though they can't deal directly with the wizard. Perhaps they solve the mystery to the extent of learning that it was a wizard responsible, but not which one.

Otherwise, I think you've got a good start, and there are a lot of great suggestions in this thread so far!

 

[schporto]

Well, if the kobolds used to keep the sewers free of monsters, who's doing it now? And are those creatures out and about because their homes are awfully wet.

You definitely need one crazy doom sayer standing on the street corner shouting about the great flood that's coming... He may be right, or he may be crazy.

As for the wizard, maybe the more powerful adventurers team up with your PCs with a plan of 'we'll take out/distract the wizard, you destroy the McGuffin."
-cpd

 

[Bobitron]

Great idea for a game! I'll store this somewhere in my brain to access later.

 

[Jacob the Impaler]

I didn't expect this many great ideas, thanks! I'm getting creative now.

I'll probably add the following:

The wizard is a high level elementalist (Tome and Blood) experimenting with lost technology. His laboratory is in an old tower on a remote rock twenty miles offshore, which is the eye of the supernatural storm. The Count suspects this, but the sea is too rough to send any ships, and it's too windy to send hippogriff riders. Perhaps if there was a way to travel UNDER the sea...

The current count is popular for giving the Church of the Sunrise a huge grant to build a temple in the maze-like tenement district. The Church is a sect of Pelor that specializes inproviding healthcare and sanitation to the poorest, and conditions have improved dramatically since their arrival. They are universally loved and can walk safely even in the roughest parts of town, if they don't mind being mobbed by those who need healing. However, since the onset of the weird storm, they have been taxed. Purified water is in short supply, and their triage is filled with sick children and beaten townsfolk. Healing potions are dwindling and becoming more expensive, and they fear they may soon be the target of angry looters. If they could help find healing potions or wands, the party could gain a valuable ally...

Half-orcs are prized dockworkers, living on less than and being stronger than the average human. This causes no small emnity between them and humans, but now that nobody is working, they are beginning to band together. Most do small-scale pillaging and petty robbery, but others are hiring themselves out as muscle for the unscupulous. The kobolds have hired one such gang, as their own physical capacities and courage are limited. The humans, who are less suspect, serve as eyes and ears, finding the whereabouts of sellout kobolds. Their base is a condemned tenement linked to the flooded sewer, complete with five floors of mazelike corridors and rotting, broken floorboards. They don't get along perfectly, as the kobolds aren't exactly swimming in food or silver. Perhaps a bribe could turn thugs over to the side of the players...

Although the kobolds became subject to taxes and surface laws, this gave them more incentive to hunt down sewer monsters and sell their valued parts to pay tribute. This disrupted the sewer's foul ecosystem, giving rise to swarms or dire rats and other scavengers whose numbers wer kept in check by larger predators. Many drowned in the flood, although many still have spilled onto the surface, feral and diseased. An occasional ooze has also been spotted gliding along the flooded street, searching for a meal...

A sign of the city's liberalism, a small cult of Eruthnyl (sp?) based in the tenement district has been tolerated for years. They do not embrace the evil aspects of their God, preferring to go the route of unbridled chaos and revelry. They host a notorious festival in the spring that feature mass sacrifice of bulls, anything-goes street fighting and general debauchary. They also serve as intelligence for and against criminal organizations and bless the count's men before going into battle alongside priests of Heironious and Kord. Until the flooding, they were carefully monitored. Now they have gone missing, doing God-knows-what. Everyone would rest easier knowing their whereabouts...

Lightning mephits have been popping up across the city, stirring up mischief and playing pranks. Annoyed, frightened and overwhelmed business owners want them whacked before they can do any serious damage. Some worry they could only be the beginning...

A self-proclaimed doomsday prophet is gathering a flock of beggars, youth and dispossed merchants in flooded courtyards. He claims that Heironious has brought the storm to punish the city for its tolerance of brothels, drug dealers and "promisciousness". And unless they can rise up and wipe the city clean of vice, the city will be destroyed. Everyone not with them is a potential target, but the taverns, brothels and opium dens in the Fishbone District are particularly worried. The "prophet" has shown to have a degree of magical ability, and his followers are very desperate...

A smalltime grocer claims that he was robbed by a rival, who is sitting on stockpiled goods in a private warehouse. Is he telling the truth?

Zombies! Necromancers once used the sewers for their experiments. Now that they've flooded, their undead servants have washed into the bay. Panicked anglers tell stories of dead men's hands reaching from the water to grab them. "It's a sign of the end, it is..."

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I generally assume random people just run away from combat after the first round or two. It prevents massive AOE spells for a little bit, and I'll usually start the board with a scattering of random pedestrians when a fight breaks out in the street. But guess what? Most of those people just run away when swords get drawn and balls of fire start shooting across the street. How would you expect modern people to react to a sudden gunfight? They're not going to stick around.

There's actually a 'terrain type' called "Crowd" in the DMG to handle such situation...

Here's what the SRD has to say about crowds.

Crowds: Urban streets are often full of people going about their daily lives. In most cases, it isn’t necessary to put every 1st-level commoner on the map when a fight breaks out on the city’s main thoroughfare. Instead just indicate which squares on the map contain crowds. If crowds see something obviously dangerous, they’ll move away at 30 feet per round at initiative count 0. It takes 2 squares of movement to enter a square with crowds. The crowds provide cover for anyone who does so, enabling a Hide check and providing a bonus to Armor Class and on Reflex saves.

Later
silver