When things fall into place...

[MerricB]

Last session of my "Gary Gygax's Necropolis" game...

Due to PC deaths, I have three new PCs in the game, all of which come from Japan. While trying to work out a reason why a Ronin, Ninja and a LG Monk would be all together, I came up with the idea that the Ronin and the Ninja would be fleeing from some Ogre Magi gangs they'd offended. (I've been reading the Kamigawa trilogy).

So, I planned for the Ogre Mage they'd encountered to come into the town in disguise, and start to harass the PCs. All well and good.

At the beginning of the session, one of the other PCs decides to teleport back to Greyhawk to do some shopping, and the three new PCs decide to accompany him. Still all well and good. This will take ten minutes and then the adventure can resume.

Hmm. Greg just rolled a 100 on his percentile dice for the trip. That's a mishap. He's ended up at a "similar" place. Where can I have them end up?

I opened up my copy of Sandstorm and found a nice Touchstone site - the Temple of the Three. Well, let's use the random encounter there to see what they're facing. I roll the dice, and find they're facing... two OGRE MAGI!!!

Oh boy. This is going to work so well. I added in a magic circle that the Ogre Magi had drawn to "divert" them from their destination, and ended up with a combat that lasted an hour and almost slew a couple of PCs. (The two players who had stayed behind were laughing and enjoying how badly the teleport attempt had gone wrong).

At one point the Ogre Magi revealed they'd been sent to punish the new PCs for betraying their master. Hehe.

That was fun. That was memorable. And it was everything falling into place so well. It wouldn't have happened without having Sandstorm available to just use as a location and encounter resource, nor without my preparation for the session, nor without the pure (un)luck of Greg's teleportation dice.

I love this game!

(Details on my Necropolis game can be found in my Campaign blog

Cheers!

 

[Henry]

There are times when an idea comes SCREAMING out of left field, and fits so well it looks planned, and if you can convince the players you meant to do it, GO FOR IT. Me, I have a terrible poker face, but every once in a while the players aren't looking, and I can pull it off.

 

[iwatt]

There are times when an idea comes SCREAMING out of left field, and fits so well it looks planned, and if you can convince the players you meant to do it, GO FOR IT. Me, I have a terrible poker face, but every once in a while the players aren't looking, and I can pull it off.

Yup. IMC in the Silver Marches, I rolled a random encounetr and it turned up to be a small scouting party of fey'ri. Since I didn't want to have the miximg it up with the Fey'ri just yet (hadn't studied the stat blocks in a while so I wasn't feeling confident), so I decided they'd found tracks of elves that looked kinda wierd. The animal companions of both party rangers were distraught since they could smell the brimstone.

Of course my PCs decided that this was an evident plot hook

So they begin tracking the fey'ri. I deiced to give the fey'ri half a day head start to dissuade them from continuing the chase. No luck. So time passes and I decide to roll for another random encounter to spice things up. Comes up troll. So I decide that the trolls had ambushed the Fey'ri and taken them back to their lair. Of course the PCs decide they have to rescue these "innocents". Right about now I jst give up on getting them back on track and let them go troll hunting.....6 PCs average level 5 (sorcs so no fireballs ). I'm thinking it's going to be a hard fight (3 trolls in the ambush plus Momma back at home), so I set it up for them to have an obvious option to escape (and use my Hot Pursuit chase rules ). Of course the party somehow manages to walk over the trolls through great strategic planning and an insuffereable amount of natural 20's rolled by the full PA cleaving enlarged barbarian.

So finally I had to let them find the fey'ri.... inside the kettle. Momma Troll was preparing her world famous elf stew (extra spicy when using Fey'ri). I had to give the PCs a bone though, so I ended having them find a journal by the fey'ri leader talking aboput her life 1,000 yeasr ago (before been frozen in time, since I kinda remembered that had happened to some memebers of house Dalgloreth (sp?) ). It also mentioned orc slaves. You should have seen the look on my PCs face (all newbies to the FR except fopr a couple who are very good at keeping their OOC knowledge of the game separate).

So of course my carefully crafted Against the Horde campaign had to be set aside to focus on the PCs trying to unravel the mystery of these horned evil elves.....

 

[MerricB]

You've got to be careful with those side-quests: they can take on a life of their own.

(Possibly better than your actually planned adventure!)

Cheers!

 

[iwatt]

You've got to be careful with those side-quests: they can take on a life of their own.

(Possibly better than your actually planned adventure!)

Cheers!

I wish they were side quests.... Every single time I come up with a non combat random encounter my players decide it's plot relevant.