LogFAQs > #882497889

Mario_VS_DK posted...

Hmm. Anyone know of some cool quests I can give the players while they'll be waiting for someone for a few days in the small city next session?

I always like to tailor mini "throw away" scenes (ie, stuff unrelated to the main quest) to the characters themselves, based on how the players have been playing them (or just how they play in general). Know your player and how they play, and you will have a kit full of hooks you can use to reel them in.

For instance, if you have a player who tends to be sympathetic to NPCs, have the group see a woman being manhandled into an alley, or a fat merchant apparently being robbed. Imply they (the PCs) are the only ones who really notice it, so if they don't act no one will, but TRY to describe it all as part of an overall flavor description of the city, and don't linger (so they don't assume this is the deliberate plot they're meant to follow and immediately chase after it). Make it obvious that they're welcome to pursue or ignore it as they see fit.

Then, if they do intervene, there are complications. If they move to save the woman, the person manhandling her accuses her of being a criminal, and he's a bounty hunter sent to retrieve her. She claims he's an abusive ex she ran away from, and he's trying to take her back. Who do you believe? Maybe BOTH are lying? No matter which side the players choose, there will be future repercussions. There can even be repercussions if they don't choose either side - walk away from the whole mess or ignore it entirely, and they may later discover via other means that the conflict was important and they should have acted. Perhaps the woman was really an evil sorceress, and they had a chance to catch her early. Or perhaps she was a messenger of the king, and now the villains have one of the secret magic keys they need to do naughty things.

I also have a tendency to loot Lone Wolf for throwaway scene ideas:

http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/06tkot/sect219.htm

How do the players react to a scene like that? It might be only a momentary thing, but it can easily have later repercussions (that throwaway noble in that single scene shows up like three more times as an antagonist over the course of the next 20 years in those books).

You can also throw in minor, fun, not overly important scenes with a minor chance of reward, like this one:

http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/08tjoh/sect151.htm
http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/08tjoh/sect126.htm
http://www.projectaon.org/en/xhtml/lw/08tjoh/sect166.htm

To summarize, while on a barge and killing time before the "important" stuff happens, the player can either antagonize a fight or make a new friend depending on what type of beer they order. Then they can play a riddle game to make some extra coin, and ultimately wind up having an opportunity to fight a criminally wanted necromancer who just coincidentally crosses their path.

None of it has any real significance to the overall story, it's all just the little stuff that happens between the big scenes. But all of it CAN have much larger importance if the players really latch onto it (say, they begin an investigation into the necromancer, distracting themselves from their previous goals). Maybe they discover the necromancer is tied to their existing enemies... or perhaps they learn of a new, entirely unexpected threat...

Or maybe he's just a random dude in a world filled with random dudes.

Generally, though, every PC should have backstory you can mine for the occasional minor scene. Maybe they see an old friend they used to know. Or an old enemy they once defeated is now in the street begging for change. They see a pretty girl who reminds them of a lost love, or a painting of a far away land they once knew but can never return to.


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