Players running amok!

[bobirv]

Hi all,

I'm a fairly new DM running my fairly new group (2nd adventure for both of us) through Death in Freeport. They are not easily led, shall we say, but they're having a great time. The original quest of finding Lucius has all but been forgotten, though every once in a while it surfaces briefly. They are having a great time and are loving adventuring in the city (the lawless violence seems to suit them just fine!).

I have the Freeport City book and the additional stuff from the site here and am planning to get Denizens soon.

So here's my question -- does it matter whether they find Lucius or not? I'm at a bit of a crossroads in terms of game planning; I could send in a couple more NPC's, offer rewards, whatever, to get them "back on track". But they seem to be having so much fun that I wonder if I just ought to let them wander and see what develops, all the while feeding them characters and places from the City book.

As far as my DMing style goes, I seem to be able to improvise pretty well, so I'm gaining confidence that I can handle their wandering. One of the players asked if they needed to solve everything in DIF to go on to the other ones, and when I said yes, he said, "Maybe you better hold off on buying them!" Meaning they weren't about to be "railroaded".

I'd love any suggestions from players or DM's. And I do think the City book has enough material to keep them going for years.

All the best,
Bob Irving

[tbug]

Did you try any of the suggestions in the Help for a new DM doing DiF thread?

I think that perhaps the best bet is to have Egil, troubled and possibly in bad shape, approach the PCs and ask why they aren't helping. Did they agree to do so when first approached?

[Nhoj]

The first thing to realize, you are already doing it right, since everyone is having fun.

Remember Drac is a sick bastard, and it's not hard to get on his bad side. If the players develop any friends, the friends can fall afoul of Drac and the cultists.

The real plot is players vs. Drac & the cult of the unspeakable one. You could let this develop slowly. Each session have one event that brings this on. Once the players are pissed enough, they'll want to hunt this cult down. If they run into money, have Drac send out the boys for a "donation to the lighthouse fund." Add clues (old books, carvings in the jungle, broken statues) about the Vallosans and how they fell, so the party starts to not want that to happen to them.

Ideas: Have cultists sell them "healing potions" that are poison. Have the cultists frame them for murder, and in order not to get offed by some gang, they trace it to the hidden temple. Give a prophetic dream where one of them sees the future world under the insane grip of the Unspeakable One.

If they players don't want to help Egil, let the cultists finish him off. Pick another NPC to respresnt Egil in the later episodes. If the players have an affinity for a certain bar or gang or whatever, have the cultists attack that instead of the temple of knowledge.

So basicaly, replace Egil and the temple with things the players decide they like. And if they don't like any NPCs, just have it all revolve around them, or have them caught up in the crossfire.

Twist: make their decision to not follow Egil a cunning plan. Egil is really evil, or already kidnapped and the Egil they met was a serpant person. "You are so lucky you didn't follow him into that death trap..."

IMHO, the cult is too much fun to just drop, but the pretext can be very different.

[bobirv]

Whew, lots of good ideas! Today is our gaming session, so I'll try some stuff out and see what happens. Will report back about how it went.

Thanks!

Bob

[bobirv]

Post-gaming report ----

Well, a very good session all in all. I had Br. Egil leave the party a message at the Scholar's Quill, they went to the Temple of the God of Knowledge, somehow refrained from drawing swords there, had the paladin cast a Detect Evil spell and found there is some evil at the Temple. Then on their way back, they got ambushed by the Yellow Shields. Between the four of them, they're now down to -3, 2, 3, and 5 hit points. They've figured out somebody is out to get them, but since they've made so many enemies in Freeport, they don't know who it is!

Next time should be fun. Thanks again for all the suggestions!

Bob I

[timemrick]

Nhoj had many good ideas. Sounds like they're a bit more on track, but if they resume ignoring the cultist plots in favor of random fun around town, then either 1) another band of heroes takes up the slack (and steals the glory/loot) or 2) the cult runs rampant, and after a few months, your party gets VERY confused they see weird lights (finale of MiF) but have no idea what's going on...

Tim