Following on from my last post…
I am thinking of an adventure for 1st or 2nd level characters. The intention is that you run this before you finish your character creation. If you are going to start at 2nd level, run this at 1st. If you are starting at 3rd, then run this at 2nd level.
An adventurous interlude will give new players a chance to use some skills before they have spent their last round of DPs, so they can make some last-minute changes or improvements before starting for real.
It also means that if anyone takes a nasty injury that is going to take weeks or months to get over, that time period can be glossed over as they will be starting the campaign for real long after, and one experience level, after the end of this training wheels adventure.
My initial idea is for this:
Someone/wealthy merchant/relative of a character hires the characters to retrieve a stolen item.
The item is now aboard a merchant ship in the harbor.
The ship will leave on the dawn tide tomorrow.
The characters need only retrieve the item to claim their reward.
On board the ‘merchant’ ship the characters can discover a disproportionate amount of weaponry.
There is no cargo.
The crew will be outwardly respectable, but below decks they are rough and ready.
I will create the crew from the Reaver culture.
The item will be found in the captain’s quarters, in the captain’s possession.
This little adventure can be solved by stealth, sneak in, steal the item back, and sneak out.
It can be achieved by force, if you are extremely lucky, by storming the boat and taking the item.
The expected route will be an attempt at stealth that will only get them so far, a confrontation with the captain and some of the crew. A fight on the deck of the ship, allowing movement over different levels of deck, rigging, ropes for swinging on, and gang plank.
A chase scene as part of the getaway.
The merchant ship is obviously really a pirate here in disguise, which will give the new GM a chance of a recurring villain, as this ship can turn up in docks and ports repeatedly through the characters’ careers.
If they are successful, it also gives the GM a potential quest giver in the initial merchant.
All of this can be done just using Core Law.
I will also put together a rag tag crew of several different player races, to help differentiate the crew and showcase some of their strengths and weaknesses.
With no monsters or magic, I think pirates is a good source of ‘obviously the bad guys’.
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