Author Topic: Adventure help  (Read 1918 times)

Offline beachhead1973

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Adventure help
« on: December 13, 2013, 02:27:00 PM »
I am looking to put together a series of quick and easy one-shot adventures for my group.

The basic setting is that of a security and investigation company, staffed by clued-in and talented individuals. They get jobs of an unusual nature, most are routine, but rarely, there is something more to the mission. These are the one which will be played out.

I'm not great at one-shots. adventures you sit down and play out in one hour and I could use some advice and suggestions. I am much better at super-detailed, long campaigns. And maybe we'll do one of those once the group in more into it, but I want some quick and fun (for me too) adventures i can put my players through.

I have one idea I need to flush out, for a regular client who has their child picked up from private school everyday and delivered home. The catch being that the kid if a changeling and the local fey want to kidnap him.

Beyond that I am kind of stumped and even that is pretty bare-bones. I had another idea of adventures inspired by Dresden files short stories. None of the group have read the short stories and only one have read the books.

As for power levels; it's an up to your chest campaign.

Thanks for your time

Offline Taran

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Re: Adventure help
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2013, 06:29:56 PM »
I'm not sure if this is good advice but, in my personal experience, for a one-shot, I'd stay away from 'who-dunnit' or investigation-type adventures.

There's lots of opportunities for the adventure to get drawn out longer than need be.

Start them in the action or make any investigations straight forward with no red-herrings.

So, for instance, I wouldn't start the adventure off by saying, "the child went missing.  Find him - he was last seen at school"  That could lead to a long start-up to the adventure.  Instead, I'd have the PC's be part of the security detail that's dropping off/picking up the kid.  Either have them ambushed, or have the kid not show up and/or make it a chase through the school/nevernever.

Maybe the kid stays after school for tutoring that day.  They go to pick him up and he's missing.  A quick investigation reveals a secret in the school or a portal to the nevernever.  Or maybe they even see the tutor trying to escape with the kid in tow.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2013, 06:31:53 PM by Taran »

Offline blackstaff67

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Re: Adventure help
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2013, 05:53:24 AM »
Have a monster show up at the local mall where all the PC's are hanging out at--great place for introductions if you haven't already done them and they get to unite to beat the bad guy or drive him/her/it off.
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Offline Haru

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Re: Adventure help
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2013, 09:02:33 PM »
I have one idea I need to flush out, for a regular client who has their child picked up from private school everyday and delivered home. The catch being that the kid if a changeling and the local fey want to kidnap him.
A good way to start with this would be a classic. The characters get to the school to pick up the child, approach a teacher, because they don't see the girl there and he goes "Oh, did you forget something?" The girl has already been picked up by duplicates of the player characters. Bonus points if it pretty much just happened, so the players saw their duplicates drive away, even though they didn't see their faces. They'd still have the same clothes and car, so the players can start to chase them.

But why take the girl? The child is a summer changeling in a summer controlled city, and winter wants to push in on the territory. Usually, they wouldn't resort to something as petty as this, but a few rogue elements of winter have decided to take the matter into their own hands. Maybe they are changelings as well, so they are not 100% bound by faerie laws, and they want to impress their faerie parents.

Next, summer could attack the players, since they are the ones that have abducted the child, they have been seen. This could easily happen during the chase, when summer got the ransom pretty quick. Once that is sorted out, the bad guys got away, and the players have a deadline by summer to get the girl back. There are only a handful of winter strongholds in the area, they just need to get to the right one. They look for a being of winter to help them, find the right one and fight/lie/pay their way into the stronghold and rescue the girl.

Should be doable during one session. If you need to cut things short, you can, for example, have one of the winter changelings defect and look for the player characters to tell them where they can find the girl. Though I'd wager it feels much better if the players find their way there themselves.
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