Just curious about your favorite side quests! Ill share a few of mine.
1) PCs run across a halfling in a bar, staring at a group of women. When asked what he is doing, he says he is wishing to work up the courage to ask the women out, but fears that his smaller size will get him laughed at. Thus, he wants to impress them by slaying a powerful creature. He tells of rumors of a Hill Giant nearby. He says he will pay top gold for killing the Hill Giant. But theres a catch- the Halfling wishes to accompany the PCs and kill the Hill Giant. PCs must fight the Hill Giant with the halfling, however he must 1) not die, 2) must land the killing blow, and 3) your new halfling friend is rather squishy. How the story ends is up to you
2) PCs come to a farming town and see a man that seems a little off, but nonetheless tells the PCs a tale of how a local witch cursed his wife into the shape of a pig, and refuses to change her back, and charges with PCs with killing the witch. He tells the location of the supposed witch. Upon arriving at the witches hut, it is revealed that the man in question was kicked in the head by a donkey while working the fields, and suffered a severe concussion. The 'witch' in question was actually just the doctor who stabilized him when he awoke. With some brain damage apparent, he became convinced that this doctor was a witch, and now spends his days asking adventurers to kill this 'witch'. In reality, the man was also never married, and the pig is just that- a pig. The doctor charges the PCs with getting the man to stop harassing travelers with this nonsense- but dont kill him!
3) PCs are greeted by the local mayor, nursing an injured leg on her front porch. It is told that the town is under a curse, and that this mayor was hoping to gather ingredients to lift the curse, when she spotted what she believed to be a bear just out of town. She asks the PCs to kill this bear, and return, she will gather the ingredients later. Upon arriving at the site, the PCs spot this bear, but looks VERY off. It doesnt take much to discover that this 'bear' is a few young kids wearing a bear skin to protect their mother. The kids tell that there is no curse. The mayor has a son who was studying magic to go to a very prestigious school accidently turned himself into a dragon wyrmling, and cannot change back. The mayor is desperately searching for a way to turn her son back, but in the mean time- the dragon has to eat. The mayor has been sacrificing villagers to her son for food! And this mom and her family were next on the list.
4) PCs meet a self proclaimed Monster Hunter! He says that a mark got away from him, and asks the PCs to take care of it for him. Party gets the gold, Monster Hunter gets the credit and fame! There are several encounters with this Monster Hunter, until he asks the party to find a flock of vampires. If the PCs engage the vampires, they learn that not only are the vampires non-hostile, but are living in seclusion. It seems this Monster Hunter has been going into towns, transforming people into monsters with powerful magic, them coming into town to hunt the beast for fame and profit to make a name for himself! How will the PCs handle this?
I've added a couple of side quests into my campaign, and my players moan they aren't related to the main story! so I have to adhoc things mid way through to make random side quests and what I consider fun items to result in a piece of new information or something that gets them closer to the BBEG. My players are so slow at doing things though, something I prepare as a bit of a break from the main story quest for a nights session seems to take 3 sessions!
One of them, the party wanted to travel from Neverwinter to Balders gate and they opted to go by boat, which is sensible. I had them enter a tavern to find a boat and they spoke to 3 sets of sailors, 1 was a posh lot who wanted to travel with adventurers to write a book and were offering free passage if they did a quest, another was a group of ragtags and would offer a discount if they picked a fight with group A, and the third lot were asking for a normal price for travel. The party opted for option A, the free one! So they went off on a quest taken from Ghosts of Saltmarsh (Isle of the Abbey). They got there then started moaning this is distracting them from their quest, so I had to tie in the Abbey to be a cult that worshipped the BBEG god of their main storyline.
Which leads me on to one of our favorite sessions, they then return to their transport ship and the captain and cook were acting suspicious. I had a boat with doppelgangers replace them (doppelgangers are a running joke in our campaign), and they were investigating who they could trust, what was going on, why the ship wasn't going the direction they wanted (one of the party members used to be a trade sailor). Had nothing to do with the main plot at all, but now they have an unfinished storyline of why did they replace some of the crew? and what did these pirates want? So if they ever make it back to sea, they might find out!
I've added a couple of side quests into my campaign, and my players moan they aren't related to the main story! so I have to adhoc things mid way through to make random side quests and what I consider fun items to result in a piece of new information or something that gets them closer to the BBEG. My players are so slow at doing things though, something I prepare as a bit of a break from the main story quest for a nights session seems to take 3 sessions!
One of them, the party wanted to travel from Neverwinter to Balders gate and they opted to go by boat, which is sensible. I had them enter a tavern to find a boat and they spoke to 3 sets of sailors, 1 was a posh lot who wanted to travel with adventurers to write a book and were offering free passage if they did a quest, another was a group of ragtags and would offer a discount if they picked a fight with group A, and the third lot were asking for a normal price for travel. The party opted for option A, the free one! So they went off on a quest taken from Ghosts of Saltmarsh (Isle of the Abbey). They got there then started moaning this is distracting them from their quest, so I had to tie in the Abbey to be a cult that worshipped the BBEG god of their main storyline.
Which leads me on to one of our favorite sessions, they then return to their transport ship and the captain and cook were acting suspicious. I had a boat with doppelgangers replace them (doppelgangers are a running joke in our campaign), and they were investigating who they could trust, what was going on, why the ship wasn't going the direction they wanted (one of the party members used to be a trade sailor). Had nothing to do with the main plot at all, but now they have an unfinished storyline of why did they replace some of the crew? and what did these pirates want? So if they ever make it back to sea, they might find out!
Constantly having to turn side content into main content sounds like a pain in the ass. But the 3 groups of sailors sounds super fun!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Just curious about your favorite side quests! Ill share a few of mine.
1) PCs run across a halfling in a bar, staring at a group of women. When asked what he is doing, he says he is wishing to work up the courage to ask the women out, but fears that his smaller size will get him laughed at. Thus, he wants to impress them by slaying a powerful creature. He tells of rumors of a Hill Giant nearby. He says he will pay top gold for killing the Hill Giant. But theres a catch- the Halfling wishes to accompany the PCs and kill the Hill Giant. PCs must fight the Hill Giant with the halfling, however he must 1) not die, 2) must land the killing blow, and 3) your new halfling friend is rather squishy. How the story ends is up to you
2) PCs come to a farming town and see a man that seems a little off, but nonetheless tells the PCs a tale of how a local witch cursed his wife into the shape of a pig, and refuses to change her back, and charges with PCs with killing the witch. He tells the location of the supposed witch. Upon arriving at the witches hut, it is revealed that the man in question was kicked in the head by a donkey while working the fields, and suffered a severe concussion. The 'witch' in question was actually just the doctor who stabilized him when he awoke. With some brain damage apparent, he became convinced that this doctor was a witch, and now spends his days asking adventurers to kill this 'witch'. In reality, the man was also never married, and the pig is just that- a pig. The doctor charges the PCs with getting the man to stop harassing travelers with this nonsense- but dont kill him!
3) PCs are greeted by the local mayor, nursing an injured leg on her front porch. It is told that the town is under a curse, and that this mayor was hoping to gather ingredients to lift the curse, when she spotted what she believed to be a bear just out of town. She asks the PCs to kill this bear, and return, she will gather the ingredients later. Upon arriving at the site, the PCs spot this bear, but looks VERY off. It doesnt take much to discover that this 'bear' is a few young kids wearing a bear skin to protect their mother. The kids tell that there is no curse. The mayor has a son who was studying magic to go to a very prestigious school accidently turned himself into a dragon wyrmling, and cannot change back. The mayor is desperately searching for a way to turn her son back, but in the mean time- the dragon has to eat. The mayor has been sacrificing villagers to her son for food! And this mom and her family were next on the list.
4) PCs meet a self proclaimed Monster Hunter! He says that a mark got away from him, and asks the PCs to take care of it for him. Party gets the gold, Monster Hunter gets the credit and fame! There are several encounters with this Monster Hunter, until he asks the party to find a flock of vampires. If the PCs engage the vampires, they learn that not only are the vampires non-hostile, but are living in seclusion. It seems this Monster Hunter has been going into towns, transforming people into monsters with powerful magic, them coming into town to hunt the beast for fame and profit to make a name for himself! How will the PCs handle this?
Share yours too! Hope you like some of mine! :)
I've added a couple of side quests into my campaign, and my players moan they aren't related to the main story! so I have to adhoc things mid way through to make random side quests and what I consider fun items to result in a piece of new information or something that gets them closer to the BBEG. My players are so slow at doing things though, something I prepare as a bit of a break from the main story quest for a nights session seems to take 3 sessions!
One of them, the party wanted to travel from Neverwinter to Balders gate and they opted to go by boat, which is sensible. I had them enter a tavern to find a boat and they spoke to 3 sets of sailors, 1 was a posh lot who wanted to travel with adventurers to write a book and were offering free passage if they did a quest, another was a group of ragtags and would offer a discount if they picked a fight with group A, and the third lot were asking for a normal price for travel. The party opted for option A, the free one! So they went off on a quest taken from Ghosts of Saltmarsh (Isle of the Abbey). They got there then started moaning this is distracting them from their quest, so I had to tie in the Abbey to be a cult that worshipped the BBEG god of their main storyline.
Which leads me on to one of our favorite sessions, they then return to their transport ship and the captain and cook were acting suspicious. I had a boat with doppelgangers replace them (doppelgangers are a running joke in our campaign), and they were investigating who they could trust, what was going on, why the ship wasn't going the direction they wanted (one of the party members used to be a trade sailor). Had nothing to do with the main plot at all, but now they have an unfinished storyline of why did they replace some of the crew? and what did these pirates want? So if they ever make it back to sea, they might find out!
Constantly having to turn side content into main content sounds like a pain in the ass. But the 3 groups of sailors sounds super fun!