the campaign started with a jailbreak, with the premise being the characters all sent me why they got arrested to introduce thier characters and the session started just as they were all getting thrown into prison.
in one of the sidequests, the PCs accidently killed a guard who's costume they wwere trying to steal. There were lots of jokes about Sam (the guard in question) being a young recruit, bumping into his father in the guard tower etc. until eventually the cannon joke was Sam had a picture of his many partners. Since then, he has been known as polyam-sam and comes up quite a bit in jokes
the current adventure
I had the idea for poly-am Sam's partners to seek revenge: they hired the PCs (unbeknownst to them) to rob a bank, claiming to only want a sentimental ring in a lockbox that they can't access. The plan was for them to let the PC's rob the bank, then try and kill them at the handover, revealing themselves as Sam's partner.
The PCs catastrophically failed the bank heist, and to avoid a TPK I had them all knocked unconscious by the guards. I had planned for this, but my original plan is seeming a bit iffy
Anyone got some feedback on the below suggestions, or have some better ideas?!
my ideas are
abandon the polyam Sam revenge plot and save for a later date, having the players either:
Jailed again (boring)
wake up in an arena to fight a legendary monster as thier sentence/punishment AND/OR sold as gladiators
stick with the polyam Sam plot and twist it so that the partners were in cahoots with the bank, thier plan being to magically trap the players in the bank vault to kill them
Jail them and let them spend the next 300 days trying to figure a way out.
You will offer them a chance of course.
Spell casters inside jails are great. If they do not need a book they have a pretty good chance of eventually gathering enough components to cast a few spells and getting out.
Guards are often badly paid or ill treated by their officers. Bribery works a lot more than you can imagine even in real life. They can bribe one to do anything they can think of.
The sense I'm getting is that your table is far more beer soda pop and pretzels than high art or deep immersion theatre. So I'm thinking you want something challenging and worrying but still fun, and ultimately, something most, if not all, of the PCs will survive and prevail over.
That said, I'd be aiming for somewhere between SAW and a bad Comicbook Death Trap. Take each player, isolate them, remove their standard equipment, and make them face a challenge that requires their worst possible skill. Then spend some time plotting how they're going to beat it using anything other than the obvious. because they're PCs. they always do that. grumble grumble bloody PCs.... ANYWAYS! Then take turns running each one's scene, if they seem to be struggling for ideas, or if the proper botch a roll, move on to the next one, let them stew on it.
Depending on how much fun they're having/how sadistic your feeling, have one or two 'joining' challenges, where they regain some resources or work together, then let them 'free' anyone who hasn't beat their individual challenge yet. Now it's time for the 'really sweet' trap hidden inside the 'completely obvious death trap' before they face the Cult of Poly-Sam-ory and whatever rent-a-goblin 1/8 cr mook squad they're hiring to slow down the PCs.
Well sometimes doing something twice is what it takes.
Either way you make the encounter and situations so it can only go as slow or fast as you want it to.
This could be as short as a half hour of playtime.
The guards get lazy. They either do not know or realize any of the characters are magic capable so do not use a special cell for them. They get lazy and do not search the thief enough and miss his lock pick set. The guards get thirsty and sneak off for a drink. The characters find themselves in the middle of a different jail break being done by another prisoner.
I like the idea of selling the party as gladiators. From there, they can possibly escape, or get bailed out---or particpate in an epic battle--the Romans actually did naval battles in a flooded coliseum. Maybe pull a Skyrim and have a dragon attack during a show to let them escape in the chaos....
The guards take the PCs to the prison to face punishment, but then a horde of polyam Sam's vengeful lovers storm it like the bastille to take vengeance upon them, creating new dangers but also an opportunity to escape😜
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hi all,
Having some troubles planning my next session...
Some Context:
the current adventure
Anyone got some feedback on the below suggestions, or have some better ideas?!
my ideas are
Jail them and let them spend the next 300 days trying to figure a way out.
You will offer them a chance of course.
Spell casters inside jails are great. If they do not need a book they have a pretty good chance of eventually gathering enough components to cast a few spells and getting out.
Guards are often badly paid or ill treated by their officers. Bribery works a lot more than you can imagine even in real life. They can bribe one to do anything they can think of.
The sense I'm getting is that your table is far more
beersoda pop and pretzels than high art or deep immersion theatre. So I'm thinking you want something challenging and worrying but still fun, and ultimately, something most, if not all, of the PCs will survive and prevail over.That said, I'd be aiming for somewhere between SAW and a bad Comicbook Death Trap. Take each player, isolate them, remove their standard equipment, and make them face a challenge that requires their worst possible skill. Then spend some time plotting how they're going to beat it using anything other than the obvious. because they're PCs. they always do that. grumble grumble bloody PCs.... ANYWAYS! Then take turns running each one's scene, if they seem to be struggling for ideas, or if the proper botch a roll, move on to the next one, let them stew on it.
Depending on how much fun they're having/how sadistic your feeling, have one or two 'joining' challenges, where they regain some resources or work together, then let them 'free' anyone who hasn't beat their individual challenge yet. Now it's time for the 'really sweet' trap hidden inside the 'completely obvious death trap' before they face the Cult of Poly-Sam-ory and whatever rent-a-goblin 1/8 cr mook squad they're hiring to slow down the PCs.
This is exactly what we just finished doing, so I really don't want to do it again
Well sometimes doing something twice is what it takes.
Either way you make the encounter and situations so it can only go as slow or fast as you want it to.
This could be as short as a half hour of playtime.
The guards get lazy. They either do not know or realize any of the characters are magic capable so do not use a special cell for them. They get lazy and do not search the thief enough and miss his lock pick set. The guards get thirsty and sneak off for a drink. The characters find themselves in the middle of a different jail break being done by another prisoner.
I like the idea of selling the party as gladiators. From there, they can possibly escape, or get bailed out---or particpate in an epic battle--the Romans actually did naval battles in a flooded coliseum. Maybe pull a Skyrim and have a dragon attack during a show to let them escape in the chaos....
The guards take the PCs to the prison to face punishment, but then a horde of polyam Sam's vengeful lovers storm it like the bastille to take vengeance upon them, creating new dangers but also an opportunity to escape😜