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[delphonso]

No, it rhymes with Orc. B)

[IcyTea31]

I pronounce it as 'source', primarily because it makes a pun in Finnish ('sorsa' is a mallard, so your character is a waterfowl).

[scriver]

Sorc must be pronounced Sork, because sork is Swedish for vole (link for other non-english natives)

[Jimmy]

Do they have much evidence that the guy is more dangerous than some commoner?

Yep, I took a Lampadarius Kyton, gave it the Monk template, and introduced it at the very start of the scenario. They fought him, learning about his permanent 20% concealment, his 75% damage taken from weapons and spells, his spell resistance, and his special Strength ability damage attack. After his minions were destroyed, he used his shadowstep ability to teleport away and escape.

For a team of six 3rd level characters, it's a tough but beatable CR 6 boss with a bunch of high defenses. Unfortunately, the vampiress is a CR 5 encounter herself, with an at-will dominate against humanoids. Between the two creatures and their abilities, it's unlikely that the group can beat both at once.

They knew the kidnapper would visit the vampiress, had a full day to prepare, and spent the entire time holding in character arguments instead. Despite knowing they'd be fighting a vampire, nobody tried to learn more about defending against them either.

Well, time for actions to have consequences.

[pikachu17]

Do they have much evidence that the guy is more dangerous than some commoner?

Yep, I took a Lampadarius Kyton, gave it the Monk template, and introduced it at the very start of the scenario. They fought him, learning about his permanent 20% concealment, his 75% damage taken from weapons and spells, his spell resistance, and his special Strength ability damage attack. After his minions were destroyed, he used his shadowstep ability to teleport away and escape.

For a team of six 3rd level characters, it's a tough but beatable CR 6 boss with a bunch of high defenses. Unfortunately, the vampiress is a CR 5 encounter herself, with an at-will dominate against humanoids. Between the two creatures and their abilities, it's unlikely that the group can beat both at once.

They knew the kidnapper would visit the vampiress, had a full day to prepare, and spent the entire time holding in character arguments instead. Despite knowing they'd be fighting a vampire, nobody tried to learn more about defending against them either.

Well, time for actions to have consequences.

If they didn't learn more about vampires, you can make her completely different from vanilla vampires.
As soon as they show up, she can realize they're hostile through her emotion sense, and then immediately fill them with fear through her other emotion powers.

[Kagus]

Kyton

Oh, a cenobite.

[Egan_BW]

Wizard vs monster with an attack that puts people in its mouth: use Prestidigitation to make your clothing taste extremely bitter.

[Iduno]

I'm watching Smoking Aces, but there are a lot of stories about several groups of bounty hunters, hitmen, thieves, or whatever going after the same target, and it's not only a race, but usually devolves into combat (especially when some are protecting the target, some want to take it, some want to destroy it, etc.). Think of a more complicated Ocean's 12 with less Deus Ex Machina. They're interesting stories, and would make for a great session (maybe 2 with planning), and be a good change of pace. It fits best with Shadowrun or other heist games, but would probably work with most systems.

I assume you'd introduce the idea as "It's a (semi?) public bounty, so you probably won't be the only one going after it." The players know there are other groups (you said probably, but they know how coincidence works), but probably don't know who they are or how they're going after the target. I assume you'd also want to have the target being moved, or security being changed, or something to artificially create a time window to force all of the groups together.

But how would you set it up? You want enough groups that the players will run into one or two groups no matter how they plan on going after the target, and other groups will run into each other (also causing complications), but you also don't want to encourage too much collateral damage. Also, personal choice, but I prefer to have the entire thing set up before the players make any decisions. It's more entertaining to have a series of potential events and twists set up and see how the players interact with them. It also lets the players feel like what they do matters, because they're the ones telling the story.

Edited to add: Stealth missions are so much more fun when someone else goes loud at a time/place that you can't predict.

[Jimmy]

For me, I'd start by defining the quest objective.

Option 1: Fetch quest. Go to point A, get target B, return to point C.

Option 2: Escort quest. Go from point A, with target B, to point C.

Option 3: Gather quest. Go to point A_n, find B_n targets, return to point C.

Next, brainstorm ideas for challenges within these stages.

Challenge 1: Combat

Challenge 2: Puzzle

Challenge 3: Stealth

Challenge 4: Social

Finally, mix and match to get a game.

Scenario: Option 3, Challenge 1, 3 and 4.

The Mines of Mordenkainen have been overrun by murderous molemen! The local baron is offering a bounty for clearing the mine and returning with proof. Defeat the molemen and bring their heads to the baron. Beware, for multiple mercenary teams have taken the same job, and they'll be quite happy to rob you of your proof should you be careless!

Challenges: Combat (molemen, mercenaries), Stealth (steal molemen heads from other teams or steal back heads stolen from your team), Social (ally with mercenaries or negotiate truce)

[Cthulhu]

Depends how complex you want to do it.  I think I'd do a wide node-based adventure divided into some kind of player-unknown "turn" mechanic.

Like, figure out an org chart first, who's the target and what resources does he have to stay alive, what are the weak points in there  Maybe he's got an estranged ex-wife? Maybe his security detail is contractors and one could infiltrate it, pull strings to get yourself onto his detail?  What places does he go to, what's his daily routine, where does he go when he knows someone's on him?  Who wants him alive, who wants him dead, what resources will he use to accomplish his goals and where are they/how does he  access them?  Then you can do the same with a couple rival bounty hunters.

Once you've got that figured out you can determine a few angles for the players to enter the story.  You've got locations, some secret and some obvious, and you can roughly outline those nodes of the adventure, and then give the players the opportunity to pick one as their initial line of investigation.  A top layer, which the players know about initially and contains clues leading to the second layer, which contains clues and tools the players can use to penetrate the targets web of protection, and then the bottom layer, which contains the places and situations where the players can actually take out the target.

And when the players hit their first node, you might look at the rivals you have and select a node based on what they're good at, or select randomly, or just adjudicate what will be the most interesting.  Maybe that puts them in the PCs' way, or maybe they just find evidence of the rivals' intrusion.  Depending on what the PCs did, they might catch the attention of rivals or the bounty's security resources, and you work out what that means and put it in play in the next session.  e.g. If the players are being slow, maybe a rival gets to their node first and destroys the evidence behind them.  Instead, the clues in that node point towards the rival, so the players can get the clues they were looking for.  Maybe there's an ambush for them, or a rival tips off the police that they're breaking in.

There's so many moving parts to an Oceans Eleven type thing that I'd say the most important thing is to keep it loose and not over-prep.  There's a 100% chance that the players are gonna do weird shit, and the more detailed your prepwork is, the more likely it's gonna end up in the dumpster.  That's why I think you should start with the target's organization and resources, and likewise the rivals'.  That stuff will always be useful and if you know what it is ahead of time you can just move the stuff around in response to what players do.

[Iduno]

That's why I think you should start with the target's organization and resources, and likewise the rivals'.  That stuff will always be useful and if you know what it is ahead of time you can just move the stuff around in response to what players do.

Yeah, this sounds good. I'll have to read the node thingy. For turns, I have done well with just using time before. (I should get around to telling the story of the Security Officer the PCs needed to get information from, preferably quietly). It's better to cut back on making detailed content than content altogether, and knowing what events will happen is more useful than stats, in my experience.

I'm not too worried about stuff ending up unused; I'll always need another opponent or a description of the interior of a building. The best part of a dumpster full of unused ideas is mining that dumpster later. I think I've only had 2 out of 12 missions where they avoided the stuff I've prepped almost entirely, and that was because I prepped very little of what will happen and where/when. I just need to have stuff for them to interact with no matter which direction they come from.

On stuff that isn't related to the target and whatever security there is (rambly train of thought): For the other groups/people I was thinking about a theme/MO for their group, how many there are, how good they are, what they're good/bad at, and other groups they have more of a friendly competition thing with or have a "kill on sight" thing going with. Probably a "team" of 1 with good skills, but who can be pretty easily overcome with numbers/force, and a group the size of or 1 larger than the players' group who are idiots and will probably end up drawing too much attention if they survive long and already have a lot of enemies. Both of those present potentially interesting challenges to the players, and which the players would benefit most from knowing about ahead of time. Also, the movie used both (somewhat badly), which means I at least qualify to write a mediocre action movie (which is about the level I'm shooting for). That, or we have cliches for a reason. The same reason a tall building means a helicopter will show up, which I predicted in the movie, even though it didn't matter to the movie.

Allowing the players to learn about some but not all of the groups in advance if they put their prep time into that would be interesting. It means they can try to learn enough that they can set them against each other, or prepare for their strengths weaknesses. That also means that the opponents have to be able to be dealt with without knowing about them ahead of time, because they can't know about everyone. It sets good limits for me. I should add "how can the players find out about this group ahead of time" to that list in the previous paragraph.

I also want the groups to interact with each other, even if they PCs aren't present or otherwise encouraging it. Setting up checkpoints/funnels that force the groups together would work, if I know when the groups will hit each checkpoint. Scheduling when each group will arrive, which direction they'll go, what stops they'll make (if any), and about how long it will take them to reach the goal if nobody interferes should be enough. "Arrive at 8, go in the front door, get by the front desk and to the secure elevator at 8:30, reach the final security zone at 8:35" is plenty, especially if I know when the elevators will be shut down, how long any extra delay at the front desk will take, and what other groups will be in those spots at what times.

Whatever the facility is, will matter a lot. The number of groups and their variety of MOs means the players should interact with at least one beyond the guards and target, especially with funnels/checkpoints. So making sure something happens to the groups who are there will keep things interesting, and the players will end up walking into one of the pre-scripted events. Continuing the example from before, knowing the elevators will be shut down at 8:40 means the group that talked the front desk into letting them use the security elevators as a shortcut will get screwed if there is a delay, and have to take the stairs and possibly run into other groups. Again, I want quantity, not quality because I'm expecting 75% to not get noticed by the players. Stuff like car wrecks stopping traffic, hotel guests setting off a smoke detector making popcorn, and security taking an unexpected break because they should *not* have eaten that last night are easy to write down, and moderately interesting for the players to come across.

Knowing how competent and how many the target's security (I'm assuming there are separate facility and target's security groups, so they can interact) is good for dealing with the PCs not showing up first. If someone else gets there first, the target's security should have reduced forces, but be on higher alert. Separating the 2 security forces also means one can be infiltrated without the other being bypassed completely.

[Kagus]

So... Magic Missile. Curious spell, isn't it? What with apparently using just the one damage roll for every dart, meaning that just that little d4 can be responsible for a damage variance of up to 33 points.

Which, coincidentally, means that the evocation specialist's level 10 ability can add a potential 55 damage to a target.


Now, sure, those big numbers are just if you use a 9th level slot to cast Magic Missile, and 9th level has some other really big fun stuff that you'd probably rather be casting... But even as a 1st level spell, that's a bonus +15 damage, no save, no attack roll. Not too shabby.

[Mephisto]

It's New Gamemaster Month, apparently. I'm not sure the four options would be great for a new GM but maybe someone can get some use out of it.


So long, FFG. I had fun with one of your Star Wars things. I harbored some amount of interest in Genesys but, since you've probably fired all of the designers already, I'll just wait until I see a cheap copy on the secondary market.

[scriver]

FFG went out of business?

[Mephisto]

Not quite. They shuttered FFI, the digital game division. Last I heard, they also fired the RPG people and some office staff. The board game division will probably be fine, possibly owing partly to their owner, Asmodee.

Speculation at the moment is that any future RPG work will be wholly done by freelancers.