Tragon's Behests

Designed by freepik.com   Organized crime make great side quests and adventures in any city campaign setting.  This creates bad guys and people to help which makes things more interesting.  It also creates opportunities for problem solving, combat, experience points, employment and treasure!  Below are some examples that you can use in a campaign: The Fight Club An illegal fight club that people are betting on.  Maybe somebody has been kidnapped and is fighting in it.  Maybe elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes are being forced to fight monsters.  Whatever situation fits your campaign this has to be found, infiltrated, and stopped.  Then, does stopping it have any ripple effects?  Will anyone be upset (or grateful) that the player characters accomplished this? Protection Rackets An old fashioned protection racket where a gang of bad guys are hitting up merchants for protection money.  The merchants want the party's help stopping it....

Our group of adventurers came together last night for a four hour 1E AD&D session.  We spent most of the night in the Unders, which is the slums part of town.  We began in The Mage's Potion, a tavern located near the Mage's Guild.  Our goal was to infiltrate and stop an illegal non-human/animal fight ring located in this part of the city. The party was led to The Broken Wand, a brothel located near the Mage's Guild.  The party split up, one half entered The Broken Wand looking to infiltrate the fight.  The other half watched to learn more about the fight ring and to bail out the first group if necessary. The first group gave the secret phrase and were admitted to the upstairs.  There they were disarmed, given a hood to hide their identity and blindfolded.  The party was then led several buildings away to an abandoned warehouse where they were taken under the building. After their blindfolds were removed, the party found themselves seated in a large...

Designed by freepik.com   A good RPG campaign is filled with non player characters (NPCs).  Everyone that populates a campaign can't be a mindless monster, boss, or potential henchman.  Well developed NPCs have the potential to add a lot of flavor to a campaign, make the experience fun, and can also provide the players with information and tools that they don't have.  Below are some thoughts for developing NPCs: NPCs are important for a campaign's background.   "Your party entered The Thirsty Ogre.  The tavern is a large rectangular room.  There are several round tables and chairs scattered throughout, since it's midday it's pretty empty with only half the tables occupied.  At the far corner is a counter, behind which is the barkeep.  You approach the counter and they charge "x" for the following drinks." The above works as a description, but it's pretty bland and doesn't help to advance the party's experience.  Now add a 6'3...

As a player and DM, I get tired of having all the player characters initially meet in an inn or tavern and then decide to start adventuring. I've started running an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1E campaign and I tried to come up with an original way for my player characters to meet and to begin working together - I put them on a chain gang. Ok, so it wasn't a chain gang. What happened is that every one of the PC's had the same experience: there they were in the Tenebris Silva (The Dark Forest) when they were surrounded by a group of bandits including their one-eyed leader and a mage wearing red robes. Then that's all the characters remember until they woke up without their arms, armor, and money. Each of our characters was rescued in the woods by a traveling merchant who took pity on them and let them travel to the big city in his cart. But at that point the Catchpole at the city gates would not let the characters into the city because he didn't want vagrants i...