I maaaaaaaaay have fucked myself
Jun 3, 2013 20:08:37 GMT -8
Post by jfever on Jun 3, 2013 20:08:37 GMT -8
Hello HJ GANG!!!
I have already discussed some of this with Whodo and scubasteve, but more opinions and ideas are ALWAYS welcome.
I am currently running a Pathfinder game. There are 4 players, and we play every other Sunday night for about 3 to 4 hours. 2 of them are very new to RPGs and the other 2 are more experienced.
It is set in an original world. There are a couple of details I need to provide about the world:
1. The nation in which the heroes reside is called Anthatal. Mingog is a nation that neighbors Anthatal. Mingog is a human ruled nation that believes humans are the master race and all other races are meant to serve them. It is GM knowledge only that Mingog is trying to gain possession of Earth Stones that allow Anthatal to be the main exporter of produce in the entire world by making Anthatal's soil fertile.
2. All our PC's were brought together through a revolution in Mingog to free all the Gnome slaves. The rebellion failed terribly, and now they all reside together in a town called South West Town, which is the closest major hamlet to Mingog in Anthatal.
My goal with this game is to not only have the "bad guys" doing their evil deeds in the background, but to also make their evil deeds cross paths with the heroes in a personal way.
I will now try (probably unsuccessfully) to detail all the open ended and closed ended story hooks that are part of the game. I will do so by linking them to the characters. I know these character backgrounds may seem strange, but understand that we randomly rolled the characters from the ground up. We also used the Central Casting books to determine their background:
Fabian (experienced role player): Fabian is a drow. In this world they are from the underground, but the underground part of the world has not been explored at all. His father was a great warrior of the drow nation who migrated to the surface with his wife and his son for some unknown reason. Fabian's father had a strange obsession with trying to discover the secret of immortality, but was found dead in an alley one day. He was struck by an extreme vigor mortis, and had an empty vial next to his person.
Fabian didn't mind much, as he hated his father, and his father didn't like Fabian. Maybe because Fabian's dad was very masculine and wanted to raise a son to follow in his footsteps, but Fabian turned out to be a very effeminate, flamboyantly gay socialite. Fabian had an obsession with constructing firearms, and eventually started his own business called "The Boom Boom Parlour", but that wasn't enough for Fabian's dad.
(skipping ahead a bit) Fabian stumbled upon an ancient text that detailed a history of an ancient, dead order of knights that were put on the planet to "maintain the balance" of the universe. The order is called The Brotherhood of the Wind, and the knights are called Zephyrs. Fabian took it upon himself to start following the ways of The Brotherhood of the Wind.
The party found the drunk, fat halfling mayor named Wenceslaus Fogerty dead. Through investigation, the party discovered that the mayor was a Zephyr, but had abandoned his Zephyr life and changed his name to Wenceslaus Fogerty to protect an Earth Stone. This Earth Stone was trapped in a pocket dimension which the heroes also found. Fabian now has the Earth Stone, and has took it upon himself to keep it safe.
(I KNOW THAT FABIAN DOESN'T HAVE OPEN ENDED STORY HOOKS ASSOCIATED WITH HIM. HE IS IMPORTANT TO ANOTHER STORY HOOK WHICH I WILL MENTION LATER.)
Caleb (newb): Caleb is a human priest of Apocryphon Rex (a gnomish chaos god) who is the only player character that lived in Mingog for most of his life. Caleb's father found and married a human woman from a barbarian tribe neighboring Mingog. Caleb was their first born son. Caleb's father believed that all other races were inferior to humans and owned a "Humans Only" bar in Mingog. Caleb did not believe like his father believed.
Little did Caleb's father know, Caleb's mother's tribe was strange and believed in "pure" families, i.e. incest. One night Caleb's mother raped Caleb (THIS PART WAS THE PLAYER'S INVENTION. FUCKIN NUTS) and was impregnated with Caleb's brother-son, Coulter. For fear of death and embarrassment, both Caleb and his mother kept it a secret from the rest of the world.
Coulter was much like his father-grandpa and was a true son of Mingog. Eventually, Caleb left Mingog after the botched rebellion, and Coulter became the leader of the Mingog Secret Intelligence.
Caleb Plot Hooks:
CHARACTER KNOWLEDGE: When the PCs went to a cave, they killed a Treant gaurdian and uncovered a stone that was very chaotic in nature where the Treant's heart would be. It's color keeps changing, and sometimes there is no color at all. When they found the stone, a voice whispered ONLY to Caleb "Thank You." Later, the PCs went to the library in the capital city of North Wall, and found a book about ancient prophecy that referenced something about how "and chaos shall hatch anew."
GM KNOWLEDGE: My plan is that the stone is housing the soul of Apocryphon Rex. The players made up some crazy history about the Apocryphon possibly having died, and I totally wanted to go with that. A player character that I will mention later named Pete has a huge golden egg that was given to him by his family. I was wrestling with the possibility that somehow the golden egg could be combined with the stone to hatch a baby gnome that is the reincarnated Apocryphon. . . . . .. but I have decided nothing. . . .
Targus (experienced role player): Targus is a half orc. He was born with some innate psychic ability to talk to animals at will. He also has the ability to psychically communicate with other people, but he has no control over that power (RANDOMLY ROLLED, AND PERFECT FOR GM DEBAUCHERY!!!!!) That's really all you need to know to help me out with his open ended story hook.
Targus Plot Hooks:
CHARACTER KNOWLEDGE: His mother, a full blooded Orc, was found on the outskirts of South West Town unconscious. She had a small puncture wound on her back that could have been caused by one of many small piercing weapons or a piercing arrow. Also, it was discovered that she had been poisoned by a Drow poison. They went away to the capitol city called North Wall to do some research on Drow poisons, but discovered nothing. He met up with a childhood friend of his that he had not seen since the rebellion. Shortly after meeting his friend, they were both knocked unconscious and captured.
When Targus and his friend were captured, Targus manifested a psychic link between the other PC's. They could see and hear everything Targus saw and heard. During Targus' interrogation, it was revealed that Coulter, Caleb's brother-son, was heading the interrogation/torture. They asked Targus "Where is the Earth Stone?" Targus, not knowing, threw insults at them. Coulter then beheaded Targus' friend. After Targus was refusing to give up information, Coulter left with his team of interrogators. Targus eventually escaped.
When the PCs returned to South West Town, Targus' mom was wide awake and completely fine. In an effort to find out what the fuck happened to Targus' and his mother's village, the PC's have traveled to investigate. Our last session ended with them arriving to Targus' mother's village, and it has been utterly destroyed. Huts are singed from being on fire, and their are dead Orc bodies everywhere.
GM KNOWLEDGE: Targus' mom is NOT Targus' mom, although it is Targus' mom's body. Remember when I mentioned that Fabian's dad was found dead in a gutter? Well, Fabian's father's consciousness is in Targus' mother's body. THAT IS AS FAR AS I'VE THOUGHT OF THAT PART. As the player's have no fucking clue, I could go 1 of 1,000,000,000 ways with this. Maybe Fabian's dad was originally sent above ground for a purpose, and going from body to body has something to do with it? Maybe Fabian's father NEEDS to get into Fabian's body for some reason? Did Fabian's father put himself into Targus' mom's body, or did someone else possess his soul and inject it into Targus' mom's dead body? I'M ALL EARS FOLKS!!!!
Pete (newb): Ok folks. This is the guy that I am most confused on how to treat. While totally willing to commit to his character, he is a jokester at heart. He always does and says silly things. Anyway, onto his character:
Pete is a dwarf barbarian, not really because he is a wild man of the mountains. He is just fucking crazy. He has a cool backstory, but it all wrapped up in the past. There really isn't that much to draw from, except one thing: He currently is married to a hideous dwarf woman named Tushrim Lickenpoke (I know. fucking dumb.) She is as crazy as he is.
Pete Plot Hooks
CHARACTER KNOWLEDGE: The most proactive thing Pete did was run for mayor of South West Town. His campaigning was terrible, and his competition was a drunk halfling, who currently was the mayor, named Wenceslaus Fogerty (see above) and a well kept, well mannered human named John Townsend. It seemed fairly obvious that Pete would lose.
Eventually the PC's headed to the capitol city of North Wall, but before they left Pete had an idea. Pete told his wife Tushrim Lickenpoke to have an affair with John Townsend and show South West Town that John Townsend is an adulterer. Tushrim thought this was a good idea, and agreed.
While this doesn't have any major implications on the rest of the story, something did happen in North Wall. Pete got in a fight with some dwarves of the dwarven nation to the south. Pete was asked what his clan name was and he couldn't provide it. All the dwarves laughed him out of the bar calling him "No Name!!!" Pete even tried to win an arm wrestling match with a burly dwarf to prove his worth, and Pete lost.
When Pete and the other PC's returned, they received some interesting news. Pete was now the mayor of South West Town. Fogerty had been found murdered in his home, and John Townsend had picked up and left town during the early morning of the election without being seen. Before John Townsend left, he mailed a letter to Pete that said, "Good Luck." Tushrim stated that she had had sex with both John Townsend AND Wenceslaus Fogerty for good measure.
Pete had his acceptance ceremony for his new mayorship, but was attacked by assassins with snake tattoos on their arms.
GM KNOWLEDGE: I'm really grasping at straws with this particular player and his character Pete. He just seems to be a wrench thrower for the sake of wrench throwing, and doesn't do anything to be proactive. I have to throw shit in front of his face all the time in order for him to react to anything.
There is one thing though: I'm wrestling around with the concept that Tushrim is a dude who is working in secret for Mingog or some other purpose.
Inevitably, I've missed something. I tried my best to be brief, but all of you can see where I have dug myself a truly deep hole. I don't have enough hours in my day to dig myself out of that hole effectively. I'm hoping that anyone will have some suggestions, advice, ideas. SOMETHING!!!
Thanks gang.
I have already discussed some of this with Whodo and scubasteve, but more opinions and ideas are ALWAYS welcome.
I am currently running a Pathfinder game. There are 4 players, and we play every other Sunday night for about 3 to 4 hours. 2 of them are very new to RPGs and the other 2 are more experienced.
It is set in an original world. There are a couple of details I need to provide about the world:
1. The nation in which the heroes reside is called Anthatal. Mingog is a nation that neighbors Anthatal. Mingog is a human ruled nation that believes humans are the master race and all other races are meant to serve them. It is GM knowledge only that Mingog is trying to gain possession of Earth Stones that allow Anthatal to be the main exporter of produce in the entire world by making Anthatal's soil fertile.
2. All our PC's were brought together through a revolution in Mingog to free all the Gnome slaves. The rebellion failed terribly, and now they all reside together in a town called South West Town, which is the closest major hamlet to Mingog in Anthatal.
My goal with this game is to not only have the "bad guys" doing their evil deeds in the background, but to also make their evil deeds cross paths with the heroes in a personal way.
I will now try (probably unsuccessfully) to detail all the open ended and closed ended story hooks that are part of the game. I will do so by linking them to the characters. I know these character backgrounds may seem strange, but understand that we randomly rolled the characters from the ground up. We also used the Central Casting books to determine their background:
Fabian (experienced role player): Fabian is a drow. In this world they are from the underground, but the underground part of the world has not been explored at all. His father was a great warrior of the drow nation who migrated to the surface with his wife and his son for some unknown reason. Fabian's father had a strange obsession with trying to discover the secret of immortality, but was found dead in an alley one day. He was struck by an extreme vigor mortis, and had an empty vial next to his person.
Fabian didn't mind much, as he hated his father, and his father didn't like Fabian. Maybe because Fabian's dad was very masculine and wanted to raise a son to follow in his footsteps, but Fabian turned out to be a very effeminate, flamboyantly gay socialite. Fabian had an obsession with constructing firearms, and eventually started his own business called "The Boom Boom Parlour", but that wasn't enough for Fabian's dad.
(skipping ahead a bit) Fabian stumbled upon an ancient text that detailed a history of an ancient, dead order of knights that were put on the planet to "maintain the balance" of the universe. The order is called The Brotherhood of the Wind, and the knights are called Zephyrs. Fabian took it upon himself to start following the ways of The Brotherhood of the Wind.
The party found the drunk, fat halfling mayor named Wenceslaus Fogerty dead. Through investigation, the party discovered that the mayor was a Zephyr, but had abandoned his Zephyr life and changed his name to Wenceslaus Fogerty to protect an Earth Stone. This Earth Stone was trapped in a pocket dimension which the heroes also found. Fabian now has the Earth Stone, and has took it upon himself to keep it safe.
(I KNOW THAT FABIAN DOESN'T HAVE OPEN ENDED STORY HOOKS ASSOCIATED WITH HIM. HE IS IMPORTANT TO ANOTHER STORY HOOK WHICH I WILL MENTION LATER.)
Caleb (newb): Caleb is a human priest of Apocryphon Rex (a gnomish chaos god) who is the only player character that lived in Mingog for most of his life. Caleb's father found and married a human woman from a barbarian tribe neighboring Mingog. Caleb was their first born son. Caleb's father believed that all other races were inferior to humans and owned a "Humans Only" bar in Mingog. Caleb did not believe like his father believed.
Little did Caleb's father know, Caleb's mother's tribe was strange and believed in "pure" families, i.e. incest. One night Caleb's mother raped Caleb (THIS PART WAS THE PLAYER'S INVENTION. FUCKIN NUTS) and was impregnated with Caleb's brother-son, Coulter. For fear of death and embarrassment, both Caleb and his mother kept it a secret from the rest of the world.
Coulter was much like his father-grandpa and was a true son of Mingog. Eventually, Caleb left Mingog after the botched rebellion, and Coulter became the leader of the Mingog Secret Intelligence.
Caleb Plot Hooks:
CHARACTER KNOWLEDGE: When the PCs went to a cave, they killed a Treant gaurdian and uncovered a stone that was very chaotic in nature where the Treant's heart would be. It's color keeps changing, and sometimes there is no color at all. When they found the stone, a voice whispered ONLY to Caleb "Thank You." Later, the PCs went to the library in the capital city of North Wall, and found a book about ancient prophecy that referenced something about how "and chaos shall hatch anew."
GM KNOWLEDGE: My plan is that the stone is housing the soul of Apocryphon Rex. The players made up some crazy history about the Apocryphon possibly having died, and I totally wanted to go with that. A player character that I will mention later named Pete has a huge golden egg that was given to him by his family. I was wrestling with the possibility that somehow the golden egg could be combined with the stone to hatch a baby gnome that is the reincarnated Apocryphon. . . . . .. but I have decided nothing. . . .
Targus (experienced role player): Targus is a half orc. He was born with some innate psychic ability to talk to animals at will. He also has the ability to psychically communicate with other people, but he has no control over that power (RANDOMLY ROLLED, AND PERFECT FOR GM DEBAUCHERY!!!!!) That's really all you need to know to help me out with his open ended story hook.
Targus Plot Hooks:
CHARACTER KNOWLEDGE: His mother, a full blooded Orc, was found on the outskirts of South West Town unconscious. She had a small puncture wound on her back that could have been caused by one of many small piercing weapons or a piercing arrow. Also, it was discovered that she had been poisoned by a Drow poison. They went away to the capitol city called North Wall to do some research on Drow poisons, but discovered nothing. He met up with a childhood friend of his that he had not seen since the rebellion. Shortly after meeting his friend, they were both knocked unconscious and captured.
When Targus and his friend were captured, Targus manifested a psychic link between the other PC's. They could see and hear everything Targus saw and heard. During Targus' interrogation, it was revealed that Coulter, Caleb's brother-son, was heading the interrogation/torture. They asked Targus "Where is the Earth Stone?" Targus, not knowing, threw insults at them. Coulter then beheaded Targus' friend. After Targus was refusing to give up information, Coulter left with his team of interrogators. Targus eventually escaped.
When the PCs returned to South West Town, Targus' mom was wide awake and completely fine. In an effort to find out what the fuck happened to Targus' and his mother's village, the PC's have traveled to investigate. Our last session ended with them arriving to Targus' mother's village, and it has been utterly destroyed. Huts are singed from being on fire, and their are dead Orc bodies everywhere.
GM KNOWLEDGE: Targus' mom is NOT Targus' mom, although it is Targus' mom's body. Remember when I mentioned that Fabian's dad was found dead in a gutter? Well, Fabian's father's consciousness is in Targus' mother's body. THAT IS AS FAR AS I'VE THOUGHT OF THAT PART. As the player's have no fucking clue, I could go 1 of 1,000,000,000 ways with this. Maybe Fabian's dad was originally sent above ground for a purpose, and going from body to body has something to do with it? Maybe Fabian's father NEEDS to get into Fabian's body for some reason? Did Fabian's father put himself into Targus' mom's body, or did someone else possess his soul and inject it into Targus' mom's dead body? I'M ALL EARS FOLKS!!!!
Pete (newb): Ok folks. This is the guy that I am most confused on how to treat. While totally willing to commit to his character, he is a jokester at heart. He always does and says silly things. Anyway, onto his character:
Pete is a dwarf barbarian, not really because he is a wild man of the mountains. He is just fucking crazy. He has a cool backstory, but it all wrapped up in the past. There really isn't that much to draw from, except one thing: He currently is married to a hideous dwarf woman named Tushrim Lickenpoke (I know. fucking dumb.) She is as crazy as he is.
Pete Plot Hooks
CHARACTER KNOWLEDGE: The most proactive thing Pete did was run for mayor of South West Town. His campaigning was terrible, and his competition was a drunk halfling, who currently was the mayor, named Wenceslaus Fogerty (see above) and a well kept, well mannered human named John Townsend. It seemed fairly obvious that Pete would lose.
Eventually the PC's headed to the capitol city of North Wall, but before they left Pete had an idea. Pete told his wife Tushrim Lickenpoke to have an affair with John Townsend and show South West Town that John Townsend is an adulterer. Tushrim thought this was a good idea, and agreed.
While this doesn't have any major implications on the rest of the story, something did happen in North Wall. Pete got in a fight with some dwarves of the dwarven nation to the south. Pete was asked what his clan name was and he couldn't provide it. All the dwarves laughed him out of the bar calling him "No Name!!!" Pete even tried to win an arm wrestling match with a burly dwarf to prove his worth, and Pete lost.
When Pete and the other PC's returned, they received some interesting news. Pete was now the mayor of South West Town. Fogerty had been found murdered in his home, and John Townsend had picked up and left town during the early morning of the election without being seen. Before John Townsend left, he mailed a letter to Pete that said, "Good Luck." Tushrim stated that she had had sex with both John Townsend AND Wenceslaus Fogerty for good measure.
Pete had his acceptance ceremony for his new mayorship, but was attacked by assassins with snake tattoos on their arms.
GM KNOWLEDGE: I'm really grasping at straws with this particular player and his character Pete. He just seems to be a wrench thrower for the sake of wrench throwing, and doesn't do anything to be proactive. I have to throw shit in front of his face all the time in order for him to react to anything.
There is one thing though: I'm wrestling around with the concept that Tushrim is a dude who is working in secret for Mingog or some other purpose.
Inevitably, I've missed something. I tried my best to be brief, but all of you can see where I have dug myself a truly deep hole. I don't have enough hours in my day to dig myself out of that hole effectively. I'm hoping that anyone will have some suggestions, advice, ideas. SOMETHING!!!
Thanks gang.