Fifth Post

So we have our town and its denizens detailed, now we can get to work on plotting the first adventure and planting our adventure seeds we developed from those NPCs.

First Adventure

When developing an adventure there are a couple of ways to do it. The way I have develop in my near 15 year long tenure as a GM is to think of what you’d like the pay-off or the climax to be and work backwards from there. This is called backwards design (very similar to lesson planning used in pedagogy). 

For our goal or pay-off, I’d like to resolve that conflict with the sheriff stealing artefacts and Art Driscol’s goal with detecting and dealing with some bandits. We established the forest will have some goblin bandits roaming around causing some problems. So we will make our first adventure focused on that and work our way from there.

Bandits

Our bandits are goblins, small green humanoid creatures with a propensity for mutation. In the past, works of fantasy have some creatures, like goblins, being labelled as ontologically evil. Recently there has been a change to how many creatures are presented. A more nuanced and morally complex approach to portraying these creatures and peoples has occurred. As such these goblins need a motivation for them being bandits that puts them at odds with the farmers of Myra’s Tower

So let’s make a bandit leader before we move on. We’re going to go back to our old friend UNE to make our bandit leader. We rolled “uncouth” and “mystic.” So we have an ill-mannered mystic, why is this guy a bandit? We can use the motivation table to get a starting point- “prepare myths.” This bandit was seeking out some kind of forbidden lore or something.

Let’s roll for a quirk to add some flavor. We rolled pyromaniac. Our goblin has a fascination with fire. Let’s extend that to the whole gang. 

For the name, I want something kind of vulgar to reflect their uncouth nature and a reference to their love of fire. Flamebreath sounds good. Their gang will be the Fire Eaters.

Hideout

Every villain or bad guy needs a cool headquarters, right? (not always the case- Hans Gruber from Die Hard was fine just raiding Nakatomi Plaza without an evil lair). 

So let’s design our first villains home. I want to push that post apocalyptic ruins aspect of our setting so let’s make an old ruin. Given we are in a more agrarian area, we’re going to make the ruins an old windmill with a cavern underneath.

For the name of this place, I think I’m going for a descriptive name for now. Windmill Cave.

With that we can start to make some encounters.

Encounters

In RPGs any challenge, combat, roleplay or exploration, is called an encounter. These encounters are scaled to the relative power level and competence of their. I won’t bore you with the mechanical minutia of creating a balanced encounter using the Pathfinder Second Edition GM Rules. 

Firstly, let’s assume the bandits have a fortified perimeter to their hideout. So one of the encounters we can have is the sentries on the palisade. Goblin bandits are tricky, they might want to project their strength and have some dummies on the wall to trick outsiders into thinking this palisade is an impregnable bastion. 

So let’s throw a couple of goblins like three on the walls. That’s one encounter

Maybe they have an outer patrol that goes hunting and warns the main camp about any intruders on their territory. We’ll put two goblin warriors riding on two goblin dogs (these are large rat-like creatures that goblins have an affinity for). 

Inside the palisade will be a small camp, this is where the outer patrol and the sentries stay. Let’s have a couple of goblins here that are watching the entrance and some goblins slacking off.

In the windmill, the goblins have made it into a watch tower and a prison, hoisting their hostages in cages rotating on the windmill’s gears. We can have some npcs that were kidnapped in the goblin raid to some stake and a moral reason to chase after the goblins. The jailor will be a bugbear, a tall, hairy, brutish kind of goblin. 

Inside the cavern we can have place where they keep their goblin dogs in a kennel and they’ll need someone to look after so that’s another encounter.

I also like the idea of the goblins having some food source beyond stealing. They might farm some rats or mushrooms. This also gives a chance for there to be a non-hostile npc in the caverns.

Next lets make a place for the goblins to relax and eat. We can have a group of goblins drinking and making merry alongside a bard. Bards are not only musicians but can be spellcasters, this will be a good opportunity to introduce the party to some of the spells enemies can throw at them. Since the goblins have been drinking, they will have a status penalty making them a little easier to deal with. 

Goblins need to eat so we have a kitchen. The new monster core includes a statline for a goblin chef. I’d like to include one alongside some assistance and maybe a meal that has gotten out of hand.

The goblins dispose of anything they don’t need by feeding it to an ooze, a living acidic jelly creature that lives in one of the cave’s shafts.

We’ll have a barracks or a sleeping quarters where some of the goblins are relaxing. If the party has been quiet in dealing with the other goblins in the cave, they might be able to take these goblins unawares. 

Before the boss’s quarters we have a hallway guarded by a pair of his chosen goblin commandos. These guys are a cut above the average warrior and wield long halberds giving them decent reach. I also want to put some pit traps that will trigger if someone heavier than a goblin goes across the false paneling. 

Finally we have Flamebreath and his bodyguard. Flamebreath has hired an ogre mercenary, a large gluttonous giant creature. This will be a climatic battle with a magical caster and a meaty tank.

After defeating the goblin bandit boss, the party can take part in the spoils of a treasure room. The Pathfinder Core Rules has a comprehensive guide on how much treasure to give, I generally like to tailor some of the treasure to the player character’s ability (e.i. Give the swordsman a cool magic sword). 

Among the treasure will be a note to the sheriff implicating him in the bandit raid. There will also be a magical artefact tied to the local forest spirits. When interacted with the artefact will present the player characters with a vision! The vision will be cryptic and demand that the horn be returned to the cradle lest woe betide the houses in the pinion’s shadow. (Visions are great ways to introduce curveballs). 

I’ve been making these notes in obsidian to make a flow chart of how the adventure can proceed and the general beats and encounter info we have. Check out this video to see more!

Making maps is a fun and interesting part of planning, I am going to reach that part later.

Getting the Party there

Very commonly, when a campaign starts the players make their characters and they start in a tavern. They don’t know each other and getting them to interact with each other can be a bit awkward. Then, to move things along, the GM will have one of three things happen: some stranger approach them and offer them a job; they hear a rumor or something that leads to the adventure; or, the classic, a bunch of [insert hostile monster or enemy] burst through the door and start a brawl. There is nothing wrong with campaigns that start this way, but I personally have been in enough campaigns that have started this way. 

Player agency is another thing to consider when thinking of the first adventure. Why is the player character deciding to go on dangerous missions. I have been in some campaigns where in the first session a player will say “This is not my problem! I am going to go to the bar and try to meet a cute guy.” Such cases are the result of a mismatch of GM and player expectation. Part of this can be remedied when we know who our players and their characters are. 

For the time being we can have the town of Myra’s Tower contact the player characters, asking for their assistance to deal with the growing bandit threat. The player characters arrive at the town and meet the council and are given their quest and directions. IF they want to pursue something else, the bandits might attack again…

Alternatively, we could cut the fat and just start at the adventure location (in media res), or just as they are departing to travel to the location. 

Wrapping Up

So we have a skeleton of our first dungeon, Windmill Cave, and the encounters. I have been trying to use obsidian as a way to track encounters. So next time I we’ll map out the encounters in obsidian and make an actual map. We can also start laying the seeds for more adventure for the party to partake.