It's a crime!

[gamesmeister]

I'm about to kick off a 3rd age campaign, based around the Borderlands supplement, and I'm looking for some ideas (well, one actually).

As anyone who's every played it can testify, the Borderlands campaign is based around working for a Lunar noble. Knowing my players, they'll not willing go and work for a Lunar, even if the pay is regular, so instead I intend to force them into it. I think the Borderlands campaign justifies such an outrageous action!

My thinking is to manipulate them into committing a crime of some sorts (preferably unwittingly), and then having a choice between spending a year in the salt mines or working off their sentence under Raus.

So I'm looking for ideas on how to do this. The crime can't be too bad (e.g. killing a lunar, even in a fair fight) because that would mean crucifixion. But it has to be bad enough to justify several seasons of indentured service. Any suggestions?

Or any other suggestions on how to force them into service, without appearing to do so?

 

[CthulhuFnord]

Hmm.... well there's a few diffrent ways to walk your group into this situation. The first possibility that comes to mind is to tell your players the gist of the game and have them coome up with some hardened Cons who have just been cut a deal. You could have all kinds of wonderfully shifty and moraly grey pcs, there could even be some "upstanding citizen" chracters who were forced into their current predictament. Few of them have much in common, several of them hate each other. However they all have to work together to get that elusive "pardon".

The second possibility would be to have that happen to the players in game, something they might not necessarly apreciate. Your best bet here would be to do something sneaky.... Like have a group of Theives pretending to be anti-lunar freedom fighters. The Theives have the players "distract" the Lunars while they make off with documents vital to the resistance. The theives of course downplay the size of the garrison, and don;t mention that included in the documents is a large cache of Runes..... Players get caught, and are now facing a long and ardiuos prison / salt mines sentence....

 

[RMS]

Have them raid the Rouse house in Pavis, get caught. Have Duke Rouse seize the opportunity to get some extra free (or cheap) help in exchange for the PCs not receiving worse punishment: hard labor, heavy fines they can't pay, or both.

Allow them to sneak into the Rubble without a pass and get caught there without proper documentation, or let them have a successful adventure and have them caught sneaking their untaxed loot back into town.

 

[CruelDespot]

The concept of the group adventuring under duress is always problematic. Many players would rather devote all their energy to overcoming whatever compulsion is forcing them to adventure. If you don't let them, then it feels like they are being railroaded. Hmmm. Perhaps if the lunars have some loved ones of the PCs as hostages?

 

[Utgardloki]

I would also advise being upfront with your players about what you intend to do. It usually does not work to get the players excited about making characters for one kind of campaign and then suddenly finding that they are in another kind of campaign. And forcing PCs to do a crime is likely to be seen as particularly unfair.

I would tell the players what I intended, and let them come up with ideas for what their characters did. That way, the players can make PCs that could conceivably be arrested and convicted, and won't feel that they are railroaded.

 

[soltakss]

I've just done something similar where the PCs were framed for a murder and, even though it was abvious they didn't do it, the Luanrs needed to put someone away and sentenced them to a year's service in the Sun Dome Militia. The person murdered was connected to the Sun Domers and he was brought back and suggested some time in the militia would do them good.

Clearly, this was a way into the Sun County scenarios and meant that they could work to clear their name. However, it caused major resentment at being railroaded. Every time they had to do something in the militia, they complained about being innocent and that they were being forced to do it against their will.

So, be careful about doing this.

What would be better, perhaps, would be to introduce the party to a couple of minor scenarios at first, then connect them somehow to Duke Raus. One way would be via Jesra, his wayward daughter, who is always good for a laugh. Have her go missing, run off with a lover or somethig similar and have the PCs meet her after some unfortunate experience and bring her back. That way, Duke Raus could be impressed with their prowess, would feel indebted to them somehow and could offer them a mercenary contract.

Alternatively, give them some kind of goal, some person to find and after some investigation, let them know that the person used to serve with Duke Raus. If they sign up to serve as mercenaries, then they can do their investigations without being seen as suspicious.

But, talk to the players first. They might be up for working with Duke Raus, especially if they see him as some kind of Lunar exile rather than a dyed in the wool Lunar.

In my experience, a lot of the roleplaying potential in Borderlands is the clash between non-Lunar mercenaries and the Lunars from Pavis, Corflu and surrounding areas.

 

[gamesmeister]

The most important thing is to make sure that they dont know they're being railroaded, even though they are. That's why I won't use hostages or anything similar. The players don't know what kind of campaign they're joining either, so putting them into Lunar servitude, albeit temporary, won't be a problem.

As it happens, I intend to give them a fair amount of freedom once the campaign starts proper, so they should be able to make the best of the situation. I want them to feel as though they got off lightly by working for the Lunars for a year, rather than down the salt mines for a year.

 

[gamesmeister]

What would be better, perhaps, would be to introduce the party to a couple of minor scenarios at first, then connect them somehow to Duke Raus. One way would be via Jesra, his wayward daughter, who is always good for a laugh. Have her go missing, run off with a lover or somethig similar and have the PCs meet her after some unfortunate experience and bring her back. That way, Duke Raus could be impressed with their prowess, would feel indebted to them somehow and could offer them a mercenary contract.

Uncanny Simon, you read my mind. My overall plan is to run the Toadface scenario from River of Cradles, where they'll (hopefully) save a couple of Carmanian farmers. They'll be taken to Raus Fort to tend to injuries, diseases etc, and be introduced to Raus who will be very grateful for their intervention.

Then when they find themselves in trouble in the Pavis courts, Raus can step in as a guardian angel, get them reassigned to his service, they'll hopefully feel a certain loyalty towards him, and the campaign proper can begin.

It's just getting them into the courts in the first place without making it too obvious - that's what I'm having trouble with.

In my experience, a lot of the roleplaying potential in Borderlands is the clash between non-Lunar mercenaries and the Lunars from Pavis, Corflu and surrounding areas.

Absolutely, that and the roleplaying potential of Raus himself, particularly once the loyalty of the PCs has been established.

One advantage I have is that three of my four players have never played in Glorantha, so have no pre-conceived ideas or prejudices regarding the Lunars.

 

[elgrin]

Allow them to sneak into the Rubble without a pass and get caught there without proper documentation, or let them have a successful adventure and have them caught sneaking their untaxed loot back into town.

Of all the options proposed, to me this looks to be the best basis. No set of Big Rubble adventurers ever declares the full extent of their loot. They come up with the most convoluted ways to get the benefits without paying the full tax. Let them go through the Rubble for a while getting the goods back, while they keep encountering rumours of a particularly adept and hard Lunar Tax collector. Then allow him to capture them when they get back from one trip. This firstly gets away from obvious railroading and lets them think they were just unlucky, and should make them grateful to the Duke when he makes an offer better than the Salt mines.


elgrin

 

[zozotroll]

My favorite railroad, is to start them as drafties in the army, in this case the lunars. For some reason, if you tell them that before chargen, they dont seem to mind so much. It is ingame RR that gets under the skin.

Everybody ecpects to get ordered around and do things they dont understand when in the army, so I have never had trouble with that either.

Of course, over the years the majority of my players have been in the US army, so perhaps that helps.

 

[Sinisalo]

Get Argrath to send them on a mission to spy on Raus. No fighting, just spying so get them to hire you. Orlanth will understand!

 

[TRose]

Another thing is they could just be a member of the wrong clan/family
perhaps the head of their clan tried to rob a lunar tax collector and got caught or was suspected of rebellion. Remember in ancient times it was quit common to punish whole families and tribes for crimes committed by a few members.
Might add in that case it could be that the family ran into trouble with Orlanthi customs and law in the Pavis area. For example , Uncle Joe lost his temper and killed a whole family including women and children. Your family does not have enought to pay the weregild and so are now exiled from the Orlanthi community for 5 years . Duke Raus though is willing to hire you even if you are considered outlawed by most of the rest of the valley.

 

[atgxtg]

A couple of possibilities.

1) Common Enemy. What if the PCs were framed by the same group responsible for Exiling the Duke? He could then step in as a sympathetic figure and so be accepted as "Not bad, for a Lunar." He could even offer to work to help clear their names.

2)Common Friend. Pick one of the non-lunar NPCS (like a Humakti Daine) and have them be some sort of contact or ally for the characters. That way the PCs are trying to repay the NPC rather than serving a Lunar.


4) Spies. THe PCs are really serving Argath or some other anti-Lunar faction, and are gathering information under the cover of being mercenaries.


The big thing, I think, is to not create too much animosity between the PCs and the Duke, or they might cut and run. Youneed to hook them into the setting, so that they have a reason to want to stick around, else it won't work.

 

[soltakss]

What, no 3?

 

[algauble]

You could have the pcs slaughter the fine fellows?

They could be lunars?

I like the spy idea as well.

 

[indrodar]

When I was running it (using HQ rather than RQ admittedly) I went for the spy option. Garrath Sharpsword asked them to sign up as a "favour" to him. This meant that they thought they were on an undercover mission against the "evil" lunars and as time progressed they realised they were working for a decent man. And one who isn't actually part of some Lunar plot of Otherwolrd domination...

Sadly the game petered out before we got all the way through it.

 

[Sinisalo]

When I was running it (using HQ rather than RQ admittedly) I went for the spy option. Garrath Sharpsword asked them to sign up as a "favour" to him. This meant that they thought they were on an undercover mission against the "evil" lunars and as time progressed they realised they were working for a decent man. And one who isn't actually part of some Lunar plot of Otherwolrd domination...

Sadly the game petered out before we got all the way through it.

ahem...
..that was what I said but you said it better!

 

[indrodar]

ahem...
..that was what I said but you said it better!

Sorry, I meant to say,

"I went for the spy option too..."

 

[Gevrin]

I started this campaign last spring. Not liking railroading and having dire experiences playing in campaigns where the GM used capture to try and push the story along (which brought one Earthdawn game to a crashing halt and nearly scuppered a previous RQ) I opted simply to generate new characters and tell the players that they started out at Pimper's Block slave market having been offered for indenture as a result of some crime in Sartar (not as bad as full slavery - I played up the plight of the full slaves around them to rub this in). Duke Raus was looking for some men to help maintain order in his new lands and took on the indentures of the characters, offering the carrot of freedom and a share in the prosperity of his new domain if they worked hard and helped him. Otherwise they would be worked hard anyway for the duration of their indenture (5 years) and would end with nothing. Far from feeling railroaded, the players accepted this as the campaign background and decided to play characters willing to work for Raus (the emphasis being they agreed to go with the story!)

So far so good.

cheers

Dave

 

[soltakss]

You could have the pcs slaughter the fine fellows?

Funnily enough, my PCs did this a while back. They were part of another street gang, the Firemakers, and had a few run-ins with the Fine Fellows which resulted in a couple of NPC Firemakers dying. So, they burned down a house on Rich Hill when the Fine Fellows were meeting. They cast a big Glue on the windows and doors and used a couple of salamanders, loads of ignites and so on, having vandalised the local water point and blocked the well. They succeeded in killing off most of them, then went in and used Cremate Dead on the burned corpses, so they couldn't be brought back.

The PC got away with it because a friendly Pavic citizen led them through the sewers and they emerged in Gimpy's Tavern, quickly changed their clothes and sat down for a meal as the Lunars came in. So, they had 20 cast-iron alibis and a huge honour debt.