(Mixster: don't read this!) Some adventure design help

[Dan True]

Hello fellow Legenders.

In two weeks I am about to start a new campaign using the Pirates Rules. Mixster from this forum is a part of the group, hence the note in the subject

I am planning the first adventure and could use your help in making it a bit more interesting. I have a pretty good overview of how the campaign will play off, including details for some later adventures, but better ideas for this first one eludes me.

The players have just hired on a smuggling Sloop called The Greywater. Their current "job" is to smuggle a cargo of muskets and blackpowder to Cuba for sale on the black market. The mission consists of:

1. Land by boat outside Havanna, get into Havanna and make contact with a local gang leader who is their usual contact. Here they must get the information on where and when they will make the landing. The PCs are chosen for this task as one of them speaks Spanish and the last time they were smuggling here things went sour, and the guards now know some of the crew (and the rest are too incompetent for such a job).
2. They must get back to the ship, without being captured by the Spanish (who are very suspicious of Englishmen).
3. Rendevouz with the gang leader and his men at a cove some way east of Havanna. Here they will transfer the goods and payment - however, one of the gang leaders men have betrayed them and they are ambushed by Spanish troops led by a Spanish noble who will later become a main villain.
4. The pirates will likely have to flee with as much loot as they can get to their ship, while the gang leader and his men attempts to escape with ditto. Their escape ties into the next adventure.

However, I am looking for suggestion on how to make especially point 1 & 2 more interesting. They can easily be very dull ("you find the alehouse mentioned easily...") and can also easily be overdone ("If we can't take a step without the Spanish tracking us, we might as well sell our goods somewhere else"). More specifically:

- Have any of you run a "Make contact with X and get back"-adventure before? What worked well and what worked bad?
- Ideas on how to make the different parts of 1 & 2 interesting, without them getting dull (As in simply requiring a streetwise check to find the alehouse). Step 2 could easily involve a chase through the streets of Havanna - but how to make it exciting?
- Any complications that can arise in Havanna without it simply being the same (being discovered by the law enforcement) as later in the adventure?
- Any other suggestions or comments on the above?

Looking forward to hearing your comments

 

[Deleriad]

Some sort of Maguffin perhaps? Maybe not too serious?

Perhaps a protestant missionary is needing shelter or perhaps go for some sort of alarum? e.g. a "zombi" has escaped and is causing mayhem. Or someone they don't know misidentifies a PC either positively or negatively. On the basis that most players will be savvy enough to recognise this as a maguffin quite quickly you can use it simply to acclimatize them but, it could also seed or foreshadow something later on. The players will assume it's simply a little bit of flavour and be quite shocked when it turns out to be significant later.

 

[Lemnoc]

Might be interesting to run a parallel rival gang of equally skilled NPC pirates also more than casually interested in those muskets. At first they’ll just spy on the players. Then they’ll start to run their own game.

Their very presence as lurkers creates a mysterious and awkward tension, and they’re nearby to cause problems when things get tedious or predictable. Since they're clever, they might prod the PCs in some way.

---

As far as do X to achieve Y adventures, I’ve found through bitter experience it’s best to provide at least three ways of achieving that so your adventure doesn’t fizzle in the event someone bungles something or your players just aren’t too bright tonight. F’rinstance: There’s the contact. There’s the map he has on his body or he dropped on the beach. There’s his squawking parrot that just flew into the alehouse as your demoralized crew considers their next options. :lol:

 

[Dan True]

Thanks for the suggestions Hm, introducing some foreshadowing which can easily be mistaken for simple flavour sounds good. As do the point about several possible allies of solving the mission - and some complication giving rise to the need for several decisions.

Hm, maybe their known lair of the contact has been raided by either the authorities or a rival gang and is now clearly abandoned - so they must in limited time (or their ship leaves them for captured) find the gang leader (or another buyer) in a city where he tries to lay low and rebuild. Perhaps they can even find an alternative buyer.

This got me thinking Any other suggestions?

- Dan

 

[Lemnoc]

The piratical world of the Caribbean is a lot like the gangland world depicted in “The Wire.” You have your “Authorities,” each with their own agenda and institutional goals, and you also have the gangs themselves. The gangs are given to some kind of nationalist allegiances (hence some can receive letters of marque and become temporary privateers in the service of some nascent empire builder), but are more prone to break down into rough anarchies, freebooters.

A box of muskets could lead to a kind of “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” scenario, where just about anything goes once they have the firearms, and almost anyone is a willing buyer. Once you set that up, you’re pretty flexible in your sandbox.

That’s why I’d introduce a bunch of chaos seeds—the Authorities are noble in title only, and more than eager to stick a shiv into one another’s backs; the French are throwing coins at any gangs willing to stick it to both Spanish and English; and other pirate crew are lazily eyeing a wayward purse to cut. Dukes and princes hate one another’s guts, but they’re also betrothed as brothers and cousins, and high-born versus the redolent low. Honor and manners, law and destiny, are but pretty linens to be discarded whenst soil’d.

No one is particularly motivated, except when a back is turned. The winds blow one way this hour, then widdershins the next. Hence, any one of these seeds can be watered to create tension, or withdrawn with hardly a narrative.... some evil-eyed rogue was watching you intently, now he’s wenching skirts at the bar....

 

[alex_greene]

Mistaken identity. You think that the man you've met in the inn is the contact; he is, but not your party's contact. Meanwhile, the man thinks you're his contact, and he's talking about a way more dangerous mission than the one you're on. The first hint you might have screwed up is when he talks about "making sure there's no witnesses, especially that whore of a Governor's daughter ..." and does a swift throat-slitting gesture ...

Another possibility is that the contact might be the Port Governor's daughter, and the contact is a ruse - she's looking for a bit of rough to liven up her life, because she just loves seamen.

 

[Lemnoc]

Mistaken identity....

I don't know about the sophistication of your gaming group, but the problem with red herrings in general is that they can send a story sideways for an extended period. Players sometimes latch on to the silliest things, thinking that's where the adventure actually lies. In other words, they can decide your main plot line is actually the red herring. Then you're in a swamp.

I got so frustrated with my players running off in a wrong direction in CoC (they were good players but basically pretty inept at deductive reasoning, the whole "peeling the onion" thing), I finally just sent in a cultist with a gun to explain it all to them James Bond villain style. :?

 

[sdavies2720]

Mistaken identity....

I don't know about the sophistication of your gaming group, but the problem with red herrings in general is that they can send a story sideways for an extended period. Players sometimes latch on to the silliest things, thinking that's where the adventure actually lies. In other words, they can decide your main plot line is actually the red herring. Then you're in a swamp.

I got so frustrated with my players running off in a wrong direction in CoC (they were good players but basically pretty inept at deductive reasoning, the whole "peeling the onion" thing), I finally just sent in a cultist with a gun to explain it all to them James Bond villain style. :?

I've also found (with my gaming group) that they are more likely to get diverted early in the adventure, and especially before the adventure has really gotten underway.

If they've been hired already, that's good. But I've found that making the approach really easy, but the get-away rough, works best. Everyone has a stake in making sure their character gets away cleanly/alive.

If the meeting breaks up prematurely, you've got a perfect segue to a difficult journey back to the ship -- at that point the authorities become involved and everyone suspicious gets collared.

Oh, and don't forget to put a time element in all this, to heighten tension. Perhaps the smuggler's pick-up cove is shallow and boats can only put in at full tide, which is in 3 days... That way the players can't just sit in town (or jail) until things settle. They have to keep things moving.

Steve

 

[Dan True]

Thanks a bunch! This gave me some ideas to make it a more interesting adventure.
The foray into Havanna is mostly to build some events to link to the next adventure, and to set the mood, but I still wan't it to be more than "pop in, pop out" - so thanks a bunch guys

I'll try to make a write-up after each game sessions to let you follow the tales of piracy.

- Dan