I tested out the Donjon Adventure Generator - "based upon tables from the Dungeon Master's Design Kit by TSR, Inc." - what you get is just collosal, so much stuff. Written up to follow Gorgon Bones first best practice: "Record your hobby experience" while continuing the DM commentary addition to the session notes.
I pushed the button twice and then followed my usual adventure generator workflow:
* Thread the pieces together
* Conserve NPCs
* Rewrite/polish
Elements I picked from the combined randomly generated stuff (italics is all stuff from Donjon):
* Plot: Event - a tournament, a holiday, a celebration called by the king, a masked ball - as a backdrop.
* Plot A-B-C Quest - the heros are given a task to perform but they find that they must first accomplish some other task(s)
* Climax: Prevented Deed
* General Setting Cosmopolitan City
* Specific Setting I - Palace of the King
* Specific Setting II - Mansion of a Lord
* Master Villain - Advance Agent - This villain is the vanguard of some sort of invastion
* Minor Villain I - Mistress with a Heart of Gold usually accompanies the Master Villain, but sometimes goes on missions of her own
* Minor Villain II Chief Assassin - favorite killer of the Master Villain - first killing witnesses who might prove harmful to his master, then zeroing in on the player-characters
* Chase: Special Terrain - You can make any chase more memorable by having it take place in a setting to which it is utterly unsuited. For instance, horse chases are fine and dramatic when they take place through the forest, out in the open plains, or along a road -- but they become diabolical when they take place inside the Royal Palace or in dangerous, labrynthine, treacherous catacombs.
* Secret Weakness: Love The Master Villain possesses the "weakness" of genuine affection or love -- probably for some NPC
* Special Condition Time Limit - Finally, the most obvious condition to place on an adventure is to give it a time limit.
I ended up doing all this on the back of an envelope - stealing the 'scavenger hunt a-to-b-to-c' structure as the underpin - time limit, located at a palace and climax as thwarted event and villains weakness of love said its a wedding that needs to be stopped - after that the rest fell into place. Quests were to acquire what they needed to get into the pre-wedding masquerade and thwart the wedding itself. They needed invites, costumes and proof of the false premise under the wedding. I decided to throw in the Masquerade as Depth Crawl set up I have used before here too.
Session Report: The Cat Castle Masquerade
Our heroes find themselves on an unusually fine day in the Golden Cockerel - thanks to the largesse of the Duke, grace of his upcoming wedding. The food has been good these past weeks, the wine has been punchy and everyone has generally been enjoying themselves until this courier drops a package in front of Francis saying that this was to be published in the local newspaper.
Francis on opening it finds a note that says, by the time you read this it will be too late, I will be the Duchess of Cat Castle and my guards will be on their way to fling you into my cells. The signature below it is Saetha, soon to be Duchess Cat Castle. This puzzled and alarmed our companions for as best they knew they had no reason for Saetha, someone they had twice fought dragons alongside - in Treasure of the Bigat and Bride of the Bigat - to dislike them and also as best they knew the person getting married to the Duke was the Contessa de Rigilie, not Saetha at all.
A little bit of poking around outside finds a poster where there is a relatively crude woodcut that, if squinted at, could be indeed the figure of Saetha set beside the Duke in the announcements. Our heroes decide that they need to perhaps interfere with this wedding or at least stop Saetha getting married because they rapidly become convinced that she is masquerading as the Contessa de Rigilie to inveigle herself into the Duke's arms. Cat Castle is locked down tightly except for a single opportunity - the grand masquerade before the wedding.
[DM Commentary - rapidly got to the point of needing to stop the wedding, using the masquerade as cover, I felt the party was searching around a bit for explicit go-here-do-this which I did not answer to give room for creativity.]
Asking around they figure that they know at least one friendly noble in Alermo de Rocaspera, the dragon slayer they have crossed paths with on multiple occasions - surely they have a masquerade invitation.
The heroes set out in different directions, gathering information before reconvening the following evening, having established that: Alermo is in residence at the Ordained Octopus, there is a manor for the de Rigillie somewhere in the town and the masquerade invitations were printed at a local printworks.
[DM Commentary - speed ran this as investigate rolls for the day, let them throw some plausible activity at me then fed back options to chase.]
Chasing up Alermo they get a friendly welcome and with minimum convincing he hands them a copy of a masquerade invitation that Francis and Runs Free then use the local printing press to run up more pristine copies .
Meanwhile the others of the party go to household de Rigilie, some going in through the front door to act as diversion, while others infiltrate around the heavily ivied walls at the back. After very little time, it becomes obvious that the de Rigilie are a household of serpent folk, ancient and proud, with a great portrait of the Contessa de Rigilie sitting on the staircase indicating that she is, in fact, also clearly a serpentfolk, and therefore the person in the photo in the handbills being portrayed as betrothed of the Duke cannot be the Comptess.
The cat-burglaring duo effect entry into the top floor, finding many rooms heated to an uncomfortable degree, and find the elderly Contessa wrapped in fine silks and embroidery, reading a great book before her, heat-radiating sunstone. After convincing her they mean no harm, they attempt to bring the Comptessa out to defend her name and chase off this imposter, before a lightning-genassi Majordomo intercepts them. They get some bad vibes, but it ends in a stalemate, with the Contessa insisting she will go to the masquerade, and the Majordomo having the player-characters ejected into the street.
[DM Commentary - I had anticipated them stealing a portrait to prove their point, not mobilising the Contessa - because I knew the Chief Assassin was keeping an eye on her (the Majordomo). They did twig the majordomo was suspicious - if they did not act on it, he would have seen the Contessa have an accident en route to Cat Castle.]
With a little to-ing and fro-ing, a day is spent making costumes, and Alermo is requested to escort the Comptessa to the masquerade to make sure that nothing untoward happens to her at the hands of the Majordomo. Our heroes follow shortly thereafter, and because they are not attempting to bring their fine wagon to the masquerade, they manage to skip the queue of quite a lot of the nobles and end up finding themselves in the masquerade.
Some running around and attempting to ascertain what is going within the masquerade on identifies that there is a large contingent of the household of the Duke and some other contingent much like our heroes dressed in costumes that are more elaborate than expensively manufactured. There's a couple of attempted pickpocketing of the riches on display, and a watch laid over the Contessa and her hanging moon float then leads to a confrontation where the timely intervention of the players leads to the Contessa's manservants being able to overrun those attempting to block her passage, drawing the attention of the entire ball, including the Duke and all those involved in this plot, including Setha.
[DM Commentary - things got chaotic with extreme party splitting, definitely started to drag a little until the conflict around the Contessa - handled with Brancalonia brawl rules - gave a focus to get everyone back together again.]
With the Contessa asserting her identity and rights, Saetha realises the gig is up, attempts to teleport away, but Francis hold persons her in a lightning spell quick-draw contest. Restrained, Setha is dragooned to the dungeons, and the Duke expresses his appreciation for their assistance before cancelling the nuptials. Our heroes make off with some filchings and other minor rewards, but also the gratitude of the Duke, which significantly reduces most people's bounties
Session report ends
This was an experiment in sandboxing a little - throwing in a big threat and putting on a clock. It felt a bit like people flailed - splitting up and doing lots of seperate work. I speed ran 'day cycle' for gathering information to get people making decisions rather than flailing in the dark.
One of the best ad-lib location and people happened - the Comptessa de Rigillie - sort of vanilla, did not really have anything special until I randomly rolled that they were serpentfolk. With a name like that, of course they were. Suddenly the place popped into being, big old cavernous house, they don't light candles because they can see in the dark. So old, the walls are tiled with paintings. Rooms heated to discomfort. Nothing thrown away.
I feel I over-reached somewhat with this one in leaving it a little too open and it took a while for people to clamp onto the how of what they early-on identified they wanted to do (stop the wedding). I think simpler set-ups might be better in future. This might have been ok if things then tightened up to a taut Masquerade sequence but the party split up again at the Masquerade and that killed momentum again. Once in the session, not so bad, twice made it feel a bit flat.
I do not think this was a 'content' problem from the adventure generator or even the threading prep I did, this was a party cohesion thing, maybe a symptom of it being an open table and people not so used to working as a team, maybe it is on me as the DM and I should have been more forceful in encouraging people to stick together. Something to consider for future sessions.
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