A while back I was running a Runequest game (AP Thread is here somewhere...).

I started off with what I thought was a reasonably clever 'in' for the characters to get to know one another and get involved with the world I had made.  I put them in charge of proving their own innocence of a crime... or allowing them to run away.   In short order, with a bit of nudging, they had pretty much found the true criminals, cleared their names and made a small variety of contacts (good and bad) in the city.

Then they decided to join a caravan all the way across the continent!!!! :confused:

So instead of looking for adventure, or getting involved with the local scene, they took an extended travelouge to exotic lands where they didn't know anyone or speak the local language.

Quote from: SpikeA while back I was running a Runequest game (AP Thread is here somewhere...).

I started off with what I thought was a reasonably clever 'in' for the characters to get to know one another and get involved with the world I had made.  I put them in charge of proving their own innocence of a crime... or allowing them to run away.   In short order, with a bit of nudging, they had pretty much found the true criminals, cleared their names and made a small variety of contacts (good and bad) in the city.

Then they decided to join a caravan all the way across the continent!!!! :confused:

So instead of looking for adventure, or getting involved with the local scene, they took an extended travelouge to exotic lands where they didn't know anyone or speak the local language.

Am I surprised? Not at all. No plan survives contact with the player characters.

-clash

But lots of fun stuff can happen traveling with a caravan.  As a GM you should be licking your chops.

Quote from: McrowBut lots of fun stuff can happen traveling with a caravan.  As a GM you should be licking your chops.

Well, a month long real time trip certainly didn't leave my players begging for it to end... oddly enough... and I certainly didn't mind showing off my creation... I just hadn't quite planned on them going so far so fast...er... slow?


'Okay, last week y'all were hanging out in a vaguely european cosmopolitan port city, this week you guys are convincing the gold painted naked god king to let you hunt twenty ton alligators in exchange for building a library? Um... yeah... okay, how do you intend to transport this massive, viscious beast assuming you can capture it?'...


Which was sadly the last session before the extended hiatus (five months now???).  The answer, if you were curious, was 'build a huge wagon and have the alchemist drug it until we deliver it to the temple of the Lake God'...

Quote from: SpikeA while back I was running a Runequest game (AP Thread is here somewhere...).

I started off with what I thought was a reasonably clever 'in' for the characters to get to know one another and get involved with the world I had made.  I put them in charge of proving their own innocence of a crime... or allowing them to run away.   In short order, with a bit of nudging, they had pretty much found the true criminals, cleared their names and made a small variety of contacts (good and bad) in the city.

Then they decided to join a caravan all the way across the continent!!!! :confused:

So instead of looking for adventure, or getting involved with the local scene, they took an extended travelouge to exotic lands where they didn't know anyone or speak the local language.

If you are dismayed that the players have left your story hooks behind, let the hooks come to them. Perhaps some drunkards who have heard of the characters' exploits have paid to come with the caravan for their own purposes, and along the way they regale the other caravan-goers with (embellished) tales of the PCs clearing their names and the shadowy conspiracy to imprison them. When something goes wrong, they instantly point to the PCs as the caravan's best hope for salvation.

Maybe one of the bad guys from the previous adventure sends a lackey to spy on the PCs: a totally inept lackey that the baddie in question really would like to never see again, but can't have executed for some reason. So there's someone clumsily spying on the PCs, recording all of their actions, waiting to give the report "until contacted, as per your orders." Make it a reasonably hot girl so the PCs don't kill her on sight.

Ghost Rat: In case you hadn't noticed, my players have long since moved beyond the caravan... indeed... the game has been on hold due to outside obligations among the various principles (myself included) for the last few months.

I'm not looking to solve anything, just tvetching about wacky player ideas and hoping to hear some stories from other forumites.  Anything better than '4e is gunna suck hard' or whatever other boring crap has been crowding the front page for months...

Ah, sorry...:deflated: sometimes I try to help when help isn't needed, just tossing ideas to keep PCs in contact with characters you've made. I had thought the idea was "I did all this hard work to give the PCs some characters to interact with and some grounding in the place they are in, and then they up and gallavant off and all that work I did is basically flushed down the toilet," so I was trying to think of ways you could keep the connection there.

Anyway, yeah, PCs will surprise you. The biggest surprise I can remember came back when I was 14 or so, running a 2e D&D game for some friends. I had thought the idea of a glass sword was cool, so as the PCs were dungeoneering, they came upon a serrated glassteel two-handed sword of wounding in a display case. The only character who could even use a two-handed sword in the party was Weldros the ranger, and given his strength bonuses and current weapons, he would be doing more damage if he just stuck to two-weapon fighting (which I recall was the major draw of the ranger class in our group). I had thought that the sword would be an interesting curiosity that the party would sell at the first chance.

Not so. The player of Weldros was so enamored with the weapon that he put aside two-weapon fighting forever, and his terrible glass sword became a trademark of the character that put fear into the hearts of his enemies. It warmed my 14-year-old heart, because it was the first time I ever really succeeded in making part of the game fun. And I did it by accident, natch. It will forever be the standard of fun creation by which I will judge the games I run and declare them wanting.

Quote from: McrowBut lots of fun stuff can happen traveling with a caravan.  As a GM you should be licking your chops.

Typically, this sort of thing happens to me after I plan out the next campaign arc to occur in the city. :haw: