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Alton_Utrich
2013-03-09, 11:45 AM
I'm crafting a Pathfinder campaign and i've gotten most of the major bits and pieces figured out, save one. The cornerstone of the campaign revolves around a group of people after the PC's, dogging them at every turn. The only thing I can't decide on is why they're after them in the first place. Any suggestions from the playground?

Sith_Happens
2013-03-09, 11:56 AM
A game of tag gone horribly wrong.

AntiTrust
2013-03-09, 11:57 AM
More context for your game as whole would help us come up with ideas that fit your story.

Otherwise I'm going to go with warforged terminators sent from the future to kill off the party before they can lead humanity in a war against the machines

JellyPooga
2013-03-09, 12:26 PM
You can always fall back on the tried and true axiom:

"If in doubt, a Wizard did it"

A powerful mage has divined through his arcane studies that he requires the heart of a [Player 1's Race], the lungs of a [Player 2's Class], the kidneys of a [Player 3's hair colour], etc. in order to perform his depraved and evil ritual of doom. He has also divined that there just so happens to be a bunch of powerful mortals travelling together who would be perfect "donors", so sends his darstardly minions to retrieve them.

Surfnerd
2013-03-09, 12:46 PM
Its a mystery or so I am told. Who knows but the group themselves.....

but I'd go with Cultist of the Old gods....

or maybe the government....

Yeah I don't feel like there is enough info to make anything.... Go with Warforged Terminators, I like that idea anyway.

falloutimperial
2013-03-09, 03:23 PM
I always liked the idea of an extra-dimensional group that enforces the laws of physics that shows up if the PC's do something that technically shouldn't be possible (Pun Pun, etc.) Perhaps our heroes could meet with a small, accidental break from "reality." Perhaps they see something they shouldn't have. Perhaps it is just a matter of confused identities or misfiled paperwork. Regardless, there is now a very powerful group trying to find our intrepid pals.

JoshuaZ
2013-03-09, 05:08 PM
Prophecy or divine prediction that the PCs are the only ones who can stop the Mysterious Group is always easy.

Look at PC backstories also. Does anyone's backstory mention anyone they've killed? Some relative of someone they've killed could be a higher-up in the Mysterious Group. (In general, stuff related to backstories helps make players feel deeply involved.)

Without more info about either the PCs or the intended setting and Mysterious Group, it is hard to say.

Alton_Utrich
2013-03-10, 12:39 AM
As consensus leans towards there not being enough info, i'll provide more. The game opens with the PC's naked and held captive by this group. They manage to escape and wind up doing a favor for a wizard completely by accident. The Wizard grants them the deed to a tower he earned back in his adventuring days but never took the time to explore. The PC's travel to the tower, located in the Capital City of a nation. While they explore their Tower(a leftover relic from a fallen empire), they get embroiled in the politics and strife of the area. And while all this is happening, the group that captured and stripped them continues to come after them.

It's my attempt to allow for sandbox play while still tying the campaign together with a main plot that pursues the players as much as the players pursue it. If anyone here is familiar with the early seasons of Burn Notice, that's the sort of relationship the PC's have with the group. The only obstacle is that I can't decide on what the group wants out of the PC's. So far I know that it has to want something from each of them, and is unconnected to local politics and strife and the old wizard that gives them the tower. It's also totally independent of character background, what the group wants from them is unknown to the PC's, but they do have it in common and must figure out what it is as the campaign rolls along in order to thwart the group.

GeriSch
2013-03-10, 11:07 AM
Well, you could wait for the theories your players come up with, pick the most interesting/fitting, apply a nice twist to it and et voila you've done it.

Maybe they know of a prophecy which speaks of the end of the world or something similar, and it includes a band of people like your heroes which play a crucial role in it. Maybe this other group wants to save the world, but are inclined to do bad things for the greater good, so they could be mistaken for the bad guys and maybe they need the heroes alive to try and fulfill / avoid parts of the prophecy.

gr,
Geri

Rhynn
2013-03-10, 11:42 AM
I'm crafting a Pathfinder campaign and i've gotten most of the major bits and pieces figured out, save one. The cornerstone of the campaign revolves around a group of people after the PC's, dogging them at every turn. The only thing I can't decide on is why they're after them in the first place. Any suggestions from the playground?

That's like the crux of the story. How can you even craft the rest of the campaign unless you know why the PCs are being chased? That seems like a pretty big thing to need help on.

The usual reason is "they know/possess something they shouldn't/others want." This can be a secret, information, skills, and artifact, a recipe, another person... the location of some thing or person, information on how to do something or to stop something... they are a threat to the group's designs, either wittingly or unwittingly... there's a prophecy... etc.

Surfnerd
2013-03-10, 11:44 AM
In burn notice he was a spy so that tied him to multiple possible organizations that would want him dead including agents in his own organization that burned him. Which would be how his background was tied into it.

I would really pick up their backgrounds and read them and then figure out something that would tie them into the organization, perhaps they are an adventuring group or mercenary unit that is part of a larger group that has some hidden agenda that they fear the PCs might be onto because of their involvement, tie up loose ends and all that.

If its a huge sweeping organization with lots of resources and members, I can't imagine the PCs will stand much of a chance against them holed up in a city tower....

of course back to the elder god concept, you could have them be some kind of bizarre faction infiltrating the material plane from the Far Realm. Tentacled inconceivable monstrosities with incomprehensible motivations and plans. They just happened on the PCs as body transfers for these unspeakable creatures.

Whatever ritual they use to transfer themselves into humanoids has marked the players as they receiving vessels. Which is why they were naked and captive. Now the group in order to bring this next wave of their allies into this plane of existence need to recapture the PCs and finish the ritual.

Slipperychicken
2013-03-10, 12:13 PM
A gang of Doppelgangers perform all kinds of misadventures, getting in trouble with the organizations. They randomly elected to disguise as the PCs. Hilarity ensues as the PCs must track down and capture the Doppelgangers to prove their innocence.

Xeratos
2013-03-10, 06:01 PM
How do we know that the group is really after the PCs with evil intent? Maybe they're trying to push them towards doing something, or becoming something. Maybe they want to mold the PCs into becoming the heroes of an Age, the stuff of Legends?

Alternatively, maybe they're just trying to buff them up enough to be adequate meat shields and trap monkeys for a dungeon that the group themselves don't want to try sweeping clean until they've disabled the first round of traps via live decoys.

Personally, I'd go with the whole tying it into the backstory idea someone posted. I like campaigns that use the backstories players write for their characters. It makes me feel like I'm rewarding them for taking the time to come up with something, and allows them to feel like they're helping build this world that you're all supposed to be sharing anyway.

AcerbicOrb
2013-03-10, 06:13 PM
The PCs are mistakenly identified (or possibly truly identified) by a corrupt/evil lord/baron/king/wizard and he send his minions to take them out before they can cause harm to him.

You could spin this in several ways. For example, have villages hail the heroes and shower them in gifts for being the ones to oppose this evil guy (only if they will roleplay feeling bad about it, though). Or, you could go the other direction and have villages destroyed in search of the PCs, and angry survivors. Hell, you could even have the angry survivors be hunting the PCs who recently killed the evil guy.

Or, you could invert it and have the bad guys be prophesied to kill the heroes, and the heroes hunted them (or some relation/ally/lookalike if they don't want that in their background). Their children are now hunting the players down for revenge.

scurv
2013-03-10, 06:47 PM
Meh, Give the PC's some Macguffin magic item, Something kinda cool and kinda cursed (as long as the pc's dont know its cursed its cool) So you can just say that the pc's are being shadowed by that group to get them where they need to be.

Lord Torath
2013-03-10, 09:38 PM
The PC's PCs were randomly grabbed by The Group for use in a nasty ritual that will turn the BigBad into a BiggerBadder (or possibly BiggestBaddest). So they are no one special. But the ritual has several phases, and the PCs escaped after Phase 1, but before Phase 2, and once the ritual has started, he can't change sacrifices. He NEEDS these particular people in order to complete the ritual. And he can't start the ritual over, because BAD things will happen if he leaves the ritual uncompleted.

GungHo
2013-03-11, 08:47 AM
This requires some thought/expanse as to what your PCs are doing and what their goal is but some ideas:

Rival group after the same contract/hoard.

Rival group trying to stop/ensure a prohpecy that involves your group.

Rival group trying to kill your group and take their stuff.

Rival group that have been rivals with your group since childhood.

Rival group hired by king/dragon/whatever as revenge.

The Fury
2013-03-11, 10:01 AM
Maybe one of the PCs is a Maguffin of some kind? Like maybe the mysterious group has figured out that someone in the party can be used to gain some crazy power from some prophecy. But maybe they're not sure which PC actually is the Maguffin so they're trying to capture the party and test all of them somehow.

Firest Kathon
2013-03-11, 10:16 AM
The PC's PCs [FTFY] were randomly grabbed by The Group for use in a nasty ritual that will turn the BigBad into a BiggerBadder (or possibly BiggestBaddest). So they are no one special. But the ritual has several phases, and the PCs escaped after Phase 1, but before Phase 2, and once the ritual has started, he can't change sacrifices. He NEEDS these particular people in order to complete the ritual. And he can't start the ritual over, because BAD things will happen if he leaves the ritual uncompleted.

I like that idea, but it begs the question why they don't just send in their best troops (and lots of them) to re-capture the PCs (assuming it's a low-level campaign start). So my idea is that the ritual they performed (whatever it does) is in fact completed, and now they are monitoring the PCs to find out how it turned out. This gives them a reason to observe them, without actually interfering with their mission (like the G-Man in Half-Life).

Lord Torath
2013-03-11, 10:51 AM
I like that idea, but it begs the question why they don't just send in their best troops (and lots of them) to re-capture the PCs (assuming it's a low-level campaign start). So my idea is that the ritual they performed (whatever it does) is in fact completed, and now they are monitoring the PCs to find out how it turned out. This gives them a reason to observe them, without actually interfering with their mission (like the G-Man in Half-Life).
As the BigBad has not yet finished his ritual/ceremony, he's not yet powerful enough to take on the nations the PCs are currently traveling in, so he can't send out armies to bring them in. He instead has to rely on covert teams of kidnappers to bring the sacrifices back. He still needs to be discreet.

There is still the question of what level his most powerful strike force will be, and why they're always a step or two (or maybe only half a step) behind the PCs...

Another option is that the PCs have been installed with experimental technology (magical, magitech, or otherwise) and The Group wants it back. See The Message (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Message_%28Firefly%29) from Firefly. Or those Supersoldiers with the neck implants from Dark Angel Episode 11 (where Max is protecting Bruno so he can testify). Or they ARE experimental technology, like the escaped X5s in Dark Angel.

Alton_Utrich
2013-03-11, 11:05 PM
Perfection. I need to bring my DMing quandaries here more often.

The PCs are descendants of a star-worshiping cults founding figure. After departing for the Far Realm to gain power, the figure is ready to return, powerful enough to conquer the world. The Cult has tracked down the figures descendants and prepare to enact complicated rituals to call the figure back into the world using the blood of descendants. Rather than building a military presence, the Cult has spread its tentacles out, its members holding positions in many other organizations as better to find descendants when the time comes. The PCs are captured and marked, but manage to escape before the ritual can be completed on them. Now the PCs must unravel the mystery of the Cult before the Cult can unravel them.

I decided to cut out the Burn Notice idea, as I realized such a relationship would be up to the PCs rather than me. It seems like a solid running plot to me, can anyone spot any holes in it that I'm missing?

JoshuaZ
2013-03-11, 11:20 PM
Perfection. I need to bring my DMing quandaries here more often.

The PCs are descendants of a star-worshiping cults founding figure. After departing for the Far Realm to gain power, the figure is ready to return, powerful enough to conquer the world. The Cult has tracked down the figures descendants and prepare to enact complicated rituals to call the figure back into the world using the blood of descendants. Rather than building a military presence, the Cult has spread its tentacles out, its members holding positions in many other organizations as better to find descendants when the time comes. The PCs are captured and marked, but manage to escape before the ritual can be completed on them. Now the PCs must unravel the mystery of the Cult before the Cult can unravel them.

I decided to cut out the Burn Notice idea, as I realized such a relationship would be up to the PCs rather than me. It seems like a solid running plot to me, can anyone spot any holes in it that I'm missing?

Obvious questions will come up: Why are all the PCs connected? Also be careful- monkeying with ancestors will feel to a lot of players like one is dictating their backstory which they don't generally like.

Alton_Utrich
2013-03-11, 11:27 PM
Obvious questions will come up: Why are all the PCs connected? Also be careful- monkeying with ancestors will feel to a lot of players like one is dictating their backstory which they don't generally like.

Knowing my group, they wouldn't mind. I was planning on it being a thousand-year thing, an ancestor so far back that it isn't likely to factor into their backstories.

Waker
2013-03-12, 03:19 AM
The pcs are/believed to be the reincarnations of ancient heroes. The big bad is worried that they will interfere with his plans, get revenge if he battled the originals or need to sacrifice them to get out of his magical prison. Whatever. The important thing is that he sent his lieutenants to capture the party.
Perhaps the party came into contact unknowingly with an artifact, leaving them with a magical aura. Now the party needs to avoid the minions while trying to find the item of power.