An Odd situation in game: A Massive Neglect of Adventure Hooks

[Jon_Dahl]

I'm the DM in our long-running campaign and I have made life difficult for myself.

The players belong to an Adventurers' Guild, which (among other functions) buys and sells adventure tips and missions. Tips being that someone knows something that might be worth exploring and missions are things that someone wants someone to do ASAP. The missions are never that clear since the guild is afraid that the adventurers might contact the third party without the guild or figure out the tip and go after it without compensating the guild. Only minimum details are given before the tip or mission is bought.

For every session, I have a 1-3 adventures prepared. Usually my players don't like some of them. I'd say that about 50% of the missions are never taken. They are cheap. They cost about 5-50 gp per mission, and the APL is about 8. My players seem to like this that they can pick missions and leave missions to NPCs, but I find it a bit frustrating. I'd hate to speak my players about it, since I don't want to force their hand. They don't have to take missions if they don't want to, but this guild thing is making me write adventures that never get played.

[johnbragg]

I'm the DM in our long-running campaign and I have made life difficult for myself.

The players belong to an Adventurers' Guild, which (among other functions) buys and sells adventure tips and missions. Tips being that someone knows something that might be worth exploring and missions are things that someone wants someone to do ASAP. The missions are never that clear since the guild is afraid that the adventurers might contact the third party without the guild or figure out the tip and go after it without compensating the guild. Only minimum details are given before the tip or mission is bought.

For every session, I have a 1-3 adventures prepared. Usually my players don't like some of them. I'd say that about 50% of the missions are never taken. They are cheap. They cost about 5-50 gp per mission, and the APL is about 8. My players seem to like this that they can pick missions and leave missions to NPCs, but I find it a bit frustrating. I'd hate to speak my players about it, since I don't want to force their hand. They don't have to take missions if they don't want to, but this guild thing is making me write adventures that never get played.

If they're anywhere close to WBL at 8th level, 50gp is nothing to the PCs. So why should they take these "missions"? At their level, those are the things they send 1st level noobs to do, clearing the rats out of the basement with a rusty dagger or chasing the kobolds away from the city walls.

[Nifft]

If they're anywhere close to WBL at 8th level, 50gp is nothing to the PCs. So why should they take these "missions"? At their level, those are the things they send 1st level noobs to do, clearing the rats out of the basement with a rusty dagger or chasing the kobolds away from the city walls.

5-50 GP are what the missions cost, not what they pay, so you seem to have failed to understand the situation entirely.

- - -

@Jon_Dahl - Did the players ever take a mission? Was it fun for them, or was it a frustrating Shadowrun-esque double-cross type of thing?

Do these missions ever interact with the character's own stories & motivations? Like, if they're looking to break a curse on a friendly NPC, is there ever a time where they have to compete with other adventurers to get the curse-breaking item, for which their only clue is on the public missions board?

[johnbragg]

5-50 GP are what the missions cost, not what they pay, so you seem to have failed to understand the situation entirely.

- - -

Yes, indeed. I assumed a mission was "Recover stolen spellbook of Mercurio the Magnificent. Will pay X." So my 8th level Rogue pays the guild 25 gp for a mission, to do what? What does the party get out of it?

Buying adventure tips makes some sense. Low-level party went down to the sewers, ran from something, will trade their intel for some coin.

The mission structure isn't clear to me at all.

[ace rooster]

I'm the DM in our long-running campaign and I have made life difficult for myself.

The players belong to an Adventurers' Guild, which (among other functions) buys and sells adventure tips and missions. Tips being that someone knows something that might be worth exploring and missions are things that someone wants someone to do ASAP. The missions are never that clear since the guild is afraid that the adventurers might contact the third party without the guild or figure out the tip and go after it without compensating the guild. Only minimum details are given before the tip or mission is bought.

For every session, I have a 1-3 adventures prepared. Usually my players don't like some of them. I'd say that about 50% of the missions are never taken. They are cheap. They cost about 5-50 gp per mission, and the APL is about 8. My players seem to like this that they can pick missions and leave missions to NPCs, but I find it a bit frustrating. I'd hate to speak my players about it, since I don't want to force their hand. They don't have to take missions if they don't want to, but this guild thing is making me write adventures that never get played.

"Does this Necromancer's mansion look suspiciously similar to the bank we had to clear out?"
"I don't know, we never went there."

Get good at recycling. As you said, only minimum details are given, so there is no need to discard any details you have built but are never seen. If you make a ranger to track them on a mission, keep them on file even if they don't take that mission. Next time a mission needs a ranger you can just drop them in. You can even use the same ranger on two different missions for the same session, if the party is not going to do both. If it is esentially random which of 3 groups of NPCs the players interact with, and they are only going to meet one, all three paths can lead to the same NPCs with minor adjustments. If 2 of 3 missions are going to have traps, they can be the same traps. If the PCs take the option without traps, then you keep the traps for the next mission that needs them.


As I understand it, the 50gp is the guild admin fee. Presumably the guild has a reputation, so many clients would rather go through them than hire unreliable freelancers. Mercurio would only trust guild approved adventurers, so the rogue would not get the mission at all without paying. Having to pay it in advance avoids timewasters.

[Jon_Dahl]

As I understand it, the 50gp is the guild admin fee. Presumably the guild has a reputation, so many clients would rather go through them than hire unreliable freelancers. Mercurio would only trust guild approved adventurers, so the rogue would not get the mission at all without paying. Having to pay it in advance avoids timewasters.

You phrased this so well that I will copy and paste it and use it (a guild admin NPC will say it) if any of the PCs ever openly question the tip/mission costs. Which I don't think they ever will. It seems to function pretty well.

Your idea of recycling is very good. If I worked (hard) to write something, I can offer the mission again. It can be a different mission with the same content. It seems fair! I guess I will pile four of the missed adventures and keep them in the guild queue until at least one of them is successfully completed.

The mission structure isn't clear to me at all.

I feel that I can't adequately to explain to you.

@Jon_Dahl - Did the players ever take a mission? Was it fun for them, or was it a frustrating Shadowrun-esque double-cross type of thing?

Yes, many. And there have lots of different types of missions, even plane-hopping.

Do these missions ever interact with the character's own stories & motivations? Like, if they're looking to break a curse on a friendly NPC, is there ever a time where they have to compete with other adventurers to get the curse-breaking item, for which their only clue is on the public missions board?

No, they don't interact that much with their motivations. I feel that it would artificial to tailor the missions to suit the needs of PCs. The guild should have its own missions that make sense. Variety is the key.

[nedz]

but this guild thing is making me write adventures that never get played.

It seems you are working for an imaginary guild.

What you could do is write a set of missions (three say) with lots of common elements - things like random encounters/stat blocks - and only let them do one of these. They will never know.

When I ran a mission based game it was military based: Orders saved me a lot of work.

In all the sandbox games I've run I generally found that I didn't use half the stuff I wrote - still 2:1 is better than 3:1.

[Buufreak]

The mission structure isn't clear to me at all.

Did you ever by chance play final fantasy tactics a2? A mouthful of a title, but it uses this exact system. A board is posted with potential quests or in this case hooks, and a guild master has the full details and location, which he parts with for an administration fee.

One thing it also had was a time based system, where quests could potentially expire if not completed in a timely manner, as well as some that are seasonal dependent. It was all very interesting how it worked, and wonder if OP has modeled his game after this springboard.

[Khosan]

Consider the repercussions of these tasks not getting done or not getting done to the degree a party full of PCs could get it done. Some get cleared out, others survive and fortify their positions. The ones that survive get stronger and start bringing in new threats that can't be ignored as easily. Stuff like that.

[Jon_Dahl]

It seems you are working for an imaginary guild.

What you could do is write a set of missions (three say) with lots of common elements - things like random encounters/stat blocks - and only let them do one of these. They will never know.

When I ran a mission based game it was military based: Orders saved me a lot of work.

In all the sandbox games I've run I generally found that I didn't use half the stuff I wrote - still 2:1 is better than 3:1.

I have had excellent experiences with military-based campaigns and adventures... It's too bad that the PCs avoided a war. They avoid lots of stuff.

[Seward]

Sometimes you can do more to encourage the PCs. For example, they skip a mission, a NPC team attempts it, gets shredded. Now the bad guys have all the NPC gear stuff, plus they had a month to cause more problems locally. Maybe the PC's favorite tavern gets burned to the ground, or their scroll shop is out of business because their crafting wizard was on that NPC team trying to level up to scribe higher level scrolls or a NPC team member was a love interest, relative or perhaps related to a love interest or other local friend who now blames the PCs for skipping the mission. Bonus points if the NPC team has any friends with the PC team. There might be an opportunity to rescue them, or at least do a body recovery for either a rez or proper burial. You're entering the levels where the NPC team might be able to afford a raise dead or two, but only if the PC's recover the body within a few days.

If more than one NPC team gets shredded by the same group, maybe the Adventuring Guild decides to make an example of those guys, to shore up the damaged reputation it has from those failures, and says something like "you're our top team, you either do this or there won't BE a guild to support you, train you, fence your magic items and craft your new gear. If we fail again, we'll stop getting contracts."

That sort of thing allows a fair amount of re-use of skipped content, but with a twist that the PC actions (or inactions) affected how badass the enemy is, and also affected the PC motivation by tying the content into the everyday non-adventuring lives of the PCs.

Another thing you can do that will pretty much ensure all skipped content will get used someday is to advance the goals of whomever is skipped, bumping up their resources/levels/influence/power appropriately. If they're interesting enough that you really want to use it, they're interesting enough to either defeat the NPC team or just get lucky and no NPC team went after them. So now they're building influence, perhaps alliances with other skipped groups. Maybe they start a whispering campaign against the PCs (very hard for most PCs to deal with), or become "official" - those pirates you ignored are now privateers working for the Duke. They're still raiding, raping, pillaging and looting, but now going after them means also going after the local corrupt lord. This is going to cause a quandry for the Lawful Good types, at minimum.

[Morof Stonehands]

Instead of spending so much time coming up with ideas for these missions, look around for pregenerated adventures. There are hundreds you can find! Not every one will be level appropriate for your party, but neither is life, sometimes they'll get into something over their heads. Less time writing for you.

[Quertus]

To present another idea, don't spend time stating things out until the party tells you that they are interested.

DM: "ok, group, what are we doing next session?"
Player: "that mission to recover the spellbook sounded interesting..."

Worked great for me.

[Coidzor]

Sounds like you're prepping too much.

[Seward]

I'm a big fan of prepping, but flexible prepping (not as described in the link).

The idea is simple. The NPCs are all doing their thing, pursuing their own goals. If the PC's do nothing but hang out in a tavern, stuff will happen. If the PC's do things, other stuff will happen.

At first, the campaign is mostly driven by events pushed by NPC actions. Then after some victories and thwarted plans, the PC's will be treated as a local power and their possible actions/responses considered in NPC plans. It's about this time that they start accumulating allies, but also start becoming the subject of plots aimed directly at them (including assassination attempts, kidnappings, whispering campaigns or even being hired by some nasty dude to take out a rival that is painted as being the next coming of Asmodeous by the shadowy guy in the bar).

Eventually, in a game like D&D where power levels ramp very fast, the PC's will be the kind of people who cause reactions like "Oh crap, we just saw the Team from Hommlet drinking at the local tavern. They're bound to find out about our nefarious plan and kill us all! Screw the risk, we need to free the Godess RIGHT NOW". Again, I find that players love that kind of transition, going from scrappy nobodies to the kind of people who shake up the local power structure just by wandering on the scene.

The thing is, your prepping instincts can be fully engaged working out what the hell all of your NPC's do to react to the latest game session. This can be as simple as the dungeon denizens trying to react tactically to the latest incursion, or as complex as a government falling because a key government official happened to be in the crowd when the PC's failed to stop the green dragon from breathing on the Anti-Kobold rally.

Warning - some plots will get shortstopped by NPC on NPC actions. Be sure to level up the winners, and give them the stuff of the losers, in best D&D style. It is also entertaining to have the PC's wake up to find out that the local moneychanger's shop is now a crater, for reasons none of them yet understand, or to see a giant plume of smoke from the part of the forest where they know the local Druid Council usually meets.

[sabelo2000]

We've had great responses so far regarding 2 different approaches to your problem: (A) make better use of your prepwork by recycling unused adventures, and (B) force PCs to use more adventures.

I myself am a huge fan of recycling dungeons, maps, encounter tables, etc. I think one of the greatest benefits to recurring villains is that I don't have to keep rolling up new villains. Also, remember the generic dungeon map that came in the back of the 3.5 books? That has doubled as every type of terrain imaginable for my group. Underground dungeon, castle-in-the-sky, firey wasteland with pools of lava, you name it; with a little suspension-of-disbelief, premade maps can substitute for anything.

A couple of points that haven't been discussed yet:

First, what KIND of adventures are you writing for your party? Do they have a preferred playstyle, and are you catering to it? I'll assume you are but if you aren't yet, then writing more adventures in your party's preferred genre will be a better use of your time.

Second, what sort of incentives are you giving your PCs? I refer here to in-story incentives, not loot tables. Does the guild give a bonus for completing so many quests in such-and-such period, or for completing a particular set of quests? This could be a monetary bonus, a magic item, or access to a higher tier of quests.

Third, you mentioned that you don't tailor guild quests to your PCs' goals. This is fine; but how often do your PCs leave the guild to pursue whatever goals they have? You haven't mentioned writing any plot-hook adventures. Sprinkle those into your writing and drop hints (or big glowing neon signs) at your PCs after every few guild runs, and it'll be pretty much guaranteed that your group will chase down that adventure.

Finally, what is the rest of the guild doing? We've discussed the possibility of having unused adventures get levelled-up by munching on lower-level NPC parties. But what if those parties AREN'T lower level? Introduce an equivalent rival team to your guild, or even an all-star team that your group can make it a goal to beat. They don't have to be antagonistic; a friendly rivalry can push everybody to excel, and will encourage your players to take harder or more high-profile quests. That way, you can spend most of your time writing a "prestige" adventure, and have 2 (recycled) others standing-by in case your PCs don't bite.


---

So to summarize the thread so far:

1. Recycle your material to use in later adventures.
2. Introduce repercussions for adventures not being taken (sometimes, but not always).
3. Tailor your adventures to your group's style, and drop some PC-centric plot points sometimes.
4. Have your group buy the next adventure at the END of each session.
5. Give them additional motivation (prestige, rivals) to complete more guild quests.

[Barstro]

Without knowing the missions and why your players are rejecting them, it's hard to give too much advice.

If you were playing by "real world" rules, then there are three missions. If you don't like them, order a pizza. Maybe someone bring in a new mission next week.

But, of course, you will never do that; it's not fun. If you are the one creating all the quests, then why cannot each quest have three or four different hooks? "Save my son", "investigate this cave", "Stop the bandits" can ALL lead to the cave on the west side of town. They may start on a different page in your notebook, but they all eventually get to page 15.

If you have six quests at any one time, you can easily have 18 different things posted to get to those six.

Than again, I don't mind being railroaded as long as I get to do something.

[Eisfalken]

No, they don't interact that much with their motivations. I feel that it would artificial to tailor the missions to suit the needs of PCs. The guild should have its own missions that make sense. Variety is the key.

I have had excellent experiences with military-based campaigns and adventures... It's too bad that the PCs avoided a war. They avoid lots of stuff.

So what I'm reading is that your PCs just aren't interested in doing anything, really.

That's on the players, not the DM.

[bigstipidfighte]

To present another idea, don't spend time stating things out until the party tells you that they are interested.

DM: "ok, group, what are we doing next session?"
Player: "that mission to recover the spellbook sounded interesting..."

Worked great for me.

This. Make picking the next mission the end if your session, not the beginning. Have a few ideas, let the PCs pick one, flesh it out. This is how I handled my most recent game and it worked out very well.

[Rangô]

"Does this Necromancer's mansion look suspiciously similar to the bank we had to clear out?"
"I don't know, we never went there."

Get good at recycling..

I absolutly agree, your party is exploring the mansion looking for the Necronomicon book, you set it up inside the mainroom upstaris but... the party won't go there by no means, they aren't keen of recovering the book and they go to the cellar, well... behind the screen in your map, erase where says 'upstairs' rewrite 'downstairs'. Problem solved, they went where they wanted exactly as you did.

[Gallowglass]

I have had excellent experiences with military-based campaigns and adventures... It's too bad that the PCs avoided a war. They avoid lots of stuff.

I think you should talk to your PCs. I get the strong impression (albeit from a very limited set of data) that you and your PCs are on different wavelengths. You may like this campaign of working for an adventuring guild and popping from one ultimately meaningless adventure to the next, but it could be that they, on some conscious or unconscious level, do not.

If they are lethargic and avoidy in character, its probable that its because they are lethargic and bored out of character. It seems to me that they might WANT a more meaningful interaction with the imaginary world. That they want to go on a mission for a cause or a goal rather than just normal murderhobo-ry.

Maybe they want to feel important to the overall narrative rather than being "adventuring squad 23".

Even if they say no, that's not it, that they are cool with how things are going, you may want to try adding some personal need into some of the hooks. Next week when they get their three hooks, one of the group notices that the address listed on hook B is familiar. A cousin's shop. When they go there they find out its their nephew that's been kidnapped, not random boy 5378.

Or have something familiar show up when when are hosing out the next dungeon. They suddenly realize, this group of dungeon dwellers are somehow related to a group from three missions ago. Is this some larger plot that is materializing? Is someone organizing monsters toward a larger goal. You start finding mysterious amulets or coins in the purses of monsters you kill. Eventually you find out the sinister truth. Someone is forming a Guild of Random Encounters, these coins or amulets are union cards. Unfortunately, you find out too late as it turns out the adventuring guild you belong to has been corrupted from the inside, the treasury looted and the guildhouse gutted by fire. The same symbol from the guild medallions burned into the foreheads of the corpses left there. (right before they get up and attack the party.) The Guild of Random Encounters has made their move!