in campaigns with wilderness or travel, there are very easy staples for meeting enemies on the road, ruined/dangerous/occupied areas but if i want to have an investigation in the city, it feels sooooo much harder to inject fun encounters
Replies
I mean I guess I gotta go read some urban APs. Council of Thieves, Agents of Edgewatch, and Curtain Call probably have the answers I need.
aug 29, 2025, 11:18 pm • 2 0 • view
Curse of the Crimson Throne is heavily urban at the start as well.
aug 30, 2025, 4:38 pm • 1 0 • view
I mean, ok. There are urban D&D staples too. Cultist hideout, abandoned manor, secret dungeon underneath a building. But it feels hard to nail the pacing between them so it's not just 8 talking scenes in a row. 🤔
aug 29, 2025, 11:26 pm • 2 0 • view
just have the party piss off someone willing to use violence in the city. police, criminal syndicate, rival group going for the same goal, demons, etc. :D
aug 29, 2025, 11:58 pm • 0 0 • view
I have kinda always felt that I wrote too much of a "spy" plot for a party which is not spies in the least lol. You wanted a bandit outlaw story and you got John LeCarré
aug 30, 2025, 1:36 am • 0 0 • view
I appreciate the ‘out of our depth’ aspects of it, but some good old piracy and misbehavin wouldn’t be amiss, either.
aug 30, 2025, 8:57 am • 1 0 • view
idk that we're ever gonna get back to Plunder & Peril 1 vibes of just sailing around fun locations (to some extent, it wouldn't make sense. a narrative has to escalate and go somewhere new)
aug 30, 2025, 9:02 am • 0 0 • view
but, at the very least, I can definitely say that the "you need to be subtle and you can't blow your cover" thing won't last for........ too much longer. Relatively soon in this campaign the gloves will come off and I think the tone from that point on will be more natural for these 4 PCs
aug 30, 2025, 9:05 am • 0 0 • view
also in Act 1 & 2 i did try my best to inject some sidequests with "basically just go to this area and fight stuff" objectives. neither Blackblood Cay nor the Cult of the Eye were in my original outline for Act 1/2 at all lol so I'm sure that'll happen again in Acts 3 and 4 at some point 🤔
aug 30, 2025, 9:08 am • 0 0 • view
i mean it's not like the spy elements have been too much either. mostly because our version of subtle is kicking in the front door.
aug 30, 2025, 9:09 am • 1 0 • view
we're about to hit Peak Spy in the next arc 🤔 I'm thinking a lot about how exactly to run it so it doesn't just become 4 bored pirates going from conversation to conversation but I think I'm working through it and have some cool ideas now
aug 30, 2025, 9:12 am • 1 0 • view
Currently playing The Slithering, and that's also been in one city so far (still in chapter 1). But one in-game day doesn't make a whole campaign...
aug 29, 2025, 11:52 pm • 0 0 • view