The Enemy Within Campaign & the Three-Clue Rule Part I

I saw a challenge/question yesterday about what changes would have to be made to Death on the Reik to make it a true sandbox and also use the 'three-clue rule' to help get and keep players on the right track. This post is just about using the three-clue rule to bolster the structure of The Enemy Within Campaign.

 

There are some minor spoilers below, but I have tried to avoid the most obvious stuff.

Mistaken Identity

The only thing that *needs* to happen in Mistaken Identity is that the characters get to Bogenhafen at the end. That's it. They can fluff everything else, every other element is entirely optional except for the activities of the bounty hunter, which are going to occur no matter what the PCs do - although clearly the outcome of that is in their hands, to some degree. Given that, I would argue that Mistaken Identity does 'kinda' comply with the 3-clue  rule anyway, although in quite a disguised fashion. Because they have no real idea of why the 'adventure' wants to get them to Bogenhafen, the 'clues' here are really 'incentives', although on a metagame level this serves as 'clues' to the meta-mystery: 'where is the adventure?'.

The PCs start with one 'clue' - the advert to join the Prince's expedition; plus each of the PCs have individual motivations of varying strength to go to Altdorf. This directs them to Altdorf. On the way to Altdorf, they have an encounter which gives them a 'clue' to go to Bogenhafen. When in Altdorf, they get a second (weak) 'clue' to go to Bogenhafen, via the friend, with a third 'clue' via the idea of the fair.

However, all this could certainly be beefed up. We can divide this adventure into two bits: 1 - get to Altdorf; 2 - go to Bogenhafen. There are already two 'clues' to go to Altdorf (or maybe one-and-a-half). Others could include:

1 - If one or more of the PCs have participated in The Oldenhaller Contract, Oldenhaller could contract them to pick up an item from Gustav at the Coach & Horses, to take to Altdorf, with cash on delivery.

2 - If any PCs are interested in a military career, you could have rumours that an Imperial or mercenary regiment is recruiting there; or any similar desired training or mentor. This is basically a catch-all motivation at any point in a WFRP campaign. Even if the character doesn't yet have the XP to change to the career, the fact that they have been trained/taught/mentored will allow them to make the change when they do.

3 - Any magical or criminal characters could have been sent (or given the address) of a place to pick up a special item: a magical ingredient, a valuable stolen item, an important message etc.

The key thing here is that the motivation to go to Altdorf should be relatively strong, but can also be completed quickly and then leave the character at a loose end; alternatively, for example in the 'recruiting' suggestion above, the focus could conceivably move to Bogenhafen ("Yes, they were recruiting here deary, but they have all headed off to Bogenhafen - they often try and recruit lads at the fair...usually the ones who have taken in a bit much ale!").  Similarly for the third suggestion above, the contact in Altdorf could easily give them another job in Bogenhafen (or perhaps in Weissbruck, if you wanted to vary things a little).

Since this is a starting adventure, one mechanism you might use is to take half a character's starting money away, but have the reward for completing this side-quest as x3 or x4 that amount. It is a good way of introducing extra NPCs too.

Shadows Over Bogenhafen

What are the vital pieces of information in Shadows Over Bogenhafen? They might boil down to three:

 

There is a secret temple in the sewers (part one of the adventure)

'Something is going on' (part two of the adventure)

An evil magic ritual is going to take place in the Warehouse (part three of the adventure).

 

The main railroad-y element in SoB is that the adventurers have to witness the goblin escape and then follow it into the sewers. The MC has to hope/ensure that the adventurers pursue it long and hard enough to find what the adventure needs them to. To be fair, I find it fairly difficult to imagine a situation where an adventuring group won't be in a position to witness the set-up and do the chase. But the fact that what we imagine is wrong is the point of the 3 clue rule, no?  However, the Thieves' Guild can also provide some clues. So essentially we just need one more clue which points to 'goings on' in the sewers.  Two ideas:

 

Josef is approached by a friend who falls slightly on the other side of the legal/illegal side of the water transport trade. One of the friend's associates/family/friends went into the sewers to try and find a safe place to cache some contraband for the duration of the fair, but they haven't come back. Could the party assist? Josef as a character who 'knows lots of people' can be very helpful here.

 

A local Bogenhafer has noticed some 'funny goings-on': movements into and out of one of the sewers in the middle of the night, with some masked and hooded people carrying bags of what looks like swag. The Watch (or perhaps, only the Watch officers, to the puzzlement of one of the junior members of the Watch) are not only not interested, but they are a bit too insistent that there is nothing to see here. Perhaps there are some ill-gotten gains to seize?

In the second half of the adventure, it doesn't matter too much what the adventurers actually do, as long as they do something. Doing anything will bring them to the attention of the Inner Council, and then their friends and foes will push them onto the right track. The adventurers will already have one 'clue' that something funny is up, from the results of their adventures in the sewers. Again, the information from the Thieves' Guild is compositely at least one additional clue, and maybe more. There are a couple of other 'kinda' clues: the madman's prophecy, the dead Dwarf, and the lying watchman. But it might not hurt for an inexperienced group to get have one more clue. The assistant Andrea might approach the adventurers with a feeling something is up with her boss, or a confused watchman perhaps might serve to reveal that pressure is being exerted to keep people from investigating certain things.

 

At the end of the adventure, as long as the PCs know roughly were to go, the details will take care of themselves. As in the first part, the main clue is a a really, really big clue, so not much else should be needed. However, two additional sources for clues could be:

 

1 - Anyone who the adventurers have helped and confided in (to some degree) can point to the warehouses as the right places to look. A thief who is a friend of the potential victim; Josef can know someone who has seen some puzzling activity (e.g. movements, stevedores acting as guards).

 

2 - Magirius might have included the information in a real note that can be delivered to them by a messenger, or via a trusted friend. This might apply even if the characters don't follow the servant-messenger who gives them the 'main' message.

Death on the Reik

Death on the Reik struggles a bit with motivations and clues. It is not always obvious how the characters or players (or MC!) would know what they 'should' be doing. In that sense then, the idea of running it as a sandbox of the Reik between Altdorf and Nuln is quite good. There does need to be some 'adventure' in it though, otherwise it will perhaps conflict quite heavily with their characters' starting motivations.The links between the various elements in DotR are a little weak. This encourages that authors to try some quite weird railroading and get themselves in some trouble.

The PCs have one clue to go on at the end of Shadows Over Bogenhafen: a name and address of an obviously and self-avowed bad sort. The clue pretty much says 'I am the next baddie'. In 'Optional Encounters', the authors suggest a couple of ways to get a group that hasn't played SoB to go to Grissenwald. Including both of these regardless is a good idea, as is the idea of Heironymus Blitzen (or whoever would fill that role for your group) pushing them that way too.

The next thread of adventure is picked up at the pre-set encounter at the Signalling Tower. They can't (although it seems clear that a very determined group should be able to, regardless) progress further until they pursue the lead on the baddie above. They then pursue that thread until it becomes clear that they are now the same thread. This allows the players to solve the last bit of the Tower mystery which then points to the location for the adventure climax. If the players go off-piste by some way, you can add two additional clues to get them to go to the Signalling tower: just add a rumour into the rumour table, and perhaps also add a rumour that some of the Dwarves of Grissenwald have heard. If there is a Dwarf amongst the PCs, any Dwarf they meet might be a natural source of this rumour.

I also propose that you shouldn't railroad the characters too hard if they do decide to take on the finale, before the finale. Assuming that they survive - that is a reasonably big if - then I don't really see that it is actually a massive issue.  Just assume that the Skaven had sniffed out their target some other way, it isn't as if the PCs could ever know either way. In that case though, there is obviously no confrontation with Crot. The remainder of the adventure (which is somewhat more profitable in any case) will lead up to a final confrontation with the baddie.

 

To get to the next pointed location, then they are given a vague direction and the assistance of a single NPC. I think it is worth having a couple of alternative possibilities here. The most straightforward way is to have one or two alternative guides: a hunter or herdsman or shepherdess or herbalist are all possibilities here. The second way is to allow a skill check of some description. If they are aware of the other party, and the other party is ahead of them (one of the NPCs tells them this) then it becomes a simple Follow Trail task. Another possibility might be to allow a check on Astronomy or History to give some idea of where in the Barren Hills the impact was. In any case, the other party do not appear to have had a local guide, so clearly it can be done!

In any event, there are 3 clues to get the characters back to the Signalling Tower: the key, the (two) dead horse encounters, and Brunhilde. You can make Brunhilde explain more than in the text in terms of locations, without her knowing any more of the main substance of the adventure: since she knows they key is what they seek, then she can also presumably point them in the right direction, if they didn't know.

 

Although the original of DotR doesn't specify, I think that the intention is that no matter how slow the players are, the last place they can be located is at the tower (i.e. they will wait there to bump into the player characters - if you need a rationale, assume that by this point they are at least vaguely aware of the characters and have decided to do away with them). One alternative is to encounter them between the tower and the finale location; and if in the final location, there are potential allies for them to have to really ramp things up!  If the players have already completed the finale ahead of time, this can still work - or alternatively, never encounter them and the place is deserted (and have them re-appear as NPC enemies at some later point in the campaign)!

There are at least 3 clues to the finale location anyway, so eventually getting the players to go there shouldn't be an issue.

Nothing in the Purple Hand thread actually matters. It is fine to leave it as unexplained weirdness.