Hi guys,

I have been developing an idea for our group's first campaign, and how to get the group together. I am trying to establish a reasonable motivation for a group of (possible) very different characters to bond together, and I chose to at least attempt that by the following idea:

All of the characters have ended up in the custody of a slave master who runs his operation in the backwoods, near a small town. The characters find themselves there for different reasons: an apprentice may have been arrested and handed over to the slaver for lacking warrant for magic (remember, this is not Altdorf) - a lady has been held up accused of a false identity, and through inability to prove otherwise (and without the necessary funds to pay herself) finds herself in the same situation -a thug was caught doing exactly what he does, and so on.

Characters have been locked up for some time, and while the Slave Master has been waiting for suitable customers, they have been forced into labor (which also gives me an excuse to grant some skills, if I think the group is desperately missing something vital). The business has been slow, and potential customer's have been nowhere to be seen, but apparently some slaves have been sold.

What the characters do not know, is that lacking proper business, the Slave Master has actually sold some of the slaves to a group of cultists operating near by. However, the Slaver Master, as a greedy man, had sold the cultists a young girl as a virgin, which she was not, which caused their ritual to fail... and their temper to rise. The cultists have now usurped their forces against the slave camp and the nearby village.

When the play begins, I will place a tracker for myself to keep track of time. At first, the characters have a chance to notice something is wrong when the night watchman does not do his rounds. After a few rounds, they may hear some noises outside. A few rounds later it should be apparent to them that the camp is under a growing attack, and something is terribly wrong. It is up to the characters to save themselves, and possibly others while at it.

The idea here is that there will be three different types of challenges:

1) Getting our of their cells will require co-operation, quick and clever thinking and avoiding confrontation (they will be unarmed). Getting out of the camp and into the nearby village will also require resourcefulness.

2) Getting through the village gates and presenting them to the villagers will require social interaction and persuasion

3) Stopping the attack will require tactics as well as skills with any weapons they may have acquired.

So, what do you think? Any concerns, suggestions or general comments?

Looks like a good introductory scenario. The step 3 is somewhat "uninvested" though. Why would the escaped slaves go back to defend the slave camp or why do the cultists attack the village? Some motivation is also need as for why the group would stick together. In my game I didn't let the group to choose a party sheet but until the end of first scenario when their internal dynamics where must more clear than before.

Hi Doc, and thanks for the comments.

You raise a valid point about motivation. I am not expecting the characters to defend the camp, but I am going to use a tracker to describe the camp being overrun so there's nothing they could do about it even if they wanted to. The only road away from the camp is the road to the village. They might choose to go hide in the woods, but I will try to discourage that somehow.

The characters will be pretty much unarmed, without money or gear. Their motivation, at first, to get into village would be to equip themselves one way or another. And through social encounters, I will try to persuade them that the villagers had nothing to do with the camp, and had been told it was just a prison camp, sanctioned by the Empire.

the motivation for the attack to extend to the village is the search for the virgin. The character's will not know this, at least initially, so I have to come up with some sort of a plot device. Perhaps another sacrifice-to-be managed to escape from the Cultists, and reached the village at the same time as the characters do? May be a bit improbable, though...