I'm looking for a published adventure to help start my campaign, but after researching the current offerings it seems they don't offer hooks for a party of scoundrels. They all seem to presume a willingness to aid strangers and confront the forces of evil. Our style leans more towards suspicion, selfishness, and black comedy.

Am I off-base here? Are there any published adventures suitable for a greedy bunch of self-serving, cowardly bastards?

Cheers.

hehe, my first group went to Grönwald cottage to see if they could steal stuff there...

They spend the first half of the time there taking advantage of the confussion, and at first they sided with the cultists, that was untill their Grey Wizard stole a book in the library...

We didn't use other scenarios after that, but I will agree many of them are laid out as being "Heroes to save the day".

But I find that most of the adventures needs twinking to fit my kind of game (not Eye though, superb scenario), so I don't mind also twinking it to fit low-lifes more.

But for your initial statement, yes I agree, to heroic. TEW starts out by the group wanting to take advantage of someone dying... now that's a proper way to start of!

Haffrung said:

Welcome to my world.
Seriously. Most adventures have a price for something to do. Or simply the desire to find something valuable. So for most adventures you just have to change the beginning. The rest goes from itself. No one says your guys have to help the inoccent beeing burned to the stick, and no one stops them from blackmailing someone whoms secret you have discovered. It's a roleplaying game, isn't it?

I strongly recommend you find a copy of The Enemy Within, it will play perfect with your group.

Jericho said:

Too long, too many NPCs to track. And I was hoping for something from WFRP 3E so I could minimize prep time.

The Witch's Song, for instance, sounds pretty good. However, it don't want to have to discard half the adventure, or do a lot of prep, to make it work for a bunch of cynical smugglers or outlaws.

I sympathise. My players are obsessed with money. It's always about how much they get paid, and whether they can haggle the hiring cost up another 20 shillings. Drives me nuts. One day I'm going to have a patron promise them a fortune and then just disappear after the job is done. They'll get their half upfront as usual, but you can bet your life they'll doggedly pursue the cheating patron until they catch him. Might be a nice adventure hook.

Hi,

Yeah I've got one rogue hero who doesnt give a **** about money, three outright rogues who do, and one calculating manipulative murderous rogue. Ive had to tweak every adventure except Eye too, but it can be done, and can add value to the scenario too.

Could you let us know what kind of cash grabbing rogues youve got to deal with?

No:12 said:

Well, we haven't made up characters yet - I'm trying to decide what adventure to use for our first session.

It's more of a playstyle thing. Even playing D&D, my group tends towards scheming scoundrels trying to survive in a hostile world. Which is one of the big draws of WFRP; the setting and tone match our playstyle already. Or at least the core material seems to. But what I've read about the adventures seems to throw much of the milieu principles out the window.

Of course, if the players end up with an Acolyte of Sigmar, a Roadwarden, and a Giant Slayer, we might have a more heroic party. But that's unlikely. More likely (given that they'll each be choosing from three random careers) is a Barber-Surgeon, Smuggler, and Zealot.

One premise I considered (inspired by the Diplomatic Envoy party sheet), is a Bailiff, Coachman, and Initiate, sent on a mission by the local small lord to solicit aid against encroachment by beastmen. But just as the group departs, the castle is overrun and the party is now a diplomatic mission without a patron. The idea is they use this diplomatic status, and the monies they were given for their task (and anything they can get on credit) to travel around living large on rich food and drink, keeping one step ahead of the news of the fall of their home town, and hoping nobody learns that their patron is actually dead. And much hilarity ensues.

So you can see how the published adventures don't exactly suit our approach to the game.

You could have one of the factions from Edge of Night hire them for any random job. (You'll know best how to get them interested.) When they have proved themselves to be scheming and untrustworthy, the patron can decide they're just the right sort of fellows to help him with his election campaign. He can get wind of Ascaffenburg's (a potential rival in EoN) problems and ask the PCs to apply for the job in EfaE. Their patron doesn't necessarily want them to help, but just to get the dirty on Ascaffenberg. They'll be getting paid double (once from their patron and once from Asschaffenburg), so that should suit them.

However they deal with EfaE, their patron will hopefully want them to help him similarly in EoN. Or, they can double cross their patron there, in favour of Ascaffenburg, or one of the other factions. Either way, there should be plenty of scheming to be done. You can use similar self-interest to get them to, eg, Stromdorf. The patron can decide he wants to move in on that place, and so he sends the PCs there, ostensibly to search for the missing merchant, but actually to discredit the mayor so that the patron can set up his own man as mayor (of course, once they're there, the PCs will get dragged into some of the events of tGS whether they want to or not).

Before you know it, their patron is a very powerful noble who has built his power base on the scheming of the PCs. And of course, then it will be time to get rid of them, because they know too much.

Thanks for the suggestions for Edge of Night. I'll look into the adventure more to see if it's suitable.

Anyone have any similar ideas of how Witch's Song could work with scoundrels? Because that's the adventure I was leaning towards when I started to have second thoughts about motivation.

Hi,

I dont know how feasible it would be but if you could get yourself a copy of Marienburg Sold Down the River (out of print 1st ed but a gem of a sourcebook for rogue PCs, maybe on ebay?), you could start them off getting hooked up withsome of the criminal elements of Marienburg. Then feed them a link (Maybe one of the PCs is the illegitimate half brother of the Von Stauffers? Maybe someone wants an item being held by the Von Stauffers?) to Fauligsmere. I think the lure to a bunch of rogues may be with the troubles of the Von Stauffers, they have some cash, and are tied to the land. If the PCs see that, they may see value in helping the poor nobles.

That or dupe them into going there, then hit them with a witch hunter who simply expects them to help out?

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Marienburg looks like a great sourcebook. However, I haven't had much luck tracking down a copy at a reasonoble price.

I do have access to a copy of Death on the Reik at a reasonable price, though. Maybe I could link some river encounters/NPCs with Witch's Song? I do really like the idea of the Witch Hunter complication, which is one of the reasons Witch's Song is the most attractive published adventure at this point.

Fauligmere is such a ****-hole, you'd need to be pretty altruistic just to look at it on a map.

I'll dig into witch's song a bit and post up some ideas on how to snag a party full of toothless, iv drug using, baby seal clubbing nere-do-wells.

Just off the top of my head - there are some smugglers in Fauligmere, and you could certainly play up the part of the story that involves people bypassing Marienburg (and their tax collectors) by going via the Wasteland. The PCs don't need to be working with the NPC smugglers either: they could be trying to muscle in on their turf and take over.

The witch hunt/pogrom could be the perfect cover the PCs need to get rid of anyone causing them trouble/anyone who's got wind of what they are trying to do.

The scenario also doesn't assume that the witch is a bad guy = to complete the story you need to kill it. There's potential for scheming characters to cut a deal with the witch in the swamps...

Re: edge of night; one of the noble families (I forget which) has something like 'scheming/scoundrel' as their traits. I don't know the scenario well, but when I flicked through it I immediately thought that the 3 patron families are designed to accommodate whatever play style players have. So, the Aschaffenburgs are ideal patrons for those who want to be heroic, but one of the families did seem to be designed as a patron of ne'er do wells.

First thing that popped into my head. Piet Paling and his smuggler-gang. I ran winds of change before this, and worked up the halfling fence to an emerging crime-boss, linked with those smugglers. Imagine their surprise when they arrived in Fauligmere, saw a boat pass by with the 2 bouncers (one party-member knows the bouncers personally) and disappear up river, without trace... Nobody around town seems to mind too much about these sort of boats?

Second: They might be looking into ripping off the local medicine woman. Apparently, she makes her effective healing potions with ingredients that grow in the wild. Maybe they smell a quick-rich scheme? Just work the exact ingredients out of her, go get the herbs, and sell someplace else for good money!

Third: They have heard about a befuddled nobleman who keeps pigeons as pets and are looking to pull of a heist

Fourth: They might go over to present themselves as the big bad mercenary group, insist they be paid upfront, and then disappear (make sure you have a good reason for them to stick it out then!)

Fifththth: They have heard the village is "cursed" and are willing to perform a miracle to appease the gods... For proper reimbursement of course...

Angelic: you're thinking of the family with the easiest name to remember, ever! The Von Saponatheim house

In addition to the great advice above (on the last page) you have a great tool for misunderstood heroics in Witch's Song as well.

The arival of the witch hunter is going to absolutely fromple the party's schemes and plans to exploit any of the hooks mentioned above. So they have some investment in curtailing his efforts -or- redirecting them at people that stand in their way. The end result could be that the players are congratulated by one of the opposing groups for their efforts. Perhaps the witch hunter may thank them for assisting in rooting out chaos (when they really just wanted to wipe the town off the map so that they can get back to smuggling).

The snuff film elves may also come after the players thinking that they are somehow more important than they really are. You can pin extra importance on some meaningless or trivial bit of interaction the party has with the disguised witch elf, or something that is witnessed in passing. Then the players really have their work cut out for them as they are targeted for elimination by the corsairs. Assuming the players defeat, kill, route the dark elfs and their schemes...have the players seen to be these fantastical heroes defending the Empire! as they look sidelong at one another and simply go "uh...yeah! screw those guys! I seem to recall someone mentioned a reward of some kind?"

I wouldn't worry too much about moving things around, if the players want to turn it all rogue-y, murderous and cash based, they'll do it, just give them their heads. My heroes took The Gathering Storm (surely a reasonably straightforward battle with evil) and stood it on it's end with very little difficulty for them (- it's like their one socketable group super power 'f@#k it all up'). They conned the mentally defective farmers, murdered their son, tried to sell the lightning stones, ran away a lot - I wont go any further as I'm in the middle of writing it all up, but don't be surprised if there is a big hole in the ground where Stromdorf used to be.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Looks like I'll go with Witch's Song and do some improvising.

reg said:

Haha the 'enemy within' is live and well with adventures like that on the loose in the Empire