A Familiar Problem - Bottom Of The Barrel!

A Familiar Problem - Bottom of the Barrel!

Happy New Years Everyone!!

Here’s a One-Shot I ran for a few friends at a New Years party using Marisha Ray and Grant Howitt’s, “A Familiar Problem.” We altered a few things about the design such as removing the Break mechanic and designing the purpose of the one-shot beforehand to enable a bit more of a unique experience that catered to my players specifically!

I called it-

A Familiar Problem - Bottom of the Barrel!

Ingredients:

1. A group of easy-going players.

2. A basic understanding of, “A Familiar Problem.”

3. Alcohol - Oh yea, I forgot to mention this has drinking! It was a New Years party after all.

Premise:

The group of Familiars and their Summoners are lodging in an Inn after having recently defeated The Mad Wizard Zazz. Little did they know that Zazz had a trick for them, found the room they were staying in, and using a magically enchanted beer barrel, trapped the summoners inside of a pocket dimension within that beer barrel. Zazz ends up heading down to the tavern floor of the Inn where he confidently leaves the barrel off to the side, thinking he’s won, and has himself a drink off in the corner.

The main bulk of the game is the idea that the Familiars now must save their Summoners by removing the enchantment on the barrel. Talking to the friendly Druid barkeep will reveal to your players that the barrel must first be drained in order to have the enchantment removed, but they run a tight ship here so no one is just going to dump this drink for free. Instead, the Familiars must now earn enough coin to buy drinks of the beer inside, convince patrons of the bar to drink it for them, or find clever ways to get that barrel drained.

Get it? Bottom, of the Barrel?! I’m so goddam clever. . . .

I created a plethora of stupid characters for my PCs to interact with in the hopes that they’d try to utilize the magics that they chose ahead of time to solve little puzzles established by those NPCs. Ex: One of my PCs used Mist to distract a saddened Warlock enough to snag his valuables. Another moment, an Octopus PC used Door Magic on an enchanted Dollhouse. This allowed him to completely bypass a difficult puzzle associated with it that I was putting on a grand display when describing its complicated nature, only for my players to laugh hysterically once they realized how simple the actual answer was. Always give your players the ability to feel like they’ve cheated the system. It is such an absurdly satisfying feeling.

Whenever your PC comes back to the bar with some coin, they have an option to spend it on the barrel to drain some of the beer inside. Whenever they do so, have the player take a shot IRL. If you’re not drinkers, there’s no reason you can’t do this without the booze and just enjoy yourself as normal.

Added Flavor: To express a deeper bond between the Familiar and its Summoner, I requested that my PCs establish a “Side-Quest” before playing. Something small like, “collecting teeth from a monster for a necklace,” or, “find a potion of transformation.” Something simple that you’d think of doing in an actual campaign. Each of the PCs had the ability to complete their Side-Quest during the One-Shot, and once they did, I had a little goody bag waiting off on the side for them filled with snacks, little drinks, etc.

I might post more about this at another date, such as the characters I made and the theme I used. But for now, as always~

This idea is for sale!! The cost, you must run it in your campaign, and tell me all about it! Happy Rolling!!

Rejoining of the Immortal Lovers

D&D Longterm Quest Idea

Ingredients:

1. A main hub of operations like a city or a gang hideout!

2. A party of traveling adventurers with good intentions in their souls and lots of places to visit!

3. Lots of places to visit!

The main crew, the gang, your lovely PCs, have a common home or base they return to between adventures. Within this base could be a wide array of things. Family members! Rivals! Their favorite tavern! A marketplace~! Etc... But the most important thing there (for the sake of this random tumblr idea) is the shop that contains The Immortal Lovers!!!

....At least one of them.

A random shopkeeper, maybe from a store that sells magical items from across the land, or maybe a tavern keeper that deals in the trading of secrets and information. Regardless of whoever they are, they’ve made shop in the place you’re located and have just one thing to ask of you once you’ve earned their trust.

“Please help me find the missing pieces of my love!! An odd request to be sure.

Through RP our group finds out that this NPC is actually immortal due to idunno blood sacrifice or something and their long lost love met an unfortunate fate so now due to probably blood sacrifices again their body was scattered Across the World!! Your party is tasked with this “BODY-PART FETCH QUEST” (maybe that should’ve been the title) that they can complete while they’re already out and about exploring the world. Kind of like the side getting all of the Korok seeds in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild but instead of mystical seeds it’s some guy’s liver~~~

Now every time the characters search a dungeon, a graveyard, a mad scientist’s crazy mad science lab, they have a chance of finding a little piece of flesh or a limb that gives off the same glow as all of the other immortal parts they’ve found so far. They return home after completing a mission and carry the body parts back with them to give to the immortal lover, who offers something alluring in return~ Is it gold? Is it a cool weapon? Is it perhaps some Additional Spice?

Additional Spice: The Immortal Lover has been around for quite some time and has seen most of your Homebrew world (which is looking marvelous by the way, really love the lore behind it). Because of this, they might have snagged an heirloom of one of your PCs. A long lost Flute that was fabled to have belonged to the ancestor of that Goliath Bard in the party or maybe an enchanted set of armor baring the family crest of the Aarakocra Fighter. Whatever it is you think might push the plot forward, it’s gonna be hanging up on that immortal’s wall!

Additional Spice with a Lemon Twist: The Immortal Lovers are actually evil wizards that have engaged in naughty phylactery nonsense and what-have-you. Once you manage to locate the last piece, the other lover is fully resurrected and the two begin wreaking havoc on the world making your new mission to put them down once and for all. 

This idea is for sale!! The cost, you must run it in your campaign, and tell me about it when you do! Happy Rollin~!!

Awwewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

I'm being recharged

Location/Puzzle Idea~!

The Moving Tower

Ingredients:

1. Multiple closed room puzzles.

2. Treasures of varying degrees of rarity.

3. PCs with questionable morals.

Premise - An ancient tower stands proud amidst a blanket of fog. As you approach the structure, you realize you cannot determine its true massive height as its pointed body shoots up past the clouds to mingle with the stars. As you approach closer, you also realize you cannot determine its depth as the path you walk is a platform connected to the midsection of this behemoth, a bridge with nothing but a sea of those same clouds surrounding you on all sides. How did you get here? Where are you? Questions for later.

The only thing you can see right now is a heavy lever and a large stone door left creaked open. Through the doors and into the tower bares a large room full of death traps, already sprung and dripping with blood. In the center of the room is a treasure chest snapped wide and full of emptiness.

You leave the room as nothing appears worth your time in there to inspect and pull the lever. Ancient gears turn and groan as they come to life somewhere deep down. The entire massive tower grinds as it slowly sinks down, turning like a drill penetrating the clouds below while your platform with the lever remains perfectly still. Eventually the tower *THUNKS* into place, and a new door appears, colored differently than the one prior. It opens to reveal a brand new room, with a new piece of treasure to claim and more puzzles to beat.

How many floors of the tower can you conquer before it conquers you?

Added Spice: This is a death-cult's tower. More death traps. More gore. More prizes worth throwing your life away for. This is an end game area worth investigating by the truly brave and OP PCs or a side quest the party can come back to once they've leveled up a bit and feel more comfortable tackling the death traps again. You could even make the prize visible from the beginning of the puzzle but somehow unattainable, this way the party knows how worth it completing the puzzle will be and makes it all the more tantalizing.

Added Flavor: This is actually a trial puzzle for one of the party members (or all) to prove themselves worthy of whatever mcguffin is needed for their quest. Tone down the difficulty and hold back on the prizes until the very end or simply swap magical items for health potions and the like to help your PCs make sure they can get through the slog.

Added Sweetness: This isn't actually a puzzle at all, but instead a massive hotel! Using the lever allows you to head from floor to floor and somehow not bother the patrons inside. Each patron is friendly and offers advice or items as thanks for chatting with them like a random villager in an RPG.

This idea is for sale. The price is to play it in your own games and tell me how it goes! Enjoy~!

Random D&D Idea

The Silk Seller Spider

A giant spider that sells amazing quality silken fabrics in a busy city or town's market. It isn't hostile and the townsfolk leave it alone since it's actually helped with bringing in customers, but it's really just a giant spider, about as big and hairy as a full grown grizzly bear. It skitters around in it's tent to get you what you're looking for and takes payment oftentimes in rare and exotic things.

If you have Speak with Animals you'll be able to converse with it easily. If you don't, there's some guy hanging in cocoon from the ceiling. That's the spider's "Employee" who will help translate for you.

It's really quite worth taking a look at her wares, even if she tends to stare.