Ye Olde Inn

I plan on making side quests that take place in the Town between quests that the Hero's stay in. I'm making it a large city though with rich & poor areas with even an "Orc/Goblin District" as well as other races I'll include with their own neighborhoods.
Hero's can take side jobs like bounty hunting, helping police investigate crimes or taking down a gang boss.
I'll use the regular mapboard to show the rundown mansion where the Orc Boss & his gang live, or a two story building where human bandits are hiding out that you gotta raid.

Maybe the Hero's gold was stolen from their "Shed" & gotta get it back. These are all smaller, quicker quests that don't give them to much stuff.

My question is what options to this city can I add?.....price ranges on items like a horse, wagon, maybe the hero's have a business on the side.

I want there to be three main areas such as a rich, middle class &poor areas to give you a bonus or minus to security for your "Shed" or Business but the price will vary.

Do you got any links or ideas that could help me flesh this out more? Thanks!

One fun purpose is to add recurring enemies that send hench men to screw with the hero's (vandalism to your Home or buisness) till one day I let the hero's take on the boss himself.

An Orc gang lord could even be an issue in an up comming Quest by alerting fellow Orcs that the hero's are comming(giving Orcs a bonus to their attecks etc.)
The hero's must stop a corrupt general from killing the Barbarians ppl way out in the mountains etc.

I want to create ongoing thorns in the sides of the players that they can't wait to get revenge on. Basically giving the players a deeper plot that gives them more motivation & background.

Also so I don't have to burn through the main quests as fast:)

i dont do in between quests, but do quests inside of quests. For example, they find an NPC in the quest and have to either help him by finding an item, escort him out, carry treasure chests for him etc. all the while it increases the # of monsters they will have to face due to a monster patrol/wandering monster turn timer/spawn counter. it makes more to do in quests and is optional for the heroes to do.

I have also used one I read about i think on this site where they are given a quest by an NPC to find a specific target to kill in the dungeon (little do they know they are going to fail the quest), as they get to the target they find it already dead with a note attached to its chest with a dagger, saying something of the nature of "you are always one step behind me". over the course of a few sidequests this character has more and more revealed about him with the heroes never being sure if he is benevolent as he is killing monsters or a bad guy himself until the final full reveal of him (which you can decide how to incorporate him...as a good guy that will ultimately help, one they have to fight, someone that starts attacking them, etc.) . there are many options.

I find there are plenty of quests to do with the main game system, the expansions on here and custom campaign expansions I have made.

Look at this settlement book for darklight for inspiration.

I think there are some good ideas, however I always thought it to be waste that they don't use their combat/quest system within the settlement events.

The reputation is definitely something heroes might need if they want to do business.

http://www.darkicegames.com/Public/Docu ... Public.pdf

I think the way it is implemented is still lacking. However, the ideas are there. There could be short two-room-quests to solve some of the events, for example. The event tables should be 3d6 plus reputation all the time, with accordingly rearranged event tables.
Oh you make settlement cards and they have a saving throw for the reputation. Or different effects depending on the reputation.
Ideas are countless. Just the implementing has to be done really careful.

I was doing something similar. But using a different map.
I had bought a bunch of extra minis for NPCs and made character cards similar to wandering monster cards for added depth. Like really good illustrations to coincide with the miniatures. I can't wait to hear how your plans/quests play out!

DullandRusty wrote:i dont do in between quests, but do quests inside of quests.

Great idea because other adventurers are out in the world too who could be a help, hindrance or both.

Anderas wrote:Look at this settlement book for darklight for inspiration.

Absolutely perfect for what I was thinking. You can even get married lol. All this is good because it gives the player something to lose. You can bet that I'd have a side quest where a hero's spouse or kids are kidnapped!

A corrupt sheriff seizes all the hero's property/holdings and I have the players make a series of quick rolls to show that they've collected the proper evidence to present to the king. If rolls fail, then the hero's are constantly living on the streets in between Quests lol. If they succeed they get the chance to kill the sheriff &his whole police station while freeing the rebellious farmers from its jails.

I'd do that whole DarkLight list for a rich area, middle area & poor area, but they all have their weaknesses/advantages. Perhaps a reputation rating for each so it's not like the whole city knows you & you can
compartmentalize.
In the poor area you culd be a some what feared/respected, shot caller, and in the rich area you are the beloved gentlemen:)

There is so much you could do.

I want to come back to this...tonight, maybe, or this weekend, at least.

But hey...would someone remind me in a day or two if I don't? Memory is not so great
as of late. (hehehe, that rhymed).

Of what should I remind you?

Now seriously, i think that settlement book needs reworking even for darklight. For Heroquest we should use the opportunity and deeply emboss that reputation value.

In Darklight you have only hamlets, small villages and towns. No real city available. So no need for several reputations. While I think it may be of great value having a reputation that goes up in the eleven quarter and at the same time down in the dwarves quarter, I think the bookkeeping can become too much. For computer games this would be great but for a pen and paper you have to reduce the globals to a bare minimum in order not to waste the game time with bookkeeping. So one value per city should be enough, but it has to have influence a lkt more than in this book. You want to buy poison or other strange substances? Better your reputation is not too high. On the other hand without high reputation you get no access to tbe sbiny elven bow...

I'm also gonna have to save this to come back to later. I like this idea and I'd like to work with it more and have more reason to use my DragonStrike city board.

Anderas wrote:. You want to buy poison or other strange substances? Better your reputation is not too high. On the other hand without high reputation you get no access to tbe sbiny elven bow...

I was thinking the same but felt bad for the Rogue/Thief who lives a better life amoung a certain segment of society.

I understand what you're saying about how the Hero's should live by a standard of Black n White/good n Evil(a single Reputation Bar), but I do wonder if there is a way to segregate Reputation so that each Hero will gain advantages & disadvantages dependant on "where they shop"? So that each may shine differently.

It's a pain in the ass though & I've honestly not come up with anything yet different from what you got.