Republic of thieves
Inspiration: "The Republic of Thieves" (Gentleman Bastards, Book 3 by Scott Lynch)
Main Idea: The heroes are thrown into a gang war between three parties (+ a hidden one) and need to "resolve" it to save their friend
Setting: I used a medieval fantasy city similar to Venice in fall, as it immediately generates a very dense atmosphere and also allows for a lot of action (running on roofs, jumping over channels, diving through sunken buildings...) if need be, but any system + city would very likely do (I thought the italian flair fit very well, as there are lot's of mafia/camorra connotations already for the players).
Background:
- The gangs
- There are three gangs in the city (Barsavi, Pello, Lugosi)
- There used to be more gangs, but bloody territory wars wiped the rest out
- The secret peace
- Due to the wars between the gangs and also between the gangs and the city guards, a secret peace was struck between the nobles of the city, the guard and the gangs: As long as the gangs properly bribe the guards and keep their crime away from the nobles (therefore only extorting the medium- or low-income people of the city), the gangs and their "business" will be tolerated
- The election
- The only condition for this was that the gangs elected a single leader or spokesperson with whom the nobles could interact with if need be
- Every five years an election will be held and a couple of days after the heroes hear about it, the next election will be held
- Up until now, the leader of the Barsavis was reelected twice and plans to make this happen for a third time, as it comes with certain perks of power over the other gangs that he doesn't want to lose...
- Only the leaders of the three gangs are allowed to cast a vote in this election
- The Vampire
- The leader of the Lugosi Gang is a rather powerful vampire using his prostitutes to "steal" blood for him and earn him riches
- This is a distraction and can be used as a side-quest, as an ally etc.
- The secret party
- Besides the three gangs is a fourth, hidden party that claims to be a new and mysterious gang
- In reality they are just a handful of scam artists, trying to cause as much confusion and chaos while trying to steal as much money (e.g. all stolen treasures of Barsavi)
People:
- The friend of the heroes asking for help
- Used to introduce the players to the task at hand, city, the gangs etc.
- The three gang leaders
- each should have specific symbols, rites, looks, interests and motivations
- The secret, fourth party
Plot/Encounters:
The idea is to get the players started on an easy to understand problem (convince/kill someone) and then quickly throw in more and more complexity and complications until they are in the middle of a gang war and need to make decisions to save their life and the live of their friend. The trick here is to switch the goal of the adventure a couple of times by throwing a bigger problem at the players. What made the campaign most enjoyable was the fact that every faction had very specific, sometimes overlapping goals and secrets which it tried to achieve in one way or another.
The story was like this:
- Their friend asks them for help as he will be murdered by the Barsavis in 24 hours unless he kills the leader of the Lugosis or convinces him to cast his vote for Barsavi in the next elections
- The group found many clues leading them to believe that the leader of the Lugosis is in fact a very powerful vampire using his prostitutes to still his bloodthirst. Still, they were not able to prove any of it.
- They talked to him and were able to convince him to vote for Barsavi if he gets "official" control of the gambling in the city
- They decided not to fight him
- Afterwards they had a spontaneous falling out with the Pellos who didn't like them striking deals with Barsavi and started a fight
- Suddenly, the group got dragged into the kidnapping of the daughter of the leader of the Barsavis, by a mysterious fourth party
- The group gets contacted by said fourth party to negotiate with Barsavi, claiming they are a new gang that wants their own territory and niche of crime (gambling + extortion)
- Enraged, Barsavi brings almost all his men to the negotiations and the group immediately gives him a sealed letter (trying to double-cross the fourth party) stating where to find his daughter
- Barsavi forces the group to join him in finding his daughter, only to find her murdered
- shortly afterwards, he get's betrayed and killed by his own guards who are working for the fourth party
- Both Pello and Lugosi have also been contacted by the fourth party with the claim that they should be able to ambush and kill all of Barsavis men at a specific location
- A fight breaks out between all three gangs and Barsavis guards flee
- My players followed the fleeing guards, leading them to the burning headquarters of the Barsavi gang, where the members of the fourth party are currently stealing all the treasures of the Barsavi gang
- A fight breaks out and my players were able to kill all of the robbers and "confiscate" the treasures for themselves...
Experiences:
All in all this campaign worked out very well and after stating the initial target, it was way more sandboxy than I initially expected. Once I focused on the NPCs and their goals rather than and planned events, this became a lot of fun for all types of players, as they could have very social or roleplaying oriented situations as well as very action heavy footing. This setting might be harder on DMs that don't like to plan for more stringent plots, as the outcome might vary heavily depending on the decision of the players.
- Plant a lot of hints for the players to have that feeling of "shoot, I could've solved this a while ago already"
- Rumors of the fourth party early on
- The guards of Barsavi wearing unusual tattoos
- A falcon sent by one of the fourth parties magicians following the players
- Prostitutes being surprisingly goodlooking and cheap
- Display a lot of affection from Barsavi for his daughter, making her his biggest weakness
- The Pello or Lugosi bosses subtly mistaking the players for agents of the fourth party
- A good one was that the players thought that the plan of the fourth party to negotiate didn't make any sense and that it would be easy to double cross them... What they didn't know was that the plan was never to complete the negotiations in the first place
- ...
- Make sure people get the names of the gangs right or make them more easy to understand. My players confused the names up until 2/3rds of the campaign...
- A trick Neil Gaiman came up with are "hats": Unique identifiers that are easier to remember than easy to confuse names. I gave each gang a unique sign or symbol that marks their members territory etc. That makes it easier for the players to associate everything correctly
- My symbols were:
- Barsavi -> the symbol of a crown and a silver-laced bandana every member wears
- Pello -> The symbol of an axe and every member wears a small axe or hatched at all times
- Lugosi -> A black vortex, tattooed in the neck of every member
- This also makes it easy to come up with dramatic scenes like "Silently the alledgedly peacful citizens around you draw small hatchets from beneath their tunics and coats and start surrounding you. You can now see their drug-crazed faces..."
- Plot-Structure
- It's really hard to plan a linear plot for a setting like this, so try to focus much more on the individual goals and characters of the different parties (Johnn wrote about this "Villain first" approach a while ago if I remember correctly)
- Make it a habit to not give the players any clear, black and white information, but let them decide in the end if and who they want to fight for
- My players really liked the idea that they could flee at any given moment, but didn't want to, as their friend needed support
- The benefit of this is that you can scale this type of campaign very easily
- add/remove gangs
- Involve the nobles and the city guard
- I considered giving the nobles a vote in the election, but as I only had about 4-5 sessions for this campaign, I restricted it to the gang leaders, which already creates enough conflict for a good story
- Make the city bigger or smaller
- Involve the regular citizens in this. Do they like the gangs? Do they despise them? Can the players tell them about the "secret peace"?
- Surprise after Surprise
- Gangsters, Vampires, Wizards, Betrayal, Secrets, you name it, we got it
- Specific details
- Make sure all gangster bosses are hard to get to, but not invulnerable
- Make sure to make the gangster bosses clever businessman rather than crazy madmen
- If it comes to this, in the end, bring the Barsavis to a place (I made it a swimming market) where they can easily be ambushed
If you have any specific question, please let me know, otherwise feel free to steal as much as possible from this, if you like it. Just make sure not to publish it, as there are some very strong inspirations from the book (which I can definitely recommend btw.).