Reddit Dinner Party

We FINALLY were able to play again last Saturday!

As I previously noted, I was inspired by (read: completely stole from) this thread on Reddit, wherein people submitted descriptions of dinner party goers.

Let's back up just a little bit though, before we get to the chaos that was the dinner party.  A reminder of where we we're at (I should have reminded my players where we were at, after the long break... apparently they don't spend hours reviewing their notes before each play session like I do... ).  Our party had just ventured from the newbie starting zone of Sandpoint into the great metropolis of Withersea, a magocracy with a strange form of non-government.  Withersea is a coastal city, but it resides on a cliff 300 feet above sea level.  An island exists just off those cliffs.  On that island is a tower, so tall that it's spires vanish into the clouds.  Three bridges extend from the tower and across the gulf into the city, and become the city's three main thoroughfares.  Often, sometimes every day, sometimes every few days, a swarm of identical servants cross the bridges into the city, and buy ... things.  There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to their purchases, they just buy, paying in solid gold coins, and then vanish back into their tower.  The entire city of Withersea is built on this commerce.  The servants rarely speak, and they never divulge information of any sort about the tower, however, on occasion they have come bearing instructions about the governance of Withersea.  They never threaten or suggest any consequence for failing to abide by their instruction, but such is the power of their commerce, that their rules have always been followed.

Our heroes had barely set foot in the city before they were recruited (actually drafted) away to combat a rebelling Baron (The Paizo module "Tower of the Last Baron," a mission which they concluded successfully.

They've returned to town, and although their mission is a secret, they're the secret guests of honor at a dinner party, held by the Lords of Withersea.

So there were are, we're caught up.  My players are walking into a fancy dinner party, rather out of their element.

All of the guests, at our lovely dinner party.

Against the right wall you can see "Lord Reddit," the silent host of the party.  For some reason I decided he's a leprechaun.

 You can read my complete notes here (WARNING: my players should NOT read this)  Withersea party guests.  I took quite a few liberties with the characters that Reddit came up with, to fit my campaign settings and drop my plot hooks.

Okay, so two big failures in this, and one "failure" that probably really isn't a failure.  The first:  I didn't remind my players what a unique setting they were in.  I assumed they'd be asking specific questions about the city, and they didn't, so some plot hooks weren't picked up.  No big deal, they'll get them later, but it did make playing the scene less fun than I'd hoped.

The other was that I overestimated my abilities to have the NPCs interact with one another... I didn't want the PCs to wander around the room chatting with each NPC in turn, picking them clean, then moving on... I wanted a dynamic room where things happened outside of the PCs locus of control, and I just BARELY managed that... my real failing was just having too many NPCs, and losing track of who was who.  If I had to do it again, I'd probably drop 4 or 5 NPCs, and give each NPC a flag with their name on it.

And the non-failure, was that my characters were just a little lost and didn't really pull as much information out of the NPCs as I expected.  However, all of the PCs have crappy social skills (game state wise, not real life wise), so that actually maps out okay... they were a bunch of adventurer's stumbling around a fancy dinner party, just as they should have been.

So what did work:

I think the most interesting thing I did was to have social groups form at the party, with each group changing over time.  So my PCs were interacting with, at the most, 4 NPCs, not the whole room full.  This also meant there were conversations happening that they weren't a part of, so they had to pick which group to talk to and which groups they could afford missing.  This also helped me keep track of who was who, and what was going on.

I also had some NPCs with costs and benefits associated with hanging out with them... The best example was the NPC that my players fondly referred to as "Mr Stinky"  (Baron Kleiner, I think, in the Reddit thread).  An extremely wealthy man with a fondness for adventurer's and their tales, who was not fond of bathing, but loved alcohol.   Each time my players chose to join his group, he made everyone drink (which could cause you to pass out if you drank too much), but if you could get him to like you he'd award you with a random gift to assist you in your adventures.

He also traveled with the elven whores, which one of my players enjoyed a little too much, and left with, and was promptly robbed... gotta watch your back with those random hook ups...

I also had some scripted events... my players caught a pickpocket, and chose to let him go in exchange for some insider information about the Tower of the Magus.  I have a feeling that will come back to haunt/help them in the future.

If I had to do it again:

I'd drop a few of the NPCs.
I'd script out a major conversation topic/conflict for each little group for each "hour" of the party, so the NPCs were interacting with each other, and the PCs could jump in .  I overestimated my abilities to keep track of who was who and all the relationships, when I should have just said "At 9pm in Group 1:  Major Smith will start a loud argument with Lady Rose about nosy adventurer's sticking their nose in other's business."  Sandboxes are great, and all my notes about who hates who may come in useful in the future, but I could have made my life easier.

My players did get the major plot hook and did go stab some stuff, so I'll post about that next.