As a DM, the greatest blessing you can have is a group of PCs who make a cohesive group and give you a rough idea of their goals and plans for the future. My players tend to come up with their own character concepts and rarely have goals set out from the beginning. That is, of course, a total valid character creation option, but it requires a DM to be a bit heavy handed in the initial tasks set before the party.
One of the most common roleplaying tropes to jump start a slow-moving game is "cultists burst into the room and attack you! One leaves behind a clue to where they might be." I decided to use this trope by replacing "cultists" with "undead." Cinderbite, the elven ranger, has a history of hating undead and the rest of my players fall into the "Good" category, so I figured it would be an easy enough excuse to make them react.
The players were resting up from their prior adventure when they heard screaming in the streets. They rushed out to figure out what the problem was. Some citizens had no idea, they were just running because other people were running, but finally the players found someone who told them that she had seen the dead walking in the streets.
The players rushed forward to make combat with several groups of strung out undead, tracing their path (and the screams) towards the graveyard. Someone in a second story building opened their window to warn the players that the dead were coming from that way and for them to turn around. The implication by that encounter was that "someone else would take care of it." Since the game is set in a city, I wanted to foster that idea of a presence of a police force. One of the things that is supposed to set the player characters apart as they move forward is that they take accountability and step up to react to situations instead of just letting someone else handle it.
As Cinderbite, Khart'ka, Dirk, and Roderan (Mia'thos was missing this session) approached the graveyard, zombies began pouring out. I don't generally make "enough bad guys until XYZ event happens" but I wanted to in this scenario for two reasons: 1) It's our first time playing 5th edition and I wanted to push the boundaries of challenge to see how combat in the system feels and 2) to once again hammer home that point of a definitive presence of police and other heroes in the city. In fact, the first person I planned to have arrive on the scene after the players is an arrogant paladin (who would decapitate a few zombies and save any dying players) followed by the city guard rolling in a few rounds later to mop up the remainder.
It turns out that the answer to question 1) was that at first level, 5th edition is pretty unforgiving, and a few unfortunate rolls can end in serious calamity for the PCs. After only about four zombies, instead of the dozen I imagined, my players were strictly on the struggle bus, as the undead encounters prior had tapped them pretty heavily.
Nonetheless, the PCs were hailed as heroes for being the first responders to the scene and helping to contain the threat instead of allowing it to spread out over the neighborhood, potentially resulting in additional deaths. The result of the encounter was having a merchant by the name of Jalan Awnson approach the players and ask them to come by his place on the next day for paid work. (Side note: I occasionally craft NPCs based on other fictional characters, Jalan Awnson is based on Alan Johnson from the BBC comedy Peepshow, which is on Netflix and very hilarious).
The players found Jalan Awnson's Emporium, a large multi-purpose shop of a merchant who is clearly quite successful but not necessarily one of the most powerful merchants in the city. As a reminder, Leyhaven is roughly crafted on Venice, and the merchants have a very strong influence on the city, and in fact, they organize and run the City Guard. Jalan creeped the players out with his overconfident tone and tendency to tent his pointer and pinkie fingers while speaking. I purposefully made Jalan a "too slick" merchant type, but the deal he was offering was entirely on the up-and-up. My players did a little vetting of him around the city after the encounter just to make sure though.
Jalan offered the group 150 gold to exterminate a flock of Kenkus (crow people) that had been raiding his shipments. He felt that they were specifically targeting his wares, though it was clear that the gang had been jumping other merchant wagons traveling through the city as well. More specifically, Jalan wanted the players to find out where the Kenku threat was finding their information from, and he outwardly suspected a rival merchant or a corrupt guard at the city gate (remember, the guards are ALSO paid by the merchants) of being the source of this new threat.
Awesomely, my players spent the rest of the session being very cautious and information gathering to make sure they wouldn't be stepping on anyone's toes by carrying out this task. They got burned in my last campaign by fetching someone for a wizard without asking questions about the task, so it is definitely exciting to watch them grow as players.
The players focused most of their efforts on researching what exactly the Kenku gang was. I hadn't planned for this portion of the game, so there was a fair amount of improvisation involved. The first place they went to was a seedy tavern in the poor district where this Kenku gang seemed to carry out most of their activities. Our first exchange went like this:
DM: "You go to a tavern called the....uh.."
Dirk: "Rolling Rhino"
DM: "Sure, the Rolling Rhino. The bartender is a half-orc who has one tusk" *Cue laughter*
These kinds of little improvisational moments make for the best kind of D&D. Rhino, the half-orc bartender with a penchant for not so creative names, is a pretty basic bartender, happy to help the players out as long as they tip well. He is and will probably remain a mainstay for quests that start off in the seedy district of town, and it came from a three line momentary exchange. I wrote the name down and we continued on. Rhino informed the players that everyone hates the Kenku in this part of the city and no one seems to know where they came from. That was good news for the players not stepping on anybody's toes, but they wanted to double check their answer. The players also made a wise choice in this interaction I wanted to point out, only two of the four PCs went out, Dirk (the shady local rogue) and Khart'ka (the liberally tipping diplomat). The PCs chose their best players for interacting with the situation which really helped in the interaction. A fair amount of my NPCs will be nervous when approached by a group of 4-5 players. As hard-boiled detectives from crime novels would lead you to believe, it feels more natural to open up to a person or two than it does to a large group. I appreciate that my players followed this kind of "social construct" in a game where "never split the party" is said far too often.
The players went to double-check their information so they went to the Cockroach, a gross open air street bar owned by a disgusting and disgraced high elf who makes more of his money from information peddling than from his crappy bar (another spur of the moment character creation). For a few more coin, the Roach confirmed the information the players had received.
The players followed up at the guard gate but could find little information from them. So they took the wagon of Jalan's that was meant to be a shipment of his, and prepared for their counter ambush. The plan was to have Dirk drive the wagon, and hopefully he'd be able to feign death when the Kenku ambush occurred. When the Kenkus came up to the wagon, surprise!, PC counterattack.
We ended the session on that precipice.
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