ADVENTURE HOOK: The Tourists

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A Dungeons & Dragons-y adventure hook presented in the style of The Knights Of The Dinner Table's Bait & Tackle column.

SETTING: Town/City

BAIT: Having been reasonably successful as tunnel grubbers and earned themselves a reputation as adventurers, the group is approached by the servant of a local well-to-do nobleman (or even the king/emperor, depending on your campaign setting) with an offer that's too good to refuse.

In return for a ridiculously large sum of money, the servant's master wants the adventurers to take his son (and some of his friends) with them on their next underground expedition.

The reward will only be paid on the safe return of the princeling and his chums, provided they have some trophies to show for their troubles.

TACKLE: The young nobleman/prince, and his 1d4-strong entourage, are decent enough fellows, but total incompetents. More Bertie Wooster than Dennis The Menace. Despite insisting that they be first into battle with any 'exciting' monsters (i.e. exotic creatures rather than commonplace humanoids), they will be rubbish in combat (dropping their weapons, stumbling etc), prone to creating noise at inopportune moments ("Fool of a Took!") and a general nuisance to the party.

However, should the adventurers try anything stupid like kidnapping the young prince and holding him to ransom, they will incur the wrath of the entire region and almost certainly find themselves hounded by a massive armed force (as will happen if any of their charges are killed or severely crippled; cuts and bruises are expected, but anything more will be deemed a breach of contract).

Of course, if all goes to plan, the player-characters will not only earn themselves a pretty penny but gain a useful ally (and possible drinking buddy) in the princeling and his cronies.

DUNGEON MASTER TIP: It might be an idea, at least in combat (although not role-playing) to allocate each member of the prince's group to one of the players - so that they are responsible for making their die rolls. The prince and his entourage are, naturally, first (or zero) level characters and only interested in fighting beasties that will make good trophies if their heads are mounted on the palace walls.