I just read How Sleep Spells Turn Adventurers Into Sadists and Executioners and was reminded of a very cool use of the *sleep* spell in a recent adventure.
How Sleep Spells Turn Adventurers Into Sadists and Executioners
I’m using the *Wilderlands of High Fantasy*, *Sea of Five Winds* region. The party had hired a few prostitutes in *Taipur* and moved south to the brigands’ keep. The brigands’ boss was *Zebon* – and what the party didn’t know was that Zebon was a woman and immune to the charms of prostitutes. The party arrives, the five score of people living there are goblins and humans, thieves, robbers, and all of them susceptible to the wandering brothel circus. The party dwarf even acceded to letting the goblins throw rotten apples at him for a few coins! Good fun. The only person unconvinced by all of this was Zebon.
Then something strange happened: Zebon’s reaction rolls for the dwarf came up with a 2. Her reaction roll for the bard came up with an adjusted 1. I ruled that Zebon had in fact fallen in love with the bard and they spent the night together. The pimp proceeded to take the keep and organize a big party while the bard and Zebon were upstairs having fun.
The next session the bard’s player wasn’t there and the pimp’s player decided he would drill a hole through the wooden door to Zebon’s bedroom and allow the village’s peeping toms to take a look, for a price.
I gave Zebon a 1 in 6 chance of spotting it, which she made, and so we had a sixth level naked fighting-woman with a sword storming out and killing peeping toms, prostitutes and customers. The pimp came in with guards and wanted to kill her. The guards saw their former boss but made their loyalty roll and fought with the pimp. Zebon is a 6th level fighter but she had no armor on. Soon enough she was dropped to zero hit-points and I rolled “knocked out” for a few rounds on the Death and Dismemberment table.
In the mean time the two elves showed up. Disgusted with their party member turned pimp and the bloody mess they just cast sleep on everybody. As Zebon regained consciousness, one of the elves kicked away her sword, and told her that it would be best for everybody involved if she just left. And so she did, taking her bard lover with her.
The *sleep* spell cast at party members had saved us from a massacre! 👌
I also get to have a high-level enemy for the party! 👌
The elves, the bard, and the pimp are all first level player characters. This will be good.
There’s also a bitter pill in all of this. The bard’s player decided that this was a good point to take a break from the campaign. 🙁
#RPG #Old School
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Sounds like a very interesting couple of adventures. Pimps and Prostitutes, sounds like the old retro clone in the world. That little event really set up a nice back story for the next levels of the party.
– Tim Shorts 2011-04-06 11:31 UTC
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I think there’s also going to be a little element of player conflict, since not all of them seem to be comfortable with the level of P&P in this D&D game. :D
Personally, I think some players enjoy experimenting with the world and their fellow players to see what consequences their actions will have. As a referee I think it is my duty to bring it on, and I think the players should have their characters react accordingly as well. Including kicking the other player character out of the party, if necessary.
I’ll be happy to accept a new NPC into my ranks.
– Alex Schroeder 2011-04-06 15:51 UTC