An outlying village is actively searching the nearby city for mercenaries to help them protect their village.
An outlying village is actively searching the nearby city for mercenaries to help them protect their village. A large group of about 40 bandits have been overheard saying that they will come back after the harvest and ransack the village for their grain. Their need for the grain is unknown to the villagers. The villagers can promise little but to feed the mercenaries and give them lodging while they are there.
(The villagers actually have a large stash of special weapons from killing some of the bandits that were caught alone. The villagers just cannot protect themselves from that many and can't use the weapons well at all, they are farmers after all. If they let that get out they would be robbed by a number of people to get their stash. They must trust their protectors. The bandits are getting ready to move locations and need supplies to feed themselves and the horses for their trip.)
Gives the PC a chance to plan a defense instead of invading everything. ( taken from the 'Seven Samurai' movie)
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A good way to bait the characters who have spent all their money and now need to figure out how to eat. Give them two weeks to a month to plan some kinda defenses, then got 'em
Okay, I vote 2.5 as requested by Strolen (Checking out the new .5 vote system)
Minimal old school sub, not bad. To improve I would add some details to differentiate the sub from the movie. Some ideas might be giving the villagers something other than a stash of weapons to protect, or a different motive for the bandits to be stealing their grain.
I like the idea of rallying a village to help defend it. In the TV mini-series, Pillars of the Earth (and novel, though never read it.), there is a battle of the correct scale for PCS' - the attackers are about 20 men at arms and knights attacking a small town. A small number of 'PCs' help rally the defense with a nice small scale battle.
Forgot how glorious this sub was till it was dredged from the pits of hades. :)
That might be fun though, rewrite these a bit and leave the original as a blockquote. hmmmm
Easy to use for a plug in to keep the action going when the characters wander off the beaten path,. and easily adapted to sci-fi games which is a nice plus.
Easy to use for a plug in to keep the action going when the characters wander off the beaten path,. and easily adapted to sci-fi games which is a nice plus.
For a twist: The villagers knew they could not win and poisoned their grain. The bandits have taken and eaten some of it, but not before selling off a great deal to various local populations. During a time of bad harvest can the PCs manage to find and stop the shipments before they are consumed? Should they cure the bandits if they come across them dying?
I don't think a write up of Seven Samurai brings anything to the table that isn't put there by saying Seven Samurai, unless you were going to iron out some details, toss in some new character profiles and give some time lines for a GM to produce a fun retelling of seven samurai.