>In your next short game, your group's PCs will be assigned to man a remote watchtower in the high hills overlooking a small farming town and a large expanse of wild frontier.
>While the farming town is only few leagues distant, it's just far enough away to make regular travel there impractical, confining the game to the watchtower and its immediate surroundings.
>These environs can include such features as a seldom-traveled road, a cluster of farmhouses, a patch of woodlands, a waterfall, a cave system or even ancient ruins.
>With an eye toward running a game combining the mundane with the magical and the pleasant with the paranormal, what sorts of events and happenings could be had here?
have a person from another tower in a visible location, but still like, super far away, try to communicate with the party via mirror & heliographs.
Chase Hall
If the town's burning should i leave my post or stay until my shift is over?
Cooper White
Flickering and unexplainable lights are always a good way to get a mystery started. Better if starts out as a little detail, and then gradually builds into something more noticeable.
Jacob Brooks
The main problems I can see is that there always has to be someone manning the watchtower at all times. Given this fact, there will always be someone sitting around doing nothing while the rest of the party is out doing things. Perhaps consider having an NPC whose sole purpose is to man the tower while away, or use this as an excuse to explain away any players whose characters are not present for the session? That said:
Establish the watchtower as one in a chain of watchtowers, with its neighbors to the distant north and east, just barely within range of the lamps used to communicate. Go about doing several days of daily routines until the PCs get used to things. Then, without reminding your players of the surroundings of the watchtower, have them receive a morse coded distress signal, from the south. It's anything from a rival nation drawing away the watchtower's guard for a covert attack, to a wizard in peril actually sending out a distress signal to the towers he knows are near.
A ragged man arrives at their doorstep, clearly exhausted after days of running, begging aid as the nearby town is under attack from marauders before expiring. When they get to the town, everything is perfectly fine. It's fey trickery.
During the hottest summer in years, a forest fire has started not a league away from the tower! The party must hasten to fight the blaze before it spreads! This one is perfectly mundane.
A travelling salesman has turned up. What wares does he bring? Perhaps he sells mundane supplies, magical trinkets, or even a man's heart's desire? What will the characters seek off him, and what will they barter in return? This one's up to you.
Ayden Turner
Smoke pillars just far enough away to be hard to get to while fulfilling duties, but also not in the areas that the usual farmhouses are, indicating either a new building is being set up, or there is a camp there for some reason. Perhaps bandits?
Though it's harder to see from the ground, a careful eye has been able to track the movement of a hill rolling across the earth on it's own accord, trying to move closer to the road. This has been correlated with children disappearing from the area more often in the nights and early mornings. Could it be the fey?
Carter Mitchell
Travelers of any stripe are good hooks for adventure or intrigue. You might be under order to assist and offer limited hospitality to certain classes of travelers, which can lead to rubbing shoulders with all sorts of strange individuals for a night.
Thomas Moore
Several weeks in and multiple sessions in, the party finds a trapdoor under one of their beds. The tower has a large basement level they had no idea about. The dust shows that something has been using the trapdoor, moving in and out of the basement. Something has regularly been creeping under a party member's bed.
Michael Hill
>Known bandits who have been plaguing the area meekly approach, unarmed and injured. They tell you that someone did this to them in the night and turn to you for help. They also tell you that same someone has ate all their horses, leaving only bones.
>Someone from the nearby village comes by and complains that nobody has received the mail in many months. This is especially concerning, considering messengers on horseback have been passing through regularly.
Nicholas Rogers
A group of four to six well armed people arrive, claiming to be looking for a nearby gobkin warren. An odd array of races you rarely see in these lands, and are all armed with arms and armor of astounding quality and you suspect it be magic. Indeed, two of their number claim to be mages! Perhaps most odd of all however they all have backpacks of immense size, yet only eat hardtack and pemmican. What could they be carrying so much of that is so important that they would not carry food? The way they refer to you all as enpeesees is a little annoying, not to mention that they insist in paying you with solid gold pieces which is only going to attract bandits.
By the time they leave, the player characters are a little wearisome of 'adventurers'.
Ryder Diaz
>A toll was recently instituted on the nearby road. At the end of each month a tax collector from the capital rides in to retrieve what you've collected. This month, however, multiple people have ridden in, each bearing the seal of the crown and demanding the money.
>Folks passing through have begun complaining of a massive tree growing in the middle of the road somewhere within your jurisdiction. Inspection finds no such tree. You do notice, however, that trees in your vicinity have begun disappearing, stumps and all.
Austin Morales
this is a great fucking concept
Noah Powell
>It has recently been made public that a dangerous and illegal drug's primary ingredient is a flower that exclusively grows in your area. Possession and transportation of this flower is not technically illegal, but you've noticed that traffic passing through with the flowers has increased dramatically.
>Members of the local village begin coming to you complaining of missing dogs. This isn't particularly concerning until you begin to find wreathes of dog teeth nailed to trees along the road.
Julian Hughes
I did a similar arc in my WFRP campaign, thought it was a toll house rather than a watchtower.
Oliver Baker
>A national holiday demands that you decorate your post appropriately. Not having the proper means to do so on-hand, the particularly festive local female residents drop by to aid your efforts. Of course, with the resident wives and daughters also comes a number of rowdy and grabby children.
>You begin finding small gifts in your packs or clothing as you wake. A coin. Beautiful carved figurines. Tiny pieces of parchment with limericks. Dolls made from hair. Whole eyes.
Ian Gonzalez
So Night Shift ala D&D?
Nathan Carter
LOL yeah right! Except with most players it would turn out like this:
>you see some lights flickering far away and then they disappear. >we leave to check them out immediately >err... You didn't see where they were. >we saw the general direction? >yes, but not the exact location... >so we search for it!
And then there will be five sessions of pointlessly scouring the countryside.
Landon Powell
>five sessions of pointlessly scouring
Then you're failing as GM. There's any number of breadcrumbs you could be dropping while the players are searching to lead them deeper into the intrigue.
Brody Bailey
This is absolutely beautiful. Any source for the artist? Google doesn't help.
Ryder Roberts
The suggestion was to slowly build tension using for example flickering lights. What I pointed out was that that doesn't work, because anything the DM mentions will be a lead towards adventure, even if it is not supposed to be that right away. Standard horror movie tricks doesn't work.
Robert Martinez
My party is afraid of high places, so the entirety of the game would take place on the bottom floor of the tower, and would involve figuring out who must be sent up to the dreaded high watch area that day.
The party would always be split in a 1:4 grouping and content would have to be designed suitable for both 1 and 4 players, which as we all know is completely impossible. There is just no way to make a balanced encounter suitable for 4 players.
>Perhaps consider having an NPC whose sole purpose is to man the tower while away...
This is a good solution to the problem. You could even have the NPC demand that they all draw straws each time to see who has to stay and man the tower, a test which by DM fiat the NPC will always lose. At least up until the point where the DM needs to seperate one of the PCs from the others for story reasons or if their player is absent like user says. Also, it can be good to have an NPC handy if you need another actor on stage to help move to plot along or to suffer some horrible fate.
>One morning a dense fog bank rolls in over the hills and valleys, covering the countryside around the Watchtower in an impenetrable blank whiteness as far as the eye can see in every direction. Everything is calm. Everything is silent. It's almost peaceful, in an unsettling sort of way. At least it was, until the PCs start catching glimpses of titanic shapes and shadows swimming through the fog.
>On one particularly fine day, a large party of High Elves with all their riches and their finery makes its way over the hill and stops at the Watchtower. As it seems, the group has been on tour, taking in the natural wonders of the frontier, and has decided that the PCs' tower and bluff would make the perfect place for a picnic lunch. The PCs are, of course, welcome to partake.
>On one particularly boring afternoon, the PCs decide to poke around the immediate vicinity and discover to their disquiet that their Watchtower is surrounded by the ruins of a half-dozen older towers, each bearing evidence of destruction and violence.
>The daughter of a farmer from the nearby hamlet has been stopping by the Watchtower every other day to bring the Watchers fresh produce and dairy products, along with some conversation and companionship. After a few visits it becomes apparent to the PCs that she and the NPC Watcher would make a perfect couple and they decide to help make this happen.
Carter Wilson
>There is just no way to make a balanced encounter suitable for 4 players.
Is this true Veeky Forums? I always wondered why I was recommended group sizes of 3, 5, or 6...
>After the PCsaccidentally disturb a small, ancient shrine along the roadside, the Watchtower falls under a very weak but very petulant local goddess' curse and is plagued with bad luck.
>So Night Shift ala D&D?
That would be an interesting idea.
Owen Green
No, it's not. It is, however, difficult to balance encounters for a variable party size, which is what I think he was getting at. If the party has a mix of classes, then any obstacle that could conceivably be overcome alone by any given member is a trivial challenge for the four of them together, but an obstacle that requires a particular set of skills to overcome is effectively impossible for everyone BUT the play with those skills, who could overcome the problem alone while the other three together would still be stumped. And of course, any challenge designed for the whole party together is going to be impossible for only part of the party to handle.
My prefered solution is to simply redefine what "completing an encounter" means in the context of a given party composition. If everyone's together, then completion entails solving the problem entirely. If a player is alone, it might merely mean you've successfully identified the problem and escaped to report to the rest of the party, or perhaps you devised a method to contain or slow the progress of the problem until you can come back with the skills necessary to complete it entirely.
Example: a party of bandits have made camp. They're adept trackers and difficult to catch by surprise. The goal for the entire party is to kill, capture, or drive off the bandits. The goal for, say, the Ranger in the party alone might be to merely locate and report on their numbers, perhaps set traps to improve the party's odds when they come back together. The goal for another party member working alone might simply be escape or avoidance.
Michael Gomez
I kinda wanna play in a campaign like this.
Levi Torres
>The PCs hear a beautiful but lonesome voice singing in the forest.
>The storm of the century rolls in, forcing the PCs to secure their tower.
>A necromancer has set up camp in a small graveyard just down the hill.
>A troupe of traveling acrobats performs for the PCs pocket money.
>Something keeps knocking on the door to the tower before vanishing.
>A map to bandit treasure is found in the journal of a former guardsman.
>Once a year a ghostly army marches along the road past the tower.
>A local farmer's daughter is lost in the woods and must be searched for.
>One night, the lights in town all go dark, as do the moon and stars after.
>The wandering peddler's face matches one on an old wanted poster.
>Something large and lumbering is making its way down the valley.
>A group of pilgrims accidentally leave a satchel of hilariously bawdy letters.
>A small dragon decides to make its new nest up in the tower's lookout.
>The PCs must arbitrate a dispute over a minor wagon accident.
>A chest full of old, exotic potions is discovered in the tower's basement.
>The PCs hold an impromptu archery competition.
Jacob Jackson
There is something appealing about the idea. Almost cozy, in a way. I feel like the small scale of the setting and the happenings in it allows for a more intimate sort of game where the players can really get to know the watchtower and it's surroundings quite well, and take what happens to their characters a bit more personally.
Julian Ortiz
>A little lost girl shows up at the tower and the PCs must care for her a while.
>Word is heard of a nasty conjuror hiding out in some nearby ruins.
>A small cadre of dwarves stop for a beer break and make minor repairs to the tower.
Josiah Richardson
It's like Night Shift's optimistic little brother. >Night Shift >You have to work a shitty job in this tiny, spooky gas station, and sometimes ambiguously supernatural shit goes down and you're the one responsible for making sure the manager doesn't give you shit for it. Occasionally, time-travellers, shifty strangers, and rabid hobos will stop by vs. >Watchtower >You work a cozy job in a tiny, cute watchtower, and sometimes ambiguously supernatural stuff goes down. Fortunately, this is what you're here for, and you're not bad at dealing with these sorts of things. Occasionally, farmers, caravans of elves, and rabid hobos/adventurers will stop by
Joseph Sanchez
>So Night Shift ala D&D?
I like this idea, but I think that this setting might be slightly lighter in tone. Scary and terrible things might happen to our watchers on ocassion, but things never quite reach the deepest levels of survival horror and gallows humor that the Night Shift achieves.
Isaac Hill
a cult of some kind cleared an area of forest and has been laying iron, copper, or some other pure metallic bars in strange patterns. this might not bode well...but they're never there to get caught.
>once a month the tower must test it's beacon signals. on the proscribed day it must watch for a signal from the nearest tower and reply by colored balloons/pennants and later by lighting a huck-huege bonfire.
in a box you found on your doorstep is a human head and a note "we found this dead guy, we didn't kill him" it's singned either "the local monster" or with a big monstery foot+claw print. later farmers come and say a headless body was delivered to their coffin maker by dead of night.
>as is in ships this MUST be recorded in triplicate in all of the logbooks
the village-side day-signaller is playing Thud! or Chess with someone in the village, signalling piece moves. He's very good, and then one day he isn't on the signals and nobody's seen him(possibly ever)
Henry Hall
Exactly! I also imagine Watchtower as being a rather cozy sort of game that encourages the players to enjoy themselves as their characters explore the Watchtower and it's environs, uncovering mysteries and wonders as they go and dealing with various happenings and occurrences as they arise. Sometimes events are mundane in nature and sometimes they are magical, and ocassionally they can be frightening or inexplicable too, but the PCs oughtn't feel the same sense of dread and despair that the Night Shift's attendants do.
Austin Carter
>someone is digging up the grave-yards, even the consecrated ones. later the bodies are found posed around the village in grisly tableaux or just outside doors set to stare face-to-face with whomever comes out the door.
GIANT ANGRY BIRDS
>GYPSIES
since it's in a ""frontier"" location you could also have. migrant farmers looking for a place to steak their claim. or a local up-start leader deciding that they "don't need the sharp eyes of the government watching them so closely" and leading a faction to siege your tower.
>the annual craftsman visit to repair the tower featuring the eccentric wandering builder Leonardo Vitruvius
it's a market day and for a bit of mummery they would like to borrow the tower's light Ballista to fling rotten fruit at a mock castle; this is against protocol, but the old ladies in town bribe you HARD with the very best in pipping hot FRESH BLUEBERRY PIES.
>the annual inspection, some bean-counter with cheap glasses and a list of important criteria checks how shiny the shoes are, how well oiled the door-hinges are etc. and god help you if you've forgotten to grease the flagpole pulley.
William Perry
here, have a weird sort of tower...
Easton Anderson
they could also be on fire-watch
spotting fires, locating them and directing help to the village people
Jose Barnes
...
Joseph Lewis
...
Daniel Garcia
...
Hunter Brown
look for the lighthouse threads in warosu, you should find some neat ideas.
Or semaphores
No. 5 is pushing it for most DMs, and 6 is where the shitstorm begins. 3 or 4 players are the perfect group size IMO.
Caleb Long
...
Adam Myers
>The PCs get rip-roaringly drunk to celebrate an NPC's last day at the tower.
>A rough and tumble wheel-skeleton gang rolls in and picks a fight with the PCs.
>A Gnomish merchant and con-artist tries to sell her shoddy wares to a resting caravan.
>One particular hour in the late evening, just at sunset, keeps repeating itself.
>The PCs have the best view of the valley village's annual fireworks show.
>The ghost of a wandering duelist seeks one more fight before passing on.
>The PCs receive the supplies meant for another tower in addition to their own.
>A paranormal prankster makes a nuisance of itself to the PCs.
>A group of hunters stop at the tower looking for information on a rogue bear.
>A room's worth of enchanted furniture seeks refuge at the tower from their former owner.
Asher Martinez
...
Jordan Reyes
...
Wyatt Barnes
...
Henry Russell
well, I'm out of towers to post...
except lighthouses.
Jaxon Campbell
>bureaucratic error in your tower's favor included 20 spears and 12 crates of boots.
the tower has a secret basement hidden behind a wall in the known cellar in it is the opening to a tunnel, a cold draft blows from that tunnel. it leads downward and towards the nearest mountain.
Kayden Evans
>scouring the countryside
I would make it so they were given orders by a higher up that they are not to leave the tower at night or they must have at least two people at the tower at all times
Something to prevent them from leaving even as creepy, horrible things start happening in the town at night
Grayson Collins
I think it was called Sora no Woto
There was even an episode about moonshine and the mob
Gabriel Murphy
What is this from? I like it a lot
Jack Lee
>One of the villagers gets pregnant and blames it on which ever PC seems most likely. Not many people believe her since they're so far away but her da' and brothers still come by to try and force the accused into a marriage.
>A local woman shows up at the tower in a panic because she found out her husband, a local and well-regarded farmer, is a werewolf. She has him locked up but doesn't know what to do. The full moon is only a few days away and the guards have to gather up enough silver to make a silvered weapon and kill him.
>The village headman shows up in rags and malnourished. He tells the guards that he was kidnapped and was left for dead in the wilds four months ago which is right when the village headman started acting weird! The current 'village headman' is a doppleganger and killed the real village headman. The other 'village headman' is also a doppleganger who found out about the ongoing scam and decided to steal it.
>The local fey show up and need an impartial third party to settle a dispute between two different factions. The dispute is something incredibly mundane and petty (something like who stole who's acorns) but is deadly serious to the fey.
Benjamin Barnes
>The PCs find a small box of valuables dropped down the tower well long ago.
>A young Druidess and a dryad in a wheelbarrow of dirt pass by on their travels.
>Spring has come and with it, the PCs are expected to clean the tower from top to bottom.
>The wild hunt has come to the high hills, trapping the PCs inside till dawn.
>A new NPC is assigned to the tower and the PCs must show them the ropes.
>The sad elven ghost in the watcher's armor on the tower's third floor will not leave.
>A small rockslide blocks part of the road and needs to be cleared quickly.
Grayson Campbell
>>The local fey show up and need an impartial third party to settle a dispute between two different factions. The dispute is something incredibly mundane and petty (something like who stole who's acorns) but is deadly serious to the fey.
I really like this idea.
Ryder Adams
...
John Ramirez
>A new semaphor system that no one knows how to use is installed atop the tower.
>A shooting star falls to earth within walking distance and the PCs investigate.
>A traveling storyteller is willing to trade tall tales for a night's meal and lodging.
>Passersby report having seen a unicorn in the woods around the tower.
>The tower's flag has blown away somewhere in a gale and must be recovered.
>A group of local pixie sisters begin bickering over which PC is most attractive.
>After a group of travelers leave a trunk behind, the PCs establish a lost-and-found.
>One of the PCs finds a charm on the road that drastically improves their luck.
>A group of guardsmen on patrol stop at the tower to share gossip with the PCs.
>The PCs discover an ancient elven ruin in the forest filled with talking statues.
William Lee
I actually had a game like this once, players weren't in a watchtower but rather started with a barebones camp and rather than being full-on Guards they were more like mercenaries in charge of watching the frontier border between two rival, but not at war (yet), nations.
Ultimately they were given free reign to do whatever they wanted as long as they kept an eye out and sent their weekly reports back. Eventually they started building up their modest camp with a few tents into some wood cabins with a makeshift watchtower out of a particularly big tree, a wooden wall around the camp, and some minor crops. Unfortunately the game ended due to half the players having real life obligations early, just as an actual plot was beginning to happen besides them playing "build a frontier town".
Everyone seemed to enjoy the game a lot though.
Kevin Baker
Wait, hol up a second. What is 'Night Shift'? I googled it and it just gives me some shitty TV medial sitcom or something
David Brown
check 1d4chan
Henry Bennett
ah, thanks user
Carson Gomez
Man I would love to play in a group running something like this. Its the right pace for my current schedule. Gives me a good excuse to play table top again.
Jace Sanchez
Underrated post
Isaiah Diaz
Night Shift is a homebrew setting Veeky Forums dreamed up in 2014, where the PCs are attendants working the night shift at a creepy old gas station on a lonely highway out in the middle of nowhere. These PCs have to do all the little crappy chores expected of gas station attendants: serving motorists that stop at the pumps and customers that come inside the little convenience store, mopping the floors, stocking the shelves and cleaning the restrooms. However, over the course of the night attendants may also have to deal with paranormal hassles and horrors like vengeful ghosts, rampaging monsters, lurking shadow people, abstract spatial anomalies and alien abductions. It plays as equal parts workplace sitcom and survival horror with a lot of dark humor and surreal horror, and has been the subject of a number of threads on Veeky Forums as well as having been pitched as a movie / TV show.
Don't forget fa/tg/uys, ALL of this comfy stuff can happen with normal games, just let the PCs you have inherit, buy, win or conquer an old tower or mansion on a hill overlooking a fairly distant small village.
Owning property and building on it and all the little fun events like those mentioned here are great fun for most PCs between big crazy BBEG adventures.
Owen Watson
bump
Evan Nelson
All I can think of is the creepy wall campaign or a groundhogs day type scenario. Then again, I'm not an "ideas guy".
Jonathan Flores
>The creepy wall campaign
It just hit me, when a couple of PCs die, this is their afterlife if they're gonna get resurrected. They guard the wall between Life and Death, but because of magical shenanigans and gods and shit, the position is irrelevant. But its been hardwired into creation.
Or its a bit like guarding Ra's boat each night.
Jacob Ramirez
This thread is making me itch to GM a game centered around a watchtower or something similar. Thanks OP and anons.
Ryan Jenkins
Just archived this on suptg for future reference
Tyler Collins
good.
it should even be on the front page of the archive for a while now that /qst/ is properly established
Jordan Harris
Nice. Thanks user!
Luis Wright
>A horse messenger stops at the tower, claiming he was attacked on the road.
>A large and particularly chatty crow offers unsolicited advice to the PCs and passersby.
>A small cask of a particularly fine wine is discovered amidst the junk in the tower's basement.
>A novice witch crashes into the side of the tower while trying to wrangle her first broom.
>With the help of local farmers, the PCs plant a vegetable garden at the base of their tower.
>The PCs receive disturbing messages from another tower by signal lamp late at night.
>The PCs receive a large and ornate grandfather clock as a gift from the town for their service.
>A mountain goat wearing a crude crown and followed by a "retinue" holds "court" on a bluff beside the road.
>A violent but inexperienced bandit gang attempts to hold the PCs up in their tower.
>A young and impressionable gnoll out to see the world seeks directions at the tower.
Lucas Thompson
>The PCs are told that they may receive one additional luxury item from an approved list in their next resupply.
>A female giant seeks advice while fretting over her comically disastrous love life.
>A ragtag group of "adventurers" demands gold for completing some kind of "quest."
Ian Parker
You know, after reading this post and seeif all the suggested happenings in this thread, it strikes me that this setting would be a pretty good fit for a "base-builder" style game. You start with just the Watchtower, the PCs and one handy NPC, and the choices that the players make will bring new characters and improvements to the local area. Helping out a group of migrant farmers might establish a small farming hamlet on the hilltop that improves the quality of food the PCs have access too. Aiding various traveling traders might set up a little marketplace rest stop around the base of the tower. Courting favor with a wealthier merchant might even get them a small inn or bar.
Justin Ross
>A local barkeep who has been good to you stops by and informs you that he'll waive your entire outstanding tab if you absolutely, positively do not let a particular man head into town. The man in question rides in the following morning, claiming to be hunting a dangerous fugitive.
>A strange ox with the head of a boar has been finding its way to your post every day for a week now. Attempts to find its owners have failed and local farms won't take it in.
Levi Lewis
Reading this thread has made me realise I'd read the shit out of a comic or mango with this premise. Fantasy themed slice of life
Henry Cook
>A local mother reports to you that her daughter has gone missing and nobody can find her. That night you find her hidden away within your tower. When questioned as to why she fled, she claims she found her parents bodies in their well.
>A new ordinance demanding that you take a sample of consumables that pass through the area happens to come during the annual pie fair.
Lucas Peterson
>You find an unfamiliar basket one night at the top of the tower. In it is a baby and a note reading only "It goes away."
>Three siblings ride to you, each claiming that the others left some family heirloom at your post for safekeeping. You have never met any of them.
Joshua Young
>>A new ordinance demanding that you take a sample of consumables that pass through the area happens to come during the annual pie fair.
Or so the PCs claim. Oh, it's going to be a good day. It's going to be a very good day.
>Reading this thread has made me realise I'd read the shit out of a comic or mango with this premise. Fantasy themed slice of life
That does sound pretty appealing. Four or five guardsmen whiling away their days dealing with the weird, wonderful and sometimes worrying occurrences that happen upon their tower.
>>A local barkeep who has been good to you stops by and informs you that he'll waive your entire outstanding tab if you absolutely, positively do not let a particular man head into town. The man in question rides in the following morning, claiming to be hunting a dangerous fugitive.
Oh, this puts the PCs in a great little quandary, doesn't it. If the bounty hunter is legitimate then the guardsmen have a legal and moral obligation to point him in the right direction, but they have personal ties to the potential fugitive and were offered a bribe to turn the hunter away. Very nice.
Anthony Howard
>A man armed and dressed in a uniform matching your own rides to your post one day. He promptly marches up and attempts to assume watch. When questioned, he responds in a language you do not understand.
>One night, all the fire in your camp burns blue. Everything from a match to a bonfire you start all burn that same color. Further inspection reveals a ring of salt drawn around your tower.
Owen Davis
>No one passes by on the road all day and the PCs must find ways to amuse themselves.
>A stone golem wanders by, seeking purpose in its life after the death of its master.
>The daughter of the village baker wants to set up a snack stand at the base of the tower.
>A group of suspiciously giggly Druids offer the PCs a gift of some peculiar incense.
>A big faire has come to the valley town, bringing an unusual amount of traffic on the road.
>Waking up one morning, the PCs discover the tower and everything inside to be mirrored.
>A heavy grindstone breaks loose from its wagon and rolls downhill, causing destruction.
>Passersby report seeing black straw voodoo dolls nailed to trees along the roadside.
>The NPC guardsman tries to learn how to play the lute but does not have much success.
>The PCs begin receiving letters in which minor explosive runes have been hidden.
Noah Flores
I started reading this a bit ago and came up with a basic schedule. Essentially there's a day team and a night team, the party would likely be the day team but you could mix it up and have them as the night team.
>Dawn: Night team wakes Day team, Day team is given an hour to wake up and have breakfast, Night team eats once Day team is finished. Before Night goes to sleep, all towers must alert all adjacent towers that morning meals have passed without incident.
>Noon: Half of Day team eats lunch, other half watches, switch afterwards. Alert all adjacent towers that lunch has passed without incident.
>Dusk: Day team wakes Night team, Night team is given an hour to wake up and have breakfast, Day team eats once Night team is finished. Before Day goes to sleep all towers must alert all adjacent towers that dinner has passed without incident.
There is a half hour leniency for the alerts, if one tower doesn't check in, all that didn't receive the okay signal are sent to investigate. Most of the time it's a case of the team taking too long to wake up or having a good time at their meals.
The official schedule doesn't specify a midnight meal but most teams do it anyway. If anyone comes approaching the tower with issues of national security, the currently active team is to wake half of the sleeping team and have them skeleton crew it while the active team handles the issue. This can happen for either the Day or Night teams if you want to make the job particularly annoying for your party by making them go their boring shift completely exhausted. Maybe have a little garden on site for the watchtower to grow their own food or require monthly trips to market, maybe if the PCs do a shitty job the merchants decide they don't wanna sell to them.
Jack Thompson
I hadn't even thought of dayguard versus nightguard dynamics. Interesting.
Sebastian Williams
You could even 'pick' on a character that happens to have darksight or whatever it is and have him routinely woken up by the Night shift to get some conflict going. Maybe his shift 'forgets' to signal so the other towers come and ask the Night guys why the fuck they aren't doing their jobs.
Logan Torres
>When the Dayguard wakes up, they discover that every member off he Nightguard appears to be missing. The PCs must piece together the available clues to determine what happened while they were asleep and to figure out how to find and rescue their comrades.
Jack Garcia
thats a realy solid one
Levi Cruz
>The tower includes a shrine to a long forgotten god/goddess of the people that originally built the tower (Before it was rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed and then rebuilt again), appease them in tiny ways or face their mild disgruntlement
Lucas Reed
There's always been a watchtower there of some kind, manned by a similar group of guards facing similar problems.
Joshua Cox
Such is the way in kingdoms with often moving borders really.
Xavier Perez
Essentially, yes, both Night Shift and "Watchtower" run on the same premise of putting a group of everyman PCs in a remote setting and throwing strange situations at them. The differences lie in the mood and intent with which the premise is presented. From all the suggestions in this thread, is feels like "Watchtower" is meant to be much more lighthearted than Night Shift, a fantastical slice-of-life style game with ocassional elements of horror woven in.
Ryder Roberts
I've always appreciated settings and locales that have various layers of history stacked one stop the other, and I really like the idea that there's always been some type of watchtower or guard post at the spot our current tower sits on. It would also explain some of the points of interest in the tower hills like elven ruins, roadside shrines and the like.
Colton Ward
>One of the villagers gets pregnant and blames it on which ever PC seems most likely. Least likely. If available, one of the girls. Funnier that way.
Ryder Lewis
>"It's that guard, Kells, what's put my poor lil' Petunia in such a delicate predicament!"
>"Do you... mean to tell us that GuardsWOMAN Kells got your daughter pregnant? Guardswoman SARA Kells?"
>"The... err... the, uh, very same! Yessir!"
Liam Roberts
Any suggestions for a system to run a game like this in?
Ian Torres
I'd imagine something that gives social interactions a fair amount of consideration, given how many of the proposed happenings are non-combat encounters.
Jaxson Carter
I did something quite close to this. It was a warcamp setting with the players being a band of clerics owning a medical camp on the edge of a rather large battle field. Constant fighting and casualties, and they were respinsible for the healing. I made a requirement that everyone had to make a healer, and one of them choose paladin for some reason, and was hated by the rest because his lay-on-hands was shit compared to everyone elses powers. It essentially turned into midevial highfantasy M*A*S*H with the paladin being the frank burns. It was actually pretty great since they all got into it. We rolled for exhaustion and hilarious supply mishaps, as well as. The sadder part of casualties, like doing triage. The players had to make some tough choices, like who to resurrect, and who not, based on a lack of the proper spell components, as well as conflicting orders. They suprised me more than once, and by the end of it would do almost anything to get the diamonds for a resurection spell, including an instance of sexual favors, and another instance of threatening a superior officer who was greedy and kept them for himself. Very neat slice of life, but still interesting.
Dominic Gray
I was gonna run it in AD&D but you make a good point
