Do you make your PCs pay for training when they go up in level? You ought to. Do the PCs ever run afoul of labor laws or other ordinances in a village or town? They might. They might need a barrister. Do the PCs ever need their equipment maintained? DO they shop for anything other than weapons? DO they pay sales taxes? Is there a city clerk, a county sheriff, or a wealthy merchant who often irritates them? (There's an upcoming column about adversaries that you can't just kill with a sword.)

Often PCs need help. They need guidance they need money, they need a place to hole up, and they need dungeons to delve into. Especially at first level when spells are few, and rages and stunning attacks don't come but so often. Do you leave a big pile of gold guarded by a few kobolds? Do you do the Neverwinter Nights thing where in the prelude the PCs get "bumped up" to 3rd level so then they can REALLY begin the game?

Balderdash. In the real world, apprentice level people are working for somebody else. Why can't your PCs work for a patron? A patron is someone who provides a bed and some meals, and perhaps some basic services. The patrons ends the PCs on missions. If the PCs do well, they get rewarded. This is a great way to give magical items to your PCs in a convincing way. (Why didn't the orc guarding this room use the longsword +2 with a sonic burst?) Instead of random piles of Monty-Haul type swag, it's "Good Job again gentlebeings. Your good work has made us realize that we can trust you with more resources. Here's a ring of jumping for the monk, a spellbook for the wizard, a special cape for the rogue, etc." If the PCs ask for more, they are coldly told to go prove themselves. They are also reminded that these resources are only theirs as long as they are employees.

Here's an example: The local municiple government only has so many guards and sheriff's deputies. They don't want to stretch their forces too thin, so they concentrate them in one area, usually a road that leads back towards civilization. A group of pioneer entreprenuers are irrtated with this. They want to be able to log the forests on the other side of town, or raise sheep, or whatever. They form a Political Action Group, but then decide its cheaper to hire some PCs to take care of their problems than bribe and wheedle the gov't. They find 4 freshly minted PCs, and give them basic food and shelter, along with leads to dungeons. "One of our loggers (a 4th level commoner with the track feat) found a small cave where some goblins are hanging out. These beasties are raiding our storage sheds. Go clean them out." The PCs hit the three-room cave that has 8 goblin warrior 1 as the MM, and one goblin Rogue 1st. There are snares and alarm wires outside the cave, and a couple of gaurd dogs in one cave with the rogue leader. That's about 4 CRs including the dogs and traps, and a smart party can draw some goblins out or sleep spell them if they are together. (Usually a 1st level party, if they are clever, can deals with 4 CR 1 encoutners before they have to call it a day.)

Treasure? Not much, it's just a few goblins. But the PCs retrieve some of the kindling, and find some copper pieces on the goblins. The treasure is in the reward. The merchantile PAC puts the PCs up in a small cottage and gives them food, and as a reward for wiping out the goblin nest gives them some money, plus a few masterwork bolts or bullets. A couple of days later one fo their herdsman spots a kobold, walking around dazed in the light. The herdsman notes where the kobold went, and the PCs are urgently summoned. If they have a ranger they get to the kobold hideout quickly. If they don't they can hire the previous woodsman with the track feat or buy a dog. Now the PCs will find a cleverly hidden tree fort where the kobolds scamper about. The kobolds have line of sight sniping attacks on all who approach, and snares and pits hidden around the place. The PCs need a rogue who can find traps or perhaps a familiar who can scout ahead. Give them extra xp for attacking fromt eh west during sunset, where the light-sensitive kobolds cannot see them. Make climb checks, get up the trees, and find a place of sheltered catwalks that is so wrapped in leaves and canvas that its almost pitch-black. (A dungeon high in the air.) It works like a regular dungeon, except that you'd really better watch that torch or lantern, and attacking the floor might drop you all 20 feet to the ground. (Attacking the ceiling might open up a patch of sunlight and dazzle the kobolds.) This set up has 18 kobold warriors as the MM, several traps, a kobold sorceress 2 as the leader, and a couple of semi-tamed animals. That's 6-9 CRs in total. When the PCs bring back kobold heads, and then take the herdsman to the site of the former kobold hide-out, their patrons are much impressed. The patrons pay for a week of rest and training for the PCs (say hi to level 2 everybody), and word gets back to everyone else that the PCs are cool. Hirelings and henchmen may show up. The merchantile group suddenly gets 2 town council members on their side because of the serious nature of the kobold base. Impressed with their new political power, the group awards the PCs with a few potions and maybe some masterwork weapons. In the meantime, some politicians who had downplayed the forest threat look like fools, and they take their revenge by spreading lies about the PCs. Many, many plot threads are beginning to spin.

You get the idea, and can have a lot of fun doing this yourself, but here are some of my favorites:

"Damnation Alley" Based on science fiction short story and movie that I read and saw (I liked the book better), the PCs are hired to get something through. This works very well for a wilderness adventure, but can also involve your typical dungeon delvers. Orcs, goblins and the like are threatening trade routes. Perhaps this is due to an evil wizard or cleric who is organizing them, perhaps it is just shifting demographics. A merchant group, or a prince, or even a LG Expert level 12 who advises the King hires the PCs as guards. The PCs get paid (and get quest xp) based on the number of wagons, horses, packages, and especially people that get through alive. Don't the cook die! (It's a lot of fun forcing PCs to protect idiotic 1st level commoners.) Start off with simple stuff, a 1st level NE hobgoblin druid organizing wolf attacks on a wagon for instance. Once the PCs get to be higher level, run a stream of wagons down a road that goes through wyvern territory to then burst through an orc army that is beseiging a city. (The wagon contains vital things that the city needs, food, plague cures, or even a magical component for the city wizard to cast a war spell.) On the middle levels, running packages of food to defenders of a keep works too. The ride skill may be needed for this, or perhaps not if the PCs keep the horse handlers alive. The rewards and xp that the PCs could get from their patrons after each mission might be masterwork and then magical longbows, or perhaps special mounts and military saddles. Paladins would like this once they get their special mount.

"The Resistance" Urban adventures are tough, but they can work. You have a war between two kingdoms. One kingdom is winning, mostly by having hired evil humanoids for its army. Your PCs are cought in a city that falls to the invaders, or perhaps they are citizens. Most of the city's leaders and hgiher level NPCs are dead or taken captive. An aging, wealthy merchant (or perhaps he was a monk or a rogue once, his butler's name could be Alfred) hires the PCs. Missions include freeing political prisoners, stealing maps and troop schedules from police headqaurters, or sabotaging a ship or bridge. Again, you start simple, and again, the better they do, the more resources that the patron is willing to give them. This works great for an adventuring group that is big on skills and stealth, but not so much on fighting. The idea is to avoid most of the bad guys. (Getting xp for avoiding an encounter can give you xp like you beat the bad guy in 3rd edition and 3.5.) This is a great set-up for monks, rogues, bards, and sorcerers. Paladins might do it out of no other recourse, barbarians will go nuts at the restraints, and the other classes are so-so.

"Avenge my honor" I'm using this right now in a group that I met from an EN world post. An old dwarf, as in very old, is the masterweaponsmith in town. He is the last of his clan, as hordes of goblins and orcs wiped them out long ago. He hires the PCs and sets them out to 'clean out' various 'fortified holes' that he knows of. These were formerly dwarvena reas, altho the bad guys have modified them somewhat. He would do it himself, but he cannot due to his age and old injuries. He may also have some clan secrets that he is ashamed of, such as a brother who was a dwarven traitor. Said brother may now be a vampire. The dwarf probably has lots of swag from his adventuring days, and he can put the PCs up in the local inn on hsi nickel, provided that they keep coming back with goblin heads. This is good with any typical dungeon crawling group.

"If it please the court." I'm using this right now in a campaign that my wife is in. (The campaign is an alternate earth history full of dwarves, elves, dragons, etc. The year is 1704 and the campaign is called 'London is Calling'. Hm, perhaps I ought to make a future column about naming your campaign.) A legal firm has hired the PCs as 'fiduciary investigators', ie the enforcement arm of the law firm. Missions started off as simple. ("Why has this contractor stopped hiring locals as he was supposed to under the ordinance?" "Because he has the kobolds fixing the sewer lines." See my 'Backstories' column.) Then they get more complex. Currently the PCs are searching for a hidden will relating to the fortune of one of the most wealthy families in the British Empire. Said family members are backstabbing each other left and right to get the will, and hiring bad guys to off the PCs. You can take this anywhere, but having a Paladin assigned to the team by the crown, as well as a convict elvish rogue who was given to the team as part of a "Work for us or go to jail" deal, makes the half-elf sorcerer roll many diplomacy checks. ("You get 100 xp for keeping the party together after you convince the female paladin not to decapitate the elvish male rogue for pinching her bottom.")

"Crossroads" Reality bites, but multi-planar reality bites more. The four PCs awake on a white stone floor. The "Room" that they are in has no walls or ceiling, rather stars and galaxies. They are on a floating piece of rock with artificial gravity and air. A tall figure in grey robes whose face and hands cannot be seen (altho it radiates a soft, golden light) asks them if they are well. The PCs are. "Do you remember anything?" Of course the newly minted PCs do not. "Very well, we shall use you in our task. Accept your missions and your memories may be returned to you. Decline and we will collapse this place, allowing your corpses to flot in the void." A portal opens up on an idyllic field. "You have 72 hours to find [something cool, The Jar of Denuvian Sand is one of my favorites]. The field will find you by then. Do not fail us." The PCs are deposited in some campaign world or place, and they have to track down the [something cool], get past the traps and gaurdians, maybe find aplace to hole up and heal after failing on their first attempt at it, go at it again and retrieve it, and then (this is best part), HANG ONTO THE BLOODY THING UNTIL THE PORTAL SHOWS UP! This can make for some very cool down-to-the-wire adventures. "The orcs are surging towards you, you have 5 minutes and 30 seconds until the portal comes." "Crud, that's 55 combat rounds. RUN." All of the sudden spell durations become much more important, finding food becomes more important, or finding civilization period, any calss combo can be sued, and any more interestingly, any world can be used. ("What's the matter with your friend, he hurt his ears?" "No, he's an elf." "What's an elf?") This allows you to steal any movie idea you want, and the mysterious figure can give the PCs magical items suited to their next mission. Perhaps the PCs are sent to middle-earth, to stop a patrol of orcs from finding Frodo and Sam as they speak. Perhaps they are sent to the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, to join Kirk and Spock on some epic-level mission. Perhaps they're in Berlin, in the late 40s, and they have to stop a mad soviet general from beginning world war 3 over the showdown at Checkpoint Charlie. Maybe they in the Forgotten Realms, or Greyhawk, or the Midnight campaign setting. Maybe they have to kill someone, or keep someone alive. My favorite part about this is that if you are putting them into the middle of a movie, and your players have seen it, you can change the movie plot and tell the PCs to fix it. (A wild variant of Back to the Future.) This works great with movie buffs, amatuer historians, and people who have more campaign supplements than they know what to do with.

"The Prophet." This keeps the patron out of the PCs hair too much. The Patron exists to come into the PCs lives to tell them about some upcoming event or plan. This keeps the PCs in the middle of current events. Resist the urge to call the Patron Gandalf. This Patron provides ifnormation, guidance, and advice, but not treasure. Sometimes the Patron will travel with the PCs Gandalf-style, using his/her contacts to get them places. Sometimes the Patron will hardly be seen, and certainly be unknown, until at 12th level or something the PCs find something out about him/her. (I am working on a module for this site, in which I use a very remote Prophet-style Patron.)

"Unite or Die" The bad guys have won, or at least mostly. (Think of the Midnight campaign setting, altho you can tweak any similar idea.) The world is swarmed under by evil humanodis, giants, dragons, etc. An older general (think Lee Marvin) is trying to find a group and form a resistance (think The Terminator), or perhaps a masterful diplomat is trying to travel to the various tiny enclaves or dwarves, elves, and humans to get them to put aside their prejudices and get them to work together. Either way the PCs will not last long without the support of the group. While the PCs are very independent once they are out there facing whoever (the mind flayers have taken over, or the drow, or the githyanki, or someone), they report to a Council back at base who gives them equipment, missions, and marching orders. (Think of the Matrix movies, and try not to get so angry at how badly those morons butchered an awesome story line.) 1st level missions could be to raid a storehouse guarded by orcs for food. Middle level missions might involve tunneling under an enemy fortification, bribing an orc official to attack his superior, or even convincing a secluded gray elf AL N wizard that the time to help humanity is now. The survival skill becomes extremely important in this scenario, as does the ability to soak up a lot of damage since places to hide up and heal are few and far between. Barbarians become the mainstay of the group, but everyone else is needed as well. The better the PCs do on their missions out, the better food, equipment, weapons, and guides they are given.

I've said enough. At this point if you are still confused, go play Command and Conquer Red Alert for a few days.

(I can't wait to see the ads Tripod's text crawlers put over this page.)