30 Inn/Hotel Problems
An Inn or Hotel may be a good place to sleep but sometimes it can bring problems, and opportunities, of it's own...
1-Spiked bed
The innkeeper in this inn is evil and likes to murder guests from foreign parts with a bed with hidden spikes, that his servant winds down upon the sleeper, before stealing everything they have and dumping the bodies in the woods to decay. Assuming that the PCs do not get caught by this devilish trap, the servant will flee. If they attack the evil innkeeper, he or she has two fierce Great Danes on his or her side and a mildly magical sword. If in modern times the innkeeper has a revolver and a bowie knife instead, and if in future times a phaser, and he or she will be no pushover, as he or she has a lot to lose if law enforcement is informed.
2-Fans almighty
Either the PCs are genuinely famous in their own right, or they are mistaken for the world's equivalent of One Direction. Huge numbers of fans want to get their autographs, hug them, kiss them, and it will be near impossible to be able to get to sleep, leading to 1D6 of HP lost due to no sleep. A Silence spell will keep the noise out if the PCs know it, alternately they can try to persuade the fans to go home (which needs a successful Skill roll) or try and get help from law enforcement. Attacking their fans may lead to future legal trouble and will certainly make them disliked or even hated within the region.
3-Burglar
Whilst the PCs are asleep a burglar picks the lock of the room or rooms. The PCs may have set up some sort of booby trap, magical or otherwise, to ensure they wake up in time, otherwise each PC must make a Luck Roll to wake up and catch the burglar in the act, otherwise something of value will be stolen. If they do catch the burglar he or she will try to flee and if cornered will draw a flick-knife or a balisong and fight. If wounded twice, he or she will drop the blade, beg for mercy and name (justly or unjustly depending on the GM) the innkeeper as a fellow thief and the PCs must decide what to do next.
4-Press Gang raid
The hotel is raided by 3D6 sailors and an officer armed with belaying pins trying to press the hotel patrons into the country's Navy. If the PCs cannot fight their way out they will have considerable problems trying to escape from the ship they are sent to. In the fight against the sailors, if a PC loses two consecutive combat rounds they are knocked out for long enough to be tied up and rendered hors de combat.
5-Fire
Late at night the PCs are woken by the smell of smoke, and it turns out that the hotel is on fire. If they are on the ground floor, getting out will be reasonably easy. If they are near the top of a high rise, however, getting out will be perilous in the extreme. If they do make it out alive, it may be that the whole town is on fire and they have to help put out the flames with the townsfolk. If they rescue anyone that may well bring them rewards later. Or perhaps they have to fight their way out and flee from a lynch mob after being falsely accused of starting the fire.
6-Bugs
Unknown to the PCs their room is infested with bugs, leading to itchy sores that only feel good when scratched, a possible slight loss of hit points, and not much sleep that night.
7-Police investigation
The police or equvilent law enforcement want to speak to the PCs about something that they may or may not have done and the PCs can either co-operate with them or fight their way out and have the whole of the local law enforcement after them.
8-Brawl
A violent brawl breaks out in the hotel bar and the PCs can either stay well clear or get involved, making new friends but risking getting thrown out of the hotel for fighting by the establishment's bouncers.
9-Request for aid
Someone meets the PCs and offers to buy their services. It might be to rescue a kidnap victim or defend a small village from bandits, to kidnap or outright murder someone, to find a McGuffin, fight off debt collectors or just serve as bodyguards for a bit. The PCs could make some serious money here if they accept the offer but whatever it is, it will take time and distract them from their main quest and they might be double crossed at the end of it.
10-The Gang's all here
The hotel is full of gangsters from one large gang. Depending on the world, they might be bikers, Mafia types, paramilitaries, or other types. If the PCs are careful and don't get in anyone's face or spy on the gangsters, they will be tolerated and may be offered illegal weapons, spells and drugs for a price, but any trouble or disrespect and the whole gang gets involved. And as they are well armed, fierce fighters it is possible that one or more PCs might even die here fighting them off. If they stay where they are and somehow slay the entire gang, there will be as much treasure for the taking as in a small dragon horde but fighting their way out is a much safer option.
11-HAL
The hotel is run by robots and sci-fi tech or, if in a fantasy world, by complex magic. This means the owner does not have to pay staff and works very well until it suddenly goes wrong. From doors locking and sprinklers turning on, and robots becoming unhelpful or even homicidal, to magical kitchen implements turning on the PCs and being near impossible to *kill* , it will be an adventure to get out of there.
12-NC 17
The hotel turns out to be full of prostitutes. What type they are depends on how expensive the hotel is. They can range from high class courtesans all the way to the most poverty stricken and diseased whores at the bottom. Sleeping with them is not recommended due to either the cost or the disease risk.
13- Save my child!
A family's child has wandered away and they beg the PCs to help find him or her. This can end happily with the child soon be found alive, or the child could turn up murdered and it turns into a full scale murder investigation or an angry mob looking for vengeance, with the PCs risking getting entangled in it.
14-Tidal Wave
The PCs are on one of the upper floors of the hotel when a tidal wave surges it, soaking them and their equipment and perhaps washing them along the corridors. It can be more dangerous if the GM wishes it to be.
15-Humungous Fungus
The room has a large patch of Fluorescent Alcoholic Fungus on the wall, that hums when the PCs talk. If they try and cut it off, it squirts potent alcoholic fumes at them, and if they set it on fire, it bursts into flame and sets the whole wall on fire (see Entry 5, Fire for what happens next.) If the game is a more serious type the fungus can emit poisonous spores, emit spores that when ingested has hallucinogenic effects, or be useful to the PCs if it can be correctly identified.
16-Micky Finn
The owner of the hotel likes to drug certain guests of his and then sell them to kidnappers, slavers, organ harvesters or worse, and then tries that on the PCs. Each PC must make a Save Roll with a -2 modifier to fight off the effects of the sleeping drug, and then those who do fight it off must fight the innkeeper's attempts to club them. Assuming they win it will take a few hours for those who have been successfully drugged to come around.
17-Haunted
The inn is haunted. Depending on the game world and the GM, this can just be an effect, the ghosts can be trying to help the PCs or warn them of something, or they can be outright hostile and dangerous. This can be combined with one or more of the other entries in this submission if the GM wants it to.
18-Gambling Den
There are gambling games going on at the hotel. It might be a fully legal casino, semi-legal or downright illegal depending on the GM, and the games might be fair or rigged, again depending on the GM. If the PCs win lots of money they might get to keep it or the casino might get to try and steal it back in some way, perhaps leading to a huge fight.
19-Clip joint
The innkeeper serves a meal, then demands a vastly over the top price and has a number of strong armed thugs to back him or her up. Assuming a fight breaks out and the PCs win it they can then loot the inn's cash register.
20-Hidden Passage
The PCs find a secret passage. It may just lead to the alcohol store or it may lead somewhere very interesting depending on the GM.
21-Cult Base
A secret society uses the hotel as their base. They might be really dangerous like The Cultus of Vautu or The Children of Ma-O at one end of the scale, demon summoning and sacrificing people, or perhaps they just commit silly pranks and cheat on their taxes. Or they might be somewhere between the two extremes which is most likely the case.
22-Fencer's Paradise
There are underworld members who for a price will offer stolen goods and/or banned items, such as black magic scrolls, or a Firebow , or illegal computer programs and/or a stolen pleasure droid (if in a sci-fi world) and they use the inn or hotel as their base of operations. They might well be suspicious of the PCs at first, thinking that they might be undercover cops or just being paranoid, perhaps justifiably so if being caught could mean a long prison sentence or even execution.
25-Ley Lines
The hotel or inn was built on a place where two ley lines cross, greatly strengthening the effects of any magic cast within it and making it much more likely that a magical secret society who knows about the ley lines will be meeting there.
26-Deluxe
The inn or so is very high class and seriously expensive. It may well be that the PCs will not be able to afford to sleep here. Unless they get money legally or otherwise.
27-Falling Apart
The inn is in a state of disrepair. Water is getting through the roof, the floor boards are dangerous, and there are cockroaches and rats around. Sleep will be hard to come by here.
28-Menaced
Gangsters are extorting from the innkeeper and he or she is willing to pay a high sum of money to the PCs to deal with them, but the gangsters will be no pushovers and will have a lot of hit points, skill and dangerous weapons between them if the PCs decide to take up the offer.
29-Love Interest
A waitress falls in love with a PC and is not above placing a love potion in his drink, which the other PCs might well find hard to cure, especially if they do not suspect the use of a love potion.
30-Music Time
The bar is holding a karaoke night, but if the PCs are not careful this could lead to a brawl. Or maybe there is a prize on offer for the best singer of the night and the PCs want to try and win it.
Some good hooks. I'd like to add one similar to 3-Burglar. How often have player characters really searched their inn room? Unless it's particularly shady, I would say not very often. So what if the thieves guild is in cahoots with the inn and hides thieves in the room before the players occupy it...no need to break in...under the bed, up in the rafters, or in a secret chamber under the floorboards. While the players sleep the thieves emerge and rob them and then go back into hiding. The players wards and protections on the room are not activated.
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? Responses (2)
There are some seriously good plot hooks here, especially for midrange or higher level PCs. While a bit tedious in places, overall good. I would like to see a bit of fluff bring some of these scenes to life.
I agree with Scras: there are a lot of great plot hooks in here, and many of these could support multiple scenarios. There are a few amounting to someone offering the PCs a job that I think aren't really inn/hotel problems, but on the greater part, these are very nice (I like 11 and 20, personally).
