Complications

Here’s the list of complications players can encounter on their adventures:

1. Do it under time pressure (before the ritual is complete, before people run out of air, before reinforcements arrive, before or during the event, in transit, while you still have the chance).
2. Do it while competing with the rival team.
3. Unrelated people are interfering with the objective.
4. Do it stealthily (don’t attract attention, don’t leave clues, no witnesses).
5. Do it while pretending to be someone else.
6. Do it without revealing that your client is involved.
7. Prevent collateral damage, protect the innocents who are around.
8. Avoid violence. Defeat/capture the villain/creature without it being harmed.
9. Mitigate the risk, there’s a high probability of causing a lot of damage if you’re not careful.
10. Two challenges conflict with each other (you must break your stealth to help someone in trouble, capture criminal or save people who are currently in danger).
11. Difficult choice. Choose lesser of two evils, choose which people to rescue. Requiring personal sacrifice, risk, compromise.
12. Opportunities that come with a difficulty, cost or have negative consequences.
13. Resolve moral dilemma (the creature is dangerous but doesn’t deserve to die, you’re working for a bad guy, both sides of the conflict have valid points, completing a quest will harm people/environment).
14. Do it with incomplete information.
15. Do it with limited resources or without preparation.
16. Do it without access to powers you’re used to having (while sick/injured/debilitated, in an area where magic is outlawed/disabled, having lost your equipment).
17. Locals here are unhelpful/hostile to you. You have low social status.
18. You can’t trust anyone.
19. Doing it is illegal, or against authorities best interests, or is threatening a powerful group.
20. There are regulations/restrictions on what you can do hindering your progress.
21. Do it while being supervised (the media is all over you, a brilliant detective is on your tail, you are under suspicion, the enemy knows you’re coming, you have a spy/mole).
22. Do it despite your flaws/temptations/fears.
23. It causes conflict/infighting within the team (player characters will have opposite goals/reactions to it).
24. Do it while working together with antagonist or someone else you don’t like.
25. The side you’re working for turns out to be evil.
26. The villain is someone you know/like/respect.
27. The villain is a respected public figure, celebrity, is liked by people or has authority over you.
28. Bad guy has a dead man switch, if he dies the others will suffer or treasure will be lost. Bad guy is the only one who knows the valuable information.
29. The people you’re helping don’t want your help.
30. Vital information turns out to be wrong.
31. Deal with the betrayal.
32. Mission has been rigged to fail from the start (PCs may be used as a scapegoat).
33. Objective is stolen before the PCs arrive.
34. Objective must be undamaged.
35. The important item has been transmuted and needs to be changed back, locked in a safe and needs a code to unlock, is a mineral that needs to be refined by a specific process. A book or a message is written in a foreign language that requires a translator.
36. Only a bad/unpleasant person can provide the item/information/favor you need.
37. Monsters have built their nest around the “objective”.
38. The “objective” is in an area that is about to be destroyed by (earthquakes, flood, volcano)
39. The “objective” is surrounded by hostiles.
40. The “quest giver” is arrested and imprisoned, halfway through the job.
41. A target item/person/creature has a number of clones, only one of them is real.
42. The area is under the influence of truth spell, silence spell, time-slowing spell.
43. A liked/respected ally has different objectives and is working against the party.
44. It is all a trap/ambush.
45. Another party already retrieved the “Key item” and is on their way to deliver it to someone else.
46. The people you’re robbing/attacking/etc are extremely dangerous and vengeful.
47. choose between saving a person/group or completing the objective.
48. Innocent Bystanders.
49. Removing a “key item” from its current location will cause harm to the local people/environment.
50. Removing a “key item” from its current location will/does release something that was imprisoned.
51. The Quest giver was planning on stabbing the PCs in the back instead of paying them. Planning to get PCs arrested, kill PCs, rob PCs, turning PCs over to an enemy, etc.
52. The Quest itself is a political quagmire. (Accepting, completing, failing, quitting, or refusing) the quest is almost guaranteed to make an enemy of a person/group/faction.
53. You’re never quite sure who the villain is. Are you working for or against the villain? Both?
54. The person or group that your supposed to be helping/protecting/saving are being mind controlled or possessed. They are trying to kill or capture the PCs.
55. The item is displayed proudly in a public place. It is famous, historical, valuable (Mona Lisa, Constitution).
56. A trusted NPC is being blackmailed into betraying the PCs.
57. The quest creature/item/person was just swallowed by a monster/animal/bird.
58. A key person needed to complete the quest is a danger magnet, insane, cowardly, dying, oblivious to danger, targeted for assassination, treacherous, uncooperative, wanted by criminals, wanted by the law, only speaks a language that no one understands.
59. A key item that you need to complete the quest is currently owned or being used by another adventurer/party, the current owner needs the item to complete their own quest, stop some great evil.