Factions tend to compete and make enemies of each other, something your heroes might get caught in the middle of. Set up your factions so that their morals are somewhat complex and helping one over another has effects on your world.

1. The Plan to Stop the Orcs

The human burghers in their towns and cities hate dealing with raids by humanoids. There are orcs that have migrated into the nearby wilderness, so their idea might be to burn the wilderness back a mile or two. But this would put them very much at odds with the rangers of the king–who owns the wilderness–and the elves who live there, and the druids who consider it sacred. Worse, it might not even work; it could burn down the whole forest or just keep the orcs away for a brief time.

The heroes can very quickly get into the middle of the affair by learning about a bounty on orc chieftains, which leads them to learn about the burghers’ plan. The heroes might try to take care of the orcs personally, collect a couple chieftain heads for bounty, and move on. But the burghers might proceed with their plan anyway, or the rangers might arrest the ringleaders, or the elves and/or druids might kill them. Or the elves or rangers might confront the heroes on the assumption that they’re burghers there to burn the forest.

2. The Lost Relic in the Ruins

The local bishop wants a lost relic recovered from a ruined abbey in the hills. But an evil cult has taken root there, and a circle of druids intends to destroy the abbey with the cult inside using spells that will cause plants to pull apart the very stone foundation.

The heroes will need to learn about the druids’ plan from one of them or a cleric’s blessing giving them a vision. Then they’ll need to decide if they should try to dissuade the druids–assuring them the heroes can destroy the cult and loot the abbey–or perhaps fight the druids. If they avoid the druids, the heroes could be in for a fight when the druids arrive at the abbey, getting mistaken for cultists. Maybe they can get the druids to hold off a little while by promising to take care of another problem the druids have….

3. The Blasted Bandits in the Wood

Travelers on the king’s road are having trouble with outlaws living in a woodland between manors. The shire sheriff or local lord might contract with the heroes to stop them. But the heroes learn from townsfolk sympathetic to the outlaws that they’re actually rebelling against unfair policies of the sheriff and lord; and their activities are benefiting the common townsfolk. The outlaws stop the lord from charging tolls on the road and kill off monsters (which menace the common folk) that the lord likes to hunt.

Wiping out the outlaws might gain the heroes a nice reward, but it will set the townsfolk against them. Siding with the outlaws could get the heroes declared outlaws themselves. Walking away would likely result in someone else capturing the outlaws and executing them, resulting in worse times for the townsfolk.

More complexly, the outlaws might actually be pretty bad guys, and their good deeds have to be weighed against their bad ones; or the townsfolk might be persuaded that the outlaws had to go but the heroes can work with the lord and sheriff to rescind the hurtful policies (end road tolls and kill off the monsters, hunting in the king’s wilderness instead).

4. The Candle of Caging

The Brothers of Rojil and the Iron Heart mercenary company both want the candle of caging the heroes have, but they can’t both use it (Force Cage for as long as the candle burns, max 1 hr, one use only). The Iron Heart Company wants it to trap the leaders of the outlaw Bogwell Company, kill them, and take their treasure (and eliminate them as a rival); they’ll pay well for it. The Brothers of Rojil want it to trap the insane sorceress Candora Selge, whose evil experiments have unleashed woe on the land; they can only pay half as much as Iron Heart.

Assume both mercenary companies are shady organizations, but the Brothers of Rojil seems to be the lesser of two evils. They’re clerics and rogues who carry out clandestine operations against those they regard as evil, but they’re more zealous than righteous and have been known to be wrong before. The heroes might look into the backgrounds of both the buyers and people the buyers want to use the magic candle against.

The heroes might make a deal to help one buyer take on their target without the candle, of course (and split any treasure), or they might decide they don’t like one and just help the other. Instead of money, you might have the buyers offer a different magic item. Regardless, either the Bogwell Company or Candora Selge is likely to survive to cause trouble another day, and the heroes have only themselves to blame.

Your Campaign

All these scenarios can have ongoing effects when other factions react to the events, such as when the king learns about what’s happened.

Not every adventure needs to include this kind of moral/social quandary or wheeling and dealing. Many can be straightforward tasks. But mixing things up can be a great way to enrich a campaign.

Maybe the heroes become friends with the elves or the druids, gain the trust of local officials, and so on. Or maybe they make enemies of the greater orc tribe, the townsfolk, the sheriff, or the evil cult’s allies.