Early on in my current campaign my players were sent on a quest by a wizard friend of theirs, he gave them a sending stone so he could keep in contact with them. After that quest ended my players got a nice big downtime, 1 month. One of my players, who owns a tavern, asked to dedicate that downtime to finding some more sending stones, one for each player and the pairs to be held by the barkeep NPC she employs. I rolled on the tables in XGtE and got a price that they could afford.
Are there any unforeseen downsides in letting them spend all their money on sending stones? I know this effectively gives them party wide telekinesis but since they’re using this NPC as a telephone switchboard (literally how they pitched the idea) I can reserve the right to say he’s busy and can’t forward their messages.
I decided to give them the stones and then ran a session, they got separated for a few minutes and spent most of it talking through that npc to each other instead of trying to solve the problem that separated them. They’ve implemented a rule that he needs to write down what they say and relay the message exactly. 10/10 it was quite funny. Try doing this with your players.
I say, let them run with their idea. Sounds fun and already full of complications 🤣
For instance, you could give them a few go-rounds with this switchboard mechanism to underline its flaws, and perhaps have them encounter a theoretical mage fixated on pushing the boundaries of traditional spellcasting who says s/he might be able to create a bridge between sending stones and replace this human switchboard.
Of course, that quietly lays a foundation for all sorts of DM shenanigans:
1.) The mage is secretly nefarious and listening in on their conversations, or
2.) The bridge is somehow causing glitches in nearby messaging magic of all kinds, leading to a local investigation of this arcane static, or
3.) The mage’s enchanting of the bridge went awry in some miniscule way. Completely undetected, the continued use of the jerry-rigged Weave is exacerbating the issue leading to increasingly negative effects — eg.
3.a.) Users begin hearing their distant companions as if they’re right next to them, and it grows to include sleeping hours eventually preventing them from getting rest [Exhaustion is a bitch ] until they leave their stone a certain distance away.
3.b.) Something indescribable lurks in “the spaces between” that these bridged messages travel through from stone to stone, and it begins to take notice of the sudden noise/static in its surreal domain/hunting ground/oubliette/etc. — perhaps even feeding on the stones’ bearers, or moving to cross over into t the e PCs’ world via this irresponsible breach of ancient arcane protocol…
4.) Or, all of the above 🤣😱☠️
The NPC decides to expand the sending stone services without the players’ knowledge. They outsource the switching tasks, and then the production and distribution of sending stones, eventually turning it into a full-blown telecommunications service and call center. The players call in and have to wait in a hold queue for assistance. The outsourced staff don’t know the player characters and don’t really understand or care about the service beyond the specific task they were hired for, so it starts to degrade and provide a worse user experience. A local bad guy hacks into the system and starts eavesdropping on calls. The original NPC sells the business off before it completely collapses, and skips town. Communications failures and chaos ensue.
