Perhaps the BBEG is trying to gain some political advantage – control over a trade route, or elevating some puppet (or himself) in authority. To achieve this, he orchestrates a conflict between the taxation office (chancellor of the exchequer or whatever he is in this world’s society) and the Fisherman’s Guild, or Merchant’s guild, or whatever. By reducing the profitability of the industries apon which his political opponants depend, he weakens them, and by engineering a confrontation, he gets to play “diplomat” and settle the dispute, elevating himself in the eyes of the supreme political power. Of course, to make such a move popular enough to win support, he needs to spend the capital that he would acquire through taxation in such a way that he wins allies – perhaps a move towards more universal education, in the form of subsidising bards. The monk’s family, fishermen, would then oppose the tax, while the bard’s guild, who would suppport the bard’s family, would be in favour. As in any trade-union dispute, it would be easy for things to get out of hand at a local level in various places, both in the cities and out in the sticks. I would play this by first making the PCs aware of the political dispute as “news” in whatever town they are passing through (a minor subplot on their way to do whatever they would be doing anyway). Some time later, letters from the families would reach the PCs complaining of “unfair tactics” by the other side and asking each PC to come home and protect the family; in fact, the “unfair tactics” are being perpetrated by flunkies of the villain, whose real objective is simply to stir up trouble. The PCs are eventually persuaded as rumours of things getting out of hand elsewhere reach them (witch-hunts, trumped-up trials, cases of arson, etc – all exaggerated, of course). They discover the flunkies, expose the scheme, and realise that there’s someone out there pulling the strings – but the derailing of one minor regional dispute doesn’t stop the overall plan from succeeding. Following the hue and cry, the bad guy plays peacemaker in the capital, waters down the inflammatory proposals that he engineered in the first place, and moves on to his next plan, probably something more directly involved in gathering intelligence about these upstart trouble-makers (the PCs) – perhaps despatching a band of brigands or other flunkies to put them out of his business. Step by step, the PCs and the enemy work their way closer to direct confrontation, without even seeing it coming…

I was thinking of having the BBEG give them a “Motive” to take him down by killing some family members and kidnapping some others. Of course since they are just a minor thorn in his side right now they wont be dragged to his fortress of doom, but will be rather easy to rescue within the PC’s “Means”. Some friendly help from one of the BBEG’s slightly less evil enemies, for a heavy price of course, to balance out the forces a bit should provide plenty of “Opportunity”.

Perhaps the family members of the PCs might end up on seperate sides of some dispute, and the PCs have to find a solution that is at least acceptable to both sides? And if both sides are simply looking at some sort of short-term gain and are unaware of a bigger picture – some mastermind who is attempting to play both sides against each other for his own gain – they will find a greater goal that they can both get their teeth into?

Right now in my current campaign neither of the 2 players seems to have any long-term goals, so I just ask what they want to do this time, plan some challenges for them to overcome on their way there, and give them a few special items needed to achieve that goal in addition to standard loot. I should perhaps consider making it personal in the next few sessions… Both of em got living family members…