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This is probably picking a nit, but where does the initial encounter take place? When I read it I assumed that the party would likely have just left on the inns after an evening of socializing when the come across the beleaguered cleric. Of course, the cleric is returning to to the temple from the orphanage, so we know his path. Sadly, none of the named inns are any where near this path. Has anyone moved the inns? Added a different hook? Worried about this detail in the slightest?
Thanks.
I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to obsess about this level of detail, particularly since they didn't provide a clear, blank map of the city (like inside the front cover of the HC, only on one sheet), so I can lay things out for the players. There are a bunch of reasons for him to have strayed: he went to check out the orphanage, then went looking for Patch at one of the inns and is on his way back to the temple from the last inn he checked; he could have been heading towards the inn when he got jumped; he could have been on his way pretty much anywhere, so in this particular case, exactly where he gets jumped isn't that important, although it might be interesting, just to see how the players deal with it, to have >all< the random city encounters happen at exactly the same place... "hey... haven't we been here before?"
This being the very first encounter, I think it would have been a mistake for the publisher to pinpoint its exact location. Apparently, like you, however, I need good reasons for things, and I realized that I didn't want the encounter to occur on the side of town opposite the Lantern Street Orphanage and Temple.
So, I used a hook. One of my Players agreed to play a character with a long-lost relative who is a resident of the orphanage, a relative the PC has never yet met. He arrives in Cauldron in the evening and heads straight to the Orphanage first. As he draws close, a brown-cloaked figure (Ruphus the Cleric) is just leaving.
When the PC knocks, the Orphanage headmistress looks through the peephole and says, "Visiting hours are over." And that's that. Off this, and the other PCs, go, initially heading in the same direction as the brown-robed figure. Up ahead, they see him suddenly dragged into an alley. He shouts for help! And, voila, the PCs rush to his aid and the SCAP begins!
My characters began play at a Three Dragon Ante tournament hosted by Skie and being held at the Drunken Morkoth Inn. After the tournament, they went to hang out at Skie's for a bit. When one of the PCs asked about other shops, specifically one's that sell antiques, Skie sent them to Tygot's. Since the path there runs relatively close to the path that might have been taken by the cleric as he travelled between the orphanage and his temple, they began the encounter there, in some nameless alleyway. It was a cool way to start, and got them in the right part of the city.
No, it's a valid point :) In mine I had to run a small road trip style one as the PCs went from the temples in Sasserine (as they where all clerics or a paladin) to Cauldron. I had the road that eventually headed north to Sasserine initially go west past the Lucky Monkey and then turn north through a hamlet called Brookhollow (the location of Evil Unearthed, another 1st to 2nd level Dungeon adventure). Thus, as Cauldron's south gate road curves downwards and off to the west I had them enter there and start heading towards the Church of Saint Cuthbert. I was fairly abstract deliberately as the PCs had never been to Cauldron before, but I knew where they entered and where they where headed :) I suppose I should think about it and mark exactly it on the big A2 poster map.