... is one of the most pleasurable experiences I've ever had in gaming. The plot, its link with history both ancient and more recent, and, perhaps more importantly, the setting of Sandpoint have all contributed to a very engrossing and enjoyable experience.
I'm currently GM-ing a group of four students at the school where I teach. They're about half way through the adventure and I've thrown a couple of side treks at them including an Attic Whisperer in the academy (as recommended in the text) and, just today, an encounter with Gorvi which could have been resolved amicably, but, due to a spectacularly poor Diplomacy roll and an unexpectedly good Will save from Gorvi himself on the normally sensible wizard's Charm Person spell , now won't.
:D :D :D
I'm having fun, the players are having fun. (Their PCs on the other hand...)
It is a terrific adventure. The town lends itself well to role-playing.
We're on our second session of Burnt Offerings (3 hours last week after char gen, and 5 hours this week) and only in the last 1/2 hour did we get to the actual adventure (first wave of goblins hits the Festival).
Instead, the heroes spent 7 1/2 hours of game time exploring the town, meeting people, gambling (using Second Darkness' Bounder and Snappyfish- a Sandpoint Variant of Ghoullette), picking pockets (and getting caught), telling fortunes (the hedge witch bought a Harrow Deck), helping cook for the festival, seducing one of the visiting travellers, buying a pet dog, getting robbed by Sczarni pickpockets, buying supplies, transferring spells into spellbooks, making a potion (Cure Light Wounds), and generally getting into mostly innocent trouble.
You know the party is into something odd when the following conversation occurs:
Rogue to Paladin: "And you stay out of trouble."
Paladin: "I'll try..."
When the time finally came for the festival, the party was still getting into other things...we could have played another week without getting into the first encounter...
Any adventure with that much playable backstory is a great way to start a new campaign...
We're coming to the end of Burnt Offerings, for my group, which is normally the 'smash the door down, beat everything until it stops moving' type of group, and I've got them RP'ing all the way, its great.
They're treating Ameiko as a best friend, the party rogue has been having a midnight romance with Shayliss Vender, and been treating the other NPCs as if they're real people... This never happens with this group... its brilliant!
In the new year, I'll start running BO for another group, and they are RP heavy... its going to be immense :)
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