DM Jeff's page

Well, there was the infamous faux-french speaking twit in the promotion video who dares to say the immortal words "ze game will remain za same". I think by that he means it uses a d20, and that's it.

And because I don't have physical evidence, all you can do is take my word that at the Friday D&D Q&A at GenCon this year I had to hear in so many crafted statements how "all DM's don't 'get' D&D and have no idea how to build encounters, and no player really knows how to create effective characters."

And yeah, a handful of folks in front of me walked out right there. I stayed to the end to be insulted more.

-DM Jeff

>>While the adventures in Pathfinder are meant to be run as an interconnected campaign, everything you need to run an adventure is kept in one volume.

Outstanding, thank you!

-DM Jeff

I have a question I tried searching for an answer for, but could not find. The basics are thus:

I look forward to Pathfinder, the in particular the new story involved. However, I'd like to know how stand-alone the modules will also be. In other words, will the ties be pretty in-depth or will they be fairly loose?

I'd like to be able to run, (as an example), issue # 3 of Runelords and not worry too much about integrating a whole ton of back material or have loose ends waiting at the end either.

Thanks!

-DM Jeff

Hey, it worked, there's the little tagline. Neat. See everyone at GenCon 07.

>>You only get charged for the books when they ship. So you don't have to shell out all the money at one time.

Indeed. This is what sold me.

-DM Jeff

Yea, Merrily!

-DM Jeff

My wife wanted to register for this event this year, but Paizo doesn't seem to have any Seminars listed at the GenCon site. How's this working this year? Anybody know? Thanks!

-Jeff

>>I'd be very interested in any tips you've got in retrospect on foreshadowing events or introducing NPCs, and any little touches you added (or have heard since) that you thought were really neat.

The second their character concepts were developed, I gave them each 2 free contacts among the NPCs of the city. For the most part, these NPC's became more central than originally inteneded. My wife's character was fond of Tygot the halfling and his blink dog, who wound up appearing every other session or so. It also solidified her relationship with Alec so when he left behind that clue it all seemed fluid.

Mord the rogue was friends with Artus the info guy. The wizard studied party under the wizard disguised as a dwarf (leading the Striders) back at his home academy. I introduced these NPCs early and often so when their roles came along later they meant more.

I should also mention towards the end, Anna of the Stormblades was totally dominated with the party's enchanter/fatespinner. the Stormblades disbanded before the midway point of the campaign because of the PC's involvement.

-Jeff

Another quote from the soul who played Mord, the mongrelfolk rogue/assassin:

"I come away from the Cauldron feeling like I've just visited someplace real, meet interesting and varied people, and more likely than not, killed them. The Shackled City campaign was so well thought out it left me feeling the same way I do after finishing a great book or seat grabbing movie."

-Jeff

>>I'm curious as to how you handled the Test of the Smoking Eye. Did one of your players' characters obtain the Smoking Eye template? If so, how did that player take to the development? How did this affect the rest of the campaign after that point?

I played it as written, with a few minor edits. All I know is it was pivotal to the campaign. My wife's character thought the half-redeemed monk was going to do it, but her character is the dramatic type, and thinking she was going to die (even had a new character in mind if it happened), she ran ahead of everyone to stand in the column. She was totally, completely surprised to see her 'brave sacrifice' turned into new character angst.

She embraced it. Fully intends on researching moving the plane out of the abyss. The PC's regularly planeshifted here to rest and heal between adventures. She liked her template and really played it up.

I allowed her to tweak minor things about the Smoking Eye location itself, the skull on the plane, and the rest of the crew knew she had changed. It didn't effect the events in the actual city thereafter, but was great for character development!

-Jeff

Well, it took 8 months, but from the week the hardcover
arrived at my house when it released to last Sunday, my
group completed the Shackled City campaign (playing ever
Sunday since then). Well, close, they are saving the final
chapter to Carceri for a reunion game later this year.

They're all 18th level now, and I have...

An enchanter specialist, with fatespinner levels who is now
mayor of the city.

His kobold servant and illusionist master exploring the
city's new undercaverns with others from the city.

A mongrelfolk rogue/assassin who is rebuilding the fallen
Last Laugh guild.

A Changeling swashbuckler/rogue and an elan psionic warrior
who are traveling the planes together on vacation.

I set it in the Forgotten Realms, otherwise mostly ran the
adventure as-is, but always took the time to allow the
player's actions and reactions to alter the flow or the
NPC's they knew. It's been a great ride. It wasn't run as one of my classic campaigns, which this had an obviously specific 'script' the whole trip, but it was still way too much fun, and so easily worth it. Here's a few things my players wrote to me:

"I had a good time that last night and a GREAT Time during
the campaign... I think its one of the most complete, fun,
exciting campaigns in a long time... Thanks to all for the
fun!"

"It started off a little slow but by the time we went after
Zenith it picked up speed, and then built up to a
rollercoaster-like ride! It was insane towards the end! Too
much fun. :)"

"It was really great - thanks again for running it and
letting me be part of it. There were a lot of good ol'
classic dungeons to explore but they always had a clear
purpose. There was plenty of mystery and intrigue, but the
plot was never stalled out by a lack of timely answers. The
city had a real life to it that allowed for great "role-
playing" opportunities. In the end, I give this game what I
consider the best compliment - I felt my character's choices
made a difference in an epic story within a setting that
seemed like it had a life of its own."

This Sunday everyone brings loads of food and we have a wap party. I'm going to go through the book and show them all the pictures one last time as we discuss the campaign and bask in the victories and defeats.

Anyone else come close to ending or finishing in a unique way? And if anyone has any questions about how I handled anything, ask away, I have some free time now that we're on a break for the month!

-DM Jeff

Yeah, it would be great, so I did it. I did it the quick and dirty way. It was work, but it sure paid off. I scanned each map that I was using from the book. Then I used a program called PaintShop Pro to get rid of room #'s, notes, and secret doors, enlarged them to 1" scale, and printed them on a laser printer. A little tape, and there you go. Are they a biot grainey? Sure. Better than no map! :-)

I only did the rooms. I have stock corridors I use to connect them all. Doing the work before the game means less work setting it up during; I just have to whip out a sheet and lay it down.

For those worndering, no, I didn't save any of the files afterwards, except for 13 Cages. I have all those on a PDF.

-DM Jeff

No problems, I did it. :-) Scanned the map and did what I normally do, condensed rooms or eliminated rooms that were nothing but dressing. Deleted any repeat encounters with the same stuff. Basically just shortened it.

-Jeff

My group of 5 dubbed themselves "The Sanguine Hand".

However, they have been such masters of misdirection, disguise, and information planting that the Cagewrights have no idea who many of them actually are, and have dubbed them "the dopplers" who they think may be renegade changellings or dopplegangers running around. Quite neat, actually.

-DM Jeff

When I ran "Thirteen Cages" I spent like three hours completely reworking it as it was plain horrible as written...

I am about to start work on this tonight. Any pointers you found to work well would be appreciated, as I too get a feeling I'll need to tighten things up in here.

-DM Jeff

Absoloutly. I have someone who wanted to play an Elan psychic warrior. I simple changed a couple of NPC's to have levels in a psionic class to give them some loot he could use, introduced an psionic NPC mentor-type from the WotC web site as a friend, and allowed Ski to gat her hands on a few psionic items from the capital city. It's worked very well.

Might get flogged for admitting this, but I eliminated a lot of the empty rooms in Jzadirune. I also took a few of the "flavor rooms" where there was no combat or special clue and combined them into one room.

I certainly don't have super paranoid players, but they were only 1st level! Plodding along room to room to room can get very time consuming, so for example I made 1 overall barracks room and cut out all the individual barracks rooms that had nothing in them.

-DM Jeff

About to end Flood Season, in the Forgotten Realms:

Human Wizard/Cleric of Tymora/'Human' from UA 1/2/2
Kobold Sorcerer/Ninja 2/3
Changeling Swashbuckler/Rogue 3/2
Mongrelfolk Ranger/Rogue 2/3
Elan Monk/Psychic Warrior 1/4

-DM Jeff

I scanned them in at 300 dpi. When they blow up to become floor plans, yes, they can get a *little* grainey, but overall when sitting at a table it's never noticed.

-DM Jeff

I joined the Yahoo group and will try to get some of my stuff up there over the weekend. To make a long story short, I'm taking a number of the maps, "Paint Shop Pro"-ing out all the secret doors and numbers, scaling them to 1-square = 1-inch and printing out color battlemats for miniatures.

No, I don't *think* I'm clinically insane.

Wait till you see both levels of the Lucky Monkey. :-)

-DM Jeff

>>I'm wondering if anyone included a PC in Haanu's "M.T.A."? I've done so with the Human Wizard in my group, but I'm pondering what to do with that - what did y'all do?

I'm deliberatly setting it up so that the human wizard starting in my Cauldron campaign next week fully knows about it, but that it's just forming, and his guild sent him in as a sort of consultant with his specialty on charm and manipulation magic.

Not sure where it will lead, the MTA doesn't become some major plot point that spoils anything so intend to let the player and I develop things as it goes. By saying it's just forming, that'll prevent the player from calling on a bunch of NPCs to help whenever he calls...'

-DM Jeff

1) Will the book use the 'new' stat blocks as introduced in DMG II and the newer Dungeon magazines?

2) Will there be an overall index of shops, NPCs and locations?

3) There were 2 different 'Faces of Cauldron' art in different Dungeon issues, will this be reproduced and will ther be more NPC images?

4) If I started Life's Bazaar next week from my old Dungeon copy because my impatient players are chomping at the bit to start, will I be okay or were there significant rewrites and changes that you suggest I hold my horses until the 27th? :-)

-DM Jeff

My wife and I have been collecting Dragon since issue #22. We're in our late 30's and our memories are staring to fade.

I asked her last night if she remembered an article on elven knights in Dragon. She did, I did, we can almost picture the accompanying article artwork. I took my Dragon Archive CD to work today, dusted it off, installed it and searched and searched. Found the old "Plethora of Paladins" and a historical look from ol' Don Perrin...but no elf knight articles.

Can anyone with a keen memory (or a slick DB of articles) point us in the right direction? Any help would really be appreciated!

-DM Jeff