Khlaive's page

I hope I didn't come off as overly negative. I actually like this AP. I chose to run the Second Darkness for a coupkle of reason. First among those reasons was ease of access. We just happened actually have all of the books available. Also, a lot like yourself, I was just curious. I hadn't heard much about the AP and thought lets try something different.
If you were planning on running this AP, I would make sure that at least one member of the group is an Elf or at least connected to the Elven community. Optimally, it should be a character that is central to the group and well liked. That way, the other characters will be more inclined to follow the plot because their helping their friend save his "family", even if their family is a bunch of pompous Elven jerks. Running an all Elven group would work, but you would have to completely rewrite the first book as I can't think of a valid reason for a band of Elven heroes to be working at a scuzzy humans filthy casino.
As far as party alignment goes, an "all-good" group wouldn't be ideal either. There are several parts of the adventure path where "moral flexablity" is required. A Paladin would really have a hard time donning magic drow flesh and pretending to be a sadistic dark elf in kinky underground S&M world.
Motivation is the key in this AP (rhyme not intended). This is really where I failed. Make going after the Drow personal for the PC's. If I could do it again, I would have a family member killed or kidnapped by the Drow. I would also make the fight where Kwava comes in and saves the party much more dangerous, so that his rescue is much more appreciated.
I'm sure I could think of more but I think that covers the key elements.

Laric, I am glad you are enjoying the journals. I have been the GM for this AP, and really, Useplanb and Kallidos have gone above and beyond to convey the events of this adventure, and I wanted to publicly applaud them.

As with any game, the group really makes the difference. I am lucky to have a group of friends who really worked with me as I ran this. Being fairly new to GM'ing I had alot of reservation going into this AP, and now that we are on book 5, I have learned quite a bit. If I had to do it all over again, here is what I would alter:

-The introductory themes of the AP do not match the themes of the rest of the adventure. The characters are directed (appropriately so) to make shifty, seedy, urban-style characters. This works out well throughout book 1, but then shifts dramatically as the PC's are asked to essentially go save the world. As the players mentioned above many of them responded with a "What?! Who? Me?" reaction. Perhaps it is my latent romanticism, but when I read the adventure I envision this dramatic shift as the characters become swept up into these world-shattering events and transformed from everyman to heroes. As it turned out, the only real motivation became bloodlust, greed, and players desire to not derail my first adventure.

-At every stage of the adventure, there is a fairly significant NPC that the PC's have to deal with to progress the plot that treats them like garbage! I had to completely rewrite several NPC's to be more supportive of the group. Even still, there where several times where the party was on the verge of quiting simply because the people they were trying to save were jerks, and without a "noble soul" selfless type-character to rally the it took the players go along with it.

-As mentioned before, there are several skill challenges in this AP. They are conceptionally interesting but don't translate well to a group of players (perhaps a failing on my part). My players complained about them, but to be honest I reduced those parts of the adventure by at least 50%. The Drow Slave Point(SP) part of the adventure in particuliar required them to achieve 75 SP, I stopped at 30! If I could go back, I would used the SP thing intially as an intro to "life as a Drow" then shifted to specific tasks for individual NPC's. The book does this, but too little, too late.

In closing, I would say that the guts of this AP are great! The plot and story are excellent when you read it as a GM. Unfortunately, there are several points where you almost literally have to ram the plot down the PC's throats, and this might leave a bit of a bitter taste in their mouths. I hope that answered your questions.