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Over the last several months I have observed DMs post various problems they were having in running AOW, and seek advice. I have been impressed with the quick and helpful nature of the posters on this site in aiding such DMs. So here I am, hat in hand, looking for some advice myself.
I fear that I have done my job too well. My players absolutely hate Diamond Lake, and want nothing more than to leave it as soon as possible.
I decided to use the goblin-infested mining office that was posted on this message board several months ago. Right now, the party is at the abandoned mining office, having just battled the stirges in the dead tree in the front yard. the goblins have no doubt heard them, and things are about to get interesting.
The adventurers arrived there on the lam, having made enemies of both Sheriff Cubbin’s deputies and Kullen’s men. They intend to lay low for a time at the old office, but all they want to do is get out of town ASAP.
They have heard all of the many rumours floating about town–including the one about the Free City adventurers having come here to investigate the Stirgenest Cairn. However, they have no interest in emulating Auric and company, as they believe that the more experienced party probably has a map or some other evidence that going into that old cairn would be worthwhile.
They believe that they have no reason to expect that the Whispering Cairn would hold anything of value, and are preferring to leave town and make for the Free City before their meagre resources run out, rather than going on a blind fishing expedition.
I know that I could “force” them into it; that the DM has the right to expect that the players won’t walk away from the adventure that he has provided for them. (I told one player as much during an on-line conversation.) However, I would rather not railroad them, but instead give them some in-game motivation for doing so.
This is where the advice I am looking for comes in. I am contemplating having the goblins have more reason for being in the old mining office than merely hiding out; that the goblin cleric has some sort of evidence that would motivate the adventurers into exploring the mine, a reason for them to believe that perhaps the Whispering Cairn is not as empty as most people think.
Does anyone have any ideas along this line? Or does anyone have any other thoughts on how to get this neophyte campaign rolling down the tracks.
Have the other adventuring party led by Kelleck return from the Whispering Cairn with some baubles ... glad beads from the mirror or the broken finger from the arrow statue, and tales of "whispering" sounds from the entry hall and see what happens. (You need something convenient to "distract" Kelleck and his gang from returning too quickly to the Cairn, however).
Another hook is to have an old relative of the Land family come to town hoping to recover the Land ghost's long-lost remains and contract the players to do it. Or have Allustan contract with them to seek out some lore or to actually map the Cairn. (His interest is already well-established).
If they are then still too stubborn to go check things out ... then you can have Smenk abduct them and dump em down Ragolin's mine shaft and see how long they last. (Just kidding).
Allustan hiring the party is definately a possibility, but it seems a bit meh to me, especially since there's a lot of follow-the-wizard going on in the mid-level adventures anyway.
The idea with the goblins is a good one. Perhaps they're investigating the Cairn themselves. Give them a copy of the map and the red lantern. They're licking their wounds in Diamond Lake after running from the wolves.
Have the goblins kidnap a Diamond Lake child and hold him/her in the supposedly empty Whispering Cairn. That should get the PCs riled up to explore the Cairn.
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The impetus to explore the Cairn in our game was pure curiosity. This was spurred by one of the party members coming into possession of documents and notes meant for the ("everybody in town knows he's a greedy bastard") Balabar Smenk, one of which was obviously stolen from the garrison's cartography office, detailing the location of the Whispering Cairn. This foreshadowed his desperation to maintain his comfortable lifestyle through extreme means in the face of mounting losses due to the sour deal with Ragnolin Dourstone and the Ebon Triad cultists.
How to get the folio with the document into their hands...? In our game, a sticky-fingered scoundrel lifted it from a drunken courier at the Feral Dog. Seems unlikely that the goblins your PCs are about to encounter would have acquired it on their own. Perhaps the courier planned to meet another agent of Smenk's near the observatory (he owns it, after all), and the goblins in the nearby mining office waylaid him.
If they're desperate for cash as you say they are, the revelation of a dungeon targeted by Smenk for plunder might root them in Diamond Lake for awhile yet.
(Following all this, I'd reassure your players that future adventures are likely to take eventually them to the Free City for an extended period of time.)
I really think you are on the right track. I would have the goblin shaman or one of the warriors fall down and beg for their life. In exchange they provide the party with some treasure of moderate value and tell them they got it from the cairn. I would have the goblin say he got it out of the wolf lair, but that there might be more.
All the above are great ideas - they should take the hint. If the suggestions fail, try this: "You are going to the Whispering Cairn. It's the adventure. That's what is planned. Call it railroading, if you like. Too bad. OR Your PC's wander off the game map on their own adventures, and they live happily ever after. Next GM, please."
i almost expected theis to happen with my PCs, trying to give them an open ended start so instead i gave each pc a quick background linking them to some of the others and had the thief overhear a tale in the emporium about the adventurers and aquire a map to the area. session one started with the group meeting at the mine office ready to head into the cairn. as u already started the sessions i would suggest thatsomeone needs to employ the pcs for any of the above reasons but giving them enough motivation (the promice of greater treasure) to not stop dead when the small task is over. so when they rescue the child or whatever they decide that there may be gold in them thar hills and enough of it to make their lives better and maybe get them out of the lake.
You could always just let them go to the Free City, and then after an adventure there, lure them back to the Whispering Cairn with more clues.
For example, "Mad God's Key" (in Dungeon a few months prior to Whispering Cairn) is an adventure for 1st level adventurers starting in the Free City (of Greyhawk), which just requires the PC's to be somewhere in the Free City to begin. You could play the whole thing out, or perhaps truncate it. Either way, make the cultists who have stolen the key have notes about the Whispering Cairn in Diamond Lake, implicating they have more pages from the book there or suchlike. You might need to boost the Whispering Cairn a little to keep it a god challenge, but not a lot as it's already pretty tough.
If you can't get hold of "Mad God's Key", any little city adventure will do - something that shows that the Free City isn't all it might be cracked up to be, and implicates further interesting things in the Whispering Cairn.
I actually started my group in Greyhawk, then lead them to the Whispering Cairn after Mad God's Key and a small follow-up adventure - by that stage, my group has hell-bent on retrieving all the missing pages from the book of undead and stuff, and they beleived that the cult also had a base in the Whispering Cairn (which of course was false, but got them looking there and eventually lead them to the real cultists in the mines). My guys don't like Diamond Lake much either, but then their experiences in Greyhawk City made them glad to leave that place too (they are now building a new base in Diamond Lake near the Cairn, with a long-term view of cleaning out all the scum one day, but of course adventuring always keeps them too busy beyond keeping their new mining business from making a loss).
This is probably a bit late but...
I think you are going about it way wrong, the first adventure is ALL ABOUT RAILROADING. You are the one telling the story, they can't choose where to be born, what they did last week, who their friends are, whether their parents are alive, or what descisions they had made in the past.
So I think the best way to start the first adventure in AOW is:
Tell the PC's their back story, their motivations ect so that it will fit your campaign
Tell a PC that he overheard another party talk about some Cairn where there was lots of treasure and someone screwed them over, someone told them to go to the Stirngiest Cairn which everyone knows is empty. In my campaign I told a PC that "you screwed them over, you saw a perfect oppurtunity to get some gold and you took it!"
Start the adventure outside the Cairn. Now, stop railroading. :)
I guess what I am trying to say is that the begining/backstory of a campaign needs to be structured to avoid this problem, what is a point of an AP if it sidestepped right from the beginning?
I started adventure one with them all being fugitives from
Keoland.
They couldn't go home and retire.
The goblin lair is a good idea.
When the adventurers arrive will they find the Goblins eating
the courier?
Only the document detailing the Wispering Cairn will be intact.
The others will have been fed to the cook fire.
Ok, that would be a little heavy handed.
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Some great ideas here. This is what I expected. When a group of experienced DMs get together to brainstorm, no adventuring party stands a chance! (Insert fiendish gloat here.)
Based on your excellent suggestions, I anticipate synthesising together some portions of the goblins- got-some-treasure-from-the-cairn idea, with the Smenk's-courier-got-way-layed-by-the-goblins idea, and the courier-got eaten-by-the-goblins idea.
Thanks alot. i let you know how it goes. Oh, and keep those fiendish ideas coming.
If worse comes to worse, and I can't keep the PCs from running away from DL, running Mad God's Key in the Free City is also a good idea (I always loved that mod, but have never had any place to fit it in. I had thought to use it when they first arrive in the Free City during HoHR.)
However, I don't think it will come to that. I believe I hear a train acoming...