my first tip would be take your adventure to bed every night(when your not with someone else)and make sure you know it inside out,because if your players are anything like mine they will throw you curve balls all the time,and if your not prepared it could have a bad effect on the atmosphere of the game,especially with the first few chapters,if your umming and rrring about questions about npc,s and such.
my second is don,t think the encounters are too tough.if you have 5 to 6 players they wont have any major problems until the kua toa temple.
my third is encourage the pc,s to involve themselves in cauldrons comings and goings,they will get the feeling that the town is a living breathing place,and will enjoy it so much more.
enjoy it, its one of the best adventures iv,e ran in 20 years
I recommend that you have all of the PCs come from Cauldron, or at least the adjacent areas. If you can find a way to connect them to the NPCs or the organizations in the campaign, this would be a great way to make this game about them instead of the city. For example, a PC can be the son or daughter of one of the NPCs listed in the book, have a relative that has been kidnapped by the skulks or is a member of the Last Laugh, or have one of their parents suffer from a debilitating mental affliction that has them spouting nonsensical prophecies. In my game, one PC is the daughter of the Lanthenmires, another the niece of Zenith Splintershield and her mother is a master architect and member of the Chisel, another the wife of Vortemax Weer, and the fourth is the daughter of the proprietors of the Tipped Tankard Tavern and the current high priest of the Church of Pelor.
Be upfront with your players about how this is a difficult campaign intended for six characters that has killed many characters in other campaigns. If you have less than six players, then I recommend that you find a way to power them up a little bit. Either by starting them at 2nd level (having them go through a pre-adventure), using action points, or the gestalt rules if you have three or less players. I have four players and I'm having them gestalt with the NPC Aristocrat class and that seems to be just right, as I have had some close calls, but only a few deaths over the last 13 levels.
Just in case you only read the first couple of sections before running the game, check the BACK of the book for suggestions for the DM about how to run the game, some options for players to select, along with some suggestions that you can give your players about how each class plays out in this campaign. Tell your players that this campaign is primarily an urban campaign and to expect a lot of dungeon crawl, a good amount of social challenges, and a little bit of wilderness adventure. The social skills are crucial for acquiring information from NPCs, citizens, and organization; also for overcoming social challenges and investigative mysteries. The knowledge skills that can be useless in other games are valuable here. K:Local, K:Nobility, K:History, etc. Without these your party will be mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed bullpoo. Regular druids and rangers are out of place. Urban druids (from Dragon #317) and urban rangers (found in Unearthed Arcana) belong here. Particularly an urban druid that has an animated cauldron for an "animal companion".
Read the section in the Dungeon Master's Guide (or the SRD) about running a game in an urban environment. There's some good advice in there. The Dungeon Master's Guide II also goes in to detail about urban settings.
I also advise to be upfront with your players about what kind of play you expect from them. For example, I informed my players that I wasn't interesting in running evil characters, or characters that didn't care about anything, or that were lone wolfs, or existed to mess with the other PCs or me. I want to run a game about a group of PCs who can trust and rely upon each other, and that cared about the fate of their city, and were generally heroic. Now I do have a PC that is a CN rogue, but has been a valued and trusted member of the party. I am giving her some opportunity to be cleverly roguish against some NPCs so that she can stay in character.
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Hi Moleculor. The folk who have posted ahead of me have given some excellent advice already, particularly with getting your players and their characters involve in the setting by having them have ties to people or organisations in Cauldron - a paladin of St Cuthbert is a good start, perhaps he/she is a protege of Alek Tercival?
Encourage your players to have a good mix of character types. When we first started the campaign, everyone was focused on it being "a city campaign", so there was a bias towards rogues and bards. Keep in mind that theres also a LOT of tough combats in this campaign, so don't neglect the fighters and other heavy hitters!
As for downloads, consider checking out www.theRPGenius.com for some very useful stuff that other players and DMs have posted regarding this campaign (sorry I dont know how to write links).
You've already been given great advice but for me the key to this and any long running campaign is to foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow!
Frank eluded to linking your party to important NPCs and organisations. This is a good method to begin foreshadowing and to connect the players directly to the overall plot.
But you can't have every character linked to every important NPC or even more than one or two, otherwise the players will quickly feel railroaded and believe (rightly) that every NPC they have a relationship with is important in some way.
Check out who the main players are in the city including-
Allie's - Jenya, Skye, Teresong(?), Alek, The Striders, The Chisel, Maavu, Skylar
Villians- The Last Laugh, Jil, Stormblades (well sort of), Vhalantru/Orbius, Drakthar, Embril & Ike, The Cagewrights and most importantly : Adimarchus!
Start by foreshadowing the major NPCs and events from the first adventure and then work up from there.
Jenya appears almost from the start so unless you plan on running an adventure that occurs before Life's Bazaar you will find it difficult to foreshadow her but the kidnapping could be something the Inn Keeper whispers to the players in the local Tavern (Tipped Tankard).
Likewise begin to insert NPCs like Alek, Vhalantru (as a helpful government offical/patron), Maavu, the Stormblades and Skylar early.
Follow Mothman's suggestion and have your paladin meet Alek early and even use him as a mentor. Have Skylar turn up to investigate events and Vhalantru request an audience with them at the conclusion of the adventure to reward them for their success.
When the party travel to Skyes to buy some goodies have Maavu be present (he's Skye's major seller) and if the party take to long to rescue the kidnapped people send the Stormblades in to steal their thunder or at least show them they are not the only adventuring party in the city.
All of these meetings, rumour, stories etc help set up the rest of the path and adventures.
As you proceed ensure that you continue to include important NPCs into the story well before their importance is revealed.
Most importantly do the most foreshadowing for the most important characters. Adimarchus should be foreshadowed very early on with the Drream haunted Trait and creatures with missing eyes with tatoos and ash depicting smoke surrounding the missing orb.
Similiarly the Cagewrights (the main villianous organisation of the Path) sould either meet or be heard of by the party early.
Good Luck
Delvesdeep
P.S. I second my support for www.the RPGenius.com. You will find plenty of great info there!
I have just thought of a very specific suggestion that has paid off greatly. Both of the times I have run the first adventure the respective PC parties left the Malachite Fortress after they defeated Kazmojen and recovered the kidnapped citizens. Each time I had the Stormblades come in and clean out the fortress, including the hidden treasure room. Each time the PCs came back down and found an open secret door, a dead mimic and empty treasure chests.
This is a great way for the Stormblades to say "hello" to the PCs. :)
(The Stormblades are described in chapter 3.)
I've had the book for months now, prepping for it, so yes, I've definitely read it cover to cover at least once, with random browsing scattered throughout.
However, that just means I'm aware of the overall plot. I'm having a definite hard time figuring out the interaction of all the NPCs, how to foreshadow, personality types, recommendations on how to play them, etc.
The combat? That's pretty much all spelled out. It's the non-combat stuff I think I'm weakest in so far in my understanding.
I feel your pain. I'm running this through the first time, just about to hit chapter 3, and I know I'm not doing quite all the foreshadowing / NPC interactions I should. I have GM'd a lot in the past, and a complex module like this is very hard to get everything in on the first time through. If you run it more then once it'll just get better and better. For now, you do what you can and just keep things moving, and intro people where you can fit them in and it feels "right". I also recommend keeping notes of how you develop NPC's. There are so many of them, just a sentence or two will help you keep it straight. For the Captain of the Guard I just have "curmudgeonly, throaty cough, and constantly drinking from flask of "medicine" on his desk." Little personality traints that stay consistent make it all more real.
With the Demonscar Ball coming up in my game I'm truly hoping to get a bit of hobnobbing with future NPC's into the game. I've printed out some of the resources from RPG Genius, and want to make a real go of it. I definetely endorse that site, just for the pretty handouts if nothing else.
One thing I found helpful in adding flavor to the adventure was to have an in-game newspaper. When I want to drop a hint, or even plant one of the rumors from the list at the beginning of the hardcover, I do it up as an article in the Cauldron Chronicle. Every few game days, a new issue comes out. Some of the later issues have even featured aticles about the party, and even an interview with them. They got a huge kick out of seeing themselves in the Chronicle. I also would recommend rpgenius. Lots of good stuff there!
Good luck with it, and just remember--no prep work is ever wasted!
--Fang
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Especially check out Delvesdeep's "Demonskar Ball" adventure at RPGenius, and the discussions on foreshadowing (also largely by delvesdeep) on these messageboards and at RPGenius.
The Demonskar Ball is a great opportunity to foreshadow some NPCs early in the path, and it's a good roleplaying event as well.