Hi Folks,
I've recently gotten back into gaming after a long hiatus, via the Beginner Box. I've run my kids (9 and 7) and wife through Black Fang's Dungeon and Crypt of the Everflame (which comprises all of their RPG experience). Currently, we are partway through the Masks of the Living God, and I've come to a crossroads and I'm hoping for some advice on how to proceed.
During the 'recruitment' at the Ranger's Lament, the kids decided they were unwilling to eat or drink anything at that bar. So I had Egarthis eject them from the meeting. They left, and evaded the cultists watching them, returning to the bar a bit later. They snuck in and discovered the trap door, but failed a stealth check and were discovered by the barkeep Rolen, before they had a chance to do anything further. I ended that adventure with them returning to Gar's Last Meal. Now I'm trying to figure out how I want them to proceed:
1) I think the boy wants to attempt a frontal assault. I've explained that there are MANY guards, so I think that's a low chance...for now.
2) Mom wants to try sneaking into the tunnel. I think this has the most chance of success, but it bypasses much of the actual story of the module.
3) I considered having the Razmiri, alerted by their suspicious behavior at the Ranger's Lament, follow them back to Gar's last meal and either drug or otherwise kidnap them there, sort of forcing the story back on track. But this seems, a bit too intrusive.
Any advice for a very inexperienced group and Gm from people who've had this module go off the rails? Thanks in advance
I ran this several years back and it went horribly off the rails with one player trapped inside and the other on the outside. End result was that they brought the whole city guard after discovering that the cult was up to no good, and skipped the majority of what was written.
Your players should still be able to investigate, but they will have to come up with other methods. Have some NPC promise them a bigger reward along with suggestions for how to proceed.
The adventure is written so it can go "off the rails", really. Note the sidebar about Lawful Good Clerics and (especially) Paladins maybe having a problem with the idea of pretending to abandon their faith and join the cult. My players flat-out refused to do that.
So I had to run the investigation externally.
Just in case...
I added a Razmir victim they could talk to in order to hear about the cult's brutal collections, for example. I also played the events described on the described schedule, making sure that the PCs were there to see them, such as the preaching to the crowd (and picking pockets during it). Finally, my PCs used Diplomacy and Intimidate to appeal to Rolen's loyalty to Nirmathas (and later his sense of self-preservation). He "switched sides" and helped them once he figured the cult was about to be exposed.
The issue I see is this: If the cult knows that the PCs found the trapdoor, then they would arrange to kidnap, question, and murder the PCs rather than recruit them. So, if your players can handle being challenged to escape from the cells, you can pretty much run the rest of the adventure as a dungeon-crawl through the Temple. As Leonal suggested, have a leading NPC contact tell them to find evidence of the cult's wrongdoing, so they are motivated to explore the temple rather than just escape.
The adventure is written so it can go "off the rails", really. Note the sidebar about Lawful Good Clerics and (especially) Paladins maybe having a problem with the idea of pretending to abandon their faith and join the cult. My players flat-out refused to do that.
So I had to run the investigation externally.
Just in case...
** spoiler omitted **
Thanks to both of you for the advice. As I walked in the door today the 7 year old was asking about ways to get a mask and robes. So perhaps I will run the investigation externally as suggested and set up a possible ambush one way or another to give them an access route.
I am curious to hear how things went. :)
I am curious to hear how things went. :)
Hi Urath,
Birthdays and Back-to-School time has interrupted our normal game flow, but we did get in one session. What I ended up doing was :
While he was doing that, they wandered about town a bit, shopped, etc. after some perception checks they noticed groups of cultists seemed to be paying a bit of extra attention to them.
They decided they needed to act fast and settled on breaking into the Ranger's Lament that night to see if the hatch they'd seen before being discovered by the bartender was indeed a secret tunnel. On the way there late at night they were ambushed by some acolytes and a priest. They killed a couple and disabled a few more via a sleep spell.
We ended after this battle. But I'm anticipating a pretty straight-forward dungeon crawl/ infiltration mission from here on out. I just need to decide exactly where I want to station the heralds so they don't end up facing all 3 w/ Krant at the same time.
One bit of advice for parents running games with their kids...make sure you have a plan for dealing with disabled foes. I didn't think in advance (bad daddy,). And we had a bit of a "Do we KILL the sleeping cultist?" moment. Our cleric did her best role-playing yet though in adamantly refusing to, but, it would have been better if I'd had an easy alternative on hand besides "oh yeah, you guys have a lot of rope...and look..that building right there is empty."
I am curious to hear how things went. :)Hi Urath,
Birthdays and Back-to-School time has interrupted our normal game flow, but we did get in one session. What I ended up doing was :
** spoiler omitted **
One bit of advice for parents running games with their kids...make sure you have a plan for dealing with disabled foes. I didn't think in advance (bad daddy,). And we had a bit of a "Do we KILL the sleeping cultist?" moment. Our cleric did her best role-playing yet though in adamantly refusing to, but, it would have been better if I'd had an easy alternative on hand besides "oh yeah, you guys have a lot of rope...and look..that building right there is empty."
Yep.. time constraints can be an issue.
There's information scattered throughout the module about what people's schedules are.. from the new recruits' daily routine to tidbits about how many priests or acolytes are on duty at each station.
Based on that, I made a schedule in Excel of where I thought everyone would be. My players made their infiltration at about 2:00 AM, and that happens to be when most of the people in the temple are asleep (as far as I could tell).
With regard to the Heralds and Krant:
As noted in the adventure, Krant will be passed out in the basement kitchen.
Egarthis and Faltore will be asleep in their rooms.
Rennec and Xanthar will be up and about. I put Rennec in the Chamber of Delights with a couple of priests, and Xanthar, having just gotten up at about 1:00 AM, was having a meal in his room from 1:30 - 2:30 AM.
My players were able to finish off the Chamber of Delights group, then Krant and several priests in the basement before any alarm was raised. They explored the whole secret area before entering the main basement area, so they had some of the better loot to help.
One thing to keep in mind is that you may need to let them level-up (and recover hit points) between the basement and the main floor, depending on what level they are.
Thanks! I hadn't noticed a couple of those details. This helps tremendously.
First of All, Great Job for getting your kids into tabletop gaming! My dad did the same for me when I was younger! (Although I was a couple years older than your oldest when I first started)
I'm Dming this right now with my younger cousins, and they are about to head into the infiltration part as well.
I'm wondering...did they ever talk to the ones that were disabled from the sleep spell? Maybe gain some information about the times or routines of people in the castle? This could be of help to them if you don't think they are going to survive the straight infiltration/kill everything type of tactic.
You're Right dont push them into doing one thing, if they want to go inside and try and kill everything...I might suggest letting them fail once (possibly losing the new wizard they met) because sometimes you cant win by killing everything straight up. Sometimes running away/stealth/diplomacy can be useful as well! This will make them come back to the temple and try a different approach...I'm sure they'll have enough hack and slash as they continue gaming! (Also rewards thinking creatively, which is good for that age!)
Well after a few days of trying to infiltrate the cult.....
As we have just finished City of Golden Death that is probably one of the most memorable moments of the whole campaign!