As you all know, I'm having rough times in my RotRL campaign. But never lose faith, they say (I don't who, I'm just assuming someone somewhere ever said that).
I blame some of the troubles to the anxiety of starting the campaign (half the party has been waiting for 8 months to play), and to the sandbox-y feeling Burnt Offering has.
So I've decided to use some foreshadowing, so they know there's something big that will show eventually. Also, to improve their tactics. Something like Niska Mvashti saying in a harrowing '...but you won't defeat evil being unprepared drooling fools...'
But I'm concerned about the mount of information revealed. So, have you guys used any specific moment to foreshadow things? Or can you think of any good moment?
So far, I'm thinking those the AP mentions: the harrowing, the Catacombs (with the scribbled messages and dogs howling).
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I've seen your posts on several RotRL threads, but I didn't know you were having issues.
Here are many of the issues in Books 1, 2, and the overall campaign to keep in mind:
BOOK 1: The PCs should feel that they're 'moving up the food chain'. They turn over a rock to squash a worm, only to find that there's a scorpion with pincers they hadn't counted on. I like the way it's written, so here are some ways to 'pull PCs along' (not spoilering because so little of it is of great consequence):
- Start them off as participants in a festival. Give them some reason to be there.
- Goblins attack the festival. Big Deal. But they're PCs, so they help, and they're treated like town royalty. Play it up that everyone knows who they are. Make them feel like big shots.
- The key, critical, make-or-break event in Book 1 is Ameiko's kidnapping. Until it occurs, the PCs are just big fish in a little pond. Afterwards, they are honestly trying to help a serious event.
Once Ameiko gets kidnapped, the PCs are in Book 1 proper, and you somehow have to convince them to LISTEN! THAT is where you're going to have the most trouble as a GM. EVERYTHING is foreshadowed in those little throwaway notes and quotes that some PCs love to ignore.
- When they rescue Ameiko they MUST FIND THAT JOURNAL!!! And they MUST READ IT and MUST PAY ATTENTION!!! Many of the frustrations (and obits) that arise from Book 1 are because people just say, "Oh, another stupid handout" and don't read it thoroughly. I would be blunt. "Here is what you find. Make sure you understand every. Single. Word. If there is a word you do not know the definition of, let me know and I'll tell you what Knowledge roll applies."
From there, if they're still confused, I would allow the following foreshadowing:
- Madame Mvashti stops one of them in the streets to do a Harrowing. She tells them of a vision of an island shaped like a man's head, populated by monsters and evil men, with a powerful demon at its core. "Beware the shadows that dwell in the tombs!" she screams before passing out from exhaustion.
- Brodert Quink stops them and mentions that he's heard they're exploring the area under Sandpoint. He's heard that Thassilonian ruins are protected by preservative magics, and those who guarded the temples thousands of years ago may well still be present.
Hopefully that will get them to survive the catacombs (if they choose to explore them) and point them towards Thistletop (since it's in the journal). It's really, really hard to prepare them for Thistletop other than Shalelu's warning that it's a goblin stronghold, so they need to be well-equipped before going there.
Once they finish Book 2, they should have established a pattern: A bunch of seemingly-random events were all connected through a single individual. They've defeated that individual, and found out that that person was "in cahoots" with others. If your group has any sense of decency, they'll want to track down and deal with those 'others'. If not, the mayor of Magnimar offers them cold, hard cash to go in the right direction.
One of the things I love about RotRL is that you don't know who the BBEG is until Book 4 or so, but you know you're after SOMEONE from Book 2 on, and you're just moving up through the lieutenants and other lackeys to find out who you're after. So I'd emphasize the 'conspiracy' over the 'individual' bad guy.
Someone's pulling the puppet strings, and you've got to climb them all to find out who.
Thank you so much, Nobody!!! My players pretty much ruined the 2nd part (Local Heroes) by being jerks. So I moved to the 3rd part, expecting that the inminent menace would put them back on track. But I plan to let pass a while until they go to Thistletop, and in the middle try to reconstruct their relationship with the town. That's where I inted to do all this foreshadowing.
Ah, NOW I see your issue!
Yeah, being jerks in Sandpoint will cause issues throughout the AP -- Books 1, 2, and 5 kind of assume they're invested in that town.
So let's assume they've hosed "Local Heroes" something awful, and the town thinks they're a cross between the Marquis de Sade and the Three Stooges.
Ameiko's still going to get kidnapped, and that's still the "make or break" point, so you can have poor, clueless Bethana (built to be a stooge for recalcitrant PCs) beg them for help and give them the note.
So, they refuse to search for Ameiko. Er... OK... Maybe Bethana goes to Sheriff Hemlock and he and his men solve that portion of the AP for the troublesome would-be heroes...
...then they're told of the impending invasion and sacking of Sandpoint.
If, at that point, they decide, "Heck with this! We're out of here!", you really have to start questioning your players. "What, exactly, were you hoping for out of an adventure?" "Would you like to switch to an AP more suited to cowards?" "Where, exactly, did you last see your spine?"
There's a wonderful thread (I think it's "How did the xxx attack on yyy go?") where a GM had similar issues and just let the chips fall where they may, leading to massively humiliated PCs and many, many dead NPCs.
If your PCs don't want to do anything, that's their call. But then you have a right to ask, "So exactly WHY do you call yourselves 'adventurers'?"
RotR is actually really hard to get info across to players... my current goal with my game of RotR is to teach my PCs how to think. One way I try to do this is with NPCs. You'd be surprised what an RPing discussion with Brodert Quink can accomplish.
Mvashti's harrow readings are a fun way to foreshadow. When the PCs met her, she gave a harrow reading to he player I'd chosen for the obsession in Book 2. She looked upset at her cards and pointed at the innocent looking unicorn card and said, "that's bad..."
PC: "a unicorn?"
her: "here its bad...." (referring to the unicorn being misaligned)
*awkward silence*
PC: "what does it mean?"
Mvashti picks up her deck and casually explains, "Just avoid haunted houses and you'll be fine."
PC: "what? Why?"
Mvashi: "Something bad is going to happen to you, so just avoid them."
4 sessions later, they discover about said house ;) the PC is deathly afraid of going there now. He thinks he's gonna die.
Thank you guys!!! I found the harrowing deck at a shop here, I'm guessing it will be a lot of fun, mwehehehehe!!
Quick bit of advice on the Harrowing: Curse of the Crimson Throne requires you to do a Harrowing at the beginning of every module, and it was HARD doing it on the fly.
So instead I shuffled the cards thoroughly, did my own Harrowing without the players around, took careful notes as to what it all meant, tied it into the campaign, and then (with a slight bit of sleight-of-hand) re-performed the exact same Harrowing in front of the players.
It worked fantastically well; it's still random cards, it's still an "honest" Harrowing, but you don't spend 20 minutes looking stuff up and trying to tie it in to the campaign on the fly.
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Quick bit of advice on the Harrowing: Curse of the Crimson Throne requires you to do a Harrowing at the beginning of every module, and it was HARD doing it on the fly.
So instead I shuffled the cards thoroughly, did my own Harrowing without the players around, took careful notes as to what it all meant, tied it into the campaign, and then (with a slight bit of sleight-of-hand) re-performed the exact same Harrowing in front of the players.
It worked fantastically well; it's still random cards, it's still an "honest" Harrowing, but you don't spend 20 minutes looking stuff up and trying to tie it in to the campaign on the fly.
I decided that if I ever run CotCT, I'll stack the deck the way I want it to come out and use that (along with extensive, prewritten notes) to foreshadow what happens in that chapter.
RotRL uses a large number of details to foreshadow events later on in the campaign. If characters aren't paying attention, these are very easily missed (Karzoug in the Thistletop hologram, for example). Adding to the confusion, many similar details are red herrings that lead PCs to think they're going in one direction while they're actually on a different path.
-Skeld
A few random thoughts...
Burnt Offerings may look sandboxy but it really isn't. The sequence is pretty simple and straight-forward:
- save the festival
- rescue the bartender
- explore the ruins
- assault the goblins
The elements that make this part of the AP look like a sandbox are there to engage the players into Sandpoint. Don't overuse them if you think it will be too distracting. In my experience, players that miss seemingly obvious clues about next steps are more often processing too much information as opposed to ambivalent about the information itself. Abstract information sources such as dreams or harrowings can work great if your players are ready for them but otherwise can confuse them. I would suggest using them only if the players are well invested in the game, otherwise it may come off heavy-handed.
I think the entirety of Burnt Offerings is foreshadowing. It sets the stage for the campaign: Thassilonian ruins or remnants are going to be the setting or driver for every subsequent adventure. And it exemplifies the underlying theme of Varisia itself - a frontier land filled with opportunity, unexplored ruins and plenty of ne'er-do-wells making trouble.
Yes, I had to rush Tsuto's letter, since they had no idea what they were doing. They had started a witch hunt searching for the traitor who opened the gate. When the bartender got kidnapped, they suddenly had a goal, and stopped wandering around like headless chickens.
And they are oh so much metaplaying with the Thassilonian thing, that I wanted to foreshadow them all the things they have in the middle. And how they should be prepared for this.
NobodysHome: I want to prepare a session according to the rules, and with the cards I wanna use on the top. But if I run out of time, I'll just go with the 'Oh, that's terrible. Such a shame... so young...' speech, improvising everything. This being the case, I'll take notes and post them, so you can laugh at me, lol.
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I never laugh -AT- people; I always laugh -WITH- them... even when I'm maniacally Feebleminding their sorcerers...