Silverhex Chronicles - Cohesive story tips?

[Varun Creed]

Hi all,

I want to begin GMing Pathfinder soon, and I was thinking of GMing some Silverhex Chronicles to start with.

I have read through the PDF, and I'm really wondering how I should make a cohesive story of these quests. The excerpts of Ulisha don't mention the Silverhex. Should I make intro story of the text that the PDF starts with? (That explains about the River Kingdoms and that Ulisha discovered the Silverhex.)

Note: I did found the Silverhex Chronicles introduction by Starglim on pfsprep.com.

So:
- How can I connect the players from introduction to the single quests?
- How can I connect the quests between each other?
- What if a player only plays a single quest?

I'm starting to think about a scenario where I explain Ulisha's situation about the Silverhex, then when they arrive at Ulisha's meeting place, she's nowhere to be found and I give them the Silverhex handout/excerpt. Then I give them the quest handout's one at a time to start that quest. (This means, once they get to the final Silverhex quest, they dont have a handout.)

How you you guys play this?

[Quadstriker]

To begin, I simply randomed between all of the players (or just flat out pick the best roleplayer at the table if you prefer) and had one of them be an ex-friend of Ulisha's who had been contacted via a messenger (of whatever type or form you like) to round up a group of like-minded adventurers to help her out with a problem. Insert as much information here as you like. They show up. She's not there. You find her notes. You're off and running.

The leads between quests don't have to be anything special. "A lead in Ulisha's journal has brought you to blah blah blah where you discover X" and away you go.

There's no special accommodations that need to be made for someone dropping in and playing one quest imo.

[Varun Creed]

Do you give the players all the excerpts at the beginning? Or just give them one at a time?

[Gwen Smith]

We tend to use Silverhex as a demo at conventions and such, so it's often the first time players encounter PF RPG or even role playing games in general. Because of this, the usual "oh, the GM wants us to do X" hook doesn't always work, and if the PCs are not interested in buying Silverhex for themselves, there's no story. To get around this and to lead players into PFS overall, I built a frame story where a Pathfinder Society agent in the River Kingdoms hires the PCs to help Ulisha. (This is all based on information in the Pathfinder Wiki about a hidden Pathfinder Society lodge in the River Kingdoms.)

The document with the frame story is here.

[wakedown]

I've also put a sort of "wrapper" around these quests now that I've started running them.

I begin by telling the players that they are actually playing the pre-gens in their first missions for the Pathfinder Society, and they've been tasked with working with Ulisha, another Pathfinder, to bring back Silverhex to Absalom for study. Being assigned to her, they are to help her in any way possible for the next several months.

I explain how they received a note from Ulisha requesting they meet in an alley in Absalom, but when they arrive, they simply find another note and her journal.

This other note apologizes and explains that she was unable to make the meeting because she has Galtan creditors hot on her heels and she needs to figure out a way to get them off her trail. She'd like to work with the pre-gen Pathfinders to find a way they could possibly follow up on some of her leads to teasures scattered across Avistan, and she can then split the value of those treasures with them and hopefully get these creditors off her back. In return, they not only get their split of the gold and retrieve Silverhex, but Ulisha promises to sponsor their memberships as full Pathfinder agents.

Then I typically pick the most scholarly of the assembled pre-gens (Ezren, Enora, etc), hand them the first quest, and explain that they've puzzled out the first lead to follow up on... which is why they are booking a caravan to Gralton. :)

[William Ronald]

wakedown wrote:

I've also put a sort of "wrapper" around these quests now that I've started running them.

I begin by telling the players that they are actually playing the pre-gens in their first missions for the Pathfinder Society, and they've been tasked with working with Ulisha, another Pathfinder, to bring back Silverhex to Absalom for study. Being assigned to her, they are to help her in any way possible for the next several months.

I explain how they received a note from Ulisha requesting they meet in an alley in Absalom, but when they arrive, they simply find another note and her journal.

This other note apologizes and explains that she was unable to make the meeting because she has Galtan creditors hot on her heels and she needs to figure out a way to get them off her trail. She'd like to work with the pre-gen Pathfinders to find a way they could possibly follow up on some of her leads to teasures scattered across Avistan, and she can then split the value of those treasures with them and hopefully get these creditors off her back. In return, they not only get their split of the gold and retrieve Silverhex, but Ulisha promises to sponsor their memberships as full Pathfinder agents.

Then I typically pick the most scholarly of the assembled pre-gens (Ezren, Enora, etc), hand them the first quest, and explain that they've puzzled out the first lead to follow up on... which is why they are booking a caravan to Gralton. :)

Wakedown, I like your approach and will borrow it for running the Silverhex Chronicles this Sunday at Mythic Monster Games in Highland, IN.

However, I do have a concern. Some of the missions might not work well for all the characters.

Spoiler:

Specifically, Webs Seelah and Kyra, for example, might not be too keen on selling poison in Daggermark. Does suggesting that it has other uses, including being used for antivenom, make any sense or is it just a cop out?

Also, I will likely have people floating in and out of tables. So, is this one session or six?

[Haldir]

Thank you for the link to pfsprep.com

Really some nice ideas & uploads on that site.

Just curious, how do you guys that have run this one prevent the party from going to the "last" quest? The one with Ulisha in it. I know it says it doesn't matter which ones they do, but kinda seems a bit of letdown if the the party does that one before the end?

Gonna run this one at ReaperCon this year, looking forward to GMing it.

[kinevon]

Never had the problem with the players jumping to that one first, so far. Mainly in a meta fashion that they realize that doing some of the other ones might give them an advantage going into the last one.

[Quadstriker]

I tell them straight up "This works best when that one is last".

Done.