PFS #7-12: The Twisted Circle (Spoilers)


GM Discussion

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4/5

The schedule shows 4/2, though we don't have an event up for that date yet. The store organizer doesn't like to put them up that far in advance because we run out of space fast at that location.


I finally had a chance to run the published version of TC. I have read the comments and concerns and am posting this as a general list of things you could do to fit it in to a four hour slot.

A few notes on the table I ran: My round ran four hours with an extra ten-fifteen minutes for end of game paper work. Tier 1. PC's had a fair amount of appropriate skills spread over three of them (Know: Nature, Know: Religion, Perception, Linguistics, Diplomacy). PC's had the capability to use Speak with Plants but did not cast the spell once. PC's never went to the weavers house, never went to the artisans square and never even saw the children. That being said they figured out most of the town's secrets from the Sheriff, the head priest, the journal, role playing speculation with each other (and Nira) and the cloaker's performance. They had the optional encounter and killed the cloaker. PC's saved Nira and returned the artifact to the PFS (but felt really bed about the fate of Mercy without the artifact).

The first thing I would advise is to not stress out (as a DM) that PC's MUST obtain every last scrap of knowledge contained within the scenario. For some the investigation will go their way and for some it will not and that will frustrate some players but that's just the way it is. I know conventional wisdom claims a scenario supply ALL motivation, background and secrets within it's short run time so that no one goes home feeling unsatisfied but TC is simply not that kind of scenario. And not all scenarios are designed for all mixture of characters or all players. And that's okay.

I don't think there is any harm in letting a table of players know TC is a skill heavy investigation and they might want to have an appropriate mixture of character classes. If they chose to bring six city slicker hack and slash warriors then so be it.

There are multiple ways to get enough information to figure out what is happening. There appears to be common concern a party lacking Know: Nature and / or the ability to cast Speak with Plants is SOL but as I pointed out above, my table never bothered to use Speak with Plants and never even saw the children and managed to succeed in the primary and most secondary victory conditions.

Specific Tips (not previously mentioned in the thread):

Use the journal to quickly supply them with information they are missing. As written in TC Amenira's journal is used to supply the PC's with a clue on how to interact with the town folk. It can also be used to house all manner of additional information. More about the Smiling Shadow of Flight, more about Azathoth, more about the town, more about the investigation , more about the sheriff, etc. You can quickly sum up information and point them exactly where you need them to be. My table obsessed over the journal, spent hours reading it and then marched to the Sheriff for more answers.

Use the cloakers performance (see previous post earlier in thread) for more information about the cloaker.

Use Nira to point them in the right direct. Remember, Nira is Amenira. You can have Nira offer flashes of coherence and give advice or answers. She can lead PC's away from Red Herrings and point them on the correct path. She can be as cryptic and awkward (or not) as you see fit to use her.

Finally: Condense the Impossible Forest!

Too many caves to explore! Ugh.

There is no reason the Impossible Forest can't be one large cave. Any reasonable plan will find the Verdant Spark. Detect Magic will find it quicker.

If you want to keep a hidden treasure cave have it near the entrance. OR you can combine the hidden treasure cave with Sheriff Molume's gifts. When he hands over the "This might help you beat the monster" loot he can add the potions saying, "A visiting alchemist gave us these for payment but we have not the means to know what they are".

If you have time for the optional encounter, try to stage it after PC's are leaving the Impossible Forest and exiting the crevice. That seems like more reasonable placement.

I had the cloaker circling above the crevice when PC emerged. It was deciding if it could kill three of them (or not). It dive bombed them when Nira popped out of a PC backpack.

Anyway, even if the PC's are out of time for the actual combat they can come out, see it, it flies away, they shoot after it and maybe get an arrow or magic missile in. Which leads to...

Later they find the cloaker "riddled with bullet holes" on the side of the road, then you can throw in that the damage PC's did to it was instrumental in helping take it down.

Partial closure.

Also, a very broad tip that may be common sense for a DM but ...

I've always found Living campaign modules to be a blue print of the most likely way to tackle that particular story but you should never feel as if your hands are tied to do it exactly as the scenario says. The scenario doesn't know you, your players or their class combination so when the modules says, "Players must have Skill A or B" or they get zero information, take it with a grain of salt.

Despite my insistence that it's okay if players don't get all the answers in TC that is a far cry from getting zero answers and then thrusting PC's in to the Impossible Forest for the final encounter.

Feel free to reward players for good role playing, or hell, for just having fun.

For example:

If you have a table with no appropriate skills and no way to cast Speak With Plants just pick a random (appropriate) PC's and start telling them things like, "When you were a kid, you remember your mother working daily in the garden. You were more of an eater than a grower so never helped out but you would swear she always said that vegetable A and vegetable B don't grow together because they'll produce rot and wipe out the entire crop. But that garden over there is growing both of them and they look healthy. Weird."

In the case of TC feel free to hand the PC's a few bits of free information if you think it will enhance their story telling experience. The only loose rule I would add to that is don't let the substance of said free information out weight the substance of information PC's work for.

Free information should be just enough crumbs to keep them from starving. =)

In conclusion, as pointed out in previous posts, the scenario might require more DM preparation than most do. That is very possible. Sorry about that.

I hope this helps. =)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

It required a lot of GM prep,, but I thought it was worth it... This was a seriously enjoyable scenario. And your next one will be tighter!

Hmm

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

Jon, I may have to jump in on a replay if you run it again... I have only ever once sat at a table with the author (Boomer at SkälCon for Hands of the Muted God), and it is something that is beyond compare. Had the chance to play Stranger Within with Sam Polak at GEnCon 2014, but couldn't get the other yahoo GMs who were released to bite. Idiots!

Anyway, sounds like your table had a lot of fun, and I just would love the chance to learn what how an author would run a scenario (haven't had the chance to run myself, though I've played and prepped it. It is a great one)

Say... About SkälCon 2016... You gonna be in town the third weekend of September? We could always use another celebrity GM running his or her scenario as an auction item!

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

Oh yes! Please say you'll come to SkälCon 2016! It's a great little con, and you can meet all of us!

Hmm

5/5 **

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

Be careful of what you wish for, Jack.

I was one-shot killed by Alex Greenshields in Dalsine Affair and nearly killed by Dennis Baker in Gods Market Gamble.

Anyway, I ran this scenario at a recent Con and none of the players were casters and very few knowledge or social skills. But they did fine. We roleplayed the investigation out and made heavy use of Perception and untrained Sense Motive, Survival and Dipomacy checks. Their big turning point occured by noticing the damage to Robari and winning over the Priest. They never got to Speak with plants.

Dark Archive 4/5 5/5 ****

waltero wrote:

Be careful of what you wish for, Jack.

I was one-shot killed by Alex Greenshields in Dalsine Affair and nearly killed by Dennis Baker in Gods Market Gamble.

Anyway, I ran this scenario at a recent Con and none of the players were casters and very few knowledge or social skills. But they did fine. We roleplayed the investigation out and made heavy use of Perception and untrained Sense Motive, Survival and Dipomacy checks. Their big turning point occured by noticing the damage to Robari and winning over the Priest. They never got to Speak with plants.

I am willing to take the risk!

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

waltero wrote:

Be careful of what you wish for, Jack.

I was one-shot killed by Alex Greenshields in Dalsine Affair and nearly killed by Dennis Baker in Gods Market Gamble.

When Kyle Baird ran Rats of Round Mountain he killed two of my party members. When Kyle Baird ran Race for the Runecarved Key he killed a 15th level cleric. And during The Sealed Gate... you know, I'm starting to notice a pattern.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 **

I GMed it today. We started off well but by the end the whole thing just crashed and burned.

I hope its just me not getting stuff but the opinion I have now is there are so many contrived things, I'm not even sure what was I supposed to do and how to translate them into play?

I really wanted to make it work.

So here are things that bothered me:

- not that it mattered but - you have a ghoran seed. It sprouts a ghoran. He then does what? plants the same seed? plants himself? just grows a new body? I absolutely got lost with the whole ghoran thing.
Also, what was supposed to happen with that experimental seed? seems like the same thing as with regular ghorans.

- ok, so there is the Verdant Spark. Then it kills ghorans with radiation but later on makes green stuff grow. Am I missing something?

- ghorans died, got buried and planted a tree on top of them - why is that supposedly the reason verdant spark doesn't talk with the tree?
Does it carry some sort of resentment? Also if there is no love between that tree and the spark why does the protection of Mercy look like a huge aspen growing out of *that* tree? Again am I seriously completely missing things?

- what is the purpose of the quarrel between blacksmiths and carpenters again? it seemed like a completely local thing and I couldn't find any relevance to anything. Is it just a red herring?
But why even mention it in the letter?

- the cloaker - oh boy - the shadow puppet dance thing - completely lost me on that. What was it supposed to do except scare people, flap around and then flee when the doll jumps in?
The way PCs follow the neverending stream of bats is yet another contrived way to push PCs.
Why did it share the cave with the Spark? Was there some sort of real, intentional connection with the Spark? Or was it just convenience?
OK, I get he is worshiping madness but so many things seemed so random - why killing only travelers and not villagers? why not just plucking one of them on the main square and making it more urgent for PCs to do something?

- why is the dolls neck broken and sprouts a tree? Is it the copy of what happened to Amenira?

I had a great group, I really wanted to make it a great session but the more I think of the story, less sense I get and I'm just frustrated at this point.
Even with that, kudos to John for being available online for questions. I read how the process went so I'm not too surprised there are many problems.

I just want to figure out the whole thing before I run it again (well, in case I ever dare to do a redo)

4/5

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Zrinka Znidarcic wrote:

I GMed it today. We started off well but by the end the whole thing just crashed and burned.

I hope its just me not getting stuff but the opinion I have now is there are so many contrived things, I'm not even sure what was I supposed to do and how to translate them into play?

I really wanted to make it work.

So here are things that bothered me:

- not that it mattered but - you have a ghoran seed. It sprouts a ghoran. He then does what? plants the same seed? plants himself? just grows a new body? I absolutely got lost with the whole ghoran thing.
Also, what was supposed to happen with that experimental seed? seems like the same thing as with regular ghorans.

- ok, so there is the Verdant Spark. Then it kills ghorans with radiation but later on makes green stuff grow. Am I missing something?

The Verdant Spark "should be" turning into a new ghoran. Magic being weird, however, caused weirdness when aspects of the ritual to fail. Maybe that's the result of the Mana Wastes' unpredictable magic influencing the ritual, or perhaps it's a failing of the ghorans' understanding of the ritual.

Quote:

- ghorans died, got buried and planted a tree on top of them - why is that supposedly the reason verdant spark doesn't talk with the tree?

Does it carry some sort of resentment? Also if there is no love between that tree and the spark why does the protection of Mercy look like a huge aspen growing out of *that* tree? Again am I seriously completely missing things?

Sorrow? Embarrassment? It's really not important to telling the scenario because the PCs have virtually no way to figure that out short of using Speak with Plants and talking with the Verdant Spark and knowing to ask about it. If they know Robori isn't in the conversation, they've probably already used the Speak with Plants scroll.

Quote:

- what is the purpose of the quarrel between blacksmiths and carpenters again? it seemed like a completely local thing and I couldn't find any relevance to anything. Is it just a red herring?

But why even mention it in the letter?

It is a vessel for having the children visible by giving the PCs something to look for.

Quote:

- the cloaker - oh boy - the shadow puppet dance thing - completely lost me on that. What was it supposed to do except scare people, flap around and then flee when the doll jumps in?

The way PCs follow the neverending stream of bats is yet another contrived way to push PCs.

Per the scenario:

"The cloaker does not believe in coincidences, and
it assumes that the PCs’ arrival in Mercy is of momentous
importance. A PC who succeeds at a DC 15 Perform check
or a DC 17 Sense Motive check can tell this “performance”
is an attempt to communicate."

It thinks the PCs are important because it's able to break the 4th wall insane.

Quote:
Why did it share the cave with the Spark? Was there some sort of real, intentional connection with the Spark? Or was it just convenience?

Underground and lush food sources? Perfect environment for it.

Quote:
OK, I get he is worshiping madness but so many things seemed so random - why killing only travelers and not villagers? why not just plucking one of them on the main square and making it more urgent for PCs to do something?

That's largely left to the GM's interpretation. Perhaps the Verdant Spark has some sort of influence on the actions of the cloaker. Perhaps madness is just that weird for this thing. Maybe Azathoth really is talking to it and is as capricious as one might imagine.

Quote:
- why is the dolls neck broken and sprouts a tree? Is it the copy of what happened to Amenira?

Because it's creepy? I tend to think of this scenario as a twist on the classic Feast of Ravenmoor, which can color one's interpretation. Literally every group I've encountered playing this scenario has seriously considered torching the town because they assume the townspeople are all evil cultists.

Quote:

I had a great group, I really wanted to make it a great session but the more I think of the story, less sense I get and I'm just frustrated at this point.

Even with that, kudos to John for being available online for questions. I read how the process went so I'm not too surprised there are many problems.

I just want to figure out the whole thing before I run it again (well, in case I ever dare to do a redo)

When I GM, the fun of the scenario is watching the paranoid party try to make sense of what's going on. It's not just a little fun for me. I am absolutely gleeful as I listen to their conspiracy theories. I hope to GM a table where it goes entirely off the rails at some point.

To be fair, Jon has said that he had gone significantly over wordcount and was edited down, which probably removed some of the explication you're looking for. That said, it's also possible that this just isn't the scenario for you. There are certainly ones that I haven't liked in the past for various reasons and I'd like to think that's ok.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 **

Thank you a lot :)

My table didn't get so much paranoid as frustrated.
Well, I hope more tables will have a positive experience.

I wish I could read the whole thing, as the author intended


Zrinka - Hi there. I was going to respond but Serisan beat me to the punch. So ... what he said and then I'll add:

The cloaker is spying on the PC's, convinced they are after it, which is why it hides in the garden and eventually tries to communicate with them in the most alien, chaotic, insane way possible. Because it is alien, chaotic and insane. To it, a shadow puppet performance is a totally reasonable way to communicate. =)

The cloaker's full scripted performance (and rules detailing how to understand it) was lost in editing (due to length). I wrote a post earlier how a DM can tackle the performance. Otherwise, yes, it is totally out of the blue. As one poster said weeks ago, "Performance? About what? wtf?!?" =)

Torches - You don't mention this in your post but I've read a few questions about the use of torches to help fight the swarm. It has been pointed out that torches don't help with such a swarm fight.

Originally, there were lanterns in town. And players could break and smash them on the swarm for splashing fire / burning oil damage to assist them if needed BUT there was risk of catching gardens and / or homes on fire which would lead to the huge disaster of players and townfolk battling the blaze.

But that was way too long and got edited down to "torches" and I suspect the translation is what created the lantern oil / torch damage confusion. *shrugs*

Also, not all scenario's are to the taste of all players. Twisted Circle is a slow burning investigation of diplomacy, knowledge use and role playing.

Not all folks dig that. I do but some don't.

In fact, a few weeks ago I played in a (nearly) five star rated scenario. Player ratings raved how much fun the action was.

And I was bored out of my mind. So. Much. Stupid. Combat. =)

And some folks will feel, "So. Much. Stupid. Diplomacy" about Twisted Circle.

It's all good.

And by the way, I've noticed a few people attaching a "he" pronoun to the cloaker. I was unable to find any information that cloakers had gender and tried my best to use the universal "it".

Does anyone know one way or another? =)

4/5

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I'd try to make a Kn: Dungeoneering check, but I'm untrained and couldn't exceed the DC to ask about reproductive habits (a surprisingly useful question for some monsters, btw).

Dark Archive 2/5

Here is something I'd like to know: This takes place in the Manga Wastes, why is there nothing started here that any magic the party casts has a percentage of being wild and unpredictable? I am about to run this adventure and I know one of the players at my table has an insane damage snowball spell and it being the Mana Wastes, could it be possible to keep fun at the table for all the players, to make something unpredictable happen with spells?

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

I believe that magic is being stabilized by the seed.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ***

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Yeah, the entire point of the adventure is that the seed is stabilizing the weird stuff that is going on in the Mana Wastes around Mercy, so that wild stuff like mana storms and primal surges don't happen.

For the one encounter outside of the seed's protection, the weird effects of the Mana Wastes are already accounted for. See the 1st full paragraph on page 7.

4/5 5/5 Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Tampere

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Mr. Wright, GM of Intrigue wrote:
This takes place in the Manga Wastes

Well that sounds like a terrifying place to take a ninja or samurai.

Sczarni 3/5

Player perspective
I want to like this scenario, but it's a tough cookie. First of all, the combats and roleplay was great. Our GM made an effort to lay out the villager's motives and perspectives, and in the end a lots of dots connected.

However, I feel like the cloaker in it's entirety could have been left out, as it completely detracted from the story. I'm rating it only four stars because of that. Still, the time slot demanded a lot and the other players and I were in agreement the writer to try his hand at a module. ;-)

4/5

It's very difficult to convey that the cloaker is, in fact, the driving force of many elements of the story if the players aren't able to make a number of knowledge checks along the way. It killed Amenira, after all.

Personal preference here, but I wish the bat swarm was the optional instead of the cloaker. Every table I've run (and I've done this scenario 3 times now) has had that encounter end with Nira spraying them out of the sky. I nearly wiped a table with the things before having Nira jump in on round 3.

5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht

I played this together with Carla. I really liked the scenario, but I'd like to voice my opinion about the investigative element. Normally I'm a sucker for those as while I'm a quiet participant, I love racking my brains trying to solve it. But I felt like this scenario had too many plot threads that didn't connect together well enough, and that information was hard to get. Skill checks were fairly high (even for a party with decent social skills), and NPCs were unhelpful and gave cryptic or illogical answers. Either one of those is fine in an investigation, but all of them together made for a frustrating slog. We eventually just tried to bruteforce it to get some answers as we just weren't going anywhere. It's a shame how the GM had to explain for nearly ten minutes how the story interconnected before we fully understood what was going on.
I feel like this would've been a whole lot easier to understand if the Nira aspect was dropped; it only convoluted things. It's like the scenario's telling two stories at once, and due to bad editing neither of them came out well. Feast of Ravenmoor did something similar: go to creepy town, get to the bottom of things. But at least there information came at a steady pace so people could puzzle things together. Amenira was just the catalyst of it all, if the whole Nira subplot with the cloaker was left out, the story would've been much clearer. Now we were trying to fit two unrelated puzzles together into one big puzzle; namely how the cloaker and Nira fit together, and what the deal was with the town. In the end the two are related, but only at the barest minimum to make it work.

I mean no insult to the author and otherwise I really enjoyed the scenario, this is just my personal take on the problems of the scenario.

1/5

So I'm about to GM this and I have a question. When I played this we had no one who could use the scroll AND we killed the cloaker in the town. A good archer and flying pounce eidolon made quick work of it. But that caused the GM to really work at why we needed to go to the cave.

Also, how are the torches supposed to help in the swarm fight? The swarm can't be hit by weapons.

It was hard for us to really get any investigation done because we were a bunch of rule-following characters. Told to stay in at night, we stayed in. Told to have no weapons, didn't think to get them back.

Silver Crusade 1/5 Contributor

Could you rephrase your post to help me understand the question, please? I'm not quite getting it. ^_^

If it's just the torch thing, I'm pretty sure that's a straight-up error.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Agent, Nebraska—Omaha

Jon Cazares wrote:

Originally, there were lanterns in town. And players could break and smash them on the swarm for splashing fire / burning oil damage to assist them if needed BUT there was risk of catching gardens and / or homes on fire which would lead to the huge disaster of players and townfolk battling the blaze.

But that was way too long and got edited down to "torches" and I suspect the translation is what created the lantern oil / torch damage confusion. *shrugs*

A little plot magic to let the cloaker get away with 1 HP might be necessary if your table is similarly prepared.

Grand Lodge 4/5

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Thomas Hutchins wrote:
Also, how are the torches supposed to help in the swarm fight? The swarm can't be hit by weapons.

The author likely had some 3.5 artifacts in mind.

Vulnerabilities Of Swarms wrote:

Swarms are extremely difficult to fight with physical attacks. However, they have a few special vulnerabilities, as follows:

A lit torch swung as an improvised weapon deals 1d3 points of fire damage per hit.

A weapon with a special ability such as flaming or frost deals its full energy damage with each hit, even if the weapon’s normal damage can’t affect the swarm.

A lit lantern can be used as a thrown weapon, dealing 1d4 points of fire damage to all creatures in squares adjacent to where it breaks.

I really wish this text had been kept in Pathfinder.

4/5

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Thomas Hutchins wrote:

So I'm about to GM this and I have a question. When I played this we had no one who could use the scroll AND we killed the cloaker in the town. A good archer and flying pounce eidolon made quick work of it. But that caused the GM to really work at why we needed to go to the cave.

Also, how are the torches supposed to help in the swarm fight? The swarm can't be hit by weapons.

It was hard for us to really get any investigation done because we were a bunch of rule-following characters. Told to stay in at night, we stayed in. Told to have no weapons, didn't think to get them back.

Which scroll? Enter Image or Speak with Plants? Realistically, neither is absolutely necessary for the sake of the investigation. You can get most of the information by investigating Nira's house for the Enter Image bit. Speak with Plants is completely optional, but can fill in some gaps. Re: following the rules, you can do all of the investigation during the day and still get enough successes to get the prestige and gold (locate remains, tell Roderus about the Verdant Spark, deliver Nira, and the children's transformation).

If the cloaker dies in town and the swarm is still there, have the swarm flee and the sheriff instruct the party to follow it. Have the swarm disperse after leading to the cave.

4/5

In the Feast of Bats encounter I do not see a starting location for the bat swarms.

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