Would this work in the Misgivings?


Rise of the Runelords


My characters are going to travel to the Misgivings this weekend. I had an idea that I want to put out there. Feel free to tell me if it's stupid...
When a character encounters a haunt, I thought about handing them an index card describing what they see, or what happens to them. Then, I would explain to the rest of the party what they witness that character doing.
My thinking is that it will ramp up the tension and confusion, rather than if I just told the whole group what was happening to the character.
In the case of the universal haunts, I would just describe the effects to the whole party.
Does this sound good? Needlessly complicated?


It sounds good. It is complicated and will slow things down. That said, it will also ramp up the tension. (Don't forget, you need to do cards for whether the player makes his/her save or not. They don't get the full effect if they do save, after all.)

tl;dr - it's a bit of extra work for you but could make the Misgivings more ominous and tense for your players.

Sczarni

I did something similar for my party.

It really did ramp up the tension and anxiety. As they explored, if they saw me bring an index card out from behind the GM screen, they would all gasp and pronounce "Great, what have we walked into now".

It was great fun. I really want to run another haunted house now.


This is what I did, and it worked out well. The tension whenever the players felt like there was a piece of paper on the way was excellent, and they were always excited to see which of them would get the next one.

It works out especially well if your players enjoy roleplaying and improvising the unexpected effects. Some may even be disappointed when they succeed their Will save and don't get to experience the full effect.

Spoiler:
In the case of the suicide compulsion, the player who got it burst into laughter when he read the note that I handed him. Not exactly the reaction I had expected. He thought it was absolutely hilarious that he was about to kill himself, and played along without protest.

Luckily, he survived. An important thing to remember about that exact haunt is that the character won't have enough actions in the surprise round to coup de grace themself, which gives the rest of the party a Sense Motive and a chance to stop them.

If you do a quick search on this forum you'll find other GMs who have done this, and who have shared the notes for other GMs to use.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

Aaron,

Misroi made a nice set of cards for what you're looking for - I (largely) redid them to fit with my homebrew.

I pre-selected who would get hit with the haunts, and gave them no real way to avoid triggering them - basically the PCs had to eat all the stat damage. Most of them weren't even trying to avoid the haunts, they wanted to find out the story of what happened. I also included some secrets about "Magnimar" and the Foxglove connections to dealings in the past.

I printed the cards up on a bright green cardstock, most of them were eager to get a card and see what happened - I allowed the player to describe their actions and almost all the rules, what the affected PC saw/experienced were on the card. It worked very well - with my players it didn't detract from the session at all.

I also used sounds (heard via arbitrarily low Perception DCs) to draw the players upstairs first, just so they had the chance to encounter the Haunts before going into the basement.

If I did it again, I'd make more cards with extra (non-haunt) effects, things that the characters see/hear/feel/smell...

Edit: here is Misroi's stuff

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2i3wa&page=20?Community-Created-Stuff#966

Silver Crusade

Yeah, I downloaded the descriptions someone else used, and printed them out to give the players. I didn't describe their actions, though - I left them to do that themselves.

The funny part was that our party's cavalier was tied to a haunt that they didn't find right away, so that player felt left out when I kept handing other people notes. He kept insisting on being the first one to enter any room, because he was hoping to get a note from the GM. They didn't quite figure out that the haunts were tied to specific people until after it was over.

Then he walked into the

Spoiler:
misogynistic haunt
and
Spoiler:
almost killed the party sorceress
!!!!!


Add me to those who handed out the haunt descriptions, but like Fromper, I got my players to describe the effects themselves.

The paladin in the party mitigated a lot of the immediate risk, but it added a lot of atmosphere.


One of my favorite moments of the campaign, and DMing, is handing out a note, describing the scene while the player reads, knowing the other players are only half-listening to you, and seeing their faces as they watch the reading-player's face react to the haunt.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

That moment right there is exactly why I wrote them, mousmous.


I did something similar as well, with prose written for them to read to the party describing what they see and then a folded over bit instruction with what to do next, to be unfolded only if they fail their save...

Think I still have them in a word format, if you're interested.


Story Archer wrote:

I did something similar as well, with prose written for them to read to the party describing what they see and then a folded over bit instruction with what to do next, to be unfolded only if they fail their save...

Think I still have them in a word format, if you're interested.

Yeah, I'd love to see them!

Scarab Sages

Great idea. My party loved/hated that adventure. At one point, six out of nine players (yup, nine) were in hospice care at the Sandpoint Cathedral with stat damage and/or multiple diseases. Numerous players almost died, and it took 4 four hour sessions to clear Misgivings out. They still talk about it, and we are at the end of the campaign two years later.

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