Jon Cazares's page

So are you local to us in the Twin Cities, Jon?

Hmm

Yes. Grew up in the Twin Cities, moved to NYC and lived there for a long time then, a few years ago, moved back to MPLS. MPLS is like the Godfather III - "Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in!!!" =)

When you have a date for April's "Twisted Circle" play through at Your Mom's Basement let me know. I'll try and make it out and meet you folks.

It looks like I am running this on March 3rd at the Fantasy Flight Game Center in MPLS (actually, near MPLS). I've only run this scenario during the play test phase (back in Oct).

I am curious to see if the published version of it runs long for me too!

We'll see how it goes! =)

Dear Jon,

I did enjoy running this, last Sunday, but I have to say that in my opinion, the additional information you provided in this thread was quite necessary for me to bring the adventure as more than two random story arcs.
All-in-all I think I enjoyed the weirdness of the cloaker most of all.

When you rely heavily on role playing, investigating and "tone" instead of challenging combat encounters things can sometimes go astray. The classic "role playing" vs. "roll playing" argument. If you lean too much on role playing & tone the story can, perhaps, get dull at times. If you lean too much on roll playing the story can, perhaps, be one dimensional. If you attempt to thread multiple plot points with detailed backgrounds for all pertinent NPC's & antagonists the story will run long but can be, potentially, really rich and compelling ... if everything goes perfectly. If everything does not go perfectly then things will be frustrating for DM's and obscure for players and can lead to valid exclamations such as, "We've been playing this game for sixteen hours! Does anyone know wtf is going on?" =)

But since you brought it up I do agree that much of the information that was cut (or changed) would have made it more memorable (and perhaps smoother to run). Not necessarily better (or worse) but more memorable. I did not do any of the edits. *shrugs*

That being said, Paizo has very specific and clear guidelines on exactly how scenarios should (and should not) be written and exactly how long the word count should (and should not) be.

I kind of ignored most of their guidelines because ... well .... you know, I'm special.

And rules don't apply to me!

(Only, not so much). =)

**James Anderson's Questions:
1. Are there locks on the doors to the houses? Particularly the guest house, Amenira's house, and the weaver's house?

With the exception of the carriage house and the lockers where large weapons are placed locks didn't occur to me at all. Probably not too many locks in a small, tight knit community like this.

2. How does Nira feel about being seen by the sheriff and other townspeople? Does she try to hide that she's animated?

I would say that is entirely up to the DM. She can be open and understanding of her situation be be used to supply exposition if PC's need it or she can hardly say a word and become more mysterious, creepy and tragic by not knowing she is a little wooden girl.

3. Given that there's 100 houses, I guessed that there's an average of 3 people per house (including kids) so about 300 people, maybe a bit more. Is that about right? Basic goods should be available?

That all seems reasonable to me. With the caveat that "basic goods" would all have to be created / built by the town folks and conform to their rules. No Large weapons, for example. =)

4. The cloaker's "performance" is an attempt to communicate - what is he trying to say? How does he expect a response?

I'm sad to say the cloaker's full performance / PC's attempt to respond was lost in editing. Because of my diarrhea of the word processor I wrote too much and several non essential (but memorable and flavorful) elements had to be cut. The cloaker's performance was one such element. =(

The cloaker was paranoid it had fallen out of favor with Azathoth. It had recently only been hanging out with bats and sacrificing gross mutant gnolls. Not exactly the stuff of high priest legends. So the cloaker became paranoid it had not done enough for Azathoth and when it saw the PC's in Mercy it was convinced the PC's might be agents of Azathoth sent to test(or kill)it. Which leads to the cloaker setting up a performance using it's shadow spell ability to create a silent shadow puppet performance. The cloaker's shadow puppet performance laid out the main antagonist (the doll) and the hero of the story (it) as well as the PC's. The deciphering (with language spells and / or linguistic rolls) would have revealed the performance was asking a series of questions directed to the PC's ... "Why is the Idiot God displeased with me? What must I do to regain it's indifferent favor? Are you working with the Disgusting Child of Wood?"

Stuff like that. The cloaker was self absorbed, paranoid and alien. As far as it was concerned everything was all about it. Everything was after it.

And did I mention it was weird? =)

Hi guys! I wrote the scenario. I am happy to answer further questions to assist in the running of the game (but I think the tips laid out by Kevin Willis are great!).

Reading over your thoughts I will say right off the bat that your concerns are valid. I used to write scenarios for Living Death, Living Greyhawk: Shield Lands and Living Dragonstar. None of which enforced word counts. As long as we were reasonable about it, length wasn't an issue. This is the first Pathfinder scenario I worked on and they run a much tighter ship than those other folks ever did. Also, I have not actually written a four hour scenario in more than a dozen years and it really shows.

To be frank - it appears I am utterly incapable of writing a four hour adventure! =) The draft I turned in to Paizo was colossally long and they had to do a herculean amount of editing to make it presentable.

Which, as has been pointed out, makes the final scenario run (potentially) VERY long! Can you imagine how long it could have gone with the additional three (four? five? Maybe six?) pages of plant / crop / cashew / bat relationships and townfolk background info (including almost a full page of "Creepy Things the Townfolk Do That Are Actually Pretty Mundane") and the overly complicated ten year enmity I tried to create between the cloaker and Amenira?

And, well ... yeah ... it was maybe, like, three thousand words long.

So, there's that. =)

A few of your questions:

The name: The Twisted Circle. The idea was that the townsfolk have evolved unnaturally through accidental exposure to the Verdant Spark. Which is a twisted version of the circle of life. Hence, Twisted Circle. Also, the cloaker worships Azathoth who's symbol is an eight pointed star. In the cloaker's cave there were stars and twisted circles etched in to the walls. The handless cloaker did it's best to etch an eight pointed star but it came out more of a twisted circle. (This last bit may not have made the final edit).

The transformation: Makes them immune to disease, poison and the magical wasting effect within the Mana Wastes as well as giving them a borderline mystical green thumb. I thought this was covered in the scenario somewhere but it may have been edited out to make the transformation more vague and mysterious.

As to the scenario being hard to get back story to PC's - this is a fair point. I guess I have no problem with it, though. It should be hard. The town should be allowed to keep some of it's mysteries. Make those PC's work! =)

I am happy to answer further questions to assist in your running the scenario. Let me know.

Good gaming!