| PChapman |
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I'm not usually one to necro older threads, but this is fantasy roleplaying, so I'll throw a raise dead just to highlight a major issue.
Today my group broke Endless Night entirely. Flat out, off the rails, busted..
We're all veteran roleplayers with over twenty years RP experience apiece, and essentially, the problem with Endless Night comes down to this:
It's a fact finding mission that has no facts to find. And I'm sorry to be so blunt, but much of the book consists entirely of rolling on menial labour tables to get points, whilst waiting for the next to event to happen.
All this culminates in the players simply being handed all of the answers on a platter, thereby negating everything they have done over the last few weeks.
The motivation for the adventure is fine, and the setting is rich. And naturally, as a DM, I have no issues with coming up with things, but the adventure is entirely about hunting for info, but there's really nothing to uncover.
As such, tonight, one player's character got bored, wandered off, sparking a manhunt for the wayward servant, and the party - when they caught up - decided they could no longer go back. Nor did the players want to jump back on the railroad.
Thus, I have to rewrite the middle and final acts to include actual intel for my party to uncover.
As I said, it's fine, and part of the DM's role, but there really should have been much, much more in the way of hooks and encounters where the party could glean some pertinent intel, instead of just going from one fight to the next, and one guard duty or flogging to another, in some vague hope that some info might just show up.
Also, by running a pre generated adventure, I've made the conscious choice of not wanting to write the adventure myself... ;)
This is not so much a complaint as a warning to DMs who've yet to reach this book. I think it would have ran better if the meeting with Alicavniss (sp.) would have taken place at the beginning. Then, at least, the players would know they were working toward some goal. Plus there would have been ample hooks for drow intrigue along the way.
We ended the session far earlier than planned. I could see everyone had become rather bored with the drudgery of just waiting for stuff to happen. Normally I pride myself on my creative ability (and that of my players) to bring the world to life with description and flavour, but there's only so much winging I can do before I have to say, 'OK, sorry we have to stop guys, but I gotta rewrite the adventure now..'