docteurmystere's page

is this confirmed?

I really liked Galatina91's post above mine, but I guess my only disagreement in terms of advice would be to be careful about splitting up duties based on the type of stuff in the scenario, for example RP vs. Combat. Much like in Galatina91's post, my wife is just more efficient and stronger in running tactical combat than I am, where I tend to excel more than her in running NPCs, creative social encounters, chase scenes, etc. That's the main reason we split our running as we did. That being said, I think it would have benefited both us to have a fair bit of crossover, even if say I was just assisting with moving minis during combat or keeping track/calling out of the initiative order or some other similar small items. Similarly, she could have assisted with handing out props, handout sheets, etc. or taken on the role of minor NPCs during more complicated social encounters so that we were both participating on some level nearly all the time.

well that's more or less what happens: i move minis and draw maps while she handles combat, if she needs, else i go on the balcony and smoke a cigarette. when i'm running the plot she sometimes intervenes when i forget details, or when she has some witty idea eg. about what an NPC might say in a given situation. or she reviews the next few encounters on her laptop. all in all we actually benefit from a lighter workload during a session, including one taking 5 while the other runs things.

i pretty much did the same as formsie, but i gave most of them class levels and pimped up the mutiny encounters to balance.
i also changed some crewmembers and made a brand new statblock for cog, who now has one level of oracle of some unspecified dark tapestry horror. badger became a male, and maheem became CN instead of LN. finally, ratline, giffer tibbs and tilly brackett were replaced by lai wong (a kitsune in hiding), aakiji (a tengu with a penchant for languages) and gavion (a quite out-of-place wizard).
i also wrote a small background for each of them. the result was that the ship felt very much alive during part one, and my players had a lot of fun even when die rolls were not involved. they also made an excellent job of finding each npc's soft spot and working their way through a careful choice of diplomacy, intimidate and bluff.

meet the characters: regulus wintrish (CN tiefling alchemist with a past in the chelish navy), "gill" (LN undine monk not really fond of talking), asha coldfeet (CN female dwarf who intimidated narwhal into submission early on), arianne (NG aasimar oracle and pretty much the sweetest person on the ship) and finally "kermit the frog" (CG grippli gunslinger who kept on critting every single boss npc, but went near death when they battled swamp frogs in bonewrack).

since fipps and aretta were the only hostile npcs after the man's promise battle, i had to add a bunch of buys with class levels to make up. even so, the players went up with a good battle plan and everything went smooth. they chose to mount the mutiny before bonewrack and i let them do it.
aretta died a spectacular death after her head was blasted to tiny bits by a bomnb critical hit, which also opened a nice hole in the forecastle.
fipps and other 2 npc's were taken prisoners, along with scourge.
sy lonegan was not really won over, she didn't take part in the mutiny save on the very end, when she backstabbed one remaining npc who had the undine cornered in the cargo hold. obviously she did it only out of convenience.
plugg had a chance to escape, but was sadly oneshotted by a critical musket hit by the grippli (after he missed two times in a row for a total of four rounds).
after bonewrack, one of the rahadoumi npcs was recruited, scourge was hanged by sy lonegan and the rest were marooned on bonewrack.

all in all, i could have done a better job of pimping up the encounter, but the npc die rolls weren't in favour either.

after that they had fun self-organizing rescue operations for sandara quinn and badger. both survived, though badger now has a peg leg. once again the grippli scored one single hit and it was a critical against the grindylow queen which nearly resulted in a one-shot-one-kill during the first surprise round of the encounter.
finally there was a kingsmoot where the tiefling triumphed over the grippli and the dwarf (the tengu npc withdrew). afterwards, sy lonegan was offered the position of torturer and executioner and was definitely won over.

i intend to keep on the "custom npc" thing through part 2. in the beginning i nearly became schizophrenical managing all those npcs but i got used to it, plus the players love the atmosphere.
so far they managed to recruit a fugitive from geb (who turns out to be the ghoul of a former lastwall paladin) and a halfling cartograph/treasure hunter (the archaeologist archetype is perfect for him) in rickety squibs before we had to put the whole campaign on hold due to the dwarf player staying in japan for 9 months and the tiefling player going to portugal for 6 months.
i'm now working on a naga village (since they were mounting an expedition upstream from rickety when they last played, despite rickey's objections) and an encounter in boali. plus i already have plans for enough npcs to crew 2-3 ships.
i also plan on reworking some encounters to raise the CR.