raintoad's page

This was the first AP I GMed, and when I asked for critique at the end of book 1, they said, in the nicest possible way, that they didn't feel like they had much motivation. So I certainly agree with the premise.

I can only share what I did and that I don't think worked. One, was I gave them a small side quest back in Heldren when they mentioned going back to show off how the geas worked. They tried to stay and help and were punished, mechanically.

Second, I didn't rework Nadya. They hated how useless she was to a party of experienced players and how badly she was built for a ranger and that she got them into more potential trouble than got them out of. Some of that was on me for my RP, but they sure didn't care too much about anything she had to say.

It got better as they met characters they liked, and I tied in one character's backstory into things. I'm SO glad I didn't listen to the book that says don't let people be from Irrisen because I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had the ability to do that. I brought up some of the different queens and their history to show how one could be much worse than others. I think those were the most effective things, but nothing was as effective as a good old "I'm a first time GM, please be nice to me and just go along".

The flirty bard took her up on the offer, which everyone agreed was weird in retrospect because he had that fur that disguised him. Nothing more erotic than wearing the skin of her dead kin!

We had a death just prior to them getting into the city, and luckily, the dead character had canon parents who were a wizard and druid. So they came back, and were teleported into the city, but had to deal with negative levels after a reincarnate so there was a bit of waiting around in which the bard met up with her a few more times. His backstory had him coming from Irrisen, and living relatively nearby, so his knowledge combined with his social skills made it relatively simple to get around to see her. I threatened him with a random encounter at one point, but he was able to avoid it pretty easily. More due to me being a softie rather than anything else.

I had seen an idea on this board to put her in the cabin in the woods in town later, and so was planning to do that and had her talking about a potential promotion and a few other work related things before they "spent a nice night together", although she was quick to kick him out of bed and he didn't get to stay the night.

So, once they found her later on, I think I successfully incepted the idea of having her join as a companion and he asked her to come along. We had one player who kept missing sessions so it was convenient.

However, she could only come as a wolf. This made for some amusing RP at first, but she wasn't happy with it and only agreed to keep going because the bard was sure he could turn her human again. I think I stole this from the boards again, but I had them discover that a ritual did exist that would give her the option to turn human, but it was in the book in Artrosa they already needed to get.

I did a bad job roleplaying her and the party got tired of her. She was too whiny and focused on being able to change forms, and the bard wanted to be able to flirt with cute centaurs without having to feel bad about it. So, at the end of that book, I had her decide to stay in Artrosa with the other two and work on repopulating it with Baba Yaga loyalists. I had emphasized her loyalty to Baba Yaga early on to justify her abandoning her post to travel with a bunch of weirdos, so this worked out pretty well.

The bard continued on and had a fun time being a stereotypical bard. The player who had a character named Gretta no longer needed to be confused. I didn't have to adjust encounters because there was a big wolf tagging around, or rewrite things because I hadn't considered the long term repercussions of adding a companion.

I also didn't learn my lesson because boy, my party ended up with a LOT of companions by the end of the adventure. Greta was memorable, just because it's not often you get to date a big fluffy wolf, even if it doesn't work out.

Has anyone run this with a group of Rick & Morty fans after their episode with a take on Dragonriders of Pern aired? I have a feeling it would really change the vibe of some of the book, and GMs who don't want it going too silly might want to consider just not bringing up the bonding thing if they have players who really like the show.