Well, after a month or more of planning and prepping, my Sunday group has finally begun the SCAP campaign. Here's the starting roster:
Ixen Vur Hesjing - Male Spellscale Sorcerer (Wyrm Blooded) He's got Profession - Gambling, so he's a hoot at the table.
Leyena Lathenmire - Female Half-Elf Swashbuckler (Nobility) Raised by the Lathenmire's before learning of her true heritage. She works for Gurnezarn now. Ha! Payback is a bugger!
Gunthar Hammerhand - Male Half-Orc Barbarian (Mark of the Beast) He's the son of a smithy, good at "bending and breaking steel."
Zook "The Badger" Turen - Male Gnome Bard (Child of Jzadirune) He's a distant relative of Zook the Great, a recurring character in many of our campaigns, who retired from adventuring and married Skie. Nice twists there, that's for sure.
Arthas Ironbrand - Male Human Fighter (Dream Haunted) He's a junior member of the town guard, soon to take a leave of absence to investigate the abduction of the kids from the orphanage.
Khaliid - Male Human Cleric of Kord, Luck Domain. An obsessive gambler with an itch for gold, so he can tithe of course.
Tork - Male Dwarf Artificer, no local trait. He dabbles in armor augmentation and despises being short.
Iziak - Male Wood Elf Monk (Wyrm Blooded) He's our youngest player and playing a monk will be a stretch for him. So far, he's doing great! I'll be a hoot to see how he handles being Wyrm Blooded. His eyes sparkled when I told him about it after he rolled his percentile dice. Cool kid!
Yes, it's a large group, but they are a great bunch of players. This is my first time DMing for the group, and they are excited to be along for the ride.
I began by having the characters rounded up at the Drunken Morkoth Inn for a Three Dragon Ante tournament, sponsored by Skie's Treasury. She fronted the money for the entry fee, and loitered around their table as they played the game for real, in character. It was a cool way to start the campaign. Got the players thinking about their characters and how they would react to the others in the party.
After the party, Skie invited them to her store. She shared her wyvern story, then told them about the discount offers to adventuring parties. Skie is out doing some marketing and it's paying off greatly!
When one of the PCs inquired about other antique places in town, she pointed them toward Tygot's. Along the way, they heard the scream, and the adventure began. They intimidated the thugs easily, who escaped only to be captured later by another group of guards sent after them by the junior guard in our party. He had hoped to question them, but after hearing Jenya's offer, and her insistence that the local guards not be informed of the party's mission, he plans to ask for a leave to go on a "vacation." Should be fun!
The party accepted Jenya's offer, then promptly split up, one group to the orphanage to secure a watch over the place, and one group to fetch Keygan and bring him to the orphanage to examine the locks. That is where we left off.
All in all, it was a fun day. These guys don't like to stop and ask too many questions, preferring instead to act on impulse. We'll see where it goes from here. Keygan's should be especially fun.
Comments are appreciated.
Sounds like a great start to a great campaign. I'm a big fan of Skie too so having her as a more prominent figure from the start sounds like a tremendous idea as far as I'm concerned.
You mentioned your party is fairly young and that they enjoy action rather than questioning. This is pretty standard in my experience. Older players tend to enjoy the roleplay element of the game far more than younger players who prefer to get down to business straight away.
Try and continue what you are doing and steer your players towards interested, rewarding and humourous roleplaying opportunities. The game will be much more fruitful if the party become embroiled in the city personalities.
Another small piece of advice - you also stated that this is your first stab at DMing and that your party has planned on breaking into two to investigate the two 'scenes'. I would avoid party division, particular during the early 'formation' stage.
When half the party is not involved for a large chunk of time while the rest are adventuring this creates many different problems. The seeds of party division are often planted with such excursions, players get bored with inactivity and diversions may follow such as TV, games etc taking away from the D&D game as a whole and lastly each group misses out on being part of what the other did.
I would just have the whole party head over to the two different areas together then everyone is involved, they act as a team, no one gets bored and everyone stays on task.
The hardest part of running a long term game with a big group is keeping everyone on the same page and interested. Involving every player and giving them time to 'shine' is difficult even with smaller groups so the challenge is even steeper with a party such as your own.
Good luck with the adventure it sounds like everyone is having a fantastic time and you have put a lot of ground work into the campaign even before the first dice was roled which always bodes well for a great game.
Delvesdeep
Thanks for the comments. I greatly appreciate them.
Just to clarify my initial post, this isn't my first time DMing; I've DMed several different campaigns, one for beginning players at the FLGS, and a higher-level campaign set in Saltmarsh, from the DMGII. I've also done some one-shot stuff with my boy and his friends. This is just my first time DMing for this particular group, which I've participated in as a player for over two years. While I'm not necessarily new to DMing, I am humbled every session. There is so much to learn, and most of my players know that I'm not all about the "rollplaying" but rather concentrate much more on "roleplaying." It's a great learning experience for younger players, as the older ones have the opportunity to teach the young guys a thing or two about staying in character.
We are a diverse group; three fathers, our four teenage sons, one pre-teen son, and my 30+ sister who's quite new to roleplaying.
As far as splitting up, this group has a tendency to do that, and they never learn. Ha! Oh, the memories I could share.
In this case, they figure that maybe Keygan can shed some light in the lock situation at the orphanage, since he is an expert and all. Their plan is for the ones at the orphanage to stand guard throughout the night, to prevent further abductions, while the other group heads to Keygan's at first light and seek his counsel. Should I have Keygan play dumb and go along with them to the orphanage? There, perhaps he could fess up and reveal what he knows, without the threat of the skulk on the balcony overhearing.
They did very little chatting with Gretchyn, even with a young member of the guard present, so they know nothing of the Striders. Any ideas are appreciated.
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Keygan should be reluctant to leave his shop, because those are the orders from the skulks to keep him under supervision. This should make the players suspicious immediately. The young guard could then throw in his authority to "force" the locksmith to accompany them. On their way they should have a better chance to get the information from the gnome they need.
Another scenario would be, that Keygan tries to give hidden signals, that he can't speak freely...
Problem is, the guard is at the orphanage. The only folks visiting Keygan will be the cleric of Kord, maybe the monk, and that may be it. The others who didn't stay to guard the orphanage are loner types who have other things to do before rendezvousing at the orphanage.
Assuming the visit to Keygan's will be early in the morning, maybe the skulks won't be so attentive, he'll slip out with the adventurers, plead ignorance when examining the locks ("Yes, I installed them. No, they haven't been tampered with. See ya.) and then slip away forever. Of course, there is the little thing with the familiar, but if it'll save his hide, he may just vanish.
Thoughts?
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Since he's grown up in Cauldron and also remembers the gnome enclave of Jzadirune from his father, he sould be very reluctant to leave the city. A further look on his alignment should clarify, that he is willing to atone for his actions, when his familiar is back. It should be his one and only thing he cares for.
If the characters try to persuade him to come over, and he flatout refuses them, due to his work to do. He has lots of new orders in lieu of the strange robberies and disappearances in the city. The complete group can drop by later to better reinforce the urgency, that the gnome accompanies them. He should be very unwilling to involve the town guard. That could be used as an argument to accompany the group to the orphanage.
Keygan should be used as a tragic role. He should be very sorry for his actions, but he has to go on, since otherwise he will lose his familiar.
In my campaign the group brought Starbrow back to the gnome and tried to talk him out of giving himself up to the authorities. They failed. He got arrested. "The Trial of Keygan" will be the new starting point for the next chapter of the campaign.
In my campaign the group brought Starbrow back to the gnome and tried to talk him out of giving himself up to the authorities. They failed. He got arrested. "The Trial of Keygan" will be the new starting point for the next chapter of the campaign.
And this thread is useful for dealing with that.