Running a campaign, especially one that is pre-written in a publication rather than created for a specific group of players can have a lot of pitfalls. The last session that we played, our campaign went hurtling into the vast chasm of campaign deaths.
We slogged through Hall of Harsh Reflections, with growing dungeon crawl ennui, to get to The Champion's Belt adventure, which I thought would be a good change of pace. The first gladiatorial fight was actually a lot of fun and the players enjoyed it immensely; especially since they did so darn well. Then the investigation part came. Back into the dungeon. They fought through the easy fights with the Morhg and the Spawn of Kyuss to find themselves facing down with Bozal, buffed to the gills. One dispel magic to drop his antilife shell, and down he goes. I didn't have a problem with that; let them have an easy victory every once in a while. I then decided to ramp up the tension a bit and have the Ulgurstasta begin prematurely attempting to break out. After the wizard and ranger were nearly chewed up by the thing, it escaped into the arena grounds above.
They fought it and eventually won after a large group of commoners and arena wardens died. The games were suspended indefinitely, and the adventure was basically over. Honestly, by the end, we were all bored to tears. I realize a great deal of responsibility rests on my shoulders as DM to make the adventures more interesting to the players (and by extension, myself) and I own up to dropping the ball. But the idea that every adventure was a dungeon crawl or at least had a lot of dungeon crawl elements really drained the old enthusiasm. They're fun to a point. Don't get me wrong. But enough was enough. What was the point of continuing if the next two adventures, which would probably take us right to the end of our summer out of college, were just more dungeon hacking? It's important to know when it's time to just say,"We're sick of this, let's try something else."
I do regret that I won't be able to run the dinner party in Prince of Redhand or the great "Super Team Battle" in Library of Last Resort or the dragon siege in Kings of the Rift. But right now, that's really all that I'll miss. It's a well written path if you have power gamers and dungeon hackers for the most part, but if your players are of a more moderate taste, it really lacks variety. And I'm the only person that will get the allusions to first edition modules, like pitting the characters against Brazzemal the Burning or the (gasp!) original dracolich, Dragotha. And what's with all the wizards? Really. One of the sages or walking batteries of plot exposition couldn't be a bard or a cleric or something else? I know, I know. Don't like it, change it. Just saying.
I do wish we could have finished the Adventure Path and maybe someday we will. But after a point it just stopped being fun for us, and let this serve as a cautionary tale to other DMs out there that it will need some modifications to run it unless your players are die-hard combat nuts.
Burnout hits us all sooner or later. Maybe you just need to do something else for a couple of sessions.
I've been thinking I may shift to a less dungeon-crawl intensive approach to things--cut out some of the superfluous encounters and just have the PCs level up at appropriate times. I've certainly got some extra role-playing planned, using the Greyhawk materials I've tracked down online or downloaded to give me some inspiration. We'll see. I've got an alternative campaign to shift back to temporarily if we get bored of dungeon crawling.
I have yet to get as far as you have in the campaign, so I speak from a position of some ignorance. However, I have countered this over-reliance on Dungeon crawls in the early adventures with a healthy dose of side stories. Maybe, if you have the energy for it, never try and DM or GM a game that you are not into, try and run a few side stories with the group. For instance, just write up a couple of good two shots or something, maybe even along the lines of the Giant's Skulls (a personal favorite) and see if that breathes life back into the campaign. I am always an advocate of mixing up adventure styles and so am always trying to mix in different adventures as side stories.
Another personal favorite to suggest is the one-on-one stories. Set up a side story for each player individually and run them as one-on-one's, each a different night of a week or over a few weeks. Set them in the Free City as the players are already there, have them related to the events of the Champion's Games.
Or just restart the whole thing and go play something else.
Maybe you were just too fast about it. As you say "summer out of college", you probably did a lot of long sessions in a short time. Try to spread out the modules over a longer time. I think, playing once a week for 3-4 hours (which is our pace) will at least delay this burn-out problem for a long time.
I agree that heavey dungeon crawls get monotonous. But the plot lines of both the APs are well done, and I wouldn't toss them because of the dungeon crawl elements.
What I did in the latter SCAP adventures was simply thin out the dungeon crawls. I made notes of the key elements that needed to happen to advance the plot and then figured out other ways to acheive those goals when the group started getting bored with the dungeon crawls, and it worked fine. We don't track XPs, so leveling wasn't an issue (we assign levels at the end of adventures).
For AoW, I'm working with a group of newbies, so the heavy dungeon crawl aspects of 3FoE were good training for them, but I'm going to go back to the "thinning" tactic starting with HoHR. At this point, our group meets once a week for about 3 hours, so my goal is going to be getting an adventure done in one or two sessions.
If your group enjoys the basic story, I really suggest you use the break to take a look at chucking the parts that are boring them rather than chucking the whole thing.
We find the dungeons a bit much, but heres what I do to fix it. Make the dungeons smaller! Hah, they end 1 room after we get bored, I eliminated the basement from HoHR because it was just to big, I took a couple rooms out of the Mindflayers lair cause I thot my pcs were getting bored with it, I know I was. I think when you read a dungeon, you should highlight the cool parts, and make sure you play those, the rest are for linking but not neccessary.
Also, we just took the summer off, no one wants to play D&D when they just got back from the lake/beach. I'd rather barbeque! We just finished champions belt and will start again in sept (cross fingers)
Removing some of the encounters is a must in my opinion. Otherwise, there are just too many battles. For example, I'm currently DMing HoHR and I've removed the following encounters:
-giant octopus
-2 of the 3 mimics
-the maze of mirrors (doppelgangers moved to Telakin's room)
-spirit naga
-vrock
-drow cleric (maybe)
I will be removing nearly half the encounters in Gathering of Winds.
Hey, that's good advice, everybody. Thanks. I'm not saying the plots are necessarily bad, it's just that if you have to spread out your games between vacations from school it's easy to lose sight of the big picture and I haven't done as much editing as I should have. I think someday, if we can all get together again (may be the last chance this current group has to play together, since we all graduate our respective colleges soon and I assume we'll end up following work opportunities to other places) we may be able to revive the campaign at "A Gathering of Winds" and pick it up when we've got the patience for it.
After our evening of frustration, I asked everyone to write down a list of the things they like about the game and would like to see more of in a future campaign. This week, assuming everyone can meet, we're starting a new game set in Saltmarsh (as detailed in the DMG2) focused more on investigation/NPC interaction broken up with some wilderness adventuring and short, active dungeons.
I will definitely use all the great advice you've given me, thank you.
Removing some of the encounters is a must in my opinion. Otherwise, there are just too many battles. For example, I'm currently DMing HoHR and I've removed the following encounters:
-giant octopus
-2 of the 3 mimics
-the maze of mirrors (doppelgangers moved to Telakin's room)
-spirit naga
-vrock
-drow cleric (maybe)I will be removing nearly half the encounters in Gathering of Winds.
I've got a 'hit list' on the HoHR as well. Currently on it are the octopus (and probably the room it's in), the mimics, one of the invisible stalkers, and possibly the maze, if I can't make it more fun than frustrating.
For AoW, I'm working with a group of newbies, so the heavy dungeon crawl aspects of 3FoE were good training for them, but I'm going to go back to the "thinning" tactic starting with HoHR. At this point, our group meets once a week for about 3 hours, so my goal is going to be getting an adventure done in one or two sessions.
I would really like to see some details on your "thinned" versions of the later AoW adventures, Tiger Lily, if you can make them available somehow.
Thanks!
Removing some of the encounters is a must in my opinion. Otherwise, there are just too many battles. For example, I'm currently DMing HoHR and I've removed the following encounters:
-giant octopus
-2 of the 3 mimics
-the maze of mirrors (doppelgangers moved to Telakin's room)
-spirit naga
-vrock
-drow cleric (maybe)I will be removing nearly half the encounters in Gathering of Winds.
I guess it all depends on the group, but the Spirit Naga room was a great break from the dungeon crawl for my group. We probably spent almost an hour with talking to him and haggling over price for information. They even went back to him after the Drow to offer up the drow idol for more info. I'm glad that room was in there for my group.
I didn't have has nearly has many frustrations with my players at the amount of dungeon crawls. I DM for two 10+ years veterans, two 5 years players and a returning player (last time he played was 2nd edition).
I didn't have any comment on the focus on dungeon crawls, but I did supplement a lot of non-combat, non-xp oriented play. I role-played they gather infos, the bards musical performance at the inn, the clerics everyday routine at the shrine of Obab-Hai, their interactions with the neighbors the city watch, etc.
I know some of you only play 3-4 hours once per week and you like to maximize your "playing time", but our group has that exact same schedule and we had some session where no dices where thrown and no more that 4 hours in the game world went by. By spacing the actual crawl with a roll-light session goes a long way to making them more bearable if your players don't like it.
I'm curious to know if the DMs that are removing encounters are replacing them with different encounters, or just scrapping them all together. I know that for my group (which is pretty big at 6 players) had trouble meeting the level requirements for the later issues of the AP. I had to make up side adventures to ensure that they were the right level. I would be cautious about simply removing without replacing encounters, especially if your group is bigger and the XP they do receive is spread out over more players.
I have to agree with DM burnout - I'm just about there with the AP. We are about half way or more through issue #133 (the giants and dragons adventure) and it's all I can do to keep the game going. I'm wondering if maybe the AP aren't a little long - 6 to 8 issues might be a better size. Another thing that I noticed is that much of the fun has left the game now that the party is at 18th level. Combat takes forever with 6 players and the games have dragged into long combat-fests with little else happening for a session. I like the AP though, the story line is great, but I'm starting to think I won't make it to the end.
I havent reached that module yet, and our characters are 17th level. Combat slows to a crawl, but thats not a fault of the module, its a fault with the D&D game system.
If anyone can come up with a better game mechanic through varying levels of play, you'll be rich.
Yeah I play in the SCAP and we are at 15th level. Once we hit about level 13 or14 things just started to be more of number crunching exercise than anything else. Maybe they should make the adventure paths have an ending somewhere between level 12 and 14 with an optional continuation end for the rest of the levels to 20. The current APs don't give a good stopping place until it is completely over.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who's games slow to a crawl past 12th level or so. I know my players get frustrated with it and so do I.
I'm sure it's hard to design a full fledged adventure once you hit these high levels. It seems more likely the PC's are cleaning up any loose ends with BBEG's than making any headway into a new event. I have yet to take a group higher than 18th in 3.0 (we only ever got to 15th in 2nd ed.)...
James: I have to agree with you concerning this AP, & for that matter, 3.5 in general.
The other posts on here are correct regarding our responsbility as the DMs to make it rich & exciting for our players, however, for all the great plotlines this is basically an awfully lot of dungeon crawls & what we ole timers use to term "hack & slash."
I'm taking a hiatus from DMing & am playing, mainly to learn more of 3.5 (which, if we're being honest, sure does focus an awfully lot on battle & minis), & we're just finishing the first adventure in the Cairn & I'm already bored, which bodes poorly for the future adventures:) Seriously though, the way the thing is set up, there really isn't much motivation for critically thinking PCs to go trouncing off to investigate the Whispering Cairn other than the usual rumors, get rich, bwah, bwah, bwah, sort of plotline.
I'm trying everything I can think of to get into it as a character & even connected myself to Allustan as a potential apprentice or student, & still, the only reason we are there is cause he thinks something may be going on. Yawn. Our players repeatedly ask ourselves why we're here, what we're doing, etc.
Now, that means that our DM has dropped the ball a bit as well, though I'm stumped how he can salvage this if this is the AP. I read these posts & it appears that there are a ton of dungeon crawls ahead of us (double yawn).
I guess it boils down to different strokes & all that. I'm not in any way burned out & haven't played that much for a long time, so that's not the reason. I only write this extensive rant (if you will) cause I want you to know that you're not the only one.
Have you ever noticed how often the letters in Dungeon concern dungeon crawls & how much many players seem to love 'em? I have to wonder about that. Once in a while, yes, however, let's be honest: probably 2/3 of the adventures in this AP aren't much more, though some of 'em apparently rock, such as the comments made here concerning the arena & Redhand, etc., where there is more role playing.
Like everyone says, if you are burned out, take some time off & play another game, or pour yourself into your Saltmarsh setting, which sounds like it will be more fun, cause you're developing the plots & characters. Or play another system. It's a shame that you guys will probably split up after college, however, there are plenty of other players out there & you'll have another group before you know it.
BTW, I was going to purchase the hardbound of the AOWAP when (if) they issue it, however, I'm not so sure after actually playing in it...
PS: James, read some of the posts concerning level advancements & how quickly characters shoot up.
I agree with 'em that XPs & making levels in this AP is far too fast. Again, not trying to start a rant, just my personal tastes concerning balance.
We're already 2nd level PCs on our way to 3rd in just the first adventure! (Rolls eyes in disgust).
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I would really like to see some details on your "thinned" versions of the later AoW adventures, Tiger Lily, if you can make them available somehow.Thanks!
Other posters here have described some of the same strategies that I use: Grouping encounters (instead of 5 bad guys spread out over 3 rooms they're grouped in the last one... or have set an ambush), skipping rooms that aren't central (or, if you want to keep them for flavor, describing them without the party having to individually search every one), and changing the location of key items so the group finds them faster.
SPOILERS............
Right now, the group is in the lizard lair in EBK. They've fought through 2 of the lizard "living" rooms, the first group they killed had the infected lizardman in the group (even though it wasn't the right room for that), and while the way they are headed actually takes them through another two lairs I'm going to skip that and take them straight to the hostages.
They're going to find ALL the captives from the keep in the same room, and the information the Shaman was supposed to give them is instead going to be relayed by the Battle Mage (captors didn't realize she speaks their language. Between conversations they've had in front of her and accusations they've hurled at her about humans being responsible for the failure of their clutch years before, she knows there's more going on here than originally thought. She's the one that's going to push the group to find the current clutch).
She's also the one that's going to ask them to inform Elgios in the Free City (who I've made her mentor) of what they've learned, as well as taking two of the soldiers with them. Message needs to be sent to the city for reinforcements to come, but the Keep can't spare more than two and it's too dangerous for them to travel alone. Also gets the group inside the city walls faster, though I'll be describing to them the long line and questioning tactics of the guards as they trot by and sail through the gates with the soldiers.
So... they'll be going straight from Blackwall Keep to the Free City, without going back to Diamond Lake, and with a more plausible reason then Allustan sending them to get info from Elgios, which winds up not being much more than they already know. With a well placed doppleganger spy at the Keep, the events that trigger HoHR still happen without a hitch.
And that's kinda how I do it. :)
I think it depends on how long your sessions are. Ours are 3-4 hours and honestly, it is hard to get a lot done in 3-4 hours in an adventure like HoHR. The story in AOW is incredibly cool, I just find you have to make sure the ratio of cool story to room hacking is right.
So, the players are excited because they have been cloned and kidnapped right? They escape the prison, COOL. They find their stuff, COOL! The battle some doppelgangers COOL. They find out there is a whole another level to this warehouse and another 2-3 hours of hacking... sigh.
A lot of times I will eliminate a room during the game, something can just be empty as long as its not plot related. Incidentally I thought the spirit naga was a cool encounter so I kept it in.
My big edit to HOHR was dropping the bottom floor and moving Telakin up to the top floor. I also didnt have the mind flayer attack them in Sodden Hold (thought it was a bit much). So after sodden hold they all went back to an inn, and then Zyrog attacked them and they were back on the trail. I didnt change Zyrogs Lair or Champions Belt very much at all...
I noticed that they were mostly just a series of very well written dungeon crawls as well. So I used the basic structure and added in my own subplots, intrigue, and mystery. Its very easy to do with such a well written backdrop to work with. Now everytime the party heads back in to town they can hardly wait. Not because they are sick of the dungeons, but because they have more pieces to plug into the big overall mystery puzzle.
Another thing I did is break up a bit of the dungeons. Some are pretty massive to handle in one foray, and the party retreating causes complications.
Spoiler ***********
For example in Hall of Harsh reflections, its a real drain to go through the sodden hold, then the dungeon below, and also throught the drow caves and into Zyrxog's lair. Break them up. Require a "key" to get from one to the next, and require the party to head to the surface and do some investigation before proceeding. That way when they leave one part to rest, it doesn't seem like your playing a bunch of bonehead enemies. Its tough to think the party invades a mindflayer lair or nest of dopplegangers, and then are allowed back into town to rest safely.
I'm also going to be cutting out a few encounters later on. Definatly in "a gathering of Winds" 3 Faces was too much of a drag on the group.
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Just as an anecdote, the spirit naga room went quite well for my group. Rather than money, the party's henchman, Keth, employed his Perform (gangster rap) skill in tandem with Brother Seamus' Perform (human beatbox) skill. The naga was impressed.
"Proper!", remarked the naga.
And he was right.
After our evening of frustration, I asked everyone to write down a list of the things they like about the game and would like to see more of in a future campaign. This week, assuming everyone can meet, we're starting a new game set in Saltmarsh (as detailed in the DMG2) focused more on investigation/NPC interaction broken up with some wilderness adventuring and short, active dungeons.
An excellent call on your part - finding out the problem is the way to figure out the solution. I'm lucky enough that one of my players is a GM as well, so I often discuss the previous sessions with him to focus on the areas that were good, bad, or ugly.
FWIW, my players despise dungeon crawls. Hate 'em with a passion - unless they've got a reason to be down there besides "get the phat lewt."
Although not currently playing AoW, I have decided to add a side trek to my SCAP game. That too is DC heavy.
I am also doing as someone mentioned above and injecting personal goals. The Touched in the Head Ranger is going to get a message from Adimarchus while the Fighter will have a long lost love turn up...(Triel Eldurast)
You guys have convinced me to keep the spirit naga, but knowing my PCs, they will probably just attack it.
I think a ratio of 2 dungeon crawling sessions to 1 roleplaying session will help stave off burnout. Personally, I prefer roleplaying to dungeon crawling, but in the interest of finishing this AP within the next decade I gotta keep things moving.
Just as an anecdote, the spirit naga room went quite well for my group. Rather than money, the party's henchman, Keth, employed his Perform (gangster rap) skill in tandem with Brother Seamus' Perform (human beatbox) skill. The naga was impressed.
"Proper!", remarked the naga.
And he was right.
This is quite possibly the funniest quote I've seen in ages. This belongs in a sig somewhere.
There is a little too much dungeon crawling in the Age of Worms, but that's what D&D does best, so it's not surprising. As a player I would recommend that DMs reduce the number of encounters, reduce the deus ex machina NPCs (such as Allustan), provide better motivation for the characters to be engaged in the storyline, and add more non-combat encounters like the Salamander Lord in Gathering of Winds.
Overall, this is my impression of dungeon crawling in each module:
1. WC - just right, though the filge sideline was a bit long and the owlbear quest seemed tacked-on.
2. 3FOE - too much hacking, but the tactical combat setup was interesting. We tried deception and trickery but the module didn't seem designed for it at all.
2. EBK - good mix of diplomacy and hacking, but not enough information to plan ahead.
3. HoHR - too much hacking. The Sodden Hold and Zyrxog's lair should be collapsed into one.
4. CB - fun arena combat but the dungeon exploration was too long, with too many red herrings (ghoul rooms). Took us forever to this finish this module, though it certainly made an impression.
5. GoW - way too long, should be half the size really, but some encounters were very neat. Too many constructs for sure, it became a joke. Seemed a bit nonsensical for a tomb, like an old-school Gary Gygax dungeon, but not in a good way.
6. SoLS - good mix of high-powered combat and some unusual encounters, but pretty straight-forward. Nothing to write home about and some of the combats could be collapsed into one big battle.
7. PoR - great fun, clever encounters but ultimately seemed a little contrived and pointless. We were hoping for a big climax at dinner but didn't get any payoff. Not sure if this was the module's intent.
8. LoLR - This is really two modules, it felt so long (one on the island the other in the pocket dimension). Liked the quests but some combats seemed pointless (why must we fight the wardens just because one is sulking?). Rival team would have benefited from better foreshadowing in earlier modules. As it was they seemed conjured out of thin air for the blatantly obvious purpose of fighting our party head-on. Not that we minded, but needs to be better integrated into the story, I think. Good mix of outdoors/dungeon adventuring.
That's as far as we've come. Unfortunately our DM did not use the Greyhawk City add-on (Bleak Row or something?) which would have been a good roleplaying interlude between all the hacking. I'd recommend using that. Just my opinion as a player, of course.
Here's my take on the adventures.
WC - Really good mix of combat, puzzles, and NPC interaction. Too deadly for 1st level PCs, but we all know that by now. I ditched the baby owlbear because it seemed like a huge hassle (for *my* group).
TFoE - Interesting combat environments but waay too long. I added in a challenge by Theldrick against the party's cleric of Heironeous. Definitely spiced things up.
EaBK - Too easy, but fun. Difficult to convince PCs to investigate the egg room/destroy the dragon egg. Spawn of Kyuss were good fun, especially since I used one message board poster's idea of having PCs play local guards at the keep encountering the spawn of kyuss.
HoHR - Too difficult and combat-heavy. I removed several encounters. This is as far as we have gotten.
CB - I will remove a few encounters, but keep mostly as-is.
GoW - I'm going to get rid of half the encounters. I'm also bumping up Ilthane's power so that the PCs will encounter her in the beginning of the adventure, but destroy her at the end.
SoLS - I'd like for there to be a way to redeem the angels. possibly an atonement spell will force them to see how far they have fallen...then the healing can begin :)
Just as an anecdote, the spirit naga room went quite well for my group. Rather than money, the party's henchman, Keth, employed his Perform (gangster rap) skill in tandem with Brother Seamus' Perform (human beatbox) skill. The naga was impressed.
"Proper!", remarked the naga.
And he was right.
Classic James, simply classic.
On a side note, as a budding D&D game designer writing non-linear adventures with very little in the way of dungeon crawls is extremely difficult to do. Writing crawl adventures is much easier. In following the framework of how XP is divided, dungeon crawls are also easier to write. Also, you have to make sure you are not alienating any given group of players. Most players are still fans of dungeon crawls, so they get written more than others. Finally, try writing an adventure for a group of players that you know nothing about and make it a non-linear, event-based, roleplaying-based, generally non-mapped adventure. when you don't know the players from a kettle of fish (whatever the hell that means) it's bloody difficult.
Just as an anecdote, the spirit naga room went quite well for my group. Rather than money, the party's henchman, Keth, employed his Perform (gangster rap) skill in tandem with Brother Seamus' Perform (human beatbox) skill. The naga was impressed.
"Proper!", remarked the naga.
And he was right.
Classic James, simply classic.
On a side note, as a budding D&D game designer writing non-linear adventures with very little in the way of dungeon crawls is extremely difficult to do. Writing crawl adventures is much easier. In following the framework of how XP is divided, dungeon crawls are also easier to write. Also, you have to make sure you are not alienating any given group of players. Most players are still fans of dungeon crawls, so they get written more than others. Finally, try writing an adventure for a group of players that you know nothing about and make it a non-linear, event-based, roleplaying-based, generally non-mapped adventure. when you don't know the players from a kettle of fish (whatever the hell that means) it's bloody difficult.
I'm actually working on a roleplaying heavy investigation adventure for these players in the next campaign and I agree that it can be difficult. I like the setup of Nicolas Logue's Chimes At Midnight adventure for this kind of thing, even if the last part is something of a "crawl". But the important thing about the crawl element was that the PCs had spent the entire adventure researching the NPCs they were going to fight. So there was already a connection.
Check out Call of Cthulu adventures from Chaosium as well. The bulk of the text for just about all of them relies on description, NPCs, mood, and research.
I'm actually going to run Call of Chthulu for my group later this year. But then they're my players, and I can be free with the way I set things up.
But the idea that every adventure was a dungeon crawl or at least had a lot of dungeon crawl elements really drained the old enthusiasm.
Hi James,
We just finished our first session of The Champion's Games tonight after a three month hiatus from the campaign (due to scheduling problems). While I admit there are a lot of dungeon-crawling elements to the game, that is what the game is about, at least to me and my group. I find that I really can't get into an adventure that isn't about, well, adventure. Marching into evil lairs and slaying evil beasts to take their stuff is what D&D is really about.
That said, we've had a great time roleplaying with that adventure. We played for about five hours tonight and only 1 hour of that was actual battle. The first hour we spent rehashing the campaign since some of my players were a bit fuzzy on details and I wanted to help them regain perspective. The next three hours were spent in various role-playing encounters that were loads of fun. The PCs roleplayed with Ekaym, asking him about various rules and planning out a team name. Then they went around town, using Gather Information and roleplaying to ask about the various gladiator teams that had enlisted in the event to learn useful information. After that they went shopping at Maldin and Elenderi's where they talked with the shopkeeper about various magical potents and put in an order for a monk's belt (whereupon they crossed their fingers, hoping it would arrive in time for the games, which I said were three days away). The dwarf fighter went down to the bath house and spruced himself up with some new clothes for the banquet and the human healer of Myhriss eventually decided to join him the day before. They all got dolled up in their various bits of finery and strolled into the Free Dinner looking like champs.
They booed and hissed at Auric when Loris Raknian introduced him (having had a not-so-friendly run-in with the defending champion and his adventurers previously), and listened in rapt attention as Loris briefly introduced the other teams. Ekaym moved about the banquet floor, keeping an eye on Loris and asking about other teams for the party. Meanwhile, the dwarf got the crazy idea in his head to draw a picture of Zyrxog's tentacled symbol on his plate and leave it not-so-discreetly on Loris Raknian's table. They all chuckled when they noticed Okoral lean over and whisper something into Raknian's ear, at which point the director of the arena simply nodded his head.
The PCs named their band the Champions of the Silver Horn after the healer's unicorn companion (the mascot of the group). I decided this would intrigue numerous provincial and wood-dwelling folk in the environs of the city of Greyhawk and so had the halfling mayor of Elmshire approach them, interested in learning whether they were worth betting on. A representative of Lord Lockswell of Gnarlwood also approached the group with similar interest and hinted that Lord Lockswell would be keeping a close eye on their matches. They spoke with Tirra at length about Auric's Warband and the mysterious constructs that Khellek had been working on, hoping to learn more about them. They gladly struck a deal with her and the Thieves' Guild, confident in their ability to win the Champion's Games and recover the hefty 7,500 gp pay-out.
The battle itself was rather fun, as it allowed the PCs to play out some tension that developed in the Coenoby earlier when Karrush had tried to put the moves on the party healer and druid (both female). They were deathly afraid of facing Arcane Auriga, after beating down Sapphire Squad, watching them deal over 100 points of damage in the first three rounds to Badlands Revenge. But in the end, a well-placed flame strike and some mop up cleared the field and they left the decided victors.
I've found most of our adventures thus far have involved a heavy bit of roleplaying at the beginning, followed by a few investigations and skirmishes, followed but a series of tough battles, like a dungeon-crawl. But it has always been a varied pace. I'd say we've spent no more than 30% of the time in this campaign in actual dungeon-crawl mode and probably at least 20% in hard-core roleplay mode. Maybe it just varies a lot with the group, but I haven't had much difficulty getting my PCs interested in at least some of the myriad NPCs and their intrigues in this campaign.
I think much in this AP is up to the DM. Over 2/3 of the text in most of the adventures is dedicated to "dungeon encounters," so it's easy to turn the campaign into a series of crawls. However, at least half the dungeon-focused adventures are set up so that diplomacy can significantly alter the outcome of the adventure, and in the others, a well-prepared DM can easily make room for alliances of convenience between the party and one faction of bad guys.
I think it also helps to run this campaign in a clearly defined setting, whether it be one of the standard campaign settings or one's own homebrew. Then one needs to do the background research (or world-building) to flesh out the possibilities for roleplaying in the non-crawl sections of the campaign. Diamond Lake and Alhaster are quite well developed in the campaign materials provided--but the DM needs to read the backdrops over a couple of times and get some ideas for what NPCs might play a significant role in the adventure, and how minor NPCs can contribute to the mood of desperation that pervades both of these places. The Free City is not quite as well developed, but this is easy to remedy with the aid of existing campaign setting material on the great metropolitan centers of Greyhawk, Waterdeep, Sharn, etc.
The crawl portions of the adventures are pretty intensive, but it should be fairly obvious which encounters are critical to the plot and which are superfluous. If your group is getting bogged down in the crawls, cut some superfluous encounters. To make up the xp, you can give story awards, or get rid of XP entirely and have everyone level up at appropriate times.
My group is going on a month hiatus because one player says he is sick of the other.
Hopefully this is a case of the summertime blues.
After reading all this I am not sure what the problem really is.
Would mesuring movement with a tape measure instead help?
What rules slow things down?
I noticed that they were mostly just a series of very well written dungeon crawls as well. So I used the basic structure and added in my own subplots, intrigue, and mystery. Its very easy to do with such a well written backdrop to work with. Now everytime the party heads back in to town they can hardly wait. Not because they are sick of the dungeons, but because they have more pieces to plug into the big overall mystery puzzle.
:) Skimming down dungeon crawling helps but adding intrigue and subplots is a great idea. It also makes sense that the party doesn't get halfway through the dungeon, return to town to rest, only to attack the very next day. That would only works against kobolds.
:) Skimming down dungeon crawling helps but adding intrigue and subplots is a great idea. It also makes sense that the party doesn't get halfway through the dungeon, return to town to rest, only to attack the very next day. That would only works against kobolds.
Indeed. My group decided to leave the sodden hold just before confronting Telakin, so when they came back, I had some nasty surprises for them.
Having skipped the mimics in the front room the first time, they were there now. Another Invisible stalker in the bridge room made that interesting, and then the finale of the sodden hold had Zyrxog open with a mind blast, leaving the way for Telakin and 2 drow minions to attempt to off the party.
2 turn combat, but it was pretty intense - telakin got off a fireball which nearly killed 3/4 characters, and the drow were hitting the rogue pretty hard.
I think they might have just learned the lesson that leaving the dungeon can be a really BAD idea...
Wow.
Having heard what so many of you think about "AoW" makes me wonder if my players are going to like it.
I ran WC for two different groups, one it killed outright, the others were pretty lucky and survived to get to TFoE.
(Unfortunately that group has been forced into semi-permanent hiatus.)
This month I am going to try again to start the AoW adventure path (and I'm setting it in Forgotten Realms BTW) but I'll start 'em off with TFoE, have them 'summoned' to Daggerford (where it's been established "off camera" they all met a few years ago, in the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR)) and they find a beautiful moon elf woman has called them to Daggerford. (This would be Ashemmi, the apprentice and lover of Semmenon, formerly of Darkhold.)
Anyway, she's the one that'll clue them into the sinister goings-on and recent corruption of the town they once knew.
(I'm hoping they'll go for the 'sneaking in' angle instead of rushing in where celestials fear to tread.) :P
About half of my players have often voiced dislike of Dungeon Crawls (and you're all right, AoW is 'crawl heavy, never realized it until hearing it from so many here.) So, I may take the suggestions of several here and shorten or "edit" lengthy boring parts. Keep 'em happy I say.
But I'm hoping as TFoE progresses and they get a glimpse of the bigger picture, that they'll want to get to the bottom of this "Ebon Triad" cult, and find out what is so important about these green segmented worms. :P
For WC, I've shortned the dungeon, using only the the false tomb, the Ulavant level, and the true tomb. I also spend some time developing the characters in Daggerford (Diamond Lake), knowing the locals, hating Balabar, etc.
For 3FOE, I removed most of the dungeon. The party only ventured in the Faceless One lair, than faced him and Theldrick (and later, the Aspect) all at once.
Now we're starting the Blackwall Keep, so far it hasn't changed.
I know TFoE is combat heavy, but the sneaking in part was great role-playing heavy in our campaign. The rogue talked with miners from the Dourstone Mines to learn about guards and all, then he bribed 5 of them to smuggle them inside the mine in carts. After that the half-orc barbarian and the bard did a good cop / bad cop routine to intimidate the miners into keeping their mouths shout and nailing back the plancks after they've gone inside...Great stuff!
They had some nice interactions with Theldrik and the Faceless One.
They finally exited the mines in broad daylight by intimidating the guards with the corpse of their cleric (see Obituaries: Theo), three unholy symbols and a case of goods with Smenks mark. They went straight to the garnison at dropped every once of evidence and the bard said :"You better do something, because justice will be done one way or the other." which was more than enough for the garnison to pay Ragnolin a visit...Smenk fled. He will resurface somewhere in the near future...probably in the Champion's Games and Prrince of Redhand.
It may be a long post to make my point, but the adventures are IMHO the backbone of the campaign...the action part only, all the drama and role-playing opportunaties are there, you just have to used them.
If you play the AP by the book and don't put "meat" around the bones I see how players can become bored.
yeah TFOE in truth was one of our most fun adventures after a few edits. I seperated the three cults to different parts of town (erythnul in a cave outside of town, and vecnas hidden in a room in hextors mine). I massaged things so the players knew they could rest. Also I edited vecnas labrynth to basically end once the idea got annoying, it was incredibly fun while it lasted though, but once it became apparent they were never going to make it I made them find the end!
I think the point is if you need something else, change it, the AP has been a 10 star base for my games, and a few edits are to be expected.
Also that spirit naga in HoHR was pretty interesting, my players decided to give him 3000 gp to bypass him. That little sentence in the description about a bribe really made for an interesting encounter!