Hey gang,
I'm not very close to having to run it yet, but I'm not personally of the opinion that running what amounts to little more than staged combats in the open are all that much fun. In that vein, do any of you have suggestions for adventures that could take the place of the Champion's Belt adventure? I can easily throw in the campaign-forwarding aspects in another adventure (just by making the head of the Arena into the lead villain for the adventure).
Has anyone else thought of this? While I recognize that putting the party into the Arena allows for some unique fights and the backstory going between the fights might make for something more than "Okay, you enter the arena. Here are your enemies." *assumes the Mortal Kombat voice* "FIGHT!" - that's still basically what it is...
Syrinx
If I recall, the PCs don't HAVE to fight in the games. They could infiltrate the arena and enter Bozal's chambers without participating in the games, so do that.
It might be interesting having one or two of the teams (like Pitch Blade) attack the PCs while they investigate.
Since I was going to run this one in the Realms, if I every have the chance and they get that high of level, my idea was to make the Champion's Games into a tournament instead of a gladitorial fight. Somehow I pictured that more easily when it comes to Waterdeep and the Fields of Triumph.
You could set up jousting, wrestling, or archery contests instead of just set combat matches.
You could set up jousting, wrestling, or archery contests instead of just set combat matches.
Yes! I plan on doing the same thing. The Free City arena seems like something a bit more brutal than what would be found in Waterdeep's Field of Triumph. A few days of games might be in order, allowing PCs to test themselves in ways other than life-or-death battles.
Dungeon #132's Campaign Workbook article "To the Games!" has some great material for doing that very thing. Events like archery, running races, spear throwing, weightlifting, and tug-o-war can add a certain festival quality that I think is lacking in the bloody gladiator matches in Champion's Belt.
Don't get me wrong, I think Champion's Belt is one of the best modules of 2005. The additional info in issue 132 makes everything click. ;) The Campaign Workbook articles are fantastic resources that can spice up any campaign. Short and sweet, and always useful on some level.
I think this is a pretty legitimate concern for a lot of people. However, rather than substituting the whole adventure, I'd like to offer an alternative suggestion. Now, let me preface this by saying that my players were already enamoured with with idea of being the winners of the Champions Games in the first place, and maybe had a bit of predisposition to gladiatorial combat.
I added a bit more to the arena fights to keep the players focused on their investigation of Raknian. For example, one thing I did was set up one of the two dwarves in the second round of combat as a "trap" for one of the party members. As they slugged it out, the dwarf kept fighting and wouldn't surrender, forcing the player to try and knock him unconscious or kill him. However, I had Raknian hire an illusionist who sat in the stands and had a readied action to cast an illusion when a member of the party attacked one of the two dwarves with what looked like an incapacitating or killing blow. In this particular case, the party's warlock fired off an eldritch blast at the still-fighting dwarf, but the illusion went off, making it look like the dwarf surrendered and then the warlock killed him. To sum up, basically this led to the warlock being disquialified, the party having to prove he did nothing wrong, and then the party being really paranoid during the following rounds of the tournament.
Basically, you can add a little intrigue to each round...maybe have Raknian booby trap the arena to spill out a big crowd of spectators into harm's way during the froghemoth fight, or have archers with greater invisibility cast on them firing from the sides of the arena. Those are just a few ideas I used to spice things up.
If you really are determined to swap out the whole adventure, try "And Madness Followed" from Dungeon #134. It is the appropriate level, is already pretty creepy, and allows for easy modification to make it AoW-appropriate. I am planning to use it as a side adventure before CB.
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Since I was going to run this one in the Realms, if I every have the chance and they get that high of level, my idea was to make the Champion's Games into a tournament instead of a gladitorial fight. Somehow I pictured that more easily when it comes to Waterdeep and the Fields of Triumph.
You could set up jousting, wrestling, or archery contests instead of just set combat matches.
I'm going to try and find the link, but Eric Boyd also mentioned at Candlekeep that if you wanted to have "monster fighting" as part of the games, it would still make sense, and you could have a gate leading to UnderMountain that lets out various nasty things for the combatants to fight as well.
He also pointed out that in a "tournament" style adventure the individual champions would likely have patrons among the noble families of Waterdeep.
The latest Dungeon (the anniv. issue) also has the Champions Games (or whatever) in it. I was planning on using a few of those at the pre-tourney dinner, as an annual event the big shots use to help decide who they want to bet on. Should also be a good opportunity to work up a little enmity between competing teams.