I poured over this board before starting AoW with my group, and I thought I knew everything I needed to, but I've hit a snag... things are taking too long. :-(
Admittedly some of it is my fault, and did a whole bunch or "pre-game" roleplaying with them to introduce the town and had them go to the abandoned office to fight the gobilns (they didn't get the hint to use it as a base of operations. sigh). I also had a mini dragon chess tournament to introduce the game, and Khellek from the rival group, as well as some of the mine manager politics.
Now they are crawling along through the whispering cairn! They almost died a couple of times (vs acid beetles and the mad Slasher, and against the door of smiling, blowing bad breath) and took three days (of in game time) to camp in a copse of trees nearby to recuperate.
They stopped at both the brown mold and the flooded level deciding they needed more info, so they went back to town (again) to talk to Allustan, who gave them a few scrolls to help out (Cone of Cold, Water breathing, and Flaming Hands).
I always like to inject little things here and there to add interest to the game, so when they were camping in the copse of trees thay saw a passing squad of soldiers on horseback one afternoon, and the next evening heard a moaning, shambling "something" out in the dark (spawn of kyuss). To keep the verisimilitude, when they returned to town there was a funeral going on for a man who (according to family, friends and the rumour mill) either encountered a zombie, or was drunk and met a bear in the dark.
Okay, now to the point. Even without my additions to the story, they are taking soooo long to get through this module, and I am afraid they will get bored, or that we will never finish the campaign! They STILL haven't figured out the lantern thing (much to my chagrin as I made fun of another group on these boards who didn't figure it out either).
I had originally made an NPC cleric to travel with them, through whom I could nudge things along, but we had another player join who took him over.
How do I get them through this adventure? They keep coming to things and saying "this is too hard, let's go back to town."
These aren't new players, these are people who have been playing ten to fifteen years!
Blarg.
Just cut some parts out...
Put the wind duke's tomb in one of the lower areas; forget about the lanterns, even skip the specter-boy... You have the power to get them where you want them to go (as long as they get the key items at the end).
Then, you can even write part of the story... Sort of narrate them through those long useless parts like outdoor travel, city shopping, or other activities. I use this alot in my campaign and it works great. You just have to write a paragraph or two before your next session and , voila, your group is where you want them to be (like at the start of an Indiana Jones movie).
Ultradan
I started my AoW campaign on 11/19/05 and so far have had 36 sessions. We have just finished A Gather of Winds and the players are in Diamond Lake getting ready to start traveling. I think it's going slow as well but the players are enjoying the campaign immensely so I'm not trying to rush them. I hear what your saying though, I think the problem your having is all the setup. It's not a bad thing, your bringing more life to Diamond Lake than I ever did which will make it all the more sweeter when you smash it later on and the players upset that their starting base of operations was hit hard by an enemy that they knew about and couldn't do anything about. If you find your players are getting bored with it then cut back on the background stuff and move back into the action as soon as possible. It really comes down to the players, if they love to roleplay and explorer the lore then give them more of that. If they are getting bored with it and just want to fight more, well give them that in bulk for a bit. I think you'll find they will go back and forth between combat / dungeon delving / and roleplaying irregularly. The trick is to recognize what they are looking for and adjust to it. Although sometimes there is not much you can do, like if they are exploring a dungeon with little background information and monsters in every room.
At very low levels the pc's are so fragile that 1 maybe two fights is all they have in them before they have rest for the day, and without a cleric that makes it even tougher and longer for them. Try adding in healing potions and scrolls that will keep them moving instead of trying to camp after every fight. The Whisper Cairn module took 6 sessions for my players to get through and that was without all the background build up or me adding in extra things that you have described. They also did not have a cleric in the party and had to rely on a favored soul to provide the healing. I've since augmented him with magic items to make him a better healer for the party and he has taken leadership which I have provided a cleric cohort to help the group with healing as they recognize that healing is one of their weakness at the moment.
P.S. My group of 20+ years experienced players never figured out the lantern thing earthier. :-/ go figure..
I poured over this board before starting AoW with my group, and I thought I knew everything I needed to, but I've hit a snag... things are taking too long. :-(
Admittedly some of it is my fault, and did a whole bunch or "pre-game" roleplaying with them to introduce the town and had them go to the abandoned office to fight the gobilns (they didn't get the hint to use it as a base of operations. sigh). I also had a mini dragon chess tournament to introduce the game, and Khellek from the rival group, as well as some of the mine manager politics.
Now they are crawling along through the whispering cairn! They almost died a couple of times (vs acid beetles and the mad Slasher, and against the door of smiling, blowing bad breath) and took three days (of in game time) to camp in a copse of trees nearby to recuperate.
They stopped at both the brown mold and the flooded level deciding they needed more info, so they went back to town (again) to talk to Allustan, who gave them a few scrolls to help out (Cone of Cold, Water breathing, and Flaming Hands).
I always like to inject little things here and there to add interest to the game, so when they were camping in the copse of trees thay saw a passing squad of soldiers on horseback one afternoon, and the next evening heard a moaning, shambling "something" out in the dark (spawn of kyuss). To keep the verisimilitude, when they returned to town there was a funeral going on for a man who (according to family, friends and the rumour mill) either encountered a zombie, or was drunk and met a bear in the dark.
Okay, now to the point. Even without my additions to the story, they are taking soooo long to get through this module, and I am afraid they will get bored, or that we will never finish the campaign! They STILL haven't figured out the lantern thing (much to my chagrin as I made fun of another group on these boards who didn't figure it out either).
I had originally made an NPC cleric to travel with them, through whom I could nudge things along, but we had...
My sympathies. Our game is going slow too (but I too like side treks and prep sessions). I think that's the way it is with the beast. We started playing in February 06. We just finished Three Faces of Evil and we play every other week. So that's something like 30-some sessions.
My best guess has us finishing in another 6 1/2 years.
As long as the players enjoy it, I'm for keeping it going. So far, attendance of the core group has been good, so I surmise they are enjoying it too.
30 game sessions to get through the first 2 adventures- Wow! That takes the cake for me as the slowest moving AOW campaign I've heard of thus far. Can anyone out there top that?
I just started running Savage Tide, and it is the first adventure path I've tried to run. We've only done one game session, but I'm hoping to finish There is no Honour in 4 game sessions. I'd like to do Bullywug gambit in 3.
One thing I do to help keep my games moving is to do some of the rping and mundane stuff though e-mail over the course of the week between game sessions. That way I can still have a little gaming fun over the week, and I can keep them excited about the game, and set them up to be ready to move onto the next important part of the adventure right away when we begin the next game session.
My sympathies. Our game is going slow too (but I too like side treks and prep sessions). I think that's the way it is with the beast. We started playing in February 06. We just finished Three Faces of Evil and we play every other week. So that's something like 30-some sessions.
My best guess has us finishing in another 6 1/2 years.
As long as the players enjoy it, I'm for keeping it going. So far, attendance of the core group has been good, so I surmise they are enjoying it too.
Hmm...
So is going slow really a problem? I mean if your throwing in all these little tid bits and such to bring the place to life its going to slow things down but it might make for a more intense game as well.
Ultimately speaking if the players spend 3 days outside the dungeon resting that does not have actually have to take any longer, in real time then, say, 30 seconds. 'Course you loose a lot of role playing and atmospheric opportunities if you speed the process along with "OK your all back at full hps and spells and such. There where no encounters. What do you want to do?".
In general if you don't offer good alternative distractions your players will probably end up in the tomb doing the adventure for lack of any more interesting alternatives. The more real time they spend in the tomb the further along they will get. If your unhappy with how things are going currently your best bet is to probably to adjust the amount of none-core role playing your doing. That's the time hog - just be cognoscente of what your giving up as the trade might not be worth it at your table.
Also your players are really starting to lean on NPCs in your game for help. Might want to cut back on that a bit. Might be good to have Allustan help out a bit for free every so often but your players should not look to him to solve all their problems. Part of the hold up may be that the players are shoping around for NPCs to step in and do their work for them. This, in itself, sucks up game time and its the sort of thing where the players are burning game time while barking up the wrong tree.
Our group started playing AoW on May 25th, 2006. We completed Part III of "The Hall of Harsh Reflections" last week. We have 8 players plus me, all male, ranging from early twenties to mid-thirties. We all work, and one drives two hours to get here. We play for 3 to 3.5 hours a week, every week with every fifth game session being something other than our regularly scheduled d20 AoW game. We've had 29 game sessions so far.
The fact is, twelve adventures are going to take a very long time to complete. Other factors play into that as well, including number of players, hours played per session, etc.
I've posted recently about some things we've done that speed up our game, including the elimination of experience points and using the Heal skill to recover some hit points.
It had been a long, long time since my players had played 1st level characters when we started this campaign. To keep from having to roll up new characters every session, I instituted "accident forgiveness" (like the insurance commercial) throughout the 1st level. If you died, you got raised automatically, for free, for the next game. Remember, we don't use experience points, so see my other post (Experience Free in the Age of Worms) about how we handle being raised.
Every now and then, when the PCs get stuck, I'll let them roll a Wisdom check (set the DC to whatever you want) to get some more hints. Maybe the lanterns need such.
We use the "red line" tactic from Indiana Jones for some travel. If there is nothing but random encounters to be had, we will often skip ahead with a bit of narrative from me.
In game, I use DM Genie on my laptop to handle everything regarding monsters and NPCs. I use Tact-Tiles and pre-draw map sections, when possible. All of our character sheets are maintained online, on my web space, so the players email me any changes, purchases and whatnot between games. None of that gets involved at the table, so we minimize time spent buying a new bundle of arrows. Plus, because sheets are printed fresh every week, you don't have three months' worth of Cheetos residue to try to read your stats through.
For my players, the pacing does not seem slow. They are doing as much as they ever did in my homebrew campaigns. However, for me, the pace can at times seem mind-numbing. But then, I've got every encounter they will ever have just calling for me to play them. I cannot wait for the party to fight Dragotha, but I have to remember it may be sometime in late 2008, early 2009 before that ever happens!
My group started AoW 12/2005, and now, after 26 sessions, we're just about to begin fighting the first round of the Champion's Games. As long as you're players are having fun, don't worry about how long it takes. But I can sympathize, because there have been times that I prepared material that I thought would take 4 hours to play, and it wound up taking more like 12!
Hmm... so I guess we're not that abnormal after all. So I guess what everyone is saying is, "good luck finishing this AP and getting to Savage Tide before you start collecting your pension."
To answer some of the points made:
NPCs/Allustan: I needed a hook to get the PCs to the Whispering Cairn. The one in the adventure is lame unless the PCs are destitute citizens of Diamond Lake. I don't like limiting PC creation too much. In order to get them to the WC, I had Allustan ask them to go. One of the PCs is a wizard, and apprentice to Allustan (as suggested in the magazine). Allustan asked him to take his friends to the abandoned mine office because he scryed a goblin shaman wearing an obsidian necklace. Turns out the obsidian necklace was made from one of the pieces of "black glass" from the destroyed portal in the WC, so Allustan sent them there. Because I can't use the cleric (my original NPC party member) to move things along, I need Allustan.
Non-story RPing: my group is made up of people who enjpy combat, but who like RPing just as much or more. One of the best compliments I ever received was from a player who said he felt like no matter what his character was doing, it felt like the rest of the (game) world was happening around him regardless, just like in real life. So, I may cut back a bit on the extraneous RPing, but they aren't complaining, so...
XP: I'm not using XP. I actually discussed this in a number of other threads already. In my preparation for the game I made a flow chart of the main encounters of WC and figured out the best places to level up. The PCs are level 2, and will hit level 3 when they complete the adventure (like it suggests). As for resurrection we haven't had that problem yet. However, I have never liked the idea that a player's next PC should start out penalized. IMO that discourages heroic action. If a DM tells me that throwing myself into the monster's maw to kill it (and sacrifice myself) will mean I have to play a PC with less XP, or a lower level, why would i do it? Each time I do something like that I am penalized, it makes the game less enjoyable. The only time I would penalize a player's _new_ PC, is if the previous dies because of a player's stupidity.
DM Genie: I have toyed with these DM utilities, and I like them in theory, but they aren't any good to me if they don't include non OGL stuff. Have I missed something? I do like the idea of having the PC sheets on my screen for quick editing. I have been using mini-PC cards in my DM binder to track stuff, but it has been a bit cumbersome.
Possible solutions: I think that rather than having Allustan just tell them what to do, I will leave another clue in the WC for how to by pass the lanterns. They have discovered some of the seeker's bodies so far, maybe I will have them find the ghoul's (what's his name?) "travel journal" with an entry about his thoughts on the lantern room.
Thanks for all the input, y'all. If anyone else has any ideas, pass them along.
It doesn't surprise me that these campaigns are running slow. If I had more time and was a full-time DM, I would have added tons of additional material.
I agree with others in the view that as long as the game is fun, I wouldn't worry about long-winded campaigns.
On the other hand, if you and your players want to speed things up a bit, then there might be some consessions to be made by everyone to make it happen.
The only problem I have with the game taking so long to complete, is that paizo and WoTC keep cranking out really great game material that I want to play, and there just aren't enough hours in the day!
I probably have enough material to run on for the next several decades, if I never bought another thing... but I *know* I'm going to buy the new Castle Greyhawk supermodule... and the DemonWeb Pits supermodule... etc., etc.
A quick update (which DMs getting ready to run AoW WC might find useful)
As mentioned in my first post of this thread, my players were taking a looong time, and didn't seem to be figuring out the lanterns in the sarcophagus room 9or even that they had missed finding one because they hadn't crawled to the back of the wolf den).
I had Allustan give them a scroll of Water Breathing to get them down into the flooded rooms so they could find one of the missing lanterns. For those of you worried that the Water Breathing would change the CR of the encounters to make it too easy for them to overcome, please understand that I am not awarding XP, I am leveling up the PCs at appropriate places. Also, there was a chance of failure for casting the scroll as the wizard casting it was only Wiz 1/Rog 1.
In order to get them to figure out the lanterns, I also had them find a scroll case with the possessions of Uluvant. The scroll case contained papers with Uluvants travelling journals. Sadly the scroll case was not _completely_ watertight, so only a few entries could still be read. In case you are having the same problem in your campaign, please feel free to add this scroll case to Uluvant; the contents are below. And if you _are_ awarding XP in your campaign, if you give your PCs a scroll of water breathing like I did, you might want to make the water elemental and the ghoul a bit harder.
Uluvant's water-soaked journals
1 "...and were probably crafted by expert artisans! Hopefully we will find _some_ remaining artefacts..."
2 "...wonderful mural showing a number of hallways with coloured lanterns. I wonder what it would have looked like with it was originally painted? We will see what..."
3 "...and a stone sarcophagus. The passages seem to correlate to the mural from the other room. Someone has placed an everburning torch in the green lantern..."
4 "...what looks to be quarters for the workers with stone beds. There is a statue here that looks rather menacing. Flesmir was wounded by a beetle of huge proportions. He is going to rest on one of the beds."
5 "...had a thought about the lanterns. There must be some reason for the different colours. When we go back up, I will have the men light all the lanterns. Corm has the red one with him, now we just need to find the indigo lantern."
Hmm... so I guess we're not that abnormal after all. So I guess what everyone is saying is, "good luck finishing this AP and getting to Savage Tide before you start collecting your pension."
It can be done in eight months to a year - say an average of about 3-4 sessions per adventure. But if you want that then you have to stick to the adventure and make the players stick to the adventure - probably with some kind of out of game verbal agreement that their characters are going to focus on the adventures and the adventures plot lines.
That means no wandering off on tangents regarding their own player character and dealing with NPCs only as necessary in terms of furthering the plot line and continuing with the adventure.
It certainly works and for a lot of groups your essentially making an agreement to keep the game focused on the action. I bet that this might be the best policy for many groups. Basically if the part of D&D you like the most is delving into dark places - killing horrible creatures - and taking their stuff, then this is nearly the ideal solution. A strong plot line to hang the adventure on and lots of cool places, cool monsters and ... uh, mundane treasure - did I mention cool monsters?
Really if one wants to do this thing in about a year then some background detail will have to be cut. For many that's a perfectly viable exchange.
On the other hand if role playing deep background characters in a truly authentic world is what your players are after and dungeon delving is what they do between these authentic encounters then one has to simply accept that this might take 2-3 years to finish. Just be sure you can hold your players attention for that long and you'll be fine.