Hi.
A question for those GMs who have already played thorugh the Skinsaw Murders.
Did you have any problem motivating your characters to go forward? I haven't started the adventure yet but knowing my players it could be hard for me to get them to travel to Magnimar after Aldern is deafeated. And if I get that far I'm not sure if they will even find the sawmill. And even if they get that far I just can't see enough reason for them to even bother going for the shadow clock.
It's a great adventure, I just feel the clues are a bit vague and lack a that bit of foreboding needed to bully my players going forward.
So, did any of you guys have these problems, and if so, how did you solve them?
I think the OP has a point and its not just the PCs refusing to be heroic.
They are going to have built up a relationship with the people of Sandpoint. Once they off the serial killer in Sandpoint their unlikely to want to abandon the town to head off to the big city. It just does not seem all that pressing. Let the big city people deal with the problem. Sandpoints not exactly safe after all there are goblins and worse out there.
I think the DM might want to add more to it indicating that the cult would still view Sandpoint as a target of some kind even if the immediate threat is taken care of.
Foxglove Manor is due to change ownership and become property of the cult in 20 years. Maybe it could be moved up or there could be more evidence in the manor that makes it clear that the cultists have nefarous long term intentions regarding Sandpoint even if the immediate issue has been dealt with.
|
I made sure that my PCs noticed the seven pointed rune in the Catacombs of wrath. They saw it on the statue, on the doors, and I even added it to the door of the spherical meditation room.
When they discover it on the bodies of the murder victims and hear of the same being on the bodies of victims in Magnimar, I am pretty sure their curiousity will compell them to investigate.
It helps that I made sure they each had a copy of the rune in their character folders.
|
I think I'm having this problem in my group as well. My players are kind of neglecting the details. For example in Foxglove Manor there is the room where the paintings on the wall show the previous owners of the house. One of my PCs said "okay I wipe off the cobwebs from one of the pictures". Cheering inside I eagerly described Kasanda Foxglove and prepared for the haunt when all the paintings are revealed. Instead what was the reaction of the group? "Okay let's move to the next room." Mmmmmmkay. So anyway they found the clue leading to Magnimar but I think they not quite "get it", though for me, Handout 2 could not be more revealing even if it would read in big red letters: "The next step of the adventure is in Magnimar, Foxglove Townhouse". Anyway what I'm going to do to get them rolling is when they get back to Sandpoint, Sheriff Hemlock would like a detailed briefing from them, explaining their progress with the murders. Obviously when Hemlock hears about the letter, he will immediately suggest that it would be good to tie up this loose end, so the clueless deputies should go check the Foxglove townhouse in Magnimar.
Thank you all. I think that the rune might save me, I'm almost at the end of Burnt Offerings and my players are allready showing a quirous amount of interest in the seven pointed star.
Oh, and by the way, the PCs are heroic, they just miss things now and again.
Anyway what I'm going to do to get them rolling is when they get back to Sandpoint, Sheriff Hemlock would like a detailed briefing from them, explaining their progress with the murders. Obviously when Hemlock hears about the letter, he will immediately suggest that it would be good to tie up this loose end, so the clueless deputies should go check the Foxglove townhouse in Magnimar.
Another way to go is, when they get back to Sandpoint they find a group of merchants have arrived from Magnimar, bringing tales of murders there. A little investigation reveals these Magnimarian murders also feature the Sihedron rune, and some happened at a time when Aldern was known to be elsewhere.
That might get them moving.
If your players are lazy about following up on the loose ends that are supposed to lead them along the adventure path, you end up having to put on your train engineer cap and roll them down the rails any way you can. Cue train whistle, Woo Woo!
So if they get it in their heads that they're going to stay within the Sandpoint Zip Code until the end of the campaign, you just have to find a way to get them to figure out they need to leave town sometimes.
If you get really desperate, you can always just break the fourth wall and say "look guys, you need to leave town!" Or you could just ignore the players and their Sandpoint antics and just sit and eat your pizza until they figure out that nothing will happen until they leave town.
One thing to keep in mind is that it's not always fair to assume that the players remember all of the things their characters know from their past or have noticed during the adventure. Let's face it, sometimes the characters are smarter than we are. I'm reasonbly clever, but I'm willing to admit that I'm not as smart as my 12th level gnome wizard with the 20 INT. I personally have a few ranks in "D&D rules", but I've also wasted a bunch of skill points on learning Excel and driving a car.
So what I do for my players is keep a list of everything they know in written form. If I think the player is forgetting something that would be obvious to the character in the game, I just remind them.
"You remember such and such, and you are worried it will lead to so and so. You decide to ask the other characters if they want to go to Magnimar and follow up."
I do not have the adventure before me, but i believe that the gp limit at Sandpoint may also limit their purchases. Shopping trip anyone? The need to upgrade their stuff would be a great way to have them in The Big City.