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Hi all,
I recently played Carnival of Tears with my players inside my Age of Worms campaign (Hollow can be fitted perfectly into Diamond Lake) and my players, taking the risk of dividing the party, managed to stop almost all of the butchering attractions.
They defeated the rider, freed Tessa and gained Namdrin's help... But after all, they witnessed the couple fall apart. What do you think they did? They started talking with both Namdrin and Tessa.
While the bard spoke with the shadowdancer at a table of the Feral Dog, in front of a cold beer, the paladin counseled Tessa, insisting on her past goodness and the strong of the feeling between her and Namdrin.
They managed to make the two talk to each other (thanks to a calm emotions too) in Allustan's garden, and though the two broke their relation, it happened in rather friendly way. There was a bit of crying, there were hugs and kisses... Namdrin left Tessa in Diamond Lake as a friend, while the girl decided to stay for a while in the chapel of Heironeous, helping with the chores.
The same happened with Crown of the KK. In the ending, we see most of the rescued children growing into big, big problems... Not in my campaign.
For example: they befriended Mikra's father, and he contacted them as soon as the boy started "acting strange". Thanks to their intervention, the boy was placed under Allustan's tutelage, along with Savram. They managed to avoid Kimi's mother attentions and the paladin reminded her of the duty of faithfulness to her husband. The same paladin grew into an example for Jurin (IMC he's Balabar Smenk's son), who decided to reject his father and join the church of Heironeous. Shortly before Carnival of Tears, the PCs managed to save Holin's sister from the brothel, and she and the boy were sent to Hommlet (one of the PC's hometown), where the boy could recover from his experience thanks to the newly-built hospital of Pelor (built by one of the player's old PC :-D).
Why did I say all of this? To show that true victories are not achieved just hacking your way through enemies... And to thank the good people at PAIZO for such an excellent occasion for good roleplay!
J
Good work staying...good, PCs!
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Jakoov, I wish more players were like yours- ie. actually acting like good guys. Too many people I've player with or DMed for have acted like a bunch of tiresome mercenary jerks.
Eric - I can't agree with you more. Seems like every time an NPC offers the party a reward amount the first statement out of the PCs mouths is "each?".
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where the boy could recover from his experience thanks to the newly-built hospital of Pelor (built by one of the player's old PC :-D).
I especially like it when you can pull in something from an old campaign. It makes the world seem really nice and lived in. Even if it only links in a player or two, there is always room for a nostalgic warm-fuzzy.
Good job on your player and yourself!
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Jakoov, I wish more players were like yours- ie. actually acting like good guys. Too many people I've player with or DMed for have acted like a bunch of tiresome mercenary jerks.
Actually, some of my players still act as jerks... But good-natured ones.
One of them is the first saying "How much are you going to pay?" (much to the rage of the paladin), just to turn off any attempt at payment after the mission is done. ;-)I especially like it when you can pull in something from an old campaign. It makes the world seem really nice and lived in. Even if it only links in a player or two, there is always room for a nostalgic warm-fuzzy.
Ohhh... It's warm and fuzzy both for me AND the players. They especially like when I bring back one of the old PCs as NPC (though it's always hard for me: I'm always afraid of acting OOC...).
Good to see I wasn't the only one who thought the ending for Crown of KK would make a PC doubt if saving the children was in their best interest!
I also put together Diamond Lake and the Crown of the KK ... put Kimi ) as a recurring sidekick (they met her when they first came to the town -- she guided them in through all the spider webs -- (Attack of the Spider Eater made it into this compliation of favorite adventures, too). Mikra's parents turned out to be assassins that murdered one of the PCs in a former life, and why they were sent to the town to begin with (it's Deadwater in our campaign). Mikra developed this wild magic trait that diminishes or amplifies spells. Kreed's son became a changeling -- his mother is ghost elf, and Kreed is human -- so the Baron Kreed is convinced he is not his son, and is trying to kill him -- and is in league with the kobolds.
I took out Hollin altogether, and replaced him with an aranea soon-to-be hexblade named Jinx.
And with Diamond Lake came Filge, which is now the father of the wizard's son.
I have all of the kids intertwined in future adventures -- we'll make it through Whispering Cairn, but then we divert into a patchwork of pieces from other Dungeon articles, and a little of Bone Hill. Basically, it's all about being a small town barely worth saving, that keeps trying to self-fulfill prophecies of annihilation!
Yeah, I don't think you're going to see a lot of happy endings from the pen of darling nicky (Nicholas Logue).
I think that folks on the boards have accused him of a horrid childhood but he has claimed it was happy and normal.
So I wonder where and when it all went so terribly wrong?
Nothing wrong with putting a positive spin on things. Although it's an uphill battle with Carnival of Tears, what with the "burn rate" set up.
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Yeah, I don't think you're going to see a lot of happy endings from the pen of darling nicky (Nicholas Logue).
As I said, the unhappy ending is something the PCs can fix. I like this even more than the simple "happily ever after", since the players feels their role in the world goes beyond hacking the bad guy. ;-)