RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I love the setup for CotCT - far better than your standard "meet in a tavern" trope. I think the setup with Lamm and the PCs' connection to him is brilliant, and Nic Logue has really outdone himself.
But (and I apologize if this is posted elsewhere, I didn't see it anywhere else) - is anyone doing any prequel adventures to setup CotCT? I think it would be so much more powerful if early 1 on 1 adventures were done with the players where their characters were children/younger versions of themselves and had an adventure involving Gaedren.
This would build up their hate for him, and motivation to kill him or bring him to justice that much more.
So....any ideas? Anyone run any pre-adventures to really make the PCs hate him? Anyone put together an adventure where the PCs actually earn their traits in the player's guide? I think with the right backstory, Gaedran could be a really memorable low-level villain.
I love the setup for CotCT - far better than your standard "meet in a tavern" trope. I think the setup with Lamm and the PCs' connection to him is brilliant, and Nic Logue has really outdone himself.
But (and I apologize if this is posted elsewhere, I didn't see it anywhere else) - is anyone doing any prequel adventures to setup CotCT? I think it would be so much more powerful if early 1 on 1 adventures were done with the players where their characters were children/younger versions of themselves and had an adventure involving Gaedren.
This would build up their hate for him, and motivation to kill him or bring him to justice that much more.
So....any ideas? Anyone run any pre-adventures to really make the PCs hate him? Anyone put together an adventure where the PCs actually earn their traits in the player's guide? I think with the right backstory, Gaedran could be a really memorable low-level villain.
Whoa! A kids prequel would ROCK! It would make the encounter against Lamm all the more satisfying!
Intense!
If I ever play this AP, I will certainly add prequel sessions.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Hm..this thread is not getting a lot of love...so I'm guessing not a lot of people have tried this.
One formative thought I had, especially if you go the 1 on 1 prequel route, is to set up a mini-adventure where the PC is a child on a pickpocketing mission from Gaedren. They are sent with one of their childhood friends to complete the mission, the mission goes badly, and the friend is killed right before the PC's young eyes by Gaedren as "a lesson."
I guess the prequel you construct though really depends on the trait the particular player wants to pick for their character.
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I am about to start Edge of Anarchy myself and am trying organize a prequel where the charatcers are 0 level and gain the traits the hard way.Very nice.
What did you have in mind? Do all of the PCs know each other as children? Rough outline of the prequel's plot?
Only two in the party knew each other as kids. After much discussion, we all decided to use some of the children from D1: Crown of the Kobold King: Kimi Eavewalker and Savarm Vade.
We altered the backgrounds of these two to fit into Korvosa with Savarm's father becoming disgraced and booted out of the Acadame via Lamm's actions giving Vade the Family Honor trait and Kimi being orphaned after her mother's death and abandoned by her Elven father,Idris Eavewalker, a member of the Sable Company and was forced to work for Lamm. Kimi has the Tortured trait.
We are still working on fleshing the other two in the group.
It would be nice to set a prequel adventure against the background of Ileosa's arrival in the city. Her background says she arrived 4 years ago and almost immediately married the king. Have the PCS be about 13-14 and create their prequel adventure in this time frame.
My group is on it's third game of this adventure path. However, we have only actually played the quest as it was laid out one night. This is because the first game was a getting to know Korvosa night where I ran three mini adventures with premade npcs in various areas of Korvosa to better give the PC's a feel for the city and it's inhabitants. It also has the bonus of introducing certain NPC's and giving the players additional reasons to like/dislike them.
Here's an idea of how my three mini games went. I was able to introduce/forshadow a number of charaters, events, and locales which in turn will help my PC's when they are trying to decide how to spend their time in Korvosa.
The second game night was all back story. I usually take one entire evening with my group developing thier storylines and tying them to the game and area. This makes their characters really come to life and also adds a level of depth to them. Not to mention the PC's tend to be much more cautious with their characters lives as they have invested so much time in them.
Finally, On our third night we actually start game. What's great is that since the characters have so much to work with, last weeks game was awesome! The first three hours were spent in solid rolepaly just getting to know one another/feeling each other out. I love being able to just sit back and watch my PC's interact with one another without any DM intercession.
*****spoiler*****
I also wanted to share a quick highlight from that game. After recieving the message from Zellara to meet at her home at sunset I asked each player to write on a piece of paper Exactly what time they would arrive, (I said sunset was at 8 pm). Each player gave me their time and I then had them all leave the room. I put each enterace time in order and had the players come to the table in the order that they had wrote down. The first character to arrive, (the party's rogue), came in, looked around and since he was dirt poor (lived in the Bridgeport Shingles) saw that there was food and wine in the basket so he put it in his bag. He then tore the note on the table to take the line out about the food even being offered. However, since there is one word (The) on the note that was on the same line as the end of the previous sentence, he smudged it off with some water and tried to make it look like a smudge. However, at this point my second PC was brought into the room. So as not to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar, the rogue PC decided to pretend (without actually ever coming out and sayin it) that he was in fact the one that had invited everyone! When the other PC entered, the rogue PC looked up and said, "Oh I guess I won't need this then.", and put the note aside. When the other PC asked as to whether or not the rogue PC was responsible for the invitation he replied, "let's just wait until everyone gets here to discuss this." He then preceeded to greet everyone as they arrived and when Zallara finally showed up he even tryed to play off that he was her assistant! Again, it was great being able to just sit back and watch the show.
So I guess that's another way you could do it.
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It would be nice to set a prequel adventure against the background of Ileosa's arrival in the city. Her background says she arrived 4 years ago and almost immediately married the king. Have the PCS be about 13-14 and create their prequel adventure in this time frame.
I was thinking the same thing. Ileosa arrives with pomp and ceremony. A holiday is declared and the streets are packed with "ripe pickins" for good ol' Lamm. The PCs could be all orphans or not...many of the backgrounds involve "3rd party" involvement: lovers, children, etc. The adventure revolves around a "race" for the orphans to score loot, the winner getting a "special prize" from Lamm.
Encounters: Mean Dogs, Evading Hellknights, The "marks" (pickpocket targets) in the parade, a gang fight with another set of urchins over "territory".
PC stats: 1/2 starting HPS, no spellcasting, No feats except the "1st level feat" all PCs get. No class features. max 3 ranks in any one skill. Weapons up to 2gp in value, no armor.
The idea would be to set-up a betrayal. The Players would be told that they are tough street kids working for a "fence" named Lamm. He is a hard man, but life on the streets is hard and at least they have a place to sleep. The betrayal is when the winner tries to collects his "prize" only to find it is the grotesque attentions of Lamm's bed. As for the others, the are beaten within inches of their lives, or some other atrocity commensurate with the CoCT backgrounds.
Perhaps the non-orphans are "pals" of a sort...living with their parents but largely unsupervised and running with a bad crowd. Lamm might send a lackey to round up his kids. The lackey inadvertently kidnaps the others at the end of the adventure, killing their parents later to evade scrutiny, or killing a "girlfriend" of the PC who was also rounded up, etc.
Then you flash forward to the present and begin.
So....any ideas? Anyone run any pre-adventures to really make the PCs hate him? Anyone put together an adventure where the PCs actually earn their traits in the player's guide? I think with the right backstory, Gaedran could be a really memorable low-level villain.
wicked idea, will work on that for certain...
Great stuff, folks!
I had also come up with the idea of having the party leave the room, and arrive one at a time, but it had not occurred to me how to implement this idea, so I really appreciate it!
I don't intend to run CotCT until I have the whole thing in my grubby little hands, but I am definitely already working on how to implement things, and these ideas are fabulous!
Kudos!