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Okay, I have just started running the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP and this is my first ever published adventure I have ever run so I'm a little unfamiliar with using prepared material like this. Obviously the campaign has been designed with 4 players in mind, but as mentioned in the title, I have six players who want to play in the campaign and I'm not sure how to modify the AP so that it provides an adequate challenge and doesn't let my players become a rolling death-ball crashing through the adventures.
We had our first game last night and it didn't quite go as planned out in the book.
SPOILER WARNING
The players crashed in the front door of the Fishery, found and incapacitated all three of the minor bosses and most of the orphans in around 6 rounds. The scout then snuck down to the basement and they brutally murdered Lamm before he even had a chance to speak and then went their seperate ways. Now the scout wants to return the amulet that he looted to the queen and claim the reward for himself and let the rest of the party do what they want to do.
So any ideas about how I can A) modify the campaign a little to present more of a challenge, and B) get the campaign back on track?
Maybe the party meets up again to discuss their options? Have the party get caught with the amulet before its return. Heh-heh.
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Maybe the party meets up again to discuss their options? Have the party get caught with the amulet before its return. Heh-heh.
That would work, except they are all individuals with no real connection except for Lamm. As soon as the riot broke out after the assassination they all went their separate ways, satisfied that Lamm was dead. The only one who knows about the amulet is the scout. If he got arrested I'm not sure how the other 5 would get dragged into it.
Maybe the party meets up again to discuss their options? Have the party get caught with the amulet before its return. Heh-heh.That would work, except they are all individuals with no real connection except for Lamm. As soon as the riot broke out after the assassination they all went their separate ways, satisfied that Lamm was dead. The only one who knows about the amulet is the scout. If he got arrested I'm not sure how the other 5 would get dragged into it.
Cause he'd squeal on them trying to save his own neck? One possibility anyways.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Did they find
If they're not altruistic enough to go for that, then she could hint that heroes of Korvosa would likley be well regarded and rewarded. She could also point blank mention that they could return the necklace, leading the rest of the PCs turn to the scout and ask why he's holding out on them.
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Did they find ** spoiler omitted **? That should be enough to get them curious to find out what's going on with her and go to her house together I would think. You can then have her mention that Korvosa needs them during these dark times.
If they're not altruistic enough to go for that, then she could hint that heroes of Korvosa would likley be well regarded and rewarded. She could also point blank mention that they could return the necklace, leading the rest of the PCs turn to the scout and ask why he's holding out on them.
None of them found Zellara's head, although the scout is about to go to her home and find it empty, so maybe that'll spur something on his end. He also took her deck though. Can her illusions manifest from that deck to the other players? Or would that be too much of a stretch?
He also took her deck though. Can her illusions manifest from that deck to the other players? Or would that be too much of a stretch?
Brief background: I've played this portion of the first mod twice now. The second time I'm just along as a filler... aka Cleric... for a party of 4 total.
1) Both times we did it our party went back to the house to claim our reward, as Zellara is technically your quest giver. That much confuses me as to why your party just up and decided to not even return to her house even if they did make stops at the local pawn shop. I wouldn't give them experience for the encounter until they wrap things up by going back to said quest giver.
2) I don't know what EXACTLY the book says in reference to Zellara and the deck, but
After our game just last Sunday, we had a discussion on what EXACTLY Zellara manifesting from the deck was... we came to the conclusion that she is by far more than just a "Major Image" as that spell requires concentration and has no semblance of intelligence on its own. She is likely a benevolent(willing) form of "Soul Bind".
3) As others above hinted to, Zellara is likely the key to the problem. If the Scout refuses to co-operate I would have her haunt him, fatigue is a real pain in the butt. If he attempts to get rid of the deck, I would have it appear with another more cooperative party member and concentrate on the large portion of the party.
Playing the loner sneaky guy can be fun, but at what point are you preventing others from having fun? While it might be completely "In-Character"... your Scout is derailing your adventure(with those 2 items), he might need to be pulled to the side and have it explained why "out of character".
OR
You could just have him arrested on an anonymouse tip and hanged for treason to the crown. "So was that point buy or 4d6s keep the highest 3 rolls for my stats?"
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I am going to Spoiler this whole thing. As a 2 time DM of CoTCT as well as a 1 time Player of Edge of Anarchy I hope this advice will be quite helpful...
The first thing I would do is talk to the Player of the Scout (If he/she is approachable from a storyline/DM point of view). Find out what the intention there exactly are, and find out how far that player is willing to go down the loaner route. If it is a full tilt loaner character and the player is plain unwilling to bend then that character should suffer the most ignominious doom that any PC can...a character with no story/play time. Have the playereither roll up a replacement, or if they are a big enough pain, tell them cya...up to you.
If the scout is unwilling to rejoin the party then the Deck may have to reappear with someone it finds more "Suitable" to be a hero of Korvosa. Remember, the deck’s magic is tied to Zellara. If she chose poorly for a hero of Korvosa she can have the deck find itself in the possession of another character. Just write off the Brooch, it’s only real value is getting the party a job with Cressida Kroft, via the queen. Cressida is in the habit of employing Adventurer’s (It says so in her write up in Edge of Anarchy when discussing her willingness to work with the PC’s) Even if you have to choose 1 character and build a party around them it is doable, once you have the party together have an agent of Cressida’s ask if they would work for her. (Details are sketchy here because you know your group, I don’t) Either way she’ll want to hire the PC’s. If the group has no tie to the queen all the better for when the queen becomes a threat later they won’t have any qualms what so ever.
My bet is that you can build at least part of a party with the other PC’s. Who ever you feel would be amenable to rebuilding the party, have them get another message via card to meet at Zellara’s house. She will come in, just like she did before, but this time she will mention that she is dead…OR…here is another thought I just had…
You could have her ask the party to do her another favor…either develop your own mini side adventure that will wind up having the party find her head or this is what I would do. Have her Drop the name Rolth. He has wronged her, Rolth has taken her son’s body and defiled it and she must ask that the party find him and her son’s body. She doesn’t know where Rolth or her son are at the moment, but as soon as she can find out, or the PC’s do she will want to have them retrieve her son’s body. Easy enough to add her son’s body or (this is what I would do) her head amongst Rolth’s tidbits in the dead warren’s once the Party gets to that part.
If you write off the brooch you may want to increase the treasure found here and there by a like amount (roughly 1300gp’s if I remember without looking it up).
And one more thing…I would make sure that every PC that I was planning on having in the party from this point on give me 2 people that mean something to them or reasons that they love Korvosa more than life itself. (You may have to tell the players that it is time to hero up) Make sure you don’t have another problem with PC’s having no reason to do anything but what they want. No real hero is so selfish, only bad guys are. JMHO…
Good Luck
Oh, and Gary, can you move this thread to the Crimson Throne forum to avoid spoiler problems?
Good call, G.G.
SPOILER WARNING
The players crashed in the front door of the Fishery, found and incapacitated all three of the minor bosses and most of the orphans in around 6 rounds. The scout then snuck down to the basement and they brutally murdered Lamm before he even had a chance to speak and then went their seperate ways. Now the scout wants to return the amulet that he looted to the queen and claim the reward for himself and let the rest of the party do what they want to do.
So any ideas about how I can A) modify the campaign a little to present more of a challenge, and B) get the campaign back on track?
Let the players police themselves. Scout guy gets the contact with the queen and the contact with Cressida. Obviously, he can't do the missions himself, so he'll need the party. So then he'll need to explain things to his fellow players.
As for how to modify encounters, have you tried using this tool: http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm
That's for precision work. If you need to eyeball something on the fly, just add half again the number of mooks to an encounter. (At this level, it might be something like "add two goblins" but you get the gist of it.) Or give a class level or two or some monster HD to the monster.
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Thanks a lot everybody.
I think I might take your suggestion Brutesquad07 on running another mini side adventure before Cressida Kroft comes into play. That way they might have more of a reason to be sent to Kroft as a party, where now the Scout is the only one who would be sent to Cressida. I just need something to build the bond between the group so that they might actually think in-game, "Hey, you know the other guys might be good to have along on this one."
As for Zellara, I might just have her appear to one of the PC's who has the least viable reason to contact the others, the sorceror. If she can rope him back in with the others than they will probably stick together.
Oh and Roguerouge, thanks a bunch for that website, that's awesome.
Again, appreciate everyone's help.
You know, since this is an in-game problem causing you an out-of-game headache, you can always talk to your players and mention that it would be easier for you if they could find reasons for their characters to regroup. After all, you're all in it for the same reason: to run a great adventure series. There's no reason you, as DM, should have to be doing mental gymnastics to solve the problem if a group discussion might accomplish the same task more easily.
As someone who had a player who refused to EVER think out of character and come up with creative ways his character could work with the rest of the party as a team... my advice is to watch this player VERY carefully, and if he continues to run his characters like this, dump him.
Seriously.
It is not worth it gaming with someone that is going to selfishly ruin the fun for the rest of the party by running off and being the loner who is "only acting in character". Well, his character could very well be a complete jerk... and no one wants to be around a complete jerk. So, "in character" the rest of the party decides to leave him behind, and, since he has no character to play, what's the point of him coming to the game.
It's harsh, but some people just can't be cooperative.
I wouldn't worry to much about the six players rather than four. For my group of six, I just generally have them a level below where they are supposed to be - seems to work OK. In a battle with boss + minions, I might throw in an extra minion or two but that's the only adjustment I make.
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Thanks a lot everybody.
** spoiler omitted **
Oh and Roguerouge, thanks a bunch for that website, that's awesome.
Again, appreciate everyone's help.
Glad it works for you and hope it works in practice. As for the 6 players, I am running with 5 and for a short time had 7 in my first group, I just added a few mooks here and there and then when there were boss fights I have some times added a couple of mooks to help the bosses out. It is ultimately up to you, as you know your group and their playing style. There is nothing saying you can't adjust the XP to fit your group either. Keep the challenges up, but just give them more or less xp so they level at appropriate times. (Its a pain to keep track of but not to difficult) I know a few people have converted to a "You level when I tell you to level and don't worry about the xp" system. That isn't my flavor but if a lot of math becomes to painful you could switch to that.
I also have to agree with the post about the player of the scout. Don't know them personally, but I have seen the type. I suggest you think long and hard about the player, if this is a pattern. I have moved a few people along out of groups for similar patterns of behavior in the past and will probably do so again if it ever arises. I can tolerate a lot of things at my table, but an inability to work with the others is oddly one that I have never found an adequate solution for.
Good luck to you.
My various and sundry games have had problems with loners. Eventually, things reached the point where loners tended to die alone. Rather quickly and messily.
Players also need to meet you half-way. They need to understand that if they can't come up with at least part of a reason to work together, then there is no campaign.
Just have Zellara contact them all again and give a "storm on the horizon" speach.
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Thanks a bunch for the advice again. I think I may have found a way to get the scout involved with the party a bit more using Zellara's speeches, he's more apt to follow here advice then to do anything for the good of the city so that might work out; especially if she says something along the lines of "There's a storm on the horizon, and I see the threads of your fates tightly intertwined."
Everybody loves the Harrow deck, I think that's a such a great little device. Only problem is that one of the cards in the spread was The Betrayal, so that kind of put everyone on edge right away. :P I now have a party full of paranoid PC's, which admittedly can be a little sadistically fun for me.
Anyway, Session 2 is on for tonight, hopefully it all pulls back together. Wish me luck!
1) Both times we did it our party went back to the house to claim our reward, as Zellara is technically your quest giver. That much confuses me as to why your party just up and decided to not even return to her house even if they did make stops at the local pawn shop. I wouldn't give them experience for the encounter until they wrap things up by going back to said quest giver.
A bit of a necromantic spell cast on this post...
But bleh! I'd hate to be in your group. Just my personal opinion, no insult meant.
For the group I was in, most of us were against the revenge angle. My character, being a Calistria worshiping Varisian Rogue, was all for doing the dirty work without any reward - from Zellara. (Fun fact: Our group never even learned her name.) The fact it was a chance to get my character's hands on Lamm was all the reward he needed. (Campaign trait - Left for Dead.)
So, after "the deed," we were just fine not going back to her house. My character was curious to check in on her during the riots, and wanted to confirm his suspicions that it was her head.
Now, all that shared, I am playing the "sneaky loner" in my group. But I also made sure to imprint the personality trait of "fair trade" into him (shingle runner orphan), so the first thing he did once Lamm was dealt with (we fed him to Fiend, by the way) was to mentally catalog the loot and suggest how to disperse it.
It may be helpful--next game if not this one--to state clearly up front to the players that party cohesion is THEIR PROBLEM. It is very hard for a GM to make a party stick together, and some character conceptions make it practically impossible.
In particular, any player who wants to play the Reluctant Hero or the Sullen Loner should have to justify, to the group, exactly how he is going to make this work. This puts the responsibility squarely on the person in a position to do something about it. These conceptions are very tricky in a multi-player game, and the GM is not, in my view, obliged to do all the hard stuff for the player. GMing is hard enough already!
That said, the beginning of Crimson Throne is tricky, because the PCs are encouraged to have no connection except Lamm--and then he dies way too soon before any more connections can develop. You'll want to look for something else to draw the PCs in right away. For my group it was Cressida. She came across as sympathetic, interesting, and important, and this helped the PCs bond.
Mary
just wondering about the initial post - your playrs' characters killed or incapacitated the minor goons and the orphans ?
Am I reading this wrong or did they kil the enslaved and exploited street-urchins ? Because that might just open up soooo many doors of future trouble with zellara, wouldn't it ?
Otherwise they would have made a nice tool for a questioning by the Guard to establish some or all of the other characters' identity for some form of group re-union...