I was in a player in a previous attempted running of this adventure, but the group disbanded. Half of the group has rejoined and half are new players and now I'm running it. I'm looking for a few quick tips and some brainstorming on how to alter things so its "new" for even the old players. The previous game successfully completed the "all the world's meat section", but skipped most of it except for the boss because of some good planning.
Here are my objectives.
*Make Korvosa seem friendlier.
*Add a crapload of NPCs to talk to, I only have book 1 and I have ran Rise of the Runelords twice, is there an npc section in any of the books like in the first adventure? If so, which book?
*Significantly change the beginning, but keep the story on track. Notably the Old Fishery will have to change somehow, whether Gaedren Lamm is there or not. Its not like it was a secret location from the PC's so I need a twist.
*Add in additional little missions.
*Remove any time constraints from the adventure
So far I've made Zellara into the daughter of a murdered fortune teller, so the player's always have someone to come back and talk to.
Any ideas would help.
In regards to not making your thread suffer like mine, I'll give you some ideas.
*For a campaign guide, there's actually the Guide to Korvosa that helped me flesh out my game a lot.
*I made Korvosa seem less friendly in order to get the PCs into the feel of oppressive Korvosa and to get them ready to make some positive waves. Some of the PCs were especially mad about "vice taxes" since the party motto for this campaign is "As Good As Possible" after our all-neutral-leaning-evil Council of Thieves game... I used Hellknights a lot, especially Armigers, having them uphold law and order in the city via means of bossing around Varisians, Shoanti and other vagrants. I got some mileage out of having two PCs come across a Hellknight who was forcing a Varisian violinist to stop playing music because he didn't have a permit to play for tips. Good roleplaying.
*Some things I did were introduce the Red Mantis Assassins early (the bard in the party hid Neolandus Kalepopolis behind the counter under a silent image while the Red Mantis tossed the place), introduce Verik Vancaskerkin and Pilts Swastel early as well... one of my PCs is running an orphanage, so I got to introduce a lot of fun home-made NPCs that way. The Arkona family becomes a major player in the AP, so I made sure every PC knew that the Arkonas are the "untouchables" who run the city's crime underground basically. One of the PCs is playing a lawyer so he really wants to get out and kick their ass, so it's only fair that I let him and Glorio meet eachother soon... and of course, Glorio is far too much a gentleman to be anything but, well, a gentleman, but we'll see how it plays out.
*That's one thing that I find that makes the campaign feel much more smooth-- if you show the PCs what's happening in the background via the waves in the foreground (Hellknights searching the city for Neolandus Kalepopolis after he went missing, and then dropping that responsibility to quell the riots) then it makes the adventure feel a lot more organic when events come around.
*I turned Gaedren Lamm's fishery into a run-down orphanage in the docks district. He lived in the sewers with a badger, which was a lot more dangerous than I thought it'd be, so take that suggestion with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, playing up the baddies abusing the children was worth it when the PCs took revengeance on them.
*For Zellara, since the PCs knew that she was dead already and was a ghost in a harrow deck, I replaced her with Zellargo who had lost his wife, Erin, to Lamm, instead of Zellara who had lost her son, Eran. Worked out well. I also gave his Harrow deck telepathy 100ft. so that he can speak to the entire party at once if I have something to comment on as GM... this way, I can have an NPC with the party 100% of the time in case I want to do some witty banter or a hint or something. And I don't even have to play him in combat.
*The queen... I made sure that the PCs all saw and recognized her brooch since I know it's the leading cause of campaign derailment. When they gave it to her, she talked to the court of nobles in session around her instead of the PCs, and I made sure they knew. Some of them are pro-Illeosa still...
*For side missions, I'm unsure, as well as time constraints. Seven Days to the Grave and Escape from Old Korvosa both happen pretty quickly, so you can't really remove the time constraint from, say, the plague that kills in seven days. One thing I'd suggest is following James Jacob's timeline he put up for EoA and then letting the PCs judge the pace for the other two books. Like I said, they should go by pretty quickly if the PCs are interested at all in helping people.
Thanks for the quick reply, I'm going to try and read through the guide to korvosa.
Do you really think it would be better to portray Korvosa in a negative light? I've seen several comments that the city may seem "not worth saving".
I'll have to start paging through the rest of the adventures and see how that changes or if all of the nobles are corrupt. Is there a point where any positive political parties step up and help out?
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You know, you could have them going alongside the original PCs, maybe dealing with other aspects that they did not deal with. Or maybe they have to deal with repercussions that were the result of the previous PCs' involvement...
I have yet to run Edge of Anarchy, though I was thinking of using part of it as the in-between of Burnt Offerings and Skinsaw Murders. I was going to have them sent to Korvosa and they get a taste of Curse of the Crimson Throne.
Thanks for the quick reply, I'm going to try and read through the guide to korvosa.
Do you really think it would be better to portray Korvosa in a negative light? I've seen several comments that the city may seem "not worth saving".
I'll have to start paging through the rest of the adventures and see how that changes or if all of the nobles are corrupt. Is there a point where any positive political parties step up and help out?
People who think Korvosa isn't worth saving are IMO breaking the DM/player social agreement-- "This is an adventure path and if I am going to play in it I should generally go along with the theme of the game." Korvosa, the government and the nobles, is so far away from the PCs as peasants who work in the city itself that they shouldn't see the corruption in the monarchy and in the nobility and think "Oh, we should abandon the city entirely" -- they should see the people struggling under the hands of the evil organizations in the city and the people suffering under Illeosa's rule and want to help them.
As for positive political parties... The Church of Abadar and Ishani Dhatri, Cressidia Kroft and Vencarlo Orisini. The Korvosan Guard is working for the good of all of Korvosa, and they begin to be phased out for the Gray Maidens. Vencarlo is chaotic good and working to help people-- directly and indirectly ;), and Ishani Dhatri does what he can to save as many people he can. All together, the heroes have few allies but the city itself isn't completely against them to begin with.
The players themselves in my game are _very_ integrated with the world around them. Each one of them has a location where they are cemented, with allies I've custom-made for them. They have a stake to lose if Korvosa capsizes, so they're fighting to keep Korvosa alive. Your PCs should have something to fight for too if you want them to go out of their way to be good people.
