Thanks to all those that understood my issue, and gave good input, ill leave this thread now
and to quote the bard.....
(and you DO NOT count).
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In a lot of ways SS works better as an evil campaign. I ran SS straight and running that and the rest with an evil party, much of the hack and slash more easily can be RP, and lot of the narrative makes more sense (spoilers ahead)
- ALL the castaways NPC are non-good, and most have dubious pasts
- All the factions are non-good, some are evil. For a good party, the Pathfinders are really the only option, considering Sargava are racists slavers even if they're nominally neutral. For an evil party, however, all the factions can be a good fit. Likewise, most of the Eleder NPCs are non-good or evil. The only good NPCs in Eleder are not part of the story and only mentioned in passing.
- The Freemen encoutner makes more sense if the Party is evil
Mostly however, Saventh-Yhi itself makes much more sense for an evil party
This pattern gets even more pronounces in the last books
Actually, the whole AP seems so stilted toward evil, I wonder if at some point during development the plan *was* to make this one "the evil PC's AP", but they changed their mind late in the process and quickly tweeked a couple things to keep it more in line to the non-evil PCs format
We managed to almost complete part three when my players got tired of the AP with the announcement of Carrion Crown and it sort of just ended.
The Good:
The exotic locale and monsters gave fantasy gaming a new spin and my players a few surprises.
The bad:
My players absolutely hated all the difficult terrain, disease and bad weather (which was kind of the point). In the end they told me that they thought it was boring and tedious so I had to tone it down. My players didn't seem to keen on the survival aspects of the Ap either, but they knew about that before they joined so that's their problem.
The factions are really poorly fleshed out. Some of them has little to do with the rest of the AP and can easily be skipped. In fact the entire faction thing can be skipped altogether, it would make the exploration of Saventh-yhi much easier both for the GM and the players.
Saventh-yhi got really repetitive really fast.It all went down to clearing one district at a time one encounter at a time. It became a grindfest and my players constantly wondered what all the other factions was doing while they went around killing everything in sight.
While we never got to play the last three parts they all looked like giant dungeoncrawls to me, and they all looked like just an endless combat feast. The main villains were mostly invisible until the very last part so the pc's had little reason to actually hate them.
All in all I'd rate this AP a 6/10, it had some great ideas and the first three adventures was really good. The exotic encounters and flavor of the Ap made it fresh and different.
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Saventh-yhi got really repetitive really fast.It all went down to clearing one district at a time one encounter at a time. It became a grindfest and my players constantly wondered what all the other factions was doing while they went around killing everything in sight.
Y'know, I sort of saw this coming. But to me, the solution was in hand: the other factions are not going to sit on their hands. Factions move in and take over districts of their own at the same time. I forsee the PCs only really engaging in 2 or 3 districts at the most (with one being an alliance with the serpent tribe in the artisan district if they play their cards right.)
I am planning on dropping hints directing them towards the districts I think sound the coolest. The rest of the districts will be taken by other factions. Then the action moves away from the repetitive "clear the hex", and more faction rivalry and diplomacy.
LOADED WITH SPOILERS
So far my group and I have been really enjoying this. Must admit that I had a good read through the threads for books 1 and 2 before starting them and that has been a great help. I would recommend it to any one looking at GMing this AP as you get to see the trouble spots that other groups ran into and possible solutions. Throw in the GM created resources and you can't go wrong.
Current Status: Nearing the end of book 2
Style (Sandbox v railroad): Book 1 (Sandbox), Book 2 (Railroad - mostly).
We've been playing since 2nd ed. D&D and have been pretty much seen it all and done it all. Sandbox campaigns rally suit us and tend to hate railroad dominated campaigns so I think we're naturally suited to this AP's style. I think the switch from Sandbox to railroad and then back to sandbox for book 3 is just right. Must admit that for a sandbox style game to work it requires players to actively to an interest in the game world so I could see how it would fall flat for combat focused groups - particularly optimizers and munchkins.
Setting and flavour: Jungle, survival (Lost), competing factions, mystery and exploration
I really loved book 1. It was almost perfect for my group and I think that was because it was something new for us. Starting out on the island and trying to figure out what happened and what to do next was a fresh change to the normal campaign kick off. Throw in the Lost flavour and my group really embraced it. I would have liked to have seen more done with the shipwrecks and play up the survivalist element - where the real treasure is finding basic gear. Some challenges that would be made easy by picking up things like block and tackle from shipwrecks would have been good. But I could see why its not in there as some groups would probably hate it and see it as a big hassel. Its an easy fix with a bit of creativity by the GM if you want it in your game.
Book 2's flavouring is very much in the setting and I think its such an interesting mix. I like the idea of competing factions and was looking forward to bring this to the game. Saddly its not really well supported in this book and to flesh it out I had to go looking for sources (book 3, wiki's, other books, etc). The factions needed more information to help the GM sell them to the group and how they would contribute to the expedition. Saventh Yhi is such a huge prize I would have thought that the factions would have been more active in trying to woo the group and spy on them. The start could really use some more work, particularly with how the factions would interact with the PCs to highlight their differences. I thought the factions were a flavour that was under used. Particularly given that the key to book 3 is setting up the expedition. GMs need more help/advice on how to sell the concept of an expedition and factional help.
Must also admit that I made the Sargavan Govt more likable by explaining to the group that the colonials did do some good for the Mwangi and not all were racist a-holes. I highlighted the economic pressure and hinted that it was one of the reasons why the colonials kept a tight control. I think this opened up the players willingness to engage in the game world and not just see it as a land of evil, full of exploitive colonials and oppression.
I'd also would have liked to see a bit more voodoo and primal magic flavour thrown into the mix. Aside from the grisled monkey head charm and gallow trees there really hasn't been that much. I added a bit when a PC died and the group was too far from Kalabuto. I had N'kechi offer to tap into ancient primal magic to bring the dead PC back to life. It worked out well and I think this AP could use a bit more.
NPCs & Villains: Ease of use and effectiveness/impact
Mostly pretty good. I read the book 1 thread and saw that many GMs had problems with the PCs not bonded with the NPCs due to the high DCs. I dropped the DCs by 5 and made the NPCs more helpful and everything worked well from there. Villains wise book 1 was good too with "Big Red", "The Witch" and the dear Varisian scholar having an impact on combats and ultimately being hated by my group.
I found Book 2's NPCs as not being as strong. N'kechi is really under used for what he's supposed to bring to the table. I threw in some diplomacy based encounters to make him more relevant. Other than that he's basically just a mobile low level healing shop. The same could be said for Cheiton (the dwarf in Kalabuto). I pretty much glossed over him as I struggled to see how he could make a meaningful contribtion that would justify the slog it was to get to him. My groups horses were killed off in REs on the way to Kalabuto so other than giving them a new set he didn't really have a meaningful way to contribute.
Faction wise I had to do a lot of outside research to bring that out in my NPCs. I threw in RE's with travelling merchants, priests, slavers, etc from the different factions for the group to decide whether to attack, talk or dodge. Puts some interesting choices on the PCs to bring their characters' personalities into the game and gives the factions a regular presence as well.
Beastaries and extra articles
Good. I could see some of the creatures being used down the track and in other games. The journal and articles were good to give me a feel for the region and how to get that across to my players. The Eledar one was probably the least useful as you don't spend much time there. I wonder if book 2 should have been all about being in Eledar with the PCs researching and mixing it up with the factions and the Brotherhood.
Playability/Difficulty to run:
I've been real surprised at some of the difficulties people seem to have with tracking things. I think as a DM you need to get a feel for the pacing of the game as each session should see the group making significant progress through the story/book. So if diseases have brought things to a grinding halt throw some help in there or take a break from the rolls for new diseases for a couple of sessions.
The links between books 1 and 2 could be a bit better with some tips on how to handle group secrecy. I don't think its too hard for experienced GMs to work around it, but if you're fairly new to being behind the screen I can see how it would be a bit tough.
The biggest difficulty I found was getting the group to accept the idea of needing a faction and an expedition. I really had to work hard to sell that with many thinking they could just shoot off there and just pick the best bits. "We don't need all the gold, just the best bits." was the mindset I had to work around and book 2 just doesn't contain enough help in selling the factions and expeditions to the PCs.
The same could be said for the PCs role of trailblazing. At first my PCs just took at a straight up race where they just shoot off ahead. I had to explain to them that they need to stay just ahead of the expedition as their role is to clear out threats and find ways around obstacles.
Encounters and Challenges: Variety and challenge to players
I thought some of the DCs for book 1 were crazy tough for such low level PCs. Particularly given the level of access to gear is limited to what they pick up. I dropped the climb and swim DCs down a bit to encourage my guys to move and explore. I also thought the shipwrecks could have used a bit more variety from zombies and skeletons [see Mixing up the Shipwrecks thread].
For book 2 I though there should have been some more non-combat encounters on the road. I really liked the travelling merchants with the cockfight and used travelling merchants as a regular RE. They're great to give information to set up encounters later on.
Overall
Its been good. I've had to tweak bits here and there, and gone off script a few times, but the core of it has been really good. My group really became attached to The Shiv and its a shame that there's no return to it.
I'd recommend books 1 & 2, but would also recommend that the GM have a good read over the threads for each book to get an idea of potential trouble spots and possible solutions. Its got a good flavour and setting to it. Not sure how the remaining books go, but I've had a read over book 3 and threads relating to it, that I think I can tweak it to make it work well for my group.
Random Encounters, and yes a nice summary and list of possible pitfalls.