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So I began Feast of Ravenmoor tonight with a table of five. There was no problem filling the table -- in fact, I had more requests for it than I was able to fill. I made it clear to players that they would have to be able to commit to four sessions in a row. Nobody batted an eye.
I'll comment more fully on how it all shook down after the module is done, but I have to voice my initial impressions on this one singular difference right now:
The last fourteen RPG sessions I have GM'd have all been PFS sessions, whether in-store or at Gencon. Especially as we don't begin our PFS sessions until about 6:15-6:30 and we have to be out of the store by 10:00 p.m., there has been significant time pressure to make sure the sessions are completed on time. Almost all of those sessions I have finished on time, but it was not until this evening that I recognized how much this Tyranny of the Clock had been influencing my experience during the game.
Suddenly, the pressure to finish was off and I RELAXED. We all did.
It made for a HUGE improvement in our game experience. That one change in the pace of the game and in the removal of that pressure was WAY more significant than I ever expected it to be. As a consequence, I think I had more fun running this than I've had running any PFS session, ever.
Just sayin'.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I ran Ravenmoor for some local PFS GMs and we had a blast. It's a great scenario. We ran it in two sessions, one normal length and one marathon 7 hour session. It was kind of cool because I was able to trick the paladin character into getting captured, something very role-play oriented that would likely have not gone over well in typical risk-averse society play.
I've found that the whole no risk aspect of modules makes for a bit different attitude with players, I like it. I'm of a mind to push for more of it in society play locally.
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I had a very positive experience with Feast At Ravenmoor. A very solid and fun module in my opinion, and I would run it again. Granted, it can go in some pretty unpredictable directions, but I like modules like that.
One thing I have started doing with modules is to do character introductions, and the handing out of the mission through play-by-post. This has resulted in the party really getting to know each other (which is good considering the amount of time the will be spending together), and saved time at the actual table considering all the introductions and what their mission is and their questions have already been handled. This is something I have really liked considering it has lead to some great roleplaying, and has saved time for the actual module.
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I've run this four times now and it was a great experience each time. The first was a slot-zero and an explorative game with other experienced GMs so it took a couple of days as I tried out various ideas. The second was its first public outing in Australia at Shadow Lodge convention in Sydney. I ran it over three slots and we finished a couple of hours early. The third and fourth were at PaizoConOz last weekend where I ran it twice over two slots and it worked very well. All the players loved it.
I'll post up my GM notes if you'd like, which break down how to run it over two 5-hour slots. However, I'm not a PG-13 GM, so I'll need to warn you that there may be some "reflavouring" of a mature nature in the spoilers.
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I've run this four times now and it was a great experience each time. The first was a slot-zero and an explorative game with other experienced GMs so it took a couple of days as I tried out various ideas. The second was its first public outing in Australia at Shadow Lodge convention in Sydney. I ran it over three slots and we finished a couple of hours early. The third and fourth were at PaizoConOz last weekend where I ran it twice over two slots and it worked very well. All the players loved it.
I'll post up my GM notes if you'd like, which break down how to run it over two 5-hour slots. However, I'm not a PG-13 GM, so I'll need to warn you that there may be some "reflavouring" of a mature nature in the spoilers.
I would love to see your notes, I'm running ravenmoor in three weeks for my store group
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I would love to see your notes, I'm running ravenmoor in three weeks for my store groupNo worries. I'll post them up within a few days.
Use the notes, I was a guinea pig for the slot-zero and ran it in parallel to Al's second and without those notes i would not have the beautiful memory of the look on the faces of my table of players at certain points.
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Use the notes, I was a guinea pig for the slot-zero and ran it in parallel to Al's second and without those notes i would not have the beautiful memory of the look on the faces of my table of players at certain points.I would love to see your notes, I'm running ravenmoor in three weeks for my store groupNo worries. I'll post them up within a few days.
Sounds good :) I've already started planning the layout for building the chenowitz place in 3d with the rooms slottable into the frame (Something I like to do with the centerpiece for all scenarios I run) while prepping first steps III, so I'd love to see some notes on that one.
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I'm running this next weekend as a marathon session, I'm glad to hear it only takes 7 hours or so, I have 12 hours slotted, so it will be great to finish early maybe.
I'm also planning to run it again split up for the players that couldn't make it to the marathon session, I'm hoping I can run it in two 4 hour slots.
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OK here are my notes for running Feast of Ravenmoor as a PFS scenario over two 5-hour sessions. If you're going to play this module, these notes will just spoil it for you, so don't read them until afterwards! If you're going to GM this module, I hope you find them useful and I'd be interested to hear your feedback and suggestions. Thanks, of course, to Brandon Hodge for the wonderful source material!
Rather than add the text here and have to format it all, I've included a link to my notes document. It isn't editable, but you can add comments at the document itself, or here in this thread, and I'll consider for inclusion. Here's the link.
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OK here are my notes for running Feast of Ravenmoor as a PFS scenario over two 5-hour sessions. If you're going to play this module, these notes will just spoil it for you, so don't read them until afterwards! If you're going to GM this module, I hope you find them useful and I'd be interested to hear your feedback and suggestions. Thanks, of course, to Brandon Hodge for the wonderful source material!
** spoiler omitted **
Wow, just cracked this open, this is amazing stuff. Thank you so much!
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OK here are my notes for running Feast of Ravenmoor as a PFS scenario over two 5-hour sessions. If you're going to play this module, these notes will just spoil it for you, so don't read them until afterwards! If you're going to GM this module, I hope you find them useful and I'd be interested to hear your feedback and suggestions. Thanks, of course, to Brandon Hodge for the wonderful source material!
** spoiler omitted **
Thank you so much for these notes! They way out shadow the ones I did and will be incorporating much of your work into my session. Because I have more time to run mine than you did I have added some more things as well.
First, you and I have almost the exact same ideas for why the PC's are in Magnimar in the first place. Which is awesome.
Travel from Magnimar to Ravenwood
I set this up as a three-ish encounter travel.
Part 1: Galduria, I had the exact same thing you did, someone knows something very little and it's a high check to find it out.
Part 2: Riddleport, There's not much to find here either, but the PC's have the option to rest here, or continue on and camp on the road. If they continue on the road to Ravenwood it is difficult to navigate at night and I will ask for a DC 20 Survival check to stay on the right path. Really I just want to give them the opportunity to use their wayfinder's for something other than light :-)
If they get lost, they will be ambushed by wolves (3) well off the road.
If they travel during the day instead, the bogs are hot and invested with insects. The encounter is now in the bogs: Giant Ticks (3) and Stirges (2). I wanted the PC's to encounter violent Stirges before the Applesauce encounter, to make them even more weary of it. I also like the risk some of the PC's might end up diseased before arriving.
Part 3: Ravenmoor
If the PC's traveled at night and were ambushed by the wolves, then they will arrive in Ravenmoor on time an hour or two before noon. If they made their survival check, they will have an early morning encounter with the insects instead and also arrive on time.
If they left Riddleport in the morning and fought the insects, they won't make it in time to Ravenwood and will have to camp on the road anyway, which allows the wolves to ambush them if you want. Next morning they arrive in Ravenmoor on time.
Raven Fights
The PC's are allowed to participate in every event except this one during the festival. Unless they brought a Raven with them... but really, will that ever happen? I plan to allow the PC's to wager amongst themselves for this whatever they want. The villagers will not participate in gambling. I also want to give the PC's the opportunity to control the raven of their choice. (IE: Roll it's attacks). They will encounter the caged Ravens before the Festival and learn their names. They will then be allowed to choose one and I'll let them roll for that Raven during the competition. This will allow them to take a more active roll in the event than just watching me roll over and over again.
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Thank you so much for these notes! They way out shadow the ones I did and will be incorporating much of your work into my session. Because I have more time to run mine than you did I have added some more things as well.
My pleasure and I hope you find them useful. Regarding your additions:
Travel from Magnimar to Ravenwood
Do you have somewhere called Ravenwood near where you live, because you flip between Wood and Moor several times here! ;-)
In my first "playtest session", I also threw in an encounter with some wolves coming down out of the Fogscars, and also allowed my players Survival/Nature checks to find a natural insect repellant plant growing in the swamp.
Part 2: Are you getting confused about the location of Ravenmoor in Varisia? If the PCs set off from Magnimar and reach Riddleport, they've gone too far. Ravenmoor is on the Lampblack River east of the Churlwood.
Raven Fights: I'm not sure what actually stepping through the raven fights round by round will add to the game. There are 8 birds, and you choose 4 that won't win, and 4 that might. This allows you to just roll a d4 to decide which of the selected four possible winners wins the event and to be able to narrow the field down for people who take an interest in trying to assess the birds' chances.
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Thank you so much for these notes! They way out shadow the ones I did and will be incorporating much of your work into my session. Because I have more time to run mine than you did I have added some more things as well.My pleasure and I hope you find them useful. Regarding your additions:
** spoiler omitted **
I don't know why I keep calling it Ravenwood, my players keep calling me out on that as well. I'm not sure where it came from, but it's sure stuck in my head.
Yep, I have the geography all messed up, the text mentioned the road traveled to Riddleport, but checking the map, and reading the text more says the group has to abandon that road. I'll have to adjust it.
Just rolling a d4 for the Raven fights seems weak, considering the PC's get to do something and participate in the other events. Giving them control of a Raven lets them roll it's attacks and move it around the board and get into the spirit of things a bit more I think. I also plan to have only 1 victorious Raven, with winners of previous matches fighting again with their previous injuries intact. It will probably take a while (Although it only takes 3 hits to win the fight), but I think the group will have fun with it.
The festival events are my favorite part of this module so I want to extend their use and really engage the PC's, it's a prime example of what is different between a scenario and a module, we actually have time for some fun role play and unique events between the combat and investigations.
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Alistair,
I ran the scenario over two gaming sessions just this last week and drew heavily upon your notes. All I can say is "thank you so much" for helping to enhance my players' experience. I didn't use all your changes, but what I did use really added to the session. Where you recommend removing some encounters as well as your recommendations on how to run certain encounters (such as the feast and "seduction") were bang on.
Thank you!
WJ
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Alistair,
I ran the scenario over two gaming sessions just this last week and drew heavily upon your notes. All I can say is "thank you so much" for helping to enhance my players' experience. I didn't use all your changes, but what I did use really added to the session. Where you recommend removing some encounters as well as your recommendations on how to run certain encounters (such as the feast and "seduction") were bang on.
Thank you!
WJ
Hi Whiskey Jack,
I'm very happy to hear that the notes were useful for you!
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** spoiler omitted **
(sigh) Alas, no. The player suspected her the whole time and was uber-paranoid... insisting on peeking and keeping his hand on his sword... not to mention insisting on perception checks (of which he was mainly denied)... it kind of kills romance, y'know*.
But, it did add the correct level of tension (distraction?) that wouldn't have been there with a more *tame* version. The other players enjoyed it much more than the "target".
* Guys, if a gal wants you to close your eyes, the answer is usually "yes".. er, um... provided she isn't Chelish.
