| Spinkler |
[ WARNING: Minor Rise of the Runelords spoilers ahead ]
So my friends and I jumped into the beginner box a little while back and loved it. They're all quite a bit younger than I am and I've been wanting to play D&D for about 20 years and never found anyone who wanted to play until a little later in life. Anyhow, some very quick background on my experience, I played some Vampire: The Masquerade about 7-8 years ago as a player but unfortunately didn't play for long. I'm extremely experienced with CRPGs, and when we started playing Pathfinder I was very quickly elected as GM.
My players have been exceptionally patient as we all learn the game, and I feel like I'm picking it up very quickly. We all loved it so much that we jumped into the core rules quite fast deciding to try to slowly build on our beginner box knowledge. I very quickly began a second group with two other friends of mine who had finally found themselves a DM, and they again are patient, eager, and very experienced with CRPGs. Players from each group are making a significant effort to learn the rules in between play sessions and in doing so they've been asking me about some of the rules we're not using yet (like attacks of opportunity, which I just introduced last night). Mostly because of this we're moving ahead and picking new things up very quickly.
Well, with all of this I'm feeling a little bit left behind when delivering story. I've not had extensive experience as a *player* with tabletop RPGs, and so I'm always trying to step back and analyse how I deliver everything.
I made a near-regrettable mistake when after about 6 weeks of playing I jumped right into the Rise of the Runelords adventure path. I say near-regrettable because I don't regret it yet. I had no idea it was ideal to read the entire adventure path before starting it, and I'm having a very hard time catching up due to life being so busy for me lately. One group just finished the Glassworks (about 1/4 through the first book) and another group just started on Thistletop (about 1/2 way through the first book, I think). The story got extremely deep very quickly... For *ME*.
Sorry for the rambling, but this all finally leads me to my topic. I've been having trouble delivering the story at times. More specifically, I'm having trouble knowing when and how to (and if I should) deliver information to the players. I've been using NPCs to the best of my ability to help the players learn about the Runelords and Nualia to a degree, but that's the only ideal way I've really found. I don't know if adding to or revealing the game world will harm the campaign at all. (Maybe I've played too many CRPGs? :P)
I know the ideal situation would be if I could just simply catch up with my reading and get well ahead of them, but right now it isn't quite so easy. If anyone has any additional advice it would be most welcome.
Thanks for reading my lengthy post. :)
| Douglas Muir 406 |
1) Reading ahead is good. In fact, not only should you read the whole module, but in an AP you should always be at least one module ahead -- Burnt Offerings is connected to the next module, Skinsaw Murders.
2) Is your question "how much information should I release", or "how should I release this information"?
Doug M.
| Spinkler |
1) Reading ahead is good. In fact, not only should you read the whole module, but in an AP you should always be at least one module ahead -- Burnt Offerings is connected to the next module, Skinsaw Murders.
2) Is your question "how much information should I release", or "how should I release this information"?
Doing my best to catch up. :) I find it really hard to remember a lot of the details but I started to do far better when I started taking notes. Unfortunately my lack of time lately isn't helping there, either.
I'm really seeking answers to both of those questions, but I'm slowly getting the hang of how much information I should release, although it becomes really tricky to know what the *characters* should know. This seems to constantly flow into how I should release the information - if I knew HOW the characters encounter the information I'd have a much better sense of when they're meant to find out certain things. I completely understand that there are so many different sources of information but my lack of experience really doesn't help, I'm sure that will come with time.
Week after week I become exceedingly more paranoid that I'll break something later in the campaign that I don't know about yet, again likely due to lack of experience.
| saundby |
Using NPCs is good when information may be invalidated later--the info is just what the NPC understands to be the case. For general information about the setting or background, you can reveal it when you think they know it as "what your character knows is..." or "your character has heard..."
Basically, if you're not entirely sure whether something's going to come along and undermine their trust later, express it as "good enough to get on with" information. So long as you're not actively misleading, your players aren't likely to have a problem with that.
| Douglas Muir 406 |
Also, remember that NPCs can lie. And some NPCs /should/ lie.
In the case of Burnt Offerings, there's a complex backstory. Some of this (Naulia's story) should come out by the adventure's end, while some (the true story of the Runelords) should not.
Incidentally, foreshadowing Nualia makes her a better boss, as does giving her a good rant before the PCs take her down.
Doug M.
| Spinkler |
This is exciting news for me, because the cleric in our party has been inquiring further about certain things in the story, making the appropriate skill checks, and I've had a chance to slowly piece together Nualia's back story for them and it seems to really be getting them engaged... This has given me some more confidence and you've helped to settle my paranoia quite a bit, thank you both for the advice.
I've unfortunately also been having trouble taking some of the lore in because of the way it's presented. While not exactly "wiki-like" I feel the text reads more like a wiki or encyclopedia than a novel and while I understand completely that this is by design it's making it a touch more difficult for me. I wish I could really read this stuff in bed easily but I find that when I'm taking notes, which I don't really want to do in bed, it's of course really working much better.
| Douglas Muir 406 |
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Some thoughts on Nualia. (Mild spoilers for Burnt Offerings follow.)
Backstory as written: Nualia lost her baby because of the influence of the Runewell. It turned out to have been horribly deformed because of the influence of the temple of Lamashtu.
That's okay, but it deprives Nualia of agency. She's just the victim of various evil influences. Realistic enough -- it's the magical world equivalent of getting pregnant on top of a secret toxic waste site -- but it doesn't add to the story.
Alternate line: it's canon that foolish women sometimes pray to the Mother of Monsters for an easy birth -- prayers which are always answered, but with horrible side effects. So, let's say that Nualia's mother died in childbirth, and that Nualia knew this. Say further that Nualia, a shy and bookish girl, read all the books on religion in the temple library, and so was familiar with the "Lamashtu grants safe and easy childbirth BUT FOR A HORRIBLE PRICE SO IT'S A BAD IDEA, DON'T DO THIS" thing.
Now: young Nualia is pregnant and alone, so very alone. Her lover has spurned her, her father has locked her away and is being a complete jackass, she can't go out in public. So she's reading that passage, over and over.. Yes, the book says it always turns out badly, but the book also says that worshippers of Desna are kindly and forgiving, and we know just how true that is, don't we. And then the Runewell opens. And Nualia, filled with sudden rage, sends an incoherent prayer, full of fear and pain and anger, anger, anger, to the Mother of Monsters. And of course it is answered...
Possible spinoffs:
-- the child, though born early and deformed, is alive. Her father had it taken away, and that's where Nualia's mind snapped. Current whereabouts of the child (it would be around five years old) are unknown. DMs can pick up this plot thread, or not. "Not" is fine, really. (Putting kids into a D&D game can get complicated!) But note that this plays off themes that are developed later in the path -- horrible family secrets (Skinsaw Murders), congenital deformity (Hook Mountain).
-- from Nualia's insane POV, the Mother totally kept her end of the bargain. It's her father and the hypocritical burghers of Sandpoint who betrayed her.
-- the Lamashtu cult aspect isn't played up in the module, but IMO it could add a lot of flavor. Have a PC make a Perception check to notice a funny little bit of grafitti, a three-eyed jackal thing scrawled on a wall somewhere. Then have a conversation with the priest who gets very upset; the cult of Lamashtu is horrible and evil, but it's very persistent because of the whole safe childbirth thing, so let's hope this is someone's sick idea of a joke, my friends! A joke in very poor taste. Leave it at that and let the PCs start drawing connections.
Then, Father Tobyn, Nualia's father. As written, his bones get dug up by Tsuto, offstage. Tsuto then delivers them to Nualia who burns them, offstage.
Seems like a bit more could be done here.
How about turning him into a burning skeleton? Skeleton because that's all that's left after five years, and burning because of how he died, yeah? Put it anywhere in Thistletop (where the goblins will be in awe and terror of it) or use it to attack the town (where someone may notice that it has a distinctive fracture, right where Father Tobyn broke his leg a few years before he died). Or put it in the final fight with Nualia, if you think the PCs are up to it -- she can have some insane conversation with it ("Are you proud of me NOW, Daddy? Am I FINALLY GOOD ENOUGH?!?") in between trying to pulp the PCs.
(A burning skeleton is only CR 1/2, but if you apply the advanced template it jumps to CR 2 -- I have one around someplace, if you're interested.)
As for doling out information: the Late Unpleasantness is still very much in the air. If the PCs are evolving into the Heroes of Sandpoint, then have NPCs talk about Father Tobyn, who was the town's last protector -- a retired adventurer, fearless and steadfast. Maybe a bit stern and unforgiving, especially for a priest of Desna, but a true hero nonetheless. Such a shame about him and his beautiful daughter -- everyone loved Nualia!
cheers,
Doug M.
| Spinkler |
Wow, Doug, those suggestions are amazing! I especially love the idea of having Tobyn in the final fight with Nualia!
I can use Combat Manager to advance monster levels, that's no problem. Thank you so much for the ideas, you've also managed to highlight exactly how flexible the stories can be for me.
I've *really* been enjoying being the DM, and now I'm looking forward to our next session even more. :)