hi everyone
first of all im not sure if this is the right sub forum so it its not, prease correct my mistake
ok the thing is, our party is lvl 11 and about to finish the stone giant fortress but so far, trying to recall all that happened so far, i cant find a connection, i mean the whole campaign seems to be like "you are there and something happens, you don`t know why, or who was behind, just go and solve it"
SPOILER ALERT
we just saw an aasimar going crazy and her party, a deathcult sponsored by a lamia, some , haunted houses, and then ogres ogres and ogres (plus the stone giants now) all that connects them is the sihedron rune and lamashtu, so, i dont really know if our DM is hiding too much info or its just that way, i mean we are more than half campaign done and we still got no idea of what we are doing besides killing giants
mind to share your experiences?
I've not played Rise of the Rune Lords myself, but I've been hearing about it in fair amount, and this is the first time I hear something like this.
From your words, it seems like you're a player. In that case, maybe your GM didn't do a really good job in making you feel the connections, or maybe the party failed to find certain hints and clues, and the GM didn't know how to give you back the feeling that those things should convey.
Have the PCs done any research of their own into the Sihedron Rune?
Finding clues is a rather important part of this AP. My players had a hard time keeping straight what the overall plot was at times too. At times, they’d stop and ask “why am I doing this again?”. There’s nothing wrong with that, and in places, it is not blatantly obvious what may be going on. However, investigating the mystery is part of the AP plot. I don’t want to spoil anything, but your characters should be interested in trying to figure out what the sihedron rune is, why it is suddenly important and prevalent? Also what has triggered the events in the campaign so far?
As others said, it’s hard to tell if the players missed something, or if the DM held back too much information. There’s a fine line between holding back too much and spoon feeding information.
With that said, talk to your DM too. She /he may not realize if he is holding back too much, or the DM may just let you know that you’ve missed some clues along the way. You may need to review the events of the campaign so far to determine why things happened, and do more research.
I’m afraid that if I give more advice, I may be stepping on your DMs toes and possibly leading you on, rather than allowing the game to play out.
Talk to your GM and ask him to go over what your characters should know about the plot. Likely he'd be happy to go over it so that all of you will appreciate the story a bit more.
The way RotRL is written each encounter has a link to the next, but it takes a long while before any overall picture is revealed.
So the expedition from Sandpoint to the wilderness should have been sensible, and then the second expedition from Sandpoint to the farmlands. At the farmlands you should have found a reason to travel near the city of Magnimar, and then at that place into Magnimar itself. After visiting Magnimar it should have seemed sensible to visit Turtleback Ferry because of both a recurring rune and a sibling. And so on...
If your group missed even one of these "next step" rationales it would look a bit haphazard. How did we get from the farmland to Turtleback Ferry?
If your group needs help, there is an NPC way back in Sandpoint who has the knowledge skills your party PCs may be lacking. And at your point in the plot a trip back to Sandpoint is an idea the GM should encourage.
If your entire group genuinely missed some of those "next step" clues (perhaps you did not search a major villain's room well enough to find certain scrolls or letters) the GM could always give that Sandpoint NPC some extra information. "Good to see you again! While you were gone the farmers told me..." or even "The mayors of Magnimar and Turtleback Ferry wrote to me after noticing that rune appear in these places in their towns..."
As a player I didn't get what was going on until a little after where you're at either. The main reason RotRL works as it does is that it's a journey of discovery. Your low-level characters get involved with something they can't recognize for what it is. Eventually you learn and when you do, it's all related.
So what you're experiencing is the way it's written, mostly.
What ciretose says is accurate too.
I'm playing Rise as well and am in about the same spot you are story wise. Our GM has told that there's a TON of background we simply haven't discovered because we're not asking the right questions and whatnot. It's in there, or so I'm told, you just have to dig it out seemingly kicking and screaming.
Agreed. Most cases like this, it's either the DM's fault or the player's. (Or maybe both) If someone has kept a adventure log, you should read it all over again and try to find out what you missed.
I had to regularly feed information to my players in the Rise of the Runelords campaign that ended this July. This game was held at the local game store and some players rotated in and out. Of the seven players there at the end, only three of them had been there at the beginning. I could not expect them to track long-range clues without reminders.
ok the thing is, our party is lvl 11 and about to finish the stone giant fortress but so far, trying to recall all that happened so far, i cant find a connection, i mean the whole campaign seems to be like "you are there and something happens, you don`t know why, or who was behind, just go and solve it"
The adventure path was written on the assumption that some parties will have the philosophy of "Kill first, ask questions never." Thus, if handled as a series of unconnected adventures, it still leads to the same place.
For example, some clues at Hook Mountain tell that the ogres there had been forging weapons for stone giants. Following up on that clue could lead the party directly to the Fortress of the Stone Giants. A recommendation for the GM is if that happens, have the party intersect the raiding party sent to Sandpoint before it reaches Sandpoint. Of course, if the party instead returns to Sandpoint, tracking the origin of the raiding party sends them to the fortress.
Furthermore, each module is designed to come to a satisfying conclusion. The current crisis is solved! Too many hints that the current crisis was a sign of a much bigger conspiracy would spoil the victory.
The party in my campaign, on the other hand, was loaded with information gatherers: a bard/wizard/lore master whose specialty was ancient Thassilonian history, a sorcerer who could charm anybody, a rogue/duelist who could sneak anywhere, and a lyrakien outsider bard who occasionally returned home to chat with her goddess Desna. They relied on advance information to avoid walking into situations they could not handle or wasting their time on trivialities. They pieced the main clues together back at Skulls Crossing Dam.
WIZARD: What can you tell us about this dam?
PIT FIEND: The person who trapped me put me under a geas that I cannot reveal his secrets.
WIZARD: Runelord Karzoug?
PIT FIEND: Yes.
BARD: Wait, don't such geases end with the death of the caster?
I had several characters, such as the quasit and the pit fiend, reveal too much, seemingly by accident. I even altered some characters, such as the Scribbler (you have not met him yet), so that they knew more and could spill more secrets. The big bad at the end of the Skinsaw Murders module survived, tried to secretly play the party against her stone giant boss (if boss dies, she avoids much of the blame for her own failure), got caught, and turned double agent.
At the final confrontation with the final boss, the lyrakien bard used the Antagonize feat. She knew so much about his secret plans that her taunt was, "You want to know who was behind all your failures. It was me!" and then listed every plan of his that had failed, even ones that the party had nothing to do with. The party also got to see how much destructive fury the bad guy could unleash--the only reason the lyrakien survived was that she was buffed with extra protective magic from other party members.
Dropping clues for the party leads to fun.
well, the GM is running the AP in the forgotten realms so instead of thassilon its narfell and there is an enchanter/red wizard in the party with ridiculous social skills, noone can escape his bluff/diplocacy/spells , so we dont have trouble there but since the beggining of the campaign we just know that the sihedron rune is "an old narfell/thassilonian rune" and we cant get furtherinfo ( with skill checks of 30+) all we know is that once upon a time narfell/thassilon enslaved giants and now some giants for some random reason started attacking ppl, then we found out that there is a warlord wizard called mokmurian who is supposed to be behind all this giant rampage, but we know nothing about karzoug or the other runelords (and why the hell those lamias where there)
I hate to say this but this is a failure of possibly both the DM and this AP as a whole. There is a wealth of information provided for this story in sections of the books that only the DM will see. They never give a good way to give that info to players. For every page of encounter there is two pages explaining why that encounter is there. It is up to a DM to read and know that info and give it to players through notes left by bads, NPCs giving info, or information from research. With out this info players can be left lost for motivation.
yeah the DM complains al lthe time that every NPC has like 2 pages of background and dies in 3 rounds
I hate to say this but this is a failure of possibly both the DM and this AP as a whole. There is a wealth of information provided for this story in sections of the books that only the DM will see. They never give a good way to give that info to players. For every page of encounter there is two pages explaining why that encounter is there. It is up to a DM to read and know that info and give it to players through notes left by bads, NPCs giving info, or information from research. With out this info players can be left lost for motivation.
The good news is that the end of the 4th adventure provides an opportunity for the GM to tell the players a ton of information that was previously hidden. From that point on, things should get a lot less confusing.
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To be honest, it doesn't seem like players or GM are interested in backgrounds or story too much.
I mean seriously, why on earth would you, as GM complain that NPCs have 2 pages of background. To me, that's gold given thing, it provides you with entertainment and gives you full details about it.
If he complains about NPCs dying every 3 rounds, there is few things to be noted. On High Levels, everything hits hard and nasty. It's a race to whoever deals most damage output. NPCs will fall down pretty fast but simple tactic postitoning can help them survive few more rounds.
I believe that experienced GM can provide party plenty of challenge, but he needs to read and understand those NPCs.
My party is at end of Burnt Offerings. They are 4man fairly optimized. They are choking to get through so far. I didn't want to, but I could have set simple goblins in such way that they wouldn't get even 1 attack on them.
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hi everyone
first of all im not sure if this is the right sub forum so it its not, prease correct my mistakeok the thing is, our party is lvl 11 and about to finish the stone giant fortress but so far, trying to recall all that happened so far, i cant find a connection, i mean the whole campaign seems to be like "you are there and something happens, you don`t know why, or who was behind, just go and solve it"
SPOILER ALERT
we just saw an aasimar going crazy and her party, a deathcult sponsored by a lamia, some , haunted houses, and then ogres ogres and ogres (plus the stone giants now) all that connects them is the sihedron rune and lamashtu, so, i dont really know if our DM is hiding too much info or its just that way, i mean we are more than half campaign done and we still got no idea of what we are doing besides killing giants
mind to share your experiences?
It all collects through
Same problem here. We stopped the campaign some time ago, but I remember that the Magnimar Mayor was a really disgusting and selfish man (I don't know if he was supposed to be so, because our GM usually plays characters like that), who told us to go to Turtleback to learn what happened there, offering a 300 gp reward. I was so tired of this man that I told my GM outright "I am gonna go because I know it's supposed to go there, but it's not a hook for my character in any possible way". There was no hint of the shiedron which could attract us, if I remember it right.
Part of the problem is that most characters don't really get a look into what is happening until after the end of the 4th AP. You start out saving the city of Sandpoint. Then someone basicly picks a fight with you, and following that up leads to Magnamar. Then you get asked to do a simple job of reporting, which ends up at Hook mountain, where you get the clue that giants are behind this. And then the gaints attack Sandpoint, and you have to deal with them. Sure, there are shadowy clues that something might be behind this, but mostly it is the party, being heroes, getting involved in one situation after another.
In the 4th AP, and at the end, you finally get to see what is happening, and who is behind the whole plot.
It isn't an investigation at first, it is just heroes going from rescue to rescue, and then finding out afterwards that someone is behind everything. And then all those nasty odd, dangling bits suddenly have a reason to be there.
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I am going to join in and point to a GM/player disconnect.
As soon as my players found the Catacombs of Wrath, they headed straight for Brodert Quink, dragged him down to the Catacombs, and demanded, "Explain!"
I set various DCs for the knowledge he could convey, and his first roll was a crit for a 41, so I gave the characters
In Module 2, as soon as they started their investigations
So I:
- Played Sandpoint as an extremely charming town worth saving
- Gave at least two of the three PCs personal relationships with residents there
- Gave them enough information to recognize that Sandpoint is in dire danger.
@angelroble: I have to admit, I'd never expect PCs to do anything for the mayor; he's SUPPOSED to be reprehensible. There's a handout you were supposed to receive pointing you towards Turtleback ferry without having to deal with the mayor. The AP should play out as a long detective story, and the GM has to provide enough clues and motivation that you care.
EDIT: I don't know whether that handout existed in the original; we're playing the AE and my players are loving it, and have repeatedly complimented the module on how 'everything is tied together'. So maybe they fixed it A LOT.
I honestly think this is a failure of the dm. By the time the group is doing magnamar the green and sin connections should be visible to the PC's.
If the players are going to the giants and they haven't grasped this there has been a communication failure. Really once we hit magnamar the signs of the Greater sin connections were everywhere.
yeah the DM complains al lthe time that every NPC has like 2 pages of background and dies in 3 rounds
The spell speak with dead is a players' best friend in this adventure:
- Who were you?
- What were you trying to accomplish before we killed you?
- Who sent you here?
- What did you understand his/her goals to be?
We stocked up the corpses of key NPCs with first gentle repose and eventually carried some around with us through the item spell to repeatedly question them, post-mortem, as required. There's often no need for Knowledge skill checks, either from the PCs or NPCs if you can simply ask those who know the answers to your questions. But, for good measure, I maxed out my characters Knowledge skills as much as possible.
Combined with the diligent collecting of clues and some educated guesses our party had an inkling of who the mastermind behind the campaign was by the end of the first module. By the end of the second module it was a certainty. The only reason we didn't seek out the BBEG at that point was because we didn't have the experience and resources needed to survive a confrontation.
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There are ways to get the information for sure. It is really a matter of how good the players are at getting information. Some players are really good at it, and others want things more spoon fed. I agree Speak with the Dead is a powerful spell early on in this campaign setting. Basically, it boils down to DMs knowing their players and giving the necessary clues to either spur greater investigation, or in the event of the spoon fed group, providing a Brodert Quink or a Lyrie to decipher runes in the Catacombs or at Thistletop or in the Old Light.
BTW - The Lord Mayor of Magnimar is an ass; but this doesn't mean he does not see the political benefits of sending an expendable group of out-of-town adventures on a scouting mission. He has the resources to make it worth their while if properly haggled. He had much rather send the party than waste any of his own town guard.
Cheers,
Mazra
Another vote for GM failure.
Granted, the original AP isn't as connected as it could have been. The Anniversary Edition fixes those problems. If the GMs in question don't have it then they should consider taking a look at it. But even without the Anniversary Edition there is plenty there to tie everything together. I ran the first two modules for my group well before the AE came out and they've had no problems following the connections. They're in the third module now but I've switched over to the AE.
Without spoiling anything I will note that some of the issues described above are related to events that certain GMs seemed to have played "off-the-book". So right there, it's clearly a problem of GM-disconnect rather than the modules themselves.
Everything will become clear very soon.
Seriously.
This needs to be emphasised more.
If you're just nearing the end of Fortress of the Stone Giants now, as you said, then things should be getting clear very soon.
Rise of the Runelords has developed its own cult of personality in the last five years. Yet methinks it would be good to remember that when it was written, the idea was to provide a classic-feeling monster romp and introduce players to a new exciting campaign world. The anniversary edition wove a bit more connective tissue and meta-plot over the ol' gal. But in the end, it is what it is.
It's not going to run out of the AP pages like Shakespeare, or the Wheel of Time guys. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of bits that can be emphasized or embellished or glossed over by the GM or the players for that matter. Stuff like that will definitely create a more intrinsic and cohesive meta-plot with a great deal of character investment. But as written, Rise of the Runelords is a really well done monster mash. If that doesn't satisfy a group's play-style then there is nothing wrong with disliking RotRL, anymore than a group turning aside from any other AP.
I just think pumping up a player's expectations of "" is a bit south of realistic. If four adventures of six adventures isn't enough indication of the style of AP that is being presented...it may not be your cup of tea. Or (more likely), various participants in the game may be phoning it in because they keep waiting for this "perfect" adventure path to grip them in their role playing sweet spot.
TLDR; RotRL is great at what it does, but it isn't some immortal juggernaut of perfection. As a player you are going to get what you put into the story, how you develop your character, and what you bring to the table through each issue of the AP. Develop some catch phrases, flex for the camera...save the world :-)
I played through all of RotRL myself. I was the Paladin, but we also had a Cleric with the Knowledge domain who was obsessed with lore.
The GMing was mediocre, and we learned nothing about the metaplot until the end of book 4. There were cryptic, voice-of-god comments made by the GM about "don't you get it? all the people that are dying are greedy!", but no, we didn't get it, at all.
I felt exactly like the OP, though less bitter. I think Herbo's post right above mine is a great perspective. I didn't understand (in or out of game) how I went from killing serialkiller-ghouls to incest-ogres, but I didn't care. They all fell below the power of my Smite Evil, and it was a lot of fun.
I feel there are two big plot-jumps:
- the first is after you TPK to Xenesha and the GM tries to find a way to get things back on track with a mercenary quest to Hook Mountain that basically feels like a campaign-reset.
- the second is after you've been running a wilderness fort for a year, and all of a sudden there's giants attacking Sandpoint. Again, it felt like "adventure ended ... time for new adventure!"
I own the AE, and both of the above disconnects have been considerably smoothed over therein. But in the original, hoo-boy were they disconnects.
So, I disagree with the people who are blaming the GM. Yes, it's true, an amazing GM, who spends hours reading the forums, could "fix" the disconnects in RotRL. But the average GM, using the base material, will run a game whereby the players have no idea what is going on for the first 2/3rds of the campaign.