Not sure about the first part and I'm going to stop reading after this post as I don't want to spoil it for myself, but as to the rum rations...
Our DM really reduced the damage. Another approach would be that on a successful save (it's only dc 5 or something, right?) you take no damage at all. It's apparently either a badly written rule or way too deadly as written.
I'd also pay attention to your players as they spend time on the Wormwood. For us, it was become tedious and not fun, so our DM fast forwarded through a lot of the daily grind (just did it through narrative) and only had us do significant encounters. I feel like we misse an opportunity to persuade more of the crew to join our side, which bothered me a little as my character is the social-skills monkey, but it worked out in the end.
Our DM is doing 1d3-1
Our DM keeps forgetting about the rum ration, but the few times he has remembered, all penalties and bonus from the rum ration went away after getting sleeping that night. I don't know if that is how it is, if he interpreted it wrong, or changed it.
I did 1d3-1 as well. Gave a chance for no damage, one that would wear off by morning, or one that would stick around.
I also let the cleric cast purify food and drink if she could do it without being noticed (with the penalty being the same as tipping it away).
This is an iffy use of the spell but I presumed the rum was actually grog, rum mixed with water, and could therefore be covered by PFD. She was a cleric of Besmara, a fickle goddess, and rum's a proper pirate's drink...so there was a 20% chance per use that Besmara wouldn't agree to allow the spell that day.
As they gained friends and she blessed more and more cups it got harder to hide so the bard, Rosie, Concho, and some others got into the act by distracting anyone that might be watching the cleric with a performance. We got some great entertainment out of that.
Near the end, Plugg noticed her casting and they bluffed him about Besmara blessing the rum and he eventually asked for a cup of "Besmara's Blessed" for himself. My Plugg wasn't quite the same as the AP's Plugg as written.
Not sure about laying groundwork.
I'll suggest that, during their time on Wormwood, you start shortcutting the job assignment and performance rolls. Soon into the trip I started pre-generated jobs and just had players make one roll each day. If they rolled very low or high (with applicable skill bonuses figured in) then we maybe played a scene or narrated the botch or success. Some groups may dig the detailed mechanic laid out in the AP and that's cool...my group would have mutinied if we had continued it past the first couple of days.
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I am about to run this AP myself and was wondering what other GMs have done with the persuasion of NPC on the Wormwood..
Did you break it down to the PCs before starting that they will need/or can change the attitude of the other pirates on board and what benefits it could give them or did you let them find out by themself.
And did you keep them updated at all times with how the NPCs felt about the players?
sorry for hijacking this post..
I am a fairly fresh GM and have only run the small "We Be Goblins.." adventure before throwing myself out in the deep water with this one, so I would appriciate all the help I could get ;)
I didn't tell them straight off. They had a bad first encounter with Scourge and a group of hand-picked Hostile crew (Aretta, Fipps, Jaundiced Jape, Slippery Syl - the same group that came to roust them on day two) so they realized their situation was bad. I reinforced this idea with an early encounter with Sandara where she returned some things and made a comment about how there are so many enemies aboard a pirate ship that making a few friends is important. They figured the rest out on their own and started trying to make friends so they'd have some backup.
I did not regularly go over a list for who was with whom but I told them how individuals seemed to be interacting with them whenever they tried to communicate or work with them. We sort of ignored "ship actions" to a degree after the first few days and the players started doing things like "observing the crew and their alliances" which gave me an opportunity to lay out how the power structure was evolving.
I made a 3"x5" notecard for each NPC; with a picture of the NPC on the back and their details (attitude, position, notes, etc.) on the front. That gave me a clear reference for interaction and the players something to look at. If you need images for the NPCs, a good source is the paper minis product for Wormwood. This system was great for managing so many NPCs.
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I did it similar as mearrin69, hinted through NPCs that making friends is important, but if the PCs don't get it right away, you can probably outright tell them. I usually like to gauge PCs reactions to situations, then based on that I will react. It may be hard on the PCs at first since players often expect to be #1 from the start, so lots of hinting may be necessary that they will need to bide their time. I would say don't be afraid to beat a few unconscious if they act out of line (not to death!), it is one way for them to understand that people are tougher than they can handle at the beginning.
Someone on the board made an excellent excel sheet which helps track the NPCs attitudes, if you use a computer at the table.
I also made some google docs with pictures of the crew (from the paper minis) with their names and a short description for the players to look at before game. Unfortunately, can't share it because the images are not mine.