Brief background: I've run RPGs for about 20 years, but I've never run a module or anyone else's story but my own. However, I have heard great things about the general quality of the APs, so I decided to give some a read.
I read Souls for Smuggler's Shiv and I was totally hooked. I love the structure--there is a clear goal (get off the island), but is otherwise totally open ended and player driven. It's very much in the spirit of the way I run my own campaigns, so, while I'm sure I'll tweak some stuff, I'm really looking forward to running it.
I then eagerly acquired Book 2 and, well, what happened? It just completely switched styles. Book 1 put the PCs in the driver seat, but Book 2 puts me there, and that's not a seat I want to occupy as GM. It's perfectly linear with only the illusion of choice. And to further frustrate me, there's even a foreward basically telling me I'm wrong to dislike the "railroad" because all good games have them. Really?
So, I am not happy with this and there's no way I'm running Race to Ruin. At best, I'll take the general idea of journeying to find ruins that lead to the hidden city, but I'm not narrating a predetermined trip with predetermined stops with mini-rails (the salt mine is a straight line) on the way.
My question is, what do I do after Smuggler's Shiv? I'd like to continue the game, and I like the idea of racing Yarzoth (if the PCs kill her, so be it, but I'm running her smart, not suicidal, so I find it unlikely) to find the ancient city, but if the rest of the books are more like Race to Ruin than Smuggler's Shiv, I don't want to bother with them.
Do they get better? Can I basically stick my own stuff in there for Book 2 and then pick up Book 3 and enjoy it again? Am I better off transitioning to another AP? Are any especially good for that sort of thing? Do any of the others have the same kind of "driving goal that is otherwise open ended" feel to it?
I'm not concerned with doing conversion work or adjusting encounters or whatever--I'm already going to be doing that since I'm intending to do this with a Pathfinderized E6 and few to no magic items--so anything you might recommend is probably doable for me.
So, yeah, what's your best suggestion for me?
Once you get to Saventh-Yi at the start of book 3, it goes back to what Smuggler's Shiv was like. They have a map, and the 6 (7?) districts of the city to explore. They pick where they go. It's like a month's (in game) worth of exploring, give or take a week.
No clue about part 4-6, I'm a player in SS so I haven't read the books.
My advice is to let the party pick their affiliated group and then tweak the second part heavily to remove a lot of the rail roady elements. I say leave in some stuff though, IMO that encounter with the Barbarian in the city is cool, and the roadside cock fighting ring is a great chance for RP-ing and the player who invested in something like Profession: Gambling to have some fun. The stuff with the Chemosits and the Necromancer could probably be cut with no issue, but the
In fact, in my humble opinion, while it was VERY linear, most of part 2 is made up of some fairly interesting encounters, though that may just be my "This was the first AP I started playing"-itis speaking.
You can print out a regional map and have the PC's decide on a course and then just plonk the encounters in the book where it matches the terrain. After I ran this one I thought if I was to run it again that is what I will do. Probably means coming up with some of your own encounters as well, but it would put the PCs in the driver's seat. Have a read through the respective threads for each book as there are a lot of shared experiences and help there.
I did reply in the other post you made but as I GM'd this too I can kind of give some advice based on what happened to my group.
Bascically they met the Baron of Eledor and had dinner with him, I played him as a kind of old british empire type and hating the locals, kind of a slaver if you like. He offered his help, they refused as they hated him. They hated him so much they hired someone to assassinate him. They went with the Pathfinders who had the expedition funded and they decided they needed to get away quick. Looking at the map the quickest was up river by boat. As I am like you and don't like to railroad I let them get on with it. They left a week before the expedition was ready to leave, headed to Port Freedom and hired a boat up river to Kalabto where they would meet up with the expedition. I then ran a modifed River into Darkness module, and had them meet the lake monster in part 2. The party got to Kalabuto and a few days later I had 1 member of the expedition turn up dying, (the epedition was wiped out by the Baron who was not killed and trying to get the players, effectivley leaving them on their own, which is what they wanted anyway). I then just carried it on as written.
It read the AP and it seemed OK to begin with but later after reading it again you can see the cracks. As you say part 1 is great, part 2 too railroady and part 3-5 are so underwritten it needs a really dedicated GM to make any use of it. The idea is great but the implimentation sucks on this one. Mine caved in book 3, way too much work for little reward for me. This would have worked in the old AD&D style box sets, all the loactions written, maps and handouts ect, all this you have to do yourself as all you get is one big map and hardly any description, so much potential damn it!! It could have been a really good Indy type adventure!
If you are looking for player driven AP's then Kingmaker and Skull and Shackles (it needs a tiny bit of work but the s&s boards are full of sandbox ideas that make it really easy to work, its not all sea based, part 4 is island based and there are lost of mini dungeons, my group like a change of pace now and again so this suits them just fine) are the 2 I know of. If you want to stick with Serpent Skull then it will need a heck of a lot of work i'm afraid in my opinion.
If you are not going to play the rest of the AP then the cannibal camp may be the best place to finish and have them rescued, you can then pretty much run anything you want I would have thought. If you use the Serpent Temple then you may need to find a way to integrate into another AP somehow.
I recommend finding book 3-6 if you can, reading them, then deciding if they fit your style. If not, end of book 1 is a good cut off.
Once you get to Saventh-Yi at the start of book 3, it goes back to what Smuggler's Shiv was like. They have a map, and the 6 (7?) districts of the city to explore. They pick where they go. It's like a month's (in game) worth of exploring, give or take a week.
Ok, I like the sound of that. I'll read ahead and see if I can just plug the hole with my own stuff.
and the roadside cock fighting ring is a great chance for RP-ing and the player who invested in something like Profession: Gambling to have some fun.
See, the cock-fight was actually the straw that broke the camels back for me. It seemed like it was going to be cool and interesting--like you said, some good roleplaying.
However, it commits two, ridiculous, "parody of a D&D module" sins in my mind:
1) It wants you to play out the fight between the cocks. Really? I'm going to sit and roll out a tedious battle between creatures dealing 1d4-2? How gripping and exciting for the players to sit and watch me roll some dice for a while.
2) There is no way out of the fight with thugs. If the PCs win, the lead bookie insists they cheated and sends his thugs after them. If the PCs lose, he demands more money than they bet and then sends his thugs after them if they don't pay.
What the heck? Talk about illusionary choice--win or lose, you get attacked by thugs and ultimately get the money he offers as a bribe to forget it all. The encounter might as well have been called "the PCs get attacked by some thugs after wasting their time for a while."
The thug fight isn't even dangerous--they're absolutely no threat, and it's the only encounter the PCs face for days, so it's not even for the purpose of attrition. The whole encounter feels like a chore.
The stuff with the Chemosits and the Necromancer could probably be cut with no issue
Seriously, the chemosit thing is just goofy--the quote you're supposed to read from the old shaman was like they hired a guest fan-fiction author to write compelling dialog.
The necromancer--what the heck is that about? There's this cool back story about the local hero and all, but the encounter is just "oh, he attacks on sight for no apparent reason and fights to the death, also for no reason."
The demon encounter is like that, too. The demon is a cool idea and has a name and everything. But instead of being interesting, he just immediately attacks without explanation and then fights to the death.
but the roadside inn run by the Succubus was AMAZING fun. Everybody had a chance to get drunk, cut loose, and use that Sense Motive skill to their heart's content.
I think your GM changed that encounter significantly, because the actual one in the book involves the PCs meeting four chicks bathing who try to get them to come back to their hut and awaken their spirit totems. If they refuse, the Succubus just straight up attacks them for some reason. If they go, they get drugged with blue whinnis and then drained, probably to death. There's no drinking or anything you described. If I were a succubus, I definitely wouldn't put myself at risk by attacking random well-armed explorers without a serious upper hand.
In fact, in my humble opinion, while it was VERY linear, most of part 2 is made up of some fairly interesting encounters, though that may just be my "This was the first AP I started playing"-itis speaking.
I think I like the ideas behind most of the encounters, but they're all finished off with what seems like D&D parody/tropes. Everything is written as "here's an unavoidable fight disguised as a false choice--also the enemies fight to the death for no apparent reason, or are described as cowards, but only flee when they are so close to death, they're likely to never hit the point of running."
You can print out a regional map and have the PC's decide on a course and then just plonk the encounters in the book where it matches the terrain.
But see, that's basically illusionism and what I dislike so much about the linear path. It's "you are going to face all these encounters whether you like it or not."
What I like so much about Smuggler's Shiv is that there's just this open ended map and stuff is there. You might not encounter all of it. You can avoid some of it. You pick your own course around it and it's all your decision. The PCs choose everything they encounter (even if the choice is sometimes blind).
If I just place it around randomly, it's me picking what they encounter and when. I'd rather they did it the same way--"here's a map of the area and here are some encounters around the map...let the PCs decide their route."
I then ran a modifed River into Darkness module, and had them meet the lake monster in part 2.
What is River into Darkness? Is that another AP?
part 3-5 are so underwritten it needs a really dedicated GM to make any use of it.
Hrm, well I am a pretty awesome GM...
I don't know how to feel about this, but I think I'm going to give it a shot. I read through the beginning of Skull and Shackles and it sounds dreadful (seriously, the PCs get belittled and beaten by undefeatable jerks for how long?). It probably gets better when they get a ship, but the most logical link would be the pirates "rescuing" the PCs from Smuggler's Shiv, and yeah, that'd just be nasty of me--"Yay, you escaped being shipwrecked and are now captured and whipped daily!"
Plus, the one guy is really into the idea of playing a Monk (that is a peaceful, traveling healer) and another is making an Inquisitor of Abadar, so, they really won't fit as pirates.
If you are looking for player driven AP's then Kingmaker and Skull and Shackles (it needs a tiny bit of work but the s&s boards are full of sandbox ideas that make it really easy to work, its not all sea based, part 4 is island based and there are lost of mini dungeons, my group like a change of pace now and again so this suits them just fine) are the 2 I know of. If you want to stick with Serpent Skull then it will need a heck of a lot of work i'm afraid in my opinion.
Yeah, Smuggler's Shiv really fooled me. I'll take a look at Kingmaker and see if that might work somehow. Or maybe, at least, I'll run it a later date if it's good. I was in for some work anyway, since I was intending to convert it all to E6 anyway, so I'm not that concerned, but damn if I'm not disappointed. Was there a different author or something between the first book and the rest?
It sounds like you will actually enjoy 3-6 quite a bit. Book 2 is by far the worst of the AP's, easily one of the worst produced ever. The maps don't even match the descriptions. I'm not sure if there was something missed in editing, or mus-communication, or what. Tim Hitchcock usually produces better than that.
And yes, each AP volume has a different author, each module in an AP does.
I've been there and felt the same way about the second book but I would strongly recommend to give it a try.
I think, you'll be surprised how fun things like the cock-fight will play out at an actual table. Some things don't look as fun in print as they turn out to be in play.
For my group, the change of pace was refreshing. Of course YMMV, but as I said, give it a try and see how your players react. Should it turn out to be boring, just skip the journey, level them up ad-hoc or devise a side-quest of your own, and fast-forward to Tazion.
Book 3 will very much deliver what you crave, especially if you're willing to put in some extra work.
(By the way, I am running book 5 by now and looking back all of us really enjoyed the AP as a whole. I strayed very little from the modules as written.)
I think your GM changed that encounter significantly, because the actual one in the book involves the PCs meeting four chicks bathing who try to get them to come back to their hut and awaken their spirit totems. If they refuse, the Succubus just straight up attacks them for some reason. If they go, they get drugged with blue whinnis and then drained, probably to death. There's no drinking or anything you described. If I were a succubus, I definitely wouldn't put myself at risk by attacking random well-armed explorers without a serious upper hand.
Really? Huh. It DID play out differently here.
The girls invited us to get our spirit totems and we agreed, whereupon they led us back to their inn for some rest and some food/drink.
During the party my Drunken MoMS Monk tried (and failed) to convince the Succubus he was drunk and started asking questions because as a Snake Style user his Sense Motive was really frickin' high. After a while, the Succubus tries to mind rape me, I pass the Will save, and then punched her in the throat with Stunning fist and we pretty much mulched her in the ensuing surprise round.
All in all it played out as a very fun encounter, after which the gratefully freed girls gave us our Totems.
I agree with the OP - there are too many encounters here that have an unavoidable result. The cockfight is just the prime example. Kibi, in Eleder, will no matter what manage to report the PC's action to the rival faction. I think the only way to prevent that, is to kill her. And that is a tad extreme.
The Village under Siege too. No matter what the PCs do, stay in the village or travel through, the demons attack.
The only real choice the players have in this part of the adventure, is whether or not to go search for the treasre in the lake. At one point, I wouldn't have been surprised to read that the Elasmosaurus had attacked the characters anyway.
It also seems that all encounters are combat encounters. The hippo e.g., could have simply been a hippo defending her young, allowing a druid or ranger to shine by using animal empathy.
I would also have wished for more information about the various factions and what they have to offer. I would have liked it if they had differentiated offers, so that the choices by the PCs could have been debated more. As it stands now, it probably boils down to alignment and whether or not any PC's have faction connection in their background. I am also concerned that if the PC's are tight-lipped and take security measures to prevent any information leaking out, it will feel too much rail-roading if I let all five factions know about it anyway.
The problem of railroading isn't so much about having a predetermined track of encounters to go through, but that their choices don't have any effect. In that regard, this adventure sins heavily in my opinion.
Smuggler's Shiv reads like a tremendous module that I am really looking forward to playing. With Race to Ruin, I probably need to do a lot of work myself to make it salvageable.
I understand your problem, as played as written the module will largely come across as a series of random encounters. But there's little to be done, as the adventure is a journey from Point A to Point B. You could give the PCs more choice in how much control they have over the course they plot. You could modify the adventure slightly to have the PCs waging a battle of attrition against their rival faction, sabotaging their supplies and attempting to impede their progress. Or you could largely ignore the journey and up the number of encounters in Tazion to make up for the lack of experience the party missed out on.
Once you reach the 3rd and 4th modules, the party will have more freedom to make choices as they explore Saventh-Yhi. The 5th module gives similar options, kinda, but with a capstone dungeon crawl. And the 6th module has plenty of opportunity for the party to proceed as they will, with, of course, another capstone dungeon crawl.
The thug fight isn't even dangerous--they're absolutely no threat, and it's the only encounter the PCs face for days, so it's not even for the purpose of attrition. The whole encounter feels like a chore.
Am I the only one who loves this whole bit here? There's a very popular (if perhaps overused) sort of scene in action movies where a two bit thug attempts to rob someone they don't realize is a superhero, only to get completely destroyed. My group isn't here in the campaign yet, I'll admit , so I don't really know how they'll feel... But so far, every battle they've faced has been fairly terrifying and difficult. Getting a small chance in a long journey to remember they're quite extraordinary adventurers seems like a good change of pace!
That's how I'm seeing this whole encounter, at least. I don't really see the choice aspect as mattering too much here. I mean, to each their own, but I figure it's not really a scene with consequences, so much as a little tiny movie scene where the group gets to sort of enjoy the spoils of being hella cool.
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The thug fight isn't even dangerous--they're absolutely no threat, and it's the only encounter the PCs face for days, so it's not even for the purpose of attrition. The whole encounter feels like a chore.Am I the only one who loves this whole bit here? There's a very popular (if perhaps overused) sort of scene in action movies where a two bit thug attempts to rob someone they don't realize is a superhero, only to get completely destroyed. My group isn't here in the campaign yet, I'll admit , so I don't really know how they'll feel... But so far, every battle they've faced has been fairly terrifying and difficult. Getting a small chance in a long journey to remember they're quite extraordinary adventurers seems like a good change of pace!
That's how I'm seeing this whole encounter, at least. I don't really see the choice aspect as mattering too much here. I mean, to each their own, but I figure it's not really a scene with consequences, so much as a little tiny movie scene where the group gets to sort of enjoy the spoils of being hella cool.
I think you're right. I GM'd a Kingmaker game and at one point the group was forced to confront a boggard village. The adventure itself noted the the encounter wasn't about giving the players a challenge as much as letting them enjoy the strength they had built up to that point. I think it's pretty much the same here.
I’m starting this chapter in a couple weeks. If I’m summarizing things correctly, ideas for improving Race to Ruin’s railroadishness include;
1. Give the PCs a map and let them decide their route. Keep the encounter, but just place them where they may logically be encountered on the journey to Tazion.
2. Allow for more of the encounters to be resolved without combat necessarily.
Did I miss anything?
I may also make the series of encounters to recruit Nkechi optional. I really don’t care for that series of events.
As it stands in my game, the PCs were very tight-lipped about what they discovered on Smuggler’s Shiv. They never brought along one of the NPCs, so there are very few clues that would point to what the PCs discovers. In fact, my players balked when I hinted they would be racing against other factions to discover Saventh-Yi.
As I see it, the main clues that the other factions may be able to pick up on would be.
1. The NPCs notice that the PCs came back with some exotic treasure items which may attract their attention.
2. After the rescue, the PCs are selling some rather exotic treasures to fund a long trip.
3. Someone may also notice that the PCs are doing a lot of research to decipher some ancient glyph writings. The PCs though have even been very secretive about this. One of the PCs is specifically a Azlanti scholar so I’m giving him big bonuses on his research.
With this in mind, I may give the PCs a couple weeks start on the other factions. The other factions will send expeditions to Smuggler’s Shiv, and it will take them a while to discover the ruins. By that time, the PCs will be on the road. I’ll then track the factions’ progress vs what the PCs do.
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The problem with Race to Ruin is that it is just a series of encounters to get you to a place. If you compare it with the far superior Hungry Storm from Jade Regent the basic idea is the same but the Hungry Storm has a consistent enemy and a plot.
Bear in mind that City of Seven Spears is horrible and requires serious work. I would regard it as one of the two worst AP adventures. It's worse than Race to Ruin and if you are expecting an improvement from CoSS you will be disappointed.
As for "railroad vs. sandbox" well you are always going to get a certain level of linear storytelling in a published scenario. If you want a true sandbox then there is a great product for you called "The Inner Sea World Guide..."
The problem with Race to Ruin is that it is just a series of encounters to get you to a place. If you compare it with the far superior Hungry Storm from Jade Regent the basic idea is the same but the Hungry Storm has a consistent enemy and a plot.
Bear in mind that City of Seven Spears is horrible and requires serious work. I would regard it as one of the two worst AP adventures. It's worse than Race to Ruin and if you are expecting an improvement from CoSS you will be disappointed.
As for "railroad vs. sandbox" well you are always going to get a certain level of linear storytelling in a published scenario. If you want a true sandbox then there is a great product for you called "The Inner Sea World Guide..."
Yeah, I'm aware of the problems. This is kind of a side campaign we run when most of the other players can't make it. I'm not really trying to make it a sandbox, but strike a better balance. It's a tough balance between tweaking the AP and not doing a complete re-write.
Perhaps another item to add is the "consistent enemy" you mention. I could have one of the factions, as that enemy. I could have them . .
1. Trail the PCs for information
2. Try stealing secrets
3. Send minions to thwart efforts along the way.
4. Basically trail the PCs all the way to Savinth-Yi, but keep the leadership out of total confrontation.
Some people like a little more direction in their adventures; others hate anything detecting the slightest bit like rails. Cool. Best if GMs and their players are close to the same mindset in that regard.
I completely understand those who like more direction complaining when there seems to be none. What they're looking for isn't there.
But those who prefer freedom complaining that there's too much direction confuses me a little because all it takes to fix it is a note to self that you're simply going to allow things to play out differently. You get a setting, encounters, npc motivations, maps, art, and more, and you can do whatever you like with them as close or as far away from script as you choose.
Adding direction takes work; subtracting it very little. Or at least adding direction takes work that rail-oriented DMs don't enjoy that much; whereas removing rails only asks for the kind of imaginative work anti-rail people are best at.
Every time you see a false choice written into an adventure, simply make it a real one and you're good to go.
I concede that linear dungeon maps are more of an irksome issue.
As far as the Nkechi thing goes, I'd leave it up to the PCs. Have their faction leader mention him as a guide that will shave time off of the trip. If they get him, great, he'll suggest a route that the PCs can either follow or not. Also keep in mind that unless the PCs are natives of the area, their bound to run into trouble that will take time to circumvent. Think of how well someone uneducated in the land would do trying to traverse the African wild, or the Amazon jungle without a guide. They may get where they are going, but it's going to take them MUCH longer to get there.
Take the river idea that someone suggested. Well, what time of year is it? There are many rivers in the jungles that are seasonal. Traversable at one time of the year, and either dried up, or raging and impassable at another. As the module points out, there is also a group of natives that is more or less waging war on "colonials". Another potential adversary and time sink.
My group wound up having a good deal of fun in this module, mostly because I gave them the freedom to choose a course, even after they had Nkechi come with them. I played Nkechi as a cantankerous, curmudgeony old guy, who every once in a while cast a heal spell their way. He reminded them, daily, every time they wound up running into a hurdle that took more time. In the end, they wound up following his path, mostly. And also got to give him the business when they ran into encounters.
I also played up the rival factions in Kalabuto, and along the way, so that the fact that they were in a race never was far from the forefront. Now, when they run into the Salt Mines, and are told that it can shave a day off their time, they're excited to use those shortcuts. The little girl is the perfect enemy agent, or in my case, a poor local that is paid well by the rival factions to keep tabs on the PCs. I had her play on our fighter's heart strings, since his background was as an orphan. He wound up buying all of her trinkets. But really, how many movies have we all seen, or books have we all read where someone, hero or villain, hires the "street urchins" to get him intel?
Some of the other encounters I left as options. The group completely bypassed the cock fight, since the druid was appalled by display. Same druid tried to talk down the hippos, but failed, since there are lizard men prodding them to anger. The zombie tree my group gave a wide berth, figuring it was either a trap, or something that another group was putting up as a warning. I used Itombu as more of a cinematic than hard fight, even though it almost killed our fighter before the Oracle remembered the shrunken head they'd received. The succubus encounter was probably the most fun. My group consists of two guys, and four girls, so the succubus had few choices, and the girls noticed that the dancers were acting strangely. Eventually, the girls managed to beat the succubus, while not harming the dancers. It took some creative use of spells to do that.
It's really only the trip itself that is very linear, otherwise, the city while doing research and being approached by the factions, and Tazion itself are pretty wide open. Then City of Spears goes right back to sandbox. It will take a lot of work to flesh COS out though, so forewarned is forearmed.