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G'day, all.
I’m looking for some design and plotting advice. This isn’t fully fleshed-out, so there’s LOTS of room for improvement.
My group is working though our fourth Paizo adventure path right now. We’re halfway done with Carrion Crown, and are beginning to discuss which one to attack next.
We’re huge believers in crafting individual character arcs for each of the PCs that the GM can weave into the main plot. For example, our Varisian oracle in CC started receiving disturbing visions in Harrowstone Prison that foreshadowed the village of Illmarsh. Our party rogue had been a conscript archer in Ustalav during the Whispering Tyrant’s rise, and spent the centuries after Tar Barphon’s fall living as a ghoul before Professor Lorimar restored him to life and sanity. The idea is to get to the end of the AP and find that every character’s major and minor plot arcs were resolved as part of (or incidental to) the main storyline. This rewards the players for rich RP and for good character design.
Further: a generic two-weapon ranger is dry and boring; you can kill the PC off and no one cares. Whereas, a deserter from the Great Crusade who is borderline psychotic with PTSD and is hunted by Iomedean inquisitors because of the military secrets she learned at the Worldwound is crunchy – you want to see what happens to this character as she wrestles with her (literal and figurative) demons. We want strong personalities, coherent motivations, and opportunities to drop unexpected antagonists into the AP so that the players are keyed up and jump at every sudden noise.
When I take off the GM fez at the end of CC, I was thinking about going full-bore into Dreamscarred Press’s ‘Psionics Expanded’ line with a Blue (psionic goblin) cryptic (psionic rogue). For style, I wanted the flavor of the classic Cold War spy novels like Fleming, Le Carré and Forsythe. That is, something where every NPC might have a hidden agenda, and where plots and counter-plots were woven into everyday life. To justify both the race and the character arc elements, we sketched out a slightly different explanation for the Isgeri Goblinboood wars:
~ * ~ * ~ *~
The Goblinblood War had nothing to do with racial animosity between goblinkind and humanity. It was about economics … and cold-blooded politics. History teaches that the war started in 4,697 when a hobgoblin army advanced out of the Chitterwood and laid waste to an Isgeri way-station North of Logas. Few people know that the genesis of the war actually began fifteen years earlier in a conference room in Pangolais.
The Nidalese government needed a proxy war that would tie up the military forces of their Eastern neighbors. Nidalese agents provocateur covertly funded and trained the hobgoblin tribes in the Chitterwood, making an army where none had existed before. Nidal’s message was compelling: if the goblinoids could quickly to seize the trade routes between Andoran, Molthune and Druma, they could then sue for peace before any outside power could effectively repel them – thereby creating a goblinoid homeland with guaranteed longevity as a fait accompli. Isger would continue on much as it had been, facilitating and profiting on overland trade, only with a different dominant race running things.
The goblinoid war chiefs launched their assault and achieved most of their strategic objectives fairly quickly. Even the “three-sided compact” between Andoran, Cheliax and Druma couldn’t counter the goblins’ early military gains. The goblinoids enjoyed every tactical advantage, including short supply lines, occupation of the region’s dominant terrain features, and greater numbers than their opponents could field. The Hobgoblin field marshal was preparing to announce reasonable terms for a general cease-fire when her spies brought her a grim warning: the Nidalese were preparing to betray the cause.
Pangolais had made an arrogant mistake, borne of simple racial condescension. Goblins are short-sighted, foolish and easily manipulated. Hobgoblins, however, are not. When Nidalese assassins moved to decapitate their proxy’s leadership, they vanished.
The Hobgoblins’ revolutionary council had always been cunning and paranoid. They distrusted their erstwhile benefactors from the start, and had cynically dispatched their own agents into Nidal to seek out evidence of duplicity as a simple matter of operational security. Disguised goblins and their allies learned the truth behind the so-called “Isgeri war of liberation” and uncovered the Nidalese plot to assassinate the new Isgeri government at the close of the war.
Caught between enemies on the field and enemies in their camp, the marshal did what no one would have suspected: she ceded the battlefield. The goblionoids didn’t lose the Goblinblood wars: they disengaged.
Today, 70-some years after the “end” of the overt war, very little has changed. The goblinoids still want Isger for a homeland. Mora than that, they want Nidal to bleed. A cold war has been underway between Nidalese and Isgeri agents for seven decades. All across Avistan, everywhere that Nidal has a shadowy hand in another nation’s business, disguised and lethal goblinoid agents are actively opposing them from the shadows.
The goblinoids will rise again. First, though, there are accounts to be settled …
~ * ~ * ~ *~
This premise gives me several character arc options, including strong motivations to follow the main AP plot: the Blue is motivated to join the party because he thinks that it will counter a Nidalese covert action (whether that’s true or not is up to the GM). The stealthy, rogue-ish Blue is included to distrust most everyone the party meets. The GM can drop in RP and combat encounters during the gaps in the AP (e.g., when the party goes to sell loot, the stable master in town becomes a Nidalese covert operative, etc.). The GM can drop clues and red herrings into odd places in order to make the party paranoid.
Moreover, the idea of a global cold war between Nidal and Isger justifies both the PC and the character arc’s villains to be nearly anywhere, and to have a good reason to come into conflict wherever they meet.
I think the idea has legs. I’m not sure which AP it would fit into best, though. Also, what it would take to weave the other PCs’ arcs into the overall story without it becoming distracting. That’s where I’m soliciting feedback.
What do you think, fellow gamers?
KH
Which ones have you played?
I'm running Skull and Shackles right now, and with some small changes it could be great. I've really ramped up the angle of political conflict between nations and within the shackles. Serpents skull would also work well. Foreign locales, rival factions. Could be very espionage oriented.
Which ones have you played?
I'm running Skull and Shackles right now, and with some small changes it could be great. I've really ramped up the angle of political conflict between nations and within the shackles. Serpents skull would also work well. Foreign locales, rival factions. Could be very espionage oriented.
I ran SD all the way through. Bloody fantastic, that one. It was the introduction to PFRPG for all the players. They were swept up by the grandeur of it.
We started RotR and got just barely over halfway through when the DM moved out of state.
We started LoF and, similarly, got one-third of the way through. The DM inserted eight (8) custom-designed side-adventures between #1 and #2, so that everyone was CL 10th by the time #2 started. Ambitious ...
And then there's CC. We're one session away from reaching the halfway mark, and I intend to go hell-bent-for-leather to see it through to the end.
I hadn't considered S&S until you mentioned it. The opening to the Daniel Craig '007' reboot immediately comes to mind. Interesting ... Muck about with the factions a bit and things could play out a lot like 1960s sub-Saharan Africa, a al 'Entebbe,' 'The Dogs of War,' 'Wile Geese,' et al. Neat!
Thanks, tumbler.
KH
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Serpents Skull seems better suited to the bend. Interfactional rivalries can go from cold to hot as they seek to attain a fantasy WMD in your version. Get the head, get the God. The factions are playing off against each other - and then of course there is the unexpected Sixth Faction near the end that the other factions have to band together against - IF they didn't wipe themselves out before the reveal...
Serpents Skull seems better suited to the bend. Interfactional rivalries can go from cold to hot as they seek to attain a fantasy WMD in your version. Get the head, get the God. The factions are playing off against each other - and then of course there is the unexpected Sixth Faction near the end that the other factions have to band together against - IF they didn't wipe themselves out before the reveal...
Thanks, Turin. I take your point. SS has the factions angle going for it throughout -- and you can have multiple factions represented by the PCs with conflicting simultaneous objectives.
Do you think that SS might have more of an action-adventure feel to it? Adventures 4-6 (if I remember right) took place far enough outside the 'civilized' zones that it had more of a 'Heart of Darkness' feel ...
I do like the idea of the factions exhausting themselves towards the end. Great way to turn an intrigue story into a desperate survival story where the revealed rivals have to cooperate to have any chance to survive.
KH
SS has the potential for more of the action-adventure movie feel. The key is pacing, as with a movie. If the pace is kept up, the rivals shouldn't do much more than take a swipe or two at each other (petty digs, bickering, et al from the first 2 Brandon Frasier Mummy movies are what I am envisioning) before the next hammer falls.
In short, I would recommend considering skipping Chapter 1 altogether, hitting the ground running with Chapter 2 and the PCs at (whatever) level. Tell 'em not to waste time on Item Creation feats nor on the Leadership feat.
Chapter 1 is awesome, but really only dribbles a few hints as to what's going on - you can condense the necessary information into a page or two. Don't let the players bog things down in minutae!
The last half is the "take over the abandoned city, get more buddies, then #!#!" - IIRC, you should probably go ahead and figure on each faction grabbing a "piece" of the city before the Sixth Faction Reveal, spend a half session or session at most getting the previously infighting factions to band together to stomp on the bad guys - while the Big D@mn Heroes get down to brass tacks. Perhaps a few of the other factions band together as the PCs version of their buddy Bennie and company...
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Which AP could best accommodate a Cold War
Reign of Winter.
Booo! BOOOOO!!!! ;)
I might suggest Kingmaker if only for the inter nation fighting and behind the scene actions. The DM may have the goal as your band of goblins trying to raise up a "puppet" government secretly loyal to the goblin cause. Maybe the Staglord and others have been funded by Nidalese agents in an effort to continue their Machiavellian plots around the globe.
O.o ... great catch Hendelbolaf!
If you want an ongoing years-long Cold War, Kingmaker is the way to go. A LOT of prep work, but it will pay big dividends if all of the players buy into it.
If you want action-adventure movie with the Cold War going "hot between agencies" ala Top Secret chasing down a WMD, go with Serpent's Skull.
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Booo! BOOOOO!!!! ;)
Chill out Turin, I just felt like I needed to be a special snowflake and suggest something different.
council of thieves might be good for that.
Booo! BOOOOO!!!! ;)Chill out Turin, I just felt like I needed to be a special snowflake and suggest something different.
Thus the ;)
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Wow, just reading your write-up made me want to join in. My favourite part in any group story-telling venture is partially the character arc and sub-plots, but also how they come together, as the different characters come to understand each other.
As for AP suggestions, Kingmaker would be the one to most easily involve proxies from the two nations, and the grand finale could easily be re-worked into the war going hot with their micro-nation in the middle.
(Though more than one player is going to want to be the suave, black-clad Lion Blade)
Chapter 1 is awesome, but really only dribbles a few hints as to what's going on - you can condense the necessary information into a page or two. Don't let the players bog things down in minutae!
Wow ... I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling confused by that AP opener. It's a great stand-alone tale. It's arguably my favorite in the AP, just for the 'desperate survival' feel. But it doesn't seem to 'fit' with the rest of the AP at all.
Concur on dropping item creation and leadership feats. I've actually found that those have little place in *most* APs. The way I GM them, the pace is break-neck -- no time to stop and sell loot or re-arm, let alone craft anything. I tried to use J.J. Abram's pacing from his M.I. franchise pictures, where the heroes never get to catch their breath.
That's not terribly fair to the PCs or to the designers, though. It means that the party consistently stays significantly below the wealth-by-level targets, and can be (at times) under-armed. On the other hand, being lean, depleted of resources, and desperate adds to the tension ... Which, in turn, leads to more memorable scenes.
For CC, I had to engineer an unscripted stop at a logging town on the border between Lozeri and Ardeal to let the party dump loot ... but, in doing so, had to weave in NPC encounters that foreshadowed The Furrows and put an economic spin on the Whispering Way problem that would nudge the big reveal in adventure 6. Lots of work, but the way I figure it if you're going to spend an hour or more of table time on it, then someone's character arc or the main plot arc MUST be touched on, somehow.
Have you run SS yet? The whole 'unifying the factions in the lost city' angle seems like a fetch quest more than a plot; go to the section, find the obstacle that prevents the occupants from allying with you, kill six moose, then make a Diplomacy check. If we were to take SS on, I'd like to make that whole sequence grittier, less certain, and less focused on obstacle-removal. Thoughts or suggestions are welcome.
Cheers,
KH
I might suggest Kingmaker if only for the inter nation fighting and behind the scene actions. The DM may have the goal as your band of goblins trying to raise up a "puppet" government secretly loyal to the goblin cause. Maybe the Staglord and others have been funded by Nidalese agents in an effort to continue their Machiavellian plots around the globe.
Interesting. Thanks, Hendelbolaf.
We hadn't rejected KM out of hand. There's internal division within the players over how fun that might be. On the one hand, we have a hardcore Old School Gamer (OSG) who lusts after the city creation and large-scale army rules. On the other, we have the storytellers who can't accept the premise that the PCs (as lords of a new territory) would join an ST:TNG-style "away team" to go cleanse a haunted cave when they have people to do that for them.
I like the idea of playing up the Brevoyan factions, adding more crunch to the story by playing up the cultural and idealistic differences between Issia and Rostland. I'm very much in favor of putting a Soviet spin on that nation, complete with a KGB-style secret police element keeping the seven great houses in line by keeping them focused on each other. Done right, that could give the whole adventure a 'Gorky Park' feel, which would be great ... I really enjoyed the first three Arkady Renko mysteries.
Question: can you *do* Kingmaker effectively if you shift all the nation-building and grand army elements to the background, leaving the PCs in the foreground as covert ops types? I'm leaning towards 'yes,' but am not sure.
Cheers,
KH
You absolutely can shift the building/army elements into the background in Kingmaker. There are brief guidelines on doing so in each chapter.
The balancing point seems to be straddling between the PCs "Executive Orders" and getting bogged down in the endless minutiae of administration and red tape. Since there are certain elements of that subsystem that - unless Ultimate Campaign substantially corrects it - are horrendously easy to abuse for the profit of the PCs, shoving that into the background will make your job much, much easier.
There are not that many "elite NPCs" available to them, most of whom are ill-suited to being an 'away team'. However, the players can control their 'away team' and during certain parts they can get butchered or driven off by overwhelming opposition, requiring that the heavy hitters (the regular PCs) step in and stomp on the bad guys.
There are also several bits of terrain that lend themselves VERY well to customization early on - specifically, Candlemere. If you can set such bits up to suit your tastes, the added material will greatly enrich your campaign.
Wow, just reading your write-up made me want to join in. My favourite part in any group story-telling venture is partially the character arc and sub-plots, but also how they come together, as the different characters come to understand each other.
Hey, if you're in the Dallas area, c'mon by and try out for the cast! ;)
At the start of the AP, I like to build a table that looks something like this:
Player: Bob
Player style: Drama Queen
PC: LE Male Vudran Monk
Role: Primary melee, straight man (vice Sue's comic relief)
Desires: Reconciliation with estranged father
Known Issue: PC = Violent temper, arrogance, Player = munchkin
Unknown Issue: Offended Cayden Callean; must be humbled before he can find enlightenment
Long-term arc: Conflict with father-figure NPC
The idea is to sketch the character arc as a general direction, then look for 'hooks' between PC arcs -- kind of like trying to braid rose bush stems. The good hooks allow two PCs to come into unexpected conflict, or for one to uncover a fragment of another PC's secrets. Done slowly, this allows PC 1 to get clue A, PC 2 to get clue B, and so on. Only after enough PCs compare notes with enough clues do we get a backstory or character arc reveal.
I'll also leave some elements open for later development. In the Bob example (above), I knew that i wanted a Wuxia-style grand finale, so I drafted a supplemental ending for the AP. Post adventure 6, the party would have an unexpected conflict with Bob's PC's father who rejected him in favor of a devil-consort; after a cinematic fight in the royal court, the father's palace on an island would be destroyed by epic tidal wave.
Other times, I'll have to abandon a sketched arc goal in favor of something tied to a PC's mid-AP evolution. In SD, we had a favoured soul (primary healer, primary diplomat) who was the catspaw for Cayden Callean's meddling in the SD plot. Halfway through the AP, the player decided to abandon the entire swashbuckler style and direction, in order to become a spell blaster. Fouled the main arc all to hell, so her revised character arc involved her god disavowing her. It was a dramatic moment, and it led to a painful atonement sub-arc.
We don't talk in detail about the secrets and arc elements of each PC design during the story conference; each player pitches a race/class/role/hook idea. For example:
Player 1: "We need a healer. How about a deranged assimar cleric of Nethys who feels compelled to balance out every HP healed with one inflicted on an innocent?"
GM: "Interesting. How are you going to stay true to the 'balance' requirement during adventures 1 through 4 when the party is in an urban environment?"
Player 1: "Point taken. I can't pull that off without inspiring a backlash from NPCs."
Player 2: "Counter-proposal: I wanted to play up the growth and maturation angle for my PC, so what if we start with a pre-game relationship? I'll be your 'whipping boy;' every time you heal a party member, you beat my PC an equal measure. Over time, as I gain in power and confidence, I'll evolve from meekly accepting the pain to rejecting it, to eventually handing you your ascot after adventure 3-ish."
And so on. I'll then get with each player one-on-one to flesh out their motivations, fears and secrets. In the above example, I'd also start sketching NPCs who would notice the whipping boy phenomenon, and would trigger long-term NPC antagonists, like inquisitors of justice, hardline Nethysians, etc.
It's a TON of work on the front end, but it sure pays off over the course of an entire AP.
Cheers,
KH
You absolutely can shift the building/army elements into the background in Kingmaker. ...The balancing point seems to be straddling between the PCs "Executive Orders" and getting bogged down in the endless minutiae of administration and red tape.
Hmmm ... Makes sense! I'll have to go re-read some of those.
I'd been considering having every player make 2+ characters ... one for the political side of the game and one for the cover ops/field duty side. That way, each players gets to enjoy both parts of the story without it seeming too contrived.
Thanks!
KH
That has happened several times, KH. At least a few campaigns did just that - two groups of PCs - one the rulers/politicos, the other the 'away team'/'problem solvers'. From what I've heard that arrangement works very well. Just level both groups up at the same time and voila!
(Also, in case the problem solvers get wiped, the politicos may have to step up to bat...)
I'm currently DMing a home-made campaign in Isger called 'Crusade for the Chitterwood'. In a nutshell:
-Goblins tribes are pouring out of the woods again and into a new swamp created by the Tears of Gozreh.
-Gozreh cried out following the destruction of so much nature by fire and his tears created a vast and expanding swamp in the south-east of the forest (follow the river up from Haugins Ear, about there).
-The players get hired by the local baron to deal with some 'minor' issues. They end up clearing an old tower, the only remnant of a ruined fort. This fort belonged to an old Order devoted to fighting the goblinoids and killing them all. A CN order that embraced Gorum and Calistria, they weren't loved in law-loving Isger. The players can either continue in the footsteps of this Order or create a new one.
-The fort becomes their base of operations.
So while the downpour lasted only a few days, the swamp continues to expand. The swamp keeps producing new streams and rivers that connect to the main artery of Isger's trade network. Goblins are pouring into the swamp for unknown reasons (infighting between goblinoids? dark cults are forcing them out? a zombie plague? rumors abound!) and it is up to the players to secure the swamp and create an opportunity to push deep into the Chitterwood and solve the problem once and for all.
The campaign takes a cue from the Northern Crusades, where the Teutonic Knights fought the Baltic people (Prussian tribes and Lithuanians) in a gruesome war.
Maybe I'll take some of your ideas and apply them to my on-going campaign :D
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As a player in Keil's campaigns, I can say that the character proposal session before each AP is one of my favorite times.
I get to show off my character ideas, everyone moans with anticipation at playing with my Monk Bob, and then, I get to piss and moan to the GM for the first 7 levels till everything seems to fit just right (according to me).
But as to the original post, and creating a character based off of 70 years of animosity between countries/peoples/factions, I must say that I am very intrigued by it and would love to try to make a character from that premise. Keil might describe me as frothing at the mouth with that much meat in a back story. (can you say 7 page background?)
I am in love with good roleplay, participating in the story, and having a great GM allow me the opportunity to create the foundation of my character with backgrounds that are now only 1-2 pages long.
But seriously Keil, you know how hard it is to GM political intrigue. So much to remember, so much to reveal, but not to fast, as that could wipe out an entire story arc with one slip of the tongue (no pun intended). If you were to GM such an adventure, there is no doubt that Skulls and Shackles is the best [as written] for such a thing. But so many factions... Sure, you would see which of the factions the players responded to with the most emotion and bring those to the fore front, keeping the others as minor players in the background, but that could take a couple of installments of the AP to figure out (lets just say 2 and 3), then that leaves you just part 4 to really do something with that knowledge before the PC's find the city.
This was one of the main concerns I had with LoF having part 4 and 5 in other planes of existance. Almost all the main story arcs had to be 75% concluded by the time you got sucked in to Kakishon. It is why there was so much more material added. ect..
But I also think King Maker is one that has the potential [as written] to have some great political intrigue, especially if it is started in a place outside of Oleg's trading post. Maybe the capitol of Brevoy, or a major city where these political hot toppics can be seen and experienced first hand before the AP begins, giving the characters all the reason to want those elements far away from their kingdom as possible.
I bracket [as written] because with the right GM creativity, knowledge of Golarion (which you have in abundance), and players playing characters that fit their capabilities (this is the most important), I think the second AP - Curse of the Crimson Throne - could be epic and have all the proper elements of subterfuge, political ramifications, and cold war style spying in abundance.
I know you think that I am all about the kingdom building and that KM was an AP that the Pazo staff had dreams of making just for me, but really, it is my least favorite of the AP's mentioned in this thread. I would be greatly interested in 2 sets of characters as described above, one set as the main group that does most of the AP, then having those specialists - green berets if you will - going about doing the covert ops, opening prestige classes like combat medic, dread commando, from (heroes of battle 3.5) that never really fit with PC's that had to be more versatile in the main story arc. I think that has alot of potential.
I am greatly offended (not really) that you named Rio (Bob) in your earlier description... 'snicker snicker'
Player: Bob
Player style: Drama Queen
PC: LE Male Vudran Monk
Role: Primary melee, straight man (vice Sue's comic relief)
Desires: Reconciliation with estranged father
Known Issue: PC = Violent temper, arrogance, Player = munchkin
Unknown Issue: Offended Cayden Callean; must be humbled before he can find enlightenment
Long-term arc: Conflict with father-figure NPC
In this, you lable me munchkin and drama queen, knowing that I would click on the link you sent me via email and read such libel. But, I forgive you, and hope you enjoy my next character, which will be made specifically for your GM pleasure... hehehehehe. -guaranteed 7 pages Biatch!-
Just so everyone knows, I am Bob the Monk -a.k.a Rio and have been raked over the coals by my fellow gamers @ Keil's table for my drama queen style of play for years. I do it for you Keil. I do it all for you!
I'm currently DMing a home-made campaign in Isger called 'Crusade for the Chitterwood' ... The campaign takes a cue from the Northern Crusades, where the Teutonic Knights fought the Baltic people (Prussian tribes and Lithuanians) in a gruesome war.
That sounds brilliant, Krass. Best of luck with it.
I'm curious: are you planning to humanize the goblins over time to change the tone from a noble crusade to morally-bankrupt butchery?
It sounds like you've got enough historical material to mine that you could make it very nuanced, and morally difficult for the players to slog through. At least, that's how I'd do it. Maybe even get a conflicted PC to try (and fail) to stop the madness, then defect to the opposition.
That scenario is just begging for a paladin's fall. Heh heh heh ...
Maybe I'll take some of your ideas and apply them to my on-going campaign :D
Shoot, have at it! Lift as much as you'd like. If you'd like a sounding board for anything, let me know.
KH
I am in love with good roleplay, participating in the story, and having a great GM allow me the opportunity to create the foundation of my character with backgrounds that are now only 1-2 pages long.
Snicker ... Curtis, you know darned well that it isn't the length of the backstory, it's the resonance of the design that counts. The motivations, hooks and vulnerabilities that give me (as GM) the opportunity to horrify, astound and delight you as your PC somehow manages to not die. :)
Just so everyone knows, I am Bob the Monk -a.k.a Rio and have been raked over the coals by my fellow gamers @ Keil's table for my drama queen style of play for years. I do it for you Keil. I do it all for you!
In the immortal words of Mr. Pratchet, "Pull the other one, it has got bells on."
Truth be told, Curtis, you've come a long way since the Forgotten Realms days, and kudos to you for it! Haymen [Bard, RotTL] and Cornelius [Crusader/Oracle, CC] are both very solid, very crunchy designs. Heck, even your Barbarian/Scout combo from the Proto-Eberron campaign showed that you can put character over damage output when you want to.
I like your suggestion of resurrecting the Dread Commando PrC from Heroes of Battle. I always wanted to do something with that and regret that we never got the chance. It's weak compared to PFRPG standard, but the concept behind it is delightful. It would really lend itself well to something in the Nirmathas/Molthune counterinsurgency struggle.
I very much like the idea of going back and doing CotCT ... That one didn't sit well with me at first read (the desert chapter just seemed like it was on rails), but after my second and third read through, I can see a lot of opportunities for urban RP and desperate running battles. I wonder if we could convince Morgan to run that for us ...
See you Saturday. Bring a spare character sheet ... "Bob" may need to make a cameo appearance. ;)
KH
Let me through a few more options into the discussion:
What about Way of the Wicked? (Or even the upcoming Throne of Night?)
ENWorld Publishing's Zeitgeist AP? (...read the reviews: Le Carré is mentioned)
Maybe 0One Games' Urban Road to Revolution AP?
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Though your method of team-building sounds right up my alley (since I tend to make up too many characters), I’m nowhere near Dallas and would have to resort to Skype. If everyone else is around a table, I’d only detract from the goings-on.
I’d still like to read any campaign journal you may see fit to write, even if you end up choosing an AP that I haven’t done and plan to.
Though your method of team-building sounds right up my alley (since I tend to make up too many characters), I’m nowhere near Dallas and would have to resort to Skype. If everyone else is around a table, I’d only detract from the goings-on.
I’d still like to read any campaign journal you may see fit to write, even if you end up choosing an AP that I haven’t done and plan to.
Keil is a master at writing and would make an awesome campaign journal.
If I may, I would love to post a small exerpt from an email about our CC campaign. I know it gets off subject, but rarely do I get a chance to praise Keil except on our monday phone calls.
Written for Cornellius, a dhampir crusader of Aroden:
When the curate's eldritch energy took your eyes from you, everything changed ... In the space of a single desperate heartbeat, you went from a snowy, dark battlefield on the edge of a gaping maw in the cursed earth to a universe of darkness. You could still hear the sounds of fight ... the "thwip" of Casomyr's arrows and the "crack" of shattered bones as the animated skeletons flew apart on either side of you. You could feel the icy sting of the snowflakes and the heat of Krolimar's firebombs on your face. You could smell George's canine scent, and the tang of Kate's feral terror as the same wash of black energy took her sight, too. Your world contracted to what you believed you could hit with your mace because nothing else mattered ... You would either crush your foes, or join the blackened bones in the charnel pit. There would be no surrender to evil. Not today.
... and then the sensations all stopped. The last of the curates choked to death on his own blood and went silent. The snow on your skin and the all-consuming darkness were all that remained. That's when you realized that something had broken inside your mind. It felt like the curate's spell had over-penetrated your defenses and had broken through a locked vault door right behind your eyes. Something was loose inside you, now, and was exploring its new playground.
The others led you roughly by the arm back to the Inn where Rascka and the other Prince's Wolves began erecting barricades and placing sentries. You could hear people arguing over how much time you might have before either the Demon Wolves or the Whispering Way patrols discovered you, and how best to hold them off when all of the casters had exhausted their reservoirs of magic. Things seemed ... grim. Eventually, unable to assist and exhausted from your ordeal, you fell asleep leaning against the door you'd promised to die defending.
That's when the presence running loose in your mind made itself known to you. You began to dream ...
You come to your senses sitting in the lotus position in the center of a twenty foot diameter summoning circle that's been crudely drawn into a slab of red ground that appears to be made of living muscle tissue. Beyond your circle is an endless plain of dark blue sawgrass. Your circle sits in the bottom of a bowl; the grass rises around you on all sides. You cannot see what is above the rim of the valley walls. Above you, crimson and lilac storm clouds go scudding by from right to left, as if driven by terrible storm winds. The place smells of spring, and fresh growth after chilly rains.
You have never seen this place, and yet it seems achingly familiar to you.
Outside your circle are watchers … most of them are eight feet tall. Their headless torsos are faded red and made of the same wet, raw, muscle mass as the ground you're sitting on. Dozens of eyes in various colors and sizes appear haphazardly on the torso. An oily black serpentine body unfolds beneath the head/torso assembly before vanishing in the grass. Two massive arms sprout from the top of the torso, as if growing out of the back of a skull rather than from shoulders. Each arm ends in a set of black, chitiinous pincers that are as long as your body. You have no doubt about these things' ability to slay you should they choose to.
As you watch, the grass parts. An elderly halfling man dressed in a black, form-fitting priest's tabard and hose pushes the past the nightmare creatures. He wears a medallion of Aroden on a heavy iron chain. You're heartened by the sight of the crown set over the eye. The man seems inured to the creatures' presence. If anything, he dismisses them contemptuously in order to focus on you. He gestures to you and you float to him as if telekinetically drawn by his will.
The small, angry man turns and gestures at the grass. A line of heat springs from his eyes, and a path is burned through the grass. You are no longer in a bowl -- you are on top of a cliff overlooking an endless sea of boiling silver. The man pulls you to the edge of the cliff and points down at the roiling surf. You look …
Below you, hundreds of feet down, a gargantuan tree-like creature strides through the surf towards the beach. The beast has a central, globular mass that is covered in gaping, gnashing maws. From its back, hundreds of tentacles writhe in the air like an electrified hedgehog. On the beach, a hundred tiny humanoid figures appear to be chanting and prostrating themselves before the titan. You can hear their mantra of "Iä! Iä!" over the pounding of the surf and the shrieking of the storm winds. Where the beach meets the land, a village is engulfed in flames.
You turn to the angry halfling man in incredulity. He glares at you in exasperation, as if furious that you don't understand the importance of what you're seeing. He points again. You hear a deep, menacing voice echo in your head like the gong of a church bell: "Ancient things cannot be killed; they can only be suppressed for a time. Eventually … inevitably … they always crawl back out of the darkness and must be banished again."
Behind you, a hoard of levitating cuttlefish with iridescent fur mantles explodes out of the forest of steel trees as if in a mad rush to stampede right over you and off the cliff top. The little man in the black robes whirls. Wherever he looks, a beam of moonlight falls on a creature which makes it burst into flames. Animals scream like terrified human children. Flesh flows like molten candle wax. The man pushes you over the edge of the cliff, and you start to fall. As you plummet towards the surf and the terrible rocks below, you see through the clouds into the night sky. Thousands of stars appear to be chasing one another in a tremendously complex but mechanistic pattern. As they align, you realize that the starts themselves are tumblers in a lock, and somewhere a door is about to open in the sky.
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Back on the original track of this post, I looked at the Skulls and Shackles AP last night and admit that I might have spoken a little soon on my support of it as a Spy Thriller.
Sure, I love James Bond, Jason Bourne, and I like Jack Reacher and Jack Ryan. These are my foundation of what I have read (not movies - although I have seen every james bond made)
I started reading Eric Van Lustbader when I was a teenager with his Ronin books - the sunset warrior series through beneath an opal moon.
His Ninja books I read as well, Nick Linnear? (I believe) I remember the Ninja and The Miko as the two I really liked.
Skulls and Shackles just doesnt deliver the right setting for me personally. Jungle outposts, lost cities, and a forgotten god do not put me in a spy thriller mood. Perhaps this is why I like the 2nd AP - Curse of the Crimson Throne for such a thing. Sure, there is one installment that is outside the city of Korvosa, but over all, you are in the city most of the time, which is where I like my spy thrillers to take place.
Like I said, this is my personal preference, and I could easilly play in the S&S AP as a spy type character, but would have to put on my creative hat of character creation and spend some time divining what spy concept would fit for me as a player.
Lets just say it would be a challenge for me as a player to come up with something to fit the spy theme in a jungle setting.
As I was writing this, my mind was falling back to the Lustbader novels of ninjas, and remote training camps in the middle of nowhere (perhaps a jungle) where elite spy types were trained for years.
I am guessing the Red Mantis fits this concept and might have been created with that ninja theme in mind.
*in hushed whispers*
Ninjaaaaaa..... Seikura......
I am kinda liking the ninja-spy concept more and more as I type. Its to bad I wont ever get to play one in Keils Campaign. I might Rio/Bob him to death.
Just an idea to chew on there Keil. :D
If I may, I would love to post a small exerpt from an email about our CC campaign ...
All that was part of the oracle's vision for Scene 1, Chapter 1, of Carrion Crown adventure 1. The oracle had to live with prophecies like that until she died (horribly) thanks to a vat of acid in adventure 2. Then, towards the end of adventure 3, the crusader was infected with the same horrible dream.
Set up adventure 4 nicely, and also will be touched on again in 6 (although the players have no idea how)(yet). <snicker>
Cheers,
KH
I'm currently DMing a home-made campaign in Isger called 'Crusade for the Chitterwood' ... The campaign takes a cue from the Northern Crusades, where the Teutonic Knights fought the Baltic people (Prussian tribes and Lithuanians) in a gruesome war.That sounds brilliant, Krass. Best of luck with it.
I'm curious: are you planning to humanize the goblins over time to change the tone from a noble crusade to morally-bankrupt butchery?
It sounds like you've got enough historical material to mine that you could make it very nuanced, and morally difficult for the players to slog through. At least, that's how I'd do it. Maybe even get a conflicted PC to try (and fail) to stop the madness, then defect to the opposition.
That scenario is just begging for a paladin's fall. Heh heh heh ...
Maybe I'll take some of your ideas and apply them to my on-going campaign :DShoot, have at it! Lift as much as you'd like. If you'd like a sounding board for anything, let me know.
KH
One goblin tribe is already copying the other races in how they do things, but they still do it with a distinctive 'goblin' feeling to it. Out of fear of any my players reading this forum I cannot divulge into it any further, but of course there will be some major curveballs thrown at the PCs down the road ;) some of them are already struggling with butchering tons of goblins just because they're green, but it is all going to get much much worse real soon.
Sadly the group isn't all that 'good', because I'd have loved the opportunity to corrupt a paladin heh-heh-heh. They also haven't tried to talk with the goblins and or use diplomacy in any way. Right now the goblinoids are the aggressors and with the goblinblood wars fresh in the memory of all, no NPC cares about butchering goblins by the dozens.
The campaign also isn't ye standard PF one. There are no magic item shops and temples won't help them just because they got money. The players know they need to gather resources and make friends and allies (to get materials to make magic gear or to simply sell them that very gear), but are way behind on that aspect of the campaign. They've gathered enough gold and resources to DO stuff, but they simply don't. In their group of six there's only one 'charismatic' person, but the player simply lacks the skills to play such a character (so far). So they won't have a Hermann of Salsa to kick-start their land-grabbing venture *laughs*
Let me through a few more options into the discussion:
What about Way of the Wicked? (Or even the upcoming Throne of Night?)
ENWorld Publishing's Zeitgeist AP? (...read the reviews: Le Carré is mentioned)
Maybe 0One Games' Urban Road to Revolution AP?
Bump. So... no love for 3pps?
I've near heard of the Zeitgeist AP. That sounds interesting. Have you run anything in it, Thanael?
Also, Krass: I'm right there with you on the paladin smacking. Always tons of fun. Keep in mind, though, that you can still twist the knife on moral issues with a predominantly evil party. Just because they're selfish doesn't mean that they're immune from the effects of horror. :)
KH
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Not an AP, but the module Tower of the Last Baron is perfect for this and is one of the best ones Paizo has put out.
Hey Coridan,
I just DM'd that module last week for Keil and friends as my test subjects. It was an excellent module for a Mission Impossible type game. Even with just 4-5 days to prepare, the group loved it and it rewarded a PC that was a good BS'er. Even though 3 of the PC had low stealth, it was a cake walk for these guys because they avoided combat till absolutely nessesary, then sprung upon an unexpecting baron and did him in.
I gave the baron a wife. Made her the reason this team was infiltrating the keep, giving them the mandate of, Bring the Wife of the baron out alive at all costs. If the baron dies, he dies...
It was a perfect way to make this more than just a stealthy-sabatoge type game as is the module's premise. I made the wife a member of an important political family in Andoren, so getting the PC's in before the army arrived gave a time table that added some nice pressure in the bacground of the adventure. And it fit perfect with the adventure as written.
I kept everything else intact in the module just making the primary directives into secondary ones.
It made for an incredible game of cat and mouse between the baron and the PC's, with the PC's easilly manipulating the events to cover their own ass and set blame on others.
I highly recommend Tower of The Last Baron LB1 in the 3.5 module line for Pathfinder to anyone who wants a good spy/skill oriented game. This could easilly launch into something much more for the creative GM, even being an awesome launching point for a campaign.
Thanks for the recommendation!
CC
TY for the suggestion CuttinCurt. I needed a fun side-quest mission for my PCs that isn't pure hack-and-slash and this module looks like the perfect fit. I'll adapt it though so that the PCs are working for Isger .. and well, with the Isger-Cheliax-Andoren relationship, things will get messy REAL fast ;)
TY for the suggestion CuttinCurt. I needed a fun side-quest mission for my PCs that isn't pure hack-and-slash and this module looks like the perfect fit. I'll adapt it though so that the PCs are working for Isger .. and well, with the Isger-Cheliax-Andoren relationship, things will get messy REAL fast ;)
Totally off subject, but I love your avatar pic. (This is cuttincurt) I had this bard named Haman that went through the Rise of the Runelords. Not only was I almost skewered by that creature's viscious military fork, but I also took it for my own weapon the rest of the game. Nasty creature... nasty memory...
Haha, okay. I haven't played RotR, I just needed an avatar that vaguely resembles a hobgoblin with a high intimidate skill for my pbp game of Shattered Star.
I'm going to run Tower of the Last Baron tonight, but with a twist. The players are in the service of Isger so if they fail, they'll be treated as traitors both by Isger and Cheliax. There will be a lot on the line ;)
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2nd darkness. would work also but you would have to do some converting. it was writin for 3.5 rules not pathfinder ones. I am running it now. It starts off with pc invesgateing strange atmosphic events and a run down casino and local town crime bosses. chapter two involes crime boss from other town faction fighting over something that happens on abandon island, only to find out they bit off more then they can chew. 3rd chapter pull you in to heart of elven war, with drow chapter 4 you go undercover to see how drow are getting to surface and what there plans are(huge RP chapter). chapter 5 Betral in elven goverment it self(large rp chapter also.)
chapter 6 save the world from doomsday weapon.Both elves and drow each have a rogue groups trying to start all out war or distory the world. With the same Doomsday weapon. You find out about the change of hands of the weapon in Chapter 5.
Kainpen, having been a player in that campaign, I can easily see how that AP could be used as a spy type AP. If we had gone into that campaign with subterfuge and spying in mind, I would have never played the monk character I did. Playing a L-E monk with the belligerent attitude that I had, it was not the best for staying undercover. As Keil would attest to, in part 4 when being disguised as drow, my wonderful DM Keil had my monk be put into an arena fight with one of the noble members of the vonark/azrinae family. (I can't recall the family's name we infiltrated). But my character taking a beat down from a sickening spoiled brat of a drow? Wasn't going to happen. But I can see where so many wonderful spy type themes could be use in that AP.
Cc