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Did run it yesterday to get a feel for it for a con coming up next week.
The players, in the end, mostly liked it, but one at least got extremely annoyed with Ekira and her stubbornness. I also felt like it was stupid to keep her going "you're Pathfinders, of course you're fundamentally to be distrusted, so I'm just going to be antagonistic even though you bring all of this compelling evidence to me". They tried their best in final encounter, but the dice were against them so despite all the evidence they had, she told them to they were guilty and demanded their surrender. Se got knocked out quickly, but luckily Tobias was on the party's side so did succeed in the main mission.
All in all, it did cause some frustration in me when I knew the players were choosing to focus on things the scenario didn't take into account. They also played so carefully, that the town sentiment track didn't move almost at all, so things felt very slow until the opposition track got to moving. They went to see Ekira before she had gotten suspicious of them, encounter 2 didn't happen at all etc.
So as a piece of advise: brush up your improvisation skills, you're going to need them. It's very easy to take this scenario of the tracks, because the players are going to assume the tracks are going into a different direction than they actually are.
Ditto here on Ekira and the Town Sentiment track! Just ran it this weekend. The major difference was that the players in general did not seem to like the scenario much at all. They felt it was too open and hard to tell if they were on the right track. Although, I did try to make sure things were on the right track and they ended up right where they should.
I'm not even sure how a careful party could ever really get the Town Sentiment track to move much at all. However, the Opposition track moves with ease. The one problem with this is that I really want the party to meet up with Ekira so I sort of encourage an encounter even if they don't hit Encounter 1 automatically.
I had a couple of issues with this adventure
1) there is no 4 player scaling for the fights - nasty for 4 first level characters.
2) The boon mission has a static DC, for both subtiers, with bonuses for more experience characters (+2 for tales of fighting demons on rescuing/helping helpless). No modifiers for how well the PCs handled themselves (their case), especially for new characters.
More on the scaling.
A party of 4 1st level PCs that enter the house to "rescue" the hostage are pretty much losing a PC before the fight starts. What I mean by that is that Dalton is a 3rd level PC with enhanced sneak attack dice and a high stealth roll who is ambusing the PCs. So, the hidden Dalton gets a sneak attack on the first PC that passes in front of the door, in the surprise round.
PC is flat footed vs +6 attack roll, and takes 1d4+2d8, average of 12 damage. This will drop most 1st level PCs - so leaving a player with nothing to do in the first fight, and likely still hurt when the second on starts.
I would suggest that this not be run for new characters - a bit of extra gear, like a wand of Cure Light Wounds would be helpful for groups without healers - and having a better chance of redeeming Inquisitor Ekira.
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Luckily, even if the town sentiment track doesn't move, the players are quite likely to seek out Ekira, what with so many of the rumors mentioning her. In my case, I just modified Encounter 1 with Ekira not questioning on them being Pathfinders as she had no way of knowing it yet. This might actually make her seem a bit more sympathetic, as there will be no immediate plunge into outright hostility.
In my game, the track did move to 3 later on, so I just had her confront the PCs again, this time actually asking about the things she's supposed to ask in Encounter 1.
One thing seemed to annoy my players especially (besides Ekira not listening). There seems to be almost no motivation for her hatred of Pathfinders. Is there any way for the characters to find out her backstory as I find it quite difficult to believe she'd tell them on her own, especially if she has turned hostile?
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I had a couple of issues with this adventure
1) there is no 4 player scaling for the fights - nasty for 4 first level characters.
2) The boon mission has a static DC, for both subtiers, with bonuses for more experience characters (+2 for tales of fighting demons on rescuing/helping helpless). No modifiers for how well the PCs handled themselves (their case), especially for new characters.
More on the scaling.
A party of 4 1st level PCs that enter the house to "rescue" the hostage are pretty much losing a PC before the fight starts. What I mean by that is that Dalton is a 3rd level PC with enhanced sneak attack dice and a high stealth roll who is ambusing the PCs. So, the hidden Dalton gets a sneak attack on the first PC that passes in front of the door, in the surprise round.PC is flat footed vs +6 attack roll, and takes 1d4+2d8, average of 12 damage. This will drop most 1st level PCs - so leaving a player with nothing to do in the first fight, and likely still hurt when the second on starts.
I would suggest that this not be run for new characters - a bit of extra gear, like a wand of Cure Light Wounds would be helpful for groups without healers - and having a better chance of redeeming Inquisitor Ekira.
We had a first level aasimar character playing in the high tear. The party left her in the back as they went up one side of stairs. The player had run it the week before and he was trying to think of a good non-gm knowledge reason why he shouldn't be in the back. The PC was dropped to 3 points from death. Then the party left that character exposed again and he was knocked down just as hard. And here I am on the boards talking about setting up games to destroy aasimar/tiefling characters as a joke. :p
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Luckily, even if the town sentiment track doesn't move, the players are quite likely to seek out Ekira, what with so many of the rumors mentioning her. In my case, I just modified Encounter 1 with Ekira not questioning on them being Pathfinders as she had no way of knowing it yet. This might actually make her seem a bit more sympathetic, as there will be no immediate plunge into outright hostility.
In my game, the track did move to 3 later on, so I just had her confront the PCs again, this time actually asking about the things she's supposed to ask in Encounter 1.
One thing seemed to annoy my players especially (besides Ekira not listening). There seems to be almost no motivation for her hatred of Pathfinders. Is there any way for the characters to find out her backstory as I find it quite difficult to believe she'd tell them on her own, especially if she has turned hostile?
Oh, no...I think Ekira absolutely would beam in on them possibly being Pathfinders no matter how/when you set up the encounter. That's part of her schtick. She would find just about any reason to accuse a bunch of people sticking their nose into her wrapped-up investigation involving those nasty Pathfinders that need to hang.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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We had a first level aasimar character playing in the high tear. The party left her in the back as they went up one side of stairs. The player had run it the week before and he was trying to think of a good non-gm knowledge reason why he shouldn't be in the back. The PC was dropped to 3 points from death. Then the party left that character exposed again and he was knocked down just as hard. And here I am on the boards talking about setting up games to destroy aasimar/tiefling characters as a joke. :p
Heh.
I learned a long time ago that you put the vulnerable party members in the middle of the pack. Putting them at the back is just asking to get them back-stabbed.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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What was really funny is that the knife master in the party was the one that was setting up the marching order. I'd been dropping hints that someone that looked alot like him was asking about the party and even asked if he had a twin.
We had a PC in our game whose description was almost exactly the same as the killer. There were a couple of PCs giving him strange looks by the end of the night. (I believe it even came out that he had black buttons too, though not obsidian.)
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Oh, no...I think Ekira absolutely would beam in on them possibly being Pathfinders no matter how/when you set up the encounter. That's part of her schtick. She would find just about any reason to accuse a bunch of people sticking their nose into her wrapped-up investigation involving those nasty Pathfinders that need to hang.Luckily, even if the town sentiment track doesn't move, the players are quite likely to seek out Ekira, what with so many of the rumors mentioning her. In my case, I just modified Encounter 1 with Ekira not questioning on them being Pathfinders as she had no way of knowing it yet. This might actually make her seem a bit more sympathetic, as there will be no immediate plunge into outright hostility.
In my game, the track did move to 3 later on, so I just had her confront the PCs again, this time actually asking about the things she's supposed to ask in Encounter 1.
My idea was that as the track had not moved yet, she wasn't aware of them asking around, thus she no reason to suspect them. Though I cannot remember which kinds of questions they asked her then, whether they could have been intepreted as messing with her investigation. I just thought i should reward my players for playing carefully enough not move the town sentiment track.
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This scenario was fun, but felt a little odd. I know most social encounters are done a little differently, but this sort of felt like 'To Scale the Dragon' not in flavor, but like they are toying around with a mechanic much like chases.
That said I really do hope that Ekira shows up again. I always love recurring characters, even if it is in the love to hate them sense.
I think when a group of people come up to her asking about the doomed Pathfinders, especially when they are presenting "evidence", is enough to trip her "Pathfinder radar". Of course, this could be just a GM discretion kind of thing. It worked well for my run, since the sentiment wasn't getting tripped and the party was missing some vital background and plot information.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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This scenario was fun, but felt a little odd. I know most social encounters are done a little differently, but this sort of felt like 'To Scale the Dragon' not in flavor, but like they are toying around with a mechanic much like chases.
That said I really do hope that Ekira shows up again. I always love recurring characters, even if it is in the love to hate them sense.
I think when a group of people come up to her asking about the doomed Pathfinders, especially when they are presenting "evidence", is enough to trip her "Pathfinder radar". Of course, this could be just a GM discretion kind of thing. It worked well for my run, since the sentiment wasn't getting tripped and the party was missing some vital background and plot information.
In my party's case, they sent the Inquisitor of Calistria who was all "I hear there is some vengance going on, Calistria wants to offer her services" So, "Pathfinder radar" didn't go off, but Erika wasn't real thrilled either.
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I had my players make Bluff checks to skirt the question when they spoke to Tobias and Ekira. They also made sure on their own, to leave their wayfinders and such back at the lodge, which I thought was interesting. So when I had the NPCs ask directly later on, "are you Pathfinders? Why are you so personally interested in this?" Theywould try to say things like "We just want to see whats really going on." I roll a d20. Out of character, I look at the person speaking "ok give me a Bluff check . . .".
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We had a first level aasimar character playing in the high tear. The party left her in the back as they went up one side of stairs. The player had run it the week before and he was trying to think of a good non-gm knowledge reason why he shouldn't be in the back. The PC was dropped to 3 points from death. Then the party left that character exposed again and he was knocked down just as hard. And here I am on the boards talking about setting up games to destroy aasimar/tiefling characters as a joke. :p
Heh.
I learned a long time ago that you put the vulnerable party members in the middle of the pack. Putting them at the back is just asking to get them back-stabbed.
As the player in question, I had no 'in game' reason to think of my character a vunerable (i.e. what's a level?) the party was a Paladin, Bard (me), Inquisitor, and Rogue. Paladin was up front and that leaves 3 lightly armored characters. Having darkvision it made sense that I was in back.
I might have said something, but I was really trying to play the ignorant player I thought of objecting, but because I "knew" from GMing (though my game went off the rails much earlier) I didn't feel it was right to object.
And I made a beautiful meat shield.
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As the player in question, I had no 'in game' reason to think of my character a vunerable (i.e. what's a level?)
The characters would know the low level guy is the least experienced Pathfinder, so maybe shielding him/her a little is a good idea. Even in character, that works as an excuse to put the lowest level guy in the least vulnerable position, which as stated above, is the middle of the pack with meat shields all around.
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There are some great suggestions in this thread, so thanks to everyone who has contributed. I'll definitely be using some of it when I run this on Sunday. Thanks especially to Doug Miles for the letters he came up with, I'll be using those.
I've been thinking of how to give the players some of the backstory and motivation for the villians. As has been suggested by others in this thread, the most concise way I can think of is to include a journal for Dalton Krunne that could be found either in the house or on his person. It's not ideal for it to be at the very end of the scenario - especially if it's at a convention and time is short - but it's better than leaving the players wondering what just happened.
I've tried to come up with a brief diary that might help the player's understand things a bit more, not to mention try and explain why Dalton decides to attack them in the end. So here's my go at a journal for Dalton:
13 Sarenith
Desimire suggested I keep a diary! A silly idea I thought at first, but it could be fun to look back at some of my more memorable conquests when things get slow. And I wouldn't want to forget any of the souls I'm sending to our master Shax now would I?
10 Erastus
The quasit Tovril has convinced me that it could be more fun to slowly corrupt a good soul, rather than just destroy it outright. He has his sights set on a paladin called Ekira Corum. Says that if we can turn her that Shax will reward us lavishly. I don't doubt that it will be worth a lot to Tovril, but I'll play along for now. It could be fun to see some righteous do-gooder like Corum fall from grace!
24 Erastus
So this corrupt-the-pally game at least includes some blood play. The way that farmer screamed while I flayed him was worth the wait. Got interrupted trying to do that bard last night, so it had to be quicker. But no matter - seeing those Pathfinders arrested for both murders was magnificent. Tovril does have a point about this larger goal thing. Seeing those three innocents swing will be sweet, but I only wish I could be putting the ropes around their necks myself.
1 Arodus
Tovril said we needed to add to Corum's Pathfinder prejudice and get a few more here before the others hang. Doesn't make much sense, but I said I'd go along, so I sent that second letter to Nerosyan.
So now there's more Pathfinders poking around, trying to free their convicted mates. Tovril says to stay cool and let it play out, but if they get the other three off that means there's no blood on Corum's hands. How are we supposed to corrupt her if she doesn't kill those innocents? I'm starting to wonder if the quasit is as clever as he thinks he is.
Later -
This is getting frustrating. Those other bastard Pathies are going to ruin this whole thing! My blades are getting real itchy. Shax blessed me with a gift, and that gift is killing things with my own hands, not sitting around playing politics. Screw the quasit and his plans to become a demon lord or whatever, I'm out of patience.
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I just ran this last night. It was a blast.
There was so much roleplaying, the players really loved it.
I went with the kids playing demonic-pathfinders versus militia, it was a nice touch.
A tiefling PC managed to get 'arrested' by the other PCs to get into jail. The tiefling was also so good with locks that it didn't hold him whenever he wanted to.
In the end it was a really awesome experience and the citizens of Dawnton now have a new story to tell 'Eat your vegetables children, or the Tiefling will come out to get you' :)
More of this sort of stuff please!
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Is it me or are the social mechanics and tracking a very complicated way of making it seem like you're not on rails when you are?
It's not too bad if you are ready for it. First off there are some good charts to download, or you can do what I did, which was copy all the relavant parts onto one sheet of paper and kept it next to me. I also made a chart of the town were people could place their minis as to where they were morning, evening and night.
Basically, it is not well organized in the module but it is playable and usable. Take the time to organize it in a way that makes sense to you and it's not a pain in the rear.
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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Is it me or are the social mechanics and tracking a very complicated way of making it seem like you're not on rails when you are?
It's more like you are in a helicopter, and there are a series of canon balls scattered around you, attached to the helicopter by bungie cords on winches...
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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My preference would be, with a large group, playing well, they should be able to get enough information to start the final confrontation on their own terms, and avoid all the other fight scenes.
Unfortunately, there is no smoking gun, so the PCs keep looking for the smoking gun and get frustrated.
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The issues with how the various tracks were organized aside, the lack of concrete physical evidence or motive was what was most problematic for the group I ran it for. I had to prod them a few times that the circumstantial evidence was really more than they thought.
While I'm at it, a few more constructive notes:
For groups that *really* want to go off script, the "Word on the Street" rumors went fast (there really wasn't an equivalent for "I interview the deceased's family" or "I attempt to break into Ekira's room looking for clues.")
I would say that you should reward players for creative solutions by improving along with them. For example, in my session, I had the group that used an incredible amount of team work to break into Ekira's room find Ekira's journal that pretty much gave them the gist of all the true "Ekira" rumors. I also cherry-picked rumors if there was anything available that seemed related to what the group was inquiring about; it was a bit silly when the rumors were completely irrelevant to anything the group was investigating.
Speaking of investigating, you might want to handwave the arrival in town to be the start of the day. My group was trying to investigate right away and I had to explain how the investigation phases worked on a per day cycle.
We had some similar experiences as described where the scenario sort of stalled out, but by that point they'd already gotten all the "true" rumors so I just had the last few events occur in a somewhat organic way (the frame was discovered after the second phase on day 2.)
Overall, it was a fun scenario, but it requires a prepared GM that can adjust things on demand to keep things interesting.
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One hilarious result, and I don't know if I did this right or not but it was funny either way.
They interviewed the shopkeeper. I got the rumor "The shopkeeper is known for spinning tall tales "
I like you guys but i gotta tell you.. hic! I'm a notorious liar.
I got that one too...I had his wife come up and say "Oh honey, I know how much you love to make a story out of it, but tell these kindly folk what REALLY happened."
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The issues with how the various tracks were organized aside, the lack of concrete physical evidence or motive was what was most problematic for the group I ran it for. I had to prod them a few times that the circumstantial evidence was really more than they thought.
While I'm at it, a few more constructive notes:
For groups that *really* want to go off script, the "Word on the Street" rumors went fast (there really wasn't an equivalent for "I interview the deceased's family" or "I attempt to break into Ekira's room looking for clues.")
Sounds like my table when I played. No matter how much circumstantial evidence we accumulated, I just wasn't convinced we had enough to go to the sheriff with yet.
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For anyone who's interested, I'm working on a revised version of the scenario, it (obviously) doesn't edit the the check DCs, combats, or any of the mechanics.
It's an attempt to streamline/simplify the two tracks, flesh out the town, give the plot important NPCs some deeper backstories/personalities, and add a few new NPCs to either deliver the players rumors, or give them background information about the setting and plot important NPCs.
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Played in this today and had a very good time. I enjoyed reading the accounts of what happened to different groups and thought I would share our highlights.
We had a half-orc character in the party with profession: brewer. Our cover was that we were heading into town with a cart loaded up with good booze to sell cheaply during the days before the hanging. "Grog's Ale. It'll put hair on your chest!"
Our bard went to work bluffing through several important conversations while we all split up investigating separate locations. Her cover for investigating was that she was writing a song about the heroic efforts of the town to bring the pathfinders to justice and wanted to get as much info as possible.
We had all become pretty much convinced that Erika was the one behind the murders. I had the idea to get a handwriting sample from her and compare it to the notes and I was certain that was going to be the lock solid piece of evidence that would put her away. Our bard convinced her to write up a little summary detailing why the pathfinder society was evil, etc so that she could put it in her bardic performances. Imagine our dismay when we laid out all the notes we had in our possession and one of these things was not like the other. Ugh!!
We had Tovril beaten, unconscious, and tied up when we presented all our evidence to the Sherriff with Ekira and a large amount of townsfolk present. Ekira wasn't having any of it and was still "talking with Iomedae" and accusing us of the wrongdoing and things seemed to be at a stalemate and tense. We were absolutely convinced she was a devil in disguise or possessed by a demon or something of that nature, so in near desperation, we poured Holy Water over her! Imagine everyone's surprise when a quasit shrieked in pain and tried to escape! A couple miraculous bow shots by the two rangers in the party (one rolling a nat 20, confirmed crit, and triple 8,8,8 on the damage dice) actually dropped and killed the quasit and astonishing the onlooking crowd. One evildoer brought to justice, and an evil outsider destroyed.
Explore! Report! Cooperate!
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My party decided to not waste any time and purchased Wind Walk to get to Dawnton. They proceeded to ace the social encounters and finished the scenario the night before they would have arrived by horse.
That said, this scenario is going to be rough for new or quiet players, without someone to help drive the plot due to the sandboxy nature of it, especially with so many moving parts.
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I ran this over the weekend at Paizocon UK and prepped this more than any previous PFS scenario, but it was worth it. Or to put it another way, I would never dream of running it cold!
Here's a list of things I did:
1. Use separate sheets covering the 2 tracks so you can quick update progress - there are good ones in GMPrep for this.
2. I printed off the rumours on card and cut them out. Shuffled them into false and true piles and read them out before giving them to the players. This worked really well as they could sort through the rumours on the table.
3. The letters were a victim of a strict word count and I recreated one in the scenario, plus the letter to the Society and the letter to Tobias. This worked really well and drew in the players to the investigation. The letter to the PFS read:
"Sirs. I’m a pilgrim travelling North through Mendev. I have discovered something that will be of interest to the Pathfinder Society. On the North Road on the crossing of the River is the village of Dawnton. In the farmland northwest of the village I have found an undisturbed ruin which I think is of Sarkoris origin. Tomorrow my journey takes me further North. I am hopeful that you find this information useful." Joral gave the PCs this.
The letter to Tobias read:
"Sheriff. Help me I’m scared. Last night I saw a man killed by three ruffians near Ottos farm. One of the killers was a halfling and the other two were dwarves with black braided hair. One also had a scar on her right arm. What I saw was too terrible to describe. I am scared that they might have seen me. Please do something!"
4. I printed off a 'timeline' of the days the PCs had so I could track the phases accurately.
5. When the PCs arrived in town I briefly explained the investigation system to them as follows:
Each day is split into 3 phases: Morning, Afternoon, Evening and you can investigate one location per phase - more if you chose to split up.
At each of the locations you can obvious ask specific questions and you can also ask for rumours. Rumours will require a skill roll, but this will vary depending on the location and how you decide to approach the situation. For example, there are games at the fairground and participating in the games will give you a chance to get to know people and overhear rumours.
No doubt that there are many rumours flying around so you might want to return to a location later.
VC Joral made it very clear that you have to tread carefully when in Dawnton. The more ‘obvious’ you make yourselves the more chance that trouble will result. If you want to you can take steps to keep a low profile by making bluff, disguise, or Stealth checks every day. It you’re successful you can keep a lower profile.
Locations in Dawnton are:
* Village streets (includes the Inn)
* The General Store
* The Fairgrounds
* The Beer Garden
6. I printed off a map of the town and laminated it for the PCs to draw on.
8. For the house encounter I used a Teraclips 3D house (it drew some attention). There was only one real fight and these (I hope) focused the PCs on it.
7. GM Notes. Added my own notes to create the mood I wanted in the adventure (which I should add, is based visually on the movie 'Solomon Kane' - go check it out).
I added:
Boxed text covering the journey and arrival:
"Your journey takes you North East through the Hinterlands of Mendev under a sky the colour of dull steel.
The road is rough, churned to mud by the passage of thousands of crusaders and pilgrims travelling to fight the demons of the World Wound. On either side you see stark evidence of previous crusades; the dark shells of castles long since abandoned. Empty villages, devoid of life beyond that of scavenging dogs and crows.
And The gallows, and stakes, the pyres. How many people died in the Third Crusade? How many lives destroyed because of the fear, suspicion, hatred that covered this land in the name of Inquisition. Now cruel structures mar the road like ugly scars left over from the failed attempts of healing the wound in the world. They creak in the wind.
The weather is gets colder; snow floats in the air dreamlike and the wind numbs exposed flesh. This is a colourless land. There are few travellers on this road, and those you see are of an ugly cast - dirty and scarred. Distrustful. They are travelling in the same direction as you. To Dawnton they say. To witness the executions.
Late in the third day of riding you arrive at the village; sitting at the crossroads of the road and a dark listless river and accessible by a covered tunnel-like bridge. The buildings are dark, the gabbles black, smoke rises from stacks, and wooden piers stand out on the water to the east like blackened teeth.
Dawnton is far from empty though. Beyond the buildings to the east you can make a crude tent-city swollen with carts and horses and people. As the light fails, camp fires light them up with a hellish glow. You can make out the muted sound of music coming from a large well-lit Inn to your right, the rain-swollen sign hangs from a metal frame and reads ‘Heath and Harvest’.
Somewhere off in the distance you can hear the lonely sound of hammer against wood, the sound, you suspect, of a new gallows frame being constructed... "
Mood Notes I wanted to evoke:
Snow floats in the air like cotton, later in the plot it turns to driving cold rain. Lashing down. Mud everywhere.
Cold mud everywhere.
Gallows in the market near Tobias Luins House. Room for 3...
Worn buildings look near collapse. Lean against each other.
Air of suspicion and fear
Tense. Will not take much for things to turn violent.
Dirty children play ‘Crusaders vs Pathfinders’ - play fighting, ‘Burn the witch’ - hide and seek
A bard in the Inn (‘Valik’ M Human - Bard1) plays a mandolin and sings 'Song of Sarkoris’ and 'The Ballad of Prince Zhakar’
Dark Streets at night.
Buildings are lit only by greasy smoky candles
People huddle together in the darkness.
People are plain, scarred, generally ugly.
The life of the village is at the tents.
Mobs with torches and pitchforks
Scrawled symbols on the doors and fetishes hang from the windows to ward off evil.
Sample NPCs:
Valik - Human Bard. Old, and grey eyed. Friendly and talkative.
Jezibel Sacha- Leader of a gang of children (includes Jera, Musk, Henrik, Red). Proud but fearful. Is awed by magic.
Torben Sacha- Leader of the villages Toughs. Others include: Alex, Ranse, Markus, Tomas, Orest.
Josiah - Pilgrim of Erastil. Heading to the War. Young and plan. He looks for the good in people.
Nelly - waitress. Friendly and crude.
Crowthorn - Merchant. Sly and eager to spread rumour. Likes the PF. Has two guards - Elra and Pord.
Gill - Drunkard. Will say anything for money to buy beer.
Stone - Blacksmith and builder - scarred and ugly. Building the gallows. Believes the PFs are guilty.
Malachi - Low templar. Stopped here for the execution. Trying to make money.
Garrick - Owns the Heath and Harvest. Married to Fara and has one boy (Henrik)
Tobias Luin - Mayor and Sheriff. Likes Tea, Cake, and an easy life.
Dirk - Militia guard. 1 armed - fights with a short sword and spiked fake arm.
Veldak - Militia guard. Horribly burnt and wears a leather mask.
Catherine Dumis- Runs the games at the fair
Lilianne - Elven traveller enjoying the fair.
Faris and Jorg. Two dwarves brewers. The local beers are 'Crusader' and 'Old Forest'. There is no wine or mead available.
Games at the Fair:
1. Swimming across the river- race (swim check to win)
2. Hay climbing (Climb)
3. Race (Acrobatics)
4. Arm Wrestling - contest (Strength rolls)
Details of the murder victims (as missing from the text)
The Murder Victims
1. 1st Victim – Trader ‘Brend’ and travels from village to village. Found skinned by Otto. (page 10)
2. 2nd Victim – Farm hand ‘Aldo’ young and dumb. Was drunk - found in front of the general store by Orug. Dagger found at the scene.
3. 3rd and 4th Victims - Fasil (older) and Uthanc (younger) Mummers. (Enc 3, page 13). Stabbed and the dagger is still in eye of one of them.
The prepping really helped me keep the scenario following and it was all about the story, the town, and the people.
I hope some of you find the above useful.
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Like Nevarre I ran this at PaizoCon UK, and likewise I did alot of prep for it. I echo the 'do not run cold', to the point I was intimidated by the scenario and revised it several times before the convention.
As luck would have it, despite my trepidation, I really enjoyed running it and I think my players enjoyed it too. You do have to make up some of the details, but luckily I was able to do this on the fly and my players were very cooperative.
It's a good scenario, it just expects the GM to go the extra mile and a half. That's not always a bad thing.
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Nevarre, I might just have to "borrow" a thing or three from what you've posted here. I did a lot of "winging" it to fill in odd details during my last run but I like the idea of having a few more of those details already filled in. I did do things like give names to the bartender and server at the inn but I didn't go into quite the detail you did here. Good job!
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Nevarre, I might just have to "borrow" a thing or three from what you've posted here. I did a lot of "winging" it to fill in odd details during my last run but I like the idea of having a few more of those details already filled in. I did do things like give names to the bartender and server at the inn but I didn't go into quite the detail you did here. Good job!
Thanks, and feel free to!
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One hilarious result, and I don't know if I did this right or not but it was funny either way.
They interviewed the shopkeeper. I got the rumor "The shopkeeper is known for spinning tall tales "
I like you guys but i gotta tell you.. hic! I'm a notorious liar.
I portrayed the the two general store owners like Ike and Corabeth Godsey from the Waltons. He's very jovial and likes to talk and she is very proper and tells him not to exaggerate or engage in idle speculation.
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I ran this last monday, the party did well and had fun.
The major thing I did is to clue the party in that there were some unusual rules going on - not tell them the actual numbers or details, but let them know that they should be descrete and have a cover story, and that being discovered as pathfinders and investigators would be very bad, as would bullying the locals.
The group used the cover story of the oracle of bones coming to town to bury the dead and help the investigation along.
I used Your whispering homunculus by Richard Pett for some local color and ridiculous games of skill.
The thief really gave the party trouble, stealthing the the dark house, downing a character each time he snuck attack, and then retreating. Eventually he tried that trick on the ranger, who didn't drop, and then cut the thief down to zero with his BFS (Big frightening sword).
All in all, a good scenario if you prep and you clue in the party in to the fact that a additional subgame rules set is being used. It's pretty much like a scooby doo adventure, if you think about it. . . .
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I've played this, but haven't run it yet and have now glanced at the scenario.
I'm really conflicted on this one. With the mechanical tracks, it looks onerous, horrible and way too restrictive for a party. It's like the investigation is being forced into being a very obtuse chase scene mechanic versus being an open-ended sandbox.
This scenario could've been straight up brilliant if it was simply presented in sandbox form and a GM given events to run at appropriate times when he felt they were instrumental to advancing the story.
My opinion (and eventual review) would be to suggest if there's future investigative scenarios like this in the future, to go back to the "old school" tabletop way of presenting them and just let it be a sandbox versus giving the GM clunky tracks that may quickly break for more than half the parties going through it.
This feels like one I should run with several beers in me first so I can plausibly forget the tracks and then have to do some "damage recovery" to keep things going. :)
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Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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I think the tracks are there to keep this from running overtime. If I had 8 hours to run this, I would just let the tracks go and just bring things in as they seem relevant. (Actually the tracks might be useful, I would just drop the auto advancing nature and only have them advance when the PCs mess up.)
Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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Some really good advice...
I love the tone you evoked for this! I did similar to create a creepy/horror show vibe for Day of the Demon... so much so that it freaked my players out!
When i ran this at GenCon, I wanted to give the feel that the townspeople were just simple country folk... so I used descriptions and voices of characters from The Andy Griffith show for the NPCs. It gave them a sense of ease with the investigation, right up until things start falling apart at the end!
All in all though, I love your turn on this! If I ever run it again, I'll be sure to use it!
Providing I finally get enough for a table at an out of town venue I'm hosting, I'll be running it tonight. It's actually been one of my more favorite scenarios, you just have to go with the flow and enjoy the role play. I've ran it 3 times in the past, once at a convention with people I didn't know. I'm pretty excited!