A lil' help please - flow chart for DMs (HoH)

[verinnal]

Hi Folks,
It's been many years since I've DMed, and I'm quite rusty. I'm trying to build a DM's aid in the form of a flow chart to help me keep things fluid for the players which is, in my opinion, one of a DM's most important responsibilities.

I think, at this point, that I know the module well enough that I could largely due without looking at the text for most things, so I could focus more at story telling and keeping the players' interests rather than reading from the book.

My problem is that I'm a bit stuck on how to better develop each passing day and keeping it interesting. How do you DMs encourage the players to interact with the general populationthe of Ravengro? The group that I normally play with is really combat focused, and it's a bit of a chore to get them to show interest in furthering the plot if they don't feel like there will be immediate reward.

In the beginning I'm going to be have two back to back days of monumental desecration occur, and will try to squeeze in the skipping song, and restless dead to immediately create interest. At what point/level should the characters be ready to have the town hall/flaming skull event happen. I've got some mild deterrents that I'll use to initially keep them out of harrowstone, but would like them to putz around down for a week or so without even thinking about i t.

I'll attach my flow chart for two reasons: To solicit ideas of how you think the "flow" should look, and in the event that my someone could benefit from having a visual look at the story line. Let's see if I can figure out how to post an image. I'm guessing I'll need to have a certain number of posts, or perhaps a dropbox link would suffice...

http://bit.ly/1wK97qq

[verinnal]

I should probably mention that the whole "letter from Adivion" thing in the chart was my way of introducing him from the get-go. He is sending a letter on behalf of Kendra, with whom he is mourning the loss of his dear friend.

[wraithstrike]

In order to find something to fight they have to advance the plot which means gathering information. Once they figure that out they should become proactive.

As a GM you also have to choose AP's that are good for your group. Carrrion Crown has a good amount of RP and research in it, so for your next AP you might want something with more fighting and less talking.

My players went into harrowstone early, but they were smart enough to return to town if they got beat up. If your players wont turn around they I agree on keeping them away.

[verinnal]

wraithstrike wrote:

In order to find something to fight they have to advance the plot which means gathering information. Once they figure that out they should become proactive.

As a GM you also have to choose AP's that are good for your group. Carrrion Crown has a good amount of RP and research in it, so for your next AP you might want something with more fighting and less talking.

My players went into harrowstone early, but they were smart enough to return to town if they got beat up. If your players wont turn around they I agree on keeping them away.

We just wrapped up our Reign of Winter campaign, which was run by a different DM and was done in such a way that it was almost exclusively combat. I was hoping to change things up a bit and try to bring things back to the role playing realm, rather than the roll playing realm. I realize this might be largely unsuccessful, but I'm going to give it a shot. I have at least one player that is eager to get back to some real story driven stuff.

As for harrowstone, without giving anything away, I've talked to the PCs a bit about how this campaign requires a bit of thought and careful consideration before doing things as they can get themselves into trouble easily. We'll see if they take the subtle hints that they shouldn't be doing certain things and should focus on others first. If they do jump around "out of order, that's more or less why I wanted to build a flow chart. So i can easily get them back on track without making them feel railroaded.

[verinnal]

Thought about this some more and I think I've more carefully thought through how I can keep PCs engaged. Have up to day four plotted. Thinking that for days five and beyond, I'll have a loop that involves Harrowstone exploration and cycles the Monumental Desecration every three days until the PCs defeat SM.

Updated Flow Chart