I'm about to start GMing a playthrough of CotCT with my usual group, meeting weekly, this week. It's a 5-man party, but one player can't always make it (so far, we've got a Swashbuckler, a hunter with a dog, and either an Arcanist or a False Priest Sorcerer.) Any GMs who've already run through this got any advice about portraying Korvosa, any spots in the campaign they had "trouble" with, or just advice in general for making the campaign as enjoyable as possible?
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Hi Mister Fluffykins
Welcome to the Curse of the Crimson Throne crew. You picked a fantastic adventure path to run. These boards are filled with tips, answers to questions and advice.
First of all, you should read through the complete AP to get a clear scope of what the adventure is about and the Guide to Korvosa to get to know the city. It is a big plus for the campaign if you manage to create a bond with the city.
I'll put in some links here that might be helpful for starting the campaign:
Of course, these are just a handful of links, there is so much more to be found in the messageboard hoard.
Apart from that, I would also like to recommend you read some campaign journals on this AP. One that I really like and that was a big inspiration for my campaign is Moonbeam's CotCT. I've also been writing my own journal, which might prove helpful as well.
Most of all, good luck and have fun!
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I'm playing biweekly on the fast experience point progression (page 30 of the Core Rulebook).
I have found that I am unable to add much of my own content and avoid my player's characters outpacing the level progression as presented in the adventure path.
Since you are playing weekly you may consider the medium experience point progression to give yourself leeway to create additional encounters when needed to highlight the city and various plotlines.
Also, read all six books ahead of time if you haven't already and introduce characters long before they are introduced as written in the books. James Jacobs wrote that he wishes they would have introduced the Cinderlander earlier, like somewhere in Book 3: Escape from Old Korvosa.
Another thing I have been doing is running side adventures with my players playing different characters. This has been a great way of introducing my players to background and behind the scenes information without it being actionable to their primary characters.
So far, in addition to the primary adventuring party, we are running side adventures with a party of Hellknights to learn why Citadel Vraid has recalled its knights from the city; and we are running another side adventure with a low-level party of commoners so the players can witness what is happening to Korvosa when their main main characters head out into the Cinderlands.
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I'm just starting to put together a plan to run this as well so I'm going to piggyback off of this thread.
Problem the First: So as Lakesidefantasy mentions as a 3.5 AP, the adventure as written would translate to running on the fast XP track in Pathfinder. I'm winding down a run of RotR and I've found the fast track has been too fast for my tastes; I'd like to move it to medium if not slow. As such: can anyone suggest existing content that slots easily into the adventure at given points to facilitate that?
Academy of Secrets is the obvious choice, I know. I think I could probably adapt Dawn of the Scarlet Sun fairly trivially as well.
Are there any PFS scenarios that adapt easily to Korvosa? The price of getting them all to check out what I might be able to use is prohibitive.
I don't *mind* writing my own stuff, but given that I'm already taking on a conversion task as well I don't want to bite off more than I can chew in prep work.
Problem the Second: Gray Maidens. For various reasons that I'm not interested in debating, I'm going to open that group up to encompass men & women both (she's still going to pick only the pretty ones.) I need to come up with a new name, and "Gray Guard" seems a little generic. Gray Wardens is obviously no good either. Suggestions welcome!
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The first two Pathfinder Society scenarios that come to mind are the Veteran's Vault and the Fortress of the Nail. There is a reoccurring character in the two of them that could be used in your campaign or replaced with a non-player character from the adventure path.
The Veterans Vault takes place in Korvosa while the Fortress of the Nail takes place outside of the city in Citadel Vraid--the home of the Hellknights.
The Green Market also takes place in Korvosa. The Cairn of Shadows takes place in Nidal, but very close to Korvosa and it could be made to have some connection to Shadowcount Sial and Laori Vaus later on in the campaign.
Also, the Guide to Korvosa has plenty of material to inspire Korvosan adventures.
Take a look at the Harrowing, a module for 5th level characters. It's all about the harrow deck and could be played to have a connection with Zelara.
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The Harrowing appears to be for 9th level (which is good actually since it won't compete with Scarlet Sun level-wise), but has potential, thanks! I'll check out those scenarios.
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I'll be inserting Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale after book 2. The heroes have to travel to the Vale to get an ingrediënt for the cure that an allied professor is cooking up. The module is 3.5 as well, just like CotCT, but the valley borders on Korvosa, so you could easily fit it in with some modification. It is also level appropriate for this point in the campaign: level 6.
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I'm just starting to put together a plan to run this as well so I'm going to piggyback off of this thread.
Problem the First: So as Lakesidefantasy mentions as a 3.5 AP, the adventure as written would translate to running on the fast XP track in Pathfinder. I'm winding down a run of RotR and I've found the fast track has been too fast for my tastes; I'd like to move it to medium if not slow. As such: can anyone suggest existing content that slots easily into the adventure at given points to facilitate that?
Academy of Secrets is the obvious choice, I know. I think I could probably adapt Dawn of the Scarlet Sun fairly trivially as well.
Are there any PFS scenarios that adapt easily to Korvosa? The price of getting them all to check out what I might be able to use is prohibitive.
I don't *mind* writing my own stuff, but given that I'm already taking on a conversion task as well I don't want to bite off more than I can chew in prep work.
Problem the Second: Gray Maidens. For various reasons that I'm not interested in debating, I'm going to open that group up to encompass men & women both (she's still going to pick only the pretty ones.) I need to come up with a new name, and "Gray Guard" seems a little generic. Gray Wardens is obviously no good either. Suggestions welcome!
I'm about to start my CotCT run soon as well, we just have the fight against Karzoug in a couple weeks and we're rolling characters immediately after. I intend to level my characters whenever progression calls for it, and I would suggest doing the same to avoid murderhoboing. These are the points I intend to level after.
To 2nd Level - After the Fishery
To 3rd Level - After Eel's End
To 4th Level - End of Edge of Anarchy
To 5th Level - After Lavender
To 6th Level - Just before the Hospice
To 7th Level - End of Seven Days to the Grave
To 8th Level - After Pilts Swastel
To 9th Level - End of Escape from Old Korvosa
To 10th Level - After Cindermaw
To 11th Level - End of History of Ashes
To 12th Level - After Clearing out the First Floor
To 13th Level - End of Skeletons of Scarwall
To 14th Level - Before the Assault on the Castle Korvosa
To 15th Level - Before the Assault on the Sunken Queen
Ending the Campaign at 16.
If I could remember where I could find the huge post detailing the benefits of leveling players when they reach a milestone over using the XP systems I would paste it here. If you are also interested in character conversions here's what I've just completed for Edge of Anarchy, just remember I've personalized and altered a lot of the NPCs and expanded them.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7bah23bgc7s5ewk/Edge%20of%20Anarchy%20Character%2 0Compendium.doc?dl=0
I've considered doing it that way; both systems can get metagame-y in their own ways so I haven't entirely decided, but I tend to lean towards using an XP system because if I'm going to get metagaming behavior, I would rather it tend towards wanting to see content rather than wanting to skip it. XP awards let me incentivize side quests and the like in a way that timing-based level awards do not.
I totally get the attraction, though, believe me, and in a more linear situation I'd probably do that.
I usually incentivise them through loot, most of my players usually show a genuine interest in advancing the story and are completionists, I also am giving achievements for pre-determined things and other benefits.
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1) Don't be afraid to change things. I've run this three times now and there's always something you can do to make the world more enjoyable for your players in particular. For instance, I made Escape's little war between the Arkonas and the Emperor of Old Korvosa an actual gang war, with Devargo caught as a third party trying to capitalize on the chaos and usurp both parties.
2) Talk up the important NPCs when you do town gossip and information gathering. My players knew why getting an invitation from Arkona was a big deal by the time they did. Likewise, they knew who Vencarlo was and had regular dealings with Archmage Ornellos and others. This made their rise to the top seem more substantial.
3) Really really REALLY play up the politics, public opinion, and shadow war that begins between the players and Ileosa. On my last run I worked really hard to throw in red herrings as to who actually killed the king to the extent that my players didn't know for certain that Ileosa was behind anything until Ileosa imposed martial law. Make her cunning, make her ruthless, and make her constantly push to have the people on her side.
4) Do an early plug for the Gray Maidens. It's been suggested elsewhere on this subforum, but hint that young women are being kidnapped or going missing early on, maybe even have the players hired to go track a girl down who's been experimented on but died in the process (I did this and had a note saying, "Next time, don't mess up. -R" while the players were looking for Rolth and find his apprentice). This gives some clues as to what's going on with the Maidens early. I also introduced them earlier so the players got to see the forces step up. Making them clones worked really well for me too, and it helped explain to my players their drastic increase in number over a few short months.
5) Side quests are easy to do and really add a lot of depth. Doing a few of these and letting players just kind of sandbox a bit in Korvosa is one of the best parts of this campaign. Do it early on before they're out in the middle of the wastelands and the Castle of Elemental Evil so players get a good chance to be citizens of the city, meet NPCs, establish ties, build businesses, etc. so when they have to leave they feel it more. I actually ran the "Academy of Secrets" module while my players were just about through the second book (because I'm not terribly beholden to CR and thought it slotted in at that point very nicely).
It was a great way for Ileosa to insist the Breaching Festival be held despite the plague as a show of city pride and a public opinion thing, when really she intended for the players to die while attempting it since nobody's succeeded in a hundred years. That's why the characters who normally wouldn't even be considered were given personal invitations.
6) Try to get the players to really investigate things like Blood Veil, who killed the king, who's behind X, Y, Z, etc. My players really enjoyed it and it brought the city to life when they had to interrogate someone in order to close off a red herring or loose end. I also put together a research minigame for my players where I cut up strips of paper and had them work as a team to piece together sentences. If they got it in the right order then that week they figured out something new about Blood Veil through library research, contacts, etc. I think they really liked that too. On that note, minigames are fun. Encourage the players to live like citizens of the city who team up to help out but aren't really a cohesive unit until about book 3.
7) Stretch the timeline a bit. If the entire campaign happens in the course of two months of game time that's really quick. In mine, start to finish, the characters were working for about 7-8 months to fight everything and explore the Cinderlands and Scarwall and eventually fight in the revolution (where I made another minigame for my players to do the revolution. I made a post about it too!)
There's a lot, but this is a campaign that really scales well with how much thought you put into it. The more you tailor it to your group and make an effort to bring the city and its people to life the more everyone enjoys it. It's so much more satisfying for the players to come back to a city that they really genuinely care about, to free it from the clutches of an evil possessed queen, than for a small group of mercenaries to go crack heads and make money because some city needs a regicide. Take some time to read through the posts on these forums, you'll learn a lot and get a lot of fantastic ideas. I know they've been invaluable to me.