| Captain Marsh |
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've posted a few times on the message boards about my experience running Greg Vaughan's Slumbering Tsar.
My gaming group reached kind of a milestone two weeks ago when we "finished" the portion of the adventure that deals with the wasteland -- the infamous Desolation -- that surrounds the ruined, haunted city of Tsar.
A couple of people I've messaged with have asked for thoughts about the adventure (and for campaign journals, which I don't have time to do...) so here goes.
*****SPOILERS*****************
First, a reminder of what Slumbering Tsar is. It's a massive campaign published by Frog God Games that takes PCs from 7th level to around 20th. My group is currently 9th and 10th level.
Including maps, handouts, appendices, etc. the whole thing runs about 950 pages. In the quality of writing and conceptualization, it's on par with Rise of the Rune Lords. In scale it's much longer, much more detailed.
WHAT I LOVED
Really, ST is everything you've heard about. It's just that good. It's the perfect marriage of an old-fashioned D&D grinder, with lots of combat and deadly challenges, but also tons of role-playing opportunities, fun and nuanced NPCs, and great color.
I've come to believe that Pathfinder is mostly about big moments. Yes, people want plot and danger and all the other stuff that makes up a story. But what sticks out at the gaming table are those epic moments, the near-death experiences, the moments of breakthrough, that perfectly timed crit-roll.
Vaughan spices those opportunities in regularly. The weird, lush haunted garden in the middle of the Desolation. The insane Apocalypse-now dwarves who are trying to survive in the midst of all the chaos and death. The strange ruined characters who haunt the Camp at the edge of the desolation.
It's a meat-grinder, but it's not just a meat-grinder.
WHAT I CHANGED
That said, I did change quite a lot of small things in the adventure. ST is a 'sandbox' which means that it's possible for PCs to make a lot of their own decisions. That's good.
But it can also mean game sessions where everything the players encounter is far too deadly, or far too easy.
In particular, the rules of Pathfinder make it sort of complicated for a GM to deal with hordes of low-level enemies who, when played as Vaughan has written them, simply can't hurt your PCs.
Vaughan seems to love "Walking Dead" style undead surges. And those should be really cinematic and creepy. But in Pathfinder, for PCs at the level envisioned by ST, it's actually more of a nuisance after a while.
(Not always. It's a gas for players to occasionally get to buzz-saw through ranks of enemies, especially after one too many life-or-death battles...but that gets old pretty quick.)
So I rewrote more of those mob-scene encounters to include fewer minions and more slightly tougher and more menacing bosses.
THE FOUR QUADRANTS
The Desolation is basically four different Desolations. In his amazing imaginative deep-dive, Vaughan wasn't happy with one Ashen Waste or one Chaos Rift. He wanted to throw everything into one adventure, from bubbling tar pits to charnel valleys full of undead.
It's awesome and epic. My one suggestion is to read through everything carefully and start teasing out foreshadowing and plot elements that will keep players wanting to explore the whole thing.
The challenge here is to keep it fresh, to keep the motivation strong. I managed a good solid B on this front, I think, by developing a much stronger set of explanations for why the PCs are in the Desolation than the ones that Vaughan suggests.
I think GMs should really talk about this in advance with the players. Make sure they understand the scope of this adventure and the need to keep helping you find reasons that their characters would care enough to keep diving into this insane, deadly madness.
LITTLE STUFF
It's also important to move some things around in Slumbering Tsar. The really awesome troll brothers who should offer the introduction to the Chaos Rift are located on the map in a place where the PCs might never encounter them -- or might encounter them at the end of the adventure.
Also, the Boiling Lands offer, in many ways, the least deadly set of encounters -- and encounters which in many instances don't move the plot forward much. There are some great set pieces there, not to be missed. But find a way as a GM to get your players there early. And find some ways to tie it in more deeply to the adventure.
There are other little things that I felt were just weirdly placed or sort of tucked away in odd corners. Again, read carefully and see what elements you want to pull forward.
POWER CREEP
My next big point is power creep. ST as written was meant to be really, really deadly. That's part of the fun. There is a long section in the back of the book for PC obituaries. Sounds corny, but my players have had fun writing in the names of their characters when they died.
But the truth is that PF has seen so much power creep that a lot of ST isn't that menacing. Some of it still is. But as a game master, you should really think about pacing and maybe tweaking the CR of your threats.
The biggest problem I've found is that ST was written as an "attrition-economy" threat. That is, it's supposed to wear PCs down and make them really think about their choices.
But PF now has so many characters with so many renewable or permanent abilities that this just doesn't come into play so much. I find that with PCs of this level, basically all damage (including ability damage, diseases, etc.) will be cured or healed after every combat encounter.
So that part of the menace, the sense of being worn down, is a bit harder to create. I found that this was easy to remedy by turning a few of the 'wandering monster' encounters into more deliberate, structured clashes which I wrote.
I also used those opportunities to help move the plot along and develop more foreshadowing and a sense that the overall story was going someplace.
THE STORY ITSELF
Which brings me to my final observation. In the end, ST actually has a pretty good story with a ton of amazing characters. But the truth is that a lot of it is pretty hidden.
This isn't unique to Vaughan's adventure. A lot of times in Adventure Paths or other big published campaigns, I find myself running NPCs who have huge back stories and really cool identities, which really the players have almost no way of knowing or interacting with.
The big bad guy (or woman) is dead before the PCs really grasped how big and bad he (or she) really was.
So my two-fold suggestion here is, first, read the whole adventure carefully. Mark out the big plot themes and the big, ominous NPCs and their schemes. Figure out how the threads knot together.
Start peppering those ideas into the players' experience early. Vaughan hints at some of this but more is needed. I'm not saying railroad PCs. But as written, it's possible for players to go a really long time without really grasping what's going on or what the danger is beyond the next encounter.
Some of this can happen in color. PCs can have haunted dreams or be visited by visions. You can use existing NPCs like the Peddler and the Usurer to drop hints about what's to come.
Secondly, I would suggest that GMs playing this huge tome be careful to...slow down. I found that at times I was sort of rushing players through different chapters, knowing that there was (and is) so much goodness to come.
And the truth is that my players have gotten kind of impatient. This story is, after all, about Slumbering Tsar, the haunted city. They've looked from afar on the Black Gates for months (in real time and in game time). They want to get in there.
Fair enough. But remember to treat each section of Tsar and each gaming session as a prime moment to explore really beautifully crafted chapters of a larger adventure. If you run this thing, remember that it's main strength is that it offers you a chance to create those incredible, memorable gaming moments.
I'll end with a little story from our last session.
My players ended their main sojourn in the Desolation by taking on the tar dragon Malerix. They lured him inside a ruined structure, hoping to trap him and limit his mobility -- which worked. It was great ploy and Malerix in his arrogance fell for it.
But they also set his tarry hide on fire, and it turned out he wasn't bothered at all by fire...which meant that 9 PCs (we had a big group that weekend) were trapped in a burning building with a writhing, vicious, deadly dragon.
Because they'd had glimpses of Malerix for months, and they knew that he was the last monster between themselves and the city, they stuck to the fight. It was one of those sessions that balanced perfectly on the edge of a TPK -- at various times three different PCs were below zero hit points -- but in the end everyone survived.
Next Saturday, they begin their assault on the city of Orcus itself, a well-earned next step. If the last year of gaming in Vaughan's campaign is any evidence, it should be epic.
--Captain Marsh
| Greg A. Vaughan Pathfinder Creative Director, Frog God Games |
Thanks a bunch for the awesome review, Captain Marsh! I'm glad you and your players are enjoying the campaign. I thought you did a really great job of capturing the strengths and weaknesses of the adventure and its writing in your review. Very well done. That said, I did want to address one thing.
You made mention of all the back story and how the players may never learn it. I honestly did that by design. In my mind as I wrote the adventure, I wanted making it a fun read for the GM to be an even a higher priority than making it a great adventure to play. A GM can overcome a lot of shortcomings in a published adventure if he is inspired, but all the written mechanical and roleplaying greatness isn't worth much if the GM gets too bored reading it to ever want to run it. That's especially true with a book the size of Slumbering Tsar which can be a slog both to read and to run.
In addition, with a campaign-style adventure like Tsar, it potentially eats up so much of a GM's regular campaign time, rather than dictate how the PCs learn what about what I wanted to leave that ambiguous so a GM can insert secret backgrounds, side stories, and what-have-you organically to both tease the players of things to come or even add in elements of his own design or imports from other published materials. I just didn't want to tie the GM's hands in regards to back story elements and their introduction too much. Ultimately it is your world to make of it what you will. When I ran the playtest in my own campaign I wove parts of the WotC book Elder Evils into its finale since I knew it would be bringing an end to a 7+ year party and campaign for my players, so I encourage you by all means to use the pieces you like and drop the pieces you don't in order to make it truly yours.
Those were my design thoughts as I was writing it, for what it's worth.
Anyway, thank you again for the excellent and accurate review revealing warts and all! And thank you for plunging in and taking the Tsar Challenge...I hope your players will someday forgive you. :-)
Greg
| DaveMage |
I agree with the review, but I'm running it pretty much straight as written. Part of me is doing so to see how the Pathfinder rules (as written) function throughout the level range.
What I'm concluding is that high level PCs with high level magic items are really, really tough. The party's 15th level fighter (with +5 weapon and all kinds of magic item enhancements) is often hitting ACs in the range of 45-50. (In future high level adventures after Tsar, I am considering removing the DR bypasses that a +5 weapon provides.)
The 15th level monk, also with magic items galore, has an AC in the 40s - including Touch AC! (And I'm not even using mythic rules!)
Fortunately, the rest of the party has more reasonable "to hit" chances and armor classes so the adventure is still quite challenging and a lot of fun!
| Captain Marsh |
###SPOILERS #####
Greg -
I think what you're saying makes sense. But I think one useful addition to the final published version would have been an essay that kind of lays out the thread for GMs, maybe with some notes about where key NPCs, plot hinges, and encounters sit in the vast landscape (and the vast tome).
I don't think every GM would want to read it. A lot of folks want to do exactly what you're saying, reading the 900+pages closely, taking detailed notes about the various threads and convergences, picking out opportunities for foreshadowing and tension-building.
(My legal pads are full of flow charts about how I see the connections working -- no kidding)
There are also a lot of guys (and gals) who will want to rewire the fundamental arc of the story, home-brewing it to a certain extent.
But still I think one awesome additional appendix (maybe in the on-line/pdf version?) would be an essay where you give GMs the big picture, with pointers to the elements that I described above, and maybe your own designer vision of how this thing should play.
I'll be honest. I've pored through this thing a lot, but I'm guessing I'm still missing things/connections/opportunities for building the narrative that you cookied in here.
Thanks for the awesome adventure. Really. This one's a joy.
Marsh
| Captain Marsh |
DaveMage -
####SPOIELERS#####
I like your idea. And I have to say that I've run ST as close to "as-written" as anything off the shelf that I've ever GM'd. It's just that good.
But I think some stuff works better with some tweaking.
As written, for example, every entrance to Tsar itself is deadly and fascinating - except one. There's one path in where (if you don't muck around and wake a sleeping battle hulk) it's kind of wide open.
It's not even that close to Malerix's lair. A smart party scouting the walls would cruise right in, bypassing far too much goodness.
I just made it so that the battlehulk was awake and sort of prowling about conspicuously with a bunch of siege undead riding on top.
My guys can still choose which path to take, but there's not such an obvious pick...like that.
Also, I'll be honest, some of my futzing around is just that I kind of like to fiddle under the hood even with a super nice adventure.
But yeah, this one's a classic. I fully support the idea of not messing with it too much.
By the way, anyone reading this - Frog God Games currently has Slumbering Tsar on sale at a deep discount. It's worth $150 but if you can get it cheaper, do.
-Marsh
| Captain Marsh |
Hi Greg -
####SPOILERS#####
I have one actual question (not sure if you're still keeping an eye on this thread but here goes) as I move forward with ST.
It has to do with the "horde" threats that are placed throughout the adventure, and that await in the next chapter with the siege undead.
These threats are of such low level that I'm not sure how to make them actually...threatening.
I get that this is partly a flaw of the PF rule system. It's unrealistic that armies of undead swarming over a small party of PCs simply wouldn't be able to touch them because of high ACs, but that's how the rules work.
Also, I find myself struggling with huge gobs of dice rolls. If I have fifty zombies sweeping into a battle, that's fifty times that I need to roll -- most of them needing nat-20s to hit.
My sense is that you have a really clear idea in your mind about how this is supposed to work at the game table -- in addition to being just a really cool trope of monster movies and fantasy.
So...please dish.
How did you GM this? When the sandmen swarm up out of hiding inside the Black Gate, we're any of them able to touch your 10th-level PCs? Did you mostly play it for color without bothering much with dice rolls?
--Marsh
Zach Scheeler
|
Black gates were deadly for my untouchable paladin. With all the archers and the tower I was getting multiple 20's per round. All of his magically inclined party mates turned invisible leaving him as the sole target. Bad tactics resulted in his death. And they will be shocked when they are 100% replenished when they come back.
| Endzeitgeist |
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
@Captain Marsh: When I ran that one, I used mob-rules. Make them a troop of zombies and suddenly, the thing works and is less dice-busy-work.
| DaveMage |
I should also mention, as a GM for this adventure, I hate PCs with rings of freedom of movement, rings of evasion, and the death ward spell. :)
| Greg A. Vaughan Pathfinder Creative Director, Frog God Games |
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Any of the above works, I think.
For me I actually have a whole bunch of d20s, so I just roll them en mass. A nat 20 is always a hit (and a crit threat), so even the lowliest kobold has a 5% chance of scoring a hit on any round it gets close enough and a .25% chance of a crit. So if you have 20 monsters attack, you can either roll 20 d20s (which I like to do, but certainly not everyone does) or just use the mathematical probabilities and say one will hit out of every 20 shots (just randomize which one is the hit and then roll to see if it is a crit--hey, you might get lucky!). If I can do things to boost the probabilities (melee attacks from higher ground, flanking, etc.) then I do so, and if I can get the needed attack roll down to a 19, well then I've got a 10% chance of a hit and just doubled my death-dealing capabilities. :-) Plus throw in area affects for which they might not have had the forethought to prepare (fire, etc.) and things can start to build up pretty quick.
Ultimately, though, these encounters are intended as resource wasters for high level parties (I know the combat dynamics have changed in PF since this was written, so they are less so now) in order to enforce the overall grind of the "death by a thousand cuts" concept. Of course, in Tsar it's often the death by a thousand cuts plus one huge decapitation, but it keeps the ball rolling; not every corner has a BBEG around it.
However, these types of encounters also serve other secondary purposes:
1) I'm a big believer in rewarding players for the power levels they have attained by letting them completely mop up some encounters. There are enough encounters in there designed to foil their strengths and exploit their weaknesses that I want them to feel like the deck is not always stacked against them. If they can wade through a mob with a good, old-fashioned butt kicking I am happy to let them. They'll be cursing my name soon enough in another encounter.
2) It is possible for PCs lower level than intended to get into the city through a combination of luck, skill, and/or cleverness. If that happens, I think they deserve the opportunity to poke around without just getting instantly annihilated. These types of encounters give them a bigger challenge and let them shine a bit while perhaps warning them that it maybe gets worse from here and that they might want to withdraw and come back later.
3) This breaks everything I understood about 4e and is one of the main reasons that Necromancer Games didn't just convert this to 4e to publish it when 3.5 kind of got the axe: I am a big believer that not every encounter should be perfectly aligned to the party's challenge rating. I think most should, in order to make a fun and balanced adventures, but for the sake of verisimilitude I think there should be encounters that are really easy and encounters that are frankly too hard. I never want my players to enter an encounter and assume that they will probably win based simply on the fact that it was designed as an appropriate CR. I want them to always have to consider--Should I run from this? Does this seem too easy and I'm being lured into something worse? Etc. To me much of the fun of the game, especially the roll-playing portion which can get stale sometimes (roleplaying has many of its own rewards) is the judgment call of "Am I getting in over my head?" Conservation of resources is usually a big portion of any game I'm in (not in an Oregon Trail, track your trail rations and roll vs. dysentery kind of way, but rather in A Bridge Too Far, have I gone in so far that I can't fight my way back out if I have to kind of way).
4)I think you mentioned above (I don't remember for sure, this post has gotten kind of long and I'm getting forgetful in my old age) about atmosphere or some such. THIS! This is a big thing. Some encounters are cool just because they're cool, not because they're particularly clever, well balanced, or even challenging. The
Some examples from the playtest with my home campaign players (a playtest that we ran as a true campaign and that took 7-1/2 years I might add).
-The Dokkalfor killed one of my cocky PCs, so it worked decently well in combo with the siege undead.
-My players didn't spend much time in The Grunge so they didn't deal with many of the humanoid tribes there, really one pitched battle and a raid on their lair after Belishan provoked a conflict between them.
-I cut off the cleric's hand with a crit (LOVE the Crit Deck!) while fighting the gnolls in their encampment...my guys still cry and moan about that.
-In the Citadel of Orcus I did not play out the battle when they invaded the spider eaters' nest. They realized how many were present and created a domed wall of force over themselves with a small hole at the top through which they could cast spells while the spider eaters swarmed over them but could not actually reach them to attack. I did some quick, on-the-fly calculations to estimate how many spell levels their sorcerer-types would have to expend to destroy the number of HD represented by the spider eater swarm and then ruled the battle won and that they had expended that many spell levels in casting. They were cool with that.
-In the caverns, the PCs cleared out the Chapterhouse and killed the dragon before they took on the main orog cavern (they had made one small foray to kill Sonechard but had then retreated back out the way they came in), so there were really no significant threats left to truly challenge the party, which was 22nd level by that time. They were basically at the climax of the adventure (I had added the Atropus stuff from the book Elder Evils and tied it in with Orcus' plot to serve as a campaign wrap for the whole thing) so I basically just hand-waved the entire battle for the cavern and said they won it handily. By they time campaign exhaustion and their sheer superiority over the opponents made it a foregone conclusion anyway, so they were okay with that.
Other than those examples, though, we played out every battle with mooks or not. Of course, other people's play styles might call for different things, but I wanted to write the adventure so that if some crazy nut (like me apparently) literally wanted to play out every battle, they could. But they certainly wouldn't need to. As you said, a lot of them can be cake walks and don't really serve a specific in-game purpose as far as advancing the storyline beyond simply introducing general conditions in the city and beyond.