06-22 Out of Anarchy [SPOILERS!]

[Wraith235]

so I ran this at APcon ... and over the last 24 hours I have been scouring this scenario Hoping I did something Wrong

Reguarding the 2nd PA point

spoiler:

am I correct that the ONLY Hint about the Loyalist Propaganda is dutring the Argument with Olandil and Poppo when poppo Says The Following ?

Poppo says, “One word of warning! Once you leave here, the
Passfiders are going to be blamed for everything, right?”
Olandil shrugs, “Your point is? I don’t care if the Loyalists tell
all of Cheliax the Pathfider Society caused everything that has
ever gone wrong in this town.

I have scoured this from 1 end to the other and the above is the ONLY mention that something Might happen ... and whats sad is even the Summary seems to support it

spoiler:

If the PCs succeed, every faction except the Loyalists also agrees to help the PCs counteract the loyalist’s anti-Pathfider propaganda, while the Loyalists assure the PCs that they will not produce such propaganda in the fist place, and give the PCs a chance to question Olandil.

Nothing is mentioned at the start in the briefing or knowledge checks... Nothing is mentioned (or available) from

spoiler:

The information broker

am I missing something ?

[DrParty06]

After running it a second time last night, that's still the only spot that I found any mention of it. The other part that was still very unclear is what piece of incriminating evidence is given out by each faction and if that depends on points accumulated until the choice of ally is made.

[Linda Zayas-Palmer]

Wraith, you are not missing something. It looks like the secondary success condition hook was subtler than usual in this scenario. Pathfinders should always be looking for ways to strengthen the Society’s reputation and going above and beyond in order to achieve their secondary success condition, but in a 1–5 especially, you could have new players, so it often can be best to give those players a bigger hint. The easiest way to do that if your PCs don't catch it is to have Poppo talk more about the hook; perhaps he goes on a rambling tangent about how the streets will be paved with propaganda calling Pathfinders traitorous thieves who are never welcome in the country again if the PCs don't take action now to improve the reputation of the Society.

DrParty06 wrote:

The other part that was still very unclear is what piece of incriminating evidence is given out by each faction and if that depends on points accumulated until the choice of ally is made.

The faction contact is happy to provide the PCs with incriminating evidence against any of the other three factions. If the PCs want to frame a faction, it is their choice which one they target.

[pauljathome]

I played this and as far as I recall that was all the GM told us. But that was more than sufficient to make it crystal clear that we should do something about the situation.

[bdk86]

Based on the above discussion and my own experience having played it: I strongly advise folks not to run this one cold or with little prep time even though it is a Tier 1-5. I

[Paz]

There seems to be some information that has been cut out or missed off the VC briefing. One of the sample questions that the PCs can ask the VC is 'What’s Poppo’s message?', but there's no clear reference to Poppo sending a message to the Society (or how Olandil came to the attention of the VCs at all).

[andreww]

Paz wrote:

There seems to be some information that has been cut out or missed off the VC briefing. One of the sample questions that the PCs can ask the VC is 'What’s Poppo’s message?', but there's no clear reference to Poppo sending a message to the Society (or how Olandil came to the attention of the VCs at all).

Yeah, that is in the GM summary at the start but not the briefing. Honestly, the more I prep this thing the more annoyed it makes me.

[Mark L. Crowell]

I just ended up running this one, and it went pretty rough... I think the players got more confused by the

Spoiler:

jax, jak, jacks issue.

Than the factions were supposed to be, and it doesn't help that they all are pronounced very similarly. If i were to run this again, i would definitely have cards to hold up to differentiate them and refer to their last names WAY more often as it is really the only way to tell them apart...

The party got really frustrated by the entire first part leading up to the show, really feeling like nothing was happening for the longest time and that they couldn't really accomplish anything... Which is Sadly kind of true as well, unless i am missing something.

This was definitely a rough one to run, and you DEFINITELY need to do a lot of prep to keep things straight as a GM, the table practically cried out in relief when they finally actually got to the combats, even though they were very short and easy combats all around.

[andreww]

To add another to the list of frustrating things in this scenario.

Meese at the Inkwell offers to sell a certain item to members of a certain faction. He halves the price if his attitude is friendly. We are given no starting attitude and no DC for improving that attitude or stat block we could use to work it out if we did know his starting attitude.

Given this is part of a faction goal I would expect that information to be there.

[andreww]

And another one, Valia Wain offers the PC's spellcasting services but we don't know what level she is or what spells she has memorised.

[Paz]

andreww wrote:

And another one, Valia Wain offers the PC's spellcasting services but we don't know what level she is or what spells she has memorised.

Her level is given in the Pezzack description in Towns of the Inner Sea; she's a LN female human cleric of Iomedae 8. No memorised spells though.

EDIT: If it helps anyone, she's described as 'a kind and elderly priest whose chapel was burned during the riots. She doesn’t care for the arts, and though she isn’t happy with how Cheliax has been ruled, she abhors rebellion and those who would break the law to force political change. Nevertheless, she has never turned down a patient in need.'

[Paz]

andreww wrote:

Meese at the Inkwell offers to sell a certain item to members of a certain faction. He halves the price if his attitude is friendly. We are given no starting attitude and no DC for improving that attitude or stat block we could use to work it out if we did know his starting attitude.

I don't have the scenario in front of me, but in the absence of other information, I would treat him as an indifferent barkeep.

[andreww]

Paz wrote:

andreww wrote:

And another one, Valia Wain offers the PC's spellcasting services but we don't know what level she is or what spells she has memorised.

Her level is given in the Pezzack description in Towns of the Inner Sea; she's a LN female human cleric of Iomedae 8. No memorised spells though.

EDIT: If it helps anyone, she's described as 'a kind and elderly priest whose chapel was burned during the riots. She doesn’t care for the arts, and though she isn’t happy with how Cheliax has been ruled, she abhors rebellion and those who would break the law to force political change. Nevertheless, she has never turned down a patient in need.'

Thanks for that.

Another mild irritation. If the PC's hand Olandil over to the Loyalists Poppo is distraught and doesn't attempt sense motive checks. What does he do if they tell him they have handed him over? I imagine he probably refuses to let them use his escape route and you switch to the whaler option.

[Jessex]

I've been prepping this and I cannot believe the drop off in quality from the previous scenarios of this season.

For instance, is this a 1-5 or a 1-2 and a 8-9? Take a close look at the chronicle sheet.

Above and beyond all that, there is way too much going on behind the scenes that has too little effect on the PC's. If this were an AP that could be played over an arbitrarily long time period that might be acceptable but in a 4 hour slot it isn't. This scenario could in theory involve 6 0xp characters of players who have never played PFS before. There is basically no way they could complete this.

Scale this up to be a 7-11 and it might work much better IMO. I'm really dreading trying to run it in 4 weeks.

[DrParty06]

I really enjoyed running it. I didn't find the tracking mechanic to be that big a deal, frankly I really enjoyed it and that it did something. Just have a piece of paper with each faction and make tick marks when favor is earned. Role play it up, having new players may cause them to not know what questions to ask, so have NPCs push a little bit harder on the information they might know by conversing with each other. The most difficult part for me was having the spread out stat blocks during fights, but if you've got a printed copy, that's not really an issue. There are a couple editing errors, but there are very few scenarios that don't have that.

[Dustin Campbell]

I'm prepping this right now and had a question about the Incutilis. Does it enter combat already riding a zombie puppet? The text in the Creatures section seems to indicate that it's on it's own, but it's Morale condition implies that it might already have one (e.g. it wants to gather more bodies to turn into zombie puppets). Also, the map shows it starting on a corpse.

I'm planning on starting the combat with a zombie in play, but is that correct?

[Dustin Campbell]

Ah! I just spotted the text in the Treasure section which makes it clear that the Incutilis does in fact have a zombie at the start (since a bit of treasure is hidden in the zombie's pockets).

FWIW, as others have pointed out, this scenario does feel a bit heavy for a 1-5. It's longer than most scenarios (conclusion on page 30!), and most of that length is pure text. Also, it feels a bit strange that such a large amount of the text is given over to a contingency that is extremely unlikely if the PCs are at all trying to accomplish their mission. After all, the VC briefing tells them to get Olandil out. However, there's even an entire section (C4) about interrogating him if the PCs turn him over to the Loyalists rather than doing their mission. Seems a bit over the top to spend so much text on a situation that is clearly off the rails. The end result is muddling of a lot of the text. I do like the scenario but wanted to add my 2 cents.

[Paz]

Dustin Campbell wrote:

Also, it feels a bit strange that such a large amount of the text is given over to a contingency that is extremely unlikely if the PCs are at all trying to accomplish their mission. After all, the VC briefing tells them to get Olandil out. However, there's even an entire section (C4) about interrogating him if the PCs turn him over to the Loyalists rather than doing their mission. Seems a bit over the top to spend so much text on a situation that is clearly off the rails.

I don't think it's that far-fetched; characters that are lawful neutral, or Hellknights-in-training, or Chelaxian, or follow Abadar etc. are not that uncommon in PFS. A couple of those could easily sway the party into throwing their lot in with the Loyalists.

[Dustin Campbell]

I don't think it's far-fetched, but I wouldn't expect it to be a common situation. (After all, turning in Olandil is directly against their mission.) My point is that there's an oddly large amount of information provided to give the PCs an interesting adventure while they lose their primary success condition. :-)

[GM Harpwizard]

I ran this scenario two days ago and had a great time, but I'm trying to better prep it for GenCon and I have a few questions about Olandil, his speech, the rod of influence, and his escape through the guts.

1. A speech is a great moment for role play, I really want to give the PCs the beginning of Olandil's speech. The scenario says it doesn't make much sense and is gibberish encrypted like Madge's talk. What sorts of things do you think Olandil is actually saying? I am looking for great ideas on what his gibberish speech would be saying. Does this gibberish suddenly transform into the important part of the speech about the three Jaks?

2. What is the story behind the Rod of Influence? I assume this is what was found in the water on the Sunday when the patron at Aunties noticed the begoggled ghost retrieving it from the water. Why does the patron only mention it when the warehouse is brought up? What does it have to do with the warehouse? Since my PCs did not ask about the Warhouse at Aunties it did not even come up, but it would have been nice if it did. Once Olandil found the Rod, did he still need the onyx to make it work? Is that why he arranged to have a Galtan steal it for him? In the Throne Defiant, Valia says Rea Bellory's Onyx was uncovered from the bottom of Fat Harbor. Is that where the Rod of Influence was found? Was the onyx originally attached to the rod and Olandil figured out that they needed to be reunited?

3. When Olandil gives his speech, he makes hand signals that the PCs can use sense motive to understand. Is he giving these hand signals specifically to the PCs thinking that they are Pathfinders, or is he giving them to the crowd at random hoping some Pathfinder will be in the crowd and will pick up on his message?

4. When he flees into the warehouse and down into the guts, does the scenario assume Olandil gets enough of a head start that the PCs do not keep up with him?

5. Obviously Olandil knows the direction to avoid the grub. He knows where to jump to avoid the pit. How does he avoid the scorpion who is lingering at the door? Should I assume that the scorpion guards the entranceway just after Olandil runs by?

6. Later in the scenario, the players were able to persuade Olandil to give back the stolen onyx from his Rod of Influence. The players then returned it to Valia at the Throne Defiant. I do not see any effect for doing so. Does it influence the Galtans or the Loyalists? The Loyalists still had the least influence points, so when they boarded Poppos's whale and attacked, the PCs were surprised. The players did not understand why they would attack when they were kind enough to return the onyx to the Throne Defiant. They felt like being attacked was all the thanks they got for trying to be nice. Did any of your players return the onyx and experience something similar?

[Dustin Campbell]

A couple of notes on maps:

1. The Gold Street map (area A2) seems pretty unnecessary. No locations are highlighted and the enter section is really just role play.
2. The Abandoned Tower (area C2) is not the Waterfront map pack as specified. It's Evil Ruins.
3. Interrogation (area C4) suggests pretending that the whale map in area D is actually a ship if the PCs decide to leave on a whaling ship. Rather than saying the blowhole is a porthole and all that, it's probably just better to grab something from the Ships or Boarding Action maps, or just draw a boat. :-)

[Sarvei taeno]

i ran this las night for a table of 6 playing down. the roleplay side was lacking as the scenario had a lack of personality other than the vc. the inclusion of 10 area on the map that can't be explored annoyed my players.
the lack of information and the details that were skipped over in al the briefings lef me having to improvise more info into the conversations. the level of complexity for this scenario should not be in a 1-5.

[TriOmegaZero]

Love the characters in this one. I hit Poppo's image and almost fell out of my chair.

[Andrew Christian]

andreww wrote:

Paz wrote:

There seems to be some information that has been cut out or missed off the VC briefing. One of the sample questions that the PCs can ask the VC is 'What’s Poppo’s message?', but there's no clear reference to Poppo sending a message to the Society (or how Olandil came to the attention of the VCs at all).

Yeah, that is in the GM summary at the start but not the briefing. Honestly, the more I prep this thing the more annoyed it makes me.

My wife is prepping this, and she brought this issue up immediately. Any feedback on how to handle this, as it seems quite important, would be helpful.

[Kess, Humble Servant of Abadar]

Prepping this one as well. Thinking about the message, I figure simply having Benarry say that she was contacted by Poppo and given the message. Then perhaps dropping that she conferred with Drendle about this person.

[Barker]

Andrew Christian wrote:

andreww wrote:

Paz wrote:

There seems to be some information that has been cut out or missed off the VC briefing. One of the sample questions that the PCs can ask the VC is 'What’s Poppo’s message?', but there's no clear reference to Poppo sending a message to the Society (or how Olandil came to the attention of the VCs at all).

Yeah, that is in the GM summary at the start but not the briefing. Honestly, the more I prep this thing the more annoyed it makes me.

My wife is prepping this, and she brought this issue up immediately. Any feedback on how to handle this, as it seems quite important, would be helpful.

It is in the questions section from the briefing look for the answer with noodles. Apparently it is some kind of personal code he and Drendle share.

[Barker]

I ran this on Friday...part one ran like a truck with
no wheels. I prepped for it even. The rest went a lot
more smoothly.

My thoughts on the scenario.

Spoiler:

Too many factions, and the functions at each location
were too obtuse.

I had fun with the Iron Golem - "NO FIGHTING!"

Also, a sperm whale flesh golem submarine?!

I had problems with the staging of the fight in the whale.

I would have rather just used more Incutilis than had the humans there.

Because in one part of it, Poppo is sealing the blowhole (oh god the jokes...) and next we have sailors and a caster just appearing through
it like it never happened.

Once you make it through the hell of part one, it's a pretty nice
train ride.

My advice is to make a cheat sheet for part one. Really, it is all
about getting a faction in the lead, doing your faction missions, and then finding out about the performance on Wealday. I would suggest making a list of what each location does for the party.

Also, remember that allying with the Galtans qualifies as fulfillment for the Liberty's Edge mission. You're also going to have to be heavy handed with the Dark Archive people on theirs if they don't go buy info at Gold Street.

[TriOmegaZero]

Going to have to remember that one.

[Le Petite Mort]

Paz wrote:

Dustin Campbell wrote:

Also, it feels a bit strange that such a large amount of the text is given over to a contingency that is extremely unlikely if the PCs are at all trying to accomplish their mission. After all, the VC briefing tells them to get Olandil out. However, there's even an entire section (C4) about interrogating him if the PCs turn him over to the Loyalists rather than doing their mission. Seems a bit over the top to spend so much text on a situation that is clearly off the rails.

I don't think it's that far-fetched; characters that are lawful neutral, or Hellknights-in-training, or Chelaxian, or follow Abadar etc. are not that uncommon in PFS. A couple of those could easily sway the party into throwing their lot in with the Loyalists.

I played it last week with my LN chelaxian Hellknight. I basically did everything good for the Loyalists except turn Olandil over, as I RP my character as a liaison from the Hellknights to the Society, and am contractually obligated to obey the directives of the Decemvirate over any other legal obligations in those circumstance where I cannot reconcile the two. Still, if it weren't for there being a Paladin in the party, I probably would have tossed him to the wolves.

Oh, and I've made a pretty in-depth guide to everything out of combat for this scenario. As soon as my pfsprep account gets confirmed, I'll post it on there and link it here.

[Le Petite Mort]

I can't seem to get a pfsprep login to work. I've got my EZPrep on Google drive. Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ysXJ4VgQWeNs_JgtPiAGI_co1ZByhQyP6PxAEyo iU6k/edit?usp=docslist_api

[Le Petite Mort]

Gah, looks like I messed up the link.

Let's see if this works better.

[VampByDay]

I am prepping this one (no one in my group has played or run it before) and I have a few questions:

So, almost all the 'money' in this scenario is from trade goods. That makes sense, you can't eat or build with gold, and the town has no economy to speak of, so a barter system makes sense. However, during the mission briefing, NO ONE mentions this, and the PCs don't get their trade goods from their contact until AFTER they would need to spend it for the legwork. Do I just have to hope tha the PCs decide to routinely bring along bags of spices with them? I was thinking of adding an appraise/profession merchant check to the briefing and give them the hint that they should by some trade goods on the ship before they get smuggled in. Any suggestions?

Question 2: everyone in the scenario dismisses the noodle seller, and unless the PCs specifically ask the VC about the request for help, there's nothing to link the contact to her. I forsee all my players just throwing her poetry away instead of looking at it. Should I give a bigger hint that it is actually a clue?

[Paz]

VampByDay wrote:

So, almost all the 'money' in this scenario is from trade goods. That makes sense, you can't eat or build with gold, and the town has no economy to speak of, so a barter system makes sense. However, during the mission briefing, NO ONE mentions this

Take another look:

Out of Anarchy, p 5 wrote:

Once the PCs have had time to recall what they can about Pezzack, Benarry suggests that the PCs trade coin for an equivalent amount of rations and sundries for bartering, at a rate of 10 gp per pound of equivalent goods, as coins are worth far less than their face value in the goods-starved city.

Quote:

Question 2: everyone in the scenario dismisses the noodle seller, and unless the PCs specifically ask the VC about the request for help, there's nothing to link the contact to her. I forsee all my players just throwing her poetry away instead of looking at it. Should I give a bigger hint that it is actually a clue?

I don't think that's necessary; not understanding the poetry doesn't stop the PCs completing their mission, and dropping a big hint just cheapens the achievement if they do work out what's going on.

[Andrew Christian]

As for the noodles:

When was the last time a VC briefing including notes on the local cuisine? I don't remember one.

The fact this is a semi-investigative scenario with political intrigue... the idea of a higher up saying something out of sorts like, "Oh and you must try out the noodle cart, they are divine!" is just the sort of code a film noir or spy thriller would use.

[Le Petite Mort]

VampByDay wrote:

I am prepping this one (no one in my group has played or run it before) and I have a few questions:

So, almost all the 'money' in this scenario is from trade goods. That makes sense, you can't eat or build with gold, and the town has no economy to speak of, so a barter system makes sense. However, during the mission briefing, NO ONE mentions this, and the PCs don't get their trade goods from their contact until AFTER they would need to spend it for the legwork. Do I just have to hope tha the PCs decide to routinely bring along bags of spices with them? I was thinking of adding an appraise/profession merchant check to the briefing and give them the hint that they should by some trade goods on the ship before they get smuggled in. Any suggestions?

Question 2: everyone in the scenario dismisses the noodle seller, and unless the PCs specifically ask the VC about the request for help, there's nothing to link the contact to her. I forsee all my players just throwing her poetry away instead of looking at it. Should I give a bigger hint that it is actually a clue?

For your first question: yes, I would mention the barter system during the briefing. However if you can't, players could presumably buy expensive material components like diamond dust from Boppo.

As for the second, I wouldn't bother. If they start to read the poetry, prompt a Linguistics roll. Also, I think it was a small editing mistake that the note from Boppo isn't mentioned in the briefing, as there is a "common question" about it right after. I would just read the note as part of the briefing, it mentions noodles at the end.

Also, if you take a look at the prep document I posted a bit ago, it goes into concerns like that in more detail.

[VampByDay]

In an attempt to write really bad poetry for Olandil, and the fact that he incorporated clues into his speech to augment his hand signals (from the noodle-seller, as apparently the two have a code) I have tried to write out his poem that he gives for those that want to role-play a bit more.

Keep in mind: first draft written on my iPhone.

A poem: Magda's Noodlea.

"Noodles! Grandest noodles! God's gift noodles. Foreign entities seeking adventure in me! Sliding down my throat into my insides!(my 'guts'). But be ever weary noodles! For the grub that you are might become grub for another grub if you take an evil turn! Oh noodles! Proceed with caution through my stomach! Do not wander into the pitfall of brazenness! Brave noodles! So close to the other end, you know you might taste the humungous sting of defeat, but you must carry on! Oh Noodles!-
(Booed off stage).

[VampByDay]

I do have one question: What is the deal with Poppo? More than once, he refers to pathfinders as 'passfinders,' and he calls his venture captain friend a 'vantage-captain.' But then he calls them pathfinders once. Is he misinformed? Is he supposed to have some sort of accent? Is he just being a gnome?

I realize as a GM I am within my right to change stuff up like this, but I wanted to know how others dealt with this.

[Paz]

VampByDay wrote:

More than once, he refers to pathfinders as 'passfinders,' and he calls his venture captain friend a 'vantage-captain.' But then he calls them pathfinders once.

I think the latter is a typo.

Quote:

Is he misinformed?

Quote:

Is he just being a gnome?

I think it's a bit of both of these.

[DrParty06]

He's a gnome who's flustered, and was one of my favorite NPCs in any scenario.

[TriOmegaZero]

DrParty06 wrote:

He's a gnome

This is pretty much it. Look at the beard!

[CigarPete]

I just played this yesterday and we didn't have any issue picking up on clues that we needed to both

Spoiler:

bring trade goods for bribes and misc expenses and ally with one of the factions to counter the loyalists

. It may be that this was just the case of multiple old RPG hands at the table, but we got it pretty quickly in each case.

Seems like a fun scenario - but I could wish for

Spoiler:

a combat encounter, even a simple one, earlier in the scenario

. We spent a lot of time on the first half - probably 3 hours, then pushed through the second half in about an hour.

I also find it fascinating that

Spoiler:

turning over Olendil to the loyalists was even an option

. To me as a player, that seemed like it would constitute an evil act, and not something I would ever condone.

[Le Petite Mort]

CigarPete wrote:

I just played this yesterday and we didn't have any issue picking up on clues that we needed to both ** spoiler omitted **. It may be that this was just the case of multiple old RPG hands at the table, but we got it pretty quickly in each case.

Seems like a fun scenario - but I could wish for ** spoiler omitted **. We spent a lot of time on the first half - probably 3 hours, then pushed through the second half in about an hour.

I also find it fascinating that ** spoiler omitted **. To me as a player, that seemed like it would constitute an evil act, and not something I would ever condone.

It's very difficult to turn him over and get your EXP without getting an evil act, due to the interrogation. Just turning him in is more Lawful than Evil though.

As for knowing about trade goods ahead of time, your GM apparently made the wise decision to inform you of that on the boat. As written you don't get a warning ahead of time.

[andreww]

Le Petite Mort wrote:

As for knowing about trade goods ahead of time, your GM apparently made the wise decision to inform you of that on the boat. As written you don't get a warning ahead of time.

You explicitly get a warning:

Quote:

Once the PCs have had time to recall what they can about Pezzack, Benarry suggests that the PCs trade coin for an equivalent amount of rations and sundries for bartering, at a rate of 10 gp per pound of equivalent goods, as coins are worth far less than their face value in the goods-starved city.

[Paz]

Le Petite Mort wrote:

As for knowing about trade goods ahead of time, your GM apparently made the wise decision to inform you of that on the boat. As written you don't get a warning ahead of time.

Andrew's beaten me to it this time, but I already pointed out that that wasn't the case here.

For all of my worries prior to the event, the session went quite smoothly when I ran this scenario.

[Alexander Augunas]

Mark L. Crowell wrote:

I just ended up running this one, and it went pretty rough... I think the players got more confused by the jax, jak, jacks issue.

What issue? The similar sounding names is the point: Olandil picked three personas with similar sounding names so that when he made his big escape, his simply saying, "Jacks is the the Printsmith," the factions would be confused as to which person Olandil was referring to. The PCs are supposed to figure out that Olandil's names all sound similar.

[Divvox2]

This was a rough scenario. At QuinCon last weekend we ran through it in a 7-12pm slot. NEVER DO THIS. After reading through this thread it sounds like if you miss one or two details, a LOT does not connect.

Spoiler:

After nearly 4 hours of puttering around town trying to keep all the Jax-s straight and who was connected to which faction, we were all at the point that the suggestion, "Okay, we wait till wheel's day and the poetry reading, then I'll stun him and you guys walk on stage, black-bag him in a bag of holding, and we'll get out of this hell-hole" was strongly considered, regardless of cost to end-game loot. If it wasn't for our GM fast forwarding to the part where our target whips out the wand and starts passing hand signals to us, we would have gone through with it.

...Though it was added in, "Oh, and then pick up the poetry microphone and drop it, then storm out."

I saw the scenario later and noticed we missed a lot of the potential combat from certain locations, and since we missed one or two important checks at the noodle cart, we just spun our wheels visiting places trying to get information until we just said, "Screw it, jax will be at the poetry reading, fastforward till Wheel's Day!" Once we did that it felt like the last 2 hours of the scenario got compressed into 45 minutes and we were all glad when we only went an hour over.

I'm sure some of this was due to our exhaustion, but holy crap, this was by far my worst experience with a scenario to date.

[Kalindlara]

Prepping this for next Friday, in a convention's 6-10:30. The comments here are not giving me much confidence...

[FLite]

On a quick glance, it looks like the Pezzak section on pathfinderwiki is fairly spoiler free. Can we direct our players to it without spoiling things?

(Prepping this for a Thursday 4 hour slot. I want to do as little exposition as possible.)

[Mark L. Crowell]

Kalindlara wrote:

Prepping this for next Friday, in a convention's 6-10:30. The comments here are not giving me much confidence...

It's rough, part of it is that all three names are pronounced pretty much the same(technically jax and jacks ARE pronounced the same). so when speaking the scenario instead of reading it, confusion WILL run rampant. I'd suggest little cards with their spelling on it so you can hold them up, and emphasize little differences in each name. Also there is almost too much to do in town and too long for them to do it before stuff starts happening, stretching the first part out, where it is actually impossible for them to actually accomplish anything other then raising the awareness, isn't very fun.

I would suggest a gather information roll right after they get out into town to learn the 'important locations' where the people they are looking for frequent. (perhaps playing up the names a bit here... oh JACKS! I thought you meant JAX! sorry he hangs out more at...) Also either a Cheat sheet for the locations and who hangs out there, or encouraging the players to write it down themselves will be VERY helpful for this module. And if I were going to do this one again, I would DEFINITELY make cheat sheets for the factions for the players to refer to during the module.

This one will need a lot of prep, and be prepared for your players to be confused and or lost on what to do next more then a little bit, so I hope it goes well for you.

[FLite]

Mark L. Crowell wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Prepping this for next Friday, in a convention's 6-10:30. The comments here are not giving me much confidence...

It's rough, part of it is that all three names are pronounced pretty much the same(technically jax and jacks ARE pronounced the same). so when speaking the scenario instead of reading it, confusion WILL run rampant. I'd suggest little cards with their spelling on it so you can hold them up, and emphasize little differences in each name. Also there is almost too much to do in town and too long for them to do it before stuff starts happening, stretching the first part out, where it is actually impossible for them to actually accomplish anything other then raising the awareness, isn't very fun.

I think it may be more important just to make sure you are using the last names every time you talk about them, and make sure you don't get last names mixed up. I mean, it's not like the PCs will ever see then names written down, so it's fine if they can't remember which jack is spelled which way.