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I'm DMing a Rise of the Runelords campaign for a group of 5, and the party just finished Burnt Offerings. They captured Nualia, and are bringing her back for trial. My plan is for Justice Ironbriar to be called to Sandpoint for the trial, and then have his cultists spring her out when she is convicted. However, I want the party to remember this guy. To that end, I plan to have Ameiko accused of working with Nualia and executed. The idea was that she went to Magnimar while the party was doing the murder tango with Nualia, and discovered clues leading towards the existence of the Skinsaw Cult. As such, Ironbriar needs her out of the picture. It'll be claimed that she was working as Nualia's informant by feeding information to Tsuto, and that his kidnapping attempt was in fact Ameiko attempting to leave town to join Nualia in person. I feel this will make Ironbriar a remembered and hated character, so that the eventual confrontation in the Sawmill is more dramatic. My only issue is that I've never really tried doing anything like this before, and I could use some help.
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Personally I would give the PCs the option to save her, either by trying to defend her in court, or by breaking her out, because unless the pcs hate her, or believe that she is a traitor, they will want to.
I'd not have her executed for one reason: if Nualia is found guilty, then it would be expected for her to hang with Ameiko. If Nualia was sprung, then it makes sense for them to have sprung their "ally" Ameiko.
Instead, have her sent to the Hells, the prison underneath Magnimar.
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I'd not have her executed for one reason: if Nualia is found guilty, then it would be expected for her to hang with Ameiko. If Nualia was sprung, then it makes sense for them to have sprung their "ally" Ameiko.
Instead, have her sent to the Hells, the prison underneath Magnimar.
Good point, I'll try that instead. Forcing a friend of the party into a place like that for the rest of her life will certainly still raise their ire.
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Personally I would give the PCs the option to save her, either by trying to defend her in court, or by breaking her out, because unless the pcs hate her, or believe that she is a traitor, they will want to.
Anyone else play the Phoenix Wright games? Best court battles ever. If I ever wanted to do a legal scene I'd try to write it like one of those cases.
A handful of concerns...
Most importantly, for my part I think it's bad GMing if something bad happens to someone pc's care about that they are powerless to stop - if it happens by GM fiat. I may be jumping to conclusions but I assume your pc's are on good relations with Ameiko so I would suggest you give them some recourse to save her.
Framing Ameiko seems a stretch. If she and Tsuto are in cohoots, why did he send her the letter? Why is she near death when the pc's find her - she's stabilized at negative hit points, implying she was dying before stablilizing on her own. Is her supposed allegiance to Tsuto reflected in his journal? The journal that explicitly implicates Nualia? And how exactly did Ameiko get to Magnimar, discover something about the skinsaw cult and get back in time? It's two days there and two days back. How long was the group at Thistletop? And how quickly was she ready to travel after being rescued?
There are some hidden dangers to the path your taking. You will leave your pc's with the decided impression that the government officials of Varisia are either incompetent or completely corrupt. Hemlock and Deverin come off pretty weak in the AP (at least as written) and they look even worse now, letting Nualia get hauled off despite all the harm she's done to Sandpoint as well as letting Ameiko get framed. And the first official from Magnimar they meet is hopeless;y corrupt. Don't be surprised if they have a heavy disdain for authorities going forward and run amok in Magnimar, regardless of legality, etc. Perhaps in Sandpoint, too.
If you sentence Ameiko to the Hells, be prepared to run a rescue attempt. And there's a chance your pc's ignore the start of Book 2 in lieu of trying to save their friend. Any sort of "it's impregnable, never been escaped from" narrative is likely to have an opposite affect. That's the kind of challenge players interpret as something the are supposed to do.
Oh, and if you didn't want them to take prisoners you could have just told them. After this, you should assume they'll never take another prisoner again. Because it will become very obvious that if they hadn't spared Nualia, none of the rest would have happened.
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A handful of concerns...
Most importantly, for my part I think it's bad GMing if something bad happens to someone pc's care about that they are powerless to stop - if it happens by GM fiat. I may be jumping to conclusions but I assume your pc's are on good relations with Ameiko so I would suggest you give them some recourse to save her.
Framing Ameiko seems a stretch. If she and Tsuto are in cohoots, why did he send her the letter? Why is she near death when the pc's find her - she's stabilized at negative hit points, implying she was dying before stablilizing on her own. Is her supposed allegiance to Tsuto reflected in his journal? The journal that explicitly implicates Nualia? And how exactly did Ameiko get to Magnimar, discover something about the skinsaw cult and get back in time? It's two days there and two days back. How long was the group at Thistletop? And how quickly was she ready to travel after being rescued?
There are some hidden dangers to the path your taking. You will leave your pc's with the decided impression that the government officials of Varisia are either incompetent or completely corrupt. Hemlock and Deverin come off pretty weak in the AP (at least as written) and they look even worse now, letting Nualia get hauled off despite all the harm she's done to Sandpoint as well as letting Ameiko get framed. And the first official from Magnimar they meet is hopeless;y corrupt. Don't be surprised if they have a heavy disdain for authorities going forward and run amok in Magnimar, regardless of legality, etc. Perhaps in Sandpoint, too.
If you sentence Ameiko to the Hells, be prepared to run a rescue attempt. And there's a chance your pc's ignore the start of Book 2 in lieu of trying to save their friend. Any sort of "it's impregnable, never been escaped from" narrative is likely to have an opposite affect. That's the kind of challenge players interpret as something the are supposed to do.
Oh, and if you didn't want them to take prisoners you could have just told them. After this, you should assume they'll never take another prisoner again. Because it will become very obvious that if they hadn't spared Nualia, none of the rest would have happened.
All good points. That being said, is there anywhere that talks about suggestions for modifying Skinsaw Murders? I just really don't like how Justice Ironbriar comes COMPLETELY out of left field.
Justice Ironbriar is a bit player in the grand scheme of things, a willing participant of Xanesha's machinations, nothing more, it's been my estimation that efforts to give him a bigger part inevitably derail the campaign from the real villain, Big K himself, it also takes the steam out of part 3 by distracting them from what's really important, and having them fixate on Magnimar.
Just my opinion, do with it what you want :-)
Your PCs deserve congratulations for successsfully bringing in an extremely dangerous and deranged opponent alive for trial. You and/or your players might also be interested in this thread.
I had Ironbriar show up in Sandpoint to collect Tsuto for transport back to Magnimar, before the party went to Thistletop. It was also when I had two players quit and two new ones show, so I built an encounter on the Lost Coast Road where the new PCs and the continuing PCs happened across a goblin ambush in progress: The goblins attacked Ironbriar's carriage, and the PCs rescue him.
I'm also planning on him letting Tsuto go to rejoin with Nualia.
I'm also considering rebuilding Ironbriar as a vigilante (zealot), who's a bit more "hands-on" with the Skinsaw Murders in Magnimar.
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Ironbriar can act as a means to transition a captured Nualia into the ranks of the overarching machinations of big K's minions, showing up along side the BBEG at the end of Hook Mountain or during the assault on Sandpoint at the start of book 4. If she is slightly bumped up, or given some underlings, she will not prove a major hindrance or obstacle, but the surprise of the players when she shows up again instead of having been executed or imprisoned should be priceless if pulled off properly.
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http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rzhy?Skinsaw-Murders-extra-content-and-campaig n
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^Linkified^
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My concerns mirror Latrecis. Putting Nualia on public trial in a game in general is iffy from a gameplay perspective, but having Ironbriar physically evil it up and try and spring her would be so incredibly dangerous for his cover that it's never something he would do.
Scrap the whole "Ameiko on trial" thing. It's just generally not a good idea, and I can only see it playing as a head-scratcher where NPCs are intentionally stupid for the sake of the plot, and I doubt your players will see it differently. No one likes to play the part of having to point out obvious truths and story inconsistencies to NPCs who have to be played as dense morons just so the scene can happen.
But let's move on, I could pick this little bit of oddity apart all day, but I don't want to do that.
That being said, is there anywhere that talks about suggestions for modifying Skinsaw Murders?Why yes, yes there is!
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rzhy?Skinsaw-Murders-extra-content-and-campaig nThis is my thread (which has now sunk low in the forums), and I don't want to toot my own horn by claiming anything in there is perfect, but it's my attempt to re-mix The Skinsaw Murders to fit the taste of myself and my party. There's a lot of content in there, and we discuss and workshop a lot of ideas, all of which you can peruse and see which work for you, but I'll discuss my basic philosophy for TSSM and what I've learned running it:
1. Re-arranging Aldern Foxglove's story and the Misgivings Manor to the end of the book.
** spoiler omitted **...
Thank you for the advice! This kind of stuff was EXACTLY what I was looking for. Actually, the stuff you're doing is what I was trying (and clearly failing :P) to do.