Lost Star questions (spoilers!)

[Grim Ranger]

This post contains spoilers for Doomsday Dawn part 1 (The Lost Star), so don't read any further if you haven't played it yet!

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OK, so we're behind on the playtest and are just starting. Reading the Lost Star I had a question about the Goblin Renegade background. Since one of the characters playing in our game will be a goblin and has picked this background, does that mean that they'll know about things like the alarm in the hallway (to the east of the fountain room) and the rock trap in the goblin HQ? Do the PCs just get a free pass on these? How are GMs handling this?

[Nelroy]

You can give as much info as you deem appropriate. I believe playtest states they are aware of the general layout of the "dungeon".

I ruled that the Goblin PC was aware of the rooms west of Pharasma's chamber... that he bunked in that area with the lower ranking goblins and didn't venture further East where Draxus and his lieutenants quartered.

That way those more challenging encounters were largely unspoiled.

Good luck running the play-test.

[Tholomyes]

We didn't have a character with that background (or a goblin at all), but I think It'd be reasonable for them to know certain things about the adventure, but not much more than the other PCs would know. It's been too long to remember specifics, but even so, I think giving too much information might bias the playtest. If I were to do it, I'd give them what the goblin NPC knows, and maybe hints more than that, but nothing that would make any of the encounters obvious to that character (or to the party through that character), so as not to bias the results. Maybe the alarm might be something they would know, but maybe not even that, and I don't know if I'd give much else specific to the adventure.

[Fuzzypaws]

None of my players picked that background, but if they had, I was planning to have them be low on the totem pole. They'd know about everything before the fountain room, but wouldn't have been allowed to eat and sleep with the elites, so wouldn't know much about stuff from the fountain room on. Those would be just -2 to Perception DCs and other relevant DCs from "knowledge by osmosis," rather than automatic knowledge.

[Grim Ranger]

Good advice all, thanks!

[The Once and Future Kai]

Nelroy wrote:

I ruled that the Goblin PC was aware of the rooms west of Pharasma's chamber... that he bunked in that area with the lower ranking goblins and didn't venture further East where Draxus and his lieutenants quartered.

The first time I ran The Lost Star I didn't have a Goblin PC but I did the second time and the same tact as above. So the Goblin Renegade warned them about the Giant Centipedes and Fungus, but not about the Sands of Time or other hazards.

[Staffan Johansson]

The adventure suggests that the PCs receive intelligence from Talga and/or a potential Goblin Renegade, with the general layout of the dungeon except the rooms past the Sands of Time trap. I provided the PCs with a map, and gave some vague information along the lines of "This room has some creepy-crawlies in it" or "this is some kind of religious fountain but it's been corrupted somehow."