|
This is intended to be a spoiler-filled resource thread (as in other AP subforums) for GMs running book 2 of The Threefold Conspiracy Adventure Path, "Flight of the Sleepers."
All GM threads in this series:
1 - The Chimera Mystery
2 - Flight of the Sleepers
3 - Deceivers' Moon
4 - The Hollow Cabal
5 - The Cradle Infestation
6 - Puppets Without Strings
For those about to run this: Make sure you seed some healing supplies for your party if they don't have inherent healing capabilities. My group had to hole up for a couple of days to rest because they didn't bring a dedicated healer and there is hardly anything in terms of supplies until they get to the quantum synthesizer.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Because I was worried it would maneuver us into a (literal) dead end if I'd effectively eliminate healing by establishing a doomsday clock, I took the note in the book to heart: there shouldn't be an actual countdown, but the players should feel pressured. So what I told them was that the reactor state is sleeping and it might go critical some time during the next few days, or maybe sooner, who knows with strange tech like this.
It worked as intended: the players felt pressured, but still dared to rest. And the obscurity of the timeline allowed me to suddenly escalate the reactor state once they reached the final encounter.
|
|
Makes sense to me. And now you've reminded me of the bomb counting down in the old Starship Titanic game.
Just be vague enough to let you dial it up and down as needed and concrete enough for prayers to feel threatened.
You'll want to avoid your players rushing into the deadly final encounter just because they think they have to run out the clock.
|
|
We're starting book 2 this week (maybe tonight). At the end of book 1, I had the escape pods put the PCs to sleep "as is standard, to conserve life support resources" just as the metal bands wrap around the pods to pull them into the bays where they start book 2. We'll start the book 8+ hours later, with everyone having gotten a full night's rest.
|
|
I'm interested in any suggestions you fine folks might have for intro music for book 2. I usually have a short (3-5) song playlist that I play to get my players to the table and while they look over their character sheets and notes from the previous session.
For book 1, I used the following:
- The original Scooby Doo Where Are You theme song
- Building a Mystery, Sarah McLachlan
- Murder 101, The Wallflowers
- And of course, David Duchovny, Bree Sharp
These are my current ideas for book 2, but I'm not in love with this list:
- Who Can It Be Now?, Men At Work
- Where Are We Running?, Lenny Kravitz
- The Grand Illusion, Styx
- The X-Files Theme
Any suggestions?
I don't have any advice for you, but I love this technique!
|
Honestly, for music to fit the atmosphere of this book I'd use tracks from Metroid Prime 1, 2, and 3 as well as Metroid Fusion. Hyper Light Drifter is also another good game with a fantastic sound track that would fit very well.
I am curious about how things went with everyone's fight against the Quantum Troll, I had to dial him down a few notches as my party was getting their asses handed to them.
|
Honestly, for music to fit the atmosphere of this book I'd use tracks from Metroid Prime 1, 2, and 3 as well as Metroid Fusion. Hyper Light Drifter is also another good game with a fantastic sound track that would fit very well.
I am curious about how things went with everyone's fight against the Quantum Troll, I had to dial him down a few notches as my party was getting their asses handed to them.
the party did okay against the troll... but he rolled poorly.
the ravager on the other hand critted the solarian and one-shot dying. i had to stop using him because holy shnikes, i was about to kill the whole party right before the actual boss.
|
|
Has anyone tried having one or some of the NPC's from the first book survive into at least part of the rest of the campaign? I'm starting the campaign this weekend, and my party is pretty RP focused. I'm worried that investing them in all the NPC's from the Chimera Mystery and trying to get them attached to those characters will make them frustrated when they *all* die off. I was thinking maybe their favorite NPC could survive, but somehow need the party to complete the dungeon to save the NPC for some story reason. (Maybe they're trying to resist Gray programming to commit suicide, but can't resist forever, and will be okay if they can leave the station.)
Has anyone's parties run into this frustration? It may not be a big deal, because when you run this campaign your party kinda has to be on board with getting railroaded through some major twists, like ** spoiler omitted **
yes
but aside from that, i thought it really added to the paranoia that as they escaped the ship, they either saw everyone's head explode, or had already exploded. Their hopes were high as the ysoki and the maraquoi were trying to open up the escape hatches and begged them to help, and then... well...
|
|
Has anyone tried having one or some of the NPC's from the first book survive into at least part of the rest of the campaign? I'm starting the campaign this weekend, and my party is pretty RP focused. I'm worried that investing them in all the NPC's from the Chimera Mystery and trying to get them attached to those characters will make them frustrated when they *all* die off. I was thinking maybe their favorite NPC could survive, but somehow need the party to complete the dungeon to save the NPC for some story reason. (Maybe they're trying to resist Gray programming to commit suicide, but can't resist forever, and will be okay if they can leave the station.)
Has anyone's parties run into this frustration? It may not be a big deal, because when you run this campaign your party kinda has to be on board with getting railroaded through some major twists, like ** spoiler omitted **
I had two players who were new to starfinder, and two who were part of my regular group, so I wanted to do a dry-run for them before we got into the AP proper.
So... I grabbed a random ship deck plan, tossed in some mooks, a trap or two, and gave them the instruction that they were to 'find the monster' which was repeated on loudspeaker.
they got to know some tactical stuff, had to hack a computer, disarm a trap, whatever, and in the end:
They awoke on the shuttle in Legacy Station, headed towards the Chimera, with 2nd officer Lozu trying to get some trust games going to formally introduce characters to one another. I downloaded some simple get-to-know-you games, and we RP'd that before arriving at the ship where the AP starts.
Took a few hours, but I think it worked to gel the party together, and you can always bring back 'Find the Monster' at an appropriate time...
Has anyone tried having one or some of the NPC's from the first book survive into at least part of the rest of the campaign? I'm starting the campaign this weekend, and my party is pretty RP focused. I'm worried that investing them in all the NPC's from the Chimera Mystery and trying to get them attached to those characters will make them frustrated when they *all* die off. I was thinking maybe their favorite NPC could survive, but somehow need the party to complete the dungeon to save the NPC for some story reason. (Maybe they're trying to resist Gray programming to commit suicide, but can't resist forever, and will be okay if they can leave the station.)
Has anyone's parties run into this frustration? It may not be a big deal, because when you run this campaign your party kinda has to be on board with getting railroaded through some major twists, like ** spoiler omitted **
Not from Book 1, but I did from Book 3.
Has anyone tried having one or some of the NPC's from the first book survive into at least part of the rest of the campaign? I'm starting the campaign this weekend, and my party is pretty RP focused. I'm worried that investing them in all the NPC's from the Chimera Mystery and trying to get them attached to those characters will make them frustrated when they *all* die off. I was thinking maybe their favorite NPC could survive, but somehow need the party to complete the dungeon to save the NPC for some story reason. (Maybe they're trying to resist Gray programming to commit suicide, but can't resist forever, and will be okay if they can leave the station.)
Has anyone's parties run into this frustration? It may not be a big deal, because when you run this campaign your party kinda has to be on board with getting railroaded through some major twists, like ** spoiler omitted **
It worked okay for us - as they fled the Chimera they came across one or two NPCs who they determined had suffered cortex bombs. I also had them find a few pirates who had died similarly. That gave them all sorts of paranoia as they wondered if they all had cortex bombs too. (First thing they checked when they got to some medical equipment!)
My group were pretty convinced everyone was a villain by the time book one wound up though, they didn't really make any friends. Book three is going to be worse, in my view (we're almost done with the base). They've finally decided the mercenary lieutenant is someone they can actually trust....and I've pretty much doomed her to being killed. Not sure how they're going to take that...
|
|
Has anyone tried having one or some of the NPC's from the first book survive into at least part of the rest of the campaign? I'm starting the campaign this weekend, and my party is pretty RP focused. I'm worried that investing them in all the NPC's from the Chimera Mystery and trying to get them attached to those characters will make them frustrated when they *all* die off. I was thinking maybe their favorite NPC could survive, but somehow need the party to complete the dungeon to save the NPC for some story reason. (Maybe they're trying to resist Gray programming to commit suicide, but can't resist forever, and will be okay if they can leave the station.)
Has anyone's parties run into this frustration? It may not be a big deal, because when you run this campaign your party kinda has to be on board with getting railroaded through some major twists, like ** spoiler omitted **
It worked okay for us - as they fled the Chimera they came across one or two NPCs who they determined had suffered cortex bombs. I also had them find a few pirates who had died similarly. That gave them all sorts of paranoia as they wondered if they all had cortex bombs too. (First thing they checked when they got to some medical equipment!)
My group were pretty convinced everyone was a villain by the time book one wound up though, they didn't really make any friends. Book three is going to be worse, in my view (we're almost done with the base). They've finally decided the mercenary lieutenant is someone they can actually trust....and I've pretty much doomed her to being killed. Not sure how they're going to take that...
my players really liked the merc. took her body with them across the hellmoon and everything.
|
|
Hey!
I'm using roll20 to run this campaign and cannot find any maps without grid or room numbers on them. Really frustrating.
Can anyone help?
unfortunately not from me. some of the maps are easy to pull out w/ a simple point and click on the pdf [they have the grid but not the #s; paste it on your ms paint app and then upload that to Roll20].
Other maps... some more technically inclined people have tools that pull out layers from the pdfs, but that's not me.
i've been able to hid most things from my players with creative uses of the dynamic lighting; the room numbers aren't actually bad, since the players will talk to each other referring to various rooms as B3 or whatever.
when you can't hide something, just roll the perception checks for them [thinking secret doors], or just let them roll once. they fail, then they fail, move on. my group grumbled for a moment and then moved on with their lives. but you can mostly cover those marks w/ dynamic lighting.
I took the grid off of my Roll20 as I couldn't pull it off the maps. Once you get the hang of sizing maps via tokens, it just takes a minute or two to get it right. the grids on the maps help people know how to move correctly, but it allows for a little more dynamism in character placement during a combat.
good luck! we are probably finishing up Book 5 this month.