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I'm trying to prep this one and running into more things that are confusing to me than normal:
A) On the briefing and Maze itself:
1) The briefing mentions only "giving a guided tour of the maze", doesn't mention Galt/Woodsedge as points to see along the guided tour.
2) The question/answer portion implies that the Maze is physically in Galt, rather than the extra-dimensional space I think its usually presented as.
3) The Q&A then says you're going through the Maze to get to Galt to enter the Maze.... It feels like we're being warped to far end of the guided tour and then coming back, which seems a little odd. Had we simply been teleported to Woodsedge under the guise of having a "normal journey back to the Grand Lodge through the Maze" that would have felt more clear I think.
B) On the Familiar Faces/Making a A Getaway bit: It feels a little odd to call out predominantly high-level scenarios -- Revecka and Waterfall are all from scenarios that are too high for the characters to have encountered. I know the sidebar calls out player, not character, but this is awkward from a "ask about a ton of different scenarios, across all the player's chronicles, and then it might not matter at all". Usual heavy callback scenarios are limited to a smaller number of relevant scenarios that are often signaled by Metaplot tags.
C) Mechanics
1) Navigate the Maze of the Open Road: 1 PC, all PCs? I think I've seen scattered reports of 1 PC being the answer, but adding it for posterity.
2) Napsu-Sign: IIRC all PCs have access to it, but would still need to spend a language selection on it. Additionally all PCs are expected to know a small subset of the language even without knowing the whole language. Is Taiwalei's usage here expected to be within the "freely known signs" (more akin to squad tactics hand sign signals) or is this something that PCs might not understand?
3) Robber Novices: Combat Pickpocket: Which restrictions is it intending to relax on the underlying Steal ability? I'm assuming its intended to bypass the automatic failure for in combat. Does it also bypass the Negligible bulk only restriction? Does it bypass the -5 for in a pocket/closely guarded?
4) Treasure Bundle checkboxes, sum to 16 treasure bundles, not the usual 10. I'm assuming the second line-item with the three check boxes should be "1 TB each time..." not "3 TB each time"...
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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I just ran this today, and I had pretty much the same questions you all did. I’m glad to see some answers, but I just ruled stuff on the fly because that was my only alternative.
I will say that the maze riddle helped the characters at my table - it kept them from looking down when they had the chance to do so.
The large map is totally useless. There is no reason that even needs to be a map because it’s functionally all just theatre of the mind, EXCEPT perhaps for the one encounter that could end up in a fight (my table made friends of them, so it was a non issue.). I feel bad for people who bought the tiles for this just to have map that was pointless.
And, I’m just going to request that when authors put monsters in a scenario, that they pick ones that have actual art. Some of the monsters do not have art, which of course, makes creating pawns for them (I run in person so I use physical pawns) difficult.
But, all of that aside, the table was really enjoyable to run and my players had a GREAT time, particularly with reconnecting with NPCs they had met before.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis
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B) On the Familiar Faces/Making a A Getaway bit: It feels a little odd to call out predominantly high-level scenarios -- Revecka and Waterfall are all from scenarios that are too high for the characters to have encountered. I know the sidebar calls out player, not character, but this is awkward from a "ask about a ton of different scenarios, across all the player's chronicles, and then it might not matter at all". Usual heavy callback scenarios are limited to a smaller number of relevant scenarios that are often signaled by Metaplot tags.
There are 3 NPCs in each of those parts. What I did was have a player roll a d3 in each part, and then asked about the specific scenarios related to the corresponding NPC. I wanted to avoid the very thing you mention - asking about 6-8 scenarios and then having most of them not apply.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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My table ran a little shorter than usual. Like, 3-3.5 hours. The encounter with Gedun and Yeyacha quickly became a social encounter, which is handled much faster than an entire combat. Essentially, the scenario had only 2 combats instead of 3, which frees up a lot of time.
My players were kinda disappointed that there is nothing to do in the other rifts in area B. I quickly decided that some of the familiars were hanging out in the other portals, so there was an actual reason to visit them. I feel it really livened up the scenario, but only do this if you know they're doing well on time. Having little skill checks to get the familiars to come with you made it much more entertaining, such as maybe having a familiar be caught in a whirlwind/stuck on a rock on the water in area B4, or be injured by the fire in area B3. Obviously don't count time for that, but my players really enjoyed interacting with the new environments.
Also, I handled area B in general as a kind of "minimap." Just draw it section by section on a piece of paper/empty flipmat to show their approximate location. I found it a happy medium between drawing out the entire map and doing theatre of the mind. It still gave the players a bit of visualisation of where to go without any room for error theatre of the mind might have.
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Okay, I am prepping this for running it, and i am having issues figuring out the series of events. Let's see if I get this straight:
1) PCs get mission, find VC (Taiwalei), take him on a tour of the maze, get him back in time for his promotion ceremony.
2)PCs have to track him down by asking around, encounter an NPC.
3)PCs have to rescue Taiwalei from being trapped in a convo.
4)PCs use maze of open road to automatically get to the Woodsedge lodge (statues point the way), then go back into the maze (presumably the directions are from the woodsedge start) to go to one of three locations. (Player's choice)
5) PCs arrive at a lodge, find it attacked. Taiwalei runs back to grand lodge to inform them, PCs find robbers and beat them down, find tree lady (Selan Lin), Taiwalei gets back and does medicine checks as necessary (I'll assume he has ward medic?)
6) Selan Lin says she lost some wisps she was babysitting and wants to get them to help, Taiwalei says he'd love to.
This is where I get confused
7)Selan . . . talks to the trees? INSIDE the maze? and asks where the wisps are? The wisps have congregated in one of three elemental convergence points . . . INSIDE the maze? Maybe?
The PCs then must navigate the maze to find these points? Two are hard to find and require checks, which lead to some weird things, but . . . like, one of the points, the point with the wisps . . . they find automatically? Then why search for the other two points? If they search, which one do they find first?
8) They find the wisps in a pair of extraplanar robin-hood types, talk to them, hopefully get the wisps.
9) For . . . Reasons unexplained all four elements explode . . . in the maze? Releasing a baby brine shark elemental . . . and the PCs have to defeat it to close the portal? And Taiwalei and Selan Lin can shout advice?
10) PCs hopefully get back in time for Taiwalei's promotion celebration?