Hello! I'm starting up Seasons of Ghosts soon with a group, and I was hoping to get some insight and advice on how to manage my party through the game. While I'm fairly savvy on stuff like helping my players build characters, running combat encounters, exploration, I'm a bit more unsure on how to manage downtime over the course of the game, so I was hoping more downtime savvy GMs could clarify some of my pondering. I did google around and eyeball rules beforehand, but forgive me if misread or missed anything!
Firstly, from what I've read, Downtime is meant to be day long activities. But I feel like my players would be quick to point out that, even in a fantasy world, spending more than 8 or 10 hours of hardwork would be odd, leaving them with a third or less of a day to spend other stuff, like hanging out with NPCs, gathering rumors and intel, or stuff like minor adventuring (like 'Opportunities' that only day a few hours to accomplish)- Should I be particularly strict, and demand players who engage in stuff like earn income and crafting effectively be uninvolved from anything else going on in town? Or is it okay to be lighten up and be flexible and let them accomplish a bit more within reason?
In terms of Hexploration, the default rules suggest that each Hex is roughly a 12 miles zone- But Seasons of Ghosts region map emphasizes each Hex is about two miles. Later on, when mapping out a certain ghostly obstacle, the book suggests that players can spend four hours to map out a hex of the ghost wall, rather than 'travel actions' (which usually translates to days worth of efforts unless the party is consistently moving at high speeds.) So I'm going to assume SoG is using a smaller scape variant of the Hex Map system. If so, and if a party should normally be able to hit 12 miles worth of hex-based travel, I should let my party cover roughly 6 hexes worth of travel a day? (Not counting difficult terrain or events that may slow things down.)
Likewise, since there's a Stable in town, should I let the party get horses if they'd like? Is there any sort of terrain that I should suggest them to be ineffective, like horses navigating mountainous terrain? And if they use horses, should I follow with the guide direction, and effectively double the distance they can cover to 24 miles of distance, since horses would have a consistent speed of 40 ft? (2 travels action?) (i.e. 12 Hexes worth not count difficult terrain.)
In terms of Influencing Granny Hu and Old Matsuki, the book suggests that with Chapter 3 I should let the party attempt to begin influencing them. I've got a pretty good handle on the Influence Subsystem and I think it works well for this AP. But, I'm a little unsure of the logistics. I'm guessing it'd be better not to go "Hey, if you guys want to, you can start building influence with this too", but instead I should do something like, both of them inviting the party for some of private gathering at their abodes the first time, and organically let them explore it?
The book describes influence rounds with the two as taking an hour- Should I let the party spend multiple hours if they choose to with the Elders, or is intended that the interactions are only an hour before the party has to leave? If the former, how many hours should I reasonably let them take up of the Elders time? And how often should I let them engage in meetings with the two? Once a day? Once a week? Clearly, if the party is interested in building a relationship, they should be able to invest time in it, I'm just wondering how much I should put the brakes on in case they try speed running the influencing of them. One thought I had was whether Faction reputation should factor in, with one soft capping or influencing the other. I'm guessing they're meant to be untied, though it would be funny to say, be hated by Granny Hu's faction but super trusted by her xD
Finally, at a late point, in the book, Hu and Matsuki are supposed to butt heads and initiate a duel between their factions to decide who becomes leader. The book implies both are supposed to have champions fight for them, with inserting yourself as one an option. But it doesn't meant whom the NPC champions could be- Is the duel SUPPOSED to be a fight between Hu and Matsuki, hence their stat blocks and influence connecting to combat in some cases, or would it make more sense to dig around for high level character of the faction who isn't an Elder? Or is just meant to be open-ended so that two PCs could technically both be champions in the duel, in case the party themselves is split on which faction to favor? I'm GUESSING you're just supposed to fight the faction Elder by default in the duel if you can't diplomacy through it, but I figure second opinions are always helpful.
Once more, thanks for any input and apologies if mine blind eyes failed to find relative text guidance in the book or online! If this topic is in the wrong location or should be better titled, please let me know, I don't often post on the forums.
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On the duel, Granny Hu and Old Matsuki are both out of their physical prime and would definitely select champions. (Or rather, statistically, they will steamroll a PC in a duel, being level 5 and all...) There was more detail, but alas, the main plot is more important... *cries in writer*
When I was drafting the adventure, the way I envisioned it was that in the week leading up to the duel, the PCs either go to or are called upon by either or both elders for tea/dinner. During the meeting, the PCs do their Influence encounter. That's pretty much the one time Influence statblocks come into use in my head.
That said, it is entirely logical for scripted or spontaneous role-play moments to require the use of the statblocks before the flashpoint. Everyone in town is aware of the faction divide in town and it's logical to speculate the elders might act. Savvy players might want to start currying favors early, so that's being explicitly stated as being something PCs can pursue if they want. Also, Old Matsuki is turning 99-years-old soon, so... something to think about!
As for the NPCs acting as champion, the duel needs to be flexible to accommodate either a martial duel or a spellcasting duel, depending on which PC(s) act as the champion(s). Finding out who the champion is might be a challenge in itself. As a suggestion, the NPC(s) opponent are most likely Creature level 2 or 3; this is indeed a severe or extreme encounter for 1 PC at level 3, so outside interference is sort of expected, unless you decide to drop the NPC to level 1. The opponent might also receive some secret assistance, perhaps, if only because someone might want to put the PCs in their place...
You can find appropriate NPC statblocks in the Gamemastery Guide. The adventure might have even stated which to use! You may need to apply the elite or weak adjustment to make the NPC the right level.
Creative Director
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One quick note for Hexploration—since the scale of the Willowshore Hinterlands is much smaller than the standard Hexploration scale of 12 miles per hex, using the Hexploration rules to cover exploration of the hinterlands doesn't work well. You should handle the wilderness exploration around Willowshore using the standard rules for Exploration mode instead. Hexploration is meant to cover vast swaths of land, after all, not super local regions like those presented in the Willowshore hinterlands.
As for Downtime, it's best to be flexible on the time spent. Personally, I generally assume that there's an 8 hour day of productivity (be that Downtime or adventuring), 8 hours of sleeping, and 8 hours of other stuff (eating, doing your daily preparations, rests, bathroom breaks, relaxing, etc.). It's absolutely okay to allow PCs who are doing things like Earning Income to take part in minor roleplaying around town. Also... if it seems logical, you can let the PCs split up those 8 hours of Earn Income or other Downtime so that they can take breaks in the middle. Folks in the real world take long breaks all the time, so something like this schedule should work fine: wake up at 8 AM, daily prep at 9 AM, Earn Income for 4 hours starting at 10 AM, Gather Information in town for 2 hours starting at 2 PM, adventure in a local site for 2 hours starting at 4 PM, finish the Earn Income activity for 4 hours starting at 6 PM, relax and roleplay for a few hours before heading to bed.
The disadvantage with that is mostly the fact that it puts a lot more time-tracking on the players and the GM but if you're comfortable with that, it's fine. Normally it's just easier to speed through downtime stuff and not worry too much about the timing. And of course, if you do allow splitting up of downtime activities and a PC fails to finish up that 8 hour activity (or however long it may need to be) then they shouldn't get the benefits of that downtime; it'd be wasted time.
As for horses... sure! If the PCs can afford to buy horses, that's the whole point of the stable being in town—to give them that opportunity. If they become close friends with the stable owners you can even let them borrow horses, or even receive them as gifts, depending on game play development.
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I realized that I'm bit confused of suggestion for npcs to suggest possibility of "What if pcs try to pick neither side by picking themselves as town's leaders" but book itself doesn't follow up on that suggestion. Was that something that got cut and suggestion to do it just wasn't edited away as well?
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Creative Director
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I realized that I'm bit confused of suggestion for npcs to suggest possibility of "What if pcs try to pick neither side by picking themselves as town's leaders" but book itself doesn't follow up on that suggestion. Was that something that got cut and suggestion to do it just wasn't edited away as well?
It's mostly just a suggestion—we don't know any details about the potential players in any one game of Season of Ghosts, so it's really difficult for us to anticipate and talk about how a PC might work as a town leader. But we also know that some groups will want to do this, so the suggestion is in there to enable those tables to explore that... but if they do, the GM is on their own. They can use what we do with the leaders in this book and the ones following as templates to work out how a PC leader would work, but the Adventure Path itself doesn't assume this.
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Thanks so much for the responses James Jacobs and Sen H.H.S! It's great to get insight and clarification from those whom were involved in the making of the book.