So I've been running this AP for just over a year, and my players aren't RP focused. They're all a party of undead, and reading this AP is giving me headaches just trying to understand it. I feel like there are massive plot holes everywhere, things just aren't explained, and I'm just struggling. It's almost become a running joke when I get frustrated once or twice a session because it just feels like it's poorly written in so many places. Like tonight, the just went through the Undermarket in Book 3, and they're about to head to The Field of Madiens. It frustrated them because they're trying to follow Taviah, but I have absolutely zero output for them. The vampires they fight? Apparently they have the information, but there's absolutely zero incentive to give that information because it says absolutely nothing about capturing them because they just fight to the death. I had to have Seldeg reveal to them that they need to head to the field, but reading ahead into the next part, I know they're gonna be frustrated because he just up and leaves. They're already frustrated with him to begin with. And then to add to it, they're supposed to be heroes for clearing out the undermarket when that was never cleared as some ultimate threat?
We're having fun as a group playing together, but I feel like this AP is running patience real thin at this point. I'm at a loss trying to find motivation just to run this AP because reading forward just feels like one massive train wreck after another because it just feels like everything of any kind of importance got the razor and it's just nothing but frustration. Can I get any advice on trying to piece this thing together so I can start having fun with this AP and reduce the frustrations?
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My PCs are 50/50 roleplaying & tactics, so I don't know if our perspective would apply to your group. We've been having a great time with the AP - and I've run it largely as written. However, I've reskinned many of the roleplaying encounters to play up the comedy of this campaign. This approach was inspired by Berline in book one.
This tone hasn't been picked up as well in other books, but to compensate I've kept the statblocks the same, but reimagined the NPCs, sometimes playing them against type. Or sometimes leaning into the obvious - like making The Rhino in the current book a kind of female Schwarzenegger, who teased the PCs for being manly-weak. I had Seldig speak his frustration at always returning to the party for an expository role. And when the PCs were a bit short of XP at the end of Field of Maidens, I had a side quest before going to Mechatar, taking them to Geb's best kept secret, the hamlet of Hamster Fiesta (think of a year-round Cinco de Mayo with undead hamster ratfolk variants).