Advice for starting out

Primarily Adventure 2 was were the singing came in... Altho, since Chimera plays the Bard....


The forced use of the single road made it difficult to avoid this appearance. Also my group is limited to 4 hour sessions every month, so I tend to trim a bit in order to actually get the plot line moving. If we were meeting for 6 hours every 2 weeks I would be leaving the doors open for off-track activities while still providing a strong incentive for the heroes to follow the module in game. This would allow for the development of the characters ties to the world and have character motivations to drive them.
If this were the case, the initial reasons would have to stiffer. Perhaps the thought of a mother stuck in Gate's Pass and at risk of being killed by the Ragesian's would drive a character forward. Theres more room to manuever when your game session doesn't frame itself around [combat + seque scene + boss encounter]...which is about all you can do in a 4 hour span with how long some of the battles take real time.

Out of game, as a player I would look at the investment the DM has made into my night of entertainment and would 'settle down' and have fun. Since I prefer hard copy modules and printed battlemaps, each module runs me about $40... something I am happy to do because I enjoy running games and enjoy the company of the group. Doing otherwise strikes me as very 'crass and uncooperative'

But..after typing all that: If you have the time to develop the reasons the PCs are in the fight, the more detail the better...as at some point they will return to Gate's Pass. My group will miss out on being 'homecoming heroes' since I don't have enough material to support that sort of scene.

[sidetrek], The singing didn't bother me, as I was feeling pretty much the same thing. Its hard to present an appearance of PC freedom when you have a single road to follow for three sessions... not to mention my table is generally full of 'meta-game' sillyness anyway. [sidetrek]

Um....what he said.

At the end of the day, I don't really have any problems accepting the proposition 'This is the Adventure Path, please follow it'.

Having had the last two campaigns I tried to run go down in screaming agony because of uncooperative and outright belligerent players, I have a deeper appreciation of what it takes to run a game and how far cooperation and willing buy-in goes to make things smoother and a whole lot more fun for everyone involved.

In my campaign, all of the PCs are spellcasters except for one. (And that one has since multiclassed into cleric )

I asked the non-spellcaster to be a member of the resistance, to which the player agreed. I removed Torrent, and used the PC as the resistance representative at the meeting.

The fact that the others were spellcasters and fearful of the Ragesians gave them an incentive to attend the meeting in the hope of getting resistance aid

They readily agreed to help out the resistance as it meant leaving the city and heading for the "safety" of Seaquen.

I disagree with the "railroad" objections in respect of adventure 2. The geography of the region and the location of enemy armies means the most sensible route is through the Fire Forest. If you are going through the forest, then it makes sense to follow the road.

Once they are in the forest, the PCs get caught up in a three way conflict between the "fire spirit", the fey and the bearded devil. Its up to them which side they support (my PCs changed sides twice during the adventure, managing to support each faction for at least some of the time).

The only thing they can't do is "give up and go home". Once they enter the forest they have to resolve the conflict one way or another. I suppose some might see that as railroading.

Personally I'm fine with the idea that adventurers sometimes get themselves into a hole through no fault of their own, and then have to figure out how best to get themselves out of it.

I'm in CrazyEights group.

We had 4 people starting out. An elven soldier on loan by the Sha army to Gate Pass. A orc monk, who was a former initiate in training to become an inquisitor. A Rogue from Seaquen, I don't remember why he was there, probably it involved the thief's guild. And my character, a Shugenja from Sindar, there because his mentor told him to go.

We had no trouble following the plot hook. My Shugenja worshiped the Tidereaver Kracken & Torrent did as well. So we hit it off immediately. The Orc had a HUGE beef with the new management of Regasia. And the Rogue wanted to help the resistance in general. The only problem we had was with the Elf, who wanted to go to Sha. But we resolved that by basically making a copy of the plans information we found. Letting the elves take one copy to Sha & we took the second copy towards Seaquen. We meet our 5th player on our way out of Gate Pass. He was a Wu Jen who had been captured by bandits who were about to hand him over to Regasian agents.

In hind sight, I'd recommend playing up the fleeing from Regasia as spell casters. That really gives a feel for how the Regasians operate & foreshadows what happens towards the end of the first Chapter, at Haden's house. Also, it shows that not all Regasians are evil. Just the Inquisition.

Now if only we can get through Chapter 3 & figure out what's going on in Dawsen!