First problem, I had players trickle in form 630 to 7.
That's a challenge in a public play environment, especially one where you get new players relatively frequently (because new players often don't know or misremember the game start time). With a regular group, I've found that waiting until everyone shows up to start the game is a great motivator, because peer pressure comes to bear on the folks who show up late so that game time doesn't get wasted. Not sure what to tell you for the irregular group you seem to be running -- Season 4 just doesn't seem a good fit for that kind of table.
Second problem, I did write up 2 info dumps of what Sybil, and Jenny Greenteeth were going to say. Even players who had been playing through most of the season did not pay attention to the write ups.
Long NPC narratives are a sure way to get some portion of your players to check out of the game -- they'll hit their phone to check Twitter or something, or start having a side conversation. If there's stuff the PCs really need to know, let them know at the time they need it.
Again, another way in which Season 4 really isn't a good fit for the table you were running, since ideally there's some foreshadowing that players who are paying attention can use to their advantage, but if nobody knows or remembers it, it's pretty much wasted unless you remind them.
The party had problems since they had ninth thru fifth level pcs and 6 players making it a strong party.
I've been noticing this as well in the few walk-in style casual games I participate in -- that a group of 6 PCs can't be below 'average' strength despite their level make-up makes for some odd balancing options. The best solution I've come up with is to simply ignore the provided advice and use DM Empowerment to add a thematic monster of low CR to later encounters if the party defeats the early encounters at 'normal' difficulty too easily.
It's certainly not an ideal solution -- if anything it makes the problem of struggling to get above minimum XP for a large table even more acute -- but I find there are a lot fewer accidental TPKs that way.
Since the group had no living female spell caster and the males pass on it. I took the ghost option. The rogue had the ghost with the blue gown from the Amber temple. So I had the player stay in the casting circle. The rogue could make attacks but movement was 0.
Interesting wrinkle. I think the intent was that the PC loses the possessing spirit as part of the 'cost' of the ritual, but I think your option works if the PC doesn't want to give it up. Will consider using that as an option when I get to this adventure.
The final fight. As I have done before, if there a timed component in the boss fight I will shorten the boss fight. This time I shorten the time of the final ritual from 9 rounds to 3.
That seems way too much of a reduction, given that Esmae has three uses of Legendary Resistance and can thus automatically save versus the locket's effect three times -- the party needs at least four actions (and probably more, since she might not have to use Legendary Resistance on the first or second save) to have any chance of extracting the Evening Glory.
If you didn't allow Esmae to use her Legendary Resistance on saves versus the locket, then I guess that's OK -- the party would at least have had a chance to reduce her power before the ritual was completed.
General props did not work. Or were too much of a hassle.
Props are cool if you have the time and ability to do them regularly, for everything that's significant. Handing out a prop only occasionally makes them seem less special, paradoxically.
I need to work on both my game rules knowledge and AL knowledge. And module knowledge.
I think this is a generally true statement for all AL DMs -- the last time I played with a DM who I thought had all the rules knowledge 'in-head' was Greg Bilsland, and that was an atypical situation.
Taking all my lead and plastic figures does not work. I am down to 1 tackle box of figures. Plastic, cardboard, and some lead.
Absolutely -- hauling around your entire collection (or a sizable portion of your collection) sounds good, but makes for an unwieldy pile of crud to haul into the store and sit around your end of the table. There's a reason that AL tries to set things up so that a DM only needs the adventure and a Player's Handbook to run a game.
Writing up a quick after action report and pictures and posting to face book works. I include the xp, Gp, renown, and downtime given. So if someone left early they know what they get.
Agreed -- having a place where you can publically re-post the rewards and remind folks what happened is a good thing and really helps cut down on post-game questions when the store owner is just trying to close the shop and get home.
Thanks Pauper and you others for answering questions and giving comments.
Thank you for posting -- it's always good to get some idea of how these adventures are being run 'in the wild', not just for authors to get an idea for what mechanics work or don't work at the table, but to give other DMs an idea of what to focus on or avoid to help their games be as good as they can be, given circumstances.
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Pauper