Planescape Enhancing Turn of Fortune's Wheel

[Parmandur]

I think the best use of this adventure would be to disassemble it and use it for parts.

TBF, that's really just how WptC builds these: they are sets of parts with a ReadyBake crust of a loose plot that can be made to work or removed as desired.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm looking at Guildmasters Guide Ravnica too, see if I can steal some stuff from there.

I think the Ghild material in Chapter 5 would work very well for Gate Town shenanigans: instead of tying the Guild tables to Factiona, tie them to the Planar influenced areas of the Outlands like maybe:

- Sielsniya with Arborea and/or the Beastlands

- Boros with Acheron

- Amorous wirh Mt. Celestia and/or Arcadia

- Rakdos with the Abyss

- Gruul with Ysgard

- Orzhav with the Nine Hells

- Izzet with Limbo or Bytopia

- Golgari with...pandemonium, maybe, or Carceri?

- Simic with Limbo

- Dimir with Hades

 

[Charlaquin]

TBF, that's really just how WptC builds these: they are sets of parts with a ReadyBake crust of a loose plot that can be made to work or removed as desired.

I’d say some adventure books are like that - the anthologies like Candlekeep Mysteries and Keys to the Golden Vault, certainly. Others, which I would characterize as adventure paths, like Curse of Strahd or Ghosts of Saltmarsh, have more robust plot structures. And then there are the ones like Hoard of the Dragon Queen or Out of the Abyss that seem like they’re trying to be structured adventure paths, but doing a poor enough job at it that they’re better used by taking them apart and using them as if they were anthologies. I’d say this one falls into the lattermost category.

 

[Parmandur]

I’d say some adventure books are like that - the anthologies like Candlekeep Mysteries and Keys to the Golden Vault, certainly. Others, which I would characterize as adventure paths, like Curse of Strahd or Ghosts of Saltmarsh, have more robust plot structures. And then there are the ones like Hoard of the Dragon Queen or Out of the Abyss that seem like they’re trying to be structured adventure paths, but doing a poor enough job at it that they’re better used by taking them apart and using them as if they were anthologies. I’d say this one falls into the lattermost category.

I'd say it's a spectrum, with all of them at least having reusable parts, with some having more useful stories.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'd say it's a spectrum, with all of them at least having reusable parts, with some having more useful stories.

I mean, ultimately I agree. I just think that within that spectrum there are some that set out to be a bunch of reusable parts and some that set out to have useful stories, and some accomplish what they set out to do better than others.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, ultimately I agree. I just think that within that spectrum there are some that set out to be a bunch of reusable parts and some that set out to have useful stories, and some accomplish what they set out to do better than others.

Well, true that Candlekeep Mysteries and (egregiously) Yawning Portal don't really try to have much of any connective tissue...I think they are trying to do a decent-yet-removeable overarching plot pretty consistently, to mixed results: I am sure they wanted the plot of Dragon Heist to work juat as well as Tomb of Annhilation, but it didn't gel quite as well. Whereas individual parts, like an appropriate Dungeon for 7th Level PCs with a given Mosnter theme or what have you, they have down pretty well.

 

[Remathilis]

I’d say some adventure books are like that - the anthologies like Candlekeep Mysteries and Keys to the Golden Vault, certainly. Others, which I would characterize as adventure paths, like Curse of Strahd or Ghosts of Saltmarsh, have more robust plot structures. And then there are the ones like Hoard of the Dragon Queen or Out of the Abyss that seem like they’re trying to be structured adventure paths, but doing a poor enough job at it that they’re better used by taking them apart and using them as if they were anthologies. I’d say this one falls into the lattermost category.

The problem I've noticed is that WotC has pushed for very tight space in their later stuff. They went to the "each chapter a level" style of design and the chapters don't have room to breathe, so you bottle rocket though a half-dozen encounters and you're on to the next (have a level).

Though to be fair, I think WotC is still feeling out changes due to their new design paradigm in terms of space and content. I'm hoping they figure it out soon though.

I also think they are making the level spread too wide. There isn't enough content in LoX or TFW to support the half dozen levels they want it to. You have to be willing to add and remix unless you want to do a years worth of play in six sessions. I'd much prefer smaller spreads of levels (5-8) and more meat over those levels than to go 3-10 with little to do.

 

[briggart]

I'm still reading through the adventure, and it will be quite some time before I'll run this, but my general plan is to have the adventure take place in the 5e version of PS, but the PCs will originally be from the 2e version. When they get flashbacks of their old life, some details will not completely match with the reality they are currently experiencing. The PCs, the modron, and possibly somebody else, came from the 2e Sigil by walking a path that runs outside of the torus (and the modron is the only one who knows how to navigate it). The break in reality has been caused by a chunk of black stone lodged into the outside of Sigil, to possibly tie this into the obelisks stuff.

Shemeska doesn't know anything of this, but somehow knows something is off with them and the modron seems to be the key to it all (possibly due to some cryptic guidance from a Baernaloth). Any form of divination magic/power by 5e creatures won't work on somebody from the 2e reality, so Shemeska must use regular means to track the rogue modron, and she figures she can get the PCs to do that for her, hoping that their special connection to it will give them some kind of advantage.

Regarding the specific bits I've read, I'll definitely change the Faunel and Sylvania chapters. I find the Sylvania plot a bit cheesy, and I think my players will do too, and I don't like the Beastlands as the concept for the Neutral-Good-Chaotic plane in the first place. I think it would be more suited for a realm in the Outlands.

 

[i_was_like_you]

I'm not sure I like the double whammy of the rilmani assassin's betrayal hard on the heels of R04M's reveal of Shemeshka's betrayal. That just feels unnecessary. When I run this, I might leave out the assassination attempt - or maybe make it so that someone (Shemeshka?) is blackmailing the rilmani into attempting an assassination ... or maybe there's a different NPC who shows up to do the assassinating instead of the rilmani. I dunno ... it'll be ages until I get to run this, so I don't have to sort it out now, but it's definitely something to think about.

Another comment is that I feel the whole Faunel section needs a bit of a rework. As written, it's just "talk to NPC A, who tells you to talk to NPC B, who tells you to talk to NPC C, who will only give you the information you seek with a bribe of some kind". It's just stringing the PCs (and the players) along. It could do with some more nuance and/or more options so it's less linear. If I was playing this adventure as a player, I'm fairly certain I'd find this part extremely annoying, so as a DM, I'd definitely want to spice it up somehow. Perhaps the simplest thing to do would be to give the players the option of which faction leader to talk to first, and then give each faction leader reasons to point the PC towards the other two, so the PCs have more agency and can maybe actually negotiate. Like maybe the albatross guy knows that the elephant lady has the magic statue and tells the PCs that if they can get it for him, he'll tell them what they want to know, but when they go talk to the elephant lady, she says she'll only give it to them if they go talk to the tiger guy and make sure he isn't the one killing the animals. Something like that!

It's a very on brand quest for Planescape, though. It really captures the Mad Hatter's tea party logic of the setting.

In the Great Modron March, for example:

Spoiler: In the Great Modron March

We have to save a Nymph from the pollution caused by a detachment of Modrons upstream,

Who can't escape the river because druids have put up a wall of briars on one shore,

And Wemics (lion centaurs) won't let them out into the other shore.

Attempting to negotiate with either group sends the players to talk to a flying elf king,

Which sends them back to the Wemics,

Which sends them to talk to the cloud elemental that blew the Modron detachment off course

As a favor to the nymph we're trying to save in the first place.

So we have to go back to her to get a token to show the cloud so it'll leave the Modrons alone

Plus about another half dozen steps I'm drawing a blank on...

Spoiler

Just to find out things have worked themselves out while we have been bouncing back and forth.

Dammit, Planescape.

 

[Raunalyn]

I started the module a few weeks ago...we are about 2 sessions in. I expanded the Mortuary and made it quite dangerous. I'm not a DM that enjoys killing off characters, but the combat they were in when they got upstairs in the Mortuary was quite deadly...I did have a player say I was being a little nice and pulling my punches.

I am definitely expanding the adventure. I have converted The Eternal Boundary because it has a theme that fits with the mystery of this particular module (a missing individual who is supposed to be dead, but turns out to still be alive...it has a good hook for the players). The first couple of chapters of the adventure are pretty bare...