mxyzplk
Explorer
We aim to please. Glad to hear people are enjoying them. If anyone needs even more than the 8 campaign's worth on my blog, there's a bunch of even older ones on our session scribe's decrepit old home page: BRT Home Page
[Pathfinder] Reavers on the Seas of Fate
mxyzplk
Explorer
Our heroes (?) continue in their shenanigans in Riddleport in Reavers on the Seas of Fate: Death in Riddleport, Part I. I've been borrowing from Green Ronin's excellent Freeport setting to flesh out the pirate haven of Riddleport and here's where we kick into their classic adventure, Death in Freeport, but adapted to Riddleport and generally getting beefed up.
Seventh Session (14 page pdf), "Death in Riddleport, Part I" - Crimelord Avery Slyeg makes the PCs an offer they can't refuse, so they hunt down the Splithog Pauper (the leader of the criminal gang from "St. Casperian's Salvation"). And they look for their kidnapped friend Vincenz - rubbing elbows with Cyphermages requires them to clean up a bit. The practical and moral dilemmas get harder as they work to rescue their friend.
I was pretty happy with this session. The trick to a good campaign is having interesting NPCs that the PCs believe in enough to deal with realistically, and this session was all about that. Man, the Splithog Pauper has gone from a side sub-boss with no real personality - less backstory than the average Paizo NPC, really - to a major player. The first time he escaped, the PCs found his disguise kit and decided he was a master of disguise - to the point that as they were walking out right after the fight, they interrogated a legless homeless guy to ensure he wasn't the Pauper in disguise. This time, he lived up to their expectations by being disguised as a peg-legged pirate captain. Once they caught him and took him back for interrogation, he managed to talk his way out by trading the location of his hidden treasure for his life, and after they let him go, he told them the treasure was in the artificial leg from his disguise they already had in hand. They were all impressed and like "Damn, he totally conned us! That took balls of steel!" Now they're convinced he's Golarion's answer to James Bond. DM pro tip: every time the PCs decide an NPC is really bad ass, give them a level. Ding!
And besides the Pauper, the interactions with Avery Slyeg, Samaritha, and Iesha are all going well. When the PCs are taking NPCs as or more seriously than fights or loot then you can get some real stories going.
Other things I was proud of - I don't like when NPCs know things they shouldn't; I hate the "hivemind complex." So the Pauper had a signal arranged - if he started singing "What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor," that meant trouble, and his new rent-a-goons should come downstairs shooting. Well, the PCs were spread all over the bar doing various things and the goons had never seen them before, so they just started drive-by style random shooting at anyone that looked dangerous. And in turn, that galvanized the PCs much more to immediate action than a standard thug attack.
During this session I made use of two of my custom rulesets - the gather information/random encounter/rumor combo I discuss in Life in the Big City - Gather Information, and the chase rules I lay out in Life In The Big City - Chase Rules. Both chases (the Pauper and Enzo) went well; I think after another use or two the chase rules will be nice and solid. The trick is to not make them too much of a "separate minigame" that causes problems with interactions with all the skills/feats/spells/etc of 3.5e play.
Next session - some shockingly brutal fights!
Seventh Session (14 page pdf), "Death in Riddleport, Part I" - Crimelord Avery Slyeg makes the PCs an offer they can't refuse, so they hunt down the Splithog Pauper (the leader of the criminal gang from "St. Casperian's Salvation"). And they look for their kidnapped friend Vincenz - rubbing elbows with Cyphermages requires them to clean up a bit. The practical and moral dilemmas get harder as they work to rescue their friend.
I was pretty happy with this session. The trick to a good campaign is having interesting NPCs that the PCs believe in enough to deal with realistically, and this session was all about that. Man, the Splithog Pauper has gone from a side sub-boss with no real personality - less backstory than the average Paizo NPC, really - to a major player. The first time he escaped, the PCs found his disguise kit and decided he was a master of disguise - to the point that as they were walking out right after the fight, they interrogated a legless homeless guy to ensure he wasn't the Pauper in disguise. This time, he lived up to their expectations by being disguised as a peg-legged pirate captain. Once they caught him and took him back for interrogation, he managed to talk his way out by trading the location of his hidden treasure for his life, and after they let him go, he told them the treasure was in the artificial leg from his disguise they already had in hand. They were all impressed and like "Damn, he totally conned us! That took balls of steel!" Now they're convinced he's Golarion's answer to James Bond. DM pro tip: every time the PCs decide an NPC is really bad ass, give them a level. Ding!
And besides the Pauper, the interactions with Avery Slyeg, Samaritha, and Iesha are all going well. When the PCs are taking NPCs as or more seriously than fights or loot then you can get some real stories going.
Other things I was proud of - I don't like when NPCs know things they shouldn't; I hate the "hivemind complex." So the Pauper had a signal arranged - if he started singing "What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor," that meant trouble, and his new rent-a-goons should come downstairs shooting. Well, the PCs were spread all over the bar doing various things and the goons had never seen them before, so they just started drive-by style random shooting at anyone that looked dangerous. And in turn, that galvanized the PCs much more to immediate action than a standard thug attack.
During this session I made use of two of my custom rulesets - the gather information/random encounter/rumor combo I discuss in Life in the Big City - Gather Information, and the chase rules I lay out in Life In The Big City - Chase Rules. Both chases (the Pauper and Enzo) went well; I think after another use or two the chase rules will be nice and solid. The trick is to not make them too much of a "separate minigame" that causes problems with interactions with all the skills/feats/spells/etc of 3.5e play.
Next session - some shockingly brutal fights!
mxyzplk
Explorer
Eighth Session (14 page pdf), “Death in Riddleport, Part II” – The PCs find a hidden temple under an abandoned house and engage in vicious combat with serpent men! “Sorry, Vincenz, but that’s too tough!” they conclude after a couple runs at it.
The adventure was a beefed up version of Green Ronin’s “Death in Freeport.” (Spoilers for that adventure ensue). Did I beef it up too much? The weakest part of the Freeport Trilogy, I thought, was that the great legendary serpent men were 1 HD (and 3.0 HD are like worth 1/2 a Pathfinder HD) pieces of crap. Paizo printed some more “real” serpentfolk in their 3.5e Into the Darklands supplement. I had to do the degenerate-statting and conversion to Pathfinder myself, but was left with some nice CR4 brute types. I didn’t think that would be a horrible problem – these PCs are Pathfinder and pretty optimized, and have pretty much happily rolled over all the other fights so far.
Well, they got tromped by two of them. There were a couple reasons why. One, they were down a PC because Blacktoes wasn’t here, which means they were only four men against an unknown foe.
But shouldn’t a party of 4 second level PCs be able to take (though have it be tough) 2 CR4s? Well, secondly, they’re pretty tough even for CR4s, I think, and I made a mistake in not nerfing their poison more (I converted from 3.5e to Pathfinder poison on the fly and the latter procs each round for 6 rounds, so needs a much lower penalty value).
But also some of it, the third part, was the PCs I think. I’m trying to get them to think more tactically as part of a “gritter” campaign, but I’m afraid they still default to “screw it, let’s run around like butt monkeys.” The villa assault in Three Days to Kill was a good example; they started in decent SpecOps style but then all started running round solo (and still did well – I tried to scare them some but I guess they may have gotten the lesson that that’s OK…).
Although maybe it worked out kinda decently in the end. Samaritha went with them and they fought ten skeletons and three serpentfolk at once! (You don’t hit a dungeon, leave, and return after two days without them getting a good reaction plan in place. Sorry.) And once the players got scared into really thinking hard, they did a good fighting withdrawl that they converted to a hasty ambush and took the enemy all out (albeit with using all their remaining action and Infamy points). Which would have been fine, but that fight demoralized them enough that they bailed – not even to come back after healing, but just “bah, maybe after we level.” I made it crystal clear that they were leaving Vincenz to his death, but that didn’t impress them. They figured any more of those serpentfolk and they were meat.
Ironically, they had killed all of them off and just had the boss to fight – he’s tough but not as tough CR-wise as e.g. two serpentfolk. But they didn’t know that and I don’t like giving metagame info; courage isn’t real courage if you are told the risk was low, so they walked away and I didn’t do much to stop them (except having the voice of an NPC speak as a conscience. “You’re gonna leave your friend to die?”). They pushed me to get a level at the end of the session. Perhaps I’m cussed, but I didn’t want to reward failure with a level (and have them think on some level that I gave it to them so they can go back and succeed). Not like they’re going to hang around awaiting the PCs’ leisure; I’m not big on static dungeons or villains that don’t respond to stuff like that.
They got some of the disappointment out of their system by going and beating the crap out of Braddikar Faje. Second Darkness has some badly balanced encounters; as if a third level NPC fighter with some goons is going to be a credible threat to a whole party of PCs. I had built up his street cred enough that they took him seriously, at least, but he couldn’t damage them worth a darn.
Now I have to figure out what’ll happen next. I pretty much run things from a simulationist point of view during a session (what would logically happen next) but from a story point of view during sesssion prep (it might be interesting if person X goes and does Y…). I reckon trouble will start coming to them; my hope is that they snap and become the ruthless pirates they are destined to be…
This group of players is a little of a challenge as I found out when they hated my Mutants & Masterminds campaign. They really don’t like being bested, even if it’s nonfatal or dramatically good. I guess we’ll see if this demoralizes them or what.
The adventure was a beefed up version of Green Ronin’s “Death in Freeport.” (Spoilers for that adventure ensue). Did I beef it up too much? The weakest part of the Freeport Trilogy, I thought, was that the great legendary serpent men were 1 HD (and 3.0 HD are like worth 1/2 a Pathfinder HD) pieces of crap. Paizo printed some more “real” serpentfolk in their 3.5e Into the Darklands supplement. I had to do the degenerate-statting and conversion to Pathfinder myself, but was left with some nice CR4 brute types. I didn’t think that would be a horrible problem – these PCs are Pathfinder and pretty optimized, and have pretty much happily rolled over all the other fights so far.
Well, they got tromped by two of them. There were a couple reasons why. One, they were down a PC because Blacktoes wasn’t here, which means they were only four men against an unknown foe.
But shouldn’t a party of 4 second level PCs be able to take (though have it be tough) 2 CR4s? Well, secondly, they’re pretty tough even for CR4s, I think, and I made a mistake in not nerfing their poison more (I converted from 3.5e to Pathfinder poison on the fly and the latter procs each round for 6 rounds, so needs a much lower penalty value).
But also some of it, the third part, was the PCs I think. I’m trying to get them to think more tactically as part of a “gritter” campaign, but I’m afraid they still default to “screw it, let’s run around like butt monkeys.” The villa assault in Three Days to Kill was a good example; they started in decent SpecOps style but then all started running round solo (and still did well – I tried to scare them some but I guess they may have gotten the lesson that that’s OK…).
Although maybe it worked out kinda decently in the end. Samaritha went with them and they fought ten skeletons and three serpentfolk at once! (You don’t hit a dungeon, leave, and return after two days without them getting a good reaction plan in place. Sorry.) And once the players got scared into really thinking hard, they did a good fighting withdrawl that they converted to a hasty ambush and took the enemy all out (albeit with using all their remaining action and Infamy points). Which would have been fine, but that fight demoralized them enough that they bailed – not even to come back after healing, but just “bah, maybe after we level.” I made it crystal clear that they were leaving Vincenz to his death, but that didn’t impress them. They figured any more of those serpentfolk and they were meat.
Ironically, they had killed all of them off and just had the boss to fight – he’s tough but not as tough CR-wise as e.g. two serpentfolk. But they didn’t know that and I don’t like giving metagame info; courage isn’t real courage if you are told the risk was low, so they walked away and I didn’t do much to stop them (except having the voice of an NPC speak as a conscience. “You’re gonna leave your friend to die?”). They pushed me to get a level at the end of the session. Perhaps I’m cussed, but I didn’t want to reward failure with a level (and have them think on some level that I gave it to them so they can go back and succeed). Not like they’re going to hang around awaiting the PCs’ leisure; I’m not big on static dungeons or villains that don’t respond to stuff like that.
They got some of the disappointment out of their system by going and beating the crap out of Braddikar Faje. Second Darkness has some badly balanced encounters; as if a third level NPC fighter with some goons is going to be a credible threat to a whole party of PCs. I had built up his street cred enough that they took him seriously, at least, but he couldn’t damage them worth a darn.
Now I have to figure out what’ll happen next. I pretty much run things from a simulationist point of view during a session (what would logically happen next) but from a story point of view during sesssion prep (it might be interesting if person X goes and does Y…). I reckon trouble will start coming to them; my hope is that they snap and become the ruthless pirates they are destined to be…
This group of players is a little of a challenge as I found out when they hated my Mutants & Masterminds campaign. They really don’t like being bested, even if it’s nonfatal or dramatically good. I guess we’ll see if this demoralizes them or what.
mxyzplk
Explorer
Ninth Session (15 page pdf), "Holiday In The Sun/Flat On Rat Street" - The characters help Saul celebrate Swagfest in the streets of Riddleport, and there's a startling amount of violence. Then, they go to a local moneylender to find out what happened to the bar's floor manager... and there's a startling amount of violence.
First, I ran "Holiday in the Sun", an interstitial Freeport adventure from the Freeport Trilogy. There's a big street festival, like Riddleport's answer to Mardi Gras. They got to have some random fun, choosing costumes, drinking, that kind of thing. An assassin tried to take out Saul, and though the PCs stopped her, she totally took out Tommy in one shot. He didn't take that well; he took her back to the animal cages and tortured the crap out of her. Explicitly enough that it took the other players aback. And when they came back and she was missing, he really got scared. Mmmwah hah haaaa!
Then they participated in various festival games. Sindawe had a bad turn when he ran off solo and stumbled into the lair of an ettercap and some dream spiders! In the original adventure it was a rogue aranea; in this one I decided it made sense for one of the crime lords to have an ettercap working for him as tender for the dream spiders, whose valuable venom is used to make a drug named shiver. He got bitten repeatedly by the spiders till he was tripping his balls off, and then he got webbed up. Bruce (Ox) spent an Infamy Point to have him rescued by the Splithog Pauper. Funnily enough, when the rest of the PCs found him in an alley with a note from the Pauper, their reaction was "We told that guy to leave town! We hate him!"
Then, the Yellow Shields organize a hit on the PCs, which they get out of without a lot of trouble. After, when Tommy's back at the Gold Goblin, he complains to Saul that they're all pretty beaten up and don't want to go back to the festival. He tells him, not unkindly, to "Sack up and get back out there."
Next, it's "The Flat On Rat Street," from Shadow In The Sky (the first chapter of the Second Darkness adventure path, which I am somewhat using for inspiration). Saul tells the PCs that the floor manager, Larur Feldin, went to make a payment to a moneylender named Lymas Smeed and hasn't come back. The PCs go, bust in, kill his baboon, and beat him with a phone book for some time.
This scene really frustrated Sindawe's player particularly (he was already a little ill-humored about the spider thing). He was convinced that he just wasn't beating the guy hard enough or searching good enough to find the answer, and it just wasn't appearing - that they must just be doing something wrong. He got pretty upset about it (not till debrief afterwards did I fully understand what was going on). Of course, in this particular scene, there is absolutely no way to figure out what really happened from within the scene; you have to move on and find out from other sources.
I blame training from bad D&D modules for twisting players' expectations. Too many D&D scenarios wrap everything up nice and cozy. Whenever you kill a bad guy, he always has a long note on him detailing his God-damned life story. It's from the same playbook that states "monsters" fight to the death, et cetera. There's always a convenient self-contained answer to the problem in the dungeon - the "silver weapon when there's lycanthropes coming" syndrome. Real mystery, intrigue, or complication is rare. I try to run things very "realistically" - meaning if something in the game world doesn't make sense to a reasonable person, it's not because Gary Gygax decided that "weather is magical" or other such
, but instead because yeah, there is something wrong here. Afterwards, I told the frustrated player that really he was more on the right track than everyone else - that yes, it doesn't make any sense that a common moneylender would let himself be tortured to death rather than give up the info they wanted, and that it shouldn't be a source of frustration, but instead an opportunity to use that correct first step to re-engage with the game world and find out the next step. We got things back on track, but I think it's so unfortunate that there's so much crappy D&D that trains people to not trust their own senses because the answer's always "GM fiat" or "that's just what the module said" or whatnot. In my mind, the acme of achievement (in a simulation-focused game) is to get it to where everyone feels like they can engage completely in the game world, without having to second-guess about what metagame stuff is going on. Metagaming is for pussies. Yes, you can quote me on that.
First, I ran "Holiday in the Sun", an interstitial Freeport adventure from the Freeport Trilogy. There's a big street festival, like Riddleport's answer to Mardi Gras. They got to have some random fun, choosing costumes, drinking, that kind of thing. An assassin tried to take out Saul, and though the PCs stopped her, she totally took out Tommy in one shot. He didn't take that well; he took her back to the animal cages and tortured the crap out of her. Explicitly enough that it took the other players aback. And when they came back and she was missing, he really got scared. Mmmwah hah haaaa!
Then they participated in various festival games. Sindawe had a bad turn when he ran off solo and stumbled into the lair of an ettercap and some dream spiders! In the original adventure it was a rogue aranea; in this one I decided it made sense for one of the crime lords to have an ettercap working for him as tender for the dream spiders, whose valuable venom is used to make a drug named shiver. He got bitten repeatedly by the spiders till he was tripping his balls off, and then he got webbed up. Bruce (Ox) spent an Infamy Point to have him rescued by the Splithog Pauper. Funnily enough, when the rest of the PCs found him in an alley with a note from the Pauper, their reaction was "We told that guy to leave town! We hate him!"
Then, the Yellow Shields organize a hit on the PCs, which they get out of without a lot of trouble. After, when Tommy's back at the Gold Goblin, he complains to Saul that they're all pretty beaten up and don't want to go back to the festival. He tells him, not unkindly, to "Sack up and get back out there."
Next, it's "The Flat On Rat Street," from Shadow In The Sky (the first chapter of the Second Darkness adventure path, which I am somewhat using for inspiration). Saul tells the PCs that the floor manager, Larur Feldin, went to make a payment to a moneylender named Lymas Smeed and hasn't come back. The PCs go, bust in, kill his baboon, and beat him with a phone book for some time.
This scene really frustrated Sindawe's player particularly (he was already a little ill-humored about the spider thing). He was convinced that he just wasn't beating the guy hard enough or searching good enough to find the answer, and it just wasn't appearing - that they must just be doing something wrong. He got pretty upset about it (not till debrief afterwards did I fully understand what was going on). Of course, in this particular scene, there is absolutely no way to figure out what really happened from within the scene; you have to move on and find out from other sources.
I blame training from bad D&D modules for twisting players' expectations. Too many D&D scenarios wrap everything up nice and cozy. Whenever you kill a bad guy, he always has a long note on him detailing his God-damned life story. It's from the same playbook that states "monsters" fight to the death, et cetera. There's always a convenient self-contained answer to the problem in the dungeon - the "silver weapon when there's lycanthropes coming" syndrome. Real mystery, intrigue, or complication is rare. I try to run things very "realistically" - meaning if something in the game world doesn't make sense to a reasonable person, it's not because Gary Gygax decided that "weather is magical" or other such
, but instead because yeah, there is something wrong here. Afterwards, I told the frustrated player that really he was more on the right track than everyone else - that yes, it doesn't make any sense that a common moneylender would let himself be tortured to death rather than give up the info they wanted, and that it shouldn't be a source of frustration, but instead an opportunity to use that correct first step to re-engage with the game world and find out the next step. We got things back on track, but I think it's so unfortunate that there's so much crappy D&D that trains people to not trust their own senses because the answer's always "GM fiat" or "that's just what the module said" or whatnot. In my mind, the acme of achievement (in a simulation-focused game) is to get it to where everyone feels like they can engage completely in the game world, without having to second-guess about what metagame stuff is going on. Metagaming is for pussies. Yes, you can quote me on that.
mxyzplk
Explorer
Tenth Session (11 page pdf), "Death in Riddleport, Part III" - Samaritha's gone missing, and the PCs track her to - yes, you guessed it - the serpent temple. Along with a new friend, they hit the place hard, and there's no retreating this time.
Sadly, Bruce (Ox), our usual session scribe, moved to Dallas and no one else brought a laptop, so this isn't one of our traditional session summaries. I took some notes while running the session and have written it up in a more short story kind of format. I think it turned out pretty well, and hope you all enjoy it.
As a bonus, I've started a "Monsters and NPCs" page where you can check out the full character sheets for Salvadora Beckett and Milos the cultist. Salvadora was an example of a new class, the Inquisitor, that Paizo is having an open playtest for as part of their upcoming Advanced Player's Guide. There's also updated character sheets for many of the PCs on the Characters page.
The session went really well. We finally finished Death in Freeport! Now that they're third level, the serpentfolk weren't an insurmountable obstacle, though even when the PCs prepared with antitoxins they definitely took some damage at their hands.
There were a bunch of really great moments this session. My favorites:
* When Lixy asked Wogan, the chaste cleric of Gozreh, "exactly" what his religion prohibits as she cozied up to him. I could virtually see the word balloon with "Gulp!" in it appear over Patrick's head.
* When Wogan went to pull his pistol in the ensuing combat and it wasn't there. That's one of those moments GMs live for. "What do you mean it's not... Oh... Crap." <sound of weapon cocking behind him> I wanted to giggle and hop up and down clapping my hands like a little girl. Then her tossing it towards the latrine as a diversion rather than trying to shoot him - what can I say, I was very proud of myself. The possibility of getting shot didn't scare the player, but the thought of his 500 gp masterwork pistol getting flushed- that got to him. That whole scene was totally movie-worthy.
* When Milos created his fast zombies! I was reading the new Bestiary and it not only detailed some variant zombies but was specific about how to create them - in this case, remove paralysis as part of the animate dead makes "28 Days Later" style fast zombies. Wogan was actually using Spellcraft to figure out what was being cast and the remove paralysis really confused him, he figured he had some big paralyzed monster he was letting loose or something.
* When Sindawe broke through all the undead blockers and dealt out double crits to Milos. We are using the Paizo "Critical Hit Cards" and they said he busted his kneecap and then spun him around, rendering him flat-footed. It let Tommy get in a sneak attack sling stone shot that put him down (while standing upside down on the ceiling, thanks to spider climb) - a three hit boss kill!
* When Sindawe hugged Salvadora unexpectedly after they cleared the serpent temple. The rest of the players really did give him the hairy eyeball, and he really did say "What?!? She saved my life like twice!"
There were fun little bits besides that, like trying to convince the apothecary they really needed something to counteract snake poison and not VD, and carrying out that big teak desk past the crowd of gendarmes. I think the party started to really fire on all cylinders this session, and everyone got a chance to really pitch in.
Sadly, Bruce (Ox), our usual session scribe, moved to Dallas and no one else brought a laptop, so this isn't one of our traditional session summaries. I took some notes while running the session and have written it up in a more short story kind of format. I think it turned out pretty well, and hope you all enjoy it.
As a bonus, I've started a "Monsters and NPCs" page where you can check out the full character sheets for Salvadora Beckett and Milos the cultist. Salvadora was an example of a new class, the Inquisitor, that Paizo is having an open playtest for as part of their upcoming Advanced Player's Guide. There's also updated character sheets for many of the PCs on the Characters page.
The session went really well. We finally finished Death in Freeport! Now that they're third level, the serpentfolk weren't an insurmountable obstacle, though even when the PCs prepared with antitoxins they definitely took some damage at their hands.
There were a bunch of really great moments this session. My favorites:
* When Lixy asked Wogan, the chaste cleric of Gozreh, "exactly" what his religion prohibits as she cozied up to him. I could virtually see the word balloon with "Gulp!" in it appear over Patrick's head.
* When Wogan went to pull his pistol in the ensuing combat and it wasn't there. That's one of those moments GMs live for. "What do you mean it's not... Oh... Crap." <sound of weapon cocking behind him> I wanted to giggle and hop up and down clapping my hands like a little girl. Then her tossing it towards the latrine as a diversion rather than trying to shoot him - what can I say, I was very proud of myself. The possibility of getting shot didn't scare the player, but the thought of his 500 gp masterwork pistol getting flushed- that got to him. That whole scene was totally movie-worthy.
* When Milos created his fast zombies! I was reading the new Bestiary and it not only detailed some variant zombies but was specific about how to create them - in this case, remove paralysis as part of the animate dead makes "28 Days Later" style fast zombies. Wogan was actually using Spellcraft to figure out what was being cast and the remove paralysis really confused him, he figured he had some big paralyzed monster he was letting loose or something.
* When Sindawe broke through all the undead blockers and dealt out double crits to Milos. We are using the Paizo "Critical Hit Cards" and they said he busted his kneecap and then spun him around, rendering him flat-footed. It let Tommy get in a sneak attack sling stone shot that put him down (while standing upside down on the ceiling, thanks to spider climb) - a three hit boss kill!
* When Sindawe hugged Salvadora unexpectedly after they cleared the serpent temple. The rest of the players really did give him the hairy eyeball, and he really did say "What?!? She saved my life like twice!"
There were fun little bits besides that, like trying to convince the apothecary they really needed something to counteract snake poison and not VD, and carrying out that big teak desk past the crowd of gendarmes. I think the party started to really fire on all cylinders this session, and everyone got a chance to really pitch in.
mxyzplk
Explorer
Eleventh Session (10 page pdf), “Mansion of Shadows, Part I” – After the PCs kill Jasker Gant, one of crime lord Boss Croat’s lieutenants, they decide to go on the lam for a while. They get “loaned out” by Saul to Captain Clap of the pirate ship Wandering Dagger, who has a little job for them. Also, the triumphal return of Thalios Dondrel, son of Mordekai! [Reavers on the Seas of Fate Home]
Mansion of Shadows is a Green Ronin "Bleeding Edge" adventure from back in the day. I liked the line, they were all pretty good.
Using this adventure illustrates two important principles useful for everyone running a pirate campaign (the best kind of campaign).
1. It's easy to take any adventure location and make it an island. When 3e was new, my gaming group and I (rotating DMs) ran a pirate campaign. I bought all the initial wave of third party d20 adventures and handed them out. Since most of them try to be "generic" by placing themselves in some semi isolated location that doesn't have too much relation to the surrounding world, you can usually wave your magic wand and call it an island with zero additional work. One of them I remember had a map that was a huge field of mountains, with one road leading in, and the town/adventure location right there in the middle of it! Might as well have been an island in the first place. This one is no exception - the town of Staufendorf is largely encircled by rivers. A wave of my lasso tool in GIMP and oh look it's an island.
2. It's easy to take any adventure and make it suitable for evil (or neutral-piratey) characters. A lot of adventures - and Paizo and Green Ronin's are frequently examples - have several factions of bad guys for you to play off each other. Paladin-heavy parties have angst about that but piratey parties sure don't. Frankly most adventures have a fairly simplistic view of good - "go kill the bad guys and take their stuff!" Well, that's as rousing a battle cry for bad PCs - good sticks together, but evil is happy to cannibalize itself.
Behind the Scenes
The party totally did not want to go help the slaves, but Ox (now in NPC form since Bruce moved) wasn't to be persuaded to leave them behind. So it was the worst of all worlds, in that only Ox and Sindawe were there for the fight! No worries, however - Jasker Gant rolled totally crappy and Ox got a megacrit on him and then on one of the goons in short order. The party's general conclusion was "Oh sure, now he becomes effective!"
I knew they wouldn't be able to resist killing another crime lord's capp ("made man"/lieutenant) for long. They barely refrained from killing Braddikar Faje earlier, and this time they didn't even worry about it. (Tommy's player Kevin was playing Ox for the encounter).
Anyway, they went and wangled themselves a gig with a pirate ship to go raid a Chelaxian manor house. After the pirates put them on board a pleasure yacht, I rolled two random encounters. The first, a wyvern, was pretty tough. The second was a dire shark!!! I'm not a big believer in "level appropriate" when it comes to wilderness encounters. But I had mercy - they killed the wyvern and had it on a tow rope, so when the shark showed up it just ate the wyvern. Seeing a 60 foot shark go by caused a real brown pants moment.
Then they wandered around Staufendorf a while. Everyone they talked to, they tried to get at "why are there crucified commoners about?" but everyone would just say in a loud voice, pretty much verbatim, "Staufendorf is a lovely place to live, full of honest and hard-working folk. It's a great place to raise a family!" It got the point across, heh heh heh.
So now they're infiltrating the nobles' mansion, trying to figure out how to weaken it enough that 30 pirates can take the place. They're kinda worried about it since it's very well defended. I'm not sure how they're going to do it, but I'm sure they'll figure it out.
Mansion of Shadows is a Green Ronin "Bleeding Edge" adventure from back in the day. I liked the line, they were all pretty good.
Using this adventure illustrates two important principles useful for everyone running a pirate campaign (the best kind of campaign).
1. It's easy to take any adventure location and make it an island. When 3e was new, my gaming group and I (rotating DMs) ran a pirate campaign. I bought all the initial wave of third party d20 adventures and handed them out. Since most of them try to be "generic" by placing themselves in some semi isolated location that doesn't have too much relation to the surrounding world, you can usually wave your magic wand and call it an island with zero additional work. One of them I remember had a map that was a huge field of mountains, with one road leading in, and the town/adventure location right there in the middle of it! Might as well have been an island in the first place. This one is no exception - the town of Staufendorf is largely encircled by rivers. A wave of my lasso tool in GIMP and oh look it's an island.
2. It's easy to take any adventure and make it suitable for evil (or neutral-piratey) characters. A lot of adventures - and Paizo and Green Ronin's are frequently examples - have several factions of bad guys for you to play off each other. Paladin-heavy parties have angst about that but piratey parties sure don't. Frankly most adventures have a fairly simplistic view of good - "go kill the bad guys and take their stuff!" Well, that's as rousing a battle cry for bad PCs - good sticks together, but evil is happy to cannibalize itself.
Behind the Scenes
The party totally did not want to go help the slaves, but Ox (now in NPC form since Bruce moved) wasn't to be persuaded to leave them behind. So it was the worst of all worlds, in that only Ox and Sindawe were there for the fight! No worries, however - Jasker Gant rolled totally crappy and Ox got a megacrit on him and then on one of the goons in short order. The party's general conclusion was "Oh sure, now he becomes effective!"
I knew they wouldn't be able to resist killing another crime lord's capp ("made man"/lieutenant) for long. They barely refrained from killing Braddikar Faje earlier, and this time they didn't even worry about it. (Tommy's player Kevin was playing Ox for the encounter).
Anyway, they went and wangled themselves a gig with a pirate ship to go raid a Chelaxian manor house. After the pirates put them on board a pleasure yacht, I rolled two random encounters. The first, a wyvern, was pretty tough. The second was a dire shark!!! I'm not a big believer in "level appropriate" when it comes to wilderness encounters. But I had mercy - they killed the wyvern and had it on a tow rope, so when the shark showed up it just ate the wyvern. Seeing a 60 foot shark go by caused a real brown pants moment.
Then they wandered around Staufendorf a while. Everyone they talked to, they tried to get at "why are there crucified commoners about?" but everyone would just say in a loud voice, pretty much verbatim, "Staufendorf is a lovely place to live, full of honest and hard-working folk. It's a great place to raise a family!" It got the point across, heh heh heh.
So now they're infiltrating the nobles' mansion, trying to figure out how to weaken it enough that 30 pirates can take the place. They're kinda worried about it since it's very well defended. I'm not sure how they're going to do it, but I'm sure they'll figure it out.
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mxyzplk
Explorer
Twelfth Session (12 page pdf), "Mansion of Shadows, Part II" - The PCs hang out with a Chelish noble family for a while, and witness depths of degeneration that make even hardened criminals from Riddleport uncomfortable. After a long night of sneaking around the mansion and fleeing from horrid things, they lure the eldest son out to the forest and whack him.
[Note: spoilers for Mansion of Shadows, a Green Ronin d20 adventure]
Our Pathfinder campaign, Reavers on the Seas of Fate, continues in good spirits as our fledgling pirates continue their infiltration of the Staufen family manor. I haven't had to change the adventure a whole lot from the Green Ronin original; "demented devil worshipping noble family" drops right into Golarion's Cheliax without a second thought. In fact, the players are already speculating on both the Asmodeus worship and "seven sins" ancient Thassilonian elements, both of which came along in the original!
The players definitely found the mansion super creepy. The best parts were:
* The hugely fat naked freak eating nonstop in the kitchen. My impression of it picking up its battleaxe and giving them the hairy eyeball even as it continued to munch on a leg of mutton, and that later when it was sleeping it was sleep-gnawing on the same mutton, made quite an impression. But they were most disturbed when they found out it was female (Leanor Staufen).
* Serpent being too nosy and ending up running around Three Stooges style fleeing from one devil after another in the mansion at night, even tossing himself down a staircase to escape more quickly. "Woowoowoowoowoo!"
* Sindawe seducing Amalinda Staufen in the catacombs under the temple to Asmodeus, and after she put out the candle, he started to realize that her cadaverous body was horribly similar to a lot of the preserved corpses in the room. He got so nervous that he lit a sunrod and passed it off as "Oh, I just wanted to be able to look at you."
Rules note, Serpent had to spend an Infamy Point to stop Jack from getting away. The PCs didn't really coordinate ahead of time and so when Serpent decided to attack Erich it caused enough confusion that Jack rode off on his horse, which would have been pretty much a scenario-derailer - if they couldn't find a way back into the mansion then the pirate attack would pretty much be a non-starter. But Serpent coughed up an Infamy Point so I rolled a random encounter and said "His horse got disabled by a... dire badger... so you're able to catch up to him." So in the end it worked out fine.
Next time in Mansion of Shadows, Part III - both a mass combat and a naval battle! I'm working on rules for both to make them fun and not onerous.
[Note: spoilers for Mansion of Shadows, a Green Ronin d20 adventure]
Our Pathfinder campaign, Reavers on the Seas of Fate, continues in good spirits as our fledgling pirates continue their infiltration of the Staufen family manor. I haven't had to change the adventure a whole lot from the Green Ronin original; "demented devil worshipping noble family" drops right into Golarion's Cheliax without a second thought. In fact, the players are already speculating on both the Asmodeus worship and "seven sins" ancient Thassilonian elements, both of which came along in the original!
The players definitely found the mansion super creepy. The best parts were:
* The hugely fat naked freak eating nonstop in the kitchen. My impression of it picking up its battleaxe and giving them the hairy eyeball even as it continued to munch on a leg of mutton, and that later when it was sleeping it was sleep-gnawing on the same mutton, made quite an impression. But they were most disturbed when they found out it was female (Leanor Staufen).
* Serpent being too nosy and ending up running around Three Stooges style fleeing from one devil after another in the mansion at night, even tossing himself down a staircase to escape more quickly. "Woowoowoowoowoo!"
* Sindawe seducing Amalinda Staufen in the catacombs under the temple to Asmodeus, and after she put out the candle, he started to realize that her cadaverous body was horribly similar to a lot of the preserved corpses in the room. He got so nervous that he lit a sunrod and passed it off as "Oh, I just wanted to be able to look at you."
Rules note, Serpent had to spend an Infamy Point to stop Jack from getting away. The PCs didn't really coordinate ahead of time and so when Serpent decided to attack Erich it caused enough confusion that Jack rode off on his horse, which would have been pretty much a scenario-derailer - if they couldn't find a way back into the mansion then the pirate attack would pretty much be a non-starter. But Serpent coughed up an Infamy Point so I rolled a random encounter and said "His horse got disabled by a... dire badger... so you're able to catch up to him." So in the end it worked out fine.
Next time in Mansion of Shadows, Part III - both a mass combat and a naval battle! I'm working on rules for both to make them fun and not onerous.
mxyzplk
Explorer
Thirteenth Session (16 page pdf), "Mansion of Shadows, Part III" - The inevitable holocaust of violence descends on Staufen Manor. At the Asmodean funeral for the eldest son, the PCs decide it's time to wipe out the whole family - but the priest is ready for them with summoned devils. Simultaneously, the pirates assault the island! The fledgling pirates carefully decide who to rape and kill and who to protect from the raping and killing. Who gets it? Read and find out!
This was a super-sized session, we went for about 8 hours, which was good because the players just had so much fun intriguing with the Staufens that it took us a while to get to the violence. Every time I'd try to advance the timeline they'd run off and do something else in some dark corner of the keep. Fair enough!
Then the fight in the chapel went pretty fast. The priest was 7th level but Sindawe used an Infamy Point to do him in - he pulled the mirror down on him and spent a point and we decided that it happened just as he was channeling to summon more critters and he went through the gate the other way, ending up in Hell! And there was much chortling.
They were happy to see most of the Staufens meet their brutal ends. Then, they kept complaining that I wouldn't let them loot all the bodies with a bunch of Staufen guards standing around. "Surely they will leave us alone to molest the body of their dead lord soon!" Sigh.
We used my new Quickie Mass Combat Rules to handle the pirate attack. It went pretty fast and smooth. It seems like it lends itself well to handing out index cards with units on them to the players to have them pick up some of the slack too. The PCs were thinking fast, I was proud. Wogan laid a fog cloud on the parapet to disrupt the orc crossbowmen, which was good because they were going to get free attacks on the pirates till that gate got open. Then once the battle was joined, they even remembered about the other door in the inner wall and used it to flank the guards - that's the kind of things PCs love to just forget about. And then Wogan used one of his Infamy Points to bullseye Jack from across the battle. "Yo ho ho, bitch!" he shouted as Jack crumpled. The other players really liked that.
I'm going to have to tighten up on the use of Infamy Points to autokill enemy leaders once I start getting some I want to stay around longer. These guys are just mooks so if they die, great; if they live I'll level them and bring them back for later torment.
The looting sequence was fun; the PCs got to run rampant over all the color text they had seen before. They were sad that a) they weren't supposed to keep whatever they looted, the pirates do fair shares and b) that the halfling alchemist wasn't retarded, and when pirates attacked right after weirdo visitors paid her about a thousand gold for every weaponizable product she had, she took the money and ran. They were bemused but entertained by the huge pumpkin that they took as loot. My personal theory is that pirate (and orc) looting pretty much operates according to the Redneck Principle, which is that things are taken based on how good it feels to hold them up and scream "WOOOOOOOO!!!!!" at the top of your lungs. Some of that is gold and jewels - and in this case, some of it is 70 pound pumpkins and inn signs.
Next time, back to Riddleport. But first... <cue Mars, the Bringer of War>
This was a super-sized session, we went for about 8 hours, which was good because the players just had so much fun intriguing with the Staufens that it took us a while to get to the violence. Every time I'd try to advance the timeline they'd run off and do something else in some dark corner of the keep. Fair enough!
Then the fight in the chapel went pretty fast. The priest was 7th level but Sindawe used an Infamy Point to do him in - he pulled the mirror down on him and spent a point and we decided that it happened just as he was channeling to summon more critters and he went through the gate the other way, ending up in Hell! And there was much chortling.
They were happy to see most of the Staufens meet their brutal ends. Then, they kept complaining that I wouldn't let them loot all the bodies with a bunch of Staufen guards standing around. "Surely they will leave us alone to molest the body of their dead lord soon!" Sigh.
We used my new Quickie Mass Combat Rules to handle the pirate attack. It went pretty fast and smooth. It seems like it lends itself well to handing out index cards with units on them to the players to have them pick up some of the slack too. The PCs were thinking fast, I was proud. Wogan laid a fog cloud on the parapet to disrupt the orc crossbowmen, which was good because they were going to get free attacks on the pirates till that gate got open. Then once the battle was joined, they even remembered about the other door in the inner wall and used it to flank the guards - that's the kind of things PCs love to just forget about. And then Wogan used one of his Infamy Points to bullseye Jack from across the battle. "Yo ho ho, bitch!" he shouted as Jack crumpled. The other players really liked that.
I'm going to have to tighten up on the use of Infamy Points to autokill enemy leaders once I start getting some I want to stay around longer. These guys are just mooks so if they die, great; if they live I'll level them and bring them back for later torment.
The looting sequence was fun; the PCs got to run rampant over all the color text they had seen before. They were sad that a) they weren't supposed to keep whatever they looted, the pirates do fair shares and b) that the halfling alchemist wasn't retarded, and when pirates attacked right after weirdo visitors paid her about a thousand gold for every weaponizable product she had, she took the money and ran. They were bemused but entertained by the huge pumpkin that they took as loot. My personal theory is that pirate (and orc) looting pretty much operates according to the Redneck Principle, which is that things are taken based on how good it feels to hold them up and scream "WOOOOOOOO!!!!!" at the top of your lungs. Some of that is gold and jewels - and in this case, some of it is 70 pound pumpkins and inn signs.
Next time, back to Riddleport. But first... <cue Mars, the Bringer of War>
mxyzplk
Explorer
Fourteenth Session (11 page pdf), “Booty in Riddleport” – Naval combat! The PCs’ pirate ship takes on a Chelish navy vessel. They escape, and take a nice plump merchant ship as a prize, and make their way back to Riddleport. The next couple weeks are a blur of loot, booze, hookers, drugs, and recreational violence.
It wouldn't be a pirate outing without some naval combat. The Chelaxian ship from Session Summary 3, the Raptor (Captain Vix Charlo, commanding), appeared as the PCs' ship, the Wandering Dagger, was leaving the sacked Staufendorf Island. Wogan immediately had the brilliant idea of loosing their new eversmoking bottle on the stern, which combined with clever maneuvering kept them almost unharmed by the navy ship's chase gun. It was back and forth - the Raptor nearly overtook them before they got up to speed, but then they got a lead, but then the Chelish nearly caught up, but in the end they escaped without a full battle. And that darn Thalios Dondrel made his Will save.
I won't post my naval rules here yet because I submitted them for the Fire As She Bears competition from Lou Agresta and Sinister Adventures, but they'll be OGL so you'll get your paws on them one way or another soon enough. Hint, I combined my already field-tested OGL cannon rules, chase rules, and mass combat rules (along with a bunch of new stuff) to put it together.
Then they get to be predator, not prey, when they take a merchant ship. The PCs were initally concerned about the ten gun-ports on the thing, but Captain Clap just roared, "I said, RUN OUT THE GUNS!!!!" Turns out the gunports were fake and he knew about it. Being a pirate isn't all about kicking ass; living long is about being wily is the lesson to take away.
Then back to Riddleport and a taste of the rock star lifestyle that pirates flush with loot enjoy there! The PCs entertained themselves for the rest of their session, with such stirring quotes as "Hey let's go double up on a tiefling hooker," "I can milk anything with nipples," and "Now we'll rip off the local drug suppliers and go into the narcotics business!" I don't know, I think I might should change their alignments from Lawful Good, what do you think?
By the way, here's where an iPhone with Google access is bad ass. The PCs say, "We want to go kidnap some spiders! What can we get that'll keep spiders off us?" Rather than say "No!" or "Uh, anti-spider herbs?" I did a quick search on "repel spiders" and BAM! Hedge apples! (aka horse apples, aka osage-oranges.) I know some people have given up on the roots of D&D as a vector to research weird information, but not me baby!
It wouldn't be a pirate outing without some naval combat. The Chelaxian ship from Session Summary 3, the Raptor (Captain Vix Charlo, commanding), appeared as the PCs' ship, the Wandering Dagger, was leaving the sacked Staufendorf Island. Wogan immediately had the brilliant idea of loosing their new eversmoking bottle on the stern, which combined with clever maneuvering kept them almost unharmed by the navy ship's chase gun. It was back and forth - the Raptor nearly overtook them before they got up to speed, but then they got a lead, but then the Chelish nearly caught up, but in the end they escaped without a full battle. And that darn Thalios Dondrel made his Will save.
I won't post my naval rules here yet because I submitted them for the Fire As She Bears competition from Lou Agresta and Sinister Adventures, but they'll be OGL so you'll get your paws on them one way or another soon enough. Hint, I combined my already field-tested OGL cannon rules, chase rules, and mass combat rules (along with a bunch of new stuff) to put it together.
Then they get to be predator, not prey, when they take a merchant ship. The PCs were initally concerned about the ten gun-ports on the thing, but Captain Clap just roared, "I said, RUN OUT THE GUNS!!!!" Turns out the gunports were fake and he knew about it. Being a pirate isn't all about kicking ass; living long is about being wily is the lesson to take away.
Then back to Riddleport and a taste of the rock star lifestyle that pirates flush with loot enjoy there! The PCs entertained themselves for the rest of their session, with such stirring quotes as "Hey let's go double up on a tiefling hooker," "I can milk anything with nipples," and "Now we'll rip off the local drug suppliers and go into the narcotics business!" I don't know, I think I might should change their alignments from Lawful Good, what do you think?
By the way, here's where an iPhone with Google access is bad ass. The PCs say, "We want to go kidnap some spiders! What can we get that'll keep spiders off us?" Rather than say "No!" or "Uh, anti-spider herbs?" I did a quick search on "repel spiders" and BAM! Hedge apples! (aka horse apples, aka osage-oranges.) I know some people have given up on the roots of D&D as a vector to research weird information, but not me baby!
