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Rime of the Frostmaiden Post-Mortem (Spoilers)
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<blockquote data-quote="Azuresun" data-source="post: 8519083" data-attributes="member: 7022312"><p>I'm doing much the same. There are some great set-pieces in the campaign, but they're not tied together very well, and it's entirely possible for the players to miss certain plot threads entirely and potentially end the driving force of the adventure two chapters early! There are some things that get a lot of attention, but which don't really GO anywhere. Notably the prison, which gets a tremendous amount of detail, but an actual reason for the PC's to go there kind of gets left out.</p><p></p><p>But if you're like me and you love tinkering with premade adventures, this is a dream come true. Much like you, I changed the initial premise--winters have been getting worse over the last two years, but people still hope it's going to get better naturally, and don't know who's actually behind it. Lessening the urgency lets the players engage in small-scale quests without feeling like schmucks, and allows for some escalation later on as things get worse and the PC's can see the towns getting more desperate as the winter intensifies. Further details spoilered just in case my players read this:</p><p></p><p>[spoiler]The main difference is that Auril isn't present at the start, she's masterminding things through her druids (manipulating the duergar king, sowing despair in the towns to get them to worship and sacrifice to her, recruiting berserkers from the Reghed, etc), whose leader is the one conducting the winter ritual and who fights the party in Chapter 5--after their defeat, Auril appears to take care of things personally and force the quest to Ythryn. Early on, this is intended to introduce a mystery about who's really responsible, one that'll be hinted at through encounters with the druids, the devil cult and a coven of hags, rather than have everyone know right from the start that it's Auril who's behind the whole thing. Having a fake "final boss" handily avoids the whole "whoops, we solved the adventure two chapters early" risk, where the PC's can kill Auril in her fortress and then have no real reason to go to Ythryn other than "dunno, treasure?".</p><p></p><p>I also wanted to come up with uses for those bits of the adventure that don't seem to go anywhere, by tying them into one of the greater plots. For example, the ghost in the mine adventure might possess someone and escape into the town, where it will....do what, exactly? It's never explained. Ditto for the prison, it's a lot of detail just to have a callback to <em>Legacy of the Crystal Shard</em>. So I'll have the cult of Levistus arrange a jailbreak, which the PC's might be on either side of.</p><p></p><p>Generally, I want to foreshadow things earlier. Vellayne pops up out of nowhere, delivers a big exposition dump and demands the PC's work for her....so drop her in earlier, looking for her stolen artifact, or employing them to keep tabs on her her rivals.</p><p>[/spoiler]</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>For the first arc, I just had them employed by the overworked Speaker of Bryn Shandar, who offered them a weekly payment if they helped her deal with all the problems coming across her desk. Simple, and gives them a reason to wander around the towns doing stuff.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Azuresun, post: 8519083, member: 7022312"] I'm doing much the same. There are some great set-pieces in the campaign, but they're not tied together very well, and it's entirely possible for the players to miss certain plot threads entirely and potentially end the driving force of the adventure two chapters early! There are some things that get a lot of attention, but which don't really GO anywhere. Notably the prison, which gets a tremendous amount of detail, but an actual reason for the PC's to go there kind of gets left out. But if you're like me and you love tinkering with premade adventures, this is a dream come true. Much like you, I changed the initial premise--winters have been getting worse over the last two years, but people still hope it's going to get better naturally, and don't know who's actually behind it. Lessening the urgency lets the players engage in small-scale quests without feeling like schmucks, and allows for some escalation later on as things get worse and the PC's can see the towns getting more desperate as the winter intensifies. Further details spoilered just in case my players read this: [spoiler]The main difference is that Auril isn't present at the start, she's masterminding things through her druids (manipulating the duergar king, sowing despair in the towns to get them to worship and sacrifice to her, recruiting berserkers from the Reghed, etc), whose leader is the one conducting the winter ritual and who fights the party in Chapter 5--after their defeat, Auril appears to take care of things personally and force the quest to Ythryn. Early on, this is intended to introduce a mystery about who's really responsible, one that'll be hinted at through encounters with the druids, the devil cult and a coven of hags, rather than have everyone know right from the start that it's Auril who's behind the whole thing. Having a fake "final boss" handily avoids the whole "whoops, we solved the adventure two chapters early" risk, where the PC's can kill Auril in her fortress and then have no real reason to go to Ythryn other than "dunno, treasure?". I also wanted to come up with uses for those bits of the adventure that don't seem to go anywhere, by tying them into one of the greater plots. For example, the ghost in the mine adventure might possess someone and escape into the town, where it will....do what, exactly? It's never explained. Ditto for the prison, it's a lot of detail just to have a callback to [I]Legacy of the Crystal Shard[/I]. So I'll have the cult of Levistus arrange a jailbreak, which the PC's might be on either side of. Generally, I want to foreshadow things earlier. Vellayne pops up out of nowhere, delivers a big exposition dump and demands the PC's work for her....so drop her in earlier, looking for her stolen artifact, or employing them to keep tabs on her her rivals. [/spoiler] For the first arc, I just had them employed by the overworked Speaker of Bryn Shandar, who offered them a weekly payment if they helped her deal with all the problems coming across her desk. Simple, and gives them a reason to wander around the towns doing stuff. [/QUOTE]
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