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where you're going to die in CoS (spoilers)
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6869676" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>Yep, exactly. And what's more... in many cases the adventure doesn't actually give concrete <em>reasons</em> for the denizens to do what they do. It's left open for the individual DMs to decide.</p><p></p><p>As the book says... Morgantha and her daughters capture children with souls to grind their bones into dust to make their dream pastries. They sell those pastries to the adults of Barovia to put them into trances. They do this to sow corruption in Barovia.</p><p></p><p>That's it. That's the full explanation given as to why the hags do what they do. But that's... the barest minimum of a reason. "To sow corruption." For what purpose? What does it gain them? Why do they care? How does this "corruption" manifest? Do they even see this "corruption"? Is grinding the children's bones the only way they can sow corruption? Are there other things they can do? Do they care enough about sowing corruption that they'll continue to make dream pastries even when warned/threatened not to? Can they be convinced NOT to take children and kill them to make dream pastries? If the denizens of Barovia can be convinced to give up their addictions and NOT buy dream pastries, do the hags go out of business? Do they start selling them in Vallaki instead? Can they make pastries with some other type of bone? If people stop buying pastries and thus stop owing the hags money, do the hags steal children anyway? Are they compelled to take and kill children? If so, why? If not, would they let already-taken children go? Can they be convinced that steal children is unnecessary? Can they get denizens who have stopped eating pastries to start eating them again? Do they even bother trying to do that?</p><p></p><p>These are just a handful of questions that each individual DM is going to be asking as they prep to run this encounter location with their players-- any number of them having absolutely nothing to do with the PCs just going in to attack and kill. There's umpteen reasons out there for the PCs to not even bother thinking about trying to kill the hags, and instead be focused on some other plan from the Interaction pillar. And us as DMs need to be constantly aware of this, and be prepared to run the hags such that any of these questions are legitimate ideas that could change the dynamic.</p><p></p><p>What is unfortunate though... is that the adventure does (like almost all adventures do) have certain places where a room has a monster listed in it, and it's narrative is "When the PCs enter the room, the creature attacks." Which I think in this adventure in particular... is a poor cycle to get DMs thinking about. So for example, Argynvostholt has quite a number of revenants and phantom warriors that just show up and attack the party for no reason... mainly because "Hey, it's D&D, we need fights!" But for a location such as this where one of the main story thrusts is to retrieve the dragon's skull from the castle and return it and set alight the beacon in order to release them from their service... setting up situations where the party is expected to KILL many of the locations members on sight is extremely counter-intuitive. It's like... these revenants who we've given names to in the book are worth trying to save... these other ones who go unnamed, you'll need to kill them because they're going to arbitrarily attack you just for showing up. Doesn't really make much sense, and why it's imperative to change our mindset as DM going in. We need to determine whether half of these undead really should be attacking entrants into the castle for no reason... or whether the PCs really should need to DO something first to warrant being attacked. And if the undead occasionally DO attack the party... making sure the reason why some do and some don't are clear (or able to be deduced) because otherwise the party is just going to think "Well, this building is full of undead, I guess we need to make a clean sweep of it!", and thereby skipping an entire story-plot (if not THE entire story-plot). All because the book has unmotivated attacks against the party just so the party has "fights" to do.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 6869676, member: 7006"] Yep, exactly. And what's more... in many cases the adventure doesn't actually give concrete [i]reasons[/i] for the denizens to do what they do. It's left open for the individual DMs to decide. As the book says... Morgantha and her daughters capture children with souls to grind their bones into dust to make their dream pastries. They sell those pastries to the adults of Barovia to put them into trances. They do this to sow corruption in Barovia. That's it. That's the full explanation given as to why the hags do what they do. But that's... the barest minimum of a reason. "To sow corruption." For what purpose? What does it gain them? Why do they care? How does this "corruption" manifest? Do they even see this "corruption"? Is grinding the children's bones the only way they can sow corruption? Are there other things they can do? Do they care enough about sowing corruption that they'll continue to make dream pastries even when warned/threatened not to? Can they be convinced NOT to take children and kill them to make dream pastries? If the denizens of Barovia can be convinced to give up their addictions and NOT buy dream pastries, do the hags go out of business? Do they start selling them in Vallaki instead? Can they make pastries with some other type of bone? If people stop buying pastries and thus stop owing the hags money, do the hags steal children anyway? Are they compelled to take and kill children? If so, why? If not, would they let already-taken children go? Can they be convinced that steal children is unnecessary? Can they get denizens who have stopped eating pastries to start eating them again? Do they even bother trying to do that? These are just a handful of questions that each individual DM is going to be asking as they prep to run this encounter location with their players-- any number of them having absolutely nothing to do with the PCs just going in to attack and kill. There's umpteen reasons out there for the PCs to not even bother thinking about trying to kill the hags, and instead be focused on some other plan from the Interaction pillar. And us as DMs need to be constantly aware of this, and be prepared to run the hags such that any of these questions are legitimate ideas that could change the dynamic. What is unfortunate though... is that the adventure does (like almost all adventures do) have certain places where a room has a monster listed in it, and it's narrative is "When the PCs enter the room, the creature attacks." Which I think in this adventure in particular... is a poor cycle to get DMs thinking about. So for example, Argynvostholt has quite a number of revenants and phantom warriors that just show up and attack the party for no reason... mainly because "Hey, it's D&D, we need fights!" But for a location such as this where one of the main story thrusts is to retrieve the dragon's skull from the castle and return it and set alight the beacon in order to release them from their service... setting up situations where the party is expected to KILL many of the locations members on sight is extremely counter-intuitive. It's like... these revenants who we've given names to in the book are worth trying to save... these other ones who go unnamed, you'll need to kill them because they're going to arbitrarily attack you just for showing up. Doesn't really make much sense, and why it's imperative to change our mindset as DM going in. We need to determine whether half of these undead really should be attacking entrants into the castle for no reason... or whether the PCs really should need to DO something first to warrant being attacked. And if the undead occasionally DO attack the party... making sure the reason why some do and some don't are clear (or able to be deduced) because otherwise the party is just going to think "Well, this building is full of undead, I guess we need to make a clean sweep of it!", and thereby skipping an entire story-plot (if not THE entire story-plot). All because the book has unmotivated attacks against the party just so the party has "fights" to do. [/QUOTE]
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