Bhaalspawn Saga

[Gwaihir]

Im currently playing Baldurs Gate enhanced edition. I'm thinking about running a PNP campaign set in this general area- Baldurs Gate - Amn. I understand that Murder in Baldurs Gate covers this from a 4E perspective, but heard that the story wasn't particularly good.

Has anyone else run adventures that tie into or follow from the plots or characters of the computer games? What resources did you use?

Thanks!
G

 

[toucanbuzz]

Very doable. I ran a campaign to 7th level based off the original Pool of Radiance computer game. Coincidentally, I used the Baldur's Gate 5E mini-adventure's ambush of a public official to kick off my campaign and get the party involved with the political players in the area.

Major fixes:

Maps. The original Gold Box games used a 16x16 grid for area maps. While a few could be salvaged, I made heavy use of both maps of the week and old maps from stuff I never ran. Dragon Magazine or old issues of Dungeon Magazine great resources.

Treasure. Random rolls or preset treasure? We went random and I had the players roll after a boss/lair battle, with a few presets tossed in.

Tone down the combat & XP. Computer games obviously have you fighting enough to depopulate most areas. But, in PoR, the city is swarming with monsters and you're clearing block by block. So, I opted for milestone XP (liberate X areas, gain a level). This is probably the most difficult part of conversion. This is where the DMG comes in handy for developing the adventuring day. I knew my BBEG was designed for a party of 7th level characters. Too low or high and it's a problem. [And XP remains a problem for pre-fab modules, which rely on random encounter XP.]

Where's the role play. In many computer games, the dialog often doesn't matter and you're locked into responses A-D. But players will go off the rails, do something that doesn't fit. Be ready to adapt and don't follow the game scripts. For example, in PoR, there's a wilderness encounter where the party meets nomads and helps them defend against a kobold horde. It's scripted in the game. But, what if the party feels Barbarian nomads are just as bad for trade in the area as kobolds and works against both? Ensure your story-line can survive variations from the scripted material.

Don't let the NPCs rule the game. In a computer game, Elminster or Drizz't pop in. Don't. Remove them from the game. They detract from the party's role of being awesome by suggesting if the NPC had time, they could handle things because they're much more awesome.

Minor Stuff:

Behind the scene plots. I had to script my timelines for PoR. Since there was an accompanying book, I read that and the game, and developed a timeline for activity (e.g. after party attempts to clear the gnoll temple, this happens).

Too many side quests. Computer games are notorious for fetch quests. Make sure all your quests are meaningful. For example, an optional quest the party liked quite a bit involved sneaking into a monster auction of a powerful magic item. That's good stuff: subterfuge, intelligence gathering (or, if they're really really clever, combat). That's a keeper.

Game Journals/Lore. The old Gold Box had some decent journal entries. If you replay the game, even ones without a print journal, you can find some good dialog/quotes/lore. A select number became handouts.

 

[Eltab]

I understand that Murder in Baldurs Gate covers this from a 4E perspective, but heard that the story wasn't particularly good.

I played a Paladin through that module, annexed into Hoard of the Dragon Queen. We had so much trouble with MiBG that the DM just gave us a free attack on all the major suspects, right before we were gonna get outta Dodge anyways..
I'm also a Realmslore fan, and was devising a way to prevent Bhaal from re-forming in the city. The adventure has no way to do anything about that; you are supposed to chase around behind the side-effects of Bhaal's own plan (he needs a lot of shed blood to power his return). My biggest problem was a logic trap: if a travelling 4th-level Paladin can figure this out on the fly, why didn't the higher-level Clerics and Paladins who live here and care about the City already take care of the problem?

 

[hastur_nz]

I understand that Murder in Baldurs Gate covers this from a 4E perspective, but heard that the story wasn't particularly good

It was an early (pre-release) 5e adventure. I've run a modified version, for up to 6 players, so here's my thoughts:

Pro:
Loads of great information on Baldur's Gate.
Urban Adventure, something you don't see often enough.
Flexible format i.e. not overly pre-scripted (but see cons...)

Con:
Too many competing plot threads, with no real clear "best path" for players, so it's too likely they will want to try and do everything, especially when it's not clear exactly what a good choice might actually be.
Too many players (even 4) compounds this, as you're even more likely to have different people attracted to different goals / ideas on what to do, even if you try and align their goals etc at the beginning.
Lots of pieces scream "so what", from a players perspective - make sure you use pieces that provide decent meaningful choices and options for the players to actually get their PC's involved, too many sound cool but are more like the PC's are just observing stuff going on.

Other:
Monster stats and are form 5e beta, and combat stuff is very vague, so not really up to scratch for standard 5e; however this is pretty easily fixed by using your 5e MM and your gut instinct as far as decent challenges go.
The overall plot and NPC's do seem a bit random / light-weight at times, so be prepared to flesh things out, according to what's going to resonate for your group. Your best bet, is to make sure a few key NPC's are really well presented as the "shades of grey" types they are meant to be - no-one is obviously good or evil, but also don't make it a screw job where no matter what they do the PC's get shafted in the end (that's pretty much the story line, but try and avoid the pre-scripted complete fail; not sure I got that one completely right).

In summary, it wasn't as cool as I'd hoped, but I'm a big fan of flexible urban adventure... if you're going to use it, you just need to be prepared to do a fair amount of homework, and take a critical eye to what's presented... you can't just pick it up and run it as-is at the table, and expect a good result.

When I ran it, the first session was good, then it started to go a bit off the rails, so I threw in a more linear side-quest that took them out of town for a bit, then we honed in on them working for one chosen faction which was better. The best bit, IMO, was Coran the half-elf, an NPC one of the PC's took a shine to... Near the end, the PC's rallied a large group of townsfolk to march on to Parliament, just as it was about to get blown up... i.e. they walked right into the trap, so to speak, with no help from me... end result was all their common-folk died in the explosion, as did Coran and the rest of the Peers etc, leaving badly damaged PC's one of whom was especially annoyed that her lover was just blown to bits; un-scripted gold. Overall, it was a classic test for me as a DM, and my ability to think hard before each session as to what and how to present some interesting stuff, then ad-lib as the players invariably ran off in different directions.

 

[Tormyr]

Im currently playing Baldurs Gate enhanced edition. I'm thinking about running a PNP campaign set in this general area- Baldurs Gate - Amn. I understand that Murder in Baldurs Gate covers this from a 4E perspective, but heard that the story wasn't particularly good.

Has anyone else run adventures that tie into or follow from the plots or characters of the computer games? What resources did you use?

Thanks!
G

I just finished running Murder in Baldur's Gate with my Roll20 group, and we had a good time. MiBG marked a major shift in the Wednesday night Encounters format. Not only were creature stats and rules for the D&D Next playtest included, but the story was presented in a much more sandbox format with significant events rather than the more linear encounters, rest, milestone format of the 4e format. It required a mental shift for both DM and players. Marking the transition from 4e to (eventually) 5e, it was the first of the Sundering adventures which rewrote some aspects of the world of the Forgotten Realms.

Spoiler

[sblock]
Pros:
* Excellent gazetteer for Baldur's Gate. It comes with descriptions of significant people, buildings, organizations, and the flow of people through a day in the life of the city.
* Good, chaotic setup battle.
* One of the few political, role-play heavy adventures.
* Presents difficult choices with moral consequences.

Cons:
* Motivation for the PCs is hard to come by. The setup is that you are mercenaries who arrive in town on a festival day. After a heroic deed, you are approached by 3 power players in the city, They need to be convinced to stay even as their boss has them do morally questionable things.
* There is very little combat, which can be difficult for some players/DMs. Following a format where long rests come once in a while or after a certain number of events versus every night helps.

I ran the adventure with level 3 PCs, having them advance to level 4 after the interlude. The players after a couple of sessions were asking whether they should abandon Baldur's Gate to its own devices (which is a common question that DMs have mentioned their players/PCs asking in the past). However, about halfway in, I saw the light bulb click moment for them where they decided that they were going to try to turn the tide of chaos that was wracking the city.
[/sblock]

In the end, it was a very satisfying adventure, but it is very different from a "normal" adventure, and it can be a challenge to get everyone to buy into it.

I can answer any other questions you may have. If you are running a longer adventure in the region, a used copy of the gazetteer and map would be a great choice.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I just finished running Murder in Baldur's Gate with my Roll20 group, and we had a good time. MiBG marked a major shift in the Wednesday night Encounters format. Not only were creature stats and rules for the D&D Next playtest included, but the story was presented in a much more sandbox format with significant events rather than the more linear encounters, rest, milestone format of the 4e format. It required a mental shift for both DM and players. Marking the transition from 4e to (eventually) 5e, it was the first of the Sundering adventures which rewrote some aspects of the world of the Forgotten Realms.

Spoiler

[sblock]
Pros:
* Excellent gazetteer for Baldur's Gate. It comes with descriptions of significant people, buildings, organizations, and the flow of people through a day in the life of the city.
* Good, chaotic setup battle.
* One of the few political, role-play heavy adventures.
* Presents difficult choices with moral consequences.

Cons:
* Motivation for the PCs is hard to come by. The setup is that you are mercenaries who arrive in town on a festival day. After a heroic deed, you are approached by 3 power players in the city, They need to be convinced to stay even as their boss has them do morally questionable things.
* There is very little combat, which can be difficult for some players/DMs. Following a format where long rests come once in a while or after a certain number of events versus every night helps.

I ran the adventure with level 3 PCs, having them advance to level 4 after the interlude. The players after a couple of sessions were asking whether they should abandon Baldur's Gate to its own devices (which is a common question that DMs have mentioned their players/PCs asking in the past). However, about halfway in, I saw the light bulb click moment for them where they decided that they were going to try to turn the tide of chaos that was wracking the city.
[/sblock]

In the end, it was a very satisfying adventure, but it is very different from a "normal" adventure, and it can be a challenge to get everyone to buy into it.

I can answer any other questions you may have. If you are running a longer adventure in the region, a used copy of the gazetteer and map would be a great choice.

We once tried it as an interlude for HotDQ when the party arrives at Baldur's Gate, but the party imploded because of different affiliations with the authorities (seems like nothing good comes from a Lawful knigth of Cormyr, 2 murderhobos monk and a chaotic neutral chaos sorcerer tiefling edgelord let loose in a city on the brinck of civil war). This time its me in the DM seat and I have in mind the idea of going back to this adventure with my group of new players. I want, on the long term, establish Baldur's Gate as the ''main city'' of the setting I'll use with this table.

For now, the plan is:
- Currently running HotDQ with the group, we'll arrive soon at BG, and I'd like a small urban adventure to show some part of the city. I'll probably foreshadow the Iron Throne and Sarevok (I'll twist the time line to help the continuity).

- Next campaign I also plan to run the BG videogame as a tabletop game, maybe going as far as the sequel (but not Throne of Bhaal)


The question I have: Can MiBG be inserted as part of a larger campaign? I've in mind a large urban campaign that goes like this:
The Enemy within part 1 (from WHFRPG)to bring the party to BG, then The Enemy Within part 2 where the party stops a cult trying to destroy the city, then once the party are established adventurers, hit them with MiBG to close the Bhaalspawn saga.

 

[Tormyr]

The question I have: Can MiBG be inserted as part of a larger campaign? I've in mind a large urban campaign that goes like this:
The Enemy within part 1 (from WHFRPG)to bring the party to BG, then The Enemy Within part 2 where the party stops a cult trying to destroy the city, then once the party are established adventurers, hit them with MiBG to close the Bhaalspawn saga.

Spoiler

[sblock]
Yes, MiBG could be a small adventure in a larger campaign, and you can pick and choose or alter pieces as you like. I know one DM used a cult of Bhaal to influence the actions of the 3 power brokers in the game through rituals.

MiBG is meant to be a generation after the events in the video game. Abdel Adrian (the canon protagonist of the video game) is much longer-lived than other humans because he is a Bhaalspawn. If you played the long game, you could do the tabletop version of the video game first, then start a new campaign where you wrapped up with the events of MiBG.

The Baldur's Gate video game would need some rewriting of the key conceit. In the video game, you are one of the 20 bhaalspawn. I do not think it would really work to have a bunch of people in the party be bhaalspawn, and if they are just Abdel Adrian's escorts, that takes the spotlight and decision making off the party. You may want to consider eliminating the bhaalspawn and turning Sarevok into an avatar of Bhaal or someone possessed by him. The bulk of the rest of the game's events could then be run unaltered if none of your players played the video game.

Having Bhaal be able to have a shape-shifting avatar or able to possess those with murder in their hearts also allows him to become a recurring villain between your MiBG and video game stories, and they can then also be played in either order as Abdel Adrian is now just a Duke instead of a bhaalspawn. I am not familiar with The Enemy Within, but you could probably insert this version of Bhaal as an influencer of one or more antagonists.
[/sblock]

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Spoiler

[sblock]
Yes, MiBG could be a small adventure in a larger campaign, and you can pick and choose or alter pieces as you like. I know one DM used a cult of Bhaal to influence the actions of the 3 power brokers in the game through rituals.

MiBG is meant to be a generation after the events in the video game. Abdel Adrian (the canon protagonist of the video game) is much longer-lived than other humans because he is a Bhaalspawn. If you played the long game, you could do the tabletop version of the video game first, then start a new campaign where you wrapped up with the events of MiBG.

The Baldur's Gate video game would need some rewriting of the key conceit. In the video game, you are one of the 20 bhaalspawn. I do not think it would really work to have a bunch of people in the party be bhaalspawn, and if they are just Abdel Adrian's escorts, that takes the spotlight and decision making off the party. You may want to consider eliminating the bhaalspawn and turning Sarevok into an avatar of Bhaal or someone possessed by him. The bulk of the rest of the game's events could then be run unaltered if none of your players played the video game.

Having Bhaal be able to have a shape-shifting avatar or able to possess those with murder in their hearts also allows him to become a recurring villain between your MiBG and video game stories, and they can then also be played in either order as Abdel Adrian is now just a Duke instead of a bhaalspawn. I am not familiar with The Enemy Within, but you could probably insert this version of Bhaal as an influencer of one or more antagonists.
[/sblock]

Thanks a lot!
SPOILER AHEAD, I dont know of to put them in brackets.

---

I'll twist the timeline a little, but since Bhaal is trying to come back after the Sundering, I'll use this premise to play the whole ''reincarnate the Lord of Murder'' now that all dead gods from previous edtion are slowly coming back to life. What I have in mind is to have the current party (running HoTDQ) travel with young Sarevok Anchev and his mentor Winski during the Caravan Chapter of the campaign, foreshadowing its dark temper and cruelty.

Next campaign will be the BG1-2, 6 years latter, so they'll eventually face Sarevok with a new party, now a grown man. I think I'll keep the Bhaalspawn mechanic vague. I've two options: all players are Bhaalspawn gathered and raised at Candlekeep by Gorion or have only one character randomly being the Bhaalspawn, having the spirit of the god travel to the most evil character in the party should the first one die. No Abdel Adrian in this canon, but the final Bhaalspawn will be the one to become the Duke of BG in the next campaign.
EDIT: I'll probably use the Shadow Point mechanic from AiME to see which character is the Bhaalspawn: choose one at first, then the spirit switch when the character dies or gathers too many Shadow Point. The tally is kept secret, to avoid some PC trying to be worst than Sarevok.

The 3rd campaign will be the one featuring the MiBG as part of a urban adventure, featuring the murder of the ancient-PC-turned-Duke.

Anyway, I'm probably seeing too far in the future, but its fun to design adventures.

 

[Gwaihir]

Many thanks for the responses here. Please keep them coming.
I think Ill go ahead and buy MiBG based on the information here


Minor Spoilers for Curse of Strahd follow:
[sblock] Ill have level 9 characters returning to the Forgotten Realms after dealing with the Curse of Strahd. They may or may not have the spirit of a captured Vampire Lord with them. Im going to try to dovetail that into something with the Bhaalspawn saga as depicted in the computer games, but a generation later. Most of my players played the computer games back in the day. Ill think they'll dig that. [/sblock]

Thanks!
G