WotBS Additional scenarios within the WOTBS campaign

[Mahatatain]

Hi there.

I'm currently in the planning stage for running WOTBS and one thing that I'm not completely comfortable with is the rapid advancement in terms of levels. Going from 1st to 20th level in 12 scenarios feels too fast to me so I'm planning on adding in some other scenarios to lengthen the campaign.

My question for here is therefore whether anyone has come up with ideas of their own to add an additional scenario to the campaign? For example I'm considering running a prologue scenario to get the PCs to Gate Pass and having them start the first official scenario at 2nd level.

There are obviously several optional extra scenarios detailed in the book as well as several other suggestions elsewhere in it and I'm not meaning those here. I'm already considering a running a number of them and I'm after any other suggestions that aren't detailed in the book that people have.

Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any help that people can give me.

 

[Morrus]

Hi there.

I'm currently in the planning stage for running WOTBS and one thing that I'm not completely comfortable with is the rapid advancement in terms of levels. Going from 1st to 20th level in 12 scenarios feels too fast to me so I'm planning on adding in some other scenarios to lengthen the campaign.

My question for here is therefore whether anyone has come up with ideas of their own to add an additional scenario to the campaign? For example I'm considering running a prologue scenario to get the PCs to Gate Pass and having them start the first official scenario at 2nd level.

There are obviously several optional extra scenarios detailed in the book as well as several other suggestions elsewhere in it and I'm not meaning those here. I'm already considering a running a number of them and I'm after any other suggestions that aren't detailed in the book that people have.

Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any help that people can give me.

12 adventures tends to take most groups 18 months to two years to play, which personally is about right for me to go from 1-20. Your pace of play may vary, though. Bear in mind that they aren't small adventures - some of them are fairly long and complex.

 

[Mahatatain]

12 adventures tends to take most groups 18 months to two years to play, which personally is about right for me to go from 1-20. Your pace of play may vary, though. Bear in mind that they aren't small adventures - some of them are fairly long and complex.

With my group it will take even longer to play as we have a weekly 2.5hr session!

Seriously though that would mean PCs either going up a level part way through a scenario or going up two levels at the end of a scenario. That seems quite fast to me, hence my question.

I also have no concerns about running the campaign for a long time as I have a stable group and we've played similar length campaigns before - for example the other GM in the group ran the Shackled City campaign for about 75 sessions over two years and we finished at the end of Chapter 8 (at 15th level) with a TPK.

 

[Morrus]

With my group it will take even longer to play as we have a weekly 2.5hr session!

Seriously though that would mean PCs either going up a level part way through a scenario or going up two levels at the end of a scenario. That seems quite fast to me, hence my question.

I also have no concerns about running the campaign for a long time as I have a stable group and we've played similar length campaigns before - for example the other GM in the group ran the Shackled City campaign for about 75 sessions over two years and we finished at the end of Chapter 8 (at 15th level) with a TPK.

Well, if it's literally just an aesthetic thing about the break points being within an adventure, divide each one into two! Then they're going up 20 levels in 24 adventures!

 

[RangerWickett]

Personally I think there's plenty to justify gaining a bunch of levels. Maybe just expand the timeline a bit?

January - Events of Adventure One. City is attacked. Assault is delayed as a blizzard rolls in. You escape the city a week later, and getting to Innenotdar takes a week of rough trekking through the mountains. Once the weather improves, you get to the edge of the fire forest and need to spend a few days making the heat resistance potions. Maybe you stay with Haddin and Crystin; maybe you avoid them, but the day before you're ready to go the inquisitor shows up, forcing a fight and prompting you to hurry up and go into the fire forest.

February - Events of Adventure Two. This one is rather hard to stretch out, and I don't want to strain credulity by having the PCs stay in a forest fire for weeks. So in and out in a few days. But then another winter storm as they come down from the mountains delays them for weeks, perhaps with them resting in a small mountain village. Finally get to Dassen at the end of the month.

March - Still on the way to Seaquen, they get detained with a bunch of other refugees by Dasseni authorities, and hear rumors that the government is holding them to hand over to Ragesia. Maybe a mini-adventure where a local magistrate will let them go and take all the refugees with them if the adventurers deal with some monsters that are killing livestock. Finally, at the end of the month, get to the edge of the swamp north of Seaquen.

April - Events of Adventure Three. Perhaps stretch things out a bit more, make NPCs more stubborn and recalcitrant, have things occur on "political" time schedules, rather than what adventurers are used to. Make sure the people of Seaquen seem cool, but are just having trouble getting stuff integrated. Give the PCs a month to recover from their journey, train, catch dysentery, recover from dysentery, make some improvements to the city, get involved in some politics, find prestige classes they might be interested in, catch cholera, watch a bunch of people die from cholera, and then have things start to slowly get better as the city starts getting shipments of aid.

May - Then the Shahalesti fleet shows up right as Resistance plans are beginning. The elves threaten to blockade the city if they won't join under Shaaladel's banner against Ragesia. Let that stand-off last a couple days, and then the Theater assassination plot happens. A few days later the storm hits.

Continue like that, with large stretches for rest and recovery, and you could easily stretch the campaign's chronology to two or three years.

 

[Mahatatain]

Thank you for those suggestions Ryan - extending the time frame of events is an interesting idea I hadn't thought of.

 

[Lwaxy]

I am in the process of writing up our game - we did start before the actual AP, in a land outside the field of conflict. Basically, the PCs ran from a land where magic was illegal, and then found themselves stuck in a place where the situation wasn't all that much better. We had about 6 or so sessions just to get to Gate Pass. Actually, come to think of it, I didn't even decide to run WotBS with them until they were almost over the mountain range.

We finished with everything in under 6 months. But this was my all time crazy group with lots of weekend-long sessions, so nothing to measure any group on. And yeah we did add a few more side quests.