ForceUser
Explorer
Last night my players defeated their longtime bugaboo, an evil conjurer who had kidnapped a PC's sister. As a reward, they recovered some treasure as well as the conjurer's personal journal. The recovery of this journal should have been a watershed event for them, granting them insight into the Machiavellian plot that they had become integral players in. This, in turn, would give them the tools they needed to apply their own leverage and, for once, choose their own moves in the game instead of being led around like pawns.
It's a lot of information to absorb. I spent hours writing it, I got extremely detailed, and left clues for them to follow up on should they do a close reading of the text and think about how it relates to what they've experienced. The group had originally asked to play in a city-based game with less focus on combat than standard D&D, so I built a Venitian-like web of medieval politics into the story, and promptly embroiled them in it. They've been dealing with this story for almost a year real-time, played twice a month. What I've noticed, though, is that the group rarely takes notes, and as a result confuses who the NPCs are and what their motives/allies/enemies are all the time. Having spent so much time crafting a more roleplay-focused storyline as requested, I'm somewhat nonplussed.
Can a story be too complex? How many DMs have spent weeks or months crafting a deep immersion storyline only to have the PCs blow by it? Or to ask it another way: Will they ever care to find out why the modrons marched?!?
Below is the journal for those interested in getting a sense of what I mean.
---------------------------
The following information is included in the personal journal of Lazzaro Benicci
His tutelage—Lazzaro’s mentor in the High Arts was one Maldronicus Sercius, a demonologist of note who disappeared two decades ago. It seems that as youths both Lazzaro and Rafael took lessons under Maldronicus, but only Lazzaro showed promise as a wizard. Rafael eventually gave up arcane learning and became an expert swordsman and dashing aristocrat-about-town. He and a young Tenochelli noble named Marco Vittorio were rivals for some years. Eventually, Maldronicus overreached himself in his dealings with demons and was dragged screaming into Hell in one of his own unholy rites. Lazzaro escaped with his life and a few personal belongings of his mentor, including the Grimoire Demoniac, some fragments of Maldronicus’s research notes on cosmology, and the unfortunate wizard’s awesome Rod of Black Whispers.
The fall of House Benicci—the twins’ father, Anzolo, had failed in several business ventures and had borrowed heavily against his property in several attempts to rebuild the family fortune. On the eve of an important shipping venture involving a lucrative pearl and silk contract with a supplier in Ashana, Anzolo was murdered, causing the deal to fail and the family to sell off most of its holdings to avoid ruin. Lazzaro and Rafael did what they could to salvage the family’s honor, but the family’s reputation had been tarnished by both their debts and Lazzaro’s association with a known practitioner of the Black Arts. In a desperate bid to save what they could of their wealth, the twins begged patronage from the ruling house of the city, House Manolosso, and were denied. Instead, the Prince sent assassins, who slew Rafael and left Lazzaro for dead. He survived, however, and used what fortune he had left to have his twin raised from death before fleeing to the distant isle of Lion off the coast of Arbonne. Lazzaro had word from Veruccia occasionally, and he knew that his family’s property had been seized by the Prince, and his sisters and cousins had been rendered destitute. He seethed but could do nothing. The world believed them dead and for their own safety it must remain so.
The intervening years—in the two decades that followed the fall of House Benicci, Lazzaro continued to delve into his chosen High Art—conjuration. He grew in strength and arcane power, and decided that while demons were strong, they were unreliable, so he eschewed the path of the demonologist and sought another means with which to benefit from creatures bound to his service. He met with other summoners, notably Algadragor of Mordengard and his rival, Maldurmort of Richtenheim. His offers of partnerships with these reclusive northern wizards met with rejection, but he learned much from observing them. Algadragor, in particular, and his obsession with a place he called the Far Realm, fascinated Lazzaro. From this Far Realm, Algadragor summoned the most compelling and shapeable creatures, and Lazzaro took extensive notes on their natures and capabilities. From this, he began to study the creatures on the prime stratum that most resembled these Far Realm beings—aberrations. After several ventures into the deep places of the world, including a terrifying foray into a place far below the Alps that Lazzaro refers to as Dagor Shûth, he captured some aberrations and began breeding them selectively. The results of this program became the first nothics. He also began working on his Codex Anathema, a comprehensive work on the nature and organization of aberrations from both the prime stratum and elsewhere in the cosmos. In time, as his insight grew, he drew on certain formulae from the Grimoire Demoniac and the research of other wizards to construct a hypothesis about how one could compact with a being from the Far Realm.
During this time, he maintained interest in news from Veruccia. He learned of the fall of House Manolosso and the rise of House Tenochelli as the ruling family in Veruccia, as well as the ascension to Princedom of one former rival of Rafael, Marco Vittorio Tenochelli. He also learned of the fortunes of a once-minor house called Bastiani, which through both luck and cunning, gained status as a Great House and forced its way onto the Prince’s Small Council with superb political maneuvering and large bribes. Bastiani, he learned, owed this rise in eminence thanks to a lucrative trade contract in pearls and silks with the East—a contract very similar to the one that had once been engineered by his father, Anzolo. Lazzaro was now convinced that his father’s killer—not to mention the architect of the fall of House Benicci—was the head of house Bastiani, Fiorenza’s grandmother. He summoned Rafael, and the two began to plot their revenge. At this time, Lazzaro began to instruct Rafael in the methods of summoning demons using the Grimoire Demoniac.
The Pact with Prince Marco—two years ago, in 1058, Rafael made contact with Marco Vittorio Tenochelli, and felt him out regarding a plan to remove House Bastiani from power and rebuild House Benicci. As Rafael related it to Lazzaro, Marco was cautious, but made it known that he would indeed profit from the downfall of Bastiani, and obliquely offered limited support. If Lazzaro and Rafael could engineer an event that would damage Bastiani’s reputation, the Prince would press to have them removed from the Small Council. Once Bastiani was no longer in a position of authority within Veruccia, they would be much more vulnerable to political attacks.
Rafael agreed to terms with the Prince, and he and Lazzaro discussed at length the best way to bring about their goal. Both twins agreed that Marco’s plan would not satisfy vengeance, and they both doubted the sincerity of Marco’s pledge to pardon House Benicci. The twins decided to leave Lion and return to Veruccia, where they reinhabited the former plantation of their late uncle Giacomo in the Mistlorn Swamp near the city. From there, they began to move resources into the city, placing nothics in key positions as watchers. After many months of surveillance and discussion, they chose a course of action.
The plan was thus: it was observed that two of the three daughters of Bastiani, Fiorenza and Gianetta, were unmarried. Fiorenza, a willful troublemaker, had spurned an arranged marriage, which had caused some harm to her family’s interests. Gianetta, only recently of marriageable age, would no doubt be offered in Fiorenza’s stead, with assurances of contractual fidelity and likely an enormous dowry to assuage the anger over the outrage of the elder daughter’s behavior and subsequent breach of contract. The suitor in question, one Ugo Palanza, was a wealthy shipbuilder whom House Bastiani relied upon for replacement of its aging fleet. Palanza, patriarch of a minor house, held great influence at court as a moneylender and financier of many enterprises. If Bastiani failed to make amends for Fiorenza’s behavior, Palanza would withhold contract, which would force Bastiani into an untenable competitive position among the Great Houses. Palanza was long-winded and full of self-importance, and he could damage the house financially and politically if he felt he was wronged. Rafael, then, would woo Gianetta covertly, and persuade her to elope with him before the marriage, causing havoc to House Bastiani’s fortunes. This was the plan as devised with Prince Marco.
The political ruin of Bastiani was not enough for the twins, however. Lazzaro, through his research, knew of a place in Arbonne where the transdimensional barriers separating material strata were weak, and he persuaded Tenochelli to buy this property as part of their bargain. Having successfully wrought an incantation of summoning and binding a being from the Far Realm, Lazzaro knew that if he chose wisely, he could gain great personal power from the patronage of such a being. He resolved to attempt to bring it into the mortal world, and set about devising a scenario to lure such a being over. With the patronage of a Far Realm overlord, Lazzaro could rebuild House Benicci as rulers of Veruccia, and Rafael would become prince, while he himself could use the mysteries he’d learn to wield enormous arcane power. No goal would be too large. He planned to become a demigod among mages.
(At this point in the journal, Lazzaro’s insights become erratic.)
A reader can infer from what follows that Rafael decided to lure Fiorenza back to Veruccia to vex the patrons of Houses Bastiani and Palanza. Lazzaro decided to take over the seduction of Gianetta, which apparently angered Rafael. Disguising himself with illusion magicks, he used a spell of charm person to bind Gianetta to him, and began to instruct her in magic when she showed interest and aptitude. At this point Lazzaro apparently became delighted and resolved to wed her instead of sacrifice her to the unnamed Far Realm being he had decided to seek patronage from. When he deemed that the conditions at the estate at Poisson were right, he stole away with Gianetta, married her in an arrangement settled by a wizard named Iago, and sailed for Arbonne. Apparently by this point he had “translated,” or brought over from the Far Realm, several agents with whom he had compacted. He did not mention in his journal that he was aware of Rafael’s capture, nor did he speak of the assassination of Ugo Palanza. The last entry mentions in passing that the latest anathema breeding experiment was a success, and that the creatures will reproduce rapidly once released upon the peasantry, thereby paving the way for his Far Realm patron to come…
(By the end of the journal, Lazzaro seems quite mad.)
It's a lot of information to absorb. I spent hours writing it, I got extremely detailed, and left clues for them to follow up on should they do a close reading of the text and think about how it relates to what they've experienced. The group had originally asked to play in a city-based game with less focus on combat than standard D&D, so I built a Venitian-like web of medieval politics into the story, and promptly embroiled them in it. They've been dealing with this story for almost a year real-time, played twice a month. What I've noticed, though, is that the group rarely takes notes, and as a result confuses who the NPCs are and what their motives/allies/enemies are all the time. Having spent so much time crafting a more roleplay-focused storyline as requested, I'm somewhat nonplussed.
Can a story be too complex? How many DMs have spent weeks or months crafting a deep immersion storyline only to have the PCs blow by it? Or to ask it another way: Will they ever care to find out why the modrons marched?!?
Below is the journal for those interested in getting a sense of what I mean.
---------------------------
The following information is included in the personal journal of Lazzaro Benicci
His tutelage—Lazzaro’s mentor in the High Arts was one Maldronicus Sercius, a demonologist of note who disappeared two decades ago. It seems that as youths both Lazzaro and Rafael took lessons under Maldronicus, but only Lazzaro showed promise as a wizard. Rafael eventually gave up arcane learning and became an expert swordsman and dashing aristocrat-about-town. He and a young Tenochelli noble named Marco Vittorio were rivals for some years. Eventually, Maldronicus overreached himself in his dealings with demons and was dragged screaming into Hell in one of his own unholy rites. Lazzaro escaped with his life and a few personal belongings of his mentor, including the Grimoire Demoniac, some fragments of Maldronicus’s research notes on cosmology, and the unfortunate wizard’s awesome Rod of Black Whispers.
The fall of House Benicci—the twins’ father, Anzolo, had failed in several business ventures and had borrowed heavily against his property in several attempts to rebuild the family fortune. On the eve of an important shipping venture involving a lucrative pearl and silk contract with a supplier in Ashana, Anzolo was murdered, causing the deal to fail and the family to sell off most of its holdings to avoid ruin. Lazzaro and Rafael did what they could to salvage the family’s honor, but the family’s reputation had been tarnished by both their debts and Lazzaro’s association with a known practitioner of the Black Arts. In a desperate bid to save what they could of their wealth, the twins begged patronage from the ruling house of the city, House Manolosso, and were denied. Instead, the Prince sent assassins, who slew Rafael and left Lazzaro for dead. He survived, however, and used what fortune he had left to have his twin raised from death before fleeing to the distant isle of Lion off the coast of Arbonne. Lazzaro had word from Veruccia occasionally, and he knew that his family’s property had been seized by the Prince, and his sisters and cousins had been rendered destitute. He seethed but could do nothing. The world believed them dead and for their own safety it must remain so.
The intervening years—in the two decades that followed the fall of House Benicci, Lazzaro continued to delve into his chosen High Art—conjuration. He grew in strength and arcane power, and decided that while demons were strong, they were unreliable, so he eschewed the path of the demonologist and sought another means with which to benefit from creatures bound to his service. He met with other summoners, notably Algadragor of Mordengard and his rival, Maldurmort of Richtenheim. His offers of partnerships with these reclusive northern wizards met with rejection, but he learned much from observing them. Algadragor, in particular, and his obsession with a place he called the Far Realm, fascinated Lazzaro. From this Far Realm, Algadragor summoned the most compelling and shapeable creatures, and Lazzaro took extensive notes on their natures and capabilities. From this, he began to study the creatures on the prime stratum that most resembled these Far Realm beings—aberrations. After several ventures into the deep places of the world, including a terrifying foray into a place far below the Alps that Lazzaro refers to as Dagor Shûth, he captured some aberrations and began breeding them selectively. The results of this program became the first nothics. He also began working on his Codex Anathema, a comprehensive work on the nature and organization of aberrations from both the prime stratum and elsewhere in the cosmos. In time, as his insight grew, he drew on certain formulae from the Grimoire Demoniac and the research of other wizards to construct a hypothesis about how one could compact with a being from the Far Realm.
During this time, he maintained interest in news from Veruccia. He learned of the fall of House Manolosso and the rise of House Tenochelli as the ruling family in Veruccia, as well as the ascension to Princedom of one former rival of Rafael, Marco Vittorio Tenochelli. He also learned of the fortunes of a once-minor house called Bastiani, which through both luck and cunning, gained status as a Great House and forced its way onto the Prince’s Small Council with superb political maneuvering and large bribes. Bastiani, he learned, owed this rise in eminence thanks to a lucrative trade contract in pearls and silks with the East—a contract very similar to the one that had once been engineered by his father, Anzolo. Lazzaro was now convinced that his father’s killer—not to mention the architect of the fall of House Benicci—was the head of house Bastiani, Fiorenza’s grandmother. He summoned Rafael, and the two began to plot their revenge. At this time, Lazzaro began to instruct Rafael in the methods of summoning demons using the Grimoire Demoniac.
The Pact with Prince Marco—two years ago, in 1058, Rafael made contact with Marco Vittorio Tenochelli, and felt him out regarding a plan to remove House Bastiani from power and rebuild House Benicci. As Rafael related it to Lazzaro, Marco was cautious, but made it known that he would indeed profit from the downfall of Bastiani, and obliquely offered limited support. If Lazzaro and Rafael could engineer an event that would damage Bastiani’s reputation, the Prince would press to have them removed from the Small Council. Once Bastiani was no longer in a position of authority within Veruccia, they would be much more vulnerable to political attacks.
Rafael agreed to terms with the Prince, and he and Lazzaro discussed at length the best way to bring about their goal. Both twins agreed that Marco’s plan would not satisfy vengeance, and they both doubted the sincerity of Marco’s pledge to pardon House Benicci. The twins decided to leave Lion and return to Veruccia, where they reinhabited the former plantation of their late uncle Giacomo in the Mistlorn Swamp near the city. From there, they began to move resources into the city, placing nothics in key positions as watchers. After many months of surveillance and discussion, they chose a course of action.
The plan was thus: it was observed that two of the three daughters of Bastiani, Fiorenza and Gianetta, were unmarried. Fiorenza, a willful troublemaker, had spurned an arranged marriage, which had caused some harm to her family’s interests. Gianetta, only recently of marriageable age, would no doubt be offered in Fiorenza’s stead, with assurances of contractual fidelity and likely an enormous dowry to assuage the anger over the outrage of the elder daughter’s behavior and subsequent breach of contract. The suitor in question, one Ugo Palanza, was a wealthy shipbuilder whom House Bastiani relied upon for replacement of its aging fleet. Palanza, patriarch of a minor house, held great influence at court as a moneylender and financier of many enterprises. If Bastiani failed to make amends for Fiorenza’s behavior, Palanza would withhold contract, which would force Bastiani into an untenable competitive position among the Great Houses. Palanza was long-winded and full of self-importance, and he could damage the house financially and politically if he felt he was wronged. Rafael, then, would woo Gianetta covertly, and persuade her to elope with him before the marriage, causing havoc to House Bastiani’s fortunes. This was the plan as devised with Prince Marco.
The political ruin of Bastiani was not enough for the twins, however. Lazzaro, through his research, knew of a place in Arbonne where the transdimensional barriers separating material strata were weak, and he persuaded Tenochelli to buy this property as part of their bargain. Having successfully wrought an incantation of summoning and binding a being from the Far Realm, Lazzaro knew that if he chose wisely, he could gain great personal power from the patronage of such a being. He resolved to attempt to bring it into the mortal world, and set about devising a scenario to lure such a being over. With the patronage of a Far Realm overlord, Lazzaro could rebuild House Benicci as rulers of Veruccia, and Rafael would become prince, while he himself could use the mysteries he’d learn to wield enormous arcane power. No goal would be too large. He planned to become a demigod among mages.
(At this point in the journal, Lazzaro’s insights become erratic.)
A reader can infer from what follows that Rafael decided to lure Fiorenza back to Veruccia to vex the patrons of Houses Bastiani and Palanza. Lazzaro decided to take over the seduction of Gianetta, which apparently angered Rafael. Disguising himself with illusion magicks, he used a spell of charm person to bind Gianetta to him, and began to instruct her in magic when she showed interest and aptitude. At this point Lazzaro apparently became delighted and resolved to wed her instead of sacrifice her to the unnamed Far Realm being he had decided to seek patronage from. When he deemed that the conditions at the estate at Poisson were right, he stole away with Gianetta, married her in an arrangement settled by a wizard named Iago, and sailed for Arbonne. Apparently by this point he had “translated,” or brought over from the Far Realm, several agents with whom he had compacted. He did not mention in his journal that he was aware of Rafael’s capture, nor did he speak of the assassination of Ugo Palanza. The last entry mentions in passing that the latest anathema breeding experiment was a success, and that the creatures will reproduce rapidly once released upon the peasantry, thereby paving the way for his Far Realm patron to come…
(By the end of the journal, Lazzaro seems quite mad.)
I am saying this kindly- 
