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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 8102677" data-attributes="member: 63">Week three, wherein eleven NPCs and six PCs all had dinner together, and it actually worked as a scene.I think my idea to foreground the mechanics payed off: "We're going to have a conversation, and I figure people are going to be looking for shady behavior. Everyone roll an Insight check that will apply to the conversation as a whole, and I'll give you information in the course of events, instead of us stopping the role-playing to roll dice. If you want to focus on one particular person, tell me now and you'll get an easier DC to see if you can figure out what they're hiding, but then make a Deception check to avoid them noticing that you're paying attention."Each NPC had previously had a short scene to introduce them as the PCs made their way to the manor, and now during dinner each had a scripted line -- the Clergy preacher, the posh member of Beaumont's Queen Bee Lodge, the Risuri nationalist servant of the Father of Thunder, etc. -- and so when the Chancellor of Drakr and his ideological rival came in, the party actually got engaged in the ensuing philosophical debate between Heid Eschatol and Delkovich Nihisol - with the party's own dwarf trying to push his philosophy.[ATTACH=full]127039[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]127035[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]127040[/ATTACH](Famed eschatologist Vlendam Heid, solipsistic nihilist Jaromir Delkovich, and evolutionist Karl Evol [not an official ZEITGEIST artwork].)It might have helped to have typed up and ready to send via chat message the results of the insight checks, but the party noticed all the clues. We'll see if they remember them next week. We ended on a cliffhanger right after the gaslights went out and the guests discovered Heid's wizard bodyguard with her skull caved in, and a bloody hammer hidden under Delkovich's bed. Karl will be heartbroken when he sees the woman he loves (because she cast charm person on him) has been brutally murdered.Insights:1. Even with my preparation and various distractions, it is hard to have 'the cover of darkness' in D&D. May I here express my abiding hatred of darkvision, of light being anything less than a 2nd level spell, and of torches not being the primary source of light. That's why I'm going to rewrite the adventure so that, instead of the gaslights going out, they'll actually become blindingly bright, due to an extra compound added to the phlogiston canister. I remember writing that devas are immune to being blinded by bright lights, and its time I actually make that matter.2. That said, when the party split up and half ran down to the docks to see what that explosion was, and I described a dying man looking over the PCs' shoulders in horror, it was awesome that one player's immediate response was to hurl his oil lantern at the looming figure in the darkness.3. It was less cool that the bard cast Hideous Laughter twice on the menacing monster, which proceeded to giggle on the ground (and roll low Wisdom saves) as people fired shotguns into its face. However, I'm in luck: that spell shouldn't have worked on creatures with Int 4 or less! Still, it might behoove to give the big monster some sort of legendary resistance. Yes, the PCs did stake it to the ground and decapitate it, but fortunately that won't kill it. And that's not even me doing GM handwavium. It's in the statblock.4. That 'dying man' from #2? Well, the party's sophist didn't believe he died, so I guess I should include a statblock for him in the final adventure.5. Meanwhile the other half of the party stayed in the manor, and it was a high-wire act to keep them from sticking like glue to the assassin as he tried to slip away without my misdirection arousing the players' suspicion. I might need to add more distractions at the manor before the lights malfunction.6. Next session the party will point fingers and maybe figure out who committed the murder, but they'll still need to explore Dr. von Recklinghausen's laboratory if they want to avoid being driven made by energy leaking from a well to the Bleak Gate. And there's still the matter of who stole the rocketry research. At this point I'm not even sure which herring is the red one.7. Seriously, I think the players will want to do a full campaign after this, because they were really interested in the geopolitics of the aftermath of the Great Eclipse. I was a bit sad, though, that no one really blinked at the preacher claiming that demons had possessed the telegraph network in Crisillyir.If you're into this sort of geopolitical stuff, I suggest you check out the channel World War Two: [MEDIA=youtube]nF7xjtEy7NE[/MEDIA]</blockquote>

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