DM Tips for Death in Freeport

[Furn_Darkside]

I have run it twice for two different groups and my advice is: prepare for an assault on Scarbelly's Ship. I have talked to other DMs as well, and everybody attacks the ship.

My pc's did not do so- they saw the odds were against them.

Of course, there are only three players in my group.

FD

 

[Gizzard]

OK, thanks for the feedback. Even the small details help - perhaps small details help the most. (I'll try to fit a bowl of Fishhead stew in somewhere. ;-)

I second Furn_Darkside's suggestion to check out Green Ronin's boards.

It looks like the boards were reset in Jan 2002. I dont see a lot of info about DiF or TiF; I'm guessing that these earlier modules were discussed mostly prior to the board reset?

 

[Kalendraf]

I have talked to other DMs as well, and everybody attacks the ship.

Sorry, but that statement has been proven false by my campaign group. They went down to the decks, and realized it was a pretty heavily guarded boat. I don't think they were ever close to drawing weapons, as they were truly just trying to get information at that point. I played the 1st mate as just a bit incompetent and he made a slight slip-up revealing that scarbelly wasn't on-board at the time. As a result, the party went off looking for him, and found him in a nearby bar. It was much closer to a fight breaking out there, but Scarbelly was more than happy to just take some gold and a good bottle of alcohol to help loosen his tongue.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

It looks like the boards were reset in Jan 2002. I dont see a lot of info about DiF or TiF; I'm guessing that these earlier modules were discussed mostly prior to the board reset?

Hmm- that is a shame.

I will flip through the adventure tonight and see if anything else comes to mind.

FD

 

[Kalendraf]

It looks like the boards were reset in Jan 2002. I dont see a lot of info about DiF or TiF; I'm guessing that these earlier modules were discussed mostly prior to the board reset?

I think that's about when the forum was launched, so there isn't much old info that isn't up there. Also, note that there are 2 pages on the forum topics right now. The 2nd page has most of the older topics. I don't know if there's a specific thread for DiF, but many of the older threads relate to various questions about it. Examples are the threads about Lucius (missing stats), the Unspeakable one (just who is this god?), details on the Serpent people and so forth. I guess most DM's didn't feel there were too many problems running Death in Freeport, so there wasn't a tread started specifically for that. It seems like most of the questions tend to come up after your group is done with that adventure and you're starting to look ahead toward the next ones.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Salutations,

Kalendraf has got it down- iirc, most discussion starts on the following adventures, but involves tips on all of the adventures and how to tighten the connection between them.

Silly me
FD

 

[Duncan Haldane]

I have run it twice for two different groups and my advice is: prepare for an assault on Scarbelly's Ship. I have talked to other DMs as well, and everybody attacks the ship.

My group didn't. Tgood players, and realised I could introduce Orcs in the game without them being a target (at least not yet).

Also one of the PCs was a half orc, so he talked to them.

I also believe that Captain Scarbelly is far, far too low level. He's supposed to be a prominent pirate. He's listed as being, what, third level?

I thought about him as 10th level in my game. There is no way that I could see a 3rd level character being a feared pirate.

I know that this meant he far over-powered the PCs, and that's fine - he wasn't there as a target, and I don't like it where in a D&D game everyone you meet is around the PCs level so they can defeat them.

I also ran Holiday in the Sun before starting the 2nd adventure. IIRC there is a festival on, and an assassin attacks the MC. In my game the MC was killed, so Captain Scarbelly took over as MC - the festival became a bit more ribald at that point ;-)

That worked well, actually. It made the players realise that Freeport is still a pirate town, that the commoners aren't all goody-two-shoes, that sort of thing.

Duncan

 

[Duncan Haldane]

OK, thanks for the feedback. Even the small details help - perhaps small details help the most. (I'll try to fit a bowl of Fishhead stew in somewhere. ;-)

Heheh - thanks - I'll have to tell my PCs that - they'll get a good laugh out of it.

BTW, in my game when the Captain was eating his stew he would eat the meat off the head, then spit it out. When the PCs tried to talk to him, he started spitting the heads out at them. The dwarf in the party ordered his own bowl, and spat the heads back at Scarbelly - Scarbelly had a good laugh at this and then was much more amicable to them

The scene was a lot of fun

It looks like the boards were reset in Jan 2002. I dont see a lot of info about DiF or TiF; I'm guessing that these earlier modules were discussed mostly prior to the board reset?

Search for "Errata" - hopefully there is still a fair bit around.

Good luck,

Duncan

 

[Gizzard]

....a bit of a plot hole is where Egil's keeps getting all this money to offer the party when the members of his church take an oath of poverty.

This was one thing I was working on from another angle; not where the money comes from, but why Egil would offer what amounts to a very significant amount of cash out of his own pocket to search for his "friend".

Of course, it all makes more sense when Egil tells a rather transparent story about waking up in Lucius' bedroom at the start of the second adventure. "Oh, I must have nodded off." Yeah, right, buddy. ;-)

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Spoilers are still flying, back off players

Of course, it all makes more sense when Egil tells a rather transparent story about waking up in Lucius' bedroom at the start of the second adventure. "Oh, I must have nodded off." Yeah, right, buddy. ;-)

Heh, there are so many betrayels and such in the series- I left Egil as a wide-eyed innocence.

Besides, "Egil" betrays them in the second adventure anyway.

FD