Freeport Trilogy (spoilers)

[Crothian]

I'm prepping to start running this classic series of 3e modules. I've owned them for years but never had a chance to use them. I run a homebrew like many people and this will be the first time anyone has gone to Freeport though it has been mentioned in the setting for quite a while. One of the things I plan on doing, and please forgive my hubris, is make them better.

The start of the module is were I run into my first problem. It can be tough to write in why adventures go on a certain adventure so it is not a weakness of just this module. In the module the group fights off a press gang and impresses someone who needs help finding a missing person, Lucius.

Instead of doing that I'm having the PCs arrive in the city looking to find Lucius for another reason. As a member of the god of knowledge clergy the PCs will be looking for information they haven't had luck finding at m0ore traditional places. I'm improving the importance of the temple in Freeport and its collection of books and knowledge. The pirates have been raiding places for centuries and they don't have a lot of use for books. So, the temple has an open policy to buy at a fair price any books the pirates get. The Temple knows how the pirates get the books, but feel pirates are going to do what they do no matter what and at least they get to save the books and the knowledge.

I imagine the PCs could go to his house or the temple first. Either place they will get swept up into the mystery since they'll need to find him for their own means. My players have always been good at taking the bait so I'm hoping not to have too many issues with them on this.

The Bloody Vengeance is going to be great because as far as all the players are aware Orcs are extinct. In a past campaign a ranger who hated orcs cashed in all his favors he'd done after a long campaign of doing good to destroy the orc nation and no orc has been seen since. I really like how this encounter can be a good dialogue or combat depending on the PCs. I like the alternative motives for the orcs being on the edge and placing in a powerful magical item they can potential get with all its baggage fits well into my style of DMing.

One of the more major changes is going to be the serpent people. I have some ancient races I'm going to use instead, but I think I can still keep the serpent decor. The race is a race of shapshifters and so far they have not been portrayed as evil and insane. So, it's nice to mess with players perceptions on ancient races.

I'm going to make the city rather filthy and gross to emphasis the lack of civilization. The city runs and works but there are plenty of people that just don';t give a damn and that brings everything down. The different districts are going to have different feel to them almost like different cities.

One thing I'm trying to come up with is other rumors and stories. I want the city to feel alive so there needs to be more going on then just the plots of the adventure. I'm looking ahead to the grand ball in Madness of Freeport and using some of that for inspiration so those plots can be discovered and heard about during the earlier adventures. Also, Lloyd, Captain of Verlaine's Guard is going to be an NPCs at least on of the players knows. I think he will play an appearance in the first session as the PCs leave the city they are in to go to Freeport. It's still very possible that the PCs can and will kill him when next they meet but I like reoccurring NPCs. I'm looking for more in the modules that I can also do this with.

Who else has gone through these classics? Anything that worked well or not so well? How would you improve them? What would you keep as is because its perfect?

 

[Voadam]

I changed the beginning with Egil sending out a message to the PCs asking them to meet him to help him out. I gave them a description of the kind-hearted and helpful Egil and asked them each to come up with a background of why they would help him if he asked them to. He asked them to meet him at a certain tavern and the press gangs hit there, knocking Egil out first and chasing patrons until the disparate PCs joined together and routed them.

I changed it from a straight temple to the Athenaeum, a loregathering society of scholars with possible secret goals and shrines to various knowledge gods. I feel societies work better than churches for the Freeport/Mythos feel.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Death in Freeport was the second adventure I ran in the 3E era. (First was Atlas' excellent Maiden Voyage.)

My beef with Freeport is that it's too whimsical and good-natured for the image GR tried to project for it. There are puns, silly NPCs (not crazy NPCs, actually silly NPCs), and too many Good-aligned people running the show.

(To use an analogy, I wanted Mos Eisley of Star Wars, and what GR ultimately ended up providing was Mos Eisley of Phantom Menace. Not difficult to change, but disappointing that I had to.)

However, I'm not sure when, exactly, all that stuff started taking over. You may be fine through the Trilogy (or you may simply not mind the zaniness the way I did), or it may start in the second or third adventure. I honestly can't remember.

In any event, if you want a city that feels dangerous and amoral, rather than a little cartoonish, start laying the groundwork for it now. It sounds like you are already doing that, to some extent, by emphasizing the physical grime of the city.

 

[Crothian]

I changed it from a straight temple to the Athenaeum, a loregathering society of scholars with possible secret goals and shrines to various knowledge gods. I feel societies work better than churches for the Freeport/Mythos feel.

I like that idea. I'm very much stealing it though I'll place in a scholar priest named Voadam.

 

[Crothian]

My beef with Freeport is that it's too whimsical and good-natured for the image GR tried to project for it. There are puns, silly NPCs (not crazy NPCs, actually silly NPCs), and too many Good-aligned people running the show.

I hadn't noticed this but in flipping open to the ball which list lots of NPCs I'm shocked on how many of them are good! I'm not sure what the silly ones are you are referring to, in my read throughs nothing I found I'd call silly.

In any event, if you want a city that feels dangerous and amoral, rather than a little cartoonish, start laying the groundwork for it now. It sounds like you are already doing that, to some extent, by emphasizing the physical grime of the city.

It will be dark and evil and my players will be asking me to tone it down. That's my goal, something I learned playing in games run by Schwalb. I've been in his games were players got a little queasy and asked him not to be so detailed. It was awesome!

 

[Voadam]

I hadn't noticed this but in flipping open to the ball which list lots of NPCs I'm shocked on how many of them are good! I'm not sure what the silly ones are you are referring to, in my read throughs nothing I found I'd call silly.



It will be dark and evil and my players will be asking me to tone it down. That's my goal, something I learned playing in games run by Schwalb. I've been in his games were players got a little queasy and asked him not to be so detailed. It was awesome!

From reviews I heard that the first freeport city hardcover book turned it very cartoonish. I believe it had gangs made up of wealthy merchants' daughters running the streets in masks for a laugh, etc. I see a bit of that in the Freeport NPC book which has hippy herbalists and "the hat". In the Black Sails supermodule I believe it had all sorts of donkey kong references and I think an island of giant animated plush toys as one of the island encounters.

The Pirate's Guide toned down the silliness significantly but you can still see it in places. I was not amused to see in the list of crazy minor religious cults "Those who make yellow". Freeport has no slavery, though I'm sure I've seen references to freeport slaving somewhere, maybe it was in Hell in Freeport. Little things like the "God Squad". Mostly it is a fantastic pirate mythos setting and plenty to work with for a truly dark game, but there are little elements that could pop up.

 

[Voadam]

Feel free to check out my Freeport pbp game or threads. I tend to draw things out and we are still only about half way through Death in Freeport, though they have most of the city clues now.

Info Thread

In Character Game Thread

Out of Character Discussion Thread

 

[Set]

I had the party meet the press gang on the docks (turned into Experts 1 / Fighters 1, to make them a bit more of a challenge) and, mistaking Egil watching them from the distance for the mastermind of the thugs, they nearly murdered him before he could explain himself.

He offered them money, which was all the incentive they needed, as well as 'temple services' (from himself only, limited healing, item identification, etc.) to go find Lucius. They did so, and ended up doing more stuff for the 'Church of the Gods of Knowledge' (which, being set in Greyhawk, were Boccob, Lydia, Rao and Lirr, all working together out of a single temple), using the church as a 'patron' of sorts, providing them with access to item brokerage, identification, etc.

I modified every encounter (and added a few more), as my three players were experienced and more than capable of schooling the prefabricated ones. The only encounter from the adventure that I would consider a 'party killer' is a trap, which you'll recognize as a party killer when you see it.

I connected each PC to one of the local NPCs for training purposes, with the Transmuter apprenticing to Delinda, the 'dotty old (and surprisingly MILFy) alchemist,' the Fighter apprenticing to Bill Sangalapulatele, a local Monk/Fighter businessman who runs a bodyguard service, capitalizing on his filed teeth from his cannibal past to intimidate people, and the Druid starting his apprenticeship with the Blooms, and quickly determining that they were bad business and moving on to apprenticing with a local Dwarven Herbalist (who I'd already re-written as a Druid anyway and whose name I've forgotten).

Each of the contact points was used for class training, and a source of adventure hooks, with the dwarf first leading them into a short adventure to rescue a kidnapped dwarven dignitary (The Rescue of Prince Thorgrimm) who was being held by a corrupt guard captain, and Bill being next in line, as members of his former cannibal islanders being found to be involved in a child slavery ring. (The alchemist would have her own plotline, but we never got to it.)

I avoided stuff I considered goofy. There were merfolk traders at the docks, there was a goblin wizard who provided fire-fighting services with his rare water-themed spells (stolen from the Advanced Players Guide, Precipitation and Water Jet), etc. but the whackier aspects (such as the fire-fighting wagon with the bound water elemental) I skipped.

I found some of the thread over on the Green Ronin forums, and you can find a few other GMs experiences there as well
http://www.greenronin.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7168

 

[Crothian]

One thing that seems to be a problem throughout the modules is what do the NPCs know especially the ones working for Drac and his people. The module just assumes these people are going to be killed, but knowing my guys they might just try to capture someone to gain infomration. It will be a good way to drop more clues and foreshadow some things but I'm going to have to work on it some ahead of time to make it all fit.

 

[Crothian]

I like that there are more books out for Freeport now. The fully city described will be helpful, but reading through the Cults of Freeport and adding in all of that for bot the Yellow Sign and Yig is really going to aid these modules. Plus the Buccaneers of Freeport will allow for more colorful characters. Reading through those two books have been very impressive for Freeport.