"Going Down The Road To Hell!" Is Announced!

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

[This is just wrong. Your heart's in the right place, I think, but you're missing the point. Some GMs will be "more interesting", some won't, but I guarantee that no three will approach a given group of high-level characters the same! Your suggestions are valuable, and for GMs who don't *want* to spend 30 minutes thinking about good ways to play out the high-level encounter, your advice given within the module as a default approach is a freaking bonus.
[/B]

I agree. The whole point of a pre-written module is that I don't have to do too much work. (Last night, I was forced to run an adventure COLD because the PCs bailed on the climax of a quest I had setup --- if the adventure hadn't pre-selected spells for the enemy Wizard, I would have been in trouble!)

 

[BlackMoria]

Originally posted by DARKNESS.

General advice for such a situation: Higher-level PCs!

That is a given and the usual method of scaling an adventure.

Still, what level of characters would they have to be? I dare say, without playtesting and just with a gut hunch that a party of four 30th level characters would get creamed by a party of twelve 20th level characters. I could be completely wrong on that count.

Still, that means getting the characters to 'X' epic level before running the adventure, assuming that 'X' is a reasonable number in light of this adventure.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, BlackMoria, there are different avenues that the party can take, it all depends on the players, really. Could fewer than 12 characters succeed? Sure! It depends on what the player-characters do, and also what approach the Game Master wants to take. So, no, smaller parties can easily be accomodated!

From a design standpoint, though, I considered that most parties of 20th level characters will have some pretty powerful cohorts, followers, and friends tagging along. There are assumptions made throughout the module that takes this into account, and provides the Game Master with the tools to deal with that cirmumstance, as well as smaller groups.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Fictionaut]

Congrats SHARK! I'll be sure to pick this one up. I always felt a litte guilty getting your ideas for free

 

[reapersaurus]

Reapersaurus wrote:
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Great stuff Reapersaurus!

"Nobody has ever quoted me back to me before."

That's neat, SHARK.
That brought a smile to my face that you remember those knock-down, drag-out moral disucssions about the Champions of Justice.

Yes, I regularly swing by Viking Hobby every few months, but it changes so little that there's not much point.
Imagine a small shop that's stuffed to the gills in every corner with miniatures and model equipment/kits/paints/etc, and that's Viking Hobby.

And I didn't quite get for certain- are you saying that your module is named off of the old post of mine?

If so, that's unfathomably cool.

I do, however agree with a couple of the others that your product may be a bit too niche, or not exactly mainstream enough for all.

By the way - in this module, is there any appearance by the Militantly-'Good', ultra-conservative Vallorean Empire, or any facsimile thereof?

 

[RangerWickett]

Reaper', are you talking about "Paladins of the Boards, Unite!"? I fondly recall that little in-character thread. It's a shame we never thwarted evil fully. But the adventure lives on in my mind.

 

[Dragonblade]

I'm going to have to disagree Thorin. I think SHARK's approach is a refreshing change.

You do bring up a valid point in the fact that it is good for a DM to have ready made encounters to save them a lot of work. But if the players deviate from the path predicted by the authors of the module then you have gained nothing other than a book of useless encounters.

It seems like SHARK is taking a more freeform approach. I believe he does have encounters that are detailed enough so that the DM need not expend a lot of extra creativity, and yet are versatile and flexible enough that some clever players won't reduce the encounter to a useless exercise because the author of a module based the whole thing on the assumption that the characters would do X when in fact they do Y.

I see that a lot in modules. "When the characters enter the room from this door right here, the NPC's, who met them in encounter C, will be waiting for them with battle plan Alpha and once they have defeated the players you may turn to page 42 and...blah blah..."

Well what if the players don't come in from that door? Or what if all these NPCs have been killed already? What if the NPCs joined the party? What if the players never went to encounter C? What if the players waste the NPCs instead of losing?

You see? I hate that. A good module won't have any of that crap.

It will simply have this: This NPC is here doing X because of this motive. This other NPC reacts to X in this way because of this motive. This third NPC is here doing Y because of this motive. etc. with maps and stats galore.

Now the adventure is detailed enough that the DM knows whats going on. Has stats and maps of the NPCs and locales but is free to run the adventure however it turns out based on the unpredictable actions of his players. He also knows how NPC's are likely to react because he knows their motivations and intent. That way he is not hamstringed because the players deviated from some linear adventure path which were filled with pre-defined NPC actions or tactics.

The adventure becomes dynamic instead of static. And the DM is freed instead of restricted. Its all part of my theory of DMing which I should write into a book or module of my own someday.

 

[Dragonblade]

After re-reading your post Thorin, I think I may have erred. Do you think SHARK's more freeform approach is good or bad? It will determine whether I agree or disagree with you, respectively.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Treat this as a bump, cause I both want SHARK's product kept in view on the boards, and becawsue I think my question earlier in the thread was overlooked...

SHARK, is there any material on your intriguing Vallorean Empire campaign setting tucked into this product?

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Teflon Billy: Well, there is inspiration there, certainly, but nothing directly! You should like it though!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK