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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Count_Zero" data-source="post: 8447750" data-attributes="member: 40164">I played through the first game a while back (and reviewed it) - and the big issue with approaching the game, is that the game is 1E RAW, complete with treasure for XP, but with the side bit that you get giant piles of money (and all the encumbrance that goes with it), and not a lot to do with it. There isn't even a bank in town you can leave extra cash in. Also, because interactions with named NPCs are used so sparingly, and there's so little characterization, it becomes very obvious who the traitor is.[SPOILER]It's Cadorna. The traitor is Cadorna.[/SPOILER]Ultimately, the three things that the adventure needs - which aren't covered in the PC game - are:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Political maneuvering among the specific faction's in town are - flesh out the major NPCs, with enough grey where it stops being obvious who the party needs to suspect.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Let the player characters financially invest in the town's reconstruction - which in turn will help give more emotional investment in the state of the town, and will also get the players more involved in the politics. This is where borrowing from the 5E version of Kingmaker (or something similar) comes in.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Related to 2 - Ruins of Adventure works best as a jumping off point of a campaign around the Moonsea, with Phlan as the PCs' base of operations. Once the players have gotten invested, they're going to want to keep tabs on the town, so you might as well lean into it. This is helped tremendously by the fact that, if you use the pre-Time-of-Troubles Realms setting, Zhentil Keep is right there, and the players will have had some interactions with them over the course of the adventure. Consequently, once you start moving into higher-level play, especially if you want to get into the equivalent of what would have been "Name Level" play in 1e, Ruins of Adventure gives you a solid position to do that, and get into Realms Geopolitics, if your players are interested.</li> </ol></blockquote>

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