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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Peni Griffin" data-source="post: 3406736" data-attributes="member: 50322">The hobgoblin ambush shouldn't be a big problem, but if your PCs don't have advance intel on Vraath Keep, the manticore has a good chance of surprising them, and that could be lethal.  Jorr's dogs could save their butts here.  Jorr and the dogs are also murder on worg riders and hobgoblins, which should allow your PCs to focus on the big guns of Koth, the minotaur, and the manticore.Yes, bluebooking is OOG written play.  The term comes from the late 70s/early 80s, when college students (lacking e-mail) found it convenient to purchase blue books at the college bookstore and pass them around as needed.  A HUGE timesaver for the transitional stuff, people who like to play deep background that doesn't involve the other players, and groups like mine who only see eachother at the game and can't stay on-topic.  Also useful if you have one player who needs extra attention for whatever reason, and you don't want to play favorites at the table.  Also can be done between players, allowing them to surprise the snot out of the DM, as when my wizard and a friend's cavalier started marriage negotiations at the same time that the DM had decided to give us possible love interests as adventure hooks.  Depending on your players and your own tolerance for drama you might want to introduce restrictions on that sort of thing!  The great advantage of bluebooking things like magic item purchases, negotiations with NPCs, and downtime activities is that these are all things that are likely to be forgotten or confused if you don't have a written record.We bluebooked the entire setup for the adventure, the trek from home base to the Elsir Vale, many of the NPC interactions in town, the evacuation of Drellin's Ferry, and some transitional material as convenient.  Gerik's scouting mission  to the keep was done solo with me between games when the player was at our house for some other purpose, and he wrote up a report, posted it to the gaming group yahoo list, and the other players bluebooked what they did while waiting for him and the planning session based on his information, so when we got together next time everyone was on the same page and we were able to go into action immediately.  Well, immediately after lunch, complaining about work, double-checking that they'd leveled their character sheets (HOW can people dedicated enough to carry on detailed planning sessions over email not remember to level their character sheets immediately?), saying hello to the cats, discussing the latests OOTS, and all that stuff.  I've cut out two chapters of this module, and I bet it takes a year to play the whole thing.  Thank goodness for email!</blockquote>

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