Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9521287" data-attributes="member: 907">I disagree. To me, the adventure is about establishing the PCs in various social contexts: plugging them in with the Veiled Alliance, (depowered) templars, nobles, and (emancipated) slaves. These are fertile grounds for further adventures, and I think one of the most important jobs of an intro adventure is to provide seeds for future adventures.I also think it helps that the main thing the Big Damn Heroes do is mainly off-screen. Yes, there's a "cut-scene" where Rikus throws a spear at Kalak, but the actual fight happens deep within the ziggurat. The PCs have to deal with the situation outside. I don't see this as any different from "The castle is collapsing and you need to get out before it's too late" – it's just that the "castle" in this case is a life-draining ritual.It also does kick off the setting meta-plot, but I think that in itself it's fairly inoffensive. Were 2024 Staffan in charge of the development of 1991 Dark Sun, I'd have frozen it after Freedom/Verdant Passage. Having one city-state having thrown off the shackles of their sorcerer-monarch and abolishing slavery makes for a really interesting situation. But much like Eberron, a setting is best served by having a myriad of potential things that could happen rather than having one specific thing happen and leading to another.A worse example is also from Dark Sun: Black Flames. This has PCs being separated from their caravan by a sandstorm, and winding up in the ruins of Yaramuke where they get tricked by a 22nd level dragon (described as a "minor dragon in the scheme of things) who needs patsies to go get something from the ruins for him (he can't go in himself because some curse, so he needs 3rd-level PCs to do his work for him), and ends with a big fight between said dragon and a sorcerer-monarch who happens to be in the neighborhood because of Reasons.</blockquote>

Verification