D&D 5E Murder in Baldur's Gate: Stage 1 questions

[eNTi]

Hi,

could someone enlighten me about "Search and Seizure"? What is Silvershield looking for and what are my players supposed to do. Is it even possible for them to find out anything incriminating if they don't do exactly what's written in the adventure?

How are the heroes supposed to prevent the attack on Nant Thangol, if they do not work for Rael?

More general question: Would Ravenguard be opposed to the idea that the heroes work for Silvershield as well if they'd work against the Guild and why is Silvershield opposed to the Characters working for Ravenguard?

 

[CapnZapp]

Sorry, it was a long time since I read the module, and your questions appear to require intimate knowledge of details that I no longer have.

All I can do is ask you something else: are you cognizant of the fact that the way the module starts suggests a whodunnit story while the actual meat of the adventure is more akin to a "climb the ranks" Warhammer / Call of Cthulhu scenario. That is, I feel it is important the DM is prepared for the possibility his players will focus on solving the murder case, something the module is almost entirely silent on. Either that, or that the DM changes the intro around so as to downplay the "mighty D&D heroes comes to town, solves local issues, gets key to city and the mayor's daughter's hand" schtick that can otherwise derail the rather cool actual proceedings of the scenario.

 

[Voort]

could someone enlighten me about "Search and Seizure"? What is Silvershield looking for and what are my players supposed to do. Is it even possible for them to find out anything incriminating if they don't do exactly what's written in the adventure?

How are the heroes supposed to prevent the attack on Nant Thangol, if they do not work for Rael?

More general question: Would Ravenguard be opposed to the idea that the heroes work for Silvershield as well if they'd work against the Guild and why is Silvershield opposed to the Characters working for Ravenguard?

The Search & Seizure event is intended to set up story elements for later in the plot. It introduces some characters who figure into later events, as well as laying the foundations of Guild corruption and aggressive action from the Fist. Even if your players don’t figure out any clues, they should learn some info about the city’s conflict to guide them later.

The first attack on Thangol happens as written if the party isn’t there, but he doesn’t stop collecting taxes. The party will get assigned as ‘extra protection’ or to investigate the attacks if they work for Ravenguard or Silvershield.

As to working for both factions: they just don’t trust each other. Ravenguard just had his commander assassinated, so he doesn’t trust anyone in the Upper City. And Duke Silvershield wants independent assets to avoid Guild influence. A persuasive party might get away with serving both groups for a couple of sessions, but they will soon face questions and tests of their loyalty.

Good luck with this adventure. I’ve run it with several different groups, and it’s been fun. Just keep track of all the dumb stuff the party does, because it should come back to haunt them.

 

[eNTi]

I just don't know how to reward the players. what's considered a "success" in either of those missions? what are the players supposed to learn from any of the people and what are they to do with them in case they learn something. I mean... I understand that there's some open-endedness to all those missions and much of it is up to me as the GM. But I'd really like to know more about the motivations behind the missions themselves so that I can give the players some context. It all seems so random to me ?

 

[CapnZapp]

From what I remember, the reward for "success" is continued employment. Success defined as the absence of failure.

This is a completely different paradigm than usual for D&D (no big payouts in the form of gold or magic items or marry the princess type of deals). You get to keep your job. Be thankful nobody's knifing you in the gut, basically.

This style of play is not uncommon, though. Uncommon to D&D perhaps, but not to rpgs in general. When I described Murder in BG as a "climb the ranks Warhammer / Call of Cthulhu scenario" I meant it

It is definitely not a scenario I recommend for inexperienced Dungeon Masters, or people with little experience gamesmastering outside of the traditional D&D mold.

It is also a bad fit for the archetypical D&D hero. There's no glory here. This adventure fits heroes that are morally ambigous underdogs used more to abuse than praise. In other words, it fits WFRP guttersnipes and rat catchers perfectly, but not your usual paladins and bards in shiny clothes.

And yes, I do think the scenario does a bad job explaining all of this to the reader. I understand it doesn't want to scare DMs away, but I feel the above description gives you an honest chance at judging whether Murder in Baldur's Gate is right for you. It is not meant to say it's a poor adventure - quite the contrary: I think it's an excellent adventure. Though the intro sets you up, making you think it is a regular adventure. That intro basically trolls the players, and as I said above, I would not use it as written.

It's just not a typical D&D adventure.