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Out of the Abyss - Alice in Wonderland? Or Reign of Fire
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<blockquote data-quote="jedijon" data-source="post: 7811585" data-attributes="member: 49099"><p>Hadn't heard of EX1 so I'll check that out. Sticking with OoTA for a few reasons, not unlike most who've run an out of the box (OoTB?) adventure--great art, feels official, everything's in one place.</p><p></p><p>So to clarify the motivations about why I'll be making changes away from what's written. Yup, running it for humans that include kids. But also, I'm about 0% interested in demonic rituals, skulking around to avoid enslavement by each race of underdweller. Let's zany this up.</p><p></p><p>Running this pretty straight up till things start to get heated at the Darklake [pretty much exactly where we are in our playthrough].</p><p></p><p>It's clear two groups disagree strongly and they're pushing and shoving each other. Shushaar translates for the party that they're through the screaming and shoving they're really talking about the old ways and those who respect the lake and its bounty vs a desire for their community to be much more powerful--these ones keep gesturing upward and out toward the lake saying there's a powerful being who can help make this happen.</p><p></p><p>Chanting, singing. Pushing, shoving. And a flash. Tentacles - waves. You can't see any colors and everything smells moldy. Then that begins to pass. Several of you are on your knees. Nearby where everyone was pushing and shoving early you see that about half the fish people are reaching down into the mud to smear streaks under their bulgy eyes. They're putting shells on their shoulders. The other half are kicking clods of seaweed back and forth between themselves. They're strapping chunks of driftwood to the front of their lower leg. Someone yells. CLEAR THE PITCH! Someone grabs your arm and asks - and how about you? Football or Futbal?</p><p></p><p>Something that seems clear in each OoTA chapter is there's things going on for each race and the characters stumble into them. That's part of what we'll keep.</p><p></p><p>Will be reading back through the chapters to see how the modified approach fits--what sections still stick out and whether they're needed to tell the story or not.</p><p></p><p>The characters will be in zany extreme situations inspired by <em>The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland</em>, and told with some zest and some deadpan à la <em>Dumb And Dumber</em>...</p><p></p><p>Pre "ritual" - normal</p><p></p><p>Post "ritual", off the rails. What's spreading out from each community is not madness per se but IDEAS</p><p></p><p>Darklake - a feud between soccer and football devotees</p><p></p><p>Gracklstugh - Duergar are cats, Derro are mice. The cats certainly don't question their place while the mice run around in groups, quite afraid and protective of their cheese. The cats don't fully appreciate that there's a dragon...</p><p></p><p>Neverlight Grove - as is, but most fungi delight in changing sizes and everyone loves chess [this is a good time to show visual evidence of spread--spores spotted hanging in air well before they get their, landing on things, can see things shrinking and growing when the spores land on them]</p><p></p><p>Blingdenstone - these are pioneers rebuilding their city - they're also twangy cattle ranchers locked in land feuds with each other</p><p></p><p>Menzoberranzan/Drow patrols - behind it all - they're creating this upsidedown order which is pervading through the underground [and spreading beyond...], the other thing they do...enforce gender divides of "she can" and "he can't" so obviously speak only to female party members [this has some scary potential--I'm thinking of Russel's <em>The Sparrow</em> for assumptions of power differentials...but we're obviously not headed THAT far!]</p><p></p><p>Gauntlgrym - here's a place to bring home some earlier dropped hints that things just don't seem what they were - everyone should now know that SOMETHING happened "they told me this place was like" or Eldeth saying "this can't be where I grew up?" Everyone is very happy--and very few people IN THE TOWN will brook disagreement with that, probably just one key vizier. But what's going on is posters of the king everywhere. Him jumping over puddles, lifting a bag full of tin cans and people stop and point "he's so strong". An absurd cult of personality. The audience confirms it. He wants the adventurers to go back down and learn about / control for his glory / so people know who's really great / the underground. The adventurers will know that really they need his army's help to get back there and put things right. The way they were.</p><p></p><p>All the crazy bad ideas fight it out and things are normal. But is that a good thing? The end.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jedijon, post: 7811585, member: 49099"] Hadn't heard of EX1 so I'll check that out. Sticking with OoTA for a few reasons, not unlike most who've run an out of the box (OoTB?) adventure--great art, feels official, everything's in one place. So to clarify the motivations about why I'll be making changes away from what's written. Yup, running it for humans that include kids. But also, I'm about 0% interested in demonic rituals, skulking around to avoid enslavement by each race of underdweller. Let's zany this up. Running this pretty straight up till things start to get heated at the Darklake [pretty much exactly where we are in our playthrough]. It's clear two groups disagree strongly and they're pushing and shoving each other. Shushaar translates for the party that they're through the screaming and shoving they're really talking about the old ways and those who respect the lake and its bounty vs a desire for their community to be much more powerful--these ones keep gesturing upward and out toward the lake saying there's a powerful being who can help make this happen. Chanting, singing. Pushing, shoving. And a flash. Tentacles - waves. You can't see any colors and everything smells moldy. Then that begins to pass. Several of you are on your knees. Nearby where everyone was pushing and shoving early you see that about half the fish people are reaching down into the mud to smear streaks under their bulgy eyes. They're putting shells on their shoulders. The other half are kicking clods of seaweed back and forth between themselves. They're strapping chunks of driftwood to the front of their lower leg. Someone yells. CLEAR THE PITCH! Someone grabs your arm and asks - and how about you? Football or Futbal? Something that seems clear in each OoTA chapter is there's things going on for each race and the characters stumble into them. That's part of what we'll keep. Will be reading back through the chapters to see how the modified approach fits--what sections still stick out and whether they're needed to tell the story or not. The characters will be in zany extreme situations inspired by [I]The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland[/I], and told with some zest and some deadpan à la [I]Dumb And Dumber[/I]... Pre "ritual" - normal Post "ritual", off the rails. What's spreading out from each community is not madness per se but IDEAS Darklake - a feud between soccer and football devotees Gracklstugh - Duergar are cats, Derro are mice. The cats certainly don't question their place while the mice run around in groups, quite afraid and protective of their cheese. The cats don't fully appreciate that there's a dragon... Neverlight Grove - as is, but most fungi delight in changing sizes and everyone loves chess [this is a good time to show visual evidence of spread--spores spotted hanging in air well before they get their, landing on things, can see things shrinking and growing when the spores land on them] Blingdenstone - these are pioneers rebuilding their city - they're also twangy cattle ranchers locked in land feuds with each other Menzoberranzan/Drow patrols - behind it all - they're creating this upsidedown order which is pervading through the underground [and spreading beyond...], the other thing they do...enforce gender divides of "she can" and "he can't" so obviously speak only to female party members [this has some scary potential--I'm thinking of Russel's [I]The Sparrow[/I] for assumptions of power differentials...but we're obviously not headed THAT far!] Gauntlgrym - here's a place to bring home some earlier dropped hints that things just don't seem what they were - everyone should now know that SOMETHING happened "they told me this place was like" or Eldeth saying "this can't be where I grew up?" Everyone is very happy--and very few people IN THE TOWN will brook disagreement with that, probably just one key vizier. But what's going on is posters of the king everywhere. Him jumping over puddles, lifting a bag full of tin cans and people stop and point "he's so strong". An absurd cult of personality. The audience confirms it. He wants the adventurers to go back down and learn about / control for his glory / so people know who's really great / the underground. The adventurers will know that really they need his army's help to get back there and put things right. The way they were. All the crazy bad ideas fight it out and things are normal. But is that a good thing? The end. [/QUOTE]
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