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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 7113915" data-attributes="member: 32659">Gracklestugh is famously tough to run. I've not run the adventure, but from all accounts and purposes it shares the same role - and the same problems - as Vallaki in Curse of Strahd; a central and big town with loads of factions and loads of plots that you're somehow expected to understand and run. I suggest that you try to decide what your end goal here is; what do you want Gracklestugh to be about? How will the players remember it? You can also use a diagram to draw out all the actors and plots in the storyline (Droki, Themberchaud, the King, etc). Then you use this to decide an action plan. When I ran Vallaki, I first ensured that I understood what everyone was doing and what I wanted the overall effect to be. Then I had a rough plan - revisited before each session - for what would happen, in what order, and to what outcome. You can easily turn that into a timeline.These towns are much more difficult to run than a dungeon is - you can't just operate room to room - but I personally find them to be rewarding. You have a lot more narrative power here - you can have new actors and new complications introduce themselves at any time - which will work best when you have decided how you want things to proceed. As to Themberchaud... He's powerful, influential, fat. He acts like he is the most important person in the town - and to a certain viewpoint, he is. But he is also very far from invulnerable, and a hidden sword of damocles hangs over his head. At any time, he can be replaced, and indeed is but one in a line of powerful, influential, fat dragons to have held his position. He's probably smart enough to have worked all that out. But what does he do with that information? Knowing that the sword of damocles hangs over your head does not necessarily give you the power to remove it. So there is a tension in his situation - a hidden tension, but present nonetheless. And then the players arrive - powerful outsiders with no ties to the Duergar. I'd roleplay him like the Godfather, myself - hoping to capture that blend of violence, faux-respectability, and self-delusionary grandeur.</blockquote>

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