COMING SOON! The Weather Outside is Frightful: Chilly D&D Resources! Chilling monsters, cool sublasses, dangerous encounters in the frigid wastes, and a cold-hearted adventure for DnD 5E.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 6426138" data-attributes="member: 63">I'm sympathetic to your players' concerns. The Leone scene was intended to be frustration-causing, but in a motivational "we're gonna get that guy some day" sorta way. It got a lot of retooling and discussion with my players to figure out how best to present it so as not to be a railroad, but I guess in the context of the rest of the adventure it might have been too much.I felt it was necessary to have an "inescapable death trap" show up. I mean, it's classic. I probably could have done a better job with suggestions for adapting the adventure for different playstyles. [hq]And (edited now that I've read the PbP posts in question), I think what I should have included is a big note saying, "Once the players have figured out how to get out of this scene, let them pull it off. If they botch the execution, punish them a bit, but don't force a fight they can't win."I think in this particular situation, a nat-1 Stealth check might have warranted the rest of the party getting out of range, but the PC who failed gets spotted and flung off the cliff by Leone, who throws a bar at him. The PC tumbles down the cliff, is knocked out, and has a couple broken bones that weaken him for the rest of the adventure. But the party is able to recover him and get away before Leone and company can get down the cliff to chase them. I can see where your players are coming from, though, regarding the lack of resolution. During writing it, my conception of the adventure was, "You look into a lead on the Gale case, but as you investigate it you find a complicated web of mystery." The first adventure was a pilot episode of TV. This one is a novel, and so the pacing is slower, and it takes longer for any given plot thread to resolve. All adventure long you're fighting against an active enemy who is trying to thwart you. Some groups seemed fine with this -- lots of them assembled investigation boards with strings and pictures and such. But as one of your players said, it's not for everyone. And there comes a point when yeah, the players want to feel like they're winning. I imagine it's harder to tell how the group feels in a PbP.I'm curious how your players feel about the adventure in hindsight. And I'm quite impressed you're still playing several months in; that's quite a bit of stamina for a PbP.[/hq]</blockquote>

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