R.I.P. SC on to an AoW Campaign.... (SCAP Spoilers ahead)

[Sunderstone]

Our Shackled City campaign was halted unexpectedly when the last "core" party member had died last session at the hands (literally) of the Huge Fire Elementals just after the Tax Riot in The Demonskar Legacy.

While the Shackled City's main connecting plot elements are few in the beginning adventures, having newer characters rolled up means missing some of these linking elements to the main story. For example the invisible birthmarks on Terem and Zenith, some of the Last Laugh and Ebon Triad involvements, etc.
Once the last core member died, the rest of the newer characters didnt feel all that attatched to the storyline anymore. My players agreed that newer characters wont experience the changes in Cauldron since the start like the increased Half-Orc activities, the tax hikes, etc.
It seems like new characters that come in at/during/after The Demonskar Legacy will miss alot of good backstory. Being told what went on before will help fill them in but doesnt do the campaign justice.

In my game, my players decided to stop the campaign. They loved the Shackled City but they had too much invested with their older characters, specifically contacts/relationships. They felt new characters rebuilding these relationships in the same manner would have been cheesy. Incidentally, the last core player had the most contacts and has survived since the beginning.
Only one other player has had a near "core" character remaining. A Paladin that came in during Flood Season. She was planning on running for Mayor (with Tygot as a wealthy backer, and possibly Maavu after the Demonskar and Test of the Smoking Eye) to fight some of the corruption. That player wanted to keep going with the SC ap. The other players had characters die here and there and were basically getting "filled in" to what has gone before by surviving members every time.
Raising/Resurrecting characters was an option but that would probably have had to happen in Sasserine as Ive been playing up the temple of Wee Jas being particularly reclusive as of late with the cagewrights plans almost going into action. The other Temple priest are too low level and I didnt want to add any more temples. My players also dont like the idea of raising characters too many times either.
So I put it to a vote, and the SC campaign is over. My group pretty much wanted a fresh start.

On the 8th we start the AoW ap (BTW it's also going to be based in Greyhawk 595 CY). I realize that the same thing could happen in any long campaign but at least the Party seems to move to a few different locales (Diamond Lake, The Free City, Magepoint, etc), rather than stay in one town pretty much for the whole campaign. Also the Diamond Lake dynamic itself is very different than Cauldron's.

So my question to you all is......
Anyone experience any potentially large problems with the AoW AP?


Thanks for listening

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Our Shackled City campaign was halted unexpectedly when the last "core" party member had died last session at the hands (literally) of the Huge Fire Elementals just after the Tax Riot in The Demonskar Legacy.

While the Shackled City's main connecting plot elements are few in the beginning adventures, having newer characters rolled up means missing some of these linking elements to the main story. For example the invisible birthmarks on Terem and Zenith, some of the Last Laugh and Ebon Triad involvements, etc.
Once the last core member died, the rest of the newer characters didnt feel all that attatched to the storyline anymore. My players agreed that newer characters wont experience the changes in Cauldron since the start like the increased Half-Orc activities, the tax hikes, etc.
It seems like new characters that come in at/during/after The Demonskar Legacy will miss alot of good backstory. Being told what went on before will help fill them in but doesnt do the campaign justice.

In my game, my players decided to stop the campaign. They loved the Shackled City but they had too much invested with their older characters, specifically contacts/relationships. They felt new characters rebuilding these relationships in the same manner would have been cheesy. Incidentally, the last core player had the most contacts and has survived since the beginning.
Only one other player has had a near "core" character remaining. A Paladin that came in during Flood Season. She was planning on running for Mayor (with Tygot as a wealthy backer, and possibly Maavu after the Demonskar and Test of the Smoking Eye) to fight some of the corruption. That player wanted to keep going with the SC ap. The other players had characters die here and there and were basically getting "filled in" to what has gone before by surviving members every time.
Raising/Resurrecting characters was an option but that would probably have had to happen in Sasserine as Ive been playing up the temple of Wee Jas being particularly reclusive as of late with the cagewrights plans almost going into action. The other Temple priest are too low level and I didnt want to add any more temples. My players also dont like the idea of raising characters too many times either.
So I put it to a vote, and the SC campaign is over. My group pretty much wanted a fresh start.

On the 8th we start the AoW ap (BTW it's also going to be based in Greyhawk 595 CY). I realize that the same thing could happen in any long campaign but at least the Party seems to move to a few different locales (Diamond Lake, The Free City, Magepoint, etc), rather than stay in one town pretty much for the whole campaign. Also the Diamond Lake dynamic itself is very different than Cauldron's.

So my question to you all is......
Anyone experience any potentially large problems with the AoW AP?


Thanks for listening

That's too bad Sunderstone. At least the player's decided that it was best to finish it rather than playing on and not enjoying the game as much as they should have. That could have been a much worse option. Was it not possible for Jeyna to have access to some Raise Dead/Resurrection scrolls if she wasn't high enough level to cast the spells herself? Or were the players kind of over the whole resurrection thing too.

One thing that I would suggest for next time is to bring the new characters in with a reason to want to finish the adventure path that doesn't necessarily rely on them having background knowledge. Perhaps they were a brother or cousin of the character that was just killed and they won't stop until they fulfil their relative's mission/get revenge on those responsible. That's one suggestion that may be of use.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Odhanan]

Why not raise the SCAP party from the dead with some cool in-game event?

Role-playing characters coming back from the dead, experiencing NDE side-effects, visions and such could be really cool. I realize this is related to rather specific styles of gaming, and every tastes are in nature, but still, if everyone still wants to play the characters, there are ways to do so.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Why not raise the SCAP party from the dead with some cool in-game event?

Role-playing characters coming back from the dead, experiencing NDE side-effects, visions and such could be really cool. I realize this is related to rather specific styles of gaming, and every tastes are in nature, but still, if everyone still wants to play the characters, there are ways to do so.

I'd agree with Odhanan on this. Sure it could seem a little railroady or meta-gamey depending on how you do it but if you and the players are having fun then nothing else matters really.

At the same time though, if the players don't want to continue on with the campaign, forcing them to do so isn't a good thing. From Sunderstone's post this didn't seem to be the case though.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Sunderstone]

My players wouldnt like going that route Odhanan, but thanks for the suggestion.

I thought about giving them a Raise Dead scroll through Jenya and through random (albeit DM added) dungeon loot. They still would have likely gone to Sasserine to find someone high enough to use it. Overall, my players arent the "constant" resurrection types, I could see them choosing one character to res every now and then though, as long as it isnt often.

I also wanted to keep Jenya advanced just enough to join the party if she was needed, as my players tend not to roll new Clerics very often.



I'm going to miss the Shackled City and I still think it is the best d20 adventure/campaign since the start of 3rd edition, IMHO of course. I hope to eventually run it again but that will likely be years off as the memories cool. The good thing is that they never found out much on the Cagewrights, never spotted the Carcerian signs, and still dont know a thing about Vhalantru yet. So I can probably run this thing again at a later date.