D&D 5E Rime of the Frostmaiden Post-Mortem (Spoilers)

[BenTheFerg]

What are the PCs going to do? Balk at helping the Ten Towns that feel they have been driven to institute human sacrifice as a desperation measure? It's not like they're gleefully murdering people to further their evil cult.

Human sacrifice is a Big Bad kinda thing!!

 

[Retreater]

What are the PCs going to do? Balk at helping the Ten Towns that feel they have been driven to institute human sacrifice as a desperation measure? It's not like they're gleefully murdering people to further their evil cult.

Yes. That's exactly what my group did.
Because the way it was written in the adventure.
"Why ... why are you doing this?" they ask.
"Uh ... we don't know. We guess it's helping," the Town Councilor responds.
"You guess?! You are f'ing murdering people!"
"Yeah, but it might work. We don't really have any proof."
Party huddles together. "Yeah, this guy is clearly insane or evil. Either way he needs to be disposed from power immediately!"
KILL THE MAYOR!!!!

I would be amazed if 75% of every group playing this adventure didn't have the same reaction. Because that is what is logical to do in the framework of a heroic fantasy adventure game like D&D.
If you are a writer and you have the bald-faced nerve to try to put in "non-evil human sacrifice" and expect it to be only a minor issue in the adventure, you deserve to have your writer's card taken away. It's like casually adding that a lawful good town kidnaps children or practices slavery. Once you do that, and I don't care what alignment the writer puts in the stat block, you're evil - and you're the enemy of a good aligned party.

Putting in a casual "oh, yeah, and they practice human sacrifice" is basically the same issue as "oh, yeah, and there hasn't been a growing season or sunlight in two years." The writers don't think how this would matter in the reality of the characters as actual people. It's as if they didn't even try to present the setting as a real, vibrant place.
It is a bad module. I'm really coming around to that now. I used to just say "it's flawed," but no - I think I can emphatically say "it's bad."

 

[Irlo]

Yes. That's exactly what my group did.
Because the way it was written in the adventure.
"Why ... why are you doing this?" they ask.
"Uh ... we don't know. We guess it's helping," the Town Councilor responds.
"You guess?! You are f'ing murdering people!"
"Yeah, but it might work. We don't really have any proof."
Party huddles together. "Yeah, this guy is clearly insane or evil. Either way he needs to be disposed from power immediately!"

I’m no defender of RotFM — it’s pretty bad — but I’d blame this one on some pretty darned lackluster role-playing in the part of the DM. And lackluster is a euphemism for awful.

 

[billd91]

Yes. That's exactly what my group did.
Because the way it was written in the adventure.
"Why ... why are you doing this?" they ask.
"Uh ... we don't know. We guess it's helping," the Town Councilor responds.
"You guess?! You are f'ing murdering people!"
"Yeah, but it might work. We don't really have any proof."
Party huddles together. "Yeah, this guy is clearly insane or evil. Either way he needs to be disposed from power immediately!"
KILL THE MAYOR!!!!

I would be amazed if 75% of every group playing this adventure didn't have the same reaction. Because that is what is logical to do in the framework of a heroic fantasy adventure game like D&D.
If you are a writer and you have the bald-faced nerve to try to put in "non-evil human sacrifice" and expect it to be only a minor issue in the adventure, you deserve to have your writer's card taken away. It's like casually adding that a lawful good town kidnaps children or practices slavery. Once you do that, and I don't care what alignment the writer puts in the stat block, you're evil - and you're the enemy of a good aligned party.

Putting in a casual "oh, yeah, and they practice human sacrifice" is basically the same issue as "oh, yeah, and there hasn't been a growing season or sunlight in two years." The writers don't think how this would matter in the reality of the characters as actual people. It's as if they didn't even try to present the setting as a real, vibrant place.
It is a bad module. I'm really coming around to that now. I used to just say "it's flawed," but no - I think I can emphatically say "it's bad."

Kind of a rush to judgment there by your players - insane or evil. Not desperate? Because that's pretty much how it comes across as I read it in the adventure - they're absolutely desperate. They'd stop it if they had a better way... but they don't (until the PCs come ambling into town).
Maybe part of the problem here is people putting WAY too much emphasis on alignment expectations. Being Lawful Good doesn't mean bad things don't happen on your watch - particularly if you don't feel you have a choice. And that shouldn't really exclude you from receiving help to end the situation that forces you to make those sacrifices.

The pcs rock up as outsiders to the 10 Towns. One of the first things they can experience is a human sacrifice.

I wish I had handled it better - retrospectively I wish I had the Cult of Auril running it. The event nearly put the pcs off helping the 10 Towns.... fortunately I got them back on track.

Having a bona fide evil cult running it would weaken the sense of desperation the Ten Towners are feeling.

 

[pukunui]

Honestly, there was also a similar situation in Rime's predecessor, Legacy of the Crystal Shard. The PCs are outsiders who come to Icewind Dale, and one of the first things they see is a naked Reghed barbarian tied to a pole in the town square of Bryn Shander. He calls for help, and if the PCs go talk to him, he tells them he's been falsely accused of theft and has been sentenced to death by exposure. Some of my players didn't think highly of the Bryn Shander authorities after that. I pointed out that Icewind Dale is a harsh land and the townsfolk don't think much of the barbarians. I also tried the whole "this is a pseudo-medieval setting; your characters wouldn't necessarily have the same modern sensibilities towards crime and punishment as you do" angle.

 

[Retreater]

I’m no defender of RotFM — it’s pretty bad — but I’d blame this one on some pretty darned lackluster role-playing in the part of the DM. And lackluster is a euphemism for awful.

Since I was the DM in that example, how would you have done it differently? You know, since I'm an awful DM, you can give me pointers.
[Granted the situation I quoted was very much simplified for the sake of brevity in this thread.]

 

[Retreater]

Kind of a rush to judgment there by your players - insane or evil. Not desperate? Because that's pretty much how it comes across as I read it in the adventure - they're absolutely desperate. They'd stop it if they had a better way... but they don't (until the PCs come ambling into town).
Maybe part of the problem here is people putting WAY too much emphasis on alignment expectations. Being Lawful Good doesn't mean bad things don't happen on your watch - particularly if you don't feel you have a choice. And that shouldn't really exclude you from receiving help to end the situation that forces you to make those sacrifices.

Uh. When you start killing people for no reason, no proof that it's doing any good, there's no good-aligned reason for you to be able to continue being in power. If you are so desperate that you just start killing people (and there's what - three towns of the ten that just decided they'd start killing their own townsfolk) I don't think you deserve to stay in power anymore.

 

[pukunui]

Putting in a casual "oh, yeah, and they practice human sacrifice" is basically the same issue as "oh, yeah, and there hasn't been a growing season or sunlight in two years." The writers don't think how this would matter in the reality of the characters as actual people. It's as if they didn't even try to present the setting as a real, vibrant place.
It is a bad module. I'm really coming around to that now. I used to just say "it's flawed," but no - I think I can emphatically say "it's bad."

And this is where being in the closed playtest programme can get a bit frustrating. I know I pointed out in my feedback that the "two years without sunlight" thing was nonsensical, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one, yet they chose to leave it in for some reason. (I also recall that we gave them some extensive feedback on how to improve the races included in Volo's and yet they were published almost entirely unchanged.)

I think the issue here is that they want Rime to double as a setting guide for Icewind Dale. So they have to present everything as normally as possible so people can use the content to run their own adventures in the area, which results in the plot being a thin veneer laid over top. That's why everyone is going about their business in Ten-Towns more or less as usual and the "two years without sun" doesn't seem to have had any effect.

 

[Irlo]

Since I was the DM in that example, how would you have done it differently? You know, since I'm an awful DM, you can give me pointers.
[Granted the situation I quoted was very much simplified for the sake of brevity in this thread.]

Oops, sorry. You’re not an awful DM! But that interaction with the NPC was awful.

How to do it different? Ditch the wishy-washy nonchalant “shrug-oh-well” attitude and play up the shame and fear and desperation. The town’s convinced this is necessary. They do know why they’re doing it. And it’s not a top-down decision. The townsfolk are all complicit, even cooperative, participating in the lottery. These towns are small. They all know the victims, or they know someone who knows the victims.

None of that makes the human sacrifice palatable, but it could lead the PCs to have some measure of empathy for the dire straits in Icewind Dale.

 

[Irlo]

Uh. When you start killing people for no reason, no proof that it's doing any good, there's no good-aligned reason for you to be able to continue being in power. If you are so desperate that you just start killing people (and there's what - three towns of the ten that just decided they'd start killing their own townsfolk) I don't think you deserve to stay in power anymore.

If I recall properly, most everyone is participating, aren’t they? Via the lotteries? They’re convinced. They won’t stop just because the mayor is voted out of office (or slain by adventurers).