Shackled City with Ptolus?
- Thread starter jdrakeh
- Start date
jdrakeh said:
I doubt it'd be a big task. Anyone who is currently playing SCAP should stop reading from this point forward, as I'm going to mention a few things that are spoiler-if-ic.
Gone? Good.
SCAP takes place in Cauldron, which is a city built in the bowl of a "dormant" volcano. Part of the plot revolves around the idea that it's not-so-dormant any longer. If you don't adapt Ptolus to be in a volcano, you kill a chapter of SCAP. No fatality there, methinks.
Also, a couple of the early chapters take place in caverns and tunnels underneath Cauldron. There, if Ptolus is lacking, or has any details that would preclude "forgotten" earthworks, you're going to have to tap-dance a bit.
Racially, it became an ongoing joke that all the tertiary NPCs seemed to be gnomes. The owner of the local magic shoppe... gnome. The locksmith who lives on top of the entrance to the tunnels in chapter one... gnome. It just kept popping up. You can re-work that at will, of course.
I placed my SCAP campaign in Eberron, near the border between Brelland and the Mournland, which allowed a nice side-jaunt for the PCs. I adapted some half-orc mercs to be warforged, and threw a couple other racial substitutions, changed the religions and called it a day. It wasn't super-convincing, but it wasn't world-breaking.
You'll likely need to change some church names, and perhaps a little bit of motivation to fit another setting, but it shouldn't be a big deal. I honestly would've liked a lot more material on Cauldron itself when running the campaign, because I always felt like I was presenting a very one-dimensional city. Something like 8 named NPCs that they players kept interacting with time and time again. "The main armorer. (Who might've been a gnome... I forget.) The captain of the guard. The church lady. The magic-store gnome." Meh. Would've been nice to have more pre-built material to work from. Your mileage may vary.
For what it's worth, SCAP was fun, and my player enjoyed most of it. We didn't follow the AP all the way through, as things broke down about mid-way. There's a chapter where the PCs go planar, to a shard of Occipitus, and... well... read it through, but ultimately the PCs have to a} fail in some way and b} become changed in some way in order to "win". There's an acquired template that changes a character sheet of course... which doesn't give a whole lot of benefit, that remotely "serious" players might not appreciate. When you have the template you sort of become responsible for "shaping" the nasty, evil sub-plane, which could cause paladin-like characters to want to STAY THERE and fix the joint instead of playing the rest of the AP. Not good.
Finally, take a look at the endings of the first few chapters. The players frankly have an awful lot of opportunity to fail, chapter after chapter. There's a dwarf they rescue, who is immediately stolen from them. There's some crimes that get dead-ended as to whodunnit. Stuff like that. I'm not exactly sure how I'd turn it around, but it got depressing after a while that it was "two steps forward, one and a half step backwards."
Anyone playing in SCAP right now... you were warned.
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
Hmmm. . . the "conversion" potential seems good from what you say, but I'm concerned with the dead-end whodunnits that you mention. Do you mean that there are mysteries present in the AP that have no defined denouement? If so, that sounds like very poor adventure design.
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Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Ptolus has caves a-plenty, and the fiendish elements and strife between churches all fits in great. The only issues I see is the lack of vulcanism beneath the city and figuring out how to have the city get partially flooded for one adventure, but those can be worked around. The final stuff can be on a half-world, not an entirely different plane, and you're pretty much set.
(though I have considered picking it up in hard copy, as well).Sorry I zoned out for a couple days. I completely forgot I was part of this discussion. <Grin>
Anyway, no... the crimes have reason, but the reasons aren't the sorts of things that the PCs can actually pursue. Say for instance... Chapter 1. You go underground to locate/rescue some presumed kidnapped people. You find out there's a healthy slave trade going on under Cauldron. It's been going on for months. You rescue some of the missing, including a young boy who is demonstrated to be "special" somehow. Just as you're about to rescue the boy, a beholder shows up and tells everyone to stop fighting. He says he's going to return the boy to where he belongs. The players are insanely overwhelmed. The beholder takes the boy, and teleports out.
Get this. The beholder in fact returns the boy to the orphanage where he was stolen from. You can roleplay your heart out, and confirm the kid's the real deal.
Two issues here. One: you "can't" rescue the REST of the missing people, because they've been long, long sold off. And if a DM throws some additional adventure here, you delay the actual adventure-path, and gain XP that can unbalance other things, badly. Two: you can't even remotely hope to find out what gives with the benevolent beholder, or the kid.
These are important things that matter, though. See, the first six chapters basically introduce STUFF. Events, people, history. Really strange, seemingly unrelated stuff. Then the last six chapters put it all together, and the PCs start to unearth then unravel the BBEGs' plots. All makes sense.
Understand a 1st-20th adventure path is probably a real-life year of gameplay. Six months of being baffled might be rough for some players.
Don't get me wrong: I really, really liked SCAP, and I'd gladly play/run it again. I'd just adjust a few things to make it less defeatist. For instance, I'd reduce the number of missing people to those that you can rescue, and reduce the timeframe the slaving ring has been operational commensurately.
If your players understand "you will meet goals you cannot surpass, but in trying you will learn critical things that underpin the latter half of the AP", you'll be golden. Me as a player, I'd be fine.
I solidly encourage you to review the material in the light of the comments I'm making, and to run the thing. It's a great bundle of material and a great value. It's just got some rough edges that are easily enough shaved off.
Anyway, no... the crimes have reason, but the reasons aren't the sorts of things that the PCs can actually pursue. Say for instance... Chapter 1. You go underground to locate/rescue some presumed kidnapped people. You find out there's a healthy slave trade going on under Cauldron. It's been going on for months. You rescue some of the missing, including a young boy who is demonstrated to be "special" somehow. Just as you're about to rescue the boy, a beholder shows up and tells everyone to stop fighting. He says he's going to return the boy to where he belongs. The players are insanely overwhelmed. The beholder takes the boy, and teleports out.
Get this. The beholder in fact returns the boy to the orphanage where he was stolen from. You can roleplay your heart out, and confirm the kid's the real deal.
Two issues here. One: you "can't" rescue the REST of the missing people, because they've been long, long sold off. And if a DM throws some additional adventure here, you delay the actual adventure-path, and gain XP that can unbalance other things, badly. Two: you can't even remotely hope to find out what gives with the benevolent beholder, or the kid.
These are important things that matter, though. See, the first six chapters basically introduce STUFF. Events, people, history. Really strange, seemingly unrelated stuff. Then the last six chapters put it all together, and the PCs start to unearth then unravel the BBEGs' plots. All makes sense.
Understand a 1st-20th adventure path is probably a real-life year of gameplay. Six months of being baffled might be rough for some players.
Don't get me wrong: I really, really liked SCAP, and I'd gladly play/run it again. I'd just adjust a few things to make it less defeatist. For instance, I'd reduce the number of missing people to those that you can rescue, and reduce the timeframe the slaving ring has been operational commensurately.
If your players understand "you will meet goals you cannot surpass, but in trying you will learn critical things that underpin the latter half of the AP", you'll be golden. Me as a player, I'd be fine.
I solidly encourage you to review the material in the light of the comments I'm making, and to run the thing. It's a great bundle of material and a great value. It's just got some rough edges that are easily enough shaved off.
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
One last question, for you then. . . . how often does the SCAP refer you to products other than the three core rulebooks for mechanical info? That is, what books other than the three core books are required to make full use of the SCAP?
I ask specifically because I plan on bulking up my currently very tiny game collection over the next few weeks with both some d20 stuff (including SCAP) and GURPS material (the core books, plus Fantasy and Banestorm). Incidentally, I've decided to set the SCAP in the world of Northern Crown for a less "generic" fantasy camapign.
OH, and I've decided that WLC will probably be a better fit for this than Ptolus will be (as the latter product makes a great many setting-specific assumptions about magic, available character races, and the like).
I ask specifically because I plan on bulking up my currently very tiny game collection over the next few weeks with both some d20 stuff (including SCAP) and GURPS material (the core books, plus Fantasy and Banestorm). Incidentally, I've decided to set the SCAP in the world of Northern Crown for a less "generic" fantasy camapign.
OH, and I've decided that WLC will probably be a better fit for this than Ptolus will be (as the latter product makes a great many setting-specific assumptions about magic, available character races, and the like).
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
WLC with Northern Crown is not something I ever imagined. What city will it be standing in for?
