Skyseer - smugglers plot

[HenryLockwood]

I've run Island and Skyseer online in the past; I'm soon going to be running a modified version of Skyseer as a weekend one-off. We have two days of gameplay, from Saturday morning to Sunday evening.

My concern is that there's a lot to fit in that time. I'm having to streamline some aspects of the adventure, such as making Reed Macbannin's motivations unclear (he's collecting witchoil, and charging it up with dead souls, but the PCs may not find out exactly why). The obvious next candidate for culling is the entire smuggling operation. Is there a reason the PCs need to follow it up at all? They can track Dr. Wolfgang easily enough without closing down some smugglers; they'll probably need to investigate Heward's factory as that's how they can meet up with Gale; but I don't see where the smugglers are actually essential to the overall plot.

Is there something I've missed? I'm wary about culling an essential piece of plot, but equally running out of time and leaving the adventure partway through would be disastrous.

Thanks!

 

[hirou]

Smugglers provide another link to Gale, but more importantly this plot is a convenient excuse to meet with the Family. I guess if you're running a one-off, you can simplify the crimilal map of the city and remove Morgan Cippiano completely, with Kell providing support both to Gale and Creed.

 

[HenryLockwood]

Thanks Hirou - I got the impression that it was foreshadowing/advance introduction of power groups. Perhaps I should follow the principle of Chekov's Gun

Of course, option B is that I leave it in there and let the PCs follow it up... Maybe they'll go for a later adventure in the future (I can but hope).

 

[ediz]

I think all of the connections are important but you should just roll with the punches and see where the PCs end up. If they miss out on something else but pick up on that great. They can miss clues to the doctor or to the Smugglers depending how perceptive they are. My party missed out completely on the Thinking Man's Tavern by not caring about the chocolates, noone wanted to check out the crime scene (inside the consulate). The cool thing is Skyseer is a sandbox and not at the same time. So, if they pick up on the gnomes and the two guys in the prison ship, do it. if not that is also fine... play it by ear. And if they don't finish in two days well they will now want to come back for more!

 

[skotothalamos]

I've run it twice now for two groups, and neither one of them has cared about the smuggling plot.

 

[RangerWickett]

It's not plot critical, but I intended it to connect the party to the Family. In the revisions for the hardcover, I made it so Lorcan Kell explicitly asks the party to interrupt this smuggling operation if they want to get Wolfgang von Recklinghausen, just to make it a bit harder to completely miss the plot thread.

But yeah, you can easily skip it if you're running an abridged version of the adventure.