I finally got to run a session using the stuff I put together using the various tools. I posted a recap over in the session recap thread, so I won’t go back over all that stuff. Instead, I’ll focus on the tools WWN gave me to put together the session.
For the most part, they worked pretty well. The tags I rolled for Finland and for the various courts gave me interesting situations. I don’t think I would have tied together Horsiel’s court with Finland if I hadn’t rolled the tags. There’s also some stuff that can drive the tension between the various nations. That’s all good stuff.
For the ruined settlement of Hirzhus, I decided to generate it as a twenty room dungeon. I used the generator described in the adventure creation chapter then grouped together the various pieces to make interesting places in the settlement. Some of the loops got turned into buildings while others got turned into the flooded amphitheater. I’m awful at designing settlements, so this was really nice.
If I have any complaint, it’s that keying a twenty room dungeon takes too long. I think I spent four or five hours on it (including sketching out a terrible map and working on the court). Overall prep was probably eight to ten hours, but some of that was re-reading the books and doing one-time prep I won’t have to redo (like generating points of interest for the hexcrawl portion).
However, I’m really happy that the book underestimates how long it would take my group to explore a dungeon. It suggests a ten room dungeon would take less than a session and a twenty room one about a session. My group is maybe half way through this one. The primary challenge is exploration, but I also included secondary combat, investigation, and social ones. There’s another faction (some dark creepers who want Horiel’s stuff and to find a way into the magician’s iterum) they haven’t even met yet. Only the coffer corpses and creature (unmet yet) are outright hostile, so it’s mostly going to be exploration and intrigue.
I should note I didn’t exactly run the social stuff as a challenge per se, but parleying and talking to people is important. Horsiel is also keeping information back, and the party might learn something from the other faction too (though they are probably going to be less kind about it). For investigations, I flat out ignored the book. The investigation challenge stuff is bad. I followed the three clue rule and used node-based design to layer on the clues to figuring out the magician’s fate. The procedure in WWN is just too railroad-y for my taste.
For the most part, they worked pretty well. The tags I rolled for Finland and for the various courts gave me interesting situations. I don’t think I would have tied together Horsiel’s court with Finland if I hadn’t rolled the tags. There’s also some stuff that can drive the tension between the various nations. That’s all good stuff.
For the ruined settlement of Hirzhus, I decided to generate it as a twenty room dungeon. I used the generator described in the adventure creation chapter then grouped together the various pieces to make interesting places in the settlement. Some of the loops got turned into buildings while others got turned into the flooded amphitheater. I’m awful at designing settlements, so this was really nice.
If I have any complaint, it’s that keying a twenty room dungeon takes too long. I think I spent four or five hours on it (including sketching out a terrible map and working on the court). Overall prep was probably eight to ten hours, but some of that was re-reading the books and doing one-time prep I won’t have to redo (like generating points of interest for the hexcrawl portion).
However, I’m really happy that the book underestimates how long it would take my group to explore a dungeon. It suggests a ten room dungeon would take less than a session and a twenty room one about a session. My group is maybe half way through this one. The primary challenge is exploration, but I also included secondary combat, investigation, and social ones. There’s another faction (some dark creepers who want Horiel’s stuff and to find a way into the magician’s iterum) they haven’t even met yet. Only the coffer corpses and creature (unmet yet) are outright hostile, so it’s mostly going to be exploration and intrigue.
I should note I didn’t exactly run the social stuff as a challenge per se, but parleying and talking to people is important. Horsiel is also keeping information back, and the party might learn something from the other faction too (though they are probably going to be less kind about it). For investigations, I flat out ignored the book. The investigation challenge stuff is bad. I followed the three clue rule and used node-based design to layer on the clues to figuring out the magician’s fate. The procedure in WWN is just too railroad-y for my taste.
